Communicating with Kids
Their Way -- By Nancy Geiger
I’m on Facebook because of Brittany.
She stores all of her photos on her Facebook profile and walks me through them on the phone.
For this to happen I would have to sign in under her user id and look at one, which would kick her off the site, then she would sign in again to see what I was looking at, which kicked me off.
Needless to say this took a long time.
So I joined Facebook to get my own login. I didn’t create much of a profile except a picture and a little blurb about where I had gone to college and where I live now, but it allowed us to both see her pictures at the same time.
Then Brittany started sending me “bumper stickers” and “writing on my wall”.
The last time she wrote on my wall she was 3 years old and she got a spanking!
Before I knew it friends of hers started asking me to be friends. Then they started writing on my wall!
Somehow classmates from college and even high school started finding my profile and I decided to make it a little nicer. I called Brittany to help. She began by adding my maiden name for those people who knew me the first 21 years of my life and wouldn’t have a clue who Nancy Geiger is.
Then she discovered messages I didn’t know I had in sections of the profile I didn’t know existed. She cleaned that all up for me. At one point while working on it she said, “Only one of your friends is online right now – I guess it’s kind of late for them.” (It was 11:00 pm. She meant my friends are old.)
Then out of the blue she said, “Dad says hi”. I knew he wouldn’t be caught dead with a Facebook account so I thought maybe he was texting her. He was out of town on a business trip and always texts her goodnight before turning his phone off.
Turns out she was chatting with him online while working on my site and talking to me, apparently keeping it all straight. So the 3 of us “talked” awhile.
USA Today had an article not too long ago about the latest Facebook fad, the pass-it-forward viral game "25 Random Things About Me." 25 Things arrives as a Facebook note from a friend. That friend posts 25 facts about himself and "tags" 25 people and asks them to do the same thing.
I was already spending more time on Facebook then I wanted and this reminded me of a chain letter so I wasn’t interested. Until Brittany sent me hers and I read #22.
“My parents are two of my favorite people in the whole world-- I'm so lucky to have them.”
Who says kids don’t know how to communicate anymore just because their way of “reaching out and touching” is different from our way? Works for me! 
Other Real Story Series about Helicopter Parents by Nancy Geiger
Nancy Geiger and her husband are Baby Boomer empty nesters with their daughter Brittany (their only child) now a junior at college. When she left home Nancy started writing a monthly column for their local weekly paper about parenting a college student long distance. After 17 years as a travel agent for American Express, Nancy decided to commit herself to freelance writing and starting an online store, 2 blogs, a website and LOTS of volunteering! She even just published a cookbook called A Brides Cookbook or surviving the First Year. http://abridescookbook.com
Visit her online store at www.givitup.com
Read her "What I Learned Teaching Sunday School" blog
Follow her "How to Start an Online Store" blog
Check out her A Bride's Cookbook website and blog
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