Living with the Digital Daughter

My Digital Daughter ( DD) is headed into 8th grade this year. Last April ( she's born on April Fool's Day - no really-), all she wanted was a Chromebook. Really she wanted a laptop but the Chromebooks are so new ( and cheap). She wanted one of them. So we marched into Best Buy to  look at them.

My hubby is a tech guy from the old school ( work hard; no social media; dates back to the punch card days). He forced DD to get the Chromebook with the hard drive - small as it is - because he could not conceive of a device without local storage. ( remember punch card days)

Well DD made it out of 7th grade. It was rough year. Lots of pretty bumpy middle school girl stuff. She graduate to summer and retreated to her room and her Chromebook and Tumbler and Google hangout.

Over the summer she's developed the followers she had on Tumbler into two friends that she Skypes and Hangouts with. First of all this is a shift for me. These are very true friends to her that she has never physically met but to her they are just as important.

Now fellow parents - please don't judge me. I have talked to her about internet safety, stuck my head in on her Hangouts and listened through the wall on her Skyping. The girls are real. They do ask inappropriate things and the talk is all silly middle school girl stuff.

DD feels connected to these two girls across the country by common interests and shared "experiences" on Tumbler.

It hit me as she was walking around the house last night with her Chromebook. Her friend was on Hangout with her doing the dishes across the country as DD cleaned out her lizard cage. They talked about pets and how school went that day. But she's carrying around that Chromebook. She's already made the Google Glass jump. She's just waiting for the market to get to a price point she can afford it .

And this has changed my parenting. When I skip my head in her room, before I anything I ask are we alone? Meaning are you digitally with anyone? When she's walking around the house carrying her Chromebook, I skip my head into the view and waved to her friends.  They really do have Digital in their DNA.