Accept that you cannot push a rope. Accept that your instruction methods are not working for her and expressing frustration with her ways is doing the opposite of encouraging her to try any harder. Accept that one day you too could find yourself old and losing your hearing, finding the latest technology confusing etc. Mostly accept that trying to change any of this long distance is to have unreasonable expectations.
Have you considered taking another tact? Like searching out a computer savvy senior, local to her, that she might be comfortable with, coming by to show her a few helpful basics, like accessing photos? Leave her with that, post a new photo everyday until she’s got it down pat. Then move on to another basic. One at a time, small steps. Might be a better approach, and worth a try. Just a suggestion!
I think letters and printed pictures are the best bet. Letter writing is a lost art, it’s really not such a bad idea. You can get the kids involved too, let them add their own pages to the letter.
Your mother could be a copy of mine (except for the hearing problems, which my own mother doesn’t have). You have to face facts: she’s not interested in learning about the internet. And why should she be, since she doesn’t need it in her daily life? Just put a letter in the mail every week, and include a few photos now and then. In the long run, it’s by far the easier approach.
The biggest issue here is that you’re not close enough to her to walk her through using the technology. A lot of old folks are intimidated by technology and no matter how simple you make it, it’s an uphill battle, and being far away only makes it that much harder.
For bills, get her on the phone and set up auto-pay for as many of them as you can. You can probably even have the emails sent to you so you can let her know if anything goes wrong or when they get paid. For ones that can’t be on auto-pay for some reason but can still be online, maybe you can just have her on the phone and pay them for her online. If she really wants a physical receipt, you can just compile them and print them up for her or whatever.
As for pictures, yes it’s a pain in the ass, but you’re pretty much stuck with printing them and mailing them yourself, sending them to a local place to have them printed and she can pick them up, get a digital picture frame, or maybe find someone nearby that can show her pictures digitally and let her pick which ones she wants printed.
Also, I’d tend to agree with just getting her a landline phone. If she’s using an old cellphone and turned off texting and using it plugged into the wall like a landline, why not just cut your costs and use that?
I pretty much agree with everybody so far. You’re not going to change her, so just do it whatever way she wants.
There is one last possibility, though: video. I’m guessing she doesn’t have a DVD player, so mention you could send some video clips of your kid, which she’d love, of course. She’d HAVE to get a tiny bit savvier with computers to view them.
EXCELLENT reply. Seems like it’s more about the OP’s convenience than her mother.
If she’s like my mother, she’ll never use a computer and even I refuse to use a phone camera, though it’s just about impossible to buy one without.
For printing photos, aren’t there services that can print and deliver photos for you? I’m sure iPhoto for Macs can print photos, so there must be others. You can do all this from your computer.
The main obstacle is incentive. She’ll never start using things because she’s not familiar with them, and she’s not familiar because she never uses them.
My grandpa, sadly no longer around, was one of the first businesses in the Manchester area to start using a computer. His father didn’t trust the big beast one bit, and checked all calculations that came out manually.
When he was older however, he didn’t manage to keep up and eventually claimed he “couldn’t see” the computer screen. So my granny did all the computer things and printed everything out for him.
The only thing that did work was just not telling him it was a computer. If you said you could show him the pictures of your holiday on the computer he would ask you to print them out. If you just put the thing on his lap and scroll through with him: no problem.
For video calls, I’d start off the conversation. Then he would say: voice like male version of the dowager granny of Downton “Are you speaking to your mother on the telephone?” And I would just say that I was, but with a picture too. And then he would happily chat to her with no problem at all.
I think the only way it could work is to get her excited gradually. You won’t be able to do it from where you are, you’ll have to be with her. Show her how much fun it is to see & talk to her grandson.
Just a word of caution though: it seems like it’ll be easy and fun, but actually once they have a computer it’s a lot of work for you. I had a call with my granny a while a go in which I instructed her to press ALT+Ctrl+Del, to which she responded “well I don’t have three hands, do I?!” You constantly have to make sure they are being safe online and you’re always fixing the crazy stuff they’ve messed up. It’s like children, only long distance.
The worst thing is they tell you everything with equal amounts of emergency in their voice. I’ll get a panicked phone call that the font in her email has changed, or that “the google” is broken because there is no doodle today. The study is littered with post-its saying things like “CTRL+Z undo last thing you did”. Try working out over a long distance call what the problem is… pff! “The mouse moves differently” or “I think the colour has changed”. Impossible! It’s a lot of work. Think about it.
My experience is something like gracer’s. My parents-in-law are in the UK. Mrs P set up a laptop for them. They used to be pretty wary of computers but they like skyping their grandchildren so much they have got into it.
A good support option is Teamviewer, which is free for personal use. If you can get it set up on their machine and yours, then you can do support easily. You can see their display and take over their keyboard and mouse remotely. As long as their machine will boot and has an internet connection, you can do everything from your end. It’s a bit slow and tedious for us (no doubt it depends on the speed of the connection) but it works. No more trying to have them explain what’s wrong.
It’s just not going to work. My mom was fairly internet-savvy and really up to date on technology. When she died, my dad gave me her laptop “to hold for a bit”. It’s still in my house. I doubt he even knows how to turn it on. I’d love to text him/e-mail him instead of having to call all the time, but I know that would never work, so I just call him.
Your mom is not going to be around much longer, and that is the truth. Humor her. I didn’t even have that close of a relationship with my parents and yet, as I expected, I am sorry I wasn’t closer to my mother and am trying to make it up with Dad.
grude, considering some of the stories you’ve related about your mom, are you sure you want her on the internet? I mean no disrespect, but it sounds like you’d be adding more fuel to the fire.
One more vote for this answer. We all have different comfort levels with new technology, and those comfort levels may vary considerably from one technology to the next. I’m 67 and think I’m pretty computer literate. I learned on the job starting back in the 80’s when PCs first started showing up in the office workplace. Over the years, I’ve learned more and more applications and couldn’t imagine my life without computers, both at work and at home. But I don’t own a cell phone and I don’t want one. I had one for a while. I would carry it faithfully, but never used it. Because I never used it, I rarely remembered to recharge it. For the most part, if I had it with me, it was dead. When I remembered to plug it in for a recharge, I’d leave it there for weeks on end. I just don’t think you can convince someone else to WANT to learn something, even if you are absolutely convinced that it would provide great enjoyment to them. You can lay out your case, but if they decline, you pretty much have to let it drop.
Actually I got my wife a digital frame that has it’s own email address and doesn’t require wifi. I think it works over the cellular network. It’s like this one. If the pictures are a big thing I think a digital frame like that is an excellent choice. Have it sent to you first so you can load it up, then mail it to her with directions and you can update it every couple weeks or whatever.
My experience: My wife’s grandparents have had one hand-me-down but fully functionable desktop computer or another sitting in their guest room, 99% unused, for at least 8 years. After an initial setup, passwords and instructions written down, ISP set up, etc., the machines just sat unused unless someone else decides to fire it up while visiting. Then it’s 30 minutes of updates, etc. Printer ink carts dry up, the ISP is paid each month with zero use, etc. It was maddening.
The breakthrough came this Christmas with a gift a a refurb iPad. Portable and 100 times more user friendly for the older, tech-phobic crowd. That and several hours of lessons on how to check email, skype, look at the internet (totally confused by banner ads…Don’t click on that Grandma!!!), and emailing/skyping from another room in the house to get them to use it and work though it with us there to help. My wife is finally able to email pictures of their great-granddaughter and keep in closer touch. It really was a Christmas Miracle.
Remote Desktop Software. All she would have to do is turn the computer on. You could manipulate her computer from your location, starting all the programs necessary; even adjusting camera settings, etc. That way you could set up a video conversation with her and your family. Since she is hard of hearing, you could text any message and she could reply by voice.
Of course, she won’t install the software herself.
I second this. Sure, if you could drag her (kicking and screaming) into the 21st century, you’d be able to send her baby pictures and emails. However, she’d be able to send you emails, too - and forward you all the helpful, uplifting, or alarming emails she gets. She’d be able to go on WebMD to get information about her health - and she could look up any symptom she might have, day or night, and get an unlimited amount of information about what diseases she might have. She could do internet banking - and get phishing links she’d undoubtedly click on.
Print out pictures of the kid, write her letters, and count your blessings. And remember, as my elderly aunt told me, you can’t put a digital picture on the refrigerator.
Yes, I know you could print it out and put it there, but it would take her more time than she’s got left to figure out how to do that.