I just finished dragging my mother and Walt (hubby for 25 years) into the computer age. If you’ve never taught two 75 year olds how to use a computer and go on-line you should give it a try. Walt spent 3 weeks reading the Dell start manual, writing notes in it, and trying to figure it all out without touching the power switch. I thought he was going to shit when, instead of letting him go on for 30 minutes about what I needed to do, I just flipped on the machine! Turns out I needed that extra time for instruction. Well, I cleaned up the desktop and left him 4 icons to work with and stuffed all the other crap in a folder, he has enough to overload him anyway. My weekend was a 4 hour drive each way and the rest of the time instruction. You ever want to test patience, try to get someone with shakey hands to us a mouse! You’ll both need a drink. (I did some damage on the bottle of Wild Turkey my mom got for me!) So now the can do e-mail, surf the web, use their Dell instructor course, and use the Tiger Woods golf demo. I was glad they didn’t have to hire someone,because that’s fairly pricey, but now they have a new challenge!
I decided to go over while visiting a friend and was told his girlfriend’s mother relapsed with mouth cancer at 74. Figured I needed a weekend with mine. I really enjoyed it too, (except for the toy poodles, :: shiver :
So go call or visit your parents, you don’t know what tomorrow brings.
Yep…have them take a computer class. Make sure they read the manual so they don’t understand how it works.
Try Juno for email, its the easiest one there is & free.
For me its usually, ‘hey, the mouse is upsidedown, you need to turn it rightsideup’ them: ‘oh, I have to do that?’ ‘yes’ Them: ‘okay, thats enough instruction for today, I need a nap’
Hey Tom, I can relate. Xmas before last we got my Mom a PC and printer and hooked her up to the web. I had a few tutorial sessions with her and she did manage to find some archeological sites that interested her. She never grasped email and was in the habit of dragging various things to the trashcan. By March the thing was toast (it came with one of those customized Win98 restore CD’s and was not responding to the fix), so we cancelled the net account to await the return from the mfg. of her fixed machine. They just sent her a new one and she’s decided she doesn’t like the web, so it became a dedicated Freecell machine. Then I went to pick her up for dinner about 3 months ago and lo and behold she was printing (from Works) a letter to a friend - progress! I don’t think she wanted 12 copies, but still…
Anyway, last Friday night I took her out for dinner for her 83rd birthday and extracted a promise that she would try the 'net again, soon, just not quite yet (I would really like to be able to email her instead of checking on her every night).
[tangent]Reminds me also of several years ago going to assist my dad and stepmom with their new answering machine. I plugged it in, explained that a blinking light told them how many messages they had and showed’em how to retrieve’em. I then showed them how to record message by example recording, “Leave us alone!” and told them to record their own.
It took about two days before their friends started calling me to inquire if they were OK. I went over and recorded a kinder, gentler message (actually, I think my dad kind of enjoyed the original).[/tangent]
By the way Tom, don’t forget to look into SeniorNet. Depending on where they live, your mom and Walt can take some classes through them. At the very least, it’s a great community they can join for other like-minded/like-aged folks.
My grandmother of 78 just got a WebTV unit and has learned it rather quickly. For her it’s perfect. No system to configure, it surfs the web and she can get e-mail (which is really the only thing she wanted anyway). I would recommend this to anybody in this situation (Older generation, doesn’t quite get this “Computer” thing).
Forget trying to teach geriatrics how to use a computer, I’ve been trying to teach my parents for nearly three years now. Not sure if it’s the Jewish mother and father always needing to find something wrong in everything thing, but that’s just how it is. Try telling them that if they want the internet to work faster on their machine, they will need A)more ram than 32MB, B)cable or DSL rather than their 56k modem they insist is good enough even though it’s a winmodem, C)not the celeron 133MHZ chip but at least a pentium II something. They wanted to save money, so they don’t realize they gave up speed.
them - why does it take so long for my programs to open? at work it opens right away…
me - because at work you probably have a better computer, with more ram, and less garbage saved on it (they save every piece of crap they can, download every type of application they hear is really nifty and handy and store it all on their 1.2 Gig harddrive.)
them - oh, it’s ok for now i guess
me - good, then you won’t be needing my help again…
them 3 months later - my computer is slow, howcome?
—same deal over and over. My grandfather at least has a Pentium 133 with 64 MB ram and has no problems with it, surfs the web, gets his email on his own, and laughed at my dad when he came over recently because he thought it was funny he picked up on it quick, and dad didn’t.
If you can teach your grandparents to use a computer, bless your soul. I have a feeling my folks just don’t want to learn! But insist on doing so anyway.
