This is my son Kaden as he’s playing in the dog water last summer on the patio behind my house.  (He’s smiling because he knows he’s not supposed to play in the dog water.)

Kaden is now two and a half years old and knows that with Daddy’s help, he can find all of his favorite Disney flicks on YouTube.  We actually play games with this in mind.  Kaden picks the subject or movie title and Daddy types the search terms.  In the past few months we’ve found videos on Disney characters, cars, snowboarders, lions and tigers and bears – oh my!

You and I both know that the content is there and it’s ready to be consumed.

That’s crazy and different and astounding all at the same time.  My son is part of a generation that will grow up where uninhibited access to people and information is the standard.  The new web is simply a platform shift to using technology tools that allow us communicate and share information across all boundaries.

It’s incredibly cool watching peer-to-peer communication reshape the world.  Why?  Here’s seven reasons:

1. Our kids will never know a world without mobile phones or text messaging or broadband internet.
2. A good portion of our kids are were born after the launch of Facebook.  Thanks to proud moms and dads everywhere, the next generation of web users is already online in the form of content and images and video.  I had Kaden’s first baby pictures on Facebook hours after he arrived.  In fact, St. Anne’s Hospital actually posts new born pictures on a web sharing platform for parents and families to download.
3. Our kids may never open a hard bound encyclopedia to look for information.  Instead, they’ll grow up using search engines to find whatever information they need.
4. There’s daycare programs out there that teach preschoolers how to type on a keyboard and surf a controlled network.  Most kids start preschool at age three.
5. The percentage of copy our kids will read online will most likely dwarf the amount they read on paper.  This alone is already changing how the education system works.  Don’t believe me?  Check out this project.
6. Our kids will grow up learning how to navigate a website at the same time they are learning to read sentences.  By adult hood, web usability will be redefined because this generation of super users.
7. Someday, our kids will grow up, go to college or get a job and contribute to the economy.  To them, using technology across all facets of life will be as natural as eating lunch.

So what
Artie Isaac taught me that the VERY best parents are teachers and leaders.  In order to be the best for our kids, I believe that we need to follow his advice.

With my son, spending time learning how to use the internet is as strong of a priority as reading books.  Every day I have him, we spend time online surfing social media and blogs.  We look at pictures of friends and family and ourselves on Facebook.  We go to Disney.com and read character stories.  We look up animals on Wikipedia and read about where they live and what they eat.  The list goes on and on.

Then, right before bedtime, we read books.  We always read books because the internet is pretty much useless to those who can’t read or type.  As much as I love the new web, it will NEVER replace importance of sitting down with a good book.

Moral of the story
As parents, it’s our jobs to teach our kids the tools they will use to navigate life and become contributing adults.  It’s our job to boraden their horizons and show them what they can potentially learn.  If you only take one thing from this post – let it be this:

Read to your kids and teach them how to use technology so that they can learn how to learn.  Learning how to learn and what tools to use is MOST important.

But what do you think?  If you have kids, do you make it a point to teach them about the web?  Do you think two years old is too soon to begin lessons Google and YouTube and Facebook?

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