I have been having some issues with the computer lately which culminated in a trip to the computer hospital, Charlotte Street Computers. I HAD NO COMPUTER! This is a very significant loss for me. I have been using a computer as a crutch for various addictions for a while and as a result have formed a bit of an addiction to it. A kinder word is passion or maybe dependance.
The upstart from my forced abstinence from computing is I had time to find a away to redirect my energies from the ether to something else. It turns out I have everything of consequence in that evil electronic box. At least as for as work and my writing delusions goes.
I Looked into various options and decided the best thing would be for me to work off of The Runtyun’s system and see if my parents might let me use one of their ChromeBooks. For a New York Minute. My parents are saints.
However all those things are topics for another conversation at another time.
I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and spend a few minutes on The Runtyun’s computer and clean it up. I went through all the typical steps, checking updates, cleaning the caches and defraging the hard drive. Then I got into her browsing history. I figured I could clean the caches, histories, even scan for maul ware and make the whole thing operate a little faster.
That is when I found she had been misleading me or outright lying to me. She had a Facebook page and a Gmail account I was not aware of.
I was hurt, angered and almost felt soiled by this betrayal. I repressed the urge to confront her about this transgression on the spot, yet she could see something was bothering her Daddy. When she first asked me, “What’s bothering you, Daddy?” I denied any angst, and said I was merely tired from work. A little later though, she asked again and I confessed that I was very upset with her but could not talk about it yet. I told her that it was serious but did not want to go into it then because I would start yelling and preaching. We both knew nothing good would come from that. So my overly mature 12 year old let it go.
She had started a Facebook account without my consent, even worse she had done it after I had told her I would get one for her! Yeah we all know I procrastinate a lot, yet when a Father says not to do something we expect compliance.
I was hurt and mad and felt betrayed to boot. Mostly though I knew I could not talk about it without loosing my temper. So I let it stew a minute.
When I went to the computer hospital, I mentioned my dilemma and they suggested a couple of different programs to look into including one called Kiddlogger at Kidlogger.org. I looked it up and am impressed. There is a free version with limited capability that seems to be everything I need to track The Runtyun’s movement on the 'net.
After a couple of days I had sorted my thoughts and found a little balance in my thinking and figured out a strategy in dealing with her transgression. I tightened the security on the windows machine and created a new user account on the Mac. I have not loaded the Kidlogger software on anything yet, mostly because I have issues with time....so much to do and so little time to do it in, yet I learned a little about how to track usage on a computer. I also know that my kid is basically a good kid and will do what she is told. She got impatient with her old man and went ahead and did what I told I would do instead of waiting for me to, “Get to it”.
My thinking is excessively slow sometimes, to the chagrin of more than me, finally though, I came up with a plan that may seem obvious to any one, and truth is, I saw this path from the beginning but wanted to let it settle before implementing it.
We went for a walk the other night and I confronted her with her transgressions. There were so histrionics, just calm talk and explanations. I could tell she was nervous, I however, was Fatherly. I told her what she had done and asked if there was anything else I should know. “No” was her answer. Gotta take that one on faith for now
I told about the key tracker program I will be putting on all the toys and that I would know everything she did from then on. She called me a stalker. I laughed and told her no I was not a stalker, it was my job to make sure she was not doing stupid. I also tried to explain to my naive waif that there are those out there could do silly things to her online. I think she got a little of what I was trying to say.
I truly love my little Runtyun, but this transgression of trust shocked me. It told me a little about the cocoon of unreality that I have spun around our relationship. It told me that my little girl is going to test me and learn things in ways that I may not approve of, yet I’ll need to adapt to them and grow with her.
olc
