Teen Suicide

It’s not news that New Zealand has one of the highest rates for teen suicide in the world. It’s a sad thought that our dear country has this kind of history that keeps repeating itself, but there are definitely some sound ways parents and relatives can make the growing up years a little easier.

Here’s my stance on it: depression is real, no doubt about it. However, at some point of our lives, we have those days when we don’t feel like getting out of bed, when we feel lonely and when we just don’t want to talk to anyone. Those feeling are normal. Like I say, if you were to quickly diagnose people generally feeling ‘sad’, should we have a tax on emotions like ‘love’ aswell?

Depression is real – I’m not saying it’s not, but we all have those days when we feel a little ‘emo’, or ‘depressed’ if you must. If this goes on for a little longer than a day, a week, month, then yes – professional help is needed. But you can actually stop this unwinding of events! Don’t let that sad stage of a teen’s life turn into ‘depression’. There are three things to remember:

Communicate
Whenever you notice something, talk to them! Even if they don’t want to, keep talking to them – even the small things count “How was your day darling?”, “What do you think about….” Get them involved in conversations, family activities – anything. Just keep that communication going, because when the time comes, they will open up about what’s bothering them. More times than never, parents seem to drift off and stop talking because they don’t want to deal with another snappy answer – this is just them taking some of their issues out little by little. Keep talking, talking, talking.

Support
Did your teen have an interesting idea? Do they need a lift from you somewhere? Do they need to talk to you? Be open to support them in their decisions. At the end of the day, if you tell them not to do something, as much as I hate to say it, psychologically that makes them want to do these things even more; to try these things to find out what all the fuss is about. Don’t let it get that far – if they hear the word ‘no’ from you often enough, that translates into ‘I don’t care about you’ to a teen sometimes, and that’s exactly what you don’t want. If you must say ‘no’ to some things – a tattoo, a party they want to go to, a business venture they might want to start up by dropping out of school, say ‘no’ as much as you want, but don’t forget the reasons behind it and tell them about this. This will automatically put them into the ‘understanding’ mindset, and just like it would be perfect for you to read their mind, give them something to work off by giving them your side of the story – what you’re thinking, and why you’re thinking it.

Love
I cannot stress this point enough. When you don’t say a happy ‘Good Morning’, ask for their opinion, say ‘no’ to anything they want to do, that all translates into ‘I don’t care or love you’. Wrong, wrong, wrong! A great book about the ‘5 Love Languages’ talks about how different people show their love for each other. With a teenager, you don’t necessarily need to study that book, unless you have the time – small things count. My parents always remember to tell me they love me, heck when I was little, after Mum had been away in another city, just her bringing back some cheap lollies from the plane as a ‘gift’ got my brother and I excited – you can express your love through so many different ways – don’t forget that it can stretch out further than a simple ‘I love you’; it can be anything from a small gift, to a gesture of love (“Would you like some tea?”), to just sitting down when they need to talk to you the most and hearing what they have to say.

How do you communicate, support and love the teen in your life? As hard as it may be, they hold so much energy and power to balance out the world; to make something out of themselves, and to make the world a better place – if not now, then definitely in future. Cherish and love them – who would want to end their life when they’re surrounded by love and understanding? No one is my guess!

Social Networking: Our Future?

From the GrownUps Column that can be found here

Social Networking has exponentially grown in popularity since I started this column. Although some of my entries are to do with the young people of today, I think there are many parallels between the online world and the way younger generations are growing up in the 21^st century; after all, they, or should I say we, are indeed the product of what technology has created. And what technology has created is a fast-paced, never-still, ever-changing world that surprises us every single day.

I remember when the iPhone first came out, and a speaker from the US was speaking at a workshop I was sitting in on. At the end of the talk, he went on to give a couple of points about why people in business need to get onto the new technologies and embrace them. I was not impressed; “Isn’t that obvious to these people in suits?” I thought. I was even less impressed when he took out his iPhone, and went on to show the audience a new app where you can tilt the phone and it makes it look like the phone is a glass with drink disappearing. A teenager at the time, I was most of all un-impressed by how easily these ‘adults’ were impressed. I had heard of this new drinking app, but there are definitely more impressive things in the world, surely.

What I’m trying to get at is not that young generations are not easily amused; it’s that the world in all its fast speed is constantly coming up with new inventions and discoveries for the potential to do something better; to amuse people more and more. It’s not impressive to have a touch-screen phone anymore. If anything, speaking from my own experience, I’m hating my new touch screen phone. I need a phone to call and TXT; I don’t want all the weird gadgets on there…necessarily, and get very restless when a TXT takes longer than a split second to open up on my screen. That’s the reality.

But here comes my biggest point:
Social Media has brought people closer. What we couldn’t do 20, 10 or even 5 years ago is available at our fingertips. I never try to be an evangelist for the online world – there are many things it cannot replace, but for what it’s worth, it has made some things attainable. Think meetings. I’m on the National Executive of the National Speakers Association. We have a meeting every month. It would take a large collective investment to fly everyone to one city, but the Association can use the pool of knowledge from people from all over the country by having a Skype conference. People have meetings from all around the world over the internet, I can coach people about relationships with their teens, or about how to use Social Media for their business over the internet; years ago, we couldn’t even dream of doing business deals without meeting someone in person, but it’s possible.
Social Media isn’t all about how many Skype conversations you can have; it can serve a higher purpose: to connect. Connect with your existing, future and potential clients, family members; anyone. It’s about starting a conversation.

Imagine you’re at one of those networking events, standing in a corner and everyone seems to have some sort of natural link, but you. Enter the online world; you can butt into any conversation, put in your two cents about a topic, or person, and it’s normal. You don’t need to be the awkward freak of nature trying to ease your way into the conversation; online, it’s a GOOD thing to butt into conversations, compliment people, and all the rest.

Of course the how-to of engaging with people online isn’t something you can break down in a few words, but when you start with the ‘why’ when you sit down at a computer, ready to take on the social media world, just keep your goal in mind – is your goal to connect and network with potential client? Is it to keep in touch with existing clients or relatives? Is it to make new friends or find a soulmate?

Just keep the end goal in mind, and everything will come from there.

Google Plus…the future…?

Recently, I’ve been bombarded by invitations to join the Google Plus social network. There’s been a lot of talk around how Google is trying to conceive ‘the new Facebook’, and even rumours that Google is thinking of partnering with Facebook because they’ll never be able to re-create the revolutionized social networking aspect that Facebook has created to date.

What are your thoughts? Have you tried it? Are Google trying to be wannabes, or is this really going to revolutionize the way we view social networking?

Comment on my video below, or on YouTube

Turning 21: Give Us Hope

The inevitable happened at the end of July.
I turned into an adult.
Oh gosh.

It was horrible – seriously. I woke up, ready to take on the world as an adult and guess what??!
I didn’t feel any different!
I didn’t have that much of a big night out, but seriously…come on! I thought adults were supposed to be responsible and awesome and I well…felt the same!
I have come to the conclusion that every parent, adult, teacher, youth worker, manager…they are just the very same 16, 18, 20 year olds in an older person’s body. No big transformation exists! No Easter Bunny, Santa Clause or Tooth Fairy came to transform me – I still looked the same, I FELT the same.

I have used the same techniques in numerous speeches where I get adults in any given audience to remember what it was like to be a teenager, or a young person, and the only thing everyone always agrees to is that the only difference between how they used to be and how they are now was the sense of absolute freedom they felt. It’s interesting though, because as an adult, we have more responsibility – for ourselves and others. But isn’t the whole point of having freedom that we have more responsibility? Were we more responsible when we were younger if we feel we have less freedom than we did back then? Or is it the feeling of no consequences that fades as we age?

All these are valid questions, but the one thing I’m starting to feel kicking in is the hope I have in the world. When you get older, we feel more hope, more opportunity to change the world. Partly because we are allowed to do more things, but isn’t hope something that every human being on Earth should have?

Time and time again, I make sure to share with my audiences the grim future that was painted for me at primary school: the two divorces I was apparently prone to as a young person living in today’s world, and the 15+ career changes I was expected to go through. Now, I’m all for teachers being honest with us as kids right from the beginning, but the one thing they forgot to instill and paint for us at school was hope. The one thing that will keep us going through the tough times; the hope for a better future. When you look at all the possibilities, it’s exciting that there are numerous ‘things’ we will go through during our lives, but at the same time, it instills a feeling of insecurity of our futures. With the expectations of many changes, how are we supposed to grasp the concept of goal setting, and more importantly the concept of goal achieving when we are told the rules are going to change so many times on us, that we will never have a feeling of security?

I guess the reason I write this is because youth cannot go as far as they can if there is no adult support. And as an adult, there is so much support you can give us just by instilling hope. Try it – let’s have a look at a number of options.

If you are a parent or teacher, instilling hope means supporting us through the good and bad times. Every parent wants to do this – I’m not saying they don’t. But the way you can help show that there is hope is by reassuring us; your kids that whatever we want to achieve, we need to stick at it. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was really little. By then though, my dreams were doomed. School told me there is no point in striving for something that was already possible. Great. OK, fair enough. But the way they went about giving me other options (or in this case option) was to try a career in animation. 3D animation was the ‘it’ thing back then, and all the teachers were enthralled that this had become a job, so it almost seemed like it was their mission that we all needed to become little ‘animationists’ because that was the way of the future. Ding dong! It’s now 2011 and that is not the hottest or newest job anymore. The world will keep changing, but don’t just try get your kids involved with the latest trend – that is almost a formula for them to fail. Look at me now – if I had followed the advice I was given, I would just be finishing my studies, looking for a job in an over-stocked market. I’m not suggesting I would have been the world’s best astronaut, but hey, who knows – if I had stuck at it, I could have been the first New Zealander into space (by the way, there hasn’t been one YET), so although I was like what, 8 years old, that dream was dead in the water. So be careful how you pose your support. Make sure you are giving us hope through the support – not by shutting down our ideas.

OK, say you’re not related to a young person – say you are a manager, or some high exec, and it’s your job to mentor some new employees. How do you instill hope in them? They are likely to be at the higher end of teen years, or even over 20 – so how can hope become alive in these ‘kids’?
A popular technique for employers is to sit a young intern or employee down and draw up a 5 year plan. OK. Do you remember what you were like when you were 20? Wasn’t the only thing you knew you’d be in 5 years time was OLD? How about going at it from a different approach – ask what they want to achieve in the industry. They may have no idea, they may have some idea, or they may have already made their own plan. No matter where on the scale of assurance they are, you can help by showing them some options, and offer advice around how they can get to wherever they want to go. I think many young people think in achievements rather than years in today’s world. It’s possible to slice 3 years at University into 2 years – anything is possible in today’s world, so it may be your way of thinking that a 5 year plan is best, but we have grown up with speed, and the best way to instill hope in the fact that we have a future, and better yet, a future in your industry is to let us know that there are pathways we can take to achieve whatever we are there to achieve, or at the very least that there are people that can help us decide what we want to achieve.

How do you instill hope in the young generations?

I have a hope for my future, and for the future of this world in general because of all the wonderful adults that have helped me gain this, and I hope that the young people who’s lives you touch – today and in future can attain this. And while thinking about this, maybe you also need to ask yourself – how bright do you see YOUR future? And do you trust it (the future, I mean :))

What they didn’t teach us in school

At the start of last month, I was asked to present at a local High School around the life lessons I’ve learned from my journey of being an author, speaker and consultant.

I was shocked to find that after sending my presentation through, I was asked to write out a new one…some of my suggestions and lessons were too ‘provocative’ for the student body, and something that they didn’t want their students exposed to.

It was an interesting piece of feedback to hear, as I’ve never been censored in such a way before, so I thought, for this to not go to waste, I’d re-tell some points in the online world (where everything is allowed). Many have heard, or have heard of Bill Gates’ speech he gave at an American High School around his life lessons, and I must say, it was nothing different to it…apart from the fact that I don’t have any sort of billion dollar empire, I’d love to see the day that some of these life lessons are at least discussed at school – after all, isn’t this the institution that’s supposed to prepare youth for the ‘real world’?

At the same time, I know of many schools that have Leadership Days where they invite speakers, and teach them some of the real life lessons…maybe this school was just a bit too sheltered for the truth, but here we go, my three points that I wanted to share with the school…judge for yourself how it may break students as the school thought…

1. You Need to Work Hard
In our generation, somehow we get it into our heads that life is going to be easy. Who can blame us? Our parents are Generation X, or for some, even Baby Boomers and all their life they had to work really, really hard to get whatever they wanted in life. They obviously didn’t want their kids to go through some of the same struggles, so they tried to make an easier life for us – their kids. Back in the day, some of our parents were working at 13 or 14 years of age, whereas today, that’s illegal! Our parents had to work hard to get their first job, while we expect to have a steady job in our late teens, because we hear of how some of our parents had been promoted to manager positions in their late teens. What we forget, or what our parents forget to tell us is that they had to work up for years before then to get to that position. You are going to work hard to get to wherever you want to get to – whether it’s a promotion, or starting your own business, or anything else, you’re going to have to get out there and put in the hard yards. That’s what we don’t get to by parents or teachers…not because they’re lying to us, but because perhaps they forgot about their own journey and challenges. The best advice I was ever given is to choose what I love and put in all my passion, blood, sweat and tears into it. And I have. Have you? What do you want to do? Whether it’s a short term or long term goal, what do you really want from life? Find out, pin point it and get ready for some hard work – there are no shortcuts there!

2. Take the Opportunity to be Curious
When I came to New Zealand, I was the most outgoing child you could ever imagine. Even now, I can’t contain my excitement when telling a friend some good news that I end up telling the whole street rather than the person I’m talking to. But what happened for a little bit when I came to New Zealand, all of a sudden people were speaking a funny language, and I didn’t understand a thing. So I became really introvert and started to really take in what other people were doing. I guess my observation skills have stuck with me since that time, but now that I finally know what language everyone is speaking, I can add my extrovert-ness into any conversation. What I’ve learned over the last 4 years of being in business, being an author and speaker, is that people think that celebrities and opportunities are out of their reach. If only people knew the truth. I’ve learned to be brave, which is what I’ll touch on in the next point, but the biggest thing I learned is the importance of being curious. I wrote my first book when I was 17, and luckily, I was invited onto a live radio interview with some of the other top parenting authors of the country. After the interview, I e-mailed all of them – even the ones that I disagreed with on the radio, and expressed my gratitude and honour for the opportunity to be heard alongside them on national radio. One replied. But you know, that one was, and still is THE biggest, most respected parenting author in the country. The busiest people are the ones that have enough time for everyone and I now know this and am not afraid to e-mail or even call some of my most admired heroes. This parenting author is now one of my dearest mentors and friends, and always makes time for when I’m in her city and vise versa. The lessons she’s taught me and all the information she’s helped me out with has been priceless. Get mentors, contact whoever can help you – even if they’re at the very top of their game – they always have time for you! Take some time to be curious about the world around you – whether it’s contacting someone you think is out of reach, or doing some extra research about some topic, job, or person – just do it! What’s the worst that could happen?

3. Learn to be Brave
So you work hard and you’re curious about the opportunities out there…with all of this, you need to learn to be brave. Many self esteem books will tell you to be yourself, but the beauty of life is taking risks. I used to hate public speaking. I mean I used to love being the centre of attention, but as I became more and more introvert when I came to New Zealand, I bought into the whole ‘public speaking is worse than death’ belief. I had to get out of it, because very early on, I realized that in order to get the message – my precious message of how people can build better relationships with each other, across to many people, I was going to need to get out of my limiting belief. The fear used to really get to me, but I knew it was for the best. I knew I was going to have to swallow my pride and fear and get out there and do it for the people – without sounding like some sort of revolutionary, I knew my message was going to really help people. Sometimes when following your dreams, you need to be brave. Do you think Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t scared – getting up and speaking about something that he truly believed in? All those people watching him, but his passion and vision drove him. He could have hid in his room and stuck with the life he was given, but his belief that his vision was for the greater good of people, drove him to get out there. Your fear may not be public speaking – it might be getting out there and contacting J.K. Rowling – who knows! But if you really believe in what you’re doing, get out there – be brave, and just do it!

What other advice would you give to youth today? What do you wish you knew when you were 13, 16, or 19?

2am the New Midnight...?

A common problem the average parent is likely to come across is the timely issue of youth growing up too quickly. Time and time again, parents are faced with decision time about what curfew to set for their teenagers. The only problem is, with the invention of constant communication technology, like cell phones and GPS tracking systems, the old ‘be home by midnight’ is no longer valid. Teenagers are taking a stand, and they’re hitting the sore spot by claiming their friends are staying up later too…and before you know it, the old midnight turns into the new 2am.

The key is to do your research and set some rules. Take your teen as a starting point for your research. You need to take into account that their friends may be very different to the friends you had at your age – everyone knows that there are some groups that stay out later than others for whatever reasons. There are daytime skaters, as opposed to the night-time ones. The night-time ones aren’t necessarily there at night to drink and do drugs – they may have divided the time because the skate park is quieter, or has more of their friends around at night-time. You’ll need to ask them to see their side of the story and understand their reasons why they are staying out so late.

Your next port of call is the other parents around. These can be family friends with teenagers, or even your teen’s friends’ parents. What do they think about their proposed curfew? Is it too late? What do the other parents set as curfew for their teens? Why?

Now after you’ve done your research, go back to your teen like a sales person, and try compromise the best time you can both agree on. Maybe not be as sly as the stereotypical sales person, but try work towards your both advantage. Through this process, you’ll be able to set some rules down, because even if you decide on a particular time, things do come up, so set them straight. Perhaps the curfew can be at 2am, which is the time when they must be at home, but they must TXT you at midnight, or an hour or two after they’ve left home to let you know they’re OK. Come up with a number of scenarios they can reference to in future. For example, what if the bus, taxi or their ride can’t get them home by 2am – do they need to TXT or call you? Are they hanging out in your suburb or in town? What if there is a family emergency – how fast can they get back home?

Now, if you need to, write these rules out and stick them on the door, or the fridge, in their car, wallet, or even in their room. Perhaps it might be embarrassing for them to have these rules up in their room, or in their wallet, but I personally think friends can be very considerate in today’s world – teenagers have a conscience too, and if your teen’s friends see you have set rules for them, they’ll know about the rules their friend has, and I hope you find, in the perfect scenario that they will actually peer pressure your teen to stick to them.

What curfew would you set for the teen in your life? What was acceptable when you were younger, and what rights are they demanding in today’s day and age?

Keeping Youth Safe Online

Many people out there are scared of the internet. They’re scared of its power, but hey, if Superman hid his powers from the world, he wouldn’t be able to help anyone at all!

The key is to contain and protect your youth from what they might come across online, and with some extra knowledge about what to do and what not to do, can help go a long way.

So here we go, three key points to keep youth safe online…

1. Don’t give our personal information. It’s kind of simple…in real life, if you don’t want someone to go use your credit card, don’t give out your details to people. Same with the online world; if you don’t want randoms calling your cell phone, don’t give out your personal information. Re-iterate to youth that whatever you put online will stay there forever, regardless of whether they take it off, it will always be stored somewhere online in a little box, and hackers have ways of retrieving this information. Don’t let them be a victim to this, so just a gentle reminder to not put out their address, contact phone numbers, or any type of details they don’t need on there. Many people are scared to set up profiles on social networks, because they believe their identity may get stolen. The way I see it, living in real life is way more dangerous – if someone really wanted to steal your identity, they can stalk you to your house, get close-up shots of your face, and steal your credit cards out of your wallet. Online, you hold a certain amount of authority over what information you want to make available for the public; heck, you don’t even need to put up a real photo of you – put up a photo of a cartoon, or a nice sunset…you are allowed to be in control, so stay in control.

2. Invest in security software. Just like parents put parental locks on certain channels, you can do the same to prevent any viruses, or to block unwanted websites online. It’s fantastic that you have the option to protect your online use so much, so don’t overlook a few tens of dollars.

3. Limit their time on the internet. Research is coming up with horrific figures about how much time young people are spending online…help contribute to minimize this in your household by limiting the amount of time your young people are spending online. It will ensure they are most productive during the time they do have, and also have time to do other things in the REAL world. A great tip many parents are talking about, is to not let young people…probably more the pre-teens, be online past their bed time. Apart from the corneas getting damaged, it will disrupt their sleeping patterns, which is not recommended for growing, evolving bodies of adolescents.

They may be simple, but definitely effective to help keep your youth stay safer and healthier. You can put all these in practice, starting today, and if matters are getting really out of hand, how about an online/computer-use set of rules to make sure everyone knows the rules they can stick to. It doesn’t have to be a big Super Nanny poster, but a good 5 points that you can brainstorm with the whole family can make online use fun, productive, and staying safe, effective in your household.

What is the best piece of advice you can give, or have been given about staying safe online?
Also, check out the video about the topic here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l8vo0_HUtY

Annoying Youth Habits in your Workforce

Day in and day out, more and more youth are coming into the workforce. And no wonder – half the world’s population is under 25 years old, and the new generation’s work habits are following them into the workforce. Bad attitudes, scruffy work clothes, turning up late and in general, disregard for not understanding when the business doesn’t do well, they may be out of a job.

Sure, that sounds like the generic youth job of a bartender, or coffee-maker, but it extends way into the corporate and SME world too.

The twisted youth minds are a hard one to understand, but when it comes to it, unless your generation wants to be blamed for the bad habits instilled in today’s youth, it may be good to pay some attention to what they react to, and what will help them achieve more in your business.

Many attitudes come down to the parenting young people have received. Do they respect you as an employer, comes down to: do they respect adults in their lives? Showing up in scruffy clothes, comes down to: were values instilled about respecting the people around them?

Having asked around, some of the most common problems with youth come down to the same answer:

The issues are: coming in with scruffy clothes, Bad attitudes, and showing up late for work
Why do they do that? They know when their shift starts…do they not own an alarm clock??!

If only things were that simple. When a young person’s shift starts at 9am, they’re likely to show up at 9am on the dot. Coming in scruffy clothes…perhaps that’s how they actually dress. Bad attitudes aren’t kept in check unless someone complains. So why not just tell them! Picking up on turning to work late, older generations understand that a 9am start time means coming into work 10, 15, minutes before start-time so they’re dressed and ready for work. Well, not in this world – youth will show up when they’re expected, sometimes later. The warning for being late will be obvious, but not when they show up on time, even if they spend 10 minutes to get into ‘work mode’, thinking they’re paid for the time they’re on the premises.
What’s the way out of it? Tell them what you expect and why – whether it’s about the dress code, attitude or time management. What may seem very obvious to you about workforce attitudes will be different to today’s youth due to their parenting they received. If you expect to run your business in a particular way, don’t let it to their common sense to decide what’s right and wrong – tell them. Come up with a Code of Conduct with all the rules written out so if they come to work ‘on time’ instead of 10 minutes earlier or are wearing a ripped shirt, you can point them back to ‘the rules’. No if’s or but’s there….

How do you/how would you keep your young workers in check?

Parenting Expo and Second Book Launch!

So the second book is finally here.

FINALLY!!

Absolutely excited to the max about it - check out the video HERE



The official launch will be at 2pm at the Parenting Expo....all you people in New Zealand, I look forward to seeing you there! More info on here: www.upperhuttcity.com/parentingexpo

It's The Little Things...

Imagine starting your day with a cute coffee that someone's put some effort into! Wouldn't that just make your day a gazillion times better?


After all, isn't it the little things in life that make the biggest impacts?
Think about the little things that you can do...for anyone, on any given day...

• Saying 'I love you' to your teen who you just had a huge fight with
  
  
• Getting a friend some flowers just because
  
  
• Leaving a handwritten note for a colleague to congratulate them about...anything!
  
  
• Calling a long-lost contact, just to find out what's up
  
  
• Leaving your mark in your work with pride (like drawing on a coffee...although I AM yet to find someone who is brave/skilled enough to draw their number in a coffee...I'll find them...one day...)

What are the small things you can start doing today?
Or what are the small things you do already? Let's add some happiness to this world, peoples...
I'm off to write a whole bunch of handwritten notes on bright pink Post-its...just because :)

Love and kisses! xoxox

Engaging Us as a Generation...

It's been a while since I blogged on here, but I have something I'd love your feedback on, as I wrote on the Emergen ygenclub Blog...

An article I wrote got published in last month's Speaker Magazine that goes out to all members of associations run by the Global Speakers Federation around the world. I've put it up linking back to the magazine on HERE.

I tried to focus on key myths that I've heard go around teachers and speakers, breaking myths like...

• You have to be young to engage youth.
• You need to be cool.
• Textbook content is good.
• I’m an adult, so young people need to hear my funny stories about my life.
• You must be inspiring and positive.

What's been amazing is getting gazillions of e-mails and calls since the article came out, from people wanting to know more tips, more insights into how to engage us, young people as an audience.

So I'm here to get your feedback...what other myths should we bust?

What advice would you give an older speaker who completely missed the target of engaging an audience you were part of?

What tips can you share, perhaps even from your experiences?

New Year Resolution for Grandparents: Getting Social Media-ized

The world has brought on a huge hype about Social Media and how we communication with one another as a result of this phenomenon.

New Year resolutions come in all shapes and sizes, but this year I hope you take into consideration utilizing Social Media as a grandparent. There is much literature about why you shouldn’t use Social Media, but you know what, here are some strong reasons why you should use and embrace it.

Communicating with Grandchildren
Young people with their technology are a lost cause these days. Just kidding.
But seriously, Social Networking has opened up many doors for families to keep in touch. In what other age could you keep up with what your grandchildren are doing 24/7, with instant updates?
People think they need to make a Facebook profile, and that they’ll need to spend a lot of time to maintain it which means they’ll need to go on there every single day and write something every 12 hours. Firstly, you can sign on there once a month for all Facebook cares – they are about numbers anyway. Secondly, when you set up any sort of profile, be completely clear as to why you’re on there. If your primary goal is to see what your children or grandchildren are up to so you can stay in the loop and make conversation later, or comment on it through Facebook, don’t worry about updating your page every time you log on. All you’ll need for your profile is to upload a photo (if you like), set your profile to private so weird people on Facebook won’t stalk you, and write one or two sentences about what you’re up to once in a while if you feel like updating your family members about it at this platform.
It doesn’t have to be hard or take a lot of time. Facebook is one of the only platforms where you may find out about your daughter/grand-daughter’s engagement before they announce it, you can keep tabs on who is visiting what city, what someone’s latest favourite food is, and get invited to and learn about events the whole family are attending (this can be family reunions, concerts, and others).

Blogging your passion
The world marvelled when a girl called Julie started blogging out of all the meals she cooked from Julia Child’s recipe book. Blogging can start you off on a ride to stardom, but even if stardom isn’t in your cards (or in your hopes), if you enjoy a particular hobby that you enjoy writing about, you can create a small following of an audience online by blogging about your hobby.
Go onto Blogger or Wordpress, create a simple account and start posting! What does this ‘posting’ mean? It’s a simple way of saying you are writing into your blog – like an online diary. Hate to write? Why not show off your photography skills? Instead of writing, post your photos online.
Tell all your friends and family about your blog – people may start following it, and at the very least, you’ll know your work is floating out there in cyber space that people will be stumbling upon from time to time.

Make a community
You probably have a whole group of friends who either hate or are confused by social media just like you. Why not get a group of you, and visit SeniorNet who can help you become computer-savvy. Or, if you already are on social networks, apart from keeping tabs on your family, you can socialize with them through the internet. The internet will make it so much more faster for you all to..
Share links to interesting stories, recipes, events
Update each other instantly, instead of phoning around only to come across answer phone half the time
You can use it at any time of day. How awkward would it be to get a phone call at 4am from a friend who’s calling to ‘just remind you about this week’s event’? On social networks, if they really must get in touch with you, they can leave you a comment or message at any time of day, and be rest assured that you will check it when most convenient for you.

Are you already excited to get onto Social Networks?
Or aren’t you?