I despair with my mum at times

[snorri]

Thanks for that story Greedo, I won't read any other threads on here tonight, but just go to sleep laughing.

 

[Globalti]

Yep...my Mum is nearly 80, fit as a butcher's dog and has been trying to get to grips with her laptop for the last five years. Sometimes she rings up all tearful and frustrated and trying to talk her through it is a nightmare. She has had a long string of computer "Gurus", mostly nice young men she has met through somebody else and each of them has set her laptop up differently, adding to her confusion. A nightmare.

 

[Arch]

Yep...my Mum is nearly 80, fit as a butcher's dog and has been trying to get to grips with her laptop for the last five years. Sometimes she rings up all tearful and frustrated and trying to talk her through it is a nightmare. She has had a long string of computer "Gurus", mostly nice young men she has met through somebody else and each of them has set her laptop up differently, adding to her confusion. A nightmare.

That is a problem, my Mum has a couple of similar gurus. There's also the problem that an expert is not necessarily a good teacher - they understand, and they forget that others don't, not instinctively. I remember a mature student in my year got very frustrated with our computer tuition - things like the tutor saying, off hand, "right click on so and so..." Right click? Just thinking to say, at least to beginners, 'click the right hand mouse button', makes all the difference.

My Mum's got a pretty good working understanding of word processing, file organising and so on, but like many of us, she's a bit afraid of stuff she's not familiar with.

 

[longers]

My lodger got a call from his daughter in law while she was walking on the beach in Ayrshire with his grandson. He had her waving as he said he was looking for them on Google Earth.

 

[karen.488walker]

You're lucky, you only despair with your mum "sometimes"!

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

My Mother-in- Law is staying for a few days. You really don't know what despair is.......

On the plus side - she does do all the dishes

 

[ufkacbln]

hey fair play your mum is on the computer mine has no idea!

My MiL is in her 80's believes that the Readers Digest prizes are genuine and that if someone tells you have won a Holiday then it is true...... we only allow her on the internet when supervised!

 

[XmisterIS]

Have you ever tried explaining computers and the internet to your Mother or MIL?

Oh my ....

It took 6 months of my Mother owning her computer before she could get her head round the fact that (a) her computer, ( Microsoft Word, (c) the internet and (d) her email account were four separate things ...

For example, she was utterly boggled by the concept that she could send and recieve emails from a computer other than the one sat on her desk! She simply couldn't believe it was possible.