I have two daughters. One 17 the other just turned 20.  We have lived apart for 16 years.  Over those years our ability to remain an active part of each others lives has faced many challenges.  When we were first parted, I lived in the next town, I saw them every weekend, and sometimes during the week.  Then my life took me further away.  I was a 7 – 10 hour drive through three countries away.  Yes we all lived in Europe at the time.  Visits became a monthly thing. Technology, in the form of the phone insinuated its way into our relationship.  I traveled a lot for the company I worked for at the time, sent postcards from around the world but of course that wasn’t the same as being able to share the experience with them.  Then I came to live in America.  We became even more reliant on the phone and then increasingly on email and Instant messaging.  The problem with the phone & Instant messaging and mixing that with what had just become teenage girls was tying them down to specific dates and times that they were available.  As they developed socially and increased their activities so there was less room for being tied to a specific time and place that we could set aside for just us.

The situation deteriorated until a few years ago I just stopped hearing from them.  Emails went unanswered, no birthday cards, no christmas cards.  It was a year of complete darkness.  I continued to communicate. Sent emails, cards & presents but none were acknowledged.  I wondered what I had done wrong.  Of course the big answer was everything, but the specific answer was nothing. They were simply busy, they had other things going on and they just forgot.

Then suddenly I got a birthday card out of the blue, what a great birthday.  Things developed from there.  Emails and then one day, an email from Facebook.  I had joined the site but at that time had invested very little time in it and had only 2 friends on my friends list.  The email from facebook told me that  my eldest daughter wanted to add me as a friend.  I accepted immediately.  Then her sister added me.  Suddenly I was hooked. I had a window into their world.

Jesse Stay wrote in his article here on Dad-O-Matic that some parents might think that having their kids as “friends” on facebook is a form of stalking.  I can certainly see that perspective.  I think Jesse had some good advice regarding that point of view.  For me stalking is the act of observing someone that is unaware of your observation and that the observation takes place for the purpose of developing an imaginary link between the observed and the observer.  In my case I get to see slices of my daughters lives.  I am with them at birthday parties, rock concerts, sleep overs, dinners out, and any other occassion when a camera is present.  Thanks to the “tagging” feature in Facebook, whenever one of their friends “tags” them, it appears on my home page.  Immediately I can see a snapshot of the latest event in their lives.

With this connection comes responsibility.  It would be all to easy to comment on pictures or status updates for which I am probably not the intended audience.  Just this morning I watched a video clip taken at a recent birthday party, a friend of my youngest daughter.  It made me laugh, both to see her and her friends having such fun and to remember what it was like to be that age.  But by commenting on it, I would have been intruding.  Other times it is perfectly acceptable to comment.  My younger daughter recently had a status that read “..is off to Tesco” (its a supermarket chain in England). I added the comment that she should buy my favorite brand of cookie and eat one for me.  Instant connection.  She also recently changed her relationship status, when she and her boyfriend of 18 months broke up.  I included in my next email the opportunity for her to talk to me about it and to make sure she was ok.  It is very unlikely she would have told me in an email that she was no longer seeing him.  But because we are connected, I was privy to that information.

Chris Brogan recently posted his thoughts on how different media reaches us.  He makes the great statement “Reaching people isn’t a linear business. Connecting isn’t a single effort.” Going on to say “Are there other means to connect than the ways you’ve already tried? What else might you find in common with someone?”  My experience has shown me that not only isn’t it a single effort but that the method that you use will evolve over time. Whether you live in the same house as your children, the same country or even just on the same planet, being active, being involved in, and taking the effort to really find out what interests them will always be the key to great communication with your children. Without the benefit of Facebook and other social media tools, I would have a very one dimensional relationship with my daughters.