But Can He Write A Line Of Code?

You here a lot of talk these days about how sophisticated kids are. On the television, the soccer mom selling furniture polish tells you how amazing it is that kids are "computer savvy" at age three. That lady? She's an actress. Those kids? just finished potty training. They are not "computer savvy." In fact, they aren't even "toilet savvy," because they still need help with the toilet paper and almost never, ever flush. Still, those people on Madison Avenue think it's so cute that you have a Barney game your three year-old can use, so long as only a mouse is needed, so they try to sell you products that are supposed to be "smart" like your genius mouse-using kid. If you have kids, this will be no secret, but for the rest of you, listen up. A monkey can use a mouse. Yep. Pointing and clicking does not a genius make. Show me one of these supposedly computer savvy children and I'll show you a kid who can press enter and respond to simple voice prompts. Usually, when I tell one of my kids they can play a game on cartoonnetwork.com , I don't even make it three steps before they yell, "Daa-aad, c'mere!" Which usually means they have locked up my computer and accidentally invited a whole bunch of worms and viruses into the house. We make a big fuss about our kids because we want other people to be as impressed with our offspring as we (sometimes) are, but be realistic. Kids don't really know what they're doing on the internet, or on your system. They can blow up your machine by simply playing solitaire, they don't even need the world wide web to do it. They just say, "Dad, can you set up blah blah blah for me, I know how to do the rest," and the next thing you know, a guy like me is ringing the doorbell saying, "Hi, you called my business? Something about a bad motherboard?" Monitor your child, and don't just oversee their usage of the big, bad internet, but also teach them the general mechanics of the machine. Rule of thumb is, if they have to call you more than twice in 10 seconds to figure something out, they're too young. I know, I know, I must be talking about everyone's child but yours. After all, your kid can use a mouse! Heck, he'll probably be dreaming in lines of code by the time he's five, like he was born in The Matrix, or something. But ask yourself this. Sure, Jimmy can point and click, but can he check the device drivers if there's a problem? No? Well...probably not a genius then. He's not "spoon boy." Watch him. Then go to the phone book and look up my number. Have a boot disk ready for me when I get there.