As our children grow, I'm increasingly often asked web 2.0-related questions by my colleagues in the tough job of being a parent.

Most of the time they are about Facebook or things that can be done with a mobile phone, but they take many forms and cover an extremely wide range of subjects.

I could try to summarize them in a comprehensive formula, such as

how can parents deal with issues arising from the fact that their children begin to develop a digital identity?

but it sounds so detached, boring and – what's worse – missing the whole point. Saying "…children begin to take part in and expose themselves on web2.0 environments" would not make it any better.

At the end of the day, it's not easy to frame the subject at all. Just think of the million ways to define web 2.0. It's a developing, everchanging scenario, where knowledge of the existing is an asset that loses its value very rapidly, especially when confronted with kids who have time to learn and experiment, and whose judgement is not constrained by established assumptions. We must face it: no matter how knowledgeable you are about the web, sooner or later your children will come out with something you are not familiar with. Of course I'm not considering those kids who are simply uninterested in technology: the world is big and varied, but these are simply not the ones whose parents worry about – not in this specific way.

So it's Parents 1.99 vs Kids 2.0: always one (tiny) step behind – if it's not about knowledge, then it's about engagement. Or curiosity. Or passion.

Am I suggesting that the race is lost?

Yes, precisely: as long as you consider it a race. The good news is that it need not be a race, but – staying with the metaphor – it might simply be a road to walk together. And yes, if you wonder: for the time being, I – in my personal walk – am still ahead of my offspring…

Having collected an amount of answers, hints, insights, assumptions and stories on the subject, it might perhaps be a good idea to put them together and give some coherent, sound format to the collection.

To begin with, it might be a good idea to trace a roadmap: what is the starting point? The questions I am asked may take many forms, but I guess that there is one single underlying interrogative:

how can we help them stay away from trouble?

Which is, after all, one of the basic issues with parenting 1.0

Along the road, I am also sure that we will discover that it is an exciting opportunity to learn something about the technology itself and, most of all, a different take on our parental role.

[photo by Daquella manera – Daniel Lobo]