Another Christmas Story and the Perils of Parenting

I know the holidays have come and gone but this is more a story about parenting than Christmas. Just recently I had a conversation with a lady who has an 8 year old son. She told me how her son has been struggling with the idea of Santa Claus. He's getting to the age where he's putting things together but he's not completely there yet. It seems that he didn't get a particular book he wanted for Christmas so he logged on to Amazon.com, navigated to the account history page and there before him was a list of almost every single thing he had received for Christmas. Very puzzled, he approached his mother and asked her if Santa used Amazon.com. She said, "well, it certainly looks like it, doesn't it? Maybe he was just too busy this year to get everything done". She left it at that but it was clear the kid wasn't completely buying it. The mother is sure that very soon her son will get it sorted out. This is a great example of how childhood myths clash with the digital age. Here's a kid who has enough technical savvy to make his way around the internet yet can't quite connect the dots where it comes to Santa Claus. I see a similar scenario shaping up with my grand daughters. The older one will soon be 6 and her younger sister is 3. Their comfort level and expertise with computers is amazing-and scary. Children who know their way around the internet are at 'digital' risk. There's a LOT of trouble waiting for them. Parents need to watch what their kids are doing more than ever. This is just one more thing for parents to worry about. My parents don't know how easy they had it. I could ride my bike all over town, all day long without anything to worry about except the occasional German Shepard trying to make a meal of me. Unfortunately there's now a whole lot more for kids (and parents) to worry about than dogs. I thought I'd be glad when my kids were grown up and I didn't have to worry about those things any more. Now I worry about their kids. No justice.