Sending Mum's text messages

[chestnutflower]

I know I need to teach my Mum to text but anyway

My Mum is in her late 50's and rubbish with technology, she can call people on her phone and send short text messages and look at her online banking and the weather forecast but that's about it.

I'm in my early 20's and still live at home with my parents so whenever my Mum wants to send more than a short text message she asks me to send it for her, so she'll tell me what to put and I'll send the text for her. I really need to teach her how to text don't I? I eventually at some point will want to move out from my parents and what will my Mum do then?

I’m mid 50s so not far off your mum’s age. People our age invented text messaging.

She’s never been on the internet on her own?

Is it you downloading the apps for WhatsApp, emails etc? Of did she manage to do that without you?

Some of the local colleges do basic IT course OP, might be an idea to sign her up!

My DM is 89. I am 61.
We both text, FaceTime, Zoom, WhatsApp etc with the best of them.
Both you and your DM are being ridiculous.

Yes I am the one who has downloaded the apps for her, I really need to show her how to text and use the internet and let her learn, if I show her she'll manage to do it. I've just enabled her and it's only now I've realized that it's not doing her any good.

What was your dad like? And what was her dad/mum like to her?

Is it some sort of learned helplessness? Has she always been treated like the simple person who cant do anything? Is it maybe something to do with that?

Has she got an iPhone? Just teach her to use the speak to text button...much faster than typing it all in!

Is her phone compatible with voice control so she can narrate her texts?

My mum won't wear glasses for vanity reasons so has a hard time texting.

Is it the punctuation she is worried about? Changing from letters to ? or £ or ! Can you give her a little coaching?

My Mum had a tough upbringing, she was from a working class background, with an alcoholic father and absent mother. She tells me she used to have chocolate and crisps as her tea.

My Dad is fine with technology but rubbish with spelling and grammar, for example will always put has instead of have and any complicated words he'll ask me how to spell them.

I don't think she received much good education at all

Show her how to ask Siri to text. Dh is nearly 60 and rubbish with his phone, but getting better as he plays with it.
He holds the button down and asks Siri to text FedUp. She asks what he wants to say, he says it she repeats it and he says yes to sending it. So simple.

Late 50's and she can't text. Plenty of people much older know how to text.

You are being lined up for a life of servitude for her old age when she gets there. Only on MN are people in the late 50s/early 60s so flipping needy and helpless.

@SillyLittleBiscuit

If she can send a short message she can send a long one. My dyslexic friend uses the dictate microphone button for long texts.

My ExH is dyslexic and does this too, but he never checks the message before he hits send. I get some very bizarre messages. If your Mum knows how to text OP but it's the length of the message that is the barrier (confidence?) then maybe she struggles with writing long messages anyway?

Age should not be an excuse not to know how to use at least some tech. A neighbour in her 80s spends a lot of her day on her pc skyping, gaming etc and has had a mobile for decades. Mil is mid 70s and whilst she can't use a pc she is well able to text etc.

Try her with a stylus if she finds the phone keyboard a bit small to hit the correct letter and switch the predictive text off, that way she's only sending what she's actually typed.

Do you think she'd want to go on a course/drop in session to learn? There are many free 'computers for beginners' courses, usually at local libraries.
www.ageuk.org.uk/services/in-your-area/it-training/

As PP have said, it might well be a literacy issue. Those courses are used to that, though, they'll be very patient. Does she ever write notes?

Yeah she writes a shopping list every week and sends cards to people.

If she can type a very short message then she can surely type a longer message, it's the same skill just adding more letters/words.

My MIL is late 70s and uses a computer, laptop, tablet and phone.
My parents are late 60s and use technology daily.
Even my grandad, before he died, was able to text and he was late 80s!

I think you need to stop doing it for her, and to let her do it whilst you are close by - that way she gains confidence and her her it skills will increase, but she has support if she gets stuck.

I struggle to believe someone can send short texts but can’t do long ones?!

If she can write a sentence, she can send a text, surely? What’s the actual difficulty-does she have a learning disability?

I thought you were going to say she was in her 80s. Refuse to write any more of her texts and I say this as someone probably older than your Mum. She may be lacking. In confidence .... more charitable than lazy although that is of course a possibility

I think some people use it as an excuse but actually could do it fine if they tried. My MIL can buy things lots of stuff online and has lots of games apps but apparently can't do things like an online food shop. The reality is she just likes a trip to the supermarket. I find it bizarre that she doesn't just say "I just like going to the shop". She is also is late 50s so perfectly capable.

I turn 60 this year.
Mobile phones came out in the 1980s, but I held out until the mid 1990s before I got one as I lived in an area with very patchy coverage. However, I was then in my mid-30s, and that is the oldest your mum can have been then.
Just over two years ago I gave in an moved over to a smartphone as I realised one thing that cuts eldrly people off from society is not keeping up with whatever the latest communication technology is.
You NEED to encourage tour mum to text, WhatsApp or whatever.
My brother got my dad (mid-80s) a new tablet and trained up on Skype the weekend before lockdown. It has been, with no exaggeration, a life-saver through the pandemic as I have been able to talk to them everyday in 'real life' as my mum says. My dad is really not technically competent generally but he could see the need.
Your mum is young. She needs to catch up fast, or you will possibly be her carer and doer of everything potentially for the next 30-40 years.

Gosh my mum taught herself this stuff in her late 60s and Is now in her 80s . Age is no excuse

Go online and look up what’s on offer for adult education. Here (SW) you can learn IT, literacy and numeracy at the local library for free, starting from far below your mums level.

She's less than 10 years older than me, barring genuine learning difficulties I find this bizarre! She is of the tech generation, the first to have email and internet and mobile phones. As I said barring actual learning difficulties she should absolutely be able to manage this just fine.

My mum is mid 70's and cracks on easy enough several of my friends are your mums age or older and they manage just fine.

Stop doing it for her she has to learn or else go back to older communication methods and deal with the difficulties of that in the modern age

If she can send a short text she can send a longer one.

Is she otherwise literate?

I have an uncle who is functionally illiterate but I suspect at least a mild literacy learning disorder there undx as he has difficulties with other cognitive tasks too and has a manual job he's had since age 14 he's also around same age as your mum. He is not lacking in intelligence he's very good at his job and is very knowledgeable on his hobbies and interests but he learned them by doing not reading/writing which makes a difference for him. He's pretty good in a pub quiz too as long as he's not writing the answers.

Have eyesight issues been ruled out?

I'm forever hunting for my specs and 9/10 they're on my head! I got fed up constantly losing them too so now I get supermarket cheapies so I've plenty of spares.

Your update at 1619 suggests to me there possibly IS an undx learning difficulty. It was not unheard of but relatively unusual to leave school with no qualifications in the 70's and has become increasingly less common.

That said I still think if she can manage a short message she can manage a longer one even if she sticks to monosyllabic words which is not a problem with texting.

I'm writing this on an iPhone 7 super easy to use (not my favourite phone for other reasons and I can't wait for my upgrade in a few months!)

I have friends and relatives who's literacy isn't great and they text/email/message me all the time of course, I'm a lit grad so I do notice the spag errors but as long as I can work out what they're meaning to say I don't comment, and even if that does happen (I can't understand it) I ask them to clarify in such a way as not to (hopefully) embarrass them.

We all have gaps in our knowledge - my maths is disgraceful! I'm ok on basic arithmetic but any "proper" maths even percentages and I'm lost! So there's been times when I've been asking them to help me work out something maths related. I'm also a bloody nightmare with anything practical, I cannot seem to get my hands to do as I'm intending and have literally hammered thumbs and caught fingers in hinges etc I'm a bloody liability to be honest, whereas the aforementioned uncle can do seemingly the most complex repairs in a jiffy.

What is she good at?

My mil in her 80's can text, WhatsApp, do online shopping, email, pay bills, play games, all on her phone. No reason why your mum can't send long texts. Just say no next time or she'll never learn.