This week Sophie (8) has been bugging me to set up separate accounts for them. They want some privacy, and don’t want the other reading their email. Fair enough. So yesterday I created new users, moved their separate mail into the right places, set up their iTunes library in the ‘Shared’ account, blah blah. I let Sophie set herself a password, and this morning Rachel (11) asks me if she can change her password?

Of course.

“I want to change it to <object>,” she said.

She hasn’t got quite got the hang of this. “Don’t tell me your password! Don’t tell anyone your password.”

“But you’re my Dad,” she says, innocently.

“It’s all right,” I said, “I have ultimate power over that computer.”

One of these days I will teach them about secure passwords, password security, and the concept of root accounts. But not yet: Rachel asked how to make the change, and before I could move Sophie had nipped in, <clickety click>, and shown her.

I will watch her career with great interest.

Sophie put her hand on her forehead and said,
“I predict 2012 will be in … London!”

Then,

“I’m a fortune-teller!” We all laughed, but corpsed completely when she followed up with,

“Naw, I googled it.”