Emma Lee-Potter

The news that two-thirds of parents struggle to use technology and rely on their teenage children to sort them out doesn’t surprise me in the least.

With two IT whizzkids in the house I’ve never bothered to get my head round how to sync my phone with my computer or download the latest Laura Marling track on to my iPod.

I  ask my children to do it for me instead. I’m ashamed to say that I regularly text my daughter in Paris with inane questions like “how do I get the new Draw Something app?”

The new survey by John Lewis also declares that parents find mobiles and tablets so tricky to master that the average child spends almost one day a year teaching them.

I’m stunned by that. Maybe I’m particularly inept but in our house my children spend at least a week a year trying to sort me and my technology out.

PS. Speaking of parents and teenagers, it was fantastic to hear super-talented Beth Reekles and her mum on Radio 4’s Saturday Live this morning.

Beth is the 17-year-old A level student who began writing at the age of 15, sitting upstairs in her bedroom at home in Newport, Wales.  She uploaded a chapter of her work at a time on to Wattpad, the free online novel-sharing platform, and before she knew it her first novel, The Kissing Booth, had attracted 19 million reads and 40,000 comments. Beth has now signed a three-book deal with Random House and the novel has just been published in paperback.

Speaking on the radio, Beth was modest about her achievements. And I loved her mum’s comment that when her daughter first began writing she assumed she was either studying or on Facebook. Her jaw must have dropped when Beth told her she’d written a novel that’s made her one of the most successful writers in the UK.

PPS. I couldn’t resist this picture of the flower stall outside Liberty in London’s West End. It’s taken a while but spring is definitely here. And about time too…