Helping a Parent With Technology From a Distance

This article is for the adult children who make up a good share of this section's readers.

The common pattern is a phone call, twenty minutes of confusion on both sides, and eventually you doing it for them on your next visit. It is faster once and worse every time afterwards, and it is why the same problem recurs.

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Why doing it for them backfires

Nothing was learned, so it happens again.

They stop trying, which widens the gap.

You become a dependency, and one that is not available at 9pm on a Tuesday.

It reads as a judgment, whether or not it is meant that way. Being helped with something you used to manage is not neutral, and people withdraw from it.

Most importantly: they stop telling you about problems. Which matters enormously, because the problem you most want to hear about is a suspicious phone call, and that only reaches you if the smaller ones did.

What actually helps

Do it together, on a screen share, slowly. Both iPhones and Android phones can share a screen over a video call. You watch, they tap. It takes three times as long the first time and once thereafter.

Let them hold the phone. Even in person. Talk them through it rather than reaching over.

Write it down. Numbered steps, on paper, for the thing they will do again. Big text. Left by the computer.

Fix the settings once, properly. Half the recurring problems are configuration. Text size, notifications, automatic updates. See settings every phone has.

Ask what is actually annoying them, rather than what you think should be. The answer is frequently something small you would never have guessed and can fix in a minute.

What to set up in advance

An afternoon on your next visit, and most future calls do not happen.

Automatic updates on, so security fixes arrive without anyone deciding.

A password manager, or at minimum, unique passwords on email and banking, written down and stored securely. See password managers.

Two-factor authentication on email and banking — set up on their device, with the backup codes on paper where they can find them, not where you can. See two-factor authentication.

Silence unknown callers. Removes most nuisance calls in one setting.

Transaction notifications on their banking app, so a fraudulent payment is visible in seconds. See banking on a phone.

Medical ID and emergency contacts on the lock screen.

A legacy contact on their phone and email accounts. Awkward to raise and much easier now than later. See what happens to your accounts.

The family word, agreed with everyone, for emergency calls. See the family emergency call.

Remote access, carefully

Screen-sharing tools let you see their screen and, in some cases, control it.

Useful, and use the built-in options — the screen share in a video call, or Apple's and Google's own tools. Not a third-party remote access product.

Never leave permanent remote access installed. It is exactly what fraudsters ask people to install, and having it already present makes a scam call easier rather than harder.

Tell them explicitly: "I will never phone and ask you to install something. If anyone does, it is a fraud, including if they say they are me."

The conversation about money and independence

The hardest part, and worth getting right.

Do not share credentials. If a parent needs help with finances, banks offer proper arrangements — joint access, third-party mandates, power of attorney. They are designed for this, they leave a record, and they are reversible. Shared passwords are none of those things.

Being defrauded is not evidence of incapacity. These are professional operations that catch competent, careful people, and treating a loss as a reason to take over is both unfair and counterproductive — it guarantees the next one is concealed.

If they have been targeted, the first thing you say determines whether you hear about the next one. Start with "thank you for telling me." Everything else can follow.

For the recurring calls

Keep a note of what you fixed, with the date. The same problem recurring monthly is a settings issue, not a memory issue, and it usually has a permanent fix.

Ask whether the device is the problem. Sometimes it genuinely is — a phone too old to update, a screen too small, a computer that has needed replacing for two years. See when to replace a phone.

Consider whether something simpler would help, without assuming it. A large-button phone, a tablet instead of a laptop, a printed list of steps. Ask; do not decide.

The sentence worth saying

"Call me about anything, especially if you think you might have got something wrong."

Said in advance, repeated occasionally, and meant. It costs nothing and it is the thing that makes you the person they call when someone phones claiming to be from the bank — which is the call that actually matters.

For additional public information on everyday cybersecurity, see Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.