RU ready 4 it? Your child leaving home, that is. If so, it is time to flex your fingers and thumbs and introduce yourself to the joy of text - the ideal way to communicate with absent offspring.

In our student days, of course, communication was very tricky. No student flat ever had a phone. Once a week, I would reluctantly drag myself out to the phone box at the end of the street and ring home, reversing the charges, of course. The rest of the time my parents would write to me but - o horrible child - I would very rarely write back.

I was not alone. One flat mate regularly had telegrams from her parents. RING HOME STOP MOTHER VERY WORRIED it would say. Rumours were that some anxious parents actually sent the police to check on one negligent son from whom they had not heard all term.

Now we can speak to our children any time anywhere. Mobiles have changed the world. Communication is easy - a bit too easy.

You might ring and find your baby sitting alone and miserable in his room, longing to hear from home. On the other hand, you are far more likely to catch him in a clinch with a girlfriend or in the pub with his mates. On neither occasion will he be inclined to chat with his mum.

Especially if mother's conversation veers - as mothers' conversations sadly tend to - towards nagging. Who cares about the meningitis jab, the fresh orange juice, the clean sheets or the loan form when there is a life to lead?

And yet...

Do you remember when you used to take them to mother and toddler group? For 99 per cent of the time, they would hare round like lunatics, utterly involved in their play, or beating each other up, and totally ignoring their mothers' presence.

And then something would happen and a child would run over and stand by a mother's knee for no more than a minute. Then, reassured by this brief contact, they would toddle off into the fray again.

Well, it's like that for students. They don't want you around, don't want you nagging at them or breathing down their necks at every moment, don't even want to talk to you that much. But, like those suddenly anxious toddlers, they need to know you're there before they can launch themselves into the world again.

My father used to send me postcards, with utterly meaningless messages. "I don't know why I'm sending you this," would be the full extent of a typical missive. But when I got it I could imagine him in his office writing it and it would be a brief reassuring link with home. I would stick the card in my back pocket as I went about my day and it was actually very comforting. A sort of semi-detached communication.

Text messages serve a similar purpose. They remind your children of your existence, which can be important. And that you're thinking of them, which is vital. They also give you the chance of a long distance nag without getting into one of those "Oh Mother per-lease" conversations - the sort you always swore you would never have with your children.

So you can ask how the dissertation's going, remind them about Granny's birthday, inquire when they might be coming home, all without the slightest chance of petulance.

Or, when Senior Son left half his stuff at home, I could text "don't get excited by parcel, it's only knickers." and save the poor lad getting disappointed.

But no system is perfect.

Not having heard from Senior Son for a week or more and getting a tiny bit anxious, I sent him a message. "R U alive?" I wrote, "If not, please say Y not."

He didn't reply. My minor concern was in danger of becoming a major panic. Then he rang.

"Sorry about that," he said cheerfully, "but I left my phone in a mate's car and he'd gone home for the weekend."

When it comes to boys, there are some situations that are beyond even new technology.

Published: 30/05/2002