As I am seeing my son grow up, I am asking myself what every parent must wonder: how to spend quality time with him.
This came to my mind this morning; I promised my son that we would build a light house in Minecraft, as seen in one of the gaming guides. But first we would go for some time in nature. As I was running along the coast line, my son (he is 9) cycling next to me, he must have confirmed 4 times to me “Later we are going to build a light house together, right?”.
It struck me a something very important to him. You must know, that I am not the gaming type. Far from it. I prefer to spend most of my free time in nature, running, cycling, hiking, meditating. When not in nature, I like to have meaningful conversations with people or immerse myself in art or books of any kind.
For years I tried to get my son enthusiastic about these things, my biggest competitor being computer games. This usually leads to some form of bribery: you first go cycling with me and then we game together.
This is something most parents must experience, but the enthusiasm my son showed in doing something together on the computer, triggered a thought: are we staring ourselves blind on the medium (real versus virtual world), while missing the underlying experience (eg creative expression and exploration)?
This question can be broadened: “how does one generation connect with the next?”, or “how do older managers connect to younger colleagues?”.
In order to explore this query, lets start of with a bit of nurture: I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. A time in which childhood (my personal experience) was often simple. Parents fed you, clothed you, sent you to school and punished you when you did something wrong. TV was black and white, computers were very rare. Play time was outside with friends, using whatever materials you could find because at home there was hardly anything fun to do. Playing was with friends as parents were serious and busy.
For our parent , who grew up during or just after the war, this applied even more: parents had to work hard, material wealth was scarce, clothes were passed down from older siblings and emotions were rarely spoken about. Although, at least they had many siblings and cousins to play with, often living under one roof.
These days most households (in Singapore at least) are single family, with one or two children, older parents with more wealth and a domestic helper so that free time can be mostly spent with the children. Playtime with other kids after school is organized in play dates and hence not every day. Emotions and carefully monitored by parents and teachers and the virtual world in omnipresent in the life of both parent and child.
For years I have resisted embracing virtual activities for my son. It was surely better to be outdoors and admire the beauty of nature or play a board game? Surely there are people that managed to inspire their kids to the degree that they have little screen time and prefer a puzzle, but I don’t know many.
Broaden that thought: for years I have held my generation’s upbringing for “superior” to the current one. True enough I am responsible for that upbringing, but surely this is all the fault of TV, Internet and the gaming industry? And it is somehow disappointing to see children find an interactive expo for children on spacecraft only ok but they are wondering when they can back to their game or TV.
This mornings experience taught me that the current generation of youth ARE enthusiastic about some of the same things that inspired us: they love to build in Minecraft, explore in Zelda, Breath of the Wild, style their personalities in Sims and solve complex problems in Pokemon. And they are keen to do that with us as parents as much as with their friends.
Staring ourselves blind on the medium does not help: virtual is here to stay (Meta incoming) and my generation should get on with integrating it in our lives. Clearly boundaries should be set, especially in terms of time spent in the virtual world, because if anything the boundaries between the virtual and real world must not blur in the developing minds of kids. In the real world, we can get hurt, but physically and emotionally and they need to experience this.
That is why a balance should be struck with physical activities, whether it is sports or just being outdoors. We should get sand in our underwear, mud on our face and ant bites on our ankles. And we should learn to be resilient to this.
This brings me to yet a broader underlying theme: resilience and one of its main drivers, neuroplasticity. Worth mentioning here that I hold no claim to being an expert or professional in either of these topics and I encourage experts in this fields to chime into this discussion and correct me where needed.
True enough neuroplasticity typically decreases with age as we become less adaptable to changes and new experiences. Yet my generation often calls the next generation the strawberry generation: easy to bruise, iow less resilient and less adaptable to change. Given their younger age, they should be better adapted to chance.
There are a few factors at play here:
· The current generation’s childhood development is more closely managed. This often prevents some of the disastrous parenting mistakes we experienced (not infrequently, I hear people sharing stories of emotional scars from their parents stating they were found at the garbage area), but also takes away many opportunities to make mistakes or get hurt. Learning from mistakes and getting hurt sticks better and also gives us the invaluable experience that mistakes are usually no disaster but a growth opportunity.
· There is more attention for the children’s emotional wellbeing, which is a good thing, but in combination with the first factor, can lead to situations where the child doesn’t learn how to self-regulate their emotions.
· The current education is vastly better than ours when we grew up. This means current younger generations have a much better knowledge foundation then we had, growing up. This is largely beneficial to them, provided it doesn’t lead to too much pressure (such as in Korea, where cramming schools take away the childhood of many young).
· Much of the education doesn’t actually focus of practicality but rather on theoretical knowledge, tested in controlled environments. There is little opportunity (or need for) improv until a student joins the workforce.
· Because on the internet 24-7 in the palm of our hands and ample travel opportunities (until the outbreak of Covid 19), the choices for the next generations are legion: where to live, what to study, where to work, what sports to do and who to befriend? So many choices that it leaves many young lost and confused.
· Social Media have created an unrealistic benchmark for social life; If you don’t party at the best clubs, dine at the best restaurants, drive the best cars and travel the best destinations, you have failed. People tell each other at ever younger age the the should have achieved this by now. (when I grew up, getting in a plane was for millionaires).
From this I am drawing a few conclusions for raising my son and interacting with younger generation colleagues and friends:
· I want to focus on intrinsic values of creative expression and exploration, rather than on the medium (bike ride vs Minecraft)
· I want to focus a certain amount of time looking people in the eyes, rather than staring at a screen together.
· Having grown up in a world that has internet, the next generations will understand things and see connections much faster than we will. I want to strengthen my own neuroplasticity by trying to keep up with them.
· I want to help the next generation with my own experience on how to build resilience and a sense of practical problem solving and decision making.
· I will make it my purpose in life to show the next generations (starting with my son), how to be happy, independent of external factors.
