What happens when your daughter messages you with lol written at the end? If you are a baby boomer parent you will feel so happy that she has sent “Lots of love”. And then you discover all this time when you were overjoyed at her expressing her love for you, it actually meant “laugh out loud”. That is precisely why communication with Gen Z or Gen Alpha is so rare and miscommunication is so common.
Every parent finds it challenging to bring up children in times that are different from their childhood. Every era seems to be more difficult than before. Generation Z is perhaps justifiably being termed as tough. Given the fast pace of changes all around us, it is but natural that kids belonging to this era have become an enigma for parents.
Statista 2024 shows that the biggest problem in today’s households is family values. 24.4 percent people feel there is a decline in the value of a family followed closely by 24.2 percent people feeling that the absence in communication is causing serious family rifts. This is something that is not just affecting families but carries on in marriages and workplaces causing a very disturbed social and professional environment.
A disturbed household produces instability in life and work. That adds to financial pressures leading to more domestic violence and sickness and suicides.
As they say the childhood traumas never lets go especially when no healing effort is being made.
In Pakistan, the upper class is busy following the west in loading their children with material soothers rather than emotional comforts and the lower class is busy producing children that are left to grow without a plan or purpose. The squeezed middle class is now facing huge financial and environmental pressures to preserve the bygone values of respect, and integrity, etc.
Is this a big challenge? Yes. Is it irreversible? No. Let us see some reversible strategies that need to happen to deal with this disruption going on in the most important relationships in life.
1- Change or be changed— The classic resistance to change is all too present in the generational gap. Children born and bred in this century are witnessing changes of greater magnitude and scale. Parents of today must accept two realities. One, that the type of changes that their children have seen are unprecedented. Social media, COVID, inflation, etc, are all phenomena that are either unique or much more acute than before.
Children today are over-informed and over-exposed. They have seen two years of the world shutdown. They have experienced months on end of being caged in their homes. They have seen death all around them. They have witnessed their parents becoming more and more irritable over costs and expenses. This is not exactly the most conducive environment to make them feel happy, healthy, and safe to express themselves.
Parents, on other hand, blame them for being selfish, addicted to social media and not making enough effort. Parents must taking ownership. They must stop comparing their children to their own childhood.
Children are neither to be blamed for the environment they are born into nor for the environment the parents themselves give them. Telling them how as children they themselves did not have access to ACs or cars or phones is futile. Most of these things have been provided to them by parents themselves.
Try to become less of a lecturer and more of a person who is seeking to understand rather than always making them feel terrible. Do not make them feel odd one out, rather, express fascination in their knowledge and interests. Be patient and be empathetic.
2- Do not change or be changed— While all the above changes need to be made, some things need not change. Let them play their own tunes but within boundaries. The boundaries need to be based on values and principles. Principles of respect and responsibility need to be explained and more so practiced by the parents.
As they say children do not follow what you say, they follow what the parents do. Parents must from a very early age inculcate a culture that highlights the values they want the children to follow.
The problem is that many parents are displaying behaviour that sponsors materialism and show. They feel that by providing all the comforts to their children they will have their obedience and discipline.
The opposite happens. Children, due to parent’s own upbringing are much more demanding than in previous eras. They are also looking around and seeing a rat race of shortcuts that takes the most undeserving to the top. That is why the role of parents to keep pegging at principles has to increase. That is why parents cannot just talk the talk but have to walk the talk. That is why parents have to start early with laying down non-negotiable values and not wait till it is too late.
3- Re-adjustment for mutual trust and engagement— The first thing parents have to learn is to treat them with respect rather than ridicule. Do not mock them. Do not compare them with other siblings or friends. Do not dismiss them. Ask them, not order them. It is some fine-tuning of words that needs to be done. Rather than saying “You are wasting your time. Stop this. Start studying as your exams are starting”.
Ask them, “What do you think is the best way of preparing for your exams?” Let them suggest. They may not want to talk about it, but if you are patient and sincere in encouraging them and bringing them to the topic, they will come around on it.
Appreciate their ideas. Let them design a plan. Children love to be treated like an adult. Make them your partner in small things like baking a cake or buying a household thing. Be transparent about yourself. This generation does not like things hidden.
Share information about your plans as earnestly and honestly as possible. If children are small, involve them in gardening and plants. Let them dirty themselves but let them water the plant daily so that they get a sense of responsibility and achievement.
The real challenge is not to provide for them in this inflationary environment but the real challenge is to instill values and principles in them that are now unaffordable for people in a race for more and more. It is the absence of these human values that is creating a disconnect in relationships.
Families are focusing too much on the outside world and too little that exists in the houses. Spending more time listening to your children, playing with them their silly games, answering their irritating questions and developing their passions will give a much higher return in their upbringing than just buying the latest toy or gadget for them.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
The writer is a columnist, consultant, coach, and an analyst and can be reached at [email protected]
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