The Challenges Of Being A Parent In The 21st Century

We all remember being children, looking at our parents in disbelief at the oversights, misunderstandings and plain daft ways they behaved towards us. At the time we promised ourselves that one day we’d show them just how it should be done. So here we all are, wondering where on earth it all went wrong. Our children are now shaking their heads at us whilst looking sadly at their pitiful parents, almost certainly promising themselves that one day they’d show us how it should be done. Such is the comedy of life. The truth is that being a parent is never easy, and there have always been dangers, traditions, expectations, risks and issues that have had to be tackled. However, the biggest challenge parents have always faced is that the world into which they bring their children is not the same as the familiar world of their own childhood, and this is where the problems start.

The biggest change in the world which we as parents can see is the introduction and proliferation of computer equipment and technology. As young children ourselves, some of us would have had some experience of innocent little units that could do relatively little, others of us had no experience at all - it was another world. Today, we are bringing our children up in a world we could not possibly have imagined, and seems as far removed from our own childhood as is possible to conceive. Whereas we spent hours riding round on empty streets on our bikes, our children are stuck indoors mesmerised by the images on their computer screen. Our challenges involved cycling all the way down the hill as fast as we could, our children’s seems to be to unlock the secrets of the Shrine of D’Gaarn or kill as many Wailing Jarpees as possible in the hope of a good drop. If this leaves you cold, or dazed, then welcome to the club.

Of course, no one is going to suggest that simply because we are the generation of parents that we somehow lost all ability to cope with life in the 21st century - we can, most of us, use a computer perfectly well, and see it as a handy tool for sending emails, looking stuff up on the internet, maybe even creating letters or a graph. But perhaps it’s simply who we are as a generation, but the appeal of posting our intimate secrets on the internet for the whole globe to see is lost on us. We shred any personal documents or bank statements before burying them deep within the depths of our bins, and hate the idea of photographs of us being owned by anyone. Yet our children seem quite happy to publish embarrassing photographs and stories for all to see. They talk about friends, but have never met them, and this even challenges our definition of friend. To us, a friend is someone we are close to, hang out with, and spend time with. Our children’s friends seem to be distant, with the only interaction taking place in a virtual world.

Naturally, with so many news stories about the terrible things that happen as a result of the internet, with people masquerading as children in an attempt to lure them into meeting up in the real world, and then never seen again. If you have considered the idea of simply binning the computer and saving a lot of trouble, you certainly wouldn’t be the first parent, or the only one to have such concerns.

But the truth is that it is not the computer which is dangerous, and the internet is not an enemy or something dark and subterranean that we should, or could, avoid. Every day we take many risks that could potentially endanger our lives. We drive a tonne of metal at sixty miles an hour just feet from other lumps of metal coming the other way, and accept this as perfectly normal. We stand far more chance of being killed driving on the road than we do of encountering danger on the internet. The difference is both in perception, and understanding. We perceive danger in the internet largely because of a lack of understanding, but because we understand the nature of the risks of driving, we see less danger. We wouldn’t drive on the motorway blindfolded, because we’d almost certainly be killed. Being voluntarily blinded to the risks of the internet not only increases our perception of the danger, but the actual level of risk involved.

It’s important, therefore, that we appreciate what the real risks are when using the internet, because the more we know and understand what the real risks and dangers are, the better we can help inform and advise our children. If we allow them to take advantage of the incredible technologies that surround us, but hold their hand through the learning stages, then we are all far more likely to come out the other side unscathed. If you can understand more about chat rooms, messenger clients, profiles and online games, then there will be more of a chance to chat with our children about what they are doing. We all accept, I’m sure, that we can’t ban them from living in the 21st century, and so we have to accept that, just as we had to learn the dangers of the road, which was not an issue back in our own parents’ or grandparents’ days, our children have to be taught the dangers of life on the digital highway.

In just the same way that we tell children not to talk to strangers, not to accept sweets from people they don’t know, not to go out alone, but to stay with a friend, to report anyone acting strangely, and other basics to help them stay safe when out and about in our own neighbourhoods, making sure that they realise that people they communicate with on the internet have the advantage of anonymity and can disguise themselves far more easily online than they could in real life. A 12 year old boy your child bumps into at the park is clearly exactly that - he needs no further proof to back up his claim, and is therefore probably quite safe as a friend. However, someone online who claims to be a 12 year old boy has only words to prove it, and a photo which could easily be lifted from any of the billions of sources on the internet.

There are other methods besides education which can be used, such as filtering software, monitoring software to record all chat logs, and software that can limit or restrict either the websites accessed or the times at which they can be accessed. Not allowing computers in the bedroom is another good tactic - if the computer is somewhere public, such as the living room, then it is less likely that your child will take risks, and it gives you the parent the chance to have a look at what they’re doing, express an interest, and learn more about the world they live in. Your child is more likely to talk to you about what they’re doing if you seem interested. Whilst restrictions, software and spy-like monitoring can help, at the end of the day, it has to be about your relationship with them, and the real world communication that takes place.