Several years ago I attended a session
at a teaching conference on how to teach millenials. I'll be honest.
Like most teachers I lamented the detriments of the millenial world.
I had developed the habit of considering the millenial culture a
drawback for my students. And so I was impressed and challenged by
the positivity of the session speaker. Instead of looking down on the
millenials and their world, she asked how we could teach them in it.
She explained how the brain makes connections as it experiences the
same things over and over and for this reason, millenials' brains
were fundamentally different from ours. They were growing up in a
different time and technology had made huge impacts on their brains.
To ask them to stop being who they were was to ask them to deny all
the connections their brains had made, an impossible task. Instead of
doing this, she challenged us to work with
millenials, to encourage the positive parts of their world and to
help them when they faced the negative parts of their world. Instead
of focusing on complaining about the millenial world and mind, she
challenged us to work with them and through our teaching to
strengthen students' weaknesses in a way that worked with their
brains.
The
session I attended revolutionized the way I taught millenials. I
realized how negative I had been in my thought patterns. I determined
to stop seeing millenials as their own worst enemy and to start
finding ways to educate in their
world. After all, the speaker was right. Their world wasn't my world
and it never would be.
Ever
since I had my first baby I've read article after article lamenting
the current state of childhood. Adults complain and chastise and put
down pretty much every aspect of current childhood. They reminisce
about their own childhood, about how their children are "missing"
it. And I admit, I did the same. Until one day it hit me: my
childhood will never
be my children's childhood.
Lamenting
parents are doing the same thing that I did in my classroom. They are
looking on their children's world with disdain and negativity. They
see their children's world as detriment and their children as flawed
because of it. Or if they don't, they certainly are told to do so by
article after article and "expert" after "expert."
A lot
of this lamentation occurs on social media. My generation posts
photos of 80s bands and 80s songs and 80s toys and 80s experiences.
My generation claims we never stepped foot indoors and we were always
respectful of our parents. We talk about how we didn't have cell
phones or personal computers or the internet. Is it wrong to
reminisce? No. Is it wrong to look down on our children because they
aren't having our experiences? Yes!
You see, that's the
error in "the good old days." We don't think the good old
days are good just because we grew up in them. We think they are good
because they are superior to our children's days. But in
talking about them so we are sending a message to our children: your
world isn't good enough. Your world is awful. You have so many
problems because you live in your world.
But you know what?
I don't think our childhood was as good as we make it sound. We've
got selective memories. We never stepped foot indoors? Sure we did! I
remember movies I watched over and over. I remember stories I made up
with my stuffed animals. I remember tea parties. I remember
television shows. I remember homework at the kitchen table. In fact,
I was inside a good deal. Maybe some of you actually did have parents
that threw you outside 100% of the time, but I'm guessing a lot of
you did do things indoors. And you know what? When computers showed
up in the 90s, I, gasp!, played computer games!
We were always
respectful of our parents? Yeah, right. Sometimes it took something
to get that respect, and even then, we sneered behind their backs.
Anyone who tells me they were always respectful I know is a liar. We
rebelled, too. I wasn't a major rebel, but I certainly had my share
of thinking I knew better than my parents. We can't claim some moral
superiority over our kids.
We didn't have cell
phones or personal computers or the internet, but we sure like to
remind people of that while using cell phones and personal computers
and the internet. We may not have grown up with them, but we've
embraced them. We've embraced them at the same time we chastise our
kids for growing up in a world with them. Our kids will never know
a world without them. And we blame our children for growing up using
them when they were born into a world saturated in them.
Our kids cannot
stop living in the world they live in. Here's the truth: our children
will never have our experiences. Our children will never
live in the 80s or the 90s. So can we please stop asking them to?
As a parent, I am
challenged, just as I was at the teacher's conference. I can grump
and grumble and complain about my child's world or I can shut off my
doom and gloom and step into her world. I can ask myself questions
that help me help her: How can I encourage my child to engage her
world? How can I make the most of the world she's growing up in? How
can I enter into her world? How can I make her childhood positive and
not make it sound like she's failing because she happened to be born
when she did?
Are there negatives
in my child's world? Absolutely. There were in mine, too. And so I
also ask how I can help her navigate those negatives. But I also need
to guard against making everything in her world negative when it
isn't. I need to teach her how to use technology responsibly, not
blame technology for all her problems. I need to help her discern
what media is worth spending time on instead of going on a diatribe
against video games. I need to join in her indoor activities and see
their value instead of telling her how she would be better if she
just went outside. (Yes, I'm still going to take her outside, but I'm
not going to make outside superior to everything she does inside).
Parents, can we
stop fighting our children's brains and let them be who they are? Can
we join them instead of fighting them? Can we be their advocates
instead of their critics? I challenge you to reflect, to admit your
own negative views of your children's childhood and to look for the
positive and embrace it. I think our children would feel a lot better
about themselves if they didn't keep hearing how they are doomed
because of the happenstance of being born in the "wrong time and
place."
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