Generation Next

I’m sitting in the Clancy Auditorium, attending the Generation Next. It was not quite my idea if how to spend a Saturday night, but we felt it important to come and listen. The auditorium seems full of parents from a particular class, even though I know that there are other teachers around as well (Pats sent their pastoral team – good move).

There seems to be an undercurrent of the self-help industry in the foyer: buy the book because you don’t know how to parent properly (well, sometimes that’s true). I think there is an appalling tendency to look at kids in the modern world and assume, because the experience of kids today is different, that it is somehow worse. Parents have a quite unreasonable expectation that they should be in control of their children’s present and future. Then again, parenting is the last form of underpaid unskilled labour – no qualifications required.

Perhaps what has changed is the immediacy of the sensations offered by ICT. This is all strange and new. As Michael Carr-Gregg points out, most kids are ok and really doing well in the modern world. He goes on to talk about the centrality of the family – I wonder whether we should be talking families rather than kids, because we so often go back to families when looking at problems in adolescence. Is it, I wonder, significant that we can now diagnose depression and other mental illness and DO something about it? Does this in fact increase our anxiety?

I think it is great that so many parents and teachers have come to the event. The information is great — as he says, raising emotional literacy — but it points to a yawning insecurity among parents. When did we become so impotent?  Perhaps it is that we are aware that so much can be done so simply. Manage access to drugs and alcohol, become aware of the BeyondBlue tools, work on relationships with our teenagers… Apparently so simple…

“I want you to become the world expert in your teenager”. Great quote.

Liked the cyber-safety person – Susan McLean – and the way she defines the problem. She recognises that kids don’t see technology in the same way: an appendage, not a tool. Turning off the computer is not the solution. This dissuaded kids from coming to you with a bad experience.
Facts:

• 10,000 children per week are cyber-bullied.
• May be as high as 50%
• Prevalence of “sexting” (69% in teenagers) as young as year 7.
• Kids don’t get the scope of the net – huge gap between technical skill and cognitive development
• Cyberspace is not age appropriate
• Appropriate use: kids don’t do balance well. Addiction can happen when use or access excludes all else.
• Social networking is the primary form of social interaction
• pressure to conform
• Some behaviours can be illegal (sexting can be manufacture child pornography)
• ICT and cyberspace are the only areas that parents cannot use experience to guide students.

The advice on usage (no computer in bedroom, contract, consequences, filters) was best expressed by the idea of parent involvement. As I have been telling parents for years, shoulder surf. I wonder if the advice on computers in bedrooms is working: what we need is almost a family workroom. is this practical?

Julie Gale was entertaining and interesting on the sexualisation of children. Funny and irreverent but scathing on the Advertising Standards Board – whose excuses for allowing sexualised ads and billboards are very sad. Her message is that action by consumers can limit the exposure of teenagers to this stuff, but they need to know. It adds to the pressure on parents. Standards, however, are hard to manage. Her advice: keep your cynicism alive and well. I’m a bit stunned by how sexualised young women are in the media: we become so blasé about it through overexposure.

Paul Dillon spoke in quite positive terms about drug and alcohol issues. We fail to recognise that young people are not taking drugs as rule. Most teens don’t drink to excess in greater numbers. Drug taking is a habit that peaks in the Thirties. Very few people use drugs.
Two drugs buck the trend: ecstasy and coke. Cannabis in particular is falling. Ice is a problem for injecting drug users.
Because many teenagers do not drink, this needs to be acknowledged (by teachers too). The pool of teenage drinkers has shrunk but they are drinkng more, younger. And they are drinking Vodka.

The real issues are around personal safety. This is best addressed through parental communication. Make sure kids know safety rules. Some great guidelines on setting up expectations and consequences.
But make sure they know how to behave and how to call for help.

Wendy Protheroe – Kids Help Line
Main concerns of kids remain relationships in families. Mental health issues and bullying have grown rapidly. Importance of working with kids to ensure they know how to find help.

Sally Cockburn – Issues from a GP’s perspective
1. Too many unwanted pregnancies
2. STDs, especially chlamydia
3. Coercive sex
Need for a healthy and positive approach to sex. Cf “The Sexual and Reproductive Health of Young Victorians”

• There is no right age for the talk.
• Rate of teenage pregnancy and teenage abortion falling.
• Roll of GPs in helping parents communicate – if the parents work with GPs.
• Most have contraception at first intercourse. Rate of contraception and safe sex rising.
• Roll of sexual health literacy. Three Rs: Respect, Responsibility, and Risk Management.
• Problems with the media and social media. Not enough positive messages.
• Teenage sexual behaviours – a worry, especially in girls, because driven by peer acceptance not relationships.

I don’t know that I heard facts that were entirely new, but the packaging was a positive message about young people, reinforcing my own positive feelings about them. Given the demonisation of teenagers in the media, it was good to see some very public professionals getting out there and showing what their real needs are: mostly to be loved and appreciated for what they have achieved, and cared for in the real needs. Thank God, perhaps some parents might realise they can’t parent by proxy.