To wonder how people will parent in 30 years...

[Oakenbeach]

I’m mid-40s and remember when smacking, even in school, was accepted, back seat belts were optional, let alone car seats, and bike helmets just didn’t exist.... it got me thinking where we’ll be in 30 years or so if things continue as they are. I’m thinking:

It will be mandatory for children to wear safety helmets and an assortment of pads when taking part in any physical activity at school. Parents who don’t dress their kids to go out will run the risk of zealots reporting them to SS

It will be expected that you supervise your children up and down stairs until the age of at least 12.

Chocolate and sweets will be treated like tobacco is today.... sharing a mouthful of cake with their children will be a safeguarding matter

Telling your child to do anything, even calmly, will be decried as abusive by many, as “you’d never tell an adult to do anything!”. Asking politely, whatever the circumstances, will be the only acceptable way to get a child to do anything. Teachers will risk the sack if they don’t.

School will live-stream lessons to parents, who will be able to berate th teacher in real time if they don’t pander to their child’s every need, no matter how rude the child.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 30 years there was a new word to describe children that was gender neutral.

The word children already is gender neutral

I think we might have reached peak loonytunes and I have hopes that the future might be less insane than today.

As for the idea that ‘you wouldn’t talk to an adult like that’ 😂

Ive never had that one yet but I expect anyone saying that is precisely the kind of adult I would talk 'like that' to.

There are a few very touchy people but most people aren’t mad.

Think every child will start therapy for mental health issues from the age of two.

elliejjtiny

I think cars will be built with the rear seat facing backwards as standard so that extended rear facing until they can drive themselves will be the norm.

What you're describing there is Gerry Anderson's Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle from the 1968 TV series, Captain Scarlet!

lester.demon.nl/superm/scarlet/spv.html

Scroll down to the second picture and read the entry on "driving position" and you'll see your view of the future come to life.

Telling your child to do anything, even calmly, will be decried as abusive by many, as “you’d never tell an adult to do anything!”. Asking politely, whatever the circumstances, will be the only acceptable way to get a child to do anything. Teachers will risk the sack if they don’t.

This would be funny if it wasn't so depressingly accurate.

I think aspects of permissiveness and authoritarianism are always present in every parenting generation. It's just that the focus changes.

For example, my DM's generation (born 1950) experienced smacking but also had incredible freedom of movement. They played out where they wanted from dawn till dusk.

By contrast, I was hardly smacked but my movement was more monitored and I was encouraged to read story books, which was a real no-no for the children of my grandmother's generation (they were thought back then to make your child silly and were perceived as immoral). The panic was over TV watching when I was a child whereas, today, it's about social media.

So it's swings and roundabouts.

I think parenting will be about how to eat and find shelter in a world wrecked by climate change.

Well,judging by some of the parenting that I have witnessed over the last couple of years,I would imagine that kids will be allowed to do what they want,when they want,with absolutely no regard as to how it affects anyone else,and woe betide anyone who complains.

It'd be great to grow up during a permissive period and live your adulthood in an authoritarian one. Unfortunately I and the rest of my generation did the opposite.

Same. Was a child in the 80s when adults were put first, now a parent when children are put first. But I don't think I could actually bring myself to treat my kids the way my parents treated me - I know that makes me sound like a martyr, I'm not. But I have empathy for my children and their emotions. Though I expect my parents thought they were doing the best thing for me when they did CIO from birth, told me I wouldn't be bullied if I just stopped being weird etc..

Sales of cotton wool and bubble wrap will be at an all time high.

Sleeping in cribs will be seen as barbaric and dangerous, with children only allowed to sleep from elaborate hanging contraptions that keep the child in an upside-down position similar to the position they maintained as a fetus. Breech babies will protest, but it's the only way to get the proper bloodflow maintained to the brain!

Pregnant women will only be allowed to consume a nutritional slurry, which will actually have contamination problems more frequently than other foods, but people will give them dirty looks if they so much as look at fresh fish or veg while expecting.

The chips installed in children will be partnered to a chip in parents' heads, and will start a loud whining noise if your child is more than 20 feet away from either parent. The noise will grow louder as the child's distance from you rises, until at 100 feet an alert will be issued to the police and to the chips of everyone around you, so that you can take your child back.

In all seriousness, I truly believe the rapid increase in standards for parenting is a way to continue curbing population growth. Make the whole endeavor unpleasant, expensive, and time-consuming enough and no one will think it's worth the effort.

They won't need to go to school. Anything they need to know will be downloaded onto the chips in their brains.

I think children of today will be stricter with their children than many are now. Not abusive, but firm.

I don't think children of today will be stricter parents at all. I think they'll be even softer. I think it will be awful.

@Blessingsdragon1 yes I was going to say this is all very optimistic. I was thinking lessons in purifying water and what to do if your baby sister chokes while your mum's out looting the remaining burned out shells of houses.

@Mookatron - I'm sad that no matter how loud scientists shout there is this blissful cognitive dissonance as shown by this frankly smug thread.

I think most parents will parent in the many ways they do today

(Excpetc for a certain type of Mumsnet parent who will be even more perfect than they are today)

I'm with Blessingsdragon1. Kids will be inside with air purifiers on because the pollution will be too much and asthma will be a normal part of childhood. Life won't be possible without air conditioning in many places and water and food will be scarce. Parents will be too stressed thinking about whether to migrate to whatever temperate place is left, to worry about parenting methods.

Hilarious that people think POLLUTION in the air will make everything so very different.

The air today is so much cleaner than in 1900 or 1850 it would shock you. Yet somehow children played outside!

Actually there is so much research now showing that not letting children take risks or have freedom is linked to anxiety and depression in teenagers that I think and hope it will go the other way.

^

On the back of this

globalnews.ca/news/4994206/children-are-calmer-more-focused-rough-play-at-recess-being-tested-in-some-quebec-schools/

being chipped would actually be a good thing?

No it bloody wouldn't, and I say this as an anxious parent!
Sounds like it'd feed me more, checking up on them, instead of distracting.
Plus..... they're people, not dogs! Can't imagine putting a chip in my teen and nearly teen for example. Jeez, I'd have hated that if it was my parents doing that to me!

School will live-stream lessons to parents, who will be able to berate the teacher in real time if they don’t pander to their child’s every need, no matter how rude the child.

My friend (in America) sends her kid to a nursery that does this. She has the live-stream playing on her computer at work all day. I remember her going bananas once when she saw another kid snatch her kids toy and the staff didn't notice. She phoned them up and bollocked them, then watched to make sure the toy was returned. She thinks this is a super system.

I was wondering if they might start live streaming schools if Brexit goes badly. I live in Kent and the council has warned schools may have to close due to congestion. If no one can get to work it seems like a sensible thing to do.

After my egg and my partners sperm have been introduced in a lab I will wait 18 years. After which a person will appear at my door with perfect manners saying “hello mother, may I do some housework”