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.

@oblomov19 my DD6 has made it very clear on several occasions that when she has children they will be allowed to do whatever they want and never get in trouble for anything they do .

Good Luck to her I say haha.

I am not sure people will be having children or if they are they may not be thinking too much about iPads and chocolate when there is global war due to climate change :(

There will be no schools as nobody will want to work in them, so children will go into a two tier system - those with a stay home parent to care for them and those who don't who I think will roam the streets causing trouble.

I think I'm with @blessingsdragon1 on this one.
While I don't think our society will quite be post apocalyptic, I do think that people will be looking to go back to a "simpler" way of living. I'm seeing a future where parents are incredibly private and refuse to share photos of their children online publicly without their consent, as a direct result of the sheer amount of baby photos their parents posted of them and shared with the whole world.
Parents that will refuse to use mobile phones or handheld devices, because they remember their parents being tied to the little black screens.
I reckon we're probably in for a war soon, and there may be food restrictions and rations.

"
Same. Was a child in the 80s when adults were put first, now a parent when children are put first."
I was a child in the 80s as we're my cousins and I don't think my childhood was very different from my dcs. Some things were different but the adults in our lives weren't that strict and holidays and days out tended to revolve round what would be nice for us. We certainly weren't smacked.

I am quite glad that children huave much more safeguarding now.

I was a child in the 60s, in a sprawling poverty stricken council estate.
From the age of 3 kids wreturned outside like dogs and roamed free with other children. We would go home when we were hungry.
A lot of mishaps and accidents happened.
I saw lots of childen injured, hit by cars, falling off play equipment, we played with asbestos, would eat dicarded food in the street, older kids would make younger ones do daredevil stunts for amusement.
I saw several children hospitalised with injuries, a gash to the leg crushing, head injuries.

For the parents they seemed to think it was the norm.

I shudder when I think of the risks that we were subject to.

I am very glad that this is not common practice today.

I like the protection we have for children.

It is horrendous, it is going to raise such entitled generations, new parents saying they don't agree in saying no to a child and gaining consent for everything! A woman in a baby group online the other day was given abuse for cutting her son's hair when he cried? Apparently at two he should be able to choose the length of his hair! Children will be addicted to bad food after parents not allowing them any, I have given my baby occasional treats since 6 months but some mums don't even give kids birthday cakes as sugar is evil! I honestly don't know where it will end! A woman I know returned a pink bike they got as a gift as it was offensive BUT I'm sure if she had a little boy not a little girl she would have kept the bike!

I wonder with internet groups for everything are parenting approaches going to be more divided, the old school parents, the attachment parents, the tiger parents, the gentle parents

So because we don't want our kids to be thrown from the car in the event of an accident, and we don't want to give permission to strangers to slap them about, they themselves will make their kids wear helmets and padding to play rounders with their friends?

I don't know if YABU, but you are being ridiculous. Hopefully it's intentional and some kind of bad satire.

There will be court cases because a teacher had a pirate on a boys peg which has resulted in him being traumatised him for life.....

So because we don't want our kids to be thrown from the car in the event of an accident, and we don't want to give permission to strangers to slap them about, they themselves will make their kids wear helmets and padding to play rounders with their friends? I don't know if YABU, but you are being ridiculous. Hopefully it's intentional and some kind of bad satire.

Yes, this is satirical, but with any satire, it’s based on an element of truth (or truth as I see it anyway). You say my suggestions are ridiculous (and perhaps they are) but I’m sure if you’d find many parents in the 80s thinking some of the things we do today are ridiculously risk averse and child focussed. In many ways it’s more ridiculous to believe we’ve reached the pinnacle of child-rearing today, and that generations to come will look at us as setting the standards that will be followed for all eternity.

We are seemingly becoming ever more focussed on child welfare - which on one level is clearly a very good thing - but my thought is how far will we go down our current path.

When my 10yo son was little, whereas I made him wear a bike helmet (something my parents didn’t for me as no one did) I never thought of putting a helmet on my when he was 2 and pootling along the pavement at walking speed... But now that’s “normal”.

It’s not a massive stretch therefore to think that in 10-20 years children will be required to wear helmets on playgrounds or when taking part in sports that involve any element of bodily risk.

But they won’t have sports by then - too much risk

Children will rule the world in 30 years. The prime minister will be a 10 year old with a God complex.

It's all child led this and baby led that these days and it will only get worse.

Honestly, I don't think it will be all that different. Trends might come and go, but loving, respectful and interested parenting with appropriate boundaries has been around for generations. It looks a bit different in different times and places, but it's the same thing deep down.

This thread reads like Les Dawson sketch. You know, the one where he keeps adjusting his bosom and saying 'in my day'.

Nothing good ever follows the words "in my day"

I don't think anybody will be able to afford to have kids in 30 years the way things are going!

I'm hoping parents won't be as paranoid as they are now.
I think children born now will react to the lack of freedom and helicopter parenting they suffer by allowing their kids to learn independence a lot earlier.

I think less and less ppk will have children tbh. Also, there'll probably be no services with all the cuts and whatnot so not sure who's going to police all this safeguarding stuff. Schools and SS will be in crisis due to lack of funding and staff (even more than they are already).

I agree with Limensoda. There were loads of things my parents thought I'd "just pick up" which I didn't. I was a pretty hopeless adult. I think we need to be a bit more sensible about risk and teaching of skills.

Many people have the tendency to catastrophise.... We’ll never eliminate risk so the more we mitigate against risks, the more there’ll be the pressure to focus on ever smaller risks. 100 years ago, you’d probably actively mitigate against the 1-in-100 risks.... 30 years ago, the 1-10,000 risks... now its the 1-in- million risks, with the tendency for some to fret over 1-in-a-billion type stuff (eg parked cars spontaneously catching light in 2 mins it take to pick up child etc)

Until we have some type of catastrophic change (like the climate disaster postulated in here by some), I think it will continue and I genuinely think we could be designing “stair airbags” triggered by falling children (for parents who haven’t the time to monitor stair usage but don’t want to be seen to be neglectful) and helmets for all outside activity by the time my children have children.

The stair thing would be a good idea if possible. I say that as someone with permanent back issue caused by falling down the stairs in my 30s.

The current crop of teens will make interesting parents.If they don't melt first.Particularly when the child 'disrespects' them
Not sure how on earth they'll cope but with help as standard & cctv would be my guess.

I think its all going to be very crowded as migration from the bits of the world really affected by climate change increases. so I think people will have less children and be living in multigeneration households as standard - so we will be the grandparents and I will bring up my one grandchild just how I brought up my working children.

I think there will be fewer children being born in western countries. As the demands on mums become ever greater, fewer women decide it is worth the effort. Also, male sperm count continues to decline and obesity will continue to rise, leading to more infertility problems.
Chipping children will become commonplace.
Raising your voice at children will be seen as abusive.
All adults will be expected to put all children first.
As a result, there will be a growth in commercial venues such as restaurants, that ban all kids.
The school leaving age will be extended.
The legal definition of children will be increased to 21.