AIBU to think we are currently raising the most dull generation yet??

[Rosaofthevalley]

I have my own children who thankfully have a wide range of interests but they are increasingly finding it harder to actually communicate with other kids. I understand we all have different interests but I actually don’t know how to guide them through this.

I’m around a wide range of kids, schools, clubs, long term friends children, newer ones etc and it seems that an alarming amount of them have NO interests, like zero! Conversations usually revolve around phones, YouTube, TikTok, video games but they have no real world interests. This is if they look up long enough to hold a conversation with each other.

As a millennial myself I think as a generation we are seriously failing our kids. There are so many more behavioural issues, concentration and communication are at an all time low.
My friends who are still in teaching are pulling their hair out at the amount of crowd control needed on top of teaching (I left teaching 10yrs ago and definitely saw the start of a decline but nothing like now.)

I think they’re bored, but without the skills or imagination needed to combat boredom. Surely I can’t be the only one who thinks this??

I definitely agree that phones have a negative effect.

However, I don't think you can write off a whole generation as "dull". You can appreciate your children as complex, rounded individuals because you know them. You don't know the mass of primary school kids- have no sense of them with individuals with complex and meaningful inner lives- and so it's easy to dismiss then en masse as dull (which one might say was a failure of imagination of your own).

My kids are busy and active with lots of hobbies but I do find them very unadventurous.

We are lucky to live in a spectacular rural place with lots of opportunity for adventuring.

My childhood was spent doing expeditions, exploring , being gone all day. Admittedly we did some hair curlingly dangerous things but that's part of life. We spent hours collecting wood to build dens". Making rope swings and swinging would fill hours. The more hair raising the better .We followed local streams for miles to see where they went. It's coastal as well so we spent hours in the sea or afloat on rafts etc ( which we also built). We were obsessed by compfires and cooking horrible food on them, I ruined all my mothers pots and pans. We found a cave and tried to set up home in it and become hermits😂. In bad weather we didn't stay in the house until we literally didn't have a dry stitch of clothing or shoes left.
There weren't many organised activities though, so maybe that's the difference, we entertained ourselves.

My kids, living in the same place, do none of this. They are brilliant children, but I am secretly disappointed they haven't had or looked for the same adventurous rural, slightly feral childhood that I had. Although, when I think of some of the bonkers things we did ......maybe I should be relieved that they don't!

So you are talking about Gen Alpha? Born 2010 to 2024.

I disagree. My 12 year old niece is interested in architecture and travel. She’s keen to visit Rome. She also has a keen interest in animals and has is considering becoming a vet.

It seems harsh to label a whole generation when they are still so young. They will have a huge burden to carry, paying to maintain the NHS and pensions for Gen X

I spent my Saturday night at a swimming pool. My 8 year old is in the local swim team academy. I watched 120 6-12 year olds compete against each other in front of a huge crowd.

She knows she wants to be a pilot when she grows up, but she'll struggle to train to be one alongside her training for a double olympic swimming and trampolining medal goals so she plans to join Air Cadets when she's in secondary school. Her favourite things to read about are money (thanks Deborah Meaden!) and chickens.
She's going to her first sleep away camp with brownies in the next couple of weeks. She's obsessed with astronomy and she was SO excited to spot the northern lights a few weeks ago.

If you find these kids boring then you're simply not listening.

Sometimes gamer kids get dismissed as dull, but they are just as interested in their sphere as you may be in yours. Have you made the efforts to learn about modern day interests? Or do you just dismiss them as rubbish? Ultimately because you don't understand them? Are not interested in them? Find them dull?

My Dd has finished uni and is a trainee science teacher. She talks to the kids about their interests, plays the games they play, watches stuff they watch... she says their eyes light up when an "old person" (shes 23!) takes notice of what they are saying about THEIR interests. Rather than "dull stuff like Bake off and collecting tea towels" (quote of the week from a student)
Different strokes for different folks.

I went through a phase like this when I was about 12, all I wanted to do was watch MTV. I was too old to play outside (not cool anymore), too young to really be independent, and where I lived you couldn’t get a job until 14.

I think a lot of kids go through a ‘full’ phase like that at some point.

Must be so lovely having such perfect children with such full lives and lots to say. Where I come from people have to work hard to live and don't necessarily have time and money to spend trekking around to hobbies to make their children interesting to other children and their parents.....🙄