Generation 2.0 - Connect, engage and mobilize today’s youth  

I recently asked a group of teenagers what advice they would give to their parent on parenting and their answers were illuminating, honest and hopeful I think. Here are their Secrets.

Secret Number One - Your old style of parenting will no longer work.

When we are small we need you there with us, teaching us how to do everything, teaching us what is right and wrong, teaching us how to behave, how to relate to people and how to take care of ourselves. Then we go to school and get older. We still need you but this time we want you to take us to the many clubs we join, make our lunches, make sure we have done our homework and have the correct school-books. We need cheering on from the sidelines of our football matches and to look after us when we don’t feel well. When we enter the teenage years we still need you, we just need you in a different way. We still need the taxi service and we still need you to come to our football matches (just please don’t scream as loud!) We still need you to look after us when we are feeling down, even though we might say we don’t. However, we no longer want you to remind us of every little thing; we want to learn by ourselves. We don’t want you asking us questions all the time, we want to get on with it. We want to find our own systems for dealing with our homework rather than you nagging us. We don’t need you to manage us any more, we need to learn to do it ourselves. So when we are making a mess of things, don’t step in! Ask us how we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.

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