How on earth should we parent in this uncertain, unstable world that we inhabit? Do we talk to our children about what’s going on, or try to somewhat shield them from it? Here’s a guide to parenting in 2023.
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Isla*, a 37-year-old administrator and divorced mother-of-two from Auckland, is so unsure about how to parent in today’s world that she “almost feels paralysed”. Her boys are nine and seven. “I don’t know whether to talk to them about climate change – it might scare them and one of my boys is super sensitive. Personally, I can’t even talk about Trump without feeling enraged, so I avoid that topic. Also, we’re tight on money at the moment – inflation, the cost of housing – but I don’t know whether to talk to the kids about it, as that might make them feel wobbly.”
Climate change. The pandemic. The Ukraine war. Putin. Trump. The treatment of women in Iran and Afghanistan. And so much more. Yep, the world is messed up right now. For many New Zealand families, there are also stressors around the cost of living, the housing crisis, a recession, etc. It’s hard to show your kids there’s a bright future when you’re really worried about the world yourself.
Penny Hayes, a 46-year-old editor and academic with a seven-year-old daughter, has thoughts on this topic. “I feel like one of the biggest challenges, and the hardest bit, is communicating hope that people/governments have these things in hand when personally you don’t feel that way – about climate change, for example. My doctor told me how important it was for kids to feel that the adults were doing everything they can to solve problems, address wrongs, etc. It’s almost impossible to feel good about that prospect sometimes. In terms of money, I’m trying to make that struggle teachable, but crikey. In a world with homelessness, mental health and addiction [issues], I want to encourage her empathy and understanding, without [her] taking on the weight of the world.”
Many parents – including myself – feel there is a quandary. How do we help our children feel safe and secure when we may not feel particularly safe and secure ourselves? When we’re feeling overwhelmed, how do we help steer our kids through a world of instability and uncertainty? Should we shield them from what’s going on? Or do we talk openly to our children about climate change, political corruption, and Covid’s continuing reign, etc? If so, how do we broach the topic?
Psychologist Dr Emma Woodward has talked to parents who are asking themselves questions like these. A brief backstory: Emma, who is from England, was placed in foster care as a child, left school at 15, and was homeless at 16. She managed to get to university to study psychology – a story in itself. Since then she has acquired 25 years’ experience working with children, young people and their families.
In 2014 Emma and her family (she now has four boys) moved to New Zealand. Emma founded The Child Psychology Service, a team of child and adolescent psychologists, located throughout New Zealand. She is also clinical director of the NZ Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience. Oh, and she’s done a TEDx Talk called ‘How to parent in a messed-up world’. Thank you, Emma!
You can watch the talk here – it’s had 245,000 views – but we’ve extracted some things that may be useful.
Parenting in 2023: A wobbly world
“Feeling unsettled is quite a familiar feeling for all of us right now,” Emma says. “Our whole world is currently marked by uncertainty, instability and rapid change and that is ultimately quite destabilising.”
What impact, Emma asks, is that having on us as adults, and parents? “I think the fact is that the issues that parents face today are oceans apart – in fact, rapidly warming oceans apart – from those faced by our parents just a generation ago.”
“My generation [has] now largely shouldered the burden of transitioning from a world that we recognise to one that we don’t, [thinking]
‘let’s not impose that on our children too’. Yes, I think we need to consider the messages that we hand down to them, but we need to give them the right support and resources in the first instance… Children are resilient, creative and determined to learn and even amongst all of the instability in the world today there are many, many awesome young people taking great strides to make the most of the cards their generation has been dealt.”
“So we definitely do need to continue to [help] provide resilience to our kids to cope with the world we live in but more importantly we need to nurture and encourage their inherent resilience and creativity to reimagine the way that we live.”
What should we tell them?
I asked Emma: should we talk honestly to our kids about the dire state of the world, or try to shield them from it? Talk to them, Emma tells me. Is it ever too late to broach the subject? “No. I think it’s really integral that we do have these conversations. I don’t think we should be leading with, ‘It’s going to hell in a handcart and climate change is going to burn all the forests down’. There’s absolutely no point in that. That’s not a hope-giving conversation.”
“But a hopeful conversation is sometimes like ‘hey, there are all these worrying things – but look at where people are taking positive action to try to make things better, not just for themselves, but for others too. With discussions about what’s concerning, the key thing for me is hope. How do we have hope that we as humans can make a shift? How do we look to [issues and initiatives] where things are changing for the better?”
“We don’t start with trying to change the world. We start with small acts of kindness at home, with acts of compassion at school, and ask ‘how do we build on that in our own lives?’”
Is it okay for our kids to see when we, as parents, aren’t okay? “Yes! It’s really, really important that children see the full range of human emotions, and that emotions have a beginning, a middle and an end. Also, sadness, anger, all emotions have a purpose. I talk to my kids about emotions being messengers. They’re data. If I feel anger, I need to acknowledge that, then choose what I do next.” And children can learn to do that.
The Three Cs of parenting in 2023
As parents, what we need to cultivate, she says, are curiosity, connection, and compassion.
“First, get curious…. We need to get curious about the blueprint that’s inside us and what we’re handing down to the next generations. We need to get curious about our emotions and consider what our triggers are and how do we respond.”
“Point two: get connected… Connection and relationships act as a buffer against all of the senses of instability and safety that exist in the world today…. get involved in your communities, talk to your children about what’s going on in their lives, talk to each other
about the wider social and environmental issues that we all face and more importantly how we can take positive collective action because ultimately things just don’t seem so scary when we’re reminded we’re not alone.”
“And three: get compassionate. I think in a world of comparison, culture and perfectionism, compassion can seem a little bit like a radical act – we’ve become so quick to judge and to criticise – but choosing to cultivate compassion shifts our perspective and in turn how we treat each other… Compassion goes beyond simply recognising suffering it motivates us to help…. and it is actually self-compassion rather than self-esteem that enables us to continue when things feel tough.”
Emma suggests four key things parents can do when their kids are facing a world of instability and uncertainty:
- Acknowledge and validate your child’s feelings and concerns.
- Maintaining open communication: Explaining the challenges in an age-appropriate manner and reassuring them of their safety and well-being can help alleviate their fears and anxiety.
- Where possible, establish routines to cultivate stability
- Adults can take proactive steps to support their own mental health and provide reassurance and stability to their children
- ‘It takes a village to raise a child’… It is our collective responsibility to advocate for policies and initiatives that prioritise wellbeing for all families
Emma thinks much of this discussion comes back to attachment theory. “If we can create a safe world for our children at home, then they’re more likely to be able to take that ‘safe world’ out into the actual world and then deal with the challenges that they face with a sense of hope and community rather than competition and fear. In the words of Margaret Attwood: ‘to create a future that works then we must work together’ and we do that best when we feel safe.”