15 March 2024

From low-tech childhoods to high-tech parents

Living in the city for the past 12 years before coming to Nottingham Road, probably one of my biggest bugbears was going to a restaurant and watching families interact with each other around the table. It was certainly not uncommon to see 10-year-olds looking down at their phones, playing games with each other, texting a friend, or watching a YouTube video.

However, I am realising more and more that my generation of parents, the generation who still used to rent videos, play audio tapes, and listened to the radio, have completely entered unchartered waters with regards to parenting. We were the generation who would get completely swept away by the Friends series on TV, the first to be introduced to mobile phone technology and learned how to deal with the Motorola flip-up phone to the latest Nokia 6210. We experienced a life without the internet and then had to manage our first email account at the age of 25! My generation, it seems, had the last of the low-tech childhoods, and now we are among the first of the high-tech parents.

On the other side, I watch my parents' generation and often think to myself; that they had it easy raising children. If children had a ball and a few mates to play with, they were perfectly ok. Oh how things have changed…

Back in my day, we passed paper notes in class, sent real letters to girlfriends, and talked to each other’s faces…

It feels like I know what childhood was like before the Internet, and my parenting models all came from that era.

So even though I also understand the powerful draw of the World Wide Web and social media and I participate in it enthusiastically, it scares me when it comes to my own children and how it will mould and change their experience from mine. I ask myself the question: "Will my children ever have their own awkward moment where they will have to walk up to a girl asking her for a date, or will they build entire relationships over text messages?"

On the one hand, it seems like our resistance to this new world is futile. That this is our children’s brave new world, and they need to know and understand and navigate ways to live in it. On the other hand, you can’t ignore the fact that children don’t have fully-developed frontal lobes yet!

I see parents beating themselves up for letting their children use screens or devices, or on afternoons when they just didn’t have it in them to fight the mystifying addiction to Minecraft that it seems almost all children have acquired.

I see parents constantly trying to manage screen time to protect their child from things they might not un-see or un-hear. This can be exhausting to be honest, and at times, makes me wish life could go back to the way it used to be when I grew up.

But, we try to be reasonable, we set limits and negotiate. We allow for Minecraft because somewhere someone said it might be “good for them,” and we debate how old is old enough to have a smartphone. We make the children sit in public places when they are on devices or laptops, we look over shoulders, we check text message histories, and set parental controls. And, at the end of the day, we pray that our children won’t stumble too hard or fall too far when they fall into an Internet pothole.

I often wonder what a high-tech childhood will mean for our children… How will it impact them and how will their parenting be different from mine. The truth is, my generation of parents are pioneers, like it or not. We’re the last of our era. We can try as hard as we want to push back and to carve space into our children’s lives for treehouses and puzzles, but in the end, our children will grow up with the whole world at their fingertips, courtesy of a touch screen, and they will have to learn how to find the balance between their online and real worlds. It is scary.

I ask myself the question: “Is there a right way?” Sometimes I don’t even know… But I do want to leave you with two guiding principles: The first is that raising our children with strong values will become more important now than what it has ever been. In their minds, there is very little difference between an online world and a real world, and making good decisions in both can only come from holding on to strong values.

The second is that children need a real childhood. A childhood where they receive instant feedback from climbing a tree, catching a fish, or becoming exhausted when walking to the lookout point. Spending time with family building memories together, experiencing real experiences through playing cards or boardgames. Negotiating conflict without using emojis and ultimately establishing themselves as a person who can add value in the lives of others through meaningful interactions. These will become the building blocks which may help negotiate themselves successfully through this very unpredictable online future ahead of them.

Clifton Family Fun Day: Join Us for a Day of Community and Fun!

Clifton has always cherished its tradition of hosting a major fundraising event, and this year, we're excited to introduce a new addition to our calendar: the Clifton Family Fun Day!

After the unfortunate cancellation of the beloved joberg2c event in 2022, we felt a gap in our community calendar. Last year, we initiated the Clifton Founders' Day, which was met with great enthusiasm. Building on this success, we are thrilled to announce the Clifton Family Fun Day, set to take place on the 1st of June.

This day promises to be a highlight of the year, offering a fantastic opportunity for our Clifton community to come together for a day of fun-filled activities while raising essential funds for our school. With no sports fixtures scheduled for that Saturday, families can fully immerse themselves in the festivities.

The program will kick off with an engaging physical activity at 9 o'clock in the morning, setting the tone for an action-packed day that will extend into the late afternoon. From exciting games to delicious food stalls, there will be something for everyone to enjoy.

So, mark your calendars and make sure to save the date for this memorable event. 

We can't wait to see you there and let's come together as a community to create lasting memories filled with laughter and camaraderie!