Generation Alpha
Welcoming Generation Alpha to high school
Generation Alpha is the first generation to be fully born in the 21st century. The oldest of them, born in 2010 (the same year that Instagram and the iPad were launched) are about to become teenagers. This also means that the oldest of them are entering high school.
Helping them navigate their teens
Generation Alpha are entering high school with a world of endless possibilities ahead of them. However, this can also be overwhelming as they face the responsibility of making big decisions that will shape their future. Unlike previous generations, Generation Alpha has been given a blank slate to decide their gender, sexuality, and career paths. While this may seem liberating, it can also mean they lack the guidance and sense of purpose that previous generations had.
Experts and parents have a crucial role to play in helping Generation Alpha find their purpose and values. It is not just about equipping them with skills or educational content, but also about character formation and resilience. Generation Alpha needs a clear direction and foundation in life to navigate the endless choices they have. They need to understand their purpose and value and have a worldview to guide them in their personal decisions around career and relationships.
While technology and the context in which Generation Alpha is growing up are shaping them differently from previous generations, they still have the timeless human needs of love, belonging, and a sense of identity. Parents and experts can help steward this role and guide Generation Alpha through the challenges of finding their purpose and values. The goal is not to limit their possibilities but to equip them with the foundation to make informed decisions that align with their purpose and values.
Upageing
“Upageing,” is a term that means Generation Alpha children are “older, younger.” This means that while they may be chronologically young, their psychological and academic age is beyond their years due to their exposure to technology and sophisticated curricula. However, they may also be “down-aged” in some areas, such as life experience, due to parents’ desire to keep them safe and structured. Parents’ lifestyles and parenting styles may also contribute to Generation Alpha’s lack of practical life skills.
For example, parents may outsource tasks rather than passing down practical knowledge to their children, and children are less likely to have the freedom to engage in unstructured play and outdoor activities that promote resilience and teamwork. Additionally, they may miss out on engaging in part-time jobs, they can miss out on developing customer service, money management, and other life skills.
Finding a balance between academic achievement and practical life skills is essential for raising well-rounded children, and this is true for helping Generation Alpha transition into their teen years.
Parenting
Parents play a unique role in their children’s lives when they become teenagers. Unlike previous generations, parents of Generation Alpha often remain heavily involved in decision-making over their teenage children’s lives. This can lead to parents micromanaging and curating their children’s experiences to an unhelpful degree.
Instead, parents should begin to ease off and give their teenage children more freedom to make decisions, even as they transition into adulthood.
It’s important to note that the parenting role extends a lot longer now. Generation Alpha teenagers will stay in the parental home longer, probably closer to their mid-twenties because they will be in education longer, start their earning yeas later in life, marry later, and start their own families later. Therefore, it is important for parents to get the balance right between leaning in and keeping their hands out, even as their children reach their twenties.
Parents should still lean into the lives of their children but will help them if they don’t jump in and rescue them from every situation.
As Generation Alpha transition into their teen years, parents can benefit from learning to be directors, rather than managers. Directors sit back, ask questions, assess, check, and probe, but they keep their hands out. Parents should do the same, leaning in but keeping their hands out, to give their teenage children the space and freedom to make decisions and learn from their experiences.
Preparing them for the future
We predict that Generation Alpha will work in more jobs than we have seen in the past. They will have more careers and move through more education. They will need to be lifelong learners and will require a whole new set of skills compared to the past. Generation Alpha will need academic training and development, along with literacy and numeracy skills. But it’s also important to develop competencies along with curriculum knowledge.
These competencies include transferrable skills, the ability to relate well to people, resolve conflict, show leadership, communicate effectively, develop character formation, resilience, decision-making, care for others, and cultural awareness.
The workplaces they will enter will be more diverse, and they will need to be able to bridge gaps between people, whether they are in the same room or remote. The transferrable skills, people skills, life skills, and character development, along with academic skills, will be essential for this generation. Much of these skills are not learned in a classroom but through volunteering, having a job, sports and team activities, serving others, and varied experiences.
It is beneficial to develop these skills holistically as this generation enters their teen years and then adulthood, where they will face an uncertain future with more changes to come.
Parents need to be aware of the importance of a more holistic approach to life skills, rather than just focusing on academics. Parents can help by bringing their children along with them as they volunteer or travel and encourage them to sign up for different programs. The development of multiple skills is essential in an uncertain future, which will serve this generation well in the long term.
