Deputy Principal

Is parenting getting harder or are we overcomplicating it? 

I often think about a world which was a lot simpler. When I was growing up, I used to get on my bike on a weekend early in the morning and make it home in time for dinner. There were no phones to call your parents from and no apps to track where I was. Even as I got older and travelled for the first time after I left school, mobile phones did not exist. I remember spending the night sleeping at the train station in Venice as I had made plans with a friend to meet up with him. We got our dates wrong, so I slept in the train station and waited for him to turn up as I could not call him. 

These days mobile phones are a big part of our lives. Not only are we always accessible, but we track the whereabouts of our loved ones. This has many advantages. I understand that society has changed, and we worry about our children, and we have a need to know where they are. The way we use phones has obviously changed. We give our children phones so we can contact them, and they can contact us. When our children call, we answer the phone to talk to them. On the other hand, when we call our children, it often goes unanswered.  

Social media, as I have previously written about, plays a big part in their lives. They need to be connected. They need to keep their ‘streaks’ up on Snapchat. Is this a sense of belonging for our children or a fear of missing out? Recently my daughter went on a two-week school camp. For two weeks she had no phone, and she was also only allowed one phone call home over those two weeks. We had no contact with our child, except for the group parent updates from the school. Our daughter came home last Friday and guess what, we all survived. She learnt a lot about herself. She learnt that she could live without her phone, that she could strengthen her friendships in person rather than online. She made a lot of new friends and has already talked about her new friends and how she is going to visit them this weekend.  

Sometimes as parents we try and do too much for our children. As we are always contactable, we pick up the phone when they call, we try and solve their problems instantly by getting involved in their friendship arguments by talking to other parents, or by ringing or emailing the school instantly and letting the school know how unfairly they have been treated. As parents, we always want to ensure that we are there for our children and show them how much we love them, but we also need to take some time to reflect. We sometimes need to stop acting for them and allow them to sort some things out for themselves. We need to build resilient children. 

Adrian Byrne

Deputy Principal