There is a duty of care that comes with parenthood. A sense of concern. A certain degree of worry for the future. These patterns of thought were probably useful to parents, enabling them to foresee problems that might threaten their offspring. These problems could then be mitigated in advance. Preparing for the future is a smart strategy that requires an up to date vision of what that future might look like.
We all have a sense of where things are headed. You don’t have to be a futurist to realise abundant clean energy is coming, new realities are being created, we are about to go further into the universe than ever before.
The pace of change is accelerating. Exponential technologies are converging and new industries are emerging. Others are disappearing completely. New roles will be created, jobs will be augmented by technology and others will be replaced by automation and AI.
Humans will need to be adaptable. They will need agility and a fluency in technology. They will need to be morally more advanced than we are now. They will need to be optimists and creative problem solvers. As people, we are live, actively contributing, sharing our expertise and creativity in society. We can study but as far as our contribution goes, the future is now. We have an incredible opportunity to better prepare our children for a very different world. Our children have the opportunity of foresight. They can skate to where the puck is going to be. We need to be brave enough to distill a vision and to define and teach the skills our children will need.
We can make educated guesses about the future. We can even study our child’s interests and competencies and assist them to develop specialisations and talents. Every child is unique but that doesn’t mean we can’t begin to equip our children with general skills that will serve them well into the future…
Imagine a ten year old alive today, living in this covid world with talk of climate change. Electric cars are hitting the streets. Voice control is entering our homes. Imagine the same child at 20 years old, in the year 2031. There is a colony of humans on the Moon and Mars. Electric cars are everywhere and most are fully autonomous. Androids are now online. Augmented reality is a part of day to day life. Ten years later at age 30, it could be time to start a family. Artificial intelligence is now more generalised. Most people travel by drone. Many people spend a good part of the day living and working in virtual reality.
Let’s delve deeper into what skills and mindset they would need right now to thrive as the world changes around them…
So many adults are stubborn and set in their ways. The world would be a better place if more people were willing to change. It’s time to accept that change is good for the individual and humanity. It’s difficult to watch the anti electric car enthusiasts denounce this climate friendly mega trend. Our climate needs us to make critical changes to how we exist in this world. Many of us do not want to accept that we must change because we are set in our ways or don’t like being told what to do. Maybe we are just stubborn.
It’s time to teach our children that change is good. You often hear people say “kids need routine and structure” and I agree with that too. Let’s provide structure and also teach them how to adapt to planned and sudden changes to structure and routine. The world is becoming more unpredictable and our children need to grow up into adults that can be “adaptable”.
Mindset is so important. The world faces serious and significant problems. Each of us will face difficult challenges in our lives. We need to develop a “growth mindset” philosophy with the attitude of continuous improvement. There is so much positive progress being made and that brings a sense of hope, inspiration and optimism. Our children need to find strategies for acting with hope and positivity as they face each challenge.
With an “entrepreneurial mindset” our children will take ownership of problems as leaders, and have the courage to solve them using exponential principles. Understanding the role of change, they will not be afraid to erase todays technology and return to first principles thinking to reengineer solutions. After all, even todays solutions were created in the past with yesterday’s technology.
“Creative problem solving” means having the confidence to speculate potential solutions to problems, act on the best ideas, then test and measure results. A child alive today must learn to that its ok to be wrong and they must be prepared to fail over and over again. They must ensure they keep their imaginations long into adulthood. They need to find ways to practice commitment and determination, to face setbacks and see things through to the end.
Technology is everywhere. Everyday objects are joining the internet of things and becoming smart objects. Parents worry about children spending too much time on technology but avoiding technology will be impossible. Keeping children out of virtual reality will be the next great parental challenge. Irregardless of how you feel about children and technology the more “tech savvy” your child, the better off they will be in a world dominated by automation and artificial intelligence.
All this technology will bring new opportunities and new challenges. Developing a “philosophy of life” is key to determining what’s important, where time is best spent and how to be human. Our moral judgement is being called into question daily. To lead, our children need to understand who they are and their place in the universe. They will need to be able to consider the moral importance of the decisions that need to be made.
Assuming a fifteen year education, a five year old child starting school today is being prepared for release in the year 2036. Just sit with that for a few seconds… There is only ten years left for our ten year old to prepare for life in the year 2031. Humanties greatest opportunity is in preparing young minds for an exponential future of abundance and technology. Our educators do a fantastic job but as innovators, entrepreneurs and dreamers with an eye on the future, can we do more to help them? I think we could lend a hand to help educators prepare tomorrows children. Our children.
