Raising Gen Alpha/Gen Anxious

We wanted to share something with you we've been working on. If you've been listening for a while you know this is something we come back to a lot. The idea that we're all learning as we go in parenting. And that's actually what inspired our new practice makes parent merch. Yeah, each design reflects a piece of what it really feels like to be a parent. And some of those everyday moments we don't always put into words. It's available for a limited time pre-order during the month of August. Check out all our designs using the link in our episode description. Well, hi and welcome to Practice Makes Parent. But we understand it's not about perfection, but about transformation. I'm Dr. Danny Huerta. And I'm Rebecca St. James. Parents will understand that when we are born affects our attitudes, our perceptions, our values and our behaviors. How you think, communicate and connect and what you value. Usually all depends on what generation you're in. And it's funny to get generations together at times. And when you're talking about technology for one or many other things, getting those together. Cultural forces shape us. They truly do. And technology is a mark. Or boomers had the civil rights movement and the space race. Millennials had social media, the internet and smartphones. So today, we're going to take a long hard look at what to expect in parenting. The next generation, generation alpha. Yes, and gen alpha is the age group born in 2010 to 2024. There are two billion of them, which makes them the largest and most diverse generation in history. But they are also the most anxious as well. One in four of these adolescents meet the criteria for serious mental illness, which is very sobering. Yes, it is. And it's with a fatherly concern and through his lived experiences working with young people that are guest, Dave Bowden has written a wonderful book called Raising Gen Alpha. And he's here today to share some of what parents need to know as they shape the hearts of their children in these unprecedented times. Dave is the executive director of Grace Foundation in the UK. He's previously served as a pastor and has a broad background in Christian ministry, youth ministry that's focused on the next generation. Dave, welcome to practice makes parent. Thank you so much, have me guys, all the way from sunny old England, fantastic to me with you. We're delighted to have you. Thanks for joining us. And let's talk about gen alpha. What does that mean? Tell us about this generation, gen alpha. Yeah, I mean, you guys gave a fantastic sort of opening summary, really. We're talking about this next generation, gen alpha born from 2010 to 2024. And as you mentioned, Dr. Danny already, like when you were born, affects the way that we see the world. And I like to see is that idea of having it a lens by which you see everything, it colors everything that we see. And when we're born is affected by the cultural milestones that we sort of see in society. So for me, as a millennial, I can remember 9/11 as one of those cultural milestones where we remember life before it and then life after it. And of course, for this generation, we could probably say the pandemic was that cultural milestone, which I'm sure we'll talk about today. But in essence, this generation, gen alpha, they've been shaped by cultural milestones. They're also a generation that are being shaped hugely by technology as well. And that technological lens that they grow up in has had a massive influence on the way that they see the world. I can remember life before smartphones. I can remember. We have us too. I can even remember. Dial up internet. Yeah, that's right. I can remember life before broadband. I can remember blockbuster video going on a Friday night and choosing my video and having to rewind it before I returned it at the end of the weekend. So that massively affected me as a millennial and my experience of culture and society. And of course, now we've got a generation alpha. So we've got these young children who are born swimming in a digital world. They don't have blockbuster. They have Netflix. They're always on. They're always connected. And of course, that's massively impacting their view of the world. They are the younger siblings of Gen Z. And it's actually brilliant to be talking about Gen Alpha today because I think as the church, there's a massive focus right now on Gen Z, rightly so because it's that rising generation. But nobody's really talking about Gen Alpha. So it's wonderful to be talking about those younger siblings of Gen Z today. When you have an acronym for Alpha that describes why we need to pay attention specifically to this generation. Do you share that with us? I thought it was great. Yeah. I was trying to pull together some of the research and thinking behind how do we sort of define Gen Alpha because there's been so little kind of conversation about it. And I love acronyms and I came up with a simple acronym of A, which starts with being anxious minded. So this is a generation you've mentioned one in four, meet that criteria for a mental health challenge. L is leading influencers. So this generation passionate about social justice and wanting to make a difference in the world, P pandemic impacted that cultural milestone, which we can define before during an after H hyper connected. So that's that generation that we call screen ages, always surrounded by screens and swimming in the digital world. And then last but not least is the AI shaped. So it's the idea that we've got this generation that now being shaped by the algorithm and discipled by data often more than they are by human beings. So in many senses, there's some scary words in there, probably in things of parents that kind of get hold of. But I felt that from all the research that's been done by various organizations, this is sort of a great way to kind of look at through that lens for those five key themes. Yeah. That's wonderful. Yeah. I think the first one, anxious minded, this anxiety piece, let's park there a bit because there are different labels or different ways to define anxiety. Let's talk about the normal everyday anxiety and how that's playing out for kids and how they're interacting with that, this gen alpha. And then the more the clinical side of things, and are both rising and how do parents respond to something like this? Yeah. I mean, in one sense, we live in a very anxious world, don't we today? Yes. More than ever. I think we're talking about anxiety and mental health, more than ever, which is brilliant. And this generation were really born into that. So there is this scary sense of the statistics, which are saying that young people today are dealing with anxiety in a much more intense and acute way than we ever have done before. So we have normal everyday anxiety, which in one sense, we've all experienced it, you know, the nerves that you feel before an exam, that moment when you're doing something new, when you go into a situation where you're meeting lots of new people, anxiety is a part of everyday life. And actually what anxiety does is it helps us sharpen us and get us ready for that moment. But it's almost a bit like, you know, if you experience fear, if you're walking by the edge of a cliff, you need that fear to tell you don't go over the cliff, so you can pull back. And one of the ways that I describe normal anxieties, like you like a match, and then the match burns out and it goes and it's the feeling passes, but what we're seeing with this generation is it's like somebody's lit loads of different matches thrown them all together. And we can no longer identify where the origin of that came from. And it's like everything's aflamed all at once, which means that the level because of the pressure that they're facing in school, because of the relationships always been online, because of early exposure to media on the internet, things that you're right never had to deal with social media because of the social anxiety that young people are facing just because relationships are harder than ever, especially since post pandemic. And there's all those underlying things around society itself being quite a challenging place to live in right now. And we hear it each and every day, all day every day, we've been exposed to news. And we're asking children to deal with adult-sized problems with childlike tools. And of course, all of this is adding up with that smartphone at the center of it all to feeling more and more anxious. And what's interesting is, you know, I deal with our parents at local church and just talking with anxiety to parents as well, I'm finding that so many parents are struggling themselves as this issue. Yes. So it's almost like we're getting second hand and third hand anxiety, which is why it's obviously so important for us to be able to talk about it, but then go back to the practical tools that we want to be able to actually help parents and young people deal with it too. One day, a lot of anxieties built on the perception, right? The perception, do I have capabilities? And there's so much comparison happening over social media and the smartphones have opened that world up. But there's also news or many other things that are coming in. The kids are just not prepared to navigate, manage, make sense of in that perceptual world. And so emotions naturally will react to perception. So many times, if you ask them, what is it that you see? And they see maybe a world that is imploding a world that is in constant conflict, people that are much better than they are, people that are mean. If you perceive that, it's normal to feel anxiousness. And if there's a constant plug-in to that, naturally you're going to be constantly anxious and it begins to create more of a clinical anxiety where it starts to affect functioning. It affects the overall perception of the world and it begins to turn to that. Because normal regular anxiety can be a gift. It can give you the ability to grow, to see, man, I want to improve in this or. I'm going to come up with with a way to navigate this in a new way or it just it really like you said I think the word sharpens your mind is important so as parents I think We have wanted to give our kids the very best We've wanted the even better for them and when they feel anxious What do you think that does to a parent inside when a child is just feeling nervous about being on stage When they're nervous about performance when they're nervous about going to school What do we need to wrestle through as parents To step into this in a way that's helpful for them. Yeah, I think for you know, we've got to put our own Gas mask on first so I've got to deal with our own anxiety and And it's interesting when you think about parenting in terms of emotional regulation that actually we as parents need to regulate ourselves First and I think you talk to our difference in normal and then when you need to ask for help that clinical side of it And in the very basic terms I would say you know, I'm not a therapist But actually when your world becomes smaller And your problems become bigger. Yes, and it begins to take over the normal everyday function of life That's when parents need to ask for help And I think one of the most biblical and godly things you can ever do is to ask for help And I think we're not saying that enough to parents because there's this idea that you know we have to have faith And that faith should almost be like grit in and dig in and should carry us through But I think you know, parents need to deal with their anxiety. They need to recognize when they need to ask for help And the other thing is very simply You mentioned there about What we believe hugely impacts how we feel there's that connection between the mind and the body and the emotions And I think I talk about this simple model in the book which you see which is situation Emotion evaluates. So what helping our young people see what's really gone on so to try and pack the situation To evaluate the thinking and the emotion behind it and then to to to basically be able to ask questions around Is there a different way of looking at this situation? So practical example would be we've all seen it with our own kids is a child sense of text message and of their friend doesn't text back. Yeah, and then suddenly Spiral they spiral because they're saying that person doesn't like me That they've fallen out with me, you know, nobody likes me and honestly like I've seen it with my own daughter 15-year-old that that simple unread text can trigger off a huge amount of Feeling and emotions so the situation is the text message The emotion is that spiraling feeling, but the evaluation side is saying well hang on a minute as parents We can say hey, is there a different way of looking at this situation, you know Maybe that person hadn't read the message Maybe that person is doing their homework. Yeah, maybe that person is grounded and hasn't got access to their phone So there's probably ten of a ways that we can answer that question and evaluate it in a different way And what's great about that is you can do that in a practical way But we can also do it in a spiritual way as well so we can begin to teach our kids that actually You know when we're feeling certain ways about ourselves about our identity or about the world We can bring in scripture to say he's doing a different way to evaluate it And that reframing in you know, bible calls it renewing the mind right we can do that even with children Yeah, and of course as adults starting that way first when even that the The capability to manage let's say the person Doesn't want to talk to them and that is one of the things that ends up coming be enabled to be present with our kids And say well now what would you think you can do with this? It's is this the end of the world is this say something about your identity that you have to wrestle through Because that just means they they were honest with you and showed love by saying they don't they don't want to spend time with you And that's actually honesty is very relational and that's hard. That's a tough thing to do We need to teach our kids how to handle conflict rejection Difficult things Even if it would be effective right yeah, yeah, we're so protective of As parents because we don't want them to often go through what we went through right And maybe we felt especially we experienced something in such a negative way we can get into that point where we're trying to say I don't want my children to feel that But the reality is and this is one of I think that the big lies are what's going on this next generation is that they have to be able to learn to Feel things and work through them Not get out of them And often what we're seeing in terms of addictions and challenges is that when they're trying to cope To avoid these feelings rather than working through them with a trusted adult Which is where we as parents and educators come in so well Well, and I love that you're talking about practical tools that we can gift our children with and and help them I mean Danny you were talking about how we can walk them through You're talking about the sea acronym how we can really help them to to have eyes to see answers And one of the things that in my prep that really stood out to me is how this generation Is putting labels on things maybe I'm just an anxious person I mean, and you've got your book raising gen alpha, which I think is absolutely fascinating Dave helping kids navigate everything from anxiety to AI Um, and one of the things that I thought was so fascinating. I'm just going to read it But that gen alpha finds a sense of identity and comfort from labels boomers saw anxiety as a private battle Um, which I think all of us can kind of resonate with this to some degree as we think about people in our lives Um gen x-faced stigma despite growing awareness Millennials and Gen Z worked to normalize mental health conversations and now gen alpha Have these discussions in their everyday life online presence social and school routines So they've come to this place of acceptance of just like oh it is what it is But I think maybe I don't know I just love you to speak to this if you're just seeing kids just going This is who I am. I'm just anxious So I'm not going to find the tools. I'm not going to tell my parents about it I'm not going to ask for the help that I need are you seeing that? Oh massively, I mean, you know, I work in education. So we work with 17 and half thousand young people every single day Um, I've got an amazing team that work in secular schools bringing Christian values and ethos So it's a fantastic opportunity to reach the next generation But what we're seeing is that because of what gen Z sort of adopted its therapeutic language to call it So and even like the neurodiversity which inclusion is a brilliant thing isn't it? You know, we need to recognize that people think differently and they are different But you've got gen alpha kids who are in their Instagram bios putting I am XYZ and they're labeling themselves and they're actually identifying with it because they feel like if they do And it's not fair to this and it's an online quiz And of course the online quiz you always end up with ADHD or you know PTSD or some sort of label that they think latch on to and say This is who I am because it helps give meaning And a sense of purpose to the feeling so there's that and then this is idea that Children use therapeutic language. So I I overheard my seven-year-old niece the other day Talking about trauma and being triggered And she was watching a TV show on a an iPad and it was a kid show and the kids were talking about um, you know like using mental health language Um, which was like about meltdowns and being triggered and trauma and I couldn't believe it I was like wow and of course they have no idea what that actually means So on the one hand it normalizes it, but on the other hand it trivializes it as well. Yes Plus this sense that we're actually then owning the emotion What a sort of deception here is we need to be able to Manage our emotions because our emotions are not us but when we so own them to the point where they become us Well, that means your identity subject to the rollercoaster of how you feel in the moment Well, I mean that's something that you know, I would hate that can you imagine if like you spent how you feel in any given day Defined who you were and of course this is one of the the great lies that of this generation and what the gospel Hughes speaks into is that we have Jesus who's by the way great news for generation alpha And Jesus is the Prince of Peace So for the anxious mind of Jesus is the Prince of Peace and as parents we have to remind our kids that that's who we are as churches We need to create opportunities to I believe talk about mental health but also to be able to actually help young people experience it And it's one of the interesting outcomes of what I think with this anxious mind of generation is Historically it's particularly with Gen Z. I think churches pendant this picture where we need to entertain young people We need to hike them up. We need to get them really geared up so that their emotions are high Now I think the general for we're seeing that need to create more peaceful spaces and places for young people to actually reflect And almost become a bit more traditional and a typical in their approach Because when you just entertain the life out of young people A) what we win them with is what we win them too right and you gotta maintain that level of hype But young people don't want that their desperate for Places of peace Places of mental health kind of reflection And I think the other thing that's happening in this is that schools are talking about it, but churches aren't So therefore churches can often then get lied behind right if we're not creating space to talk about What mental well-being really means from a biblical perspective perspective, we're leaving it to this sort of quasi-made up, slightly ferroputic world, which is really the Wild West. And if you talk to any real therapists that, you know, as a doctor, Dr. Daniel, so you've seen this, is that when you talk to people who actually understand this, they probably just put their head in their hands and say, "You're getting that all wrong because you're using it in a way which is not at all the way it was designed for." Yeah, there's this hunger to be known, right? And we see that in this generation. And with a label, you can begin to feel as if you're known. And there's a sense of, there's a desire to have a sense of competence, a sense of worth, a sense of belonging. And right now there are a lot of counterfeits to that that are being presented to Gen Alpha. And I think with that comes some anxiousness because they know it's not satisfying what they're looking for. And there's also this anxiousness of not knowing what's going to happen. There are a lot of things that are up for grabs. And if you don't have a faith, and we've seen that Christianity just as the belief system, the world view in American households, we've seen that going down, when you remove God from the equation, it really begins to open up a lot of scary possibilities. And it's natural that we'd have anxiety if our belief system, core belief system about a God that cares about us is taken out. It makes sense that we would feel anxious. Just a perception that there isn't this God that is in control, that cares about me, that created me on purpose and with purpose. Without that core belief system, it begins to create a chaotic picture for kids. And so encourage parents to begin to think about, how do we present the world view of who God is? And how do we have those conversations with our kids? Because if we begin there, we begin to learn how to walk towards anxiety. God teaches us that all throughout scripture to walk towards it with courage, be strong and courageous. And he says, hey, if you believe in me, life giving things can come out of you. But if you believe in me, know that I'm with you all the time. I never leave you. And if a child can learn how to trust that man, it changes everything. So let's talk about the different ways that kids try to cope with anxiety. What does that look like behaviorally for a parent? What can they see in their kids? I think, you know, using avoidance tactics is a big one. You know, we see the kind of school refuse always a huge issue. I know it's the same in the States, but what's interesting is post pandemic, one of the statistics is in the UK, 175,000 children went missing from school after the pandemic never went back. And that number's grown like 30% year on year. So we've got children refusing to go to school because their worlds are getting so much smaller, right? Because their anxieties getting so much bigger. I think it's that with drawing avoiding conversations, avoiding social situations. And then you've got the safety behavior. So we have a lot of kids who are using fidget toys, you know, they're using sort of squash mellows. Have you seen those? Squash mellows. Squash mellows is like sort of like kind of ways of feeling that it's almost like the way to blanket for this generation, right? So they're using things constantly using their phone as a means of comfort and an extension of themselves, constantly checking, being online, coping strategies. And of course, these things when they begin to, we use them as coping mechanisms, we numb out on them. That's when we get addictions, right? And that's when we need to get more concerned. But I think one of the ways that we begin to tackle that is reminding our children that they are mind, body and spirit. You mentioned about the identity, like that idea of disconnected from God, right? But I think one of the things that's happened is the anxieties making us disconnect from ourselves so that the emotions almost become over here. So you've got what's going on in your mind, your body and your spirit, and we're trying to separate them. And I think the whole picture of the gospel is again, we assume that the gospel brings us back together, not tears as a part. So renewing the mind, you know, moving the body, what we feed, what we feed our kids is so important. So many things to learn. It's the age old Old Testament thing of Elijah going to God and saying like, is that a really big battle and he goes, there's nobody left and you know, he's depressed and he wants to just end it all and God says, go home, take a nap and eat some food. And Dave, the natural tendency with anxiety for us as parents, just to kind of bring it together here at the end is to somehow avoid discomfort. And one of those is fear and anxious feelings for us as parents as we teach our kids to manage these big feelings that come up is first understand them, name them, understand where they're coming from and then walk towards them and find the right people around you to either help support you if it's a clinical anxiety. If it's a fear, hey, you don't need to be perfect. You don't need to gain people's love. You are walking towards it to grow and to discover more about who you are and what you do well and what you don't do well. And so as parents, helping our kids walk towards that fear, not rescuing them from that. And so I know that you encourage that. You encourage the idea of calmness and a full faith in Christ. And I think this has been a practical conversation for parents as we're thinking about just this idea of anxiety in our home and how to wrestle with that. Absolutely. And there's so much here, so much more that we want to get to. And we'd love to continue this discussion for a second episode if you're open to that. Dave, because it's just been so awesome. Absolutely. Yeah. And we'd love to bring more and more info to our podcast family next week. And before we switch gears into our Q&A, we'd like to just impress upon you the chance that you have to pick up a copy of Dave's book, Raising Jen Alpha that I was talking about earlier. The information is so important for parents, teachers and youth workers as well. At the end of each chapter, there are three tips and tools to help parents engage with the Jen Alpha kids in your world. There are also questions to spark meaningful conversations with Jen Alpha teens and preteens that can easily be adapted for younger children. Raising Jen Alpha is yours for a gift of any amount when you click on our show notes. And we do know that you can get this book anywhere, but when you purchase it from focus on the family, you're helping to continue the work of the ministry and this podcast. Thank you for helping families around the world thriving Christ. Well, let's dive in right now on our listener Q&A. Today's question comes from Charlotte who writes, "Danny and Rebecca, you have helped me so much. I know that Danny has this 6/7 thing going on. My kids are eight and 10 years old. I love that she's attributing that to you." My kids are eight and 10 years old and they've come up with words I've never heard before, like, "Skipity and Riz." They heard them from their babysitter. "Can you give us a list of words that kids are using nowadays and give parents an idea of what the heck they mean?" Charlotte has got this. I love it. 6/7 thing. I've got to go on on. I think you may be talking about that in one episode, Danny. Dave, do you have some acronyms you want to share? I actually kind of want you guys to answer this question because this is a very difficult one. The Gen Alpha slang changes all the time right. 6/7 was a trend that started. You could actually deep dive on the internet into the origins of 6/7. But in essence, it means nothing. Absolutely, that's part of the point of it. But every time in society you see 6/7, which once you start thinking about, you see it everywhere. You see it on road signs, you see it in McDonald's queues waiting for calling up the queue. Young people are going crazy when they hear it and they're doing that very strange thing with their hands. But what I think is really interesting is it's a great example of the fun of Gen Alpha, I think, actually. They call it the "unseriousness" of the next generation. But also the way that ideas can spread so rapidly. There's actually quite a deep feeling behind this 6/7 thing because in essence, how quickly is that spread around the world from Gen Alpha and how much then of adults try to copy it. And the reason why that trend is now dying here in the UK is because people like me are going to 6/7. So for example in church, we talk about be anxious for nothing, which I think is Philippians 4, 6/7. And once you've done that, essentially, you've killed the trend right. When your dad wears jeans, jeans are no longer cool. Remember hearing my son say cap, he used that one. And that means it's not true. And there's no cap. And that means seriously, you know, I'm not lying, no cap. But he used that for the first time, I go, "What are you talking about, son?" And he just said, "Hey, cap." And Slay is another one doing something exceptionally well. That's commonly used. Hey, you slay that or slay that. That's clay, that's clay, that's fire, something that's really good, and you ate that. I remember hearing my daughter say that, "Hey, you ate that," and I'm going, "No, I didn't eat anything. You ate that." You really conquered it. Have to be careful though, because you ate that is good, but that ate is actually bad. So it's like, you know, the way that we used to use the word wicked, and so boomers would say, "Well, that's bad, but we're saying no, that's good." Yes. That's funny. You're a funny one, because that basically means like charisma. Okay. That means that person's got a raise. Personality. They have a raise up, too, and that one is to flirt or to charm, that, you know, you rised up. And another one, sigma, is one that's been used a lot. It's consistently used, and that means independent, self-sufficient, and operates out of social hierarchies, so you're sigma. And another one that I've heard in my practice is, "Based, you're confident, you're authentic, you are based." And so there are plenty of other slang terms out there. There's some that you, acronyms, and slang terms that you need to be aware of as parents that are more on the dangerous side. And we will have that in the show notes, and an article that we wrote here, focused on the family, so be sure to check that out as a reference guide for you, mom or dad. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your question, Charlotte. I know that was very educational for a lot of us parents, and very helpful. We're going to send you Danny's wonderful books, Seven Trates of Effective Parenting, as our way of saying thanks for participating in the show. And if you have a situation in your family or a question that you'd like us to speak into, reach out and send an email or a voicemail by clicking on the show notes. Yeah, Dave, we appreciate you making the time for us today. Yeah. I know it's late there in UK. I know the rest of our conversation on this topic is going to be enlightening the parents on Jen Alpha and AI. We're going to be talking about that next. Thanks for all the research, and for sharing it with us here on Practice Makes Parent. Thank you so much, Dave. Thank you. Well, next week we'll dive deeper into raising Jen Alpha with Dave Bowden, again, out special guest for a second week, so that you can raise your children who are grounded in the unchanging truths of God in this world that is very different from what we grew up with. Very different, yes. We'll take a look at how AI is impacting Jen Alpha and just society in general, as well as more information on how to work through their anxiety around this whole AI thing. So until then, I'm Dr. Danny Huerta. And I'm Rebecca St. James. Join us next time for more tips for transforming your parenting on Practice Makes Parent. If you've been listening for a while, you know this is something we come back to a lot. Yeah. Each design reflects a piece of what it really feels like to be a parent. Check out all our designs using the link in our episode description.