Millennial Teens and face-to-face communication: Are our kids in dire need of help with certain Life Skills?
@gonzalotapia (8)
Caracas, Venezuela
October 28, 2017 5:03pm CST
I am the lucky father of a girl who was born on June 21st 2000, so she is 17 years old. And this also means I am the father of a Millennial teen, and as such, I am worried about certain things I have noticed regarding my daughter's life skills. Especially those connected with face-to-face communication and general interaction with other humans beyond texting, social networks and the internet.
Maybe some of the readers taking a minute to read this discussion have the same situation as mine, and have noticed the same things. Here is a list of the things I feel worried about.
1. My daughter has hundreds (maybe thousands) of friends. Online friends that is. People from our country and from many different countries. Most of those 'friends' are around her age but well you never know. In contrast, she has about a dozen 'real' friends she spends time with and does real life things with. All those friends and her schoolmates and to make things more paradoxical, they are also internet friends.
2. When meeting new people online (whether in a social network or in a multiplayer online game) my daughter feels at ease and makes friends very quickly. She and her online interlocutors are very expressive of points of view and interests and have a great ability to find out if they like each other or not. In contrast, when meeting new people 'for real', in social or family situations, my daughter and the other kids tend to be much more passive and quiet. It is really hard for them to accept and get to know new people for real (both their same age or older people).
3. My daughter texted ME the other day (we were in the same house at the same time) to ask me for permission to go out. When I asked her why she texted me instead of coming to the living room and asking me face-to-face, she told me she felt scared I was going to say no and she felt more confident about doing it through the smartphone. This one really worried me.
So from these sample situations I raise the following questions for discussion:
How can we help our millennial teens to develop their life skills for real life communication and improve their person to person interactions?
How can we help them understand that they will hit an age when they will have to leave the shelter of home and go to the world, face people and interact with people the same old way we have done for many generations?
I know and accept the world has changed since the time we were the teens dialing the phone number of the pretty girl on a disc dial, or thrilled with the excitement of what new friends we were going to make at the party. Now they already know from whatsapp o Facebook who is attending the party. Now they cannot refuse to answer the phone or simply leave it un-hanged.
Maybe, it must also be different for us parents and the new things we need to help our kids with, since they are different and no other generation of parents faced the worlds as we face it now.
5 people like this
9 responses
@acrogodess (992)
• Aberdeen, North Carolina
29 Oct 17
I'm lucky that my 16 and 14 yr olds have no problem being social in person, but I also did not allow them to have social media pages until recently. My 14 yr old daughter uses them more than my 16 yr old son. I have homeschooled them since they were 9 and 11. I found it much easier to supervise with who and how they interact with others, and easier to encourage the type of manners and social interaction I feel will get them far in life.
2 people like this
@paigea (36317)
• Canada
28 Oct 17
Well your daughter is lucky because you think about these things. I was a teen in the early 70s. I was extremely shy and had far fewer than a dozen friends.
I was not able/willing to meet new people at all and clung to my friends. So, I don't see having only a few -in person- friends as anything new. Or being socially
awkward as anything new.
Texting you is a step better than avoiding you. (Which teens have done forever) It gives you an opening to respond in person and ask about the event she wants to go to.
My parents were very social and introduced me to a lot of people and taught me to speak up and respond. My small group of friends and I were encouraged by our parents to participate in many activities. And I learned to be more social. Though I was often that girl in her room with a book getting the quiet alone time I craved.
Small expectations of social behaviour and let them be the rest of the time. That is my humble opinion.
1 person likes this
@gonzalotapia (8)
• Caracas, Venezuela
29 Oct 17
Thank you for your insight! And to all of you who have commented on my discussion. I have got very interesting ideas from all you friends!
1 person likes this
@thislittlepennyearns (62657)
• Defuniak Springs, Florida
29 Oct 17
People say this about my generation too. But for every kid or teen or twenty something that loves being connected to the web or tech there are some of us that still know how to talk face to face and write letters. Ask anyone on my Facebook account I don't use it very often.
1 person likes this
@mythociate (21432)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
30 Dec 17
She's a millennial, and she's 17? I'm a millennial, and I'm 36! Shouldn't my generation of millennials (including Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Christina Aguilera) have [b]a different name[/i] than your daughter's (which I guess would include Justin Bieber & Selena Gomez)? I mean, when will the Millennial Generation end? & what'll the next generation be?
Anyway:
1) I suppose that's like 'being in the same graduating-class as hundreds (or thousands) of other people, but only being friends with a dozen of them.'
2) Kinda the same deal: you have no problem 'joining a class' or 'joining a school,' but you're nervous about 'becoming a good friend of people.'
3) It's sad that she feels this way, but I can understand her reasoning. When she asks IRL, it's like she's "auditioning" to go out, like 'there's something wrong with her' if she can't go out; when she texts it, it's more 'these are the facts: this is where I will be, unless you need me to be somewhere other than this.'
@nanette64 (20364)
• Fairfield, Texas
30 Oct 17
I hope the answer to #3 was still 'no' @gonzalotapia . If you said 'yes', then she knows you can be manipulated. With #2, I hope you've had 'the talk' regarding scammers and pedophiles using pictures of someone who is definitely not them. And sooner or later she is going to have to do a lot of 'face to face' interactions when she finds a job and enters the REAL world.
