Parenting in the Year 2018

Parenting in the Year 2018

Parenting in the Year 2018 – The only thing consistent about parenting throughout the ages is that it’s never been easy. So, here’s some advice you can apply to raising kids in 2018!

The world is changing at a rapid pace and, consequently, so is the way we chose to parent our children. Only thirty years ago, it was 1985 and societal norms and technological capabilities were vastly different. In 1985, a mobile phone was roughly the size of a house brick and was only owned by stockbrokers and the wealthy. Today, children in the UK generally have their own phone by the time they begin high school, if not before. Letting your children stay out until the street lights came on, using smacking as a form of discipline – these perfectly acceptable parenting standards for 1985 would be considered neglectful by many parents today. Social media platforms connect modern parents in ways that were unimaginable thirty years ago. Parents can now form supportive online communities and seek advice from others worldwide. Conversely, the advent of the internet has also resulted in the serious child protection concerns that parents typically harbour today. Each generation of children bring forth new challenges for their parents, that much is certain. Here, we discuss the ways that 2018 is trying to give parents a helping hand.

Young, Hip and ‘Appening

There really is an app for just about everything these days. While some apps are borderline ridiculous (no one needs Goat Simulator on their phone for £7.99, do they?), other apps are genuinely helpful for parents and their children.

For kids, there are a fantastic range of apps currently available that are educational, entertaining or both at the same time! Take Rooster Money for example, an app that’s digitising pocket money. It’s entirely virtual with no card attached, so it’s perfect for the younger age groups. It also allows the child to have a savings and a wallet account, so you can begin to teach them the difference between having accessible cash and saving for a goal. Then there are apps with cards attached like goHenry, which are ideal for teaching pre-teens important financial lessons.

For the adults in the family, there are apps that cater to a variety of needs. In the past, parents who were separated or divorced were often plagued by the communication problems that naturally occur when a child splits their time between two homes. Today, there are apps that have been formulated with co-parenting specifically in mind. These apps come with custody schedules, expense management features and photo-sharing abilities so you can still feel connected to your child when it’s their turn to stay elsewhere. Some of these apps even log communications which can then be used to provide an accurate record during divorce proceedings.

There are also tasking apps which, although not made solely for busy parents, make a huge difference to daily life. Airtasker will finally be making its UK debut this year, meaning more parents will be able to free up their schedules with ease. If you haven’t heard of tasking apps like Airtasker, it is worth doing your research. You simply post a task using the app, and taskers will bid to do the chore. For example, if you know Wednesdays are a nightmare because of music lessons and football training, you can arrange for a tasker to do the grocery shop for you! The days of feeling like a plate-spinner are over.

Gadgets – all the cool parents have them

Sure, there may be thousands of books and how-to-guides available for parents on Amazon, but that’s just the problem – it is so easy to feel overwhelmed by all the information. What are you supposed to do when your baby has trouble sleeping, or starts to roll over in their cot for the first time? If you try scouring baby manuals for answers, you’ll most likely end up with ten different opinions and no solution. Enter – gadgets. Just like James Bond has, only these have much more practical, everyday applications for new parents. When babies first begin to roll onto their stomachs, it can be worrying, especially when you put them down for a nap. Parents often get up multiple times in the night, anxious at the thought of their child struggling to breathe. But thankfully, you can now purchase baby movement monitors that simply clip onto your baby’s nappy. These monitors alert you if they detect no movement for 15 seconds, giving you peace of mind. Getting up in the night to sooth a crying baby can seem like a never-ending cycle, but now mobiles exist that can sense when your baby has woken up. These mobiles then play soothing sounds and lights to lull your baby back to sleep, leaving you to enjoy a few extra minutes of precious bed rest.

21^st century education

Parenting methods are changing in the UK. What was once considered to be ‘hippy’ or ultra-alternative has now become almost mainstream. The Department of Education states that parents have a right to educate their children at home if the children in question are receiving a safe and suitable education. There has been a reported 65% increase in UK children who are recorded as being home schooled in the past six years. Home-schooling and unschooling, the practice of allowing children to learn from their life experiences and direct their own education, are becoming increasingly accepted as methods of education. By no means will these practices suit everyone, but it is comforting to know that there are many options available for you once your child reaches school age.

New parenting challenges, and new, innovative solutions to such challenges will continue to exist as long as there are children to care for. While it is easy to feel overwhelming in this age of information, it is worth researching what is currently on the market. Implementing two or three changes may be all that it takes to make things run that little bit smoother in your household.

*please note this is a sponsored post.