How Does The Generation Gap Affect The Family?
The bonds between parents and children can be the most enriching or the most devastating that we experience in our life. Increasingly, parents are making great efforts to achieve proper, positive, and respectful parenting.
However, to establish a good bond of any kind, communication is a key element and, when it comes to communicating with our children, we can find ourselves with great difficulties. Many of them are due to the generation gap that affects families and that we must gradually reduce.
With the arrival of adolescence is when conflicts and misunderstandings intensify. However, these can come from much earlier. What happens is that the need for independence and “rebellion” typical of young people puts us face to face with problems that we may not have noticed before.
If we want to establish relationships of trust and respect in the family, it is necessary that we understand the role that these differences play between generations.
What is the generation gap in the family?
The generation gap refers to that small or great gulf that exists between some generations and others in terms of values, ideals, beliefs and objectives. In families it manifests itself as the different principles or lifestyles that children have with respect to parents, grandparents or more adult relatives.
One of the clearest and most significant examples are the existing differences regarding opinion and use of the internet and social networks (digital divide). In this regard, it is common for grandchildren to teach their grandparents (and even their parents) to handle new technologies. However, this gap goes much further, creating significant daily friction and problems.
For example, parents may consider that the current generation’s values are wrong, that their hobbies are inappropriate, and, in general, that their outlook on life is not correct. It is common for there to be resistance to change and the tendency to think that the way we grew up and think was clearly better.
This obviously creates a distance between parents and children. But, in addition, the communication codes of young people are new and different from those used by other generations. For this reason, parents may not be able to understand and dialogue adequately with their children, especially when they are adolescents.
How to bridge the generation gap?
Know your world
First of all, it is necessary that you take an interest in the world that surrounds your child and in which it unfolds. Worry about knowing their favorite movies, drawings or series. Catch up on the social networks that his friends use or that he asks you to use. Learn the words, abbreviations, and communication codes that are commonly used by their generation.
Although at first you feel totally alien and disoriented, knowing their world will allow you to get to know your child better. You will be able to understand what he means when he tells you about something that he likes or worries him and you will be able to share an enriching exchange.
Also, only from this position can you judge whether something is appropriate or not, and set sensible limits. Banning and rejecting something that your child asks of you without knowing it will only increase the distance between you.
Respect their generation
The differences between parents and children have always existed and we all tend to think that what is ours, what is familiar and familiar to us is better. However, accept that your children are not you, and that their current world is different from the one you grew up in.
Therefore, respect those differences and be open to change. Accompany and advise from the respect of what they are and what they live, without criticizing, judging or belittling their lifestyle or their generation.
Encourage healthy communication
Finally, try to establish, from childhood, a bond of affection, respect and trust with your children. Feeling appreciated and valued will encourage them to maintain healthy and fluid family communication.
Remember that you can all enrich each other, that each generation has something to contribute and that you can complement each other. Love, respect and communication are the best way to bridge the generation gap in the family.
