When you least expect it, a regular weekly dinner can open up a world that maybe it’s time to get to know. During a debate between wife and husband about starting a diet and choosing what foods to eat, the voice of the 12-year-old daughter is heard in the background explaining to her parents the difference between classic and wholemeal pasta, arguing that , for the wholemeal one, the same semolina of the classic pasta is used with the addition of the bran that has been removed from the first, which is why it has more fiber, but does not make you lose weight as is often believed. To lose weight you need to eat balanced, even carbohydrates, because they are our main source of energy, they must only be taken in the right proportion; there are no fat burning foods, they are just commercial gimmicks to make people who are looking for easy weight loss spend more money. For a diet to work you need to be constant, do not seek immediate results to avoid stress and the release of cortisol, exercise, sleep well and drink lots of water, avoiding drinks with sugar. If you want I recommend some recipes for a balanced breakfast.
As that little voice spoke, the expression of the father, and of the mother, was equally clear: contraction of the frontal muscle, approach of the eyebrows and slightly raised eyebrow. It is the look of a perplexed father, from when in doubt “confused”, in front of the words of a 12-year-old daughter.
“And what do you know?”
What do you mean what do I know? “
“And since when have you known all these things?”
“Since I have TikTok and I follow nutritionists”
“Nutritionists on TikTok?”
“Yes dad, it’s not what you and mom think, I’m also learning many things”.
Every time they tell me episodes of this type, I smile, because I, who are in direct contact with them and who live their world, know perfectly well where children can go if they are left free to express themselves, think and do. We just need to give them the tools they need to make the most of their potential, without castrating them based on what we think we know about them. I relived the same scene when some parents realized that their children, through the network, were already properly trained on the LGBT world or on many aspects concerning sexuality. Thinking them still too small and therefore unsuitable to address certain topics leads them to seek information and learn on social platforms, especially on TikTok, with the risk that they do not know how to filter and distinguish what is true from what is false. Unfortunately, we still live in the mistaken belief that talking about certain topics means instigating them. Critical, autonomous thinking and discernment skills are learned with daily training. The problem is that many adults also fall into the traps of the web and believe a lot of misleading information.
“And what do you know?” it means starting from the basic assumption that they are small and therefore cannot, and must not, know. Those little ones, however, have the window of the world in their hands, a tool that in real time allows them to access everything that is possible to imagine, and also to what is not possible to imagine. And they stay there, many hours, sometimes too many, of their days looking out that window, without those tools necessary to look at that world because they always think they are too small and too naive. While we adults think this, they continue to look out of that digital window on the real world, with the parent next to him who does not realize that even if they are there, close, they are not there, they are elsewhere and continue to feed on the information they found in online platforms, for better or for worse.
We cannot prevent this process, we can live it with them, break down our internal walls, our beliefs, understand that they are extremely stressed from a cognitive point of view since childhood. On the net, you can instantly find any type of answer, it’s time to look out that window with them and look at that world with their eyes, understand their perspective and teach them some tricks on how to select content by explaining that all is not gold. glitters. There is also a lot of good on the net and it is up to all of us adults to direct them towards those contents. For example, it is possible to learn English, there are many teachers who also do it in a fun way. But there is also physics, chemistry, diction, Italian grammar, mathematics, explained in some cases by the children themselves, who help others in a simple and direct way, along with lots of curiosities, obviously without ever forgetting the other side of the coin, that from which we must protect children and adolescents, that of misleading content that must never, ever be imitated. We have to teach him to report those contents because this gesture is equivalent to throwing garbage in the non-digital world. If I don’t eliminate the rejects, they will fill our spaces, and the same goes for the web; if we do not eliminate them, the algorithm will propose them to us again and we get used to navigating even in the midst of garbage, risking to intoxicate us.
We must not underestimate them, we must listen to them, give them space and understand that their growth is not so scary. Only in this way is it possible to understand who they are, what they identify with, what they believe in, not what we think of them. Stimulating them in their thought processes and in comparison is a training to make them less conditioned and therefore to protect them.
Let’s lower the prejudices on online platforms, we cannot prevent them from coming into contact with the contents of the web, today everything is interconnected. We give them the tools to filter and ask themselves the right questions, explaining even the most subtle mechanisms of the network. Let’s look out the window with them to avoid being surprised only when we discover that sam aware of things we didn’t think they might know.
The future is not the technology, the future is theirs, and we must be their guide. A guide must know in order to give direction. Before blaming technology, let’s prepare, not for a war, but for a life in which we must use the means we have at our disposal in our favor.
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