Parenting Gen Z is exasperating but can't be given up

Being a parent today feels like stepping into a job no one prepared you for, with rules that change every day and expectations that are sky-high yet hard to pin down.

- SRINATH SRIDHARAN

Ask any parent raising a Gen Z or Gen Alpha child, and they will tell you the same thing—it has never been more complicated. Not because children are bad. Not because parents do not care. But because the world around them has changed so much and so quickly that old approaches no longer work and the new ones are dicey.

What once came instinctively to parents is now viewed through a lens of scrutiny by today's children. Setting a boundary feels like issuing a threat. Saying 'no' comes with a pit in the stomach. Raising your voice—out of worry, frustration, even love—can suddenly feel like a dangerous overstep. Somewhere between the rise of emotional vocabulary and the decline of language vocabulary, the inculcation of discipline is now confused with inducing stress.

This is not about going back to an era of authoritarian parenting. No one is asking to revive fear as a parenting tool—something many from Gen X and older generations grew up with. What we need to reflect on, though, is how today's environment makes it harder than ever to hold the line.

Children are not just growing up faster, they are growing up in the public sphere, thanks to social media. Their emotions are shaped by online peers, influencers and algorithms that offer constant validation and instant escape paths.