Kids Today – Can They Imagine How We Did It?

Early this morning my wife and I had our parent-teacher conference with our 12 year old Justin's home room teacher. I am so pleased with his grades, but just as happy with his demeanor and transition from elementary school into middle school.

I remember 7th grade and it was horrible at least socially for me, but from what his teacher told us, Justin has a lot of friends and always has a smile on his face and helps out in class! Is this the same kid who we see at home? He is different at home, but I think most middle schoolers are that way. He's a good kid at home as well, just more real, I guess.

What also caught me while at the school which has nothing really to do with Justin, more to do with middle school culture. When we were 12-14 years old, we hung out, walked and talked in the halls before school, or if it was a nice day, were outside gossiping face to face with eye contact, etc.

Today, more than half of the students waiting for the bell to ring were face down in their phones, either going through their feed running up the data as the school wi-fi blocks social media or texting friends, or so it looked. I'm really curious to see how these kids are five to ten years from now when they have to relate to colleagues and significant others person to person.

It was just an observation, I'm not saying I'm worried about our future. "Boy, I tell you when I was your age, we had quarters and we used the pay phone and we liked it!"