Survey suggests parents today are ‘too soft’ on their children

December 13, 2024 Canuck

A new survey suggests most Canadian parents are concerned their children aren’t equipped to handle the challenges of daily life.

The research, conducted by Scouts Canada, found that more than 91 per cent of participating Canadian parents, born between 1965 and 2010, are concerned their children, between the age of 10 and 21, don’t have “soft skills.”

Some of those skills include coping with stress, basic etiquette, problem solving and leadership.

The survey also found 34.3 per cent of respondents are not confident their children will be able to get jobs and be successful in the future.

Scouts Canada surveyed 1,000 Canadians after observing children in their organization.

“We believe and we’ve seen in our scouting programs that kids are not what we remember as youth of ourselves,” Mike Eybel, who is with Scouts Canada, told CTV Morning Live on Friday.

“Leadership skills aren’t there in what we’ve seen.”

Eybel believes a lot of blame can be placed on the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve seen that COVID has completely shifted how we raise children,” he said. “I remember when I was a kid, I was out until the streetlights came on, then I had 20 minutes before my parents really started to worry.”

He said virtual schooling for so long during the pandemic deprived children of some essential skills.

“Parents are looking at their childhood and basically any time in history and the children of today definitely have a disadvantage,” Eybel said.

Eybel said Scouts Canada launched the survey to help inform parents about how to give their children the skills they need.

“How do we build those skills in this new modern age when, really, the world has changed? Normal looks very different than what it did a few years ago.”

Eybel says Scouts Canada is attempting to help build those skills by cutting out screen time and offering new experiences.

“When you fall off a low ropes course, it’s not a failure, it’s an acronym. FAIL is an acronym for ‘first attempt in learning’ so our program teaches them to get back on that low ropes course, back to the thing they were trying to do and do it successfully.”

Eybel says once that’s done, youth can build confidence and resiliency that can pay off for them in the future.

“As we ask kids to explore the outdoors, take risks and learn what they’re capable of, it empowers them to be really self confident.”

The survey also found that 46 per cent of parents feel they aren’t doing enough to prepare their children while a similiar amount of respondents said they knew exposure to new opportunities to build problem-solving and leadership skills would be what’s needed to tackle the challenge.

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