This is called the generation of snowflakes, who are referred to as highly sensitive and demanding. “Times are challenging, not children. As parents, we don’t teach them to manage stress because we lived in a comfortable time,” experts say about Generation Z in a discussion of the Smart Czech Republic project that they will spend their whole lives with.
People born between 1995 and 2010 are often considered highly sensitive. According to experts, they are different from previous generations, but that does not mean they are weaker. “Generation Z is more sensitive and receptive, we measured it. But don’t use the label more sensitive. It’s more active, more concerned with social issues, more connected to the Internet,” said John Savotny, an economist at the University of Economics in Pospisil, in a discussion.
Barbora Pšenicová, therapist and director of the Nevypuť duši organization, also warns about generation. “Certain topics are more fundamental to them and resonate more with them than previous generations,” he adds. According to the therapist, these people are highly sensitive, but strong in some ways. “We have to respect them even if we don’t agree with them,” he adds.
Sensitivity leads to the fact that teachers need to approach Generation Z students differently than just a “talking leader” who conveys a topic from a script. “You have to feel their mood. But this is how communication should work between everyone. When you tune into their mood, they understand the teaching better,” explains Pospíšil.
Pšenicová cautions against suggesting that young people are to blame for their problems or that they can’t handle stress. “At the same time, from the statements of clinical psychologists, it follows that it is not children who are challenging. When I was a child, I processed the war in Ukraine differently than when I was 35 years old and studied public policy. ,” she says. Then he talks about the impact of education. “Who among us prepared our children for what was to come? We didn’t teach them how to manage stress because we lived in a convenient time that didn’t require it,” she counters.
Závodný Pospíšil draws attention to the fact that parents often raise children from Generation Z in a certain style. “We often call them helicopter parents because these parents ‘transport’ children from place to place so they don’t encounter the real world,” she describes.
Therefore, according to the two guests, parents who are more sensitive to changes or life events may be responsible. “As much as we love them, we protect them. But sometimes we prevent them from enjoying. For example, if they can’t do a sport, they have to learn how to handle it,” says Pšenicová.
Zavodný Pospíšil talks about parents putting children “in a foam bag so that nothing happens to them.” However, in that, they have no connection to the real world, and when they enter adulthood at 18, it suddenly becomes too much for them. Previously, according to him, children gradually gained more experience during adolescence.
