Paranoid parenting won’t give your kids an edge in the age of AI

The great jobs displacement is coming, and it is enough to give anyone vertigo. It is even worse if you are a parent. Will our offspring be swallowed by the AI Pac-Man? Should the aspiring drama student be pushed to join the stampede into science subjects? Is the expensive panic master’s degree better than a paid job in the pub?

Helicopter parents have always looked for an edge, despite this sometimes backfiring. A new paper finds that in South Korea, where extra tutoring is now so intense that high school students are not getting enough sleep, the most tutored children are more likely to become behaviourally disengaged at school. How that helps anyone is unclear. But the worldwide tutoring industry continues to grow.

Paranoid parenting is now more rational, given the levels of uncertainty in the economy. But it seems unlikely that we can robot-proof our children’s futures, or even our own, given the speed at which we are heading towards artificial general intelligence. Ten years ago, the mantra was “learn to code”, now it’s “double maths”: Tomorrow it may be something entirely different.

In one way, the realisation that there is no secret key, no magic bullet, should come as a blessed relief. Perhaps education can return to developing curiosity and intellectual interest, rather than funnelling children through systems where there is only one right answer, and where originality and ambiguity (which employers say they want) are confined to the art department and the poetry club.

Perhaps the signalling value of simply getting into a certain university or blue-chip company will fade. And perhaps parents can stop obsessing over pushing their children into the professions they themselves worked in, and instead help them find what they are passionate about.

“I tell parents, let your child decide,” says serial headmaster and educationalist Anthony Seldon. “It isn’t about you, it’s about what they love, what they think they’re good at, what they need. They’re more likely to get a job if they are doing something they really enjoy.”

The crucial message from many experts is that the job of a parent is to protect children from anxiety, not project more on to them. A new study finds that 42 per cent of current undergraduates at US universities have considered changing their major because of AI. These children are clearly worried – but they are also more likely to spot what is right for them, than us oldies are.

In her book The Gift Of Teenagers: Connect More, Worry Less, mental health expert Rachel Kelly urges parents to identify our own notion of success, and think about who really benefits if we unwittingly push it on our children. Ms Kelly describes her own experience of feeling “a red mist of anger” at a parent-teacher meeting, when a teacher said her child would not be able to get into her preferred school. “At the time, I was unable to line up what really suited my child with the expectations of society and indeed my own hopes,” she writes, with admirable honesty.

Pushing a child into the wrong environment for them, she argues, is a recipe for becoming overly pressured and excessively sensitive to criticism, neither of which will help in later life.

What skills are desirable? The literature tends to emphasise three: adaptability, learning to fail and independent thinking. Again, this is great news, since all are features of normal human life.

Or at least they used to be, before parents started bullying teachers to put their child in the play, schlepping them to overscheduled activities and prioritising homework over getting them to clean their room. You can learn how to pick yourself up and move on by playing a team sport with good grace, getting a holiday job doing something unfamiliar or seeing a parent make mistakes and recover.

Three other characteristics, rarely mentioned, would seem to be central to a meaningful life. These are kindness, saving money, and being interested in other people whom you treat with respect. Parents can model those for free.

The number of employers I meet who are fed up with hiring demanding, bolshie young people suggests we haven’t done it well. Being entitled and ungrateful is perhaps the fastest way for young people to write themselves out of the script.

Working from home too early in your career is another, as it limits exposure to the rough and tumble of being an employee, learning about office politics and how to handle conflict. It is easy to say that the specific academic subject does not matter – that a child who wants to study poetry should do so. It is harder when we are all still trapped in the old rat race.

What is clear is that education systems are due a revolution. We may need to swop some lengthy, expensive degrees that contain very little teaching, and can quickly become obsolescent, for more nimble, regular upskilling. We will need more serious apprenticeships at all ages, to adapt to technological advances.

Employers, too, need to figure out how to pass on expertise in the age of AI – and to maintain the apprentice-master bond which humans have used since time immemorial to impart and learn skills.

At the moment, “safe-ish” sectors seem to include teaching, healthcare, policing and the military. All rely on judgment, and all have a concept of service which might be more satisfying, and provide more value to society, than the narrow suite of professional roles parents often list.

Yes, they are not as high-earning. But if your child is not going to make it into a doctoral programme in AI, it is surely better to value them for who they are – and not to let them see you worrying. FINANCIAL TIMES