Mental health is a vast topic, shrouded in stigma of something dark, grim and difficult to deal with, yet it's an enormously important part of children's development. As the experts warn of a looming mental health crisis especially amongst the young, we open up the conversation to remove stigma from educating ourselves and our kids on mental health to navigate times of uncertainty.

A conversation with parents who are thinking about mental health already on how they are building resilience in the face of anxiety and fear; how do they spot change in behaviours that could signal mental health problems vs just naughty behaviour or teen mood swings; how does anorexia creep its way in; what can we do as parents to approach this topic.

Paying Attention to Children's Mental Health

In this episode we ask if Change Maker is the top job of the future. Preparing our kids for the adult world is what we do as parents. And work is one of the key areas of this world. In the age of rapid economic, political and social change, are there skills that we can nurture in our kids that will create the difference between staying ahead of the curve to create change and being drowned by waves of unprecedented events? How do we raise passionate kids who are motivated to be explorers and change makers, who stay open minded and hungry to create a better world. 

This Episode Guests:
Xenia Adjoubei specialises in design and research in areas of architecture, urbanism and culture. Xenia teaches in London School of Architecture and Brighton University and leads an education and research centre in the largest Art Park in Europe, the Nikola-Lenivets Classroom, based in rural Russia.  Xenia is lead researcher in the Global Free Unit, which is a network for education through live projects in contexts of rapid economic and political change, such as refugee and migration crises. Xenia runs the Moscow office of AdjoubeiScottWhitby Studio, an architecture practice with projects in culture, public realm and education. Her curatorial projects cover topics such as The Virtual Museum, Degrowth: Architecture Povera, The New Rural: designing a contemporary village and Art as Labour: physical labour and craft in a post-work future. 

Florence Kollie Raja is the founder and director of Ethical Era and the creator of the 2030 Positive Planet Agenda. Florence originally trained to become a ballet dancer and was one of the first POC ballerinas in the UK for Ballet Black Company. She then studied Politics and Economics and went into consulting and investment banking on the asset management side. Worked at Goldman, PwC, Fortress and M&G. Alongside this as a second job ran for office and worked for UK Parliament, European Parliament and Local Government for a decade.

Future Professions: Is Change Maker the top job of the future?

For us - parents born in the previous century, the world is defined into a physical real world and the online other. Two different worlds. For our digital native kids, this world is one. How do we navigate a world that we do not fully understand. How do we go from waging Technology Wars to becoming curious explorers?

For this episode we asked kids 10-14 years old to share their views on how they use technology and whether their parents concerns are justified.

Podcast guests:
Alla Bashenko, a digitally minded investor and board advisor. Alla graduated from Brown University and is a published poet along her successful career in investment banking. She is a mother of a teen boy, based in London. 

Maria Muennich, a freelance writer and formerly executive editor at Immediate Media. For the last decade Maria has prioritised her role as a mum of 3 kids, as the family moves within Europe every couple of years. 

Cover Art by Veronika Raoul @veronika_raoul
www.veronikaraoul.com

Technology Wars

GenZA is a podcast about parenting our future - Generation Z and Generation Alpha, creating citizens who are thinkers and designers of the world but also doers who will show up and not turn a blind eye whilst tragedies unfold.

In the best of times raising kids is a challenge for every parent. In the times of change and uncertainty, it is an endurance race - the rule book is thrown out of the window, tectonic shifts change the ethical and social landscape and parents have to steer the family ship across new unchartered waters. 

A podcast series of conversations from Katerina Zherebtsova, for parents who are at the forefront of ‘the new normal’.

Future Professions: Is Change Maker the top job of the future?

GENZA

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