Challenges For Modern Parents

In the modern digital age, there are all sorts of dangers parents should attend to, especially if they have young children. Cyber safety is a relatively new field but an important one for moms and dads to understand. It's just one of the dozens of challenges that come with raising children in the 2020s. Others include preparing kids for the academic rigors of high school and college, making sure they can cover most or all of the cost of attending a college or university, teaching them to avoid stranger danger while still young, and instilling in them a basic understanding of how to handle money. Of course, there are many more things you need to impart to young minds, but those are certainly among the top concerns of most modern families.

Challenges For Modern Parents
[image: pexels by Vidal Balielo Jr.]

Cyber Safety

How can you protect young kids who spend hours per day on their computers doing school work, playing games, and socializing? The answer is close supervision. Use safety apps to prevent them from accessing dangerous sites. Additionally, do random checks on their devices to see whether they're being targeted by unscrupulous people who attempt to extract sensitive information from them and establish manipulative friendships.

Sending Youngsters to College

One of the most challenging tasks for any parent is to save for a child's college education. It's no secret that the cost of attending a four-year program after high school has skyrocketed in the past two decades. Nowadays, paying for schooling is one of the largest single expenses moms and dads face, including mortgages and other big-ticket items. Is there a secret to saving enough to cover the entire cost of a degree for your child or children? 

Unfortunately, the answer is no. However, the good news is that the vast majority of families do figure out a way to get all the educational bills paid in time for day one of freshman year. Many working adults turn to Earnest parent student loans to finance some or all of the price of a degree for their offspring. Low-rate PPLs (private parent loans) offer reasonable terms and features that make it possible to cover school expenses before classes begin. That way, you don't need to worry about the prospect of pulling kids out of college mid-year or in between terms.

Stranger Danger

For more than 100 years, people have been teaching youngsters about stranger danger. Under a number of different names, this threat is one of the most basic dangers kids face in the outside world. Whenever they're apart from the family, children often become the target of nefarious adults. The single best way to instruct your child is to have detailed, regular discussions about how to best fend off the unwanted advances and attention of unknown adults. 

Fortunately, there are excellent online tutorials you can view with your child and discuss afterward. It's essential to explain to them that even the kindest, most friendly adults can mean to do them harm. However, it's crucial to emphasize that not every strange face in a crowd is a potential threat. You don't want to instill terror and fear but instead, show kids how to stay safe and avoid close contact with unknown adults.