How [NOT] to Train Your Kids for Digital Transformation

This is a message for every parent living with anxiety, facing a reality that has overtaken them and for which they want to prepare their children. The first and only message: “This transformation is yours and your children's; it will be theirs”.

[Dedicated from the heart to my son Mateo]

This is a post for all those fathers and mothers who enroll their children in learning a third language; for all those Spanish parents who speak English to their children in the park; for all those parents who dream of working outside their country so their children will be prepared to be global; for all those fathers and mothers who sign their children up for programming or robotics on a Saturday morning; for all those fathers and mothers who dream of their children being better prepared than they are for a future that will probably never look like our current present. I admit I have fallen into some of the clichés on the list above. Fortunately I am not the one speaking English to his children in the park.

I invite you to let them play, to let them laugh, to let them develop their imagination, to let them discover their passions, to let nobody tell them what they want to be when they grow up and to let nobody deny them the dream of being bakers, craftsmen, police officers, firefighters, astronauts, princesses, dancers or artists. And tomorrow something different from yesterday. To let them discover the magic of devoting all their potential to whatever they are passionate about. It has taken me more than 40 years to discover it.

“Embrace the glorious MESS that YOU ARE” - Elizabeth Gilbert

I invite you to let them dream the way you were not allowed to. Let them develop their creativity, their curiosity and their ingenuity. Because it is that ingenuity that has led you (a non-digital native) to embrace the digital world naturally. Let them grow up with attachment, with affection and with the security that you were probably not given. Do not let them kill their dreams under a mountain of homework. Do not penalize them for being restless. Your children probably do not have attention deficit disorder; they are simply bored of paying attention the same way you learned to, in a new environment packed with completely different stimuli.

And speaking of children (and of parents), wouldn't it be better for your child to learn to understand how to improve the way things are done? I wish I had been the guy who came up with the following:

Since I have dedicated this post to my son, I am going to offer a few reflections to prepare him for the future. A list of reflections to prepare your children for their Digital Transformation:

• I choose to enjoy their brilliance, their creativity

• I want them to dream all the time

• I want them to go on being superheroes and to be the ones who decide when to stop

• I want them to collaborate, and to do it from the heart

• I want them to dare to be wrong

• I want them never to stop asking (My son Mateo, aged 4: “Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar, and where's the girl?”)

• I want having fun not to be just a space for rest, for recess.

• I want them to keep on creating and never to stop doing it

And if you still have doubts about what to do with your children, I recommend reading this post “5 WAYS TO ENCOURAGE KIDS TO GROW UP TO BE INNOVATORS”. For the lazy among you, I will spare you the click and sum it up in these 5 pillars: Play | Curiosity | Passion | Daring | Purpose. Maybe some of this advice can still be useful to you, who keep that child we all once carried inside.

For those still thinking about preparing their children for digital transformation, I recommend a maxim on the “Beauty of Uncertainty”:

Boethius said that:

"eternity is when the present lacks nothing".

I invite you to gift them your learnings and NEVER your fears.

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About me:

Bernardo Crespo is Digital Transformation Leader at Divisadero.

Director of the Executive Program in Digital Transformation at IE Business School and an Ontological Coach certified by Newfield Network in Bogotá (Colombia).

Bachelor's degree in Business Studies from UCLM and final year of a BA Honours in Management and Economics, University of St Andrews. Executive Master's in Relationship Marketing, CRM and E-Commerce from ICEMD, and lecturer at various business schools in Spain. Worked as digital marketing director at BBVA España.

I currently work helping companies walk the path of Digital Transformation at DIVISADERO.