Conversation questions (Generation Gap)

Conversation Questions
Generation Gap

1. What is a generation gap?

2. When do you feel the generation gap the most?

3. How can you overcome a generation gap?

4. Can you talk to your parents about everything?

5. Do you ever disagree with your parents/grandparents about topics such as music, style and values?

6. How many years difference causes a generation gap?

7. Is it possible for parents and children to be friends?

8. Is it possible for parents and children to be friends? Or for people of different generations to be friends?

Liam: Young people aren’t treated fairly by the media. Every day there’s something negative in the papers about people of my age – stuff like antisocial behaviour, or drugs, or fights between gangs. The media create the idea that young people don’t have enough respect for other members of society, and that all they care about is having a good time. Well, all I know is that my friends aren’t like that. New technology is one of the things that make it harder for the different generations to understand each other. Things like social networking sites are an everyday part of my life, but they’re a mystery to a lot of people of my parents’ age. Little things like that add to a sense of separation.

John: Lots of people of my age seem to think the country’s going to the dogs (becoming weaker), but I tell them they’re looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. They say young people today are more individualistic, or even selfish, than in the past, and that their sense of right and wrong isn’t as strong as that of older people. There might be a little bit of truth in that, but in general I think the differences are exaggerated. I know I don’t look at my own kids, who are 19 and 23, and wish they were more like I was at their age. One thing that worries me slightly, though, is the possibility that kids today don’t appreciate what they’ve got. Young people in Britain have more money to spend than they did 50 years ago, and more choices available to them, but I don’t think they’re happier than we were.

Sally: Of course, there’s a gap between people my age and the younger generations. British people of my age have lived through a war, and many of us can remember poverty of a kind that hardly exists these days, at least in Britain. That really shapes your outlook on life. Most young people growing up today have never known hardship, so they’re less likely to appreciate what they’ve got. I’m sure youngsters’ behaviour hasn’t got worse in every way, but I do think some of them lack respect for authority. They don’t have enough discipline. My granddaughter is a teacher, and tells me awful stories about some of the children in her school. In my day it would have been unthinkable to behave like they do – we would have got the cane, and rightly so.