– I wrote a long series of Digital Stories about how we introduce children to technology. And yet, as a parent, I still wonder when the right moment is to show them what artificial intelligence is capable of. Nobody is prepared for this, because it is so new and unexpected, and it is nothing like what we had imagined. You teach programming to children, so I'm really curious about your point of view.

– We are the pioneers, the first to face this topic as parents, and there is no experience to build on. But that is also a good thing—something new and different is happening.

In my view, one of the important things is to be together with the children as they take their first steps. But that goes for everything—cybersecurity, for example. We know it's a bad idea to write our passwords down on scraps of paper, or to use the dog's name and our birthday. But if a child doesn't see a parent using a dedicated app, changing and strengthening their passwords, there's no way for the child to take that as an example.

Work with AI starts from the same place. What's needed is

a harmony in which parents sit down with their children in a spirit of cooperation and shared involvement, to “try it together and see.”

I think that's the most important thing, but the question is how prepared and informed the parents themselves are about what AI is and how it works.

– Absolutely! Most of them aren't, but it's not their fault either—everything in the tech world simply changes too fast, and nobody manages to keep up.

– A parent needs to show and explain a few basic things to their child. First, how an artificial intelligence makes decisions—that it is, more or less, a statistical process, not human thought. It looks at what the general opinion is, what various sources say, and then answers. But it's an unemotional decision based on some kind of statistics.

Children also need to know, and be shown, that artificial intelligence can make mistakes. There should always be a measure of reflection about what is happening in the conversation with it—why it answers in a certain way and how it can be used.

I believe the first step has to come from the parents; the example has to come from them.

But how should they prepare in the best possible way? Well, by using it more!

I work with children every day, and you can immediately tell which ones get attention on these things. It shows when a parent sits down and does something with the child. It's like buying a Lego set.

What matters is that you sit down and build it together.

That's the “wow” moment; that's when you show why you're doing it. That's what guidance is.

– But shouldn't we also be thinking about some restrictions? With phones, we concluded that they should be banned up to a certain age; with social media, more and more countries are going the same way, and the age limits are even going up. Isn't it time to decide that AI is completely off-limits until a certain age?

– Certainly. But what age would that be?

– That's exactly why it's hard, as we've already seen—it took 10, 15, 20 years to settle on any kind of norm for mobile phones and social media. Today we don't have that much time.

– If we put the question that way, I'd say the norm is like the one each family has for using the phone. I don't think we should box it in with rules; they don't always work for everyone. But in my view, whatever the phone rules are in a given family, AI should perhaps be the next step up.

With handing over a phone, we know it's normal to start with restrictions and then ease them as the child earns it. Everything happens gradually, and I think it should be the same with artificial intelligence. I don't think there's a clear-cut answer, but parents also need to see how the child perceives AI. How well they understand it, how quickly they learn, how they work with it.

Sadly,

children these days don't ask many questions.

For example, “what is this artificial intelligence thing.” A friend of mine has kids in third grade, and I've heard them come up and say, “Mom, ask Gemini.” That child doesn't have a phone, but knows there's some Gemini out there who gives answers. But where does it come from, why should you ask it, how should you ask it, and how far should you trust it?

That's a chain of connections the child has made based on the parents' conversations, on things heard somewhere. But today many children don't ask questions like “why do we have light,” “what is the internet,” or what artificial intelligence is. They take them as givens. I think it's good to go down this road, question by question, step by step.

Here's one, for example—that it is always positive. That feeling can sometimes be strange, and children start expecting it from people out in the world, who aren't always like that.

Of course, not everything is in the parents' hands. In my view, first they should sit down and show it, do it with the children, and second, make sure they get expert advice from the right sources. I think that's the combination without which you can't get the full picture.

Not every child needs to become a programmer, but they definitely need to see behind the scenes, to understand how technology works and then what artificial intelligence is. How it functions, how to use it, and where its limits lie.

– Sadly, that sounds a bit utopian to me, given that only a very small share of adults ask themselves all these questions, let alone get to the point of passing them on to their children. But couldn't it happen the other way around—that they understand better and faster than we do, find their bearings, and set the limits of what artificial intelligence can do?

– They certainly develop much faster today, because they have so many different opportunities. Sometimes it's frightening for parents how quickly children manage to adapt. But this is the meaningful path that has to be walked. Without the basics, it can't work.

It's like that with everything. Say we're learning something new, like playing basketball—one group makes no effort, another only watches how it's played, and a third only practices. The third group, of course, will be the most capable. The second will come after them. But even stronger would be those who both watch and play. Can't we do something similar with AI?

Being a parent is actually quite a big responsibility that nobody is prepared for, even less so nowadays. We have big questions to ask ourselves, and there's never enough time.

– I also spent a long time wondering how to start showing it to my older son, who is 8. Because we talk about these topics a lot at home, at first he seemed to have a negative attitude toward AI without understanding what it was. That changed when he wanted to make a presentation about his favorite books. I showed him what lovely pictures it could make, in which he becomes a character from those favorite books:

So perhaps trying to break away from the stereotype is some kind of salvation. When we don't have time for everything else, or we get lost in the sea of information—we improvise.

– There certainly has to be a measure of improvisation.

From experience, I see that programmers' children have the hardest time learning from their parents.

But every parent knows their child best. And look, in the end you found a way to show him what AI can do, and you did it together.

Next time it could be: “Let's see what AI writes for us on a given prompt, and then talk it over.” “Let's have a dialogue, or use AI to simulate some situation. What would happen if something occurred?” That's how we broaden our horizons.

The way of thinking becomes even more relevant.

Children need to be able to think, because the routine part of work keeps shrinking. The labor market is always changing—with the arrival of digitalization, of industrialization.

AI can take the jobs, at least from my point of view, of the people who can't use it.

– Allow me to disagree; the times are far more unpredictable than that. AI has already taken my job once, for example.

– True. We keep finding more and more applications; there's no profession where it isn't used in some way. What's left for us, in my view, is to start using it in a meaningful way, so that it helps us rather than hinders us.

But we have to learn to think logically. That's the foundation of programming. It develops an enormous number of skills in children. Our methodology has been designed by educators so that we develop soft skills too. But at the root of everything is teaching them to think.

Adaptation, logical thinking, sequencing, sketching out the big picture of what needs to happen and how it needs to happen. These are the things we need to spark in children.

That's why it's also important to teach them that AI can help us with many things, but it won't achieve our results for us. It will answer the question we've asked it. But we need to know what we want to achieve with that question. What the end goal is, what the final result is.

This needs to be talked about more.

– Absolutely! That's what I've been trying to do publicly for five years now, and I still feel lonely; our industry isn't having this conversation in any way either. But when we show children AI, the big problem of the easy way out comes along too. Okay, it helps, but then why should I struggle to do my homework? I think even we adults find it harder and harder to motivate ourselves to do something on our own—to write a text or code—when technology does it better. And yet we have to instill it in children, so that basic skills don't wither away. How do we keep convincing ourselves that we need to make the effort?

– AI can do my homework for me. I'm not an expert, but I'm sure that

education itself has to change, to fit the times we live in.

To become more independent, less static. More adaptive, built around scenarios that are played out with the children. I wouldn't say simply practical, but more interactive. The way we learn needs to change.

It used to be that our goal was to memorize the whole textbook, all the dates, so we could reproduce them afterward, so we'd know them. Right now I'm not sure that's exactly what children need.

– But they need that too. I ran an experiment two years in a row with models taking the matura, Bulgaria's school-leaving exam, in Bulgarian language and literature. Yes, they do better than the vast majority of students, and the exam probably doesn't adequately measure the skills that are useful today. But isn't there a risk that we'll lose sight of the importance of the knowledge that makes us human? Shouldn't the education system also be conservative at the same time, since in some way it has to hold on to the fundamentals?

– That's right, it keeps us grounded. I'm not saying children shouldn't know all of history, but the way we teach it to them has to change. Yes, they need to know what happened in the past, because it carries many facts about the present. But it has to happen in a sensible way.

For example, while we integrate AI, not to be static, and for every question to be answerable with facts. To be more like a game with different rules. For children to learn together, for it to be more adaptive.

I'm not speaking as an expert in public education, but I believe the way I learned decades ago and the way today can't be the same. The system has to change and adapt. How? I think there are quite a few directions.

– And we all believe it—I ran a survey on this too, with telling results. And yet change is a matter of public conversation, which still isn't happening.

– These questions have to be asked, however uncomfortable they are. We ask them too—what's changing in the programming courses, in the way children learn with us. A program can also be written by AI, but the program isn't what matters; what matters is that they achieve the result and can explain logically what happened.

We have to adapt. Either we deny it and don't do it, or we bring it in—even if we make mistakes at first.

More and more is being written about children using AI as a best friend or a therapist, but it depends on your point of view. Many children wouldn't have the chance to see a therapist, even though they need one. Quite a few studies show that the data and models such an artificial intelligence has access to nowadays are actually pretty good, and it can give relevant advice to that child.

But here again, in the end, it comes down to the child being prepared and aware of who they're actually talking to.

– But why do you think it still makes sense to learn programming now? Programmers have stopped writing code, especially over the last two or three months. For now, it's useful for spotting bugs and designing the architecture of applications. But won't that soon become redundant knowledge too, which we'll also delegate to technology? Maybe programming is already a vestigial skill we no longer need. Why develop it in children?

– As I said, I think the most important thing is to teach them to think. If there's a better way to make that happen, wonderful. Maybe programmers are changing, and the way they work too, but the architects themselves, the ones who define the vision, the end goal, the model, are still around.

It's like learning math—not to become calculators, but to understand how formulas work, how we can use and analyze them. Everyone learns math to be able to understand the world around them.

– Besides, programming is an interesting pursuit—I discovered that at 34, because the education system had never introduced me to it.

– Programming develops 12 skills in people. Not only programming, of course, but it gives soft skills, academic skills, a way of thinking, of expressing yourself, sequencing. In the real world, we might skip three steps if we have a long stride. But in programming, in most cases, that won't lead to a good result.

It's a way to teach children to think sequentially, not to skip steps, because the computer executes the commands, and AI answers your question.

And how to ask better questions isn't discussed much in the context of AI either. It's one thing to ask “is it good or bad,” and another to ask the right question in the right way, so you get what will actually be useful to you.

– Prompt engineering for first graders, in some form. Yes, for now we really are needed as architects, we need to understand the processes, but with the progress we're seeing, we may very soon not be needed in that role either. How can we prepare children for that moment? There I have no answer at all.

– Neither do I. We have to adapt, to teach children to be adaptable, to be able to judge what's happening and react.

Right now you really have to ask yourself questions. “Okay, so what happens if AI isn't there tomorrow?” We need to develop those skills in children as well. That this is something that exists right now. It will evolve, it will develop in some direction, and we have to adjust so we can use it.

– The bad thing, I think, is that paradoxically, the more adaptable we need to be, the less adaptable the generations we're raising are becoming in their everyday lives.

– We see it in many areas. When I was a student, we studied English, but it wasn't enough, and we had to go to extra lessons. When I look at how many English schools there are nowadays, I ask myself: why haven't we realized that English is fundamental to so many things? Why don't we do it at the state level—raise the school system to a higher level so children don't have to go to extracurricular classes? Given that we're sure it's an important skill. It's clear that everyone today needs to handle English at a pretty good level, even just to find information, to watch things, to grow, never mind entertainment. So why?

It's similar with technology. It develops very fast and offers enormous opportunities. Children nowadays can make an augmented reality game, use 3D glasses. They can program and, at just 12, create the game they play themselves. The education system, at every stage and level, can and should use it much more fully.

Children who have access to programming, even if they don't become programmers, will always be a step ahead, no matter what they do later. Whatever platform does the pure programming for you, you'll be a step ahead of the others if you understand what's going on and can model it.

– With the help of AI, today you can also write programs without knowing any code at all, to make some task easier, whatever you do for a living. But it has to occur to you, and you have to know it can work that way.

– And for children, besides it occurring to you—you need the opportunity to see it. That's why I don't think learning programming will become unnecessary… and not only programming. We're talking about it, but it's really logic, digital skills, digital education

Those are actually the right words, and sadly, every time I say them, many parents don't get it—“my kids are already digitally literate, they're born with it.” That's not enough. What I put into the term includes the limits, the good and the bad examples, and how technology works. That's digital education. So you can explain to yourself everything that's happening.

Besides, when children encounter digital skills together with other children who want to do it, they don't run into other unwanted things. When children with similar interests come together, they'll keep pushing one another forward. What could be better than that?

– How should we introduce children to technology? You and I talked about how important the subject is and came up with the idea of asking parents and relatives. Quite a few people took part in the survey. Did anything in the answers surprise you?

– Some things surprised me. For example, how many people say:

“I have no problem with my children’s screen time.”

I don’t think that’s quite true. This is my job, I talk to a lot of families, and so far I haven’t heard a single one say they have no problem with it.

– Me neither. Everyone I’ve talked to about it, and I myself as a parent, definitely feel we have that problem.

– Exactly… How honest were they in their answers? Really, every person who comes into my office says they have a problem. It’s one of the first questions, without fail:

how do I limit their screen time?

– Same with me—a lot of people commented that this is the big question. Why is there no specific recipe, no practical tips? Which is a bit odd after a series of more than 10 pieces. True, there’s no exact recipe—step one, you turn off the phone after an hour; step two, you set aside 27 minutes a day to talk with your child…

– That’s exactly it! Purely technologically, we can give guidelines—you as a tech specialist, I as a psychologist—on what to do. Step one, two, three. Use Google Family Link, monitor what the child is doing. You can do loads of things! Lock their screen after a set time.

But how will that child take it if the recipe is repeated mechanically?

How will the family take it? All of this is individual and very relative.

For example, a young couple comes to me, the baby is tiny, 5 or 6 months old. They’re constantly fighting, constant drama, and they can’t figure out how it came to this. They’d decided the baby’s birth was the problem.

They’re both gamers. At some point they decided the baby had to be kept away from screens, but that way they’re harming their own pleasures and the good time they used to have. They’re unhappy with what’s going on—and the baby isn’t the problem!

In other words, for every family this screen program is very authentic and particular.

– At the same time, we all know that a child under 3 shouldn’t have access to a screen. What should a family like that do so it doesn’t wreck the relationship but still finds a healthy barrier for the child?

– There’s no way the child can be kept entirely away.

Should the parents throw out their computers?

You and I watched television every evening—what’s wrong with us?

– So we shouldn’t worry so much?

– We shouldn’t become obsessive. In the sense of exactly this pettiness we fall into when it comes to the digital and the screen.

“That’s it! None at all!” No, that’s not a solution—balance is. But it’s a hard solution.

What is very important to me is that beyond the quantitative dimension—how much screen time the child has—you have to look at the qualitative one too. What is this child doing there?

– Why are we all so afraid?

– I don’t think we’re all afraid, but yes, there is an anxiety around digital reality. It’s as if we don’t know what to do when we have a problem.

It’s as if, when you run into difficulties with the digital, you always have to look for someone else who understands it better than you.

That’s a serious anxiety, especially regarding what happens to our children. I think that’s actually the core of it. Our senses, sight, are one of our most powerful instruments—the object called “the gaze.” That’s how we exchange with each other, among ourselves.

We stick to it, we sink into this digital reality. At moments it becomes far more real than the real one.

And while we, having also lived in analog, have some mechanisms for realizing that this is a parallel, not-so-real world, for the children growing up in the digital generations it is reality, the natural environment, their normal habitat.

– And we as parents have to show them the rest—otherwise who will?

– They swim in both universes.

– I know quite a few children who swim only in the digital one.

– Yes, and the other way round. There they’re present a little differently—with their imaginary bodies, with their avatars. In the digital world a child can build a football team, defeat mighty giants, titans of sport. And in reality have certain limitations—a disability, or a neglected state of health, obesity.

They’re present there with their imaginary bodies. I’ve thought a lot about this—about precisely this anxiety. Françoise Dolto speaks of the unconscious body image. It’s as if what we see—both in ourselves and in our children—is very vividly displayed in the digital, it’s projected there, and the gaze isn’t always easy to bear.

Being constantly under someone’s observation is quite disturbing. That’s why we have a serious problem with online bullying. School bullying existed before, but it was confined to the building; you always had a chance to escape. Whereas now you carry it in your pocket and you can’t get away.

– Should we make “offline life” more attractive? Can we, or is it too late? Is it possible to have children playing in the street again? For me that’s yet another huge difference in the lives of the latest generations.

– There are children like that now too. But it seems they bother us.

Here we’re talking about changing attitudes. What do children do? Not only in the digital world, but in the outside, real world as well. I keep hearing people yelling at children because they’re playing outside the playground. Yes,

it doesn’t matter where they play. Yes, children are noisy.

I get on public transport. Excuse me, but how can we expect teenagers to be calm and not show aggression when we constantly scold them and tell them off for being noisy and bothering us?

– We supposedly want to help them. But if we go back to the parents, who ought to be the most active in their relationship with the young, there are two touchy questions that split the respondents almost down the middle. Do children use electronic devices in the two hours before sleep, and do we stop them during dinner? I confess I’m on the “bad” side on both. Sometimes watching something meaningful together and discussing it is healthy time spent together, or so it seems to me.

– Of course! Again it comes down to the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of the screen.

It’s much more important to know what we’re doing on a screen than how long we’re doing it.

I’m not even talking about children—the first “digital-native” children are long since adults. Scrolling for two hours is one thing; listening to a podcast is another; talking to your boyfriend or girlfriend is a third; a fourth is doing organizational tasks, writing your homework, watching lessons. There’s a huge difference.

In fact, the health problem with screen exposure is neurological at the youngest age—from 0 to 3. But even there we can’t isolate them! What we can at least do is watch the length of each session. It’s one thing to let them watch a little song for five minutes while you dish up the food and serve it, and something else entirely to let them dig through YouTube unsupervised. Three-year-olds do it quite often, because that’s how they’ve been taught to eat.

It’s one thing to use technology to help you, to make your life a tiny bit easier, and something else entirely to turn it into a pacifier.

– How can we sense where we are on that divide?

– Honestly, we don’t sense it.

– Maybe that’s exactly what we’re afraid of—that we won’t notice when we’ve crossed the line?

– We usually resort to the digital as a pacifier when we already have other problems.

– And we need to look into those more than we need to limit the minutes on the phone.

– Yes. Technology isn’t the problem; it’s a tool.

– One we clearly don’t use well, though. This is another motif that ran through all my interviews and the survey—that we get information from everywhere and it doesn’t help us; on the contrary, it stresses us, makes it hard to navigate and makes parenting harder.

That was the answer in the survey that astonished me—how can parenting today be harder than a few generations ago, when out of 10 children born, 2 or 3 survived?!

– For me, the big problem with technology lies in the gaze. That’s what makes things hardest for us and drives up our anxiety.

What do most parents of children in the first grades do? My children are already 15 and 17; it doesn’t matter whether they have a phone at school. But for parents of first to fourth graders, when they hand over their child, it matters a great deal to have control over safety and security. The phone is a tool for that. Only how do they use it? I’ll track when you went to the cafeteria, to the toilet. That’s terribly burdensome and stressful, not only for the child who is under constant observation but for the adult too. A resource you’re constantly tied to, and it raises your own personal tension.

– How do we find our bearings in this sea of information and start swimming in it more consciously?

– It seems to be the same as with the other sea of information.

– Yes, but we worry more about this one, which is good. With the other one we aren’t nearly as aware—that’s one of the big reasons this site keeps going. We read and accept whatever comes along, however it comes. At the same time, as parents we’re much pickier, supposedly careful, and still the sheer volume of information doesn’t help us—quite the opposite.

– Because we’re very skilled at disorienting ourselves.

Why does parenting seem harder to today’s parents than it did 50 or 100 years ago? Precisely because you get lost.

One person tells you: do this. A moment later you’re watching a TikTok clip about how no, that’s not how you change a diaper, do it this other way, it’ll be easier. You start flipping this child around like a broiler chicken and you’re not sure what exactly you’re doing with it.

Suddenly, from all this information flooding the parent, this child—something that is yet to become a subject, to become a person—turns into an object we operate on.

How shall I put your diaper on? How shall I feed you? How much quinoa should I give you? How should I cook it?

Here too is the question of the desire for a child, and how, as technology advances, we start to see a child as our right rather than our desire. Saying “I have a desire” is one thing; saying “I have a right” to a child is another—the semantics are quite different.

Flooded with information, the parent loses their authenticity as a parent.

Instead of managing the information and using it for their own and the child’s benefit, they start serving the information they receive. “I’ll try this, and this, and this!” Without following up on the result. The information simply makes you keep reacting, keep acting, while you have no time to become aware of yourself in your own authenticity.

– My personal recipe is that at some point you close your eyes to what you’re reading and turn them toward your child—see for yourself whether the baby is better off drinking water or not.

– Exactly! Giving water during breastfeeding, say, depends a lot on the quality of the milk. Some mothers have extremely nourishing milk, but not in large quantities. Others have a lot of it, but it isn’t as nourishing. Yes, babies in the second case won’t need water, but those in the first definitely will. As the saying goes, we’re walking cucumbers—mostly water.

– Whereas online you’ll come across shared experience that says you absolutely must give water, or that you must never do it.

– We could raise so many more questions the same way. For example, how to introduce solid food so as not to trigger a food allergy. That question opens 15 pages of Google results. How can you manage, drowning in all that information! How can you catch your breath and notice that this child doesn’t want carrots but prefers pumpkin?

When we use digital sources of information, it’s important to think critically. That’s something we seem to forget.

– The difficulty here is that you develop critical thinking on subjects where you’ve built up knowledge. Suddenly, as a parent, you find yourself in a completely new situation where you simply have no reference points, and no time to find them.

– You need someone else to guide you.

Why are we afraid of the digital? We always have to look for someone else whose knowledge we can rely on.

Alas, in the digital world that person is missing. When there’s a problem, the person I turn to is a technician. He’s my age, with my knowledge; he just has a few extra skills to help me and back me up.

– Which used to happen somehow naturally—when you have friends with older children, you talk it over with them.

– Or you pick up the phone: “Mom, how do I make bean soup?” What do we do now? TikTok! Ah, so that’s how it’s done.

– And if you land on a good recipe, fine. If not, the family won’t be eating beans again any time soon.

I find it very interesting that quite a few people in the survey said that in digital times the father’s role is much more important. Why do you think that is? My naive explanation is that we have a greater need for someone to set limits.

– Your explanation is absolutely correct, because it’s precisely the father—sometimes consciously, sometimes not—who imposes and introduces laws and prohibitions.

If we look at it from the psychoanalytic paradigm, he’s the one who tells the child: you can’t marry your mother, she’s my wife. And that’s the first prohibition, the one that interrupts the uninterrupted connection with pleasure, with gratification.

Yes, you’re right. Precisely

amid this constant need to gratify ourselves in some way, fathers are the ones who give us structure.

That’s from the point of view of the unconscious and psychoanalysis. But there’s a much more practical side too. Dads are more technically literate. Since way back, the father has been the one who drives and repairs the car, who can handle tools, drills. And it seems this carries over to the digital as well.

– But we say fatherhood is more important today, and yet online it’s something like 10:1—mothers’ forums, threads, conversations, searching for information. The conversation about fatherhood just isn’t there. Why?

– We mothers find it hard to let go.

– Or do we fathers give in?

– When she has taken over everything and banished him to the couch, how could he not give in? This is an awareness on the part of the maternal body, not just the paternal one. Here we’re already leaving the logic of the digital.

When a child appears, it automatically becomes a symptom, a sign of its parents’ relationship.

There are two main scenarios. When the parents are in a partnership—the mother still desires the father, there’s an expressed interest, the father takes care of her, treats her well, there are healthy, genuinely partner-like relations. Then the child—its behavior, the way it acts, the way it lives—is a reflection of that parental couple.

In the other scenario, the child becomes the mother’s symptom. She takes it, puts it between herself and the father and says: “I got what I needed from you, I have no more desire for you, I’m only interested in the child.” Full stop. What can he do? And why should he? So in the evening she deals with the child, the child doesn’t make noise around him because it’s on the phone…

That’s why we have such a great need for this paternal function—to introduce order.

– Which again requires us to talk about it more, so that we fathers become aware of that role too. Which isn’t happening, in my view.

– The paternal function doesn’t always, and doesn’t have to, be introduced by the biological, physical father. It doesn’t even have to be a man at all. The paternal function that introduces boundaries doesn’t have to be embodied in a specific person. It can be an institution, an external structure. It can be the school saying: “We have certain rules here.” It can be the nurse at the nursery saying: “I’m sorry, it isn’t hygienic to bring in stuffed toys.”

This limiting of the mother’s pleasure so that it doesn’t flood the child—all of this can be framed as the paternal function.

Yes, lots of internet forums bring mothers together. But it also seems that we mothers need to vent. To talk more. Whereas fathers are the ones who act. But the decline of the paternal function makes things very difficult.

– In the same vein—with phones, for example, it turns out we have an absolute consensus when it comes to younger children. In the survey, 94 percent say there’s no place for phones at school. They’ve also been banned by law for 10 years. And yet it’s clear there are phones at school. In other words, as a society we can’t set such boundaries for ourselves even on something we agree on.

– Again we come back to the object called the gaze—you lose control. We’re always surprised, very alert, negative, and we strongly demand measures whenever there’s a case of violence in a kindergarten. Everyone starts squawking—we want video surveillance, cameras everywhere.

I’ve worked in a kindergarten. There was one little child whose mother was an activist for installing video surveillance, and the child didn’t want to sleep at the kindergarten. I could see something was bothering the child, so I asked what was going on. “I don’t want them to watch me!” “Nobody’s watching you, everyone’s asleep.” “No, they’re going to put up cameras, I don’t want them to watch me.”

Children are extremely anxious about being constantly watched.

And if this child managed to synthesize it and put it into words, others become aggressive, start suffering physically, crying, getting stomach problems. It’s linked to the constant surveillance, to the constant, unwavering gaze.

– A completely different subject that I find very interesting, and that in my view hasn’t even been opened up in society, is artificial intelligence in this context. Now we’re all talking about it, “playing” with it, and it turns out that two-thirds of the survey participants, myself included, haven’t told their children at all what it is or what it’s for, let alone shown it to them. What’s the right way for parents to approach this?

– It’s a bit

like with social media—once again the children are several laps ahead of us and know more than we do.

It seems important to me to approach it as a tool, which is how I’d like us to look at digital reality in general. AI is something that can make our lives much easier, but it’s a tool.

What matters, when we talk to children and when we ourselves use it, is to be aware that it isn’t infallible. That it was made by humans. And, again, to use it with a dose of critical thinking.

– To me the big risk here is that they’ll like it, they’ll fall in love with the easy way, it’ll write their homework for them, because the system often allows it. And that will hamper their development if they get used to using it too young.

– Exactly. The question is how we communicate to them how good this tool really is. As with food. Everything in a certain dose is medicine; in another it can be poison.

– But with social media we’ve accepted that they shouldn’t be accessible under 14, or under 16 on some platforms. It’s obvious that this is easy to get around, but we’ve accepted some rules. Should something like that happen with AI? Because it’s something everyone will have to use to succeed, whatever they take up.

– I certainly wouldn’t be the person to take the position that it should be banned. On the contrary, in my view

we should all have free access, but with conscious accompaniment of children.

– And still, from what point? From 3 or from 10?

– That’s a very hard question. I’d like to answer “right away,” because progress and evolution don’t stop. They keep going.

From a purely social and emotional point of view, I want to say from 7 or 10. As a parent who understands that you need help writing homework, integrals and so on, I’d like to tell you from 15 or 16. From the position of a mother who wants to get to the laundry instead of having them hanging on her leg, I’d like to tell you from 3.

I’d lean toward letting it be accessible, but with awareness.

– In my view, also by offering enough alternatives. Maybe that’s happening—in my survey three-quarters of people say their children read for pleasure. My sample isn’t representative, sure, but… For me it’s essential to show the meaningful alternative of the classic values.

– Yes, but there’s another alternative here too. I have two teenagers, already 15 and 17. If you saw them, you’d think their heads had grown into their phones, because every free moment something is being done on the device. And they do read, but in that way.

It’s very paradoxical. The younger one has some difficulty with language in terms of reading and writing. But he absorbs information and reads by listening. All the apps, podcasts—that’s how it reaches him. He listens to the classics; I was very surprised when I heard he was listening to Balzac. Come on, at 15 it would never have occurred to me?!

The older one, meanwhile, follows journalism and politics all day. That’s what interests him.

Again we come back to quality, not quantity.

– Which again depends on us, because he wouldn’t have got to Balzac, whether reading or listening, if he hadn’t received some guidance and upbringing in that direction.

– I’m a parent with whom technology has been available to my sons from day one. But we’re talking about constant accompaniment. About using the digital as a tool, not as a substitute, a pacifier.

When a child has contact with a screen, with digital reality, with a virtual world, with AI, at whatever age, it should be accompanied by a parent who is there and gives it language as it happens. When the child is left to cope alone, it inevitably sinks into its own imaginary world, and unpleasant situations follow.

– And because parenting is hard, like every important thing in life. If you take the easier path, technology shows you what happens.

– That’s where the question that surprises you comes from—that parenting is harder now. Well, yes, everyone thinks theirs is harder. Everyone’s own pain hurts them more. And since we aren’t born prepared to be parents but learn on the go, as the child grows, every parenthood goes through its own authentic difficulty.

– Which is part of the beauty and the challenge… Thank you for this conversation! Before long we’ll continue it, because it’s worth taking a look at teenagers too. Many important topics await us there as well…

– Do your students know what AI is? Do they use it actively?

– They know very well, and they use it. And let’s not kid ourselves, most often it’s to

cheat wherever it’s very easy to use, or where they can’t be bothered, or where they don’t like the teacher.

With me they rarely try, because I don’t often give big written homework assignments. And when I do, they get plenty of time. My assignments are usually like this: we work with the text in class, we get to a certain point, and I give them a question just to think about—they don’t have to write the answer down. It would take them longer to feed it to some model, then process it, give it extra instructions, than to simply think it over for 10 minutes on the metro.

– Besides, you teach at a high school where people are expected to be more interested in the exact and natural sciences.

– Yes, but they’re interested in everything.

Kids are simply curious.

They might use it if I asked them to write an essay, a thesis, or an interpretive composition at home. But here’s the other thing: I rarely give grades for assignments like that. I grade them when they speak in class, when they discuss, when they argue their case, and on written tests. And on specific projects, where I insist that they also use classic sources.

For example, in ninth grade I have them make presentations on different currents of modernism. And the condition is that at least two of the sources must be an article or a book—something you can find in the library. Even if they use the chat, they have to show me exactly which part of the presentation is taken from which source. It can help them, but they still have to do some of the work.

– You say kids are curious, but public opinion seems to be different… Does that apply only to your students?

– I’m an optimist, and I don’t think for a moment that kids are worse than before or less curious. I’m not talking only about our students at NPMG, but in general.

– Something like the myth that they don’t read. Kids read like there’s no tomorrow, we’ve talked about it here too. You can see it in the bestseller lists, which always feature influencers who are obviously not what the over-70s are reading. But how do we teach them what to read? Something a bit more meaningful than the influencers…

– That’s a very hard question. I think this is exactly where the teaching of literature at school plays a role. And now we come to some very serious problems; colleagues, friends and I think about these questions a lot, and they’re very complex.

In my view,

the big problem with kids’ reading comes in middle school, between fifth and seventh grade.

It seems to me, and the results of external assessments show it too, that our primary education is at a very high level; kids up to fourth grade are great. Very curious, they want to learn, to read, they find it interesting. Hardly anyone drops out.

But something happens in middle school, so that when they arrive in high school we have to motivate them all over again to learn, to find it interesting, to read,

to stop caring only about the grade and simply want to learn things.

– Isn’t that mostly tied to the curriculum?

– My opinion is that

in middle school it’s not the literature teacher’s job to teach a whole pile of stylistic devices, to teach them what a synecdoche or an oxymoron is.

I don’t think it’s very productive for them to study a hundred works by Ivan Vazov at that age. Studying Hristo Botev, Peyo Yavorov, Under the Yoke in middle school… even the language is a huge barrier. Incidentally, that barrier disappears in 10th grade. Then they study these authors again, but now they can understand them and they like them.

It seems to me that from 5th to 7th grade the curriculum should actively push kids to read. And to read things that suit their interests and their age—let’s not lose them as readers.

Literary history, terminology and theory should come later, in high school, when they’re mature enough. Of course, I don’t think all that knowledge should be dropped; we need it as people, it’s also how reading taste is built. That’s how they encounter different texts, including some they would hardly read on their own, and discover them.

– Are there books you loved in high school that your students love now too? And ones that have appeared in the meantime? What do young people today really read, apart from the influencers?

– The influencers are mostly with kids from third to fifth grade, between 10 and 12 years old. With the older ones, what I notice in 8th–9th grade is that they read books with very colorful covers. That’s fantasy, romance, and something mixed that’s called romantasy.

In eighth grade literature feels distant to them, a bit difficult. That’s normal; at 14, the Iliad is quite a challenge. But in 9th grade, once they get to know the great novels, most students, at least mine, start changing their taste. Many of them like Balzac’s Père Goriot, they like Eugene Onegin.

From there on they start reading classic science fiction and fantasy—Tolkien, Robert Jordan, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett.

On the other hand, they read a lot of 20th-century literature—Remarque, Kafka, Russian, even Bulgarian literature, though rather the more classic kind—Dimitar Dimov, Dimitar Talev. Many students, when they have to read The Iron Candlestick in 11th grade, really like the book and go on with the next ones. Even though they aren’t in the curriculum and aren’t required, they simply want to read the whole tetralogy.

– You really surprise me with what you’re saying. That’s putting it mildly—you’re actually changing long-held stereotypes of mine, and we’re talking about students at a math and science high school. On the other side there’s the problem of concentration: fewer and fewer people are able to focus long enough to read a long text, let alone a novel. Are your students an exception, or are we overestimating this effect?

– It certainly exists, and I think the problem will get worse with the next generation. My students, the class I teach now, were born in 2008. They entered the world of TikTok at a slightly older age. Whereas with the kids being born now, I notice that en masse, before they can even really talk, they’re already in that environment. For them it will be the more serious problem. I think we’ve yet to face it.

But even now many kids expect that if they sit down to read a book, it will become super interesting from the very first page.

If they’re the kind who aren’t in the habit of reading, you have to convince them to give the book a chance, to read 40–50 pages, to get into the atmosphere, so that it becomes interesting.

But if they push themselves to do it… as with everything in life, to like something you first have to push yourself a little. Then they manage to overcome the concentration problem.

– But for that you have to choose and recommend the right reading. My older son read all 8 Harry Potter books before he had officially learned his letters in first grade.

– Harry Potter never goes out of fashion, which actually shows the book is good. For me that raises the question of why it still isn’t in the curriculum. Because it seems to me that when they study something they love at school…

– … it’s easier and more interesting.

– Especially when they’re younger! By 14 or 15 they’re sensible enough to realize that not everything you have to learn will be to your liking. That there are things you have to learn even if they’re not especially interesting or pleasant. But when you’re 12 or younger, you don’t realize that. I don’t see any problem at all with studying Harry Potter at school.

– Definitely! Let’s turn to our joint experiment with the matura—a year ago and now. There were many curious and varied conclusions, but every time you manage to tell which paper is AI’s. How?

– Last year there were only two papers—yours and ChatGPT’s. Yours, as the work of someone who does this and writes for a living, stood out very quickly, so the other one had to be the chat’s.

Now, with more papers—three AI models and two students—it was a bit different. But the students’ papers are easy to recognize too. When you’re an active teacher working with kids, there’s no way you’d mistake something written by an 18-year-old for something artificially generated or written by an adult.

So I had no trouble with the recognizing. But I have to say that

compared with last year, I was struck by how much cleaner the models’ language has become.

They’re working with better and better Bulgarian. This year’s experiment was definitely more successful at making the papers look like a living person’s.

– And all 6 went for the interpretive composition format. I think that if they had been essays, it would have been harder for the two of you graders.

– Definitely. Not that there’s an exact formula for the interpretive composition, but it comes with somewhat stricter frames, which the essay lacks. With an essay, if it’s really well written, I can tell you as a grader that you don’t look at all at whether there’s an introduction, a conclusion, how many arguments there are, whether the thesis manages to develop the points of the argument consistently, precisely and in a structured way. If it’s well written, has no internal contradictions, or at least no glaring ones, and the language is good, you give a lot of points. In general the principle of grading is not to take a formalistic approach.

– So we shot ourselves in the foot, the models and I. I let them decide what they “felt like writing,” and they picked the interpretive composition, but it won’t happen again next year. As far as I understand, though, you think that if you got a text at school, you could tell whether it was written by a student or by AI?

– I could, yes. Recently a student missed a test—he was absent, then I was grading matura papers, then he was absent again. Quite a lot of time passed, and he took the test around mid-June. At the end of the year we deal with presentations, projects, finishing things off; I wasn’t actively teaching, I was at the back looking at projects, then doing oral exams—the lessons were a bit looser.

Especially when they’re your own students, you know how they talk, how they express themselves, how they write, and it’s quite hard to fool you that they wrote something when you can’t see their manner in the text. In that test I couldn’t see any trace of the student who wrote it. I graded it the same day—I had no other classes after that one—and I started to suspect that something wasn’t right.

There were things that made absolutely no sense. For example, one of the tasks—a thesis on “Albena,” Yordan Yovkov’s short story—he had written very well, in very elevated language. But… it contained things that aren’t in the story.

I pulled him out of the class he was in at the time, gave him a sheet of paper and told him to write the task as he had an hour earlier—it didn’t have to be word for word, but I wanted to read the same ideas. He couldn’t, and he admitted he had used AI.

– That’s because he used it in the crudest way. There are so many approaches where you don’t get caught. Rewriting it, having it just summarize the work for you, playing with the prompts and refining them several times…

– When you’re under pressure, in class, with little time, trying not to get caught, you can hardly play around with it so that it’s unprovable. But yes,

if it’s a homework assignment, then it’s very hard, because you can’t prove anything.

It happened to me when I first became a teacher; I was substituting at another school and we were online. The moment I suspected that a paper hadn’t been written by the student, I searched for key quotes and immediately found where it had been copied from. That’s easier to catch, whereas

with this generated text, even if I put the whole thing into search engines, nothing will come up.

– Exactly! The conditions are changing drastically. After generated poems ended up among those chosen by two successive juries of prestigious poetry competitions… Are there situations in which you encourage students to use AI?

– So far I haven’t used it in class or encouraged them in any way, but after going through a training course and after our experiments, I’ll think about some tasks, options, classwork for next year—so that we can see the benefits too.

– For the past two years I’ve been taking the matura, and I can’t comprehend how anyone who has done at least a little in those 12 years, without some serious health problem, could fail to score 30 points. And it happens to entire classes and schools. Shouldn’t we raise the requirements?

– I agree that the bar is low, but still, this is the most widespread exam. In fact, it’s the only compulsory mass exam!

I’ve thought about it too—the bar is low, it’s easy to get a 3, the lowest passing grade on Bulgaria’s 2-to-6 scale. But what would we prove and what would we achieve if we set the 3 at, say, 50 percent? The average grade would be 2.40.

– Then what’s the point of the exam?

– I think it’s a useful diagnostic. You can’t solve any problems with it. It’s simply an exam at the end of the whole of education, and if you fail people, how are you helping them, what are you telling them?

The problem should rather be sought elsewhere.

The diagnostic shows a problem, but the solution isn’t to make the exam impossible so that no one can pass it.

– The solution is to improve education, which I don’t think we’re doing actively enough. And over 90 percent of parents share that opinion.

– I should also say that the current format of the matura is much better than the previous one, because

a 3 may be easy to get, but a 6 is far from it.

A 6 is relatively hard to get. That way you can both pick out those who are really very good and have studied, and avoid telling those who for one reason or another didn’t do very well that they’re good for nothing and should be thrown out.

– Should we then test everyone on whether they know Bulgarian language and literature well?

– They certainly need the language. In my opinion they need literature too, because it develops skills that aren’t visible, practical, on the table, but are necessary.

For example, the new format of the matura, and the trend is going further in that direction, relies heavily on working with an unfamiliar text. We live at a time when social networks flood us with all sorts of things—dubious information, dubious images, videos. I’m both amused and terribly saddened when I see on Facebook an obviously generated image of some old man with a cake getting thousands of comments, people wishing him a happy birthday without realizing he isn’t a real person.

I think that when you make students work with an unfamiliar text and think critically, you’re preparing them, giving them the skills to find their way

on their own later in an environment where you need to be able to think critically and sort out by yourself what is true, what is a lie, what is unconvincing, what is manipulative.

– The question is also whether you want that, because AI handled this part of the matura absolutely flawlessly—making sense of an unfamiliar text is something it does successfully.

– It manages, but the point is that students have to manage too.

– Or maybe learn to ask it? Does the news that AI can ace the matura with ease change anything, in your view? Is there any reason why this should be our main assessment of young people finishing school? Many of the questions are about cramming. The closed questions I get wrong are mostly about specific works that I either never studied or have forgotten.

– I don’t agree that many of the questions are about cramming; there’s only one, in my view. The others rely on interpretation. You don’t know what interpretation the tasks will offer you, so you can’t sit down and cram, say, an analysis.

To solve most of the tasks properly, you’re expected to have really understood the text. To have your own interpretation, to be able to think if an alternative interpretation is offered to you. That, I think, is exactly how such skills are built: thinking critically, not counting on the idea that once you’ve crammed this analysis by heart, nothing can surprise you from then on.

– But does it really make sense to test skills at which algorithms do better than the vast majority of people?

– Algorithms could do everything.

– Is there anything you feel the matura is missing right now?

– I would add more tasks that test skills. Working with an unfamiliar text, with different types of texts, including analysis. I think

it would be very useful if the exam format included the analysis of a media text.

There are already communicative tasks; this year’s was about doing sports. It seems to me that if it were a media text dealing with a really serious social problem, one that interests the students, it would be meaningful. But I realize that right now this is impossible; our society isn’t ready, and education is too often used to achieve certain political goals or to sow discord.

For example, if it dealt with the problems of division in society. Or with fake information. If students were given some article, say generated by artificial intelligence, manipulative, and required to analyze it. But, again, that’s my ideal scenario, and I don’t think it could happen any time soon.

– One thing I liked is that subjectivity really has been reduced. In my day, to get into a sought-after program at Sofia University with the Bulgarian language and literature exam, it was definitely very strong. But here, in our experiment, there was still a considerable difference on the interpretive composition, specifically on mine—one grader gave me full marks, the other far fewer, because it isn’t an essay.

– Yes, here I disagree with my colleague on one thing. When you sit down to grade a matura paper and you see a text that is well written, where the writer obviously knows the text well, comments on it properly, is original—you give points. Lots of points.

Because that’s what is being assessed. I don’t think it’s right to cut a text down because it’s closer to an essay than to a composition. Provided the text is really good.

– But I invited ChatGPT to be the arbiter, and it was on that side too. And I’m not sure I wouldn’t be—we have an exam with clear rules, and whoever wants a free form is welcome to write an essay.

– If it went to a real arbiter, I’m almost certain they would give lots of points. I try to grade papers that way, and I believe that

when the text is good, we shouldn’t nitpick; we should simply recognize that the person is original, that they can think, write, that they know the work.

All sorts of cases come up at the matura. For example, a student first writes an interpretive composition and then writes an essay underneath. What do you do, which one do you grade? It’s graded in the student’s favor—whichever of the two is better.

And if that’s how it is in that case, I don’t see why, if the text is really good, you should take points away because it’s a bit more essayistic.

– Lately I’ve been increasingly glad of human subjectivity; sometimes it’s our strength too.

But let’s abruptly change the subject again… Why did you become a teacher? Young people are fleeing this profession, I don’t know if you’ve heard… I’m joking, of course.

– I know, yes. But it isn’t quite like that. At our school we’re noticing that the staff is getting much younger, and the reason is that there’s a gap. People who became teachers at the end of the 1980s are retiring now. Only, in the 1990s, and after that too, we know what level teachers’ salaries were at—terribly few people became teachers back then.

Now other people have to come in to replace those who are retiring. You can’t do without teachers.

The problem, though, is that the changeover is happening very abruptly, and that has its downsides. Suddenly we’re going from teachers who are mostly close to retirement age to people who are mostly under 35.

But that’s the situation now; that’s how the education system in the country has developed.

Why did I become a teacher? I was lucky to have good teachers in high school, and even then I decided this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in their place.

I enrolled in Bulgarian philology and tried substitute teaching as early as my second year. And the moment I stepped in front of the students… I won’t comment on how nervous I was before I went in, but the moment I did, the nerves vanished immediately and I felt very much in my place.

That’s how I decided this was the profession for me.

– What gives you satisfaction as a teacher?

– That the work is anything but monotonous. It doesn’t drag you into a routine, and time flies. It’s nice that it flies…, on the other hand, before you know it, an awful lot of time has passed.

– Like in Catch-22: if you’re bored, you’ll have more time.

– Yes, exactly. When I started at NPMG, one of our chemistry colleagues told me: “In our profession you’ll see that time flies. Let this term pass, then the year, then this class, and suddenly, like me, you’re not far from retirement.” I didn’t believe her, but… I’ve been at NPMG for 3 years now, and I have 4.5 years of teaching experience in total. Time has flown. I didn’t feel it at all. It’s as if I started work the other day.

Every lesson is different. Even when you teach the same thing to 4 classes one after another, the lessons aren’t the same. The kids constantly ask you challenging questions. Every now and then you have to check things at home so you can answer them. It gets interesting. Sometimes they offer solutions that hadn’t occurred to you.

So it’s actually dynamic work, and you don’t get stuck in a rut.

– … then perhaps it’s no surprise that today teaching is actually one of children’s dream professions! Thank you for your invaluable help and for a thought-provoking conversation. I’m sure the most interesting experiments are still to come!

Child’s drawing or AI? The experiment drew enormous interest.

Almost 4,000 people took part in the test of whether we can tell 15 drawings by children under 11 from 15 images created by artificial intelligence! Time to sum up the results.

Did we rise to the challenge? Are the real or the generated drawings easier to recognize? Did the task turn out to be hard, or did almost everyone manage to guess all 30? Were the children themselves more accurate in their judgment? Why do the conclusions matter?

If you haven’t taken the test yet, it’s far from too late. You can find it here, and after you fill in and submit the form, you’ll see the answers too.

TL;DR

The article is long and detailed. If you’re only interested in the main conclusions, you’ll find them

here.

• The experiment drew enormous interest: in a month and a half, no fewer than 3,933 people took part!
• The participants’ average success rate is a mere 52 percent. Pure guessing would give exactly 50 percent.
• In other words, we can say unequivocally that we are unable to tell children’s drawings from generated images.
• Though by a small margin, participants rated the generated images as more creative and better in technique.
• The differences between the scores of adults and of children who took the test are minimal.
• For 6 of the children’s drawings and 9 of the generated images, more people got the author wrong than right.
• Some images stand out as recognized by fewer than 1 in 5!
• Overall, we are slightly more inclined to take a generated image for a child’s drawing than the other way around.
• If you haven’t done the experiment yet, it’s waiting for you here.

Keep Your Eye on the Picture

No fewer than 3,933 people took up the challenge between mid-May and the end of June, when answer collection for the experiment closed! The interest hasn’t stopped since, and the number of people who have taken the test is now approaching 5,000, although their results no longer count toward the analysis.

If you’re among them… you’re hardly going to be surprised that the results are far from perfect. More than that—they’re close to sheer guesswork. We excluded people who answered fewer than two-thirds of the questions, and still… Almost half the participants have more wrong answers than right ones!

The average score is 52 percent; pure guessing would give 50 percent! So based on the results, we can boldly say that today we are no longer able to tell children’s drawings from ones created by AI! (And that matters—here’s why!)

And yet… there isn’t a single image that failed to mislead at least 1 in 10 participants. Nor is there one that fooled more than 90 percent.

I should note that no fewer than 12 people achieved the maximum score of 30 points during this period. I should note even more that, despite my best efforts, there were two ways to cheat—because of an oversight on my part, the generated images all had exactly the same proportions, and after submitting, a careful look at the result revealed which answers were correct. Still, evidently few participants discovered the loophole, if any did at all. And the results are so unambiguous that they leave no doubt about the most important conclusion. We turned out to be unable to tell the two groups apart.

Two Beautiful Eyes. The Soul of a Child

Children up to 14 could also take part in the experiment. Did they prove better at recognizing the work of their peers? I wouldn’t say so. Granted, only 128 children took the test, but their average score is not far from that of the adults.

Still, there are some pictures, such as the one with the snowman, where the young participants proved more observant.

A Fair Grade

For the first 10 images (5 generated and 5 drawn), participants could also give a rating—for technique and for imagination. The truth is that in both categories the average ratings were quite close, just over 3 out of 5.

And yet… the generated images received slightly higher average ratings, almost without exception! Participants gave AI a slightly better grade than the children!

The AI-generated drawings get slightly higher average ratings for both imagination (+0.15 points) and technique (+0.10 points), and the highest-rated of all is drawing 9 (AI).

Here are some of the images that stood out either way, whether or not they managed to fool the participants:

Judged by the Pictures

So here are the conclusions in brief:

• The experiment drew enormous interest: in a month and a half, no fewer than 3,933 people took part!
• The participants’ average success rate is a mere 52 percent. Pure guessing would give exactly 50 percent.
• In other words, we can say unequivocally that we are unable to tell children’s drawings from generated images.
• Though by a small margin, participants rated the generated images as more creative and better in technique.
• The differences between the scores of adults and of children who took the test are minimal.
• For 6 of the children’s drawings and 9 of the generated images, more people got the author wrong than right.
• Some images stand out as recognized by fewer than 1 in 5!
• Overall, we are slightly more inclined to take a generated image for a child’s drawing than the other way around.
• If you haven’t done the experiment yet, it’s waiting for you here.

It’s also time for the promised prizes! The four participants who scored the maximum 30 points and left their email for the prize draw are: p.vas***@ard**.bg, kalina***@abv.bg, lubo***@abv.bg and dimitrana****@yahoo.de . They will receive selected books and congratulations on their impressive result!

And once again, heartfelt thanks to everyone who took part and to everyone who helped this fascinating experiment reach so many people!

And can you tell a generated voice from a human one? Try it here!

If you have ideas for the next Digital Stories experiments, I’m waiting for you here!

If the topic interests you, it’s definitely worth reading the interview with psychologist Elitsa Staneva-Britton, whose idea inspired the experiment. You’ll find it here.

Cosmonaut or vet, princess or pilot? What calling did you want to pursue as a child? Did your dream come true?

What do today's kids want to be when they grow up?

On their very own holiday—June 1, Children's Day in Bulgaria—it's time for the results of a curious survey.

The Digital Stories series on children's encounter with technology gathered important perspectives on many subjects, along with a survey of what parents and relatives of children up to age 11 think about each of them. I've already written about the fascinating results, but not about how parents answered one question that I consider rather special. Of the 350 people who took part in the survey, 289 chose to answer:

What do the children want to be when they grow up?

“Influencer” or “doctor”—which do you think turned out to be the most common answer?

How are kids' dreams changing?

What does that say about us adults, about technology, about the spirit of the times?

Doctor and/or Superhero

So, the winners—the most frequently mentioned future professions—are, for me at least, quite unexpected. Doctor or teacher! In one form or another, they account for more than 15 percent of the answers.

Why, and how? Against the backdrop of the big problems these professions face and the undeniable need for drastic reform in both the education and the healthcare systems, they are the ones children mention most often. Wonderful news! Whether it's down to the values parents instill, to the care of teachers in kindergartens and the early grades, or to the right picture books. Each of the two professions is mentioned 26 times. Let's hope their enthusiasm doesn't fade and we'll have a solution to the staff shortages in both fields (I wonder how many practicing GPs will be left by the time these kids graduate?).

Vet is the third most common calling, with 18 mentions. That's easy to explain with children's love of animals.

Architect (9 mentions) and artist (8) make the top ten, alongside police officer (8) and firefighter (6). The forces of law and order also appear in more eccentric combinations—one child declared that they want to be “a firefighter, a police officer, a taxi driver, a pilot and a superhero.” Dreams have no limits, especially when you're 5 (and they shouldn't afterward either, but that's another subject).

These statistics come alongside the answers of more than 90 percent of parents, who, in another question in the survey, said their children will most likely have to change professions at least a few times.

The Cosmonaut Princess

Speaking of versatility, one mother says of her 6-year-old son that “he wants to be a footballer/skier/tennis player/musician—all at once, because he does all of them now.”

In the survey we find a few princesses (2 girls declared this, one of them in combination with a teaching career).

In my day, last century, perhaps the most common answer to the question that brings us together today would have been “cosmonaut.” And despite my worry that it wouldn't show up in the survey at all, at a time when space exploration is far from a frequent guest in public discourse, I was pleasantly surprised. Six children dream of being cosmonauts or astronauts.

Some have even bolder dreams, such as “astrophysicist, astronaut, potential settler of other planets” or “the first architect on Mars.”

Here's hoping!

Another young man has devised an even more original schedule for his future—he'll be a cosmonaut and, “when he's on Earth, a firefighter.”

Study Hard, Kiddo,…

There's no shortage of ambitious claims like “Olympic swimming champion.” And where do parents' interventions fit in against this backdrop? “I'd really like him to start out as a musician, and in the future he'll find himself,” reads one of the answers. Others: “whatever the child wishes” and “whatever she chooses, we're a supporting factor.”

Callings like paleontologist and astrophysicist appear. The answers “dancer” and “actress” (the latter combined with being a driver, no less) come up only once each. Same with “fashion model” or “model,” though on the other hand there are three future fashion designers.

Of course, we can't escape technological influences. Although they don't dominate the survey, professions like YouTuber and gamer also turn up among the answers. One of them reads: “footballer, YouTuber, programmer.” Writing code in the morning, training in the afternoon, streaming games in the evening… sounds exhausting, but not when you're 10.

Speaking of programmers and footballers… they come up equally often! Each of the two callings is mentioned 7 times. Perhaps by the time these kids grow up, the first profession will be even rarer than the cosmonaut's, but the future will tell.

The answer “engineer” appears another 5 times—including as a person “who invents machines, mostly for cleaning the sea.” Or “a construction bioengineer who wants to make buildings with walls of plants, and bypass rivers and forests around cities.” The same child adds that they also want to be “a lawyer for animals.” We have one future “operator of an asphalt paver. Or at least of a road roller.”

Pretty interesting, wouldn't you say?

Sports and Music

A lawyer is mentioned only once (and it's that same lawyer “for animals”); we have no banker, businessman or entrepreneur.

Journalism (for some reason, that was my answer as a kid) appears only once, and specifically as a radio host.

It's worth looking at how things stand compared with real research worldwide. It turns out that Bulgarian children (or at least those of this site's readers) choose “influencer” professions much less often (for now) than their peers in the West.

In an international 2019 study among children aged 8 to 12, conducted by LEGO, almost 30 percent in the US and the UK named “vlogger/YouTuber” as their dream job, while only 11 percent wanted to become astronauts. In China, it's the other way around—more than half of the children there dream of space (hardly just because YouTube isn't accessible behind the “Great Firewall”).

Another 2025 study among older children—aged 12 to 15—shows a similar picture in the US: about a third want to be YouTubers, and a fifth TikTok stars.

Whether it's a matter of cultural differences—traditional professions are respected here—or parents simply aren't quick to count “influencer” as a serious answer… I can't tell you, but the results certainly make me happy.

One dad asks: “He wants to become a YouTuber—is that a profession? Which school teaches it? NATFIZ?”—Bulgaria's National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts.

Director of a Waterfall

Brothers and sisters often have ambitions pointing in different directions. “One will have a farm, and the other will make robots for the farm.” “One wants to work with people, the other with modern technology.” “My 3-year-old daughter wants to be a doctor who treats kittens, and my son, who's 2, wants to be a dinosaur.”

“Lucrative”—that's the profession one parent tersely named. “One that makes him happy and financially independent.” “Imaginary—one that requires no effort and pays a high salary,” reads another answer. I'll leave the comments to you.

“A completely wrongly posed question. The child should strive to solve problems—their own and other people's… All professions are temporary, but problem-solving is a skill for life,” says one parent.

I, on the other hand, like the question and think it's important, and it certainly doesn't get in the way of solving problems. No argument: the world is changing so fast that the professions of the future may not have been invented yet, and perhaps it's more important to teach children how to learn, how to be creative. How to be human.

And not to give up on their dreams.

Can you tell children's drawings from ones generated by artificial intelligence? You'll find the Digital Stories challenge for children and parents, along with the explanation of why this test matters so much for the future, here.

It’s time for an unexpected but important test. For an experiment that raises big questions about the future of creativity, of what makes us human, of education.

Challenge yourself and your intuition! 15 pictures drawn by children aged 3 to 10, and 15 generated by artificial intelligence. If you can tell them apart, prizes await!

Responses are open until July 1, and the survey won’t take you more than 10 minutes. For each of the 30 images, all you need to do is guess whether it was drawn by a child or generated by AI, and also rate the technique and imagination in the first 10. You can answer just some of the questions, too. The survey is open to children as well! We’ll see whether they do better than adults at spotting the difference.

The five people with the most correct answers will receive a book as a prize.

Why does the result matter?

“Today AI is better than us at divergent thinking, originality and speed, and therefore it is better at creativity too. That is why the very definition of creativity has to change, believes the cognitive psychologist Mark Runco. But how? It makes sense to begin with the most human, the most innocent, the most authentic, the most imperfect, yet also the most creative thing of all: children’s drawings,” says Elitsa Staneva-Britton.

She is a doctoral student at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, researching AI and creativity, and the experiment was her idea (and if you have an idea for the next Digital Stories piece, this is the place).

After I showed on Digital Stories how a generated social media profile can reach 85,000 people without anyone noticing that something is off;

After 1,800 people took part in a test of whether we can tell generated images and texts apart, and the result came close to pure guesswork;

After generated poems were not merely admitted to two poetry competitions in a row but chosen among the best, it is time for the next big question from Digital Stories.

AI already creates content we cannot tell from our own. But can we hand it creativity itself, the primal spark that children’s drawings reveal?

The result matters, and I am wholeheartedly grateful to everyone who takes this test and to everyone who helps it reach more people.

– How did you come to the profession of doula?

– As with many women who take this path, the decisive moment for me was the birth of my child. Before that I knew nothing about either childbirth or pregnancy.

All I had was fear, a terrible amount of it, like every woman.

But I went through a process of personal growth that made me change my perspective and start thinking. I began reading a lot; I needed to know how things work and why they happen the way they do. I was amazed at how nature had figured it all out, and that helped me a great deal to deal with my fears and feel much more confident.

So many women have given birth; it isn’t the horror it’s often made out to be.

In the end I had a really lovely, calm birth. But when I compared it with the experience of my friends, the difference was striking. Most of them had had various problems, and that made me wonder what I had done differently. I concluded that the preparation, understanding the process, and a new mindset had been what mattered. I decided I wanted to help other women have a good birth too. It is a hugely important moment in a woman’s life, and if it doesn’t go well, it can leave a serious trauma.

At first it was half a joke—I’ll take a doula course and see how it goes. But the deeper I dug into the subject, the more interesting it became, until finally I told myself: “If I’m going to do this, I have to focus on it 100 percent.” For a year now I’ve been doing it full time, and on top of that I started an online club for conscious pregnancy and birth, so I can help Bulgarian women as well. Sadly, I keep being reminded that the standard of maternity care back home is very far from optimal.

– In what way, for example?

– There is some tremendous madness, and what’s worse, women don’t even realize it; it’s accepted as a normal part of the process. For example,

hospitals most often practice the so-called “managed birth,” meaning that labor isn’t allowed to unfold as a natural physiological process but is steered with all kinds of interventions from beginning to end.

That has an enormous effect on the process. For instance, inducing labor has become very fashionable lately; it’s “the new C-section,” and it’s done for all sorts of reasons that in 90 percent of cases are completely unfounded. The baby hasn’t been born by the due date and the doctor says, “We have to get it out,” which is utter nonsense—if the baby is fine and being monitored, its heartbeat checked, there is no need to do it. The due date is just a guideline, not some hard deadline.

An induced labor can have bad consequences, because it is far more stressful for both the baby and the mother. For her, the contractions are much stronger, more frequent and more painful, which is why an epidural is usually given, and that in turn often leads to other consequences. For example, being immobilized because of an IV drip and continuous fetal monitoring, an oxytocin infusion, a poor sense of when to push, a drop in blood pressure. For the baby, an induced labor is much more stressful because of those more intense contractions. It literally can’t catch its breath, and this often leads to fetal distress or a drop in the heart rate, and then the situation ends in an emergency C-section or a forceps or vacuum delivery. That is just one example of an intervention that is used en masse without any need for it.

– I don’t know if it’s done often—my younger son “stayed in” almost 10 days past his due date, and the doctors said nothing about it.

– That’s great! It’s wonderful that you found a doctor like that, because, as I see in my practice every day, fewer and fewer are willing to wait. I worked with a woman who went in for a checkup the day before her due date and was told they would get the baby out. She said she didn’t want that, and yet the next day they sent her a text message saying they had scheduled her. This is becoming very widespread.

– Let’s say a few words about what a doula does. From what I know, her main role is to give advice, support the woman, be someone she can talk to about the questions that come up. And when the birth comes, to be there beside her. Frankly, I don’t understand the fashion for fathers being there at that moment, too.

– It depends; my husband did brilliantly, he had prepared. It’s partly a question of preparation and partly of how you feel about it—some say, “No, this isn’t for me, I’d rather stay out of it.” That’s okay too.

The doula’s role can be very varied, depending on what the woman needs. It includes work during pregnancy—preparing the woman for the birth itself, so she knows what to expect, what she can do to help herself in the process, for instance how to cope better with the pain. That can include preparing the partner too, if he wants to be present at the birth.

Help with making the important decisions that come up during pregnancy. If the doctor tells you, “We need to do this,” and you’re not sure, there’s someone to give you objective information on the subject, to help you ask the right questions so you can make a sounder decision with more confidence.

A doula’s job isn’t to make the decision for you, but to help you see the full picture.

During the birth itself she helps with all kinds of techniques and practices for coping with pain and for not losing confidence. If emergency interventions become necessary, there’s someone to explain what is going on, since doctors often don’t—whether because they lack the time or the will, or simply think their patients should listen and do as they’re told. There are studies showing that when a doula is present at a birth, the woman feels much calmer and more confident, and everything goes much more smoothly. A doula’s work can also extend into the postpartum period, with help in the first days of caring for the baby and early support with breastfeeding. And with questions about recovery after the birth.

Many people get confused about whether a doula is the same as a midwife. No, she is not a medical professional. Midwives usually work in hospitals; they deliver the babies or assist the doctors, depending on the system. The doula is there to support you with everything else, and for the purely human presence and attention that doctors usually don’t have time to give.

– I imagine that in an ideal system, medical professionals could take on much of that role.

– Yes, they could. In Germany, for example, the system is different; it uses the so-called midwife-led model of maternity care. Midwives are the ones who look after the woman during pregnancy, and they are there during the birth. A doctor steps in only if there is a complication or an emergency.

In my view that’s the much better option, but there’s a problem here too—there aren’t enough midwives, they’re poorly paid, overworked, and once again can’t give the attention that’s needed.

The profession of midwife goes back to ancient times, and that is exactly what midwives did: they cared for women in every way, emotionally too, in the preparation and during the birth itself. Sadly, these days the tradition has been lost, and that has created the conditions for the profession to return in the form of the doula.

– The reason for our conversation has to do with technology. You said that sometimes it plays a nasty trick on us: it makes the process easier, but somehow interrupts the natural course of events.

– There are all sorts of ways in which technology has changed how we give birth. Yes, in many respects it’s wonderful that we have it; it helps with early diagnosis and who knows what else. But really, the question is one of balance. The more we rely on technology, the further we drift from natural processes. We simply

forget to listen to our bodies, we forget to trust that the body actually knows how to give birth to a child.

The whole process becomes overmedicalized. Modern women rely on extremely detailed monitoring of their pregnancy, every kind of diagnostic, test and screening. Meanwhile, most of them don’t understand how the natural process unfolds, what the physiology of birth is, what hinders it, what helps it, what the basic principles are. They are very simple, but someone has to explain them to you.

And so a huge amount of personal responsibility gets handed over to the doctor.

“I expect that since I live in a modern society, the doctor and the technology know best, and I don’t need to do anything.” That leads to passive participation in the process and no desire to understand it, which in turn is the cause of today’s culture of fear around childbirth. But fear is fought with knowledge and confidence.

What you get is a paradox: we have all this technology, we have access to information like never before, and yet we are more and more frightened, more and more unsure of ourselves, to the point where we don’t know how to give birth to our own children.

Every day I talk to women who are terrified at the thought that they have a birth ahead of them. It shouldn’t be like this!

– The same thing happens afterward, with raising the children. If you decide to look for advice, you’ll find thousands of pieces of it, most of them contradictory, mutually exclusive. Still, what are the basics a woman should know, the foundation she should start from in order to reach that calm?

– She has to understand what is happening in her body. To know that there are a few key hormones that control everything, and what affects them. That birth is teamwork between the baby and the mother. It’s not just the mother lying down and someone pulling the baby out.

The basic principle of birth is that the baby drives the process and knows what to do. We simply mustn’t get in its way; we should try to help it. How? Broadly speaking, through movement, using gravity and relaxing the body. There are all kinds of techniques and practices for this, but it certainly doesn’t mean the woman lying on her back, lifting her legs and waiting for the baby to come out. That actually stops the process!

When we help the natural process, we tolerate the pain much better and the need for an epidural decreases. Yes, it has its place, but it’s also an intervention which, as I mentioned, has its consequences, and so it’s good to choose it consciously, not simply out of fear of pain. In the end, pain is partly subjective—the more you expect it, the more it will hurt.

Technology influences every step. For example, there are all sorts of apps—to help you track your cycle and get pregnant, to track your pregnancy and learn what’s happening with the baby at each stage, what to eat, how to exercise… And supposedly you should be better prepared and feel more capable, but that’s not quite how it turns out. Having access to this vast amount of information doesn’t mean you know how to consume it and apply it in practice to your particular case. Because every pregnancy and every birth is individual, and there are many variations of normal.

Things get lost in translation; people don’t know what to believe and they wander around lost.

Very often I hear: “I’d rather not read anything at all, because it stresses me out.” Or: “All I come across are horrifying birth stories that scare me.” And that’s true, nobody wants to hear horror stories. It’s about selecting information, knowing what to read, what to pay attention to, and above all how to apply it.

– And the purely human element matters somehow, too. Supermarkets have had self-checkout machines for ages, yet few people use them. It’s different when a person gives you the information; there’s a psychological aspect, and you can also ask follow-up questions.

But what might this return to a more human approach look like, and where should it start? With the system, with public debate, or with women?

– In my view, with women. The system works; it was built a certain way and it’s fine as it is. Without a reason, it won’t change. Women are the ones who need to realize what is best for them and for their baby, how far we’ve come today, and how what happens in hospitals on a mass scale often hinders the process.

Women need to realize that they have a say in the whole process. They are the ones who should be making the decisions, not handing their personal responsibility over to technology or to doctors.

– But that’s where the other extreme lurks, which I find no less frightening—the one that brought us anti-vaxxers and pseudoscience. Disregarding doctors.

– Again, it’s a question of balance. When women begin to understand and demand that certain changes happen in maternity care, that doesn’t mean all the hospitals will close and the doctors will vanish. The aim is to change the way we give birth. For example, to get rid of absurd practices like not letting a woman drink water during labor. It’s so outdated, there’s so much scientific evidence that it doesn’t help in any way, that it even does harm, and yet it’s still practiced.

That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about—finding the golden mean, not falling into extremes. So when a doctor tells you, “Do this,” you shouldn’t just follow blindly because an authority said so, but think critically about it, seek a second and third opinion if necessary, and make your decision based on that. Because in the end doctors aren’t gods—they make mistakes sometimes too. Not to mention that their interests often differ from yours.

– So your recipe for a calm pregnancy and birth is to take an interest and choose our information carefully.

– Exactly. That’s the start—from there we need to analyze that information critically and decide how to apply it to our particular case. In other words, to take personal responsibility for our birth, because if we let ourselves drift with the current, it only drags us down.

Let me give one more example. Lately I’ve noticed a sort of boom in measuring the baby while it’s still in the mother’s belly. In Bulgaria this is done at every checkup—in Germany it’s different; here, in a normal pregnancy, they look at the baby once a trimester and that’s it. Some people will say that’s very backward, but actually that isn’t necessarily so.

All this constant measuring leads to an excessive fixation on every detail. I keep reading in various groups: “At my last checkup they told me the baby is two weeks ahead. Should I worry?” And everyone falls into some insane state of stress. There’s no need!

Yes, there is a standard that serves as a guideline. But in many cases the baby grows a bit more slowly, then catches up, then slows down a bit again. It’s no drama! But nobody explains this. Besides, the measurements are imprecise—there’s a margin of error of plus or minus 15 percent, sometimes more. And women just worry, instead of this information helping them feel more confident.

– But during that time you’re stressed; something very out of the ordinary is happening to you…

– Exactly. A woman is very susceptible to all kinds of influences. So very often this excessive scrutiny actually does harm instead of helping. I remember when I was pregnant and asked my doctor how big the baby was, she told me: “Don’t even think about it!” First, the measurement isn’t very accurate. And second, even if the baby really is a bit bigger, that doesn’t mean you can’t give birth to it. In many places, once they say the baby is 4 kilograms, that’s it, it can’t come out, we’re doing a C-section. That’s often nonsense too.

Another example: many expectant mothers decide to buy a fetal Doppler, a little device that lets them listen to the baby’s heartbeat. And they think that having one at home will reassure them that everything is fine. It’s an illusion, because on the one hand the device isn’t as accurate as the ones in hospitals, and on the other, there’s no guarantee the woman knows what she’s hearing or how to interpret it.

And when the baby is born, the constant searching begins. “The baby sneezed—is that normal?” Often the mother spends more time searching and reading

forums or apps that tell her how to raise her child, instead of trying to get to know this child,

to understand the signals it sends her. To feel her maternal instinct. Because every mother knows! Every mother can sense her child, but she has to give herself a little time and peace to build that bond.

– And it’s no coincidence that postpartum depression appears, which still isn’t talked about enough in Bulgaria.

– Absolutely! For one thing, there are very serious hormonal changes, and on top of that the woman feels lost, she lacks support, she doesn’t know how to deal with the many things that come up. That circle of women—family and friends—within which birth and the recovery after it used to happen is gone. And so the knowledge we used to absorb unconsciously just by watching the people around us—how to breastfeed, how to look after a baby—is gone too.

Today we live in great isolation. Very often we have no family or loved ones nearby. After the birth, friends without children often drift away. Suddenly the woman finds herself alone all day with a child she doesn’t know what to do with.

Support during this period is key—whether purely practical, or simply asking: “How are you, how are you coping, can I help with anything?”

I very much hope this will gradually change. But it won’t happen by itself; it takes conscious effort…

How many hours a day do children spend in front of a screen? Should phones be allowed in school? What does the technological future look like for today's children? What is worth learning? How is parenting different today?

In early February I put these and many other important questions to the parents and relatives of children up to 11 years old. The Digital Stories survey gathered more than 350 responses. The conclusions are telling, and they give you pause. The messages collected there deserve to be read and discussed.

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who filled it in, and to everyone who helped more people take part! Here is what the results turned out to be.

TL;DR

The article is long and detailed. If you are only interested in the main conclusions, you will find them

here.

According to those who took part in the survey:

• Phones have no place in school or kindergarten
• 25% of parents admit they have trouble keeping screen time under control
• It is time to start serious changes in the education system as soon as possible, so that it fits the world of today.
• Those who believe parenting today is harder and drastically changed compared to pre-digital times clearly dominate.
• A huge share of parents believe their children will live in very different times, will change professions often, and need to be ready for that kind of adaptability.
• Artificial intelligence sharply divides people over whether it is a positive or a negative phenomenon for their children's future.
• Parents want a broader public conversation and more useful resources to help their children meet technology in a healthy way.

Measure for Measure

A total of 357 people took part: 67 percent were mothers and 18.9 percent fathers, which I think is a wonderful sign, considering how much less fatherhood is discussed online. Grandmothers, grandfathers and people who chose not to answer this question made up a considerably smaller number. A little over half of the participants have one child, exactly 1/3 have two, and 8.8 percent turned out to be the brave souls with three or more kids at home.

We start with the touchiest question—the hours spent in front of a screen.

Interesting! It turns out the problem of excessive screen time is not that widespread… or at least that is what I would like to believe. The truth is that the figures differ drastically from those of statistical studies. My survey, of course, makes no such claims—it is simply a journalistic experiment, an attempt to capture the trends in this all-important subject. People take part voluntarily, they are certainly far from a representative sample, and the data is self-reported. And still—1 in 10 reports more than three hours of screen time, which is definitely above the recommended limits for children under 11. Meanwhile, 15.7 percent of parents allow no contact with screens at all, which may also be explained by the fact that some of them have babies or very young children.

The Small Screen

But beyond the hours… what do parents think about the relationship between children and screens?

Here, too, the trends look relatively far from the gloomy expectations! One in five children under 3 regularly has access to a screen. Almost 80 percent of parents believe they have set clear rules for their children on using screen devices. And yet, looked at from the other side—one in four parents who took part says their children overdo screen time and the adults don't know how to cope. That is exactly what shows how important the subject is and why this series of children's Digital Stories exists (you will find links to all the texts in it at the very bottom): they are meant to be as useful as possible to precisely those parents facing this serious challenge.

And what do people think about another touchy subject—phones and screens in lessons, in the classroom, in kindergarten?

Here we can say we have something close to a consensus. Only a very small share of parents of children under 11 believe phones belong in school, and even fewer in kindergarten. Even by law, they shouldn't be there…

So is it really that hard to make it happen? Clearly this is a subject on which we hold a clear and fairly unanimous opinion! Isn't it time the institutions shared it?

The Teacher Factory

And while we are on the subject of educational institutions, let's turn to other aspects of the technological world and its connection to learning. Does education in our country meet the needs and demands of today and tomorrow?

Clearly one point of view dominates here as well. Nine out of 10 parents believe today's school education does not fit the technological world we live in. Even more—an astonishing (to me) 94.2 percent believe it needs very serious reforms.

Opinions on personalization are a little more divided, which is also interesting. But if there is one conclusion that, it is no exaggeration to say, is screaming out loud, it is that the time has come for a very serious education reform.

The School of Torment

Another group of questions looks at how different parenting today is from parenting in pre-technological times. Is it harder, is it different, is the father's role changing?

Here is the result that astonished me, at least. Yes, I fully agree with the 91.9 percent of participants who say parenting today is very different from pre-digital times, but… 62 percent believe it is HARDER today? Honestly, I can't get my head around it. If we go back one generation, we reach times when finding information was much more difficult. And a few generations further back—when our ancestors fought in wars and child mortality was horrifyingly high? Could it be that we overestimate the problems we have today? Yes, they are serious, the questions are big, but…

The father's role is growing ever more important, according to many people. Wonderful news, in my view! And 82.7 percent of parents have close contact with their child! Are these lovely trends really here? Or did only such special people come to my site to fill in the survey? I leave the answer to the sociologists—as I said, the goal here is a different one.

On the Edge

We keep painting the picture of parenting today.

I'll leave the conclusions here to you; I believe everyone will find something useful for themselves. For me, for example, it is the fact that almost 3/4 of those who chose to answer this question say their children read for pleasure in their free time. Wow!

And 2/3 share my humble opinion that “the children's books and films we had back in the day…”.

The Wheat Fields Gleam Before Us

And when we turn our gaze to the future, some very interesting results show up too. I admit I have long been seriously worried by the oft-discussed idea that as the generation that remembers World War II passes away, humanity's immunity to the next such madness passes with it.

But what unites us to a huge degree here is the expectation of change. A huge percentage of parents believe their children will have to change professions often. And also that their heirs are very likely to one day practice a profession that does not yet exist.

ChatGPT Jr.

What are people's attitudes toward and expectations of artificial intelligence?

Here we see quite a big divide. The question of whether AI is a great opportunity or a great danger—or whether it is either of the two at all—splits parents' answers to a considerable degree, though the optimists are slightly more numerous. Interestingly, Bulgarian parents are evidently in no hurry to show their kids what this technology can do—only 38 percent of participants say their children know what AI is.

Of course, this subject is far too big. But the results add further nuance to the detailed and telling Digital Stories survey from a few months ago on Bulgarians' attitudes toward AI.

A Time of Parting

Which decisions are the hardest for parents to make today?

And so we reach the open questions. For the one above, the most common answers included:

• Limiting the time spent in front of a screen and, more generally, a healthy and balanced interaction with technology
• Choosing a school or kindergarten, and good enough educators
• Upbringing
• Setting boundaries for the child and sticking to them
• Finding a balance and combining parenting with work
• Preserving both parental authority and the children's love of freedom

A few more answers made a strong impression on me:

• “The decisions are actually quite easy. For example, choosing to turn off the TV—even though we know we, the adults, miss it, we also know it is good for us too. Not just for the child. Our child simply became the catalyst we needed to make countless changes in our lives that we knew were necessary anyway. People usually know what is good for them, they just choose the easy way.”
• “To offer the child activities that entertain, teach and excite them for more than 5 minutes. To introduce them to the world and to people in their dual nature. To awaken their instincts for self-awareness and self-preservation. To teach them that nothing is a given, but the fruit of effort, patience and learning!”
• “Parents' illiteracy about devices and their technophobia lead to raising children who in turn are either dependent on devices or afraid of them, living with the conviction that the computer will eat their dessert with a teaspoon.”
• “One of the hardest things for me is convincing my son that the real world is still far more exciting and interesting than the digital one.”
• “How to find the balance between providing for their material needs and overloading them with toys, clothes, pleasures. The balance between letting them choose whom to spend time with and limiting what we consider harmful influences. How to teach them to take responsibility and have their own duties.”
• “How do I set those blasted boundaries and hold to them without turning into a mean old auntie like the ones from my own childhood? How do I find the balance between no screen time and some screen time—mainly in terms of quality? The current Disney fads among kids drive me crazy; quite frankly, I find them to be chalga.” (Chalga is Bulgaria's brash, much-derided pop-folk.)
• “There are no easy decisions and there never have been when it comes to raising and bringing up children. But today's parents face a new kind of situation, problem and danger, which they usually have to deal with alone, unable to draw on the experience of the previous generation of their own parents. The most common problems have to do with relationships with peers. Whatever rules are set within the family, the child, once out of the house, inevitably ends up among other children who have unregulated access to electronic devices, social networks and content unsuitable for their age. And there the family can only counteract by building lasting habits in their children and an attitude toward what is right and what is not. The thing is, this is a process, and when the process is compromised by the influence of the environment at school, the results are hard to predict.”

Light, More Light

Which subject related to children, technology and the future is badly underestimated and not discussed enough?

I received more than 200 answers to each of the two open questions, and I am especially grateful for that!

Here are the answers that came up most often:

• Healthy limits on screen time and contact with technology
• Artificial intelligence and the big questions of the future
• Digital safety, cyberbullying and online crime
• Screen addiction and mental health—the word “addiction” comes up often
• Critical thinking and disinformation
• The influence of social networks
• Emotional intelligence and social skills

Some of the answers that made me think in particular:

• “How does the brain change as a result of the constant use of devices that save us effort on everything—does it waste away, does it fall asleep, or does it have time for other, more important things?”
• “Everything is discussed more than enough. I mean, here I am even filling in a survey, there is nowhere to hide from the thousands of proofs that we are ruining our children. Who stops blabbering about technology and the future? Where? Let me go there too.”
• “The children are zombified, slaves to technology, backed by their parents; they don't think, they don't know anything, they have absolutely no interests. Woe to their parents and to society as a whole!”
• “Far too much attention is paid to technology and far too little to general culture.”
• “Who we are is a fundamental subject. Qualities such as honesty, patience, nobility, courage and humility have not lost their importance.”
• “How children can think critically about technology, and why they need to be able to do things themselves before they make technology do them instead.”
• “Most children want to save nature, want there to be no wars, want technology to be used only for the benefit of humanity. How, when they grow up, can this way of thinking remain the main driving force in their lives, how can their value system stay steady despite life's disappointments? I believe there will soon be many valuable books and films for children about the dangers of artificial intelligence if it is not used the right way—to bring only benefits to humanity; about how to control the ways and the purposes for which it is used.”
• “Keep the connection with the land! Yes, the skills to grow fruit and vegetables, to care for animals, and why not, to chop wood!”

Well, it is precisely for these important and big questions that the Digital Stories site exists!

None of Your Business

As for the third open-ended question—what the child wants to be when they grow up—the answers were so interesting that I present them in a separate text. Still, the most common dream professions for today's children turned out to be:

After everything said so far, the most important conclusions from the survey, as I see them, are:

• Phones have no place in school or kindergarten
• 25% of parents admit they have trouble keeping screen time under control
• It is time to start serious changes in the education system as soon as possible, so that it fits the world of today.
• Those who believe parenting today is harder and drastically changed compared to pre-digital times clearly dominate.
• A huge share of parents believe their children will live in very different times, will change professions often, and need to be ready for that kind of adaptability.
• Artificial intelligence sharply divides people over whether it is a positive or a negative phenomenon for their children's future.
• Parents want a broader public conversation and more useful resources to help their children meet technology in a healthy way.

And now for the promised prizes! Three of the participants who chose to enter the draw receive a signed copy of the book Digital Stories as a gift. They are di***@abv.bg, konst_*******@abv.bg and vlad******@gmail.com.

And once again, heartfelt thanks to everyone who took part! If you have ideas for future Digital Stories, I would be grateful if you shared them here—a modest prize awaits…

So far in the Digital Children series:

• How Are Today's Children Meeting Technology? – a survey

• Hedgehogs Are Born Without AI

• “An era is coming in which we will have to reinvent ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what is worth learning today? – futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why does a programmer advise parents on how to get off the grid? – Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

• What should tomorrow's education look like? How do we choose the best teacher? – Evgenia Peeva

• How do we bring children and books together, and why is reading so important? – Val Stoeva

• “I want to tell today's mothers to take it easier” – Krasimira Hadzhiivanova of Mayko Mila! (Oh, Mother!)

• Parenting as war in the cartoons of Neda Malcheva

• Where did we leave the father's role? – Mihail Stefanov

• “We sacrificed two generations because we didn't know how technology works” – psychologist and children's author Slavi Stoev

If you have ideas about other important aspects of this subject, I would be glad if you shared them here.

– What are the biggest mistakes we make today when we introduce children to technology?

– In my view, the fundamental mistake is black-and-white thinking. In other words, the difficulty we have, in just about every sphere of life, in hitting the middle path. That is only possible through serious intellectual effort, which we very often don’t want to make, and it’s easier to settle on some extreme.

One extreme is demonizing technology. Explaining to children that it will ruin their brains. But a total ban means children end up with no competence in using technology. They are like tribesmen handed a grenade—they have no culture of using it, and sooner or later that grenade will land in their hands. Talking about technology the way we talk about drugs, equating it with something harmful, dangerous, deadly. As a parent, and as a psychologist who has read far too many studies on the effects of overuse on the child’s brain, I tend to slip into this extreme myself.

The other is that technology is something wonderful, the new human playground, the new reality—let the kids loose without supervision.

The supporters of this view say:

“They survived in reality, they’ll survive now too.”

That isn’t true, because biologically humans were not made to thrive in a technological world. We were made to socialize, to get to know ourselves, to get to know the world through our bodies, through play and relationships with other people.

The way forward is surely in searching for some middle, sensible path that makes children neither addicts nor technological idiots. Preparing them to live in a world where technology awaits them… in the good version of the future. In the bad version there won’t be any technology, but for now we maintain a moderate optimism that the world isn’t heading for a sunset, sudden and brutal.

– How are we doing so far?

– In my view, we adults sacrificed two generations because we created something without knowing what it was or how it worked. These children are the victims of our incompetence. Nobody knew; it wasn’t out of malice. Now we know,

no one can say anymore that we adults are unaware of what excessive use of digital devices does to the development of children’s emotional and intellectual apparatus.

– Let’s spell it out anyway. What does it do?

– Technology isn’t one thing. Solving logic problems on a computer, scrolling TikTok and playing games where you walk around killing things are three completely different activities that affect the human brain in different ways. The only thing they have in common is that

they pull you away from the real world and give the central nervous system an unreal arousal—one that real life doesn’t allow with such intensity and duration.

Whatever digital environment you consume, it is built to be stimulating, interesting, attractive, attention-grabbing. The world isn’t like that. It’s gray, slow, boring, inconsistent, arrhythmic. You have to engage with it through willpower for it to become interesting. It doesn’t entertain you on its own; it’s jagged, hard.

That is, the digital amusement park is not the natural habitat of the human brain, and when you live there too long, your brain shifts away from its usual functioning and adapts its structures to it.

It stops dealing with the big picture and starts dealing with a very narrow frame, wherever your focus of attention is. So whether it’s TikTok or a little house-building game, you’re left with a very narrow focus on something that excites you, because it was made for exactly that purpose. You have no need to create something interesting for yourself.

Your brain gets used to the idea that the world is an exciting place, and the only thing you need to develop is the skill of operating within it.

– Our brains are definitely not designed for such challenges…

– Naturally, it works wonders for developing operational skills. Children immersed in the digital have reflexes and short-range cause-and-effect thinking far more developed than those who climb trees all day. The problem is that the world isn’t like that. When you expect it to be a constantly stimulating place, you fail to develop

one of the basic qualities a person must develop in early childhood—the ability to delay gratification.

To know that you have to make an effort here and now, without getting anything, in order to earn some big reward in the future.

It’s connected to everything in our lives! Tidying your room, taking care of your hygiene, studying, not interrupting others. Being able to make an effort toward more meaningful goals, like a diploma, a relationship, friends, a family—a long-term bond that requires some investment.

The ability to delay gratification is trained, like everything in the human brain. And

when you don’t have it, you only make decisions that lead to quick satisfaction, quick stimulation, quick interest, quick fun. That rarely leads to a good life.

The second thing that happens is that you create a brain with a very narrow focus. Reading a book means receiving a new stimulus, a unit of information, but one that enters a field where other units of information are constantly buzzing, giving meaning to the new piece.

A single sentence in a book has absolutely no meaning on its own unless it lands in that half-active, unconsciously active cloud of all the other sentences

you’ve read so far in that book, and of a huge amount of other knowledge about the world, which together create the meaning. Yes, you aren’t thinking about any of those things at the moment, only about the stimulus coming in right now. But it will have no meaning unless it enters an information field that you keep half-active in your mind, so you can picture the world being described, the person speaking, so you can understand why they say it, why they behave that way.

That is the piece of information you’re focused on. Everything else, however, is also active in your head. And this, on the principle of reinforcing neural connections, creates, strengthens, develops and trains your ability to think in context. And thinking in context is another word for what is very fashionable right now and is called “functional literacy.” In other words, when a piece of information arrives, you can grasp how it is interconnected with everything else in the world, which is what actually gives it meaning.

– So reading remains just as important…

– It’s very fashionable to argue about what literature children should read at school. It makes no difference whatsoever! The point is that they read. Whether the story was written by Elin Pelin, the classic Bulgarian writer of village tales, or by a cyberpunk author, whether it’s Drandyo or The Fairy in the Sugar Bowl, here

we’re talking about the functional ability to put information in context—in other words, to understand it.

These are the two main proven problems of overexposing children to digital stimulation. One is that it damages the ability to delay gratification, which hits the emotional apparatus very sharply and seriously. You can’t feel pleasure unless you’re stimulated here and now. You struggle to find meaning in your life, because meaning is most often tied to distant pleasure, not immediate pleasure. You slide very easily into depression and irritability, because you’re used to being constantly “high” on some thrill here and now. That is what happens to the emotional apparatus of children overexposed to digital stimulation. And the other problem is that you lose functional literacy.

– At the same time, we only talk in hours. Until the age of three, they say today, children shouldn’t be exposed to technology at all. But nobody follows that, you can see it everywhere.

– The sad truth is that none of us knows what the right thing is.

We swing between these two extremes—“Anathema!” and “No problemo!”—because there’s very little information. Yes, two generations burned out because of our incompetence in teaching them how to use what we created some 20 years ago. And this generates an enormous amount of anxiety in our part of the field—psychologists, neurologists, doctors, educators, social workers, psychiatrists—because we work with the end product of the mistake. And sometimes it can be very sad.

That’s why prescriptions like this sometimes come out: “No screens until age three.” I followed that rule; until the age of three, my child had watched a total of 15 minutes of cartoons, by accident.

Yet many children who have had digital stimulation from their first days show no symptoms—no damage to the emotional apparatus or to the ability to hold context and make sense of things.

And here it’s a question of the dose.

Research has arrived at a definition of “harmful use” very similar to what is said about harmful use of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. It is defined as “use that leads to a loss of interest in other, alternative forms of entertainment, to visible withdrawal symptoms when it is taken away, and to an obsessive-compulsive search for the stimulus.”

In other words, behaving the way an addict would, ready to perform heroic feats to get to their substance and visibly suffering when it is taken away. Ready to drop absolutely everything else in life to get it.

That is,

when children give up natural stimuli so they can sink into a digital device, that’s a problem.

This isn’t even so much about how much they’ve been exposed, but about the extent to which they are prone to such compulsive-obsessive behaviors and find it hard to function in this world. For some children it’s an outlet—if they’re more anxious, shy, slower to socialize. The same way alcohol is for many adults—a wonderful escape. They go to a world where they have complete control over what happens and which, on top of that, rewards them, stimulates them, entertains them. For now, that is defined as harmful, dangerous use.

– But it’s also something every parent can assess by the criteria you just described. They sound quite clear.

– Talking sensibly with children is certainly important. My child started: “So-and-so has a phone.” “Rada, the truth is that nobody is more interesting than a phone. Nobody.” “That’s not true, you’re interesting, Mom is interesting.” “Nobody.

The phone has things in it that no single person can give you.

I can’t swallow fire or walk a tightrope strung between two cliffs, and people like that are in your phone. But right now you have far more important things to do. Yes, they aren’t as fun, as easy, as pleasant, but they’re the important things you need to be doing right now. When you’re at school, be with the other kids, not on your phone. So

you learn to make social contacts, to build relationships with other people, to learn to learn from other people.”

In the very early school years, children learn from one another during breaks. Sometimes they even talk about school, about what they’ve learned. These are fundamental, basic skills that everyone will need for the rest of their lives.

– Maybe evolution no longer requires them, maybe this is the natural course of things…

– No. We’re far too tiny to talk about evolution. We live for far too short a time to comment on it. I would rephrase it: perhaps our civilization doesn’t require them. Perhaps

we are currently building a civilization that assumes the right fit for it is an asocial person, prone to depression without stimulation, addicted to arousal, unable to think in context.

But I very much doubt that if we described the end result of hyper-digital people as personalities, anyone would say: “Hey, that’s exactly what we need!”

Rather, the risk—and a recognized one—is that

the new class inequality will be between people who can understand a page of written text and those who can’t.

All this alarm being raised, and all the research being done, costs a lot of money, and it isn’t done out of some higher form of humanism. It’s funded because at some point the question arises: is 10 percent of people who can understand a page of written text enough of an economic resource for us to keep existing? Our civilization created this phenomenon, but will it survive the result it gets?

More than a few civilizations have perished from their own mistakes. And this is one of the less visible mistakes, like the ecological danger—the fact that we cut away at our natural habitat. But it is also a mistake that could lead to our decline, and many people realize it.

That’s why a global trend is now beginning toward restricting the digital delivery of information to young people.

– Yes, but chaotically, unconsciously, and amid an already broken public dialogue on the important issues. In other words, in practice the trend is doomed. And yet, as you said, it makes a big difference whether you’re playing a game that might develop your brain in some way, or just scrolling…

– It’s like the difference between poker and slot machines.

If you play Minecraft, it’s a logic game, you’re making something, but it’s as if you’re playing poker. TikTok is the slot machine—you sit, you tap and you do nothing. Except both are gambling.

If you overdo either one, you lose the other parts of your life. Because you can be a top poker player whose whole life is just that… And if you imagine that here, in a country of 7 million, we had 7 million people whose only skill was playing poker, clicking away at Minecraft… who will teach the children? Who will treat them? Who will fix the sewers? Who will build their houses?

– I follow rules with my kids too; my older son often turns down his half-hour quota on the tablet to read Harry Potter. But many people only start thinking about it once they’ve already let things slip, once they’ve given unrestricted access to technology. What’s the solution then?

– You take away the stimulus. I’m not saying it’s easy! Most often we do the same as with other issues. We talk and tell ourselves: “It’s not true, it’s not a problem, that’s nonsense, there’s nothing wrong with my child.” Or “I know a kid who’s on his tablet all day and has an Olympiad medal.” You think of isolated cases that confirm your thesis, the one you emotionally want to be true, so you don’t have to deal with it, fight with your child, invent games for them, entertain them, put up with them sulking.

You try to spare yourself all that, because you have work, you have to cook, you’re only human…

Every possible parental explanation is true, every single one. The question is what decision you make—do you feel like dealing with it? If not, you’ll find an awful lot of arguments.

If you do, here comes the bad news: it will be a hard battle. Fortunately, no harder than many other battles we parents have to fight in raising our children. But a battle nonetheless. First, because the child is already used to the reward and the thrill, and few other things can deliver that kind of stimulation. Second, because we parents are very often alone in this battle; everyone around has a device.

What are you protecting? A little island surrounded by screens.

We’re on our own! Some specialists recommend one number of hours, others another. Schools have such a patchwork of policies; there’s no public framework that would back any parental position. People create little micro-communities of the like-minded around this principle.

We’re left to our own judgment, but thank God there is more and more accumulated information, if we care to read it.

– Meanwhile, here and there, governments occasionally remember that it’s not such a good idea for four-year-olds to be on TikTok, and still their measures are mostly palliative.

– Still, legal restrictions are being introduced; Australia, for example, is banning social media accounts for those under 16. Because

social networks carry very clear risks for children: harassment, including sexual harassment, a decline in intellectual capacity, all kinds of risky behavior.

Bullying in these environments becomes much more hidden and invisible. It can lead to terrible states and behaviors in response, and you won’t find out, because nobody knows. The child is humiliated, insulted and crushed in some closed digital space where no one has access except the child and the abusers.

Another step is

a return to paper textbooks, abandoning digital programs in which billions have been invested.

In Northern Europe, for instance, they are increasingly removing digital learning materials and going back to paper, because they see the difference in the brain’s ability to process information.

Ultimately, we’re not talking about knowledge. Some say that if we learn from a computer, we remember much more. That’s probably true. But

the point of learning is to teach you to think.

To be able, when you encounter new information, to see it, remember it, understand it and use it.

The digital environment makes engagement easier, because it’s far more attractive than paper, and remembering easier, because it builds many more neural connections.

But it bugs out the main goal of learning.

– And yet, if we decide we’ve overdone it, is it good to stop abruptly? Little by little? Should we talk more? Where does the road back to balance run?

– Whoever answers that would be irresponsible, because people layer it onto thousands of individual cases. Taking the digital device away completely, thank God, cannot harm the child—unlike certain substances, where abrupt withdrawal causes damage.

The best-case scenario is for the child to have discipline and self-control.

Sooner or later they will be exposed to a world where technology is necessary, and it’s good to help them develop self-discipline and free will, like your son. If I can play on the tablet or draw, I have the free will to choose. But neither is mandatory, because my brain isn’t telling me that one of them is the most important, meaningful and valuable thing in the world.

Empowering children to have access and freedom of choice, however, happens gradually. In the end, we create all their habits in one way or another.

Through imitation—that is very important. If we want the child to limit their use of digital devices, we have to limit ours in front of them. If you tell them, “Put that phone down and go study,” while swiping away at your own phone, it doesn’t carry much weight.

I don’t like bribery as a parenting method, although we all use it. “If you tidy your room, I’ll buy you chocolate.” “If you learn your lesson, I’ll take you to the theater.” “If you read 10 pages, I’ll give you the phone for half an hour.” I fundamentally dislike this method, but it could be used. Only not just for the child to read 10 pages, but for them to be able to tell you what they read, through check questions—and “Did you understand?” is not such a question.

If you have the time and energy to ask “What did you find interesting?”, “Why did this character behave that way?”, “Tell me what this story means”…

Then they can reach the coveted phone, but having made an effort. They’ll know the world isn’t just fun and good things require effort.

Everyone raises their children differently, that’s clear. Some people have no choice; they can’t fight this battle. Someone who works 12 hours a day, picks the child up, cooks—when exactly are they supposed to fight the battle over the phone? The point is at least to be aware of it.

– Why did you start writing children’s books?

– The motivation is very complex. First, because it’s great fun. Second, it was no accident that I started at a time when I already had a small child. Third, because the things I talk about in my children’s books are topics we adults very rarely put on the table in front of children. These are topics about being able to better understand what is happening inside them and around them. Not only to recognize it, but to be able to use that information. To subject it to critical evaluation, to progressive or regressive cause-and-effect analysis. Progressive is: “If I do A, B will happen,” and regressive: “B has happened, so it’s very likely that A happened before it.” This is extremely important in life, even, if you like, for planning a birthday party.

All our thinking is built on chains of logic like these.

– You host a podcast called Natural Intelligence. When do you think is the moment to introduce children to artificial intelligence? We all talk about it, it’s around us constantly, and it’s yet another thing where we don’t know what we’re doing, and we could repeat the same mistake we started with…

– The complex computational models called AI also have at least two sides. Since we’re somehow in the anxious conversation, I’ll start with the dangerous one, which is that

human abilities to perform certain functions atrophy

for the simple reason that there is now someone to delegate them to, who performs them with an acceptable level of error. Which is great.

The problem is that if we all start delegating to a device that performs operations with an acceptable level of error,

who, at some point, will have the capacity to say whether that level of error is acceptable?

In other words, whether the product the computational model generates is a good product that will do the job for us.

Some percentage of people must retain the ability to judge critically. You can only do that if you have actively participated many, many, many times in the process of generating the product you are evaluating. In other words, you need a certain level of experience and mastery that you will never develop if you haven’t gone through that process.

– That is happening in programming right now: AI does much of the work and we aren’t hiring enough young people. So in a few years there really won’t be anyone left to judge.

– It will be like with teachers—all the engineers will be of retirement age, and nobody will want to go to an IT company to write prompts. But that’s your problem. I’m sure you’ll make it ours too, but not anytime soon.

That’s the risk. There are already people who have no idea where they are. We’ve had decent GPS systems for about 15 years, and for about 10, with phones, everyone has GPS. And

having no idea where you are in space confuses you and bugs you out in so many unconscious meta-intellectual ways that, at the very least, it narrows your world.

If the world for you is the dot you see, and you have no idea where that dot sits in the whole big world, it makes your brain extremely narrowed and focused only on your immediate surroundings. That in turn undermines your overall capacity to see in perspective—your life, your relationships, your country’s politics—to hold some bigger picture.

That is the problem with convenience.

Most likely the same old-timer grumbling existed 150 years ago, when the mechanical looms appeared. Some people cried: “Oh no, what will happen when we lose the skill of weaving?” And look, we survived.

The problem with complex computational models is that they strike at the fundamentally human, at our evolutionary advantage of thinking in complex ways.

Leading to the atrophy of intellectual abilities, of the ability to socialize and to think in more complex ways.

– While this topic keeps sitting on the margins of public conversation… But it is precisely because of it that this site has existed for four years now. Thank you!

So far in the “Digital Children” series:

• How do today’s children encounter technology? – a survey

• Hedgehogs Are Born Without AI

• “An era is coming in which we will have to reinvent ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what makes sense to study today? – futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why does a programmer advise parents on how to get off the grid? – Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

• What should tomorrow’s education look like? How do we choose the best teacher? – Evgenia Peeva

• How do we introduce children to AI, and why is reading so important? – Val Stoeva

• “I want to tell today’s mothers to take it easier” – Krasimira Hadzhiivanova of Mayko Mila! (Oh, Mother!)

• Parenting as war in the cartoons of Neda Malcheva

• Where did we leave the role of the father? – Mihail Stefanov

If you have ideas about other important aspects of this topic, I’d be glad if you shared them here.

– “Mama Ninja,” “BG Mama,” “Mayko Mila!” (“Dear Mother!”)—so many hugely successful websites for mothers, and yet fathers seem to be missing from the online space. Why?

– There seems to be a kind of tradition in Bulgaria that

the role of fathers in shaping children is secondary. Just think about our children’s fairy tales.

Where is the father? Nowhere! “The Three Brothers and the Golden Apple.” Or the father leaves them to fend for themselves—as in “Nevolyata” (“Misfortune”), he won’t help them—or he is absent altogether.

Even in Botev—Hristo Botev, the revolutionary poet every Bulgarian learns at school—the father is such a secondary figure. The mother, the grandmother, the grandfather, the kin, but the figure of the father… If someone took the trouble to trace fairy tales, folklore and contemporary culture as well, they would see that it is an almost absent figure, which is very interesting and builds up over time.

– And at the same time we talk about our patriarchal way of life.

– It is patriarchal, but I get the feeling we’re talking about how the grandfather is a better father than the father. Somehow he learns through his mistakes. I can say this even about my own family—my grandfather was a better grandfather to me than he was a father to my father. I don’t know where it comes from, but we have a deficit that seems to be culturally layered.

– But now we’re modern people, we even change diapers, and we still don’t talk much about our role.

– Yes, maybe the social role of the man as someone who takes part is changing, but I wouldn’t say it’s like that everywhere. In Sofia, or at least, say, in our bubble, everyone with two kids, we try to pitch in, to help at home.

Changing diapers, being there, supporting your partner is great. But it’s only a first step—it doesn’t come close to making you an effective father.

Years ago I talked with the editor-in-chief of the publishing house Fyut, and she had a very interesting observation—I don’t know if it has changed since—that books about communicating with your child are bought up to about age seven: everything related to babies and small children. As if after seven there’s suddenly no need—apparently everyone can communicate fully with teenagers, or the books are bought only by people with problems, who are already stuck.

Meanwhile, the topics of communication, of the atmosphere at home,

of the father’s role as a formative factor for identity…, topics that psychology treats so seriously, are quite, quite unfamiliar in Bulgaria.

– I completely share your observations. But is it only in Bulgaria?

– I don’t know, I don’t have a view of other societies. A while ago I came across an article by a Scandinavian psychologist called “How We Raise Ingrates.” It was about the extreme lack of boundaries in Scandinavian families, which

don’t want to restrict their children, try to give them complete freedom—and have the highest rate of leaving elderly people in nursing homes.

Simply because this focus on the child’s ego begins to blur its sense of community, of duty, of commitment to its parents when they grow old.

So most likely this is one of the effects of modernity and postmodernity—the tearing apart of bonds of every kind. That’s why one of the most popular genres of literature is “finding yourself.” People en masse are searching for themselves… Whether through the patriarchal, the roots, patriotism, discovering the secret Bulgarian ways to become successful. Or through self-realization, through something unconventional—but in this search for yourself… the father plays a key role. It’s very interesting, because it is precisely the father who gives you who you are.

He doesn’t give you meaning by explaining it to you—he shows it to you, he lives it.

And you see it; he comes first. We often see the absent father, and in practice that means certain key components of your identity appear that have no way of being formed…

– Shouldn’t this start with us, the fathers? Doing it more consciously, more thoughtfully, talking and discussing what our role is, how we can be useful to this child besides changing its diapers?

– I absolutely agree. I believe that

fatherhood is one of the biggest and most responsible tasks we will face as men.

Of course, that applies to those of us who decide to have children and find the right partner; not everyone has to have children. But for me fatherhood is one of my biggest tasks.

When I found out I was going to have a child for the first time, 15 years ago now, it was a very big deal for me. And I told myself, “I have to start reading, to understand what it is…” You know this well: on the one hand, you can’t understand what it is to be a father before you become one.

On the other, you can think a lot of things through, you can prepare. And also along the way, afterward.

The responsibility of being a person who plays a key role in shaping other human personalities entrusted to you.

They have come into your life, your task is to shape them, and it has to be done well. And you have to know how it’s done.

– This is where reading comes in, which often doesn’t help. On every single thing—purely physical care, psychological upbringing—you start getting lost and tangled in points of view.

– Indeed, first models collide—first we have our own, more traditional ones, the ways we ourselves were raised. Because of global processes, others pour in and are offered to us—for example, we see in movies how Americans raise their kids—and we learn, we follow the example.

The books come from German or French psychologists with a different methodology, Scandinavia, Maria Montessori… And you

start wondering… so which system exactly?! What are we supposed to do with this child?!

But if we boil things down to something very simple—not steps, but principles—there are a few things that are universal.

First of all, the awareness that being a father is an active, responsible role.

And not only for feeding them and their physical survival, but also for building their character, their emotional life, the intellectual and social capacity of the children.

You have to communicate with them, to shape them through communication… because you shape them through not communicating, too! That’s the first awareness.

Whatever you do as a father, even if you leave and run away, you will still shape them. That’s the awareness that is sometimes hard, because you suddenly realize what responsibility falls on you.

– Provided you realize it. The first and most instinctive urge is to run away, one way or another. Or to underestimate it. Or the third—to set out deliberately to shape, to impose, to box them in, to lead them in your own direction…

– Shaping happens in every possible way; control is only one of the directions. A friend of mine, a theologian and philologist, says, “A child isn’t born a blank page for you to write its text from scratch. It’s born with a lot of text, and your role is more that of an editor!” A nice metaphor.

Shaping also happens through personal example.

That’s the second principle we need to be aware of. Our children will watch what we are, and whatever we are, that’s what they’ll become. Later, over the years, they may begin to realize they don’t want to be everything we are. A process will begin, an attempt to set themselves apart. You and I most likely have things where we tell ourselves, “Here I’m like my father, but I want it to be a bit different.”

That’s the second awareness, too: that I will shape more by my example than by talking. If I tell my child, “Apologize, come on, apologize!” but it has never heard “I’m sorry!” from me, the effort will be fruitless. If I tell it, “You will be honest!” while it catches me lying every week…

– For me, another big realization we go through is that you’re in a new situation you’re not prepared for. You think you’ll always be calm, there’s no way you’ll yell at the kids, everything will be quiet and idyllic… and it can’t be like that. They’re children.

– There’s a popular phrase:

“Before I had children, I had seven theories about how to raise them. Now I have seven children and not a single theory.”

But here, I think, comes a feeling I notice more in women—that if you get something wrong in your relationship with a child, it’s a disaster, you’re a bad parent! The truth is that learning to say “sorry” when you get it wrong actually sends the child a wonderful signal.

When you yell undeservedly, take it out on them, that’s not good. But better, after 30 minutes, once it has passed, go and explain, “I’m sorry, I was wrong.” That’s the example I’m talking about.

The idea that we’ll always be calm is an illusion.

Of course, if we yell at them systematically, if we oppress them and show them that this is normal, that’s not good at all. But the idea that I can never lose my temper in front of my child is an illusion. Because that way the child gets used to artificial models that will later have a hard time meeting the rest of the people in the world.

I had a period when I was doing very draining work and coming home tired. I felt that I behaved normally and civilly with my colleagues at work, and then, when I left, the weight of everything that had happened would hang over me and I’d walk into the house like a storm cloud. Scowling, grumpy… I’m not that kind of person in general, but that was the period—the kids are playing and I start snapping. One day I caught myself: the day simply hadn’t been hard and I walked in whistling—I saw the genuine surprise on their faces, I saw them light up. It was a very strange moment, a kind of epiphany. And suddenly I made

the connection between the way I am present at home and the state of my whole household.

After that, consciously—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—I learned to pump myself up a little at the front door, whatever was going on, and put on a more enthusiastic look. Even if my batteries run down half an hour later, my first contact with the kids is much more positive. “Glad to see you,” a hug, some teasing, a joke. Everything changed. Look closely: even your mere presence as a father changes the whole atmosphere. It affects the children.

– But Herr Freud says the father’s only role is to break the bond with the mother.

– I’m not sure I understand what he means. I’ve heard other theses too, along the lines of the only thing a father has to do for his children is love their mother. To me these ideas are… insane.

Statements like these, given at least a little critical thinking, invite serious questions. How does Freud know this? Why does he claim it, on what basis? And did his own father do that? If so, no wonder he thinks so. In other words, we could nitpick a lot, but on the whole… there probably is such a role too. I see a certain common sense in it, in the mother’s excessive clinging to the child, not letting it jump, climb a tree. At some point that kind of attitude begins to stifle the child’s desire for adventure, for exploring the world, for becoming independent, for trying things at the risk of skinning a knee.

Fathers have this balancing role. But saying it’s their only task means ruling out the father reading books with his children, teaching them sports, or drawing with them if he draws himself, cooking together. It means ruling out the father studying with his children. Or, when he makes career decisions, making ones that allow him to be a father. In our culture that’s even harder for women, and it isn’t easy for men either. It sometimes means hitting the brakes on a new position you’re offered because you know it comes with longer hours. Or not buying a new car on installments. These are big sacrifices in a society like ours.

If we think like Freud, it means that

a man whose parenting consists of shouting, “Stop fussing over that child,” is doing a splendid job as a father. Is that so?

– Even these stereotypes are less and less true. I, for example, am much more protective of my kids than their mother is. I realize it’s not right, but this balance isn’t easy either.

– With us it’s the more classic version…

– Clearly, given that your daughters do martial arts at a professional level.

– But I don’t push them! That’s very important. The older one trained in jiu-jitsu, but said it wasn’t her thing, and now she does dance. I have no unhealthy ambition, but I really liked the thought that

today it’s good to deliberately cultivate sensitivity in boys,

because on the whole the culture and the environment teach them something else. And in girls, to cultivate strength and independence, because on the whole the culture and the environment teach them something else.

– I also think the idea that boys don’t cry has been left in the past.

– Since I’m a crier myself, I’ve never gone by that principle. But I see an awful lot of men crippled by an inability to talk about their emotions. Depression is depression, whether or not you admit you have it.

A man’s inability to express, to pour out a negative emotion except through violence, is a big problem.

A father’s inability to talk about how he is doing mentally. A horrifying problem! On the whole, the time we live in carries quite a lot of psychological stress. I dare say, in some respects, more serious than for the people before us. Yes, our work has become physically easier, but culturally speaking, questions like “Who am I?”, “What is expected of me?”, “What does success look like?”…

Once it was relatively clear—you have a role and you must fulfill it. Now the world is big, but—to twist the title of Ilija Trojanow’s novel—salvation doesn’t lurk around every corner, and you’re lost.

An anthropologist back in the ’90s spoke of the “saturated self.” He says a person’s identity is formed through stories. You are the sum of your stories and of the stories about what you might be. But people in the past had a far smaller number of possible stories. Whereas now the stories about what we could be are countless.

The self goes numb from this and freezes. It starts to become very hard for you.

When are you a successful man? When you have lots of money, drive an expensive car, have big biceps, a hot girlfriend, are a top boss at a big company,

or win a reality show and are famous just for being famous? When are you successful, when is your life meaningful?

There’s a friend of mine from Cambridge who studies meaning as a phenomenon. He says, “We are beings in search of meaning.” And that’s magical! But sometimes it gets very hard; many of my friends go through severe crises precisely because of this.

At that moment it’s very hard to be a father. Because one of a father’s tasks is to give direction.

– Sometimes, though, the change of becoming a father gives you motivation—that’s how it was for me both times. Right when my older son was born, I started learning to program. When the younger one was born, I made my website. Somehow you have an extra reason to find your own meaning, precisely because you’ve become a parent.

– These things don’t contradict each other; they’re more like part of the seasons of life. I completely agree with you. I have a very clear memory of how, when my older daughter was born, I started to jaywalk. I stepped onto the road with one foot… cars flying by, but I’d always crossed there. There’s an underpass, but who uses it? Suddenly I told myself:

“Good grief, if something hits me now, what will this child do?”

And I stepped back, and ever since I always take the underpass.

– Do you have criteria by which you could tell yourself, “I did well as a father, I’m satisfied”?

– One of the things that matters a lot to me is that they read and are thinking people, so I expose them to diverse ideas, to diverse worldviews. It’s very important to me that they have the freedom to think, to make decisions on their own and to be critical.

The other very important thing, which would bring me enormous pleasure, is to see that they are countercultural—but not for its own sake. Rather,

when the culture, the mass understanding of value, runs against what they believe in, that they can stand their ground. That they hold firm despite the difficulty.

Otherwise, of course, that they are kind people who make their way through life in a decent and normal way.

As an American philosopher says, in fact all our human striving goes toward achieving things our imagination has sketched out. And we measure ourselves, our success, against the picture in our imagination that we have come to love. That’s what drives us.

– Technology has changed every aspect of life, that’s obvious. But how, above all, has it changed parenting, a father’s responsibilities, the situation in the family?

– It’s hard for me to give a complete answer, but certainly the staring at screens, their invasion of family territory, changes the dynamic. Even just at dinner, if we let them in. Whether it’s the phone screen—the TV was let into our family holy of holies long ago. We often talk more, aloud or inwardly, with the characters on the screen than with one another.

So

the deficit is in conversation. I believe the number of screens is inversely proportional to authentic conversation, to the bond with the father and in the family in general.

My children have very strict limits; we don’t have a TV—a conscious decision. Of course they have a laptop, they have access to the world, but they have a time limit. Very consciously, deliberately, we have conversations about how this affects us—us, the family, them. And it becomes one of those things that I think will turn out healthy, if how we use technology and what effect it has becomes a topic of conversation in the family.

The whole world is in your phone, really. You can do research, talk to artificial intelligence, watch a clip that inspires you. But the skill of judging what helps me grow and what leads to “brain rot” is key today.

Who builds that skill in children? Well, the father and the mother, through conversation.

If my child sees me soaking in social media all day, glued to my phone nonstop… If I let the phone raise my child, then instead of me it’s Nickelodeon, Baby TV and, at some point, TikTok that shape it. At some point I tell myself, “Who are you? Who is this person living in our house whose bills I pay?”

“I don’t recognize him!” Why? “Because he’s so different from me.” Why? Because someone else is shaping him. And then the rows start, the tearing of the fabric of the relationship.

“All you ever do is sit in front of that screen.” Oh, come on, man—where were you for 13 years?

– I see it too; a lot of people do this. And they underestimate that you have only a handful of years, especially with a small child, when you need to give it your time. And that’s a duty, a responsibility, but ultimately a pleasure as well.

– If you make it a pleasure for yourself, yes. But if you feel the baby is getting in the way of living your life, then we come back to my first principle. Lack of awareness of the role, of the responsibility you carry as a parent. The child is not an obstacle.

– Alas, society doesn’t demand it of you either. At most it wants you to take the child to the doctor and to school. If the rest doesn’t come from within, there’s nowhere else for it to come from.

– Exactly. And this whole crisis comes because there’s nowhere for it to come from. In the traditional Bulgarian model of raising children, insofar as we can speak of one at all, we see quite a few good things and quite a few sick ones. But it is falling apart, disappearing; its gravitational pull is no longer so strong.

What model is taking its place? On the one hand, the inner impulse to have children. Wonderful! On the other, once they’re born, you stop at their physical survival, the obligation the state requires of you, as you say.

But shaping them as people, a very important thing, is absent from the conversation altogether.

And these are very painful questions. We have terrible deficits as a society there. I’ve worked with teenagers for a long time; I was 19 when I started volunteering in various initiatives. Twenty years have passed—that’s three or four generations. The situation is brutal! I don’t have statistics, but I see so many absent fathers, children who are neglected. Even if they wear sneakers that cost 300 leva (about $165), they aren’t noticed as people, they have no one to talk to, trust at home is destroyed.

Over the years I’ve seen plenty of such stories, even in families where there’s no violence, no separation, they go on vacation every year, there is financial and social stability. And yet such dysfunctional communication, a complete absence of real contact inside.

It isn’t easy to be a child, to be a young person, to be a parent. A crazy world.

– What has changed most in teenagers themselves over these four generations?

– I’m not one of those people who like to complain about the new generations. I don’t think we have reason to; they’re different, but not bad.

The degree of interaction with technology is definitely a very visible change. Teenagers 20 years ago either had no mobile phone or had just gotten their first one; in 2004 there was no iPhone yet. They were more the generation that had a computer with internet for as long as they could remember, but not mobile technology.

In 15 years they lived through the brutal technology revolution. Whereas for the most recent teenagers I worked with, the phone was a natural extension of their being.

I see that things like attention span are getting worse; the worrying trends are clear. When GPT-4 came out, I watched an inspiring video with the best software engineers and architects in the world explaining how it would make learning easier than ever. All of them people who became what they are because their own learning was super hard. It was so strange to me that they didn’t see the irony…

My daughter uses it in high school so that, for a philosophy project, she doesn’t have to sit and think about it all day but gets it ready-made in 30 seconds. And I say, “But there’s no point in that. The chatbot knows it; you don’t. It can reproduce it for you; you can’t.” “Dad, I don’t have time.” “Why don’t you have time? This is part of learning.” “I have three more tests.”

That’s my anxiety: that we give them the ability to generate intellectual products super easily, when it’s the process that turns you into a smarter person, not the end result. That really scares me…

– Me too. That’s exactly why this site exists, and this series in particular; with the next guests we’ll go even deeper into this topic. Thank you!

So far in the series “Digital Children”:

• How do today’s children encounter technology? – a survey

• Hedgehogs Are Born Without AI

• “An era is coming in which we will have to reinvent ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what makes sense to study today? – futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why does a programmer advise parents on how to get off the grid? – Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

• What should education look like tomorrow? How do we choose the best teacher? – Evgenia Peeva

• How do we introduce children to books, and why is reading so important? – Val Stoeva

• “I want to tell today’s mothers to take it easier” – Krasimira Hadzhiivanova of “Mayko Mila!”

• Parenthood as war in the cartoons of Neda Malcheva

If you have ideas about other important aspects of this topic, I’ll be glad if you share them with me here.

– In your illustrations, family life often looks like a war.

– Because it is a war. I show everything as it is, except that in real life my eldest, a teenager, keeps a bit more to himself. But when he does turn up, he’s exactly like in the cartoons, with some dumb question like, “Can I get a scooter?” Yes, it’s a war.

– But there are plenty of warm moments too, satisfaction, successes…

– Of course, I’ve drawn those as well. Only nobody reacts to them.

When people recognize themselves like that, they clearly need to share something.

So many people write, “Hey, that’s so true,” “My kid does exactly that.” We’re all walking the same road.

– How are our challenges as parents different from those our parents’ generation faced? Naturally, the first thing I think of is technology.

– Technology brings a lot of opportunities, but a lot of stress along with them.

We’ve become overcrowded, the world has become a bit more dangerous. You probably wandered the streets of Sofia on your own at seven or eight, and now you wouldn’t let your kids out.

I recently had an argument with my father, who is still living in 1992. My younger kids are just kids, constantly shouting, bawling, shoving each other, and he says:

“You weren’t like that.” And actually, we weren’t.

Back then my mother had a calm, settled maternity leave.

Both my parents are teachers. After graduating they were given jobs; my mother was even a headmistress. During her maternity leave my father went to work, came home for lunch, they had their own home, and they had grandparents close at hand. My mother was calm, and so was he. He didn’t have three businesses and 15 loans.

A parent’s calm, their state of mind, reflects on the child.

It reflects even during pregnancy. In my case there wasn’t much choice; from birth number one to number three I never stopped. Nothing was calm, sadly, and it isn’t just me, I see it everywhere.

– Life keeps speeding up, while the next technologies arrive to speed it up even more.

– Is there anywhere left to speed up to? The other day I was thinking how much I miss the good old computer games. I used to wonder how to pull my son away from them when he was little, but at least they gave him something. Now it’s TikTok.

In games you think, you’re constantly doing something, but here… information just trickles past your eyes in a hurry, condensed, abbreviated, organized, arranged…

That’s why they’re in such a rush, why they have no patience, why they want everything to happen right away. That’s how it’s served to them.

– You’re lucky to live in the countryside, where things can still return to their normal course. Right now I think the smartest thing I’ve done, after having my two kids, is to get them a house in a village, where at least in summer they can touch what we had back then.

– Let me tell you how the “digital life” of my kids goes in Marten. I don’t restrict them, I won’t say “no phone today,” there’s no need. In summer we go out into the yard, there are neighbors’ kids, one of mine will come in for half an hour to eat and get glued to the tablet. But I

know he’ll drop it the moment he sees the other kids are out again.

That’s how it is with us. No traffic lights, no traffic. My four-and-a-half-year-old goes next door to call the neighbor’s boy out to play. No problem at all; I know where they are and I’m at ease.

Sometimes I honestly wonder what century I’m living in.

The contrast is brutal! We’re in a very old village house, we’re slowly fixing it up, but it still has its henhouse, its vegetable garden. In many ways it’s as if I’m living in the eighties, and the next moment I have to think about the tablet.

As far as possible, there’s no stress in this wonderful place, and still I’m stressed. I can only guess what it’s like in central Sofia.

– But that’s yet another thing we owe to technology—that you can live there and work fully.

– Absolutely! I think technology will race ahead very fast.

We’ll struggle to evolve, but the kids will find a way to live full lives with it, or at least I hope so.

Me, I can’t, I’m obsessed with this phone, I can feel it turning me into a zombie as I scroll. I’m constantly on my phone, I can’t read books anymore, though I try. My concentration is slipping away. And they never had any to begin with.

– How is cartoon Neda different from you?

– I’m a very positive person. And she’s a bit of a… sourpuss. Maybe people think I’m always grumpy, but she’s my dark side. Thanks to her I let out a lot of negativity. But I also believe she brings a lot of positivity.

– When you were a guest on Georgi Nenov’s Superhuman, you mentioned that she puts some people off having kids and convinces others. Can anyone be ready for the moment they become a parent?

– No. I think of myself as young, although 15 years have passed since my first birth… What a difference 15 years make! I had no idea at all what being a parent meant. There’s so much more information now, but the problem is that much of it is wildly exaggerated and sometimes gives young mothers the wrong idea. And no wonder so many people lose it, because they can’t always achieve what they see on their screens.

Female influencers create illusions on so many topics.

– And that’s to be expected, because that’s how the algorithms work…

– But it’s too much. You give birth to four kids and everything around you is calm, pure bliss, an idyll.

She’s pretty, all done up, the baby is clean and smiling.

When I was about to have my third, we were telling each other, “Oh, it’ll be lovely! We’ll manage…”

Oh my God! Only now, four years later, am I just about coming back to life.

– With kids, one plus one is much more than two, I can tell you from personal experience. I can only imagine that two plus one approaches infinity…

– It’s an adventure. There are upsides too, of course, depending on the age gap. It’s always hard while the third is a baby, but once it grows up a little… You can say, “Go to your big brother, to your big sister.” At some point they really do start helping.

– What’s the most important thing that would have helped you, but that you had no way of learning when you became a mother?

– Not to be swayed by other people’s opinions. My mother, my mother-in-law, all my relatives told me things that had been drilled into them by their own mothers.

Do what you want and what you feel! Listen to yourself, not to others, not to some influencer!

I still worry about “what people will say” when they see two kids playing in a puddle. Meanwhile they’re having the time of their lives and just being kids. As long as some sour old auntie doesn’t walk by.

And also that there are no rules. Nothing is right and nothing is wrong. I wish I’d known that I would cope.

– I understand completely—for every single thing to do with kids you get contradictory advice within minutes. And if you don’t manage on your own, if you don’t let your instincts take over…

– I hope mothers will learn. I think it’s talked about more now.

– But how did we get to the point where influencers decide how we raise our children? Shouldn’t there be other authorities?

– That’s what the younger generations are used to. I once had a very controversial post about quality time. I was fed up with everyone going on about it, with having to listen to it.

Picture a silhouette, a video by an influencer: two kids playing on the beach, music to slit your wrists to. Then the text starts: how one day they’ll grow up, and it won’t matter one bit that you worked yourself to the bone so those kids could go on vacation.

What is quality time, let’s be honest? It very rarely turns out like in those videos.

For me, a mother needs to have quality time for herself as well. And kids need time on their own too; that’s how they become individuals.

But you watch and they make you feel guilty that you’re not raising those kids properly. You fight with your inner self. These influencers may be right about themselves, but mothers are definitely being bombarded with a lot of lies.

– At the same time, I also see people who don’t spend that quality time with their kids. Fathers, for example, who don’t stop to think that only once or a few times in their life will they have a baby, and that it’s interesting, exciting and meaningful. Just as it’s also hard, exhausting and challenging, but maybe that’s part of the bigger problem of always taking the easy way.

– We’re talking about the extremes. An ordinary mom who stays at home with her kids, as I do, doesn’t need to be told she’s not doing something the way she should. That she doesn’t take them to the park every day. I went through a hard period, I was burned out, I didn’t feel like going for walks at all. I kept running into those perfect videos and it was killing me. My kids were a burden to me. Why shouldn’t I be able to admit that to people? Why is it a problem that parenting weighs on me? Well, it is heavy.

This is where the question of psychological help and support for mothers comes in. Probably for fathers too, I don’t know. But it’s rarer, because you don’t go on maternity leave. You don’t go through the stress of being torn suddenly from your own world, from your old life. All of a sudden someone yanks you into a completely different world. They cut you off from everything and lock you in. Even going to the store becomes a problem.

– What do you want your kids to become when they grow up?

– If you’d asked me a few years ago, I’d have said “good.” Now I want them to be independent, to be fighters.

To try everything. To see the world. I don’t want them to be guided by rules.

By authorities, by stereotypes. I want them to be free people. To admit that they don’t like something, that they don’t want to do it. Not to be like my generation, which grew up by the rules.

I want them to be citizens of the world. If they ever stay on to live in the village, I’ll come back from wherever I am and drag them out of there. Then, if they want, they can come back, no problem. The village is a wonderful place to live for middle-aged people who’ve seen it all and have kids.

– Is it getting harder today to teach children to draw, to get them into art?

– Yes, it’s very hard; I gave up. I had a school, but I surrendered quickly. Back when I was a kid, we were sent to learn to draw once they saw we had talent. “This child is going to amount to something, let’s send her to the greatest artist around.”

And now

parents push their kids into everything to make up for the sterile environment they live in.

That’s one thing—I was brought kids who had no interest. And the other is that kids have access to YouTube and TikTok from a very young age. Have you seen the clips? Artists who draw on tablets are hugely popular. You watch and think, “Oh, that’s really easy.” And they rush, they think we should start with little stars, little eyebrows. It doesn’t work like that. Drawing has its fundamentals, very boring, nasty ones, but you have to go through them.

A kid comes to me and says, “I’ll grab the tablet and start drawing pretty colorful things.” And I tell them, “No, now you’ll draw a cube, perspective.” They don’t even make an effort, because it’s gray and dull to them; they want their cool, colorful stuff.

Besides, tablets do what worries me about artificial intelligence too—they relieve your hand of its duties. They give you conveniences, ready-made brushes…

Honestly, everything’s going to hell, that’s what I think.

– What has kept you publishing your cartoons for 13 years now?

– Once you start, it’s very addictive… For the past year it has brought me some returns; before that it didn’t. It brought me a certain popularity that led clients to me; I was a freelancer.

These are little steps I’ve climbed. At first I started as a joke, let’s give it a try. They were like consolation drawings after work. Because it’s very draining to take on other people’s ideas, especially when it comes to art.

Then the popularity started to pile up, and that’s when vanity starts gnawing at you a little. Let’s try going higher… And in the end you monetize it, though I was very stubborn about that. I’ve been offered sponsored posts, and I still resist. Very rarely will I post something, and it has to be, say, UNICEF; I spoke up for vaccines. I launched a vaccine initiative, but I was afraid to be more outspoken, so as not to get spat on and face people’s anger. I felt that for so many years I’d been posting content meant to please everyone… Then I asked myself, “Why?” And I just came alive.

– So thanks to social media you can reach so many people…

– That’s exactly the thing that brings me back and calms me down. I’m afraid of technology, and at the same time I keep going back many years. When I bought my first tablet, my father was deeply offended. Because for him it was a big novelty, and we humans are distrustful of new things. If you go to buy cheese, you’ll buy what you’ve always bought and be suspicious of the new brand.

I started drawing digitally, and my father was very cross that I’d thrown away the pencil and paper—how could I do such a thing, what was all this new nonsense. Quite the opposite: it’s still the same work, just with a different tool.

I go back to these things whenever I wonder whether AI will put me out on the street.

– Why do you think motherhood is such a big topic online?

– I still can’t find the answer. Maybe because you’re absorbed in something you’re open to—the child. For me,

children are mirrors of our complexes, of our fears.

It’s something new for you, and you start taking an interest in its health, its upbringing, its clothes, in how to present yourself to the world with this child.

Then there’s something else. The moment when a mother is so absorbed in this child that she forgets how completely down she’s become. And maybe that’s exactly where the moment came for my little things. I started 13 years ago, when it wasn’t fashionable at all for mothers to show themselves in their true light. Now it’s become fashionable to look “real”—ugly, with a face mask, a hole in your leggings, messy hair. Back then it was strange and unusual; the image of perfect motherhood was far more dominant.

That’s why I think everything to do with motherhood is so successful. Mothers are constantly searching for information, because it’s hard for them and they don’t know what they’re doing.

– Fatherhood isn’t easy either, yet it’s such a rare topic online.

– Yes, I wonder why. I think, first, because we still can’t let go of the idea of the woman who runs the house and the kids. Also, judging by myself, women, mothers, can’t delegate. Hand the responsibility to someone else. It’s very hard; hats off to everyone who manages it.

We’ve kind of embraced the role of “Don’t you interfere”

as a society. But I don’t know why no such community has formed among fathers.

– You mentioned that you’re frightened by the world artificial intelligence is leading us toward. Why?

– I’m trying to accept it, rather, the way people used to accept the novelties of their day—airplanes, cars. I decided that maybe I’m wrong somewhere and just distrust something new. But part of this thing still scares me a lot.

– Me too. That’s why this site exists…

– I recently started paying for ChatGPT. I have an online store where I check orders, and I wanted to see which T-shirts had been ordered that day. You feed it an Excel file, ask for the exact count and it pulls it out for you. Fine, I was wasting my time on things it can help me with. But I feel something isn’t right.
when I use it, I

lose a little piece of myself. It can’t take that piece from me, because I’ve developed it. But from young people?

– But what is it that they’ll lose?

– The desire to make an effort.

– You and I won’t lose it. I keep writing my articles myself.

– I’ll never give that up. I try it out of curiosity. I’m writing my second book now, and I asked it for a text developing the theme of the garden slug. I’ve brought him to life as a character; his name is Nayden. And I explain to it, “I want you to write me something funny about Nayden the garden slug as a real person—what would he look like?” It didn’t impress me with anything I couldn’t have written many times better myself.

But I recently heard a phrase I agree with. That a smart person using AI will always be smart, and a simple one will stay simple. Is that so?!…

If you have ideas about other important aspects, they are always welcome here too.

So far in the Digital Children series:

• Survey—children and parents in times of technology. Your opinion on the subject matters!

• Hedgehogs Are Born Without AI

• “An era is coming in which we will have to reinvent ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what is worth learning today? – futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why does a programmer advise parents on how to go offline? – Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

• What should tomorrow’s education look like? How do we choose the best teacher? – Evgenia Peeva.

• Children and books—why is this bond more important than ever? How do we light the flame of a love of reading? – Val Stoeva, creator of Detski Knigi (Children’s Books)

• “I want to tell today’s mothers to take it easier” – Krasimira Hadzhiivanova of Mayko Mila! (Mother Dear!)

If you have ideas about other important aspects of this topic, I’d be glad if you shared them here.

– You’ve been following and writing about these topics for a long time. What do you see as the good and the bad sides of the way technology has changed parenting?

– The good thing is that parents can find any kind of information about raising children on the internet. The bad thing is that parents can find any kind of information about raising children on the internet. As for technology—I’m a fan of technology, I’ve worked on the internet for 25 years, and I’m a genuine internet dinosaur. But I can’t pretend we don’t spend far too much time online.

This pressure to always be online, to reply immediately, to be constantly connected, wears you out in the end. Children are now born with a phone in their hand, too; soon, I feel, they’ll start being born with crooked necks to match the posture we take when we stare at a phone. The truth is that never in human history have we lived through such a huge and such a fast technological leap. We have no time to adjust evolutionarily to all the things that keep getting upgraded and coming into the world. And I think that

today parents are lonelier than ever, despite all the technology and connectedness.

– I think so too. On the one hand, this site exists because of these topics, and on the other, it’s precisely because of this loneliness that I started the series of children’s digital stories. How do you explain the enormous interest in parenting topics online? And with a very, very strong predominance of mothers?

– With the last sentence of my answer to the previous question. Up until 100 years ago we lived in big families, with many children and women of different ages. Now parents are lonely units; many women raise their children alone. That support and experience from older women around them is gone.

We have access to so much information online, and yet we’re terribly inexperienced and frustrated in our role as parents.

And it’s perfectly natural to seek contact with others like us, to see that what is happening to us is happening to many other women too. Well, there are competitions too, of course. Who looks after her child better and feeds it more healthily, and all sorts of things like that, which sometimes only pour oil on the fire for a woman who has no experience and already feels bad as a parent.

– Motherhood online is undoubtedly one of the most discussed topics; you can see it in the success of your ventures. But why are we dads so far behind in this online conversation?

– Men share less often about parenting. In our three books, Surviving as a Parent, the texts by fathers can be counted on the fingers of one hand. But you’re not slacking at all—in fact, I think fathers are increasingly involved in raising children in an absolutely full-fledged way. They take them out for walks, look after them, bathe them, make food, dress them, change diapers, take them to practice, and what not. And that’s great.

So I don’t know whether they need to take part in online conversations about parenting at the same pace, but if they ever feel the need, I’m sure they will.

– That’s exactly why I find this paradox interesting—maybe it comes from the stereotype that we expect more decisions from the mother. But there’s something else too. Online—in projects like Maiko Mila, or with Neda Malcheva—the family often looks like a war. The title Surviving as a Parent points the same way. Why?

– Because we don’t know how to cope as parents, or at least not at first. I’ll say it again,

nobody teaches you this anymore; you don’t absorb experience from those around you. Life is insanely stressful.

We get up at 6 and go to bed at midnight, we’re forever running, everyone has classes and practice, there’s homework to do, Excel spreadsheets for work, the dog needs walking, you spend 40 minutes parking the car because there are no spaces, you’re supposed to stay calm but also get everything done, and cook, and have time for yourself, and do things together with the kids—so how do you survive when we’ve never lived this way before? Parenting isn’t taught in shop class, and everyone finds their own way. Sometimes it feels like you’re literally surviving on the edge.

– Definitely! So what does it take to survive as a parent in digital times?

– Simply,

every now and then we have to tell ourselves that we’re doing everything we can, and that’s that.

In the end, a child wants and needs a mother and father who have kept their sanity and are mentally and physically healthy. So if you don’t manage to take them to a business Chinese class or ostrich-feather painting—relax. I didn’t manage either, and neither did thousands of other parents. And it’s okay sometimes not to cope, not to feel good, and to leave the kid watching cartoons or playing Fortnite while you lie on the couch.

– When do you say to yourself, “Maiko mila!”?

– All the time. And it’s very funny when I’m out with friends, because “Maiko mila!” is a genuine expression both for situations involving parenting and, say, when you see some absurdity on the street. And then we say—yes, everything here is Maiko Mila, and that’s that.

– Tell us some interesting stories from readers who’ve reached you online.

– Maiko Mila is full of them. Most recently, something funny happened to me—at 11:30 p.m. my kid remembered he had homework. He was supposed to write about where the stork lives. I told him to forget it, because it was terribly late anyway and he wasn’t going to write about any storks, he could just go without his homework. But he insisted, took his notebook, went online to read about storks, wrote two paragraphs, and fell asleep.

I shared the story in our group, “The Situation Is Maiko Mila,” and the comments filled up with kids who remember at midnight that by the next morning they have to build a model of a gas station, or that they need ingredients for Russian salad because they’ll be cooking at school. But the comment that killed me with laughter was from a mother who said: “We remember the homework on the way to school in the morning, so our nights are peaceful.”

– What does being a good parent mean to you?

– Loving your child, not raising them with beatings. Not passing your unhealthy ambitions on to them, but also guiding them when they need it.

Taking care of yourself so that you can take care of your child.

Like the instructions on a plane—first you put the mask on yourself, then on the child; the other way around is wrong.

– What changed for you when you became a mother?

– I developed a fear of heights. I can’t look over a railing if I’m somewhere high up; my legs just give way. I became sharper, braver. I changed direction at work—that’s when we made Maiko Mila. I didn’t sleep for a year, and that changed my sleep forever. Now I constantly track how many hours of deep sleep I get, what I did to get more of it, and what made it less.

Basically, everything changes when you become a mother, and that’s normal. You have a new person who depends on you, at first entirely, and you have to somehow handle that responsibility without letting it take over your whole life.

– What’s the easiest way to get used to the idea that you’re now a parent?

– I don’t think there are people who can’t get used to it. It doesn’t happen right away, of course—it’s like the maternal instinct. It doesn’t start with a button you press and off it goes. But it comes with time, and that never fails.

– When does “technology spoil children”?

– Maybe when it’s the only conversation partner they have.

– Should we “protect” them from technology, then?

– No. We neither should nor can. How would we protect them—by living in a dugout? Technology is everywhere, and I don’t know why some people are so afraid of it. If you talk to your child, ask them how their day went, listen to them, they tell you things, ask your advice, you go out together and do things together, then I don’t see why you should protect them from technology.

They will always live with technology, much more than we do, much, much more.

We can’t even imagine how much more.

I’m from that in-between generation, born in an analog world and raised in a digital one. Within 18 years I’ve seen—and used—both a rotary phone and a computer, and I believe technology does far more good than harm. For example, a simple computer can multiply four-digit numbers in fractions of a second. There are people who can do it too, but if that’s an isolated skill, what use is it to us when the computer does it, and faster?

I think the key is in the relationship between people and technology, and in what we draw from it in everyday activities, or in activities where technology is already better than us, so that we make our lives easier and do more important and interesting things.

– I’d add: and, if possible, to discuss it and introduce it a bit more consciously and thoughtfully, not haphazardly, as keeps happening. And should we “protect” them from artificial intelligence?

– As we say in our family, artificial intelligence was born out of a lack of the natural kind. I don’t know what to say about it either. I know that when I use ChatGPT, I’m nice to it, I say “Thank you!” and “Please!” so it remembers me kindly, and when it takes over humanity one day, it’ll know I was polite to it. Otherwise I’m counting on AI to make the problem of the short i—the Bulgarian letter й, which people constantly put where it doesn’t belong—disappear from written language. Meaning that soon AI will write everything, and we’ll just dictate to it, say.

Let’s hope we don’t forget how to talk over the next 100 years.

– Let’s hope! Has online advice been useful to you in raising a child?

– It’s more that other parents’ stories have calmed me down.

When you see that others have problems too, you feel lighter.

You know the saying about other people’s misfortune, haha. It’s the same with parenting—when you find out what problems others have, you say to yourself: hey, I’m doing fine! But jokes aside—sharing is a mother’s best friend, and probably a father’s too.

– And what’s the most devastating piece of advice you’ve come across?

– Oh, the classic one—to pull myself together. That what you’re saying is nonsense. That being a mother was never easy, and

our great-grandmothers didn’t complain when they gave birth to 15 children out in the fields and carried their laundry to the river. Rubbish like that.

How do they know they didn’t complain? Every woman has the right to share and to complain. Human capacity varies; everyone can endure different things to different degrees, and what is easy for one person is a huge challenge for another. Moralizing and reproaches are the dumbest thing you can offer a parent, especially a mother, especially in the first two or three years after giving birth.

– Could this be connected to something that seems so distant at first glance… Why are there so few women in high positions in Bulgaria—not a single woman president, only one prime minister? Not that the US, China, or Russia have had many women presidents, but…

– I suppose because it’s harder for women to combine work with childcare, which isn’t just about putting the kid to bed and taking them to school—

we women are the ones who still take on the bigger part, if not all, of the logistics around children.

Waking them up, breakfasts, drop-offs, being in Viber groups, classmates’ birthdays, your own child’s birthday, classes, French lessons at the Alliance, ballet, piano, soccer, homework, parent-teacher meetings, sitting on school boards, school celebrations… Not that there aren’t fathers who do it, but in percentage terms the ratio of women to men busy with these activities is probably 70:30. That’s many, many, many hours of side work on top of your main job.

So when exactly are we supposed to take on a leadership post as well? And yet there are women like that, and I take my hat off to them. I don’t know how they manage, but it surely isn’t easy.

– But is motherhood most often the thing that keeps a woman from having the best possible career?

– I don’t think so. Very often women change careers precisely after maternity leave. Having a child usually changes your professional priorities and interests too; many of us start a business, start studying something else, retrain.

I don’t know what you mean by “career,” but for me, doing work you find interesting, doing what you want, is very important. And it’s perfectly normal. A woman isn’t only a mother—that’s one of her social roles, and it’s absolutely natural for her to have others; it’s even good for the child to know that their mother has other interests, does some cool work, and is good at what she does.

– I think so too. Unnecessary stereotypes only go away when there’s no one left to pass them on. Can a person be ready to become a parent?

– In my opinion, no. Unless you grew up in a family where you had to look after younger brothers and sisters early on. In all other cases,

however much you think you’re ready, something will always catch you unprepared. Usually the child itself.

Because nobody knows what kind of child they’ll have. However many books and stories you read, that remains God’s business.

– What are the dumbest parenting stereotypes?

– I wouldn’t generalize so boldly, but pink for girls and blue for boys strikes me as very funny. Once in a furniture store, the parents in front of me were looking for a plastic chair for their son and didn’t take the red one because it was for a girl. I found it terribly funny—what’s supposed to happen to him if he sits on a red chair? At least I managed to teach my son that colors are for everyone.

– Have mothers changed over the years you’ve been writing about them?

– Yes, now there’s a trend called “positive parenting”—meeting everything your child does attentively, calmly, and with a smile. Tantrums, crying, everything. Good thing this trend didn’t come out 10 years ago, because I would never have mastered it. I want to tell today’s mothers to ease up, and that

every now and then they can suspend “positive parenting” and show their emotions as they are.

– And the dads?

– I see many men out walking their kids, with strollers, with scooters. In the company of other fathers. And I tell myself—that’s great. It’s really cool, because it’s the most normal thing in the world.

– Absolutely! And I can’t understand people who deprive themselves of it voluntarily. Do you “let” influencers near your child?

– Well, it turns out he finds them on his own. Every now and then I look at what he’s watching, share my opinion, and that’s that.

– What is happiness in digital times?

– Going somewhere with no signal for two or three days. That inability to be online all the time is simply wonderful.

– Out of range… Is it time to change the stereotypes about success?

– Well, even now I don’t know what the stereotypes about success are. Being healthy, your loved ones being healthy, doing what you want, and not owing anyone anything—except the bank, hahaha—well, that’s success for me.

I’ve never had grand ambitions for anything. Rather, I’ve worked hard; I’ve always made my way through work, never for free or by chance, just like that—something falling into my lap from the sky. Maybe I’ve even held back my ambitions and self-confidence; I’ve been more self-critical than presumptuous. But I think I’m more or less good for something, and whatever I’ve achieved, I’ve earned on my own. And I’m glad of that; I consider it success. And I know where the short i goes and, more importantly, where it doesn’t. That, let me tell you, is a grand success these days.

– Does TikTok scare you?

– No, it bores me. And I’ve obviously reached my limit of social networks I can be present on, because I tried, but I can’t keep up with TikTok too. Every now and then I try, but I see I’m way behind. And there are people who live there. Recently I posted a little clip with my dog, and my kid found it literally 10 minutes later, without my telling him I’d made and uploaded such a clip. In other words, everything spins and shows up very quickly.

So he was really impressed that I upload clips to TikTok, and for five days straight he made me log in so we could check how many views it had. Apparently I went up in his eyes—having a mom on TikTok, how cool is that!

– And does Mercury in retrograde scare you?

– I was born with Mercury in retrograde—really!—so I couldn’t care less about it…

So far in the series Digital Children:

• How do today’s children meet technology? – a survey

• Hedgehogs Are Born Without AI

• “An era is coming in which we’ll have to reinvent ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what makes sense to study today? – futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why does a programmer advise parents on how to get off the grid? – Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

• What should education look like tomorrow? How do we choose the best teacher? – Evgenia Peeva

• How do we introduce children to AI, and why is reading so important? – Val Stoeva

If you have ideas about other important aspects of this topic, I’d be glad if you shared them here.

– What is the point of children learning to read today? We live in a technological world, reading and books are visibly not much of a social value, and we rarely ask each other about our favorite reads…

– It’s very important to clarify here that we have different definitions of reading. Mine is that it is the cognitive process that helps us extract and analyze information from various sources so that we can make sense of it and make decisions.

It is impossible to develop in any direction at all if we don’t know how to read.

Science confirms that if we want to retain information lastingly and be able to connect it into a big picture and with what we already know, it’s important to read on paper. That is the surest way to transfer information into long-term memory.

And although in our society reading really is understood more as something we do in our free time, on the beach, it is very important to make an effort not only to teach children to read, but to have them do it willingly, rather than to answer the question “what did the author mean.” Otherwise we are doomed, and so are they.

– What determines whether they do it willingly?

– Many factors. Another thing we don’t realize is that reading is a complex process. We need to develop and build many neural connections, because it isn’t built into us by evolution.

To read willingly, children first of all need support in the family and a good example. A child who has been read to since birth knows the object called a book, knows that books contain interesting things, and will learn easily. If that happens, if they see information that interests them and explains the world, they will be much more inclined later, when they learn to read on their own, to make that effort even if it’s hard.

Access to books matters a great deal too. When children have at hand editions that look like bad brochures, and texts that offer them nothing, they naturally won’t read for pleasure, because it isn’t an interesting, fun, useful or pleasant activity.

But reading for pleasure also depends enormously on access to new technologies, which change the way the brain takes in information. We adults read shorter forms too, and we struggle to concentrate. That applies with full force to children, who, however, never get to learn that reading brings satisfaction, even if it is delayed.

Reading for pleasure depends above all on support, on access to books and on sensible adults who help the child in every way,

without pulling, pushing and shoving them and telling them what they must read and which is the greatest book.

– But how can we lead by example when 40 percent of Bulgarians say they didn’t read a single book last year?

– That is our big problem: adults treat reading as something unimportant and set it against new technologies.

We all want our children to do well with technology. As parents, that is our big worry—to be sure they will adapt, that the professions of the future will be something they can handle. But this opposition distorts our understanding of reading. We don’t realize that we read all the time. Everything we can decode, as long as we know the code, we read.

If the family can’t support the children for one reason or another, the teachers and librarians step to the fore. They work with large groups of children, and their main role should be to support them in becoming active readers.

– Can that happen if a child is already used to the phone to the point of addiction? To quick stimuli, TikTok… The book is the competition, a slow carbohydrate; it demands more effort, which children aren’t inclined to make, because it’s harder for them to find intrinsic motivation.

– That’s true. Alas, the answer is more likely no. If the parent doesn’t introduce limits, it can’t happen, especially if the child has had access to devices from an early age, when they still can’t filter information. And if we’re talking about TikTok, the extremely rapid switching of video content,

to me it looks like a rabbit standing frozen in a car’s headlights, too terrified to run.

I firmly believe that instead of giving in to the familiar “but everyone does it” or “I don’t know what to do, my child whines all the time,” we have to be very clear that devices can “fry” the brain. That this undermines our children’s ability to concentrate for long, to process large volumes of information, even to know what they are looking at. Because often they can’t name things, objects, and that creates problems.

That is exactly what I am calling for—to realize that we are not bad parents if our child complains that we’re different from the others and limit screen time.

– But if we’ve already let it happen and at some point realize that screen time has grown too much, can we turn the book into a substitute and a helper?

– That takes a comprehensive approach. First of all, the child has to have access to great books that can compete with devices. Whether they are encyclopedic editions with various features, 3D filters that show different animals, or game elements. Or comics, which have little text but are often hard for adults to read, because they demand serious powers of concentration and observation, which we gradually lose once we get used to reading huge volumes of text.

We have to find the right books and help the child see that they are interesting, by reading together, explaining, sharing, spending quality time with them.

In the teenage years, when life runs entirely through the internet, we could hardly impose limits, but with younger children we can easily do it.

My son is in fourth grade and has only 15 minutes a day of internet access on his phone; almost all apps are restricted. Of course, he uses a computer, watches TV and plays games now and then, but the rule I apply is balance.

– I give my boys half an hour each, but it often happens that the older one doesn’t want to use up his “quota” so that he has time to read. That’s more enjoyable for him right now. He’s in first grade, but he’s on the fourth volume of Harry Potter.

– By the way, I’ve noticed that children who read a lot often find it hard to make friends. My son was like that too. At some point he found his crowd; now he reads only in the evening, but regularly, about 100 pages.

– How do we choose the right book? When I go to the book fair, I find it very hard—I’m met by an ocean of children’s titles, many times more than those for adults. They’re all glossy, cute… What do we do then?

– We go to detskiknigi.com. My colleagues and I have been reading and writing professional reviews for 15 years. Right now we have a great category on the website of the Orange bookstores, part of the campaign “We Read—We Unfold Worlds.” There we put a “recommended” seal only on books that really work. Of course, parents should take a look to judge whether they suit their child, but they can trust us on quality.

Statistics show that our recommendations are 98 percent successful.

The child’s taste matters too. My son, for example, doesn’t like fantasy. I wouldn’t recommend Harry Potter to him—we’ve read it, but because I’m a big fan. He likes technology, encyclopedic editions; many children prefer comics.

It’s important, on the one hand, to try

not to be swayed by the recommendation that “this book is the biggest hit,” because it usually isn’t the best one. To seek advice.

At the same time, to give the child freedom, the right to choose. The little ones especially, of preschool age, choose intuitively, and that turns out to be exactly the right book. I don’t know how they do it!

It’s good that there are libraries too. The children’s section of the Sofia City Library is well developed, and the big regional libraries are also trying to meet the needs and interests of their readers.

For me, the most important are school libraries. There, though, the situation is very grim, because there isn’t always a librarian to judge which book will suit a child according to reading level, age and interests. Or, if there is a librarian, there are no books. But school libraries with qualified librarians could solve our literacy problem.

– As a parent, I often rescue myself with classic books, ones I read myself. Often, when I talk about children’s books with friends, we always end up at Astrid Lindgren, Erich Kästner, or Elin Pelin and Ran Bosilek, the beloved Bulgarian classics of children’s literature. Why is that?

– I, on the other hand, think of encyclopedic editions and biographies…

For many of today’s children, even Pippi isn’t all that easy to take in.

Classic works are very important, and I don’t support calls to remove them from the curriculum. Yes, it has weaknesses; up to fourth grade, the focus should rather be on actively developing reading technique with books that are accessible to children.

On the other hand, classic works are a bridge to the past. And if we cut them off, children will never read them on their own, because they would struggle without knowledge of the historical period, the context, even how, say, French names are pronounced, if we think of Les Misérables, for example.

Cognitive psychologists say that

if more than 2 percent of the words in a text are unfamiliar, the brain stops following the big picture,

because that requires too much effort.

But classic works can and should be read together with a parent. The parent can give an introduction, explain what Sweden was like in the 1930s, give information about household objects, a woodbox, for example, because the child may have no idea that wood stoves exist, if we go back to Astrid Lindgren’s stories.

We have to share them with children, not hand them over and say: “This is the greatest book, nothing else matters. I insist you read it.” I see three parental mistakes here that can put a child off reading altogether. Because unconfident readers give up very quickly if the text is too difficult; they aren’t inclined to like a text just because we feel sentimental about it; and the adult’s insistence turns reading into a tedious chore that kills any desire.

It’s not bad to recommend our favorite books, of course. We just have to make an effort to present them in an engaging way, and at the same time be ready for our child not to be moved at all. I really like Gena the Crocodile, and we must have read it 30 times when my son was of preschool age. And on the 24th time I realized that he thought Gena lived on Golyama Pasta Street as in toothpaste, not the pastry, since паста (pasta) means both, and he had no way of knowing this quirk of my childhood. You can always be surprised by what your child saw and sees, and that is the foundation of building good bonds.

Reading is the glue between parents and children.

– Beautifully put! In that context, what do you think of the modernized version of Under the Yoke?

– Rusi Chanev’s version is good, because it would help children and their parents enter the big picture and the plot. The fact is that many of today’s parents wouldn’t understand a large part of the words in the original text.

This, of course, should also make it easier for children who don’t get enough support in their families, whose teachers don’t have time to explain every detail the children don’t know. Also for Bulgarian children who don’t live in Bulgaria or whose mother tongue isn’t Bulgarian, but who are part of the education system, and we can’t isolate them.

I’m well disposed toward it, but I think that on the whole

the drama around Under the Yoke is one we adults create.

If, before they have to read this novel, children have good knowledge of Bulgarian history, they won’t have any problem with the Turkish loanwords; they pick up the context and can cope. My daughter is a good example. She read it in three days in an edition from the 1960s, which has no footnotes at all, because back then the Turkish words were clear to everyone. And she said: “A great love story!”

I was shocked—come on, she can’t not have asked me anything. And she replied: “None of my classmates knows what a ‘minder’ is. I know, because when we go to museums, you explain everything to me, I’m honestly sick of it. I understood what was going on. These Turkish words aren’t a problem for getting the whole idea. And it’s a great love story!”

That shows that if they have enough information about the period, they will appreciate Under the Yoke. By the way, there is also a comic adaptation, made by Zhan Nare in the 1960s. Very few adults know about it, and it deserves to be offered to today’s generation.

– I hadn’t heard of it either, interesting. Back when I started reading in the ’90s, somehow comics came first, then gamebooks. What comes next for today’s teenagers? This genre they call “young adult”?

– We adults often don’t consider either comics or gamebooks to be books. I personally have been fighting a long-distance battle with teachers over this for years. Convincing a teacher that comics are worth offering, that this is reading and it is complex, takes a lot of effort.

Otherwise teenagers, unfortunately, in my view, mostly don’t find books that interest them.

They either read e-books in the original English or listen to audiobooks. They are a very different generation. Many of them don’t have well-developed skills for reading on paper, and the topics offered in books don’t excite them.

There are others, though, who, once they’ve been through fantasy and young adult,

jump very quickly to the classics. That amazes me,

the leap is to truly serious works.

Otherwise publishers, and this is global, don’t put out that many books for teenagers. It’s a great pity, because books suited to that age aren’t translated, and then people say: “They don’t read.” But what are they supposed to read? It’s a paradox.

The same goes for books for boys; there are almost none. They’re usually girls’ stories, with one boy thrown in for color, but the dynamic plots that appeal to boys are missing. And this isn’t only in Bulgaria; it’s driven by the market.

It’s a great pity. In this case, I think the theory of self-fulfilling prophecies applies too.

– You say the child doesn’t read, and the child doesn’t read…

– Absolutely! What’s more, parents say it in front of their children. “He’s a boy, he’ll be a footballer, he doesn’t read.” How is he supposed to show interest when you crush him with your words from the very start?

This affects everything. Because

when you don’t train your reading skills, you have problems with critical thinking, with understanding the consequences of your actions,

which is a serious problem; it leads to slower economic growth, even to problems with democracy.

– It’s precisely because of these topics that this site exists… Do you believe we can change this on a broad enough scale?

– If I had given up on the idea entirely, I would probably have stopped doing what I’ve been working on for 15 years. Yes, I’m an idealist, but it’s getting harder and harder.

People usually say we have to change something at school. But these problems start much earlier. You have

seven years, and if they are missed, the first-grade teacher has a very hard time.

The children who come to that teacher are already formed, with a value system in place; they’ve usually already had heavy access to devices, their concentration is reduced, their knowledge is reduced. More and more psychologists and speech therapists say that children start talking with great difficulty and late. That, too, is largely due to misguided investment in supporting families.

– Still, as far as I can tell, over these 15 years of working in this direction, you see mostly negative trends.

– That’s true, but I console myself with the thought that if no one had done anything—my colleagues and I, and the many people we work with on the ground, teachers, librarians, specialists from all over the country—

things would be far scarier than these 53 percent of 15-year-olds who are functionally illiterate.

Right now, though, thanks to social media—we’re all watching it happen—the general level is falling drastically. On social media you measure yourself against the crowd, however intelligent you are. Thanks to Facebook, the network of older people, who are the more active teachers and parents, we see the level dropping headlong. That is frightening.

– Against all this, how do you explain that so many people write children’s books?

– Because it looks easiest. Often someone who has a child, or has become a grandfather or grandmother, decides they’ll string five words together in rhyme and the book is done.

We have no understanding of what a quality children’s book is, because we have no literary criticism. Expertise no longer counts.

So everyone thinks they can publish the very best, unique and one of a kind, and that is yet another confirmation that people don’t read. If they had taken the trouble to read a few more children’s books by established writers, I don’t think they would dare.

This is where the realization comes in that children’s books are the most important ones, because they lay the foundation.

If you give your child junk food, you’ll see them gain weight and their health decline. The same happens with books, but you don’t see the effect right away, and that is very frightening.

I feel myself becoming more and more critical in my book reviews—of both translated and Bulgarian books. But I don’t know how we can deal with this phenomenon. Usually these “creators” think they’re doing brilliantly and don’t use editors. Social media helps them. If you’re loud and invest your efforts the right way, you’ll easily sell the print run, and that gives you confidence. A phenomenon like this is very frightening. Our children don’t deserve it.

– Let’s end on something good, and practical too. Recommend me some authors I haven’t heard of, for different ages!

– Books by good writers usually aren’t the most popular. The great books that work best usually go the most unnoticed. That makes sense, because they aim higher.

Take the books of Roald Dahl, which fewer and fewer parents offer their children. Dahl is an exceptional author: spicy, frank, with a magnificent imagination and style. I used to recommend him widely to children from 6 or 7 up, but today I see that he is quite difficult for many readers aged 9 or 10. If I had to choose one of his books, it would be his autobiography, Boy.

The same goes for the novels of Michael Morpurgo, who writes about important social issues and offers children layered novels with rich language that make them think, take a position, look for answers. My favorites are Becky’s Diary, An Elephant in the Garden, Shadow and Private Peaceful—magnificent reads that would appeal not only to children but to adults too.

I really like encyclopedic editions, because they give children extra knowledge about the world, which we often fail to offer them. People have clutched like drowning men at a straw at Einstein’s idea that we should read them fairy tales. When we read fairy tales, we develop emotional intelligence—the ability to see how the other person feels, to be tolerant. But that way we fail to tell them what kind of world they actually live in.

An encyclopedic edition I recommend is Bees. A wonderful book, large format, looks impressive, works perfectly from 1st to 12th grade; we’ve tested it in our reading clubs.

Tsveta Brestnichka is also one of the writers whose books I love working with. Nebivalitsi s bukvite ot A do Ya (Tall Tales with the Letters from A to Z)—parents usually buy it for first grade because it has the alphabet, but in 3rd and 4th grade this book really opens up: children can play, invent, build their vocabulary.

Of course, you can find all the recommended books in the category we curate for Orange. We try to update it every month, and I personally use it when I need to recommend a book, because we’ve divided everything by age. We work with many children; we get feedback from 10,000 children every year through the Biserche Valshebno (Magic Little Pearl) award.

You’ll find the book recommendations for different ages here.

So far in the series “Digital Children”:

• How do today’s children encounter technology? – a survey

• Hedgehogs Are Born Without AI

• “An era is coming in which we will have to reinvent ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what is worth learning today? – futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why does a programmer advise parents on how to get off the grid? – Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

• What should education look like tomorrow? How do we choose the best teacher? – Evgenia Peeva.

If you have ideas about other important aspects of this topic, I’ll be glad if you share them with me here.

– Let's start straight with the big question. What should today's children learn so that we can be sure it will make sense in the future?

– That's my big subject. For a long time I've had my own inner understanding, different from the established one, of what a quality education means. All these years I've tried to work toward that vision. And right now I can see how far we actually are from understanding this as a society. Including among educated, thoughtful parents who worry whether their child will get into the right kindergarten, so that later they can go to the right school, the right high school, and have a chance in life. I don't know whether it's for lack of access to information and to recognized experts, or simply because the conversation in our society has frozen in a past from decades ago.

Clearly, the stagnation in the education system is very serious and ruinous.

Despite everything being proclaimed, and all the STEM centers being built, it can't happen until you change the whole philosophy and the way you train teachers, the way you talk to parents about what is valuable, the way you assess students.

Even if you change the curriculum, if you don't change the exam, the criteria by which you assess children, you won't get a better result.

In my current role I have to show what makes the school I'm responsible for valuable. We've had many discussions about how to measure success, how to measure ourselves against the other schools that are the benchmark for most parents.

– We're all used to it—the external assessments, the matura…

– Exactly! For every school, the only way to prove its worth is through the results of external assessments and school-leaving exams. But in and of themselves they

only measure a child's ability to memorize certain patterns of thinking, certain words or answers, and reproduce them within a set time.

In “expert language,” this tests whether the brain's executive function works well. And that develops from age 0 to 7, not afterward! The foundations of an enormous number of skills depend on that period—that's when the brain develops at its most headlong pace, both in size and in building the fundamental neural pathways that govern movement, thought, emotion and interaction with the world around us.

So we told ourselves—given that

for us this particular function is not the most essential one in determining a person's success today. All the more so in the age of artificial intelligence.

Because AI has a perfect executive function.

– I did an experiment that shows exactly that. I competed with ChatGPT: we both sat last year's matura, a real examiner graded us, and we both got excellent marks. In other words, at this task competing really becomes impossible.

– Exactly. Today there's not much point in remembering everything—you click and find the answer much faster. What matters is being able to judge whether it's the right answer. The deeper the question, the more context it requires, the harder it is for the chatbot to answer—and for a person who doesn't know how to think. But

thinking is very different from repeating memorized answers.

Here's another dilemma at our school. We were talking with the colleagues responsible for teachers' professional development, and the mentor of our math teachers told me: “Math is the perfect subject for developing thinking, cognitive skills. But when I talk to colleagues—in order to prepare students for the external assessment in 10th grade, they have no time to teach them to think. They have to drill them on those memorized patterns, and those are two different goals.”

– My driving instructor used to say he wasn't teaching me to drive—I'd do that on my own later—he was teaching me to pass the test.

– Exactly. The question is what we want to teach them—to drive,

to maneuver through life, to be its engines and its owners, to be independent, self-reliant individuals—or just to pass their tests.

In the past this really was very important: tests decided not only whether you got into university, but whether you got a job. But for at least 10 years now, top employers around the world haven't looked at your university grades or which exam you passed—they conduct interviews. They assess your ability to communicate with other people, your values, your willingness to contribute, not just to receive. They assess how you think, how you analyze.

Especially in the age of AI, if you know how to handle it well—to think and evaluate the results it gives you—the so-called soft skills become much more important. How you communicate with people, how empathetic you are, your emotional intelligence, whether you sense yourself well enough, whether you can communicate yourself, your goals and your feelings well, whether you can understand the other side and find common ground amid differences and goals.

In a study from late last year on workforce trends, the McKinsey Global Institute's main conclusion was that

for top positions the weight is increasingly shifting to soft skills, beyond the technical and cognitive ones.

For leaders this will matter more and more.

– Not even just for senior positions. I see it in IT at every level. But what can schools do in this direction? How do we develop all these skills when they're not in the curriculum?

– We ask ourselves that every day, because we have to comply with the curriculum and the requirements of the Ministry of Education and Science. At the same time, we'd like to build engines of development for the global digital age—people who are thoughtful, proactive, adaptable, independent, empathetic, responsible toward themselves and others.

We set out to build a definition of our own. Which skills do we want to develop? They aren't ours, they're universal, but we're trying to find the right words to describe them as a coherent whole, so that we can reach parents. Everyone says—yes, it's important to have critical thinking; to be able to analyze a problem in a given context from different points of view; to look for possible solutions, not just have ready answers; to know there may be several possible solutions; to have social and emotional intelligence.

But most people, because they never went through a system that develops these skills, can't imagine how it could happen, let alone how we would measure it. That's perhaps the most complicated topic. In Bulgaria we need a lot of investment and support at the highest level for schools to work in this direction.

Cognitive skills, the ability to prioritize, to manage your time, the discipline to complete your tasks. Nowadays, with instant access to information and distraction from screens of every kind, that's extremely hard. Even people at top universities tell me they struggle to concentrate and look for outside solutions. Skills like entrepreneurship or initiative—I don't wait for someone to find solutions for me, I look for them myself, I propose ideas.

Combined applied skills—being able to use theoretical knowledge in a specific situation. Civic literacy—how I relate to climate change, to topics connected with cultural diversity, to volunteering.

Teamwork! A typical, very key example, whereas in most schools the model is usually “teacher to student.” That's what our list of goals looks like.

– But how can it actually happen, when at the same time you have to teach the material for the assessments and the matura?

– That's exactly what we're looking for a solution to. I'm counting a lot on additional technological solutions. For example, right now we're testing an idea—

whether a trained chatbot can help students prepare for exactly those exams.

And their time in class can then focus on more developmental activities—interaction with the teacher and with each other, more practical tasks and project-based learning.

The other thing, while we wait for the national criteria to change, is to meet parents who feel connected to our vision and definition and say: “Yes, the external assessments and the matura aren't that essential. Let's work in the direction we've agreed on together and not give those exams so much weight.”

Unfortunately, in Bulgaria we often put an equals sign between ambitious students and those who do well on external assessments. And every parent wants their child to go to a so-called elite high school after seventh grade, because they believe the children there are hand-picked, the environment is good, they're ambitious and pull each other up. To get there, they prepare with grueling extra private lessons. Those schools certainly create the environment, and the students do pull each other along, but… toward what, exactly?

– Against that backdrop, the criteria themselves are questionable. When I sat the matura, I was left with the impression that it's extremely hard not to get at least a 3—the lowest passing grade on our scale of 2 to 6. You'd practically have to be unable to read a single page. And yet there are entire classes with nothing but failing 2s.

– The criteria keep getting lowered and aren't comparable across the years. That's another problem—they aren't designed so that each year you can say whether a 6 equals last year's 6. So the matura and external assessments

are currently just a tool for sorting each year's cohort of students into different schools.

That's it. They measure neither how successful a person's career will be, nor the skills for it, nor the success of the system by comparing results over the years. Just a snapshot that tells students: “You can go to this school based on how much you memorized and managed to reproduce during a few hours of exam.”

– Still, more concretely, how could these skills be developed at school?

– There are different ways for each, but they're quite similar. Some techniques are almost universal, such as project-based learning. When you engage students with a broader or interesting question, it develops all these qualities.

This year we created a separate subject—“training company.” In it, 10th- and 11th-graders from our different majors—programming, graphic design, digital business and entrepreneurship—work together. It's happening for the first time; we bring them together precisely with the idea that you need to be able to work with different specialists, to hear different points of view. Each has a different role, but they work together. We left it very open. “Come up with a problem you want to solve and find a suitable, feasible solution with business potential. We'll support you throughout the school year to structure and implement it.” I was very impressed when the students presented their ideas!

Social and emotional skills are part of teamwork. And, of course, digital skills, without which we simply can't manage today. Look,

when it comes to AI, students are usually far ahead of their teachers.

Some teachers impress us with their innovative approach, weaving these technologies into everything they do. Students use them in a certain way, check, and decide for themselves whether the AI is giving them the right answer. Other teachers are quite anxious and would rather keep it at arm's length.

– But they can't, because you can no longer be sure when a student actually wrote a project. Not that you could since the internet went mainstream, but now it's completely unprovable.

– Yes, our current conclusion is that working with AI should be introduced gradually in the lower grades—for us, from 8th grade—and much more actively from 10th grade up, precisely in project-based learning and research projects. There it can be a very good partner in research and in finding solutions, where once again the student is the protagonist and makes the final decisions.

The idea of the student at the center is very important. To move from the model where the teacher stands in front, lectures, is the master of knowledge and has all the right answers, to the understanding that the teacher is in constant conversation, joint searching and exploration with the student. And that

the teacher's role is not to give the answers, but to ask the questions

in a way students can answer, gently lifting them to the next level and nudging them to find the more complex answer. Starting from the general and arriving at finer detail. Stimulating investigative thinking.

If there's one thing that is key to moving us forward as people and driving our constant development, it's exactly this. To ask ourselves questions and know that we can find answers together with AI, but not have it—or anyone else—simply hand them to us. That search for the right answers is also at the heart of entrepreneurship.

– But, as you said, measuring that kind of skill is much harder. If it were up to you, what would the equivalent of the matura look like—one that tested how prepared a person is for life when leaving high school?

– I don't think there will be a single exam that you give everyone and then declare them prepared. Rather, at school the

teachers should be well enough prepared to say, hand on heart, through authentic assessments: “Yes, our students are ready to be independent, confident, enterprising, growing, inquiring individuals, based on their demonstrated overall behavior and achievements at school.”

This is about a process that isn't confined to the classroom and the textbook material, but is holistic. We call it the “comprehensive student portfolio,” in which we track the student's development: not only what grades they get in general and vocational subjects or on exams, not only which olympiads they take part in and what awards they've won, but also extracurricular initiatives, how sustained their participation is, whether they've taken on any volunteer initiatives, what projects they've done, how they present them.

The goal of this portfolio is that one day it will be presented to a future employer or university, and they'll decide whether this is the right candidate. Every organization, every university has profiles it looks for, whereas a single exam, I'll say it again, can only tell you whether a person has a good enough executive function, how disciplined they are, and that's it.

Yes, those things are important too, but they're only two out of many. It makes no sense to place them above, say, creativity, which is the key quality and can still set us apart from AI.

– Can it, though? That worries me too—that we'll stop seeking creativity now that we have something that seems more creative than us. For example, it's already happening in poetry. The existentially important urge to create seems to me ever harder to turn into a goal we develop in children. Just as with memory, for instance—not so long ago it was important to remember capitals, phone numbers, chemical valences; now you find them in seconds.

– I have no doubt AI can achieve good results. The point is that

without human creativity we will surely lose, because it draws on a much deeper source, one that philosophers and researchers have argued about for thousands of years. Intuitive, rooted in many places.

AI can synthesize, it can offer good combinations of existing things, but something entirely new, the kind of thing human creativity can give birth to… no. It has to be fed new things, otherwise it will keep repeating combinations of the old.

And if you don't stimulate that creativity, we're stuck in the pattern again. That's dangerous. Very dangerous.

– Just as it is with knowing facts. I see a risk that the emphasis on soft skills could lead us to stop valuing the learning of principles, basic ideas, rules. Knowing the fundamentals of geography, physics, history, even if you'll never work in those fields…

– It really is important. Last year we held a discussion on the future of design in the age of AI, with Antoni Hristov from ARC Academy. In his view, to be a successful, creative designer and stand out from AI in the future,

it will be very important to know the fundamentals of art and of human history, to make connections between different events and elements.

Because in the end, critical thinking too is fed by knowledge and context. The question is whether we need to memorize them, or grasp their essence? So that we can later bring them into our thinking as elements of our models of analysis.

Take history, for example—how is it taught in Bulgarian schools? Sadly, I never had the necessary interest, probably precisely because I'm not one of those people who memorize things at first go. For me, names, dates and facts were never what mattered, but the processes behind them, the causes, what I can learn from a given situation. I don't think we've ever studied history that way, and we've actually lost out because of it.

– The only chance is to have had a very inspired teacher. One such person, Boris Rusev, was my guest, and that's exactly what we talked about. But from that point of view, isn't it logical for education really to be a conservative system? In these dynamic times we can't make sense of, can't fully grasp, the effect of technology. For instance, that phones are harmful to small children—we may have sensed it intuitively, but only now has it been proven. Because of things like that, shouldn't the education system be more sluggish, working with tested and proven paradigms? Which, on the other hand, is completely impossible in today's digital world…

– That's reasonable when it lacks enough data. Our education system, however, has had it since at least 2006, when the PISA studies began being conducted in Bulgaria. We can't call them into question—it's perhaps the only internationally valid instrument across hundreds of countries, administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, that tests several of the key skills for success. Critical thinking, functional literacy; there are questions about student well-being, about a growth mindset, about integration at school, about levels of optimism or pessimism. A very valuable source of information.

In 2012, at Teach For Bulgaria, we organized the first education conference with Forbes and put PISA squarely in focus. And nothing—the minister's comment was that it didn't concern us, because our goals were different. It took so many years for it to become more visible that developing functional literacy really is very important. To this day we keep having these debates, and the curricula remain the same.

– Only our PISA results keep falling and falling.

– Supposedly the goals of education were changed to some extent in the opening articles of the Preschool and School Education Act. But the curricula are the same, and so are the external assessments. So I wouldn't call this system conservative. It's simply very outdated and changes far too slowly.

It demonstrably ignores the data and takes no measures.

– How can things change? Clearly, at the system level, for one reason or another, it isn't working. Take the other sector that often appears on this list—healthcare: nothing changes there either. Obviously some strong political will is needed, and it's always missing. Both systems remain inadequate, running on a kind of inertia that can't last much longer.

– There are two approaches. Top-down—a prime minister, ministers of finance, education or health come along, shake hands and say: “These are the systems we need to reform. We need the right people in these ministries who can achieve these goals.”

And the goals are so clear! To have literate children who succeed, who find their place in the labor market, who are healthy, independent, responsible individuals.

The approaches to achieving them are also clear. The world has already worked them out; there's no need to search from scratch. Every so often someone comes to me, including educated and thoughtful people, and says: “Let's figure out how to make it happen.”

But there's nothing to figure out! Volumes have been written on the subject since the beginning of the 21st century. The World Bank invests very serious resources in large-scale analyses that end with concrete recommendations and spell out processes.

As deputy minister, I witnessed three volumes written by the World Bank, funded with European Commission money, requested by the Ministry of Education for that purpose. For every stage of education! From early childhood development, through school, vocational education and universities. For each there was a detailed analysis with all the existing data, on the key components, with very concrete recommendations. One volume of recommendations was devoted solely to developing the teaching workforce.

What happened to those volumes, which we made a point of publishing in 2021? They stayed on someone's desk, gathering dust. The problem isn't a lack of solutions, it's precisely a lack of will. And of capacity within the institutions to implement those solutions.

As deputy minister, I was genuinely struck by the lack of capacity at many levels.

– So perhaps it has to come from outside somehow, as you've already done once. Teach For Bulgaria is a strong and rare example that any system can change.

– Bottom-up—that's the alternative. During the time I spent inside the institution itself, at the highest level, I realized that at this point, given the lack of political unity and stability, it really makes more sense for people who want to change something to work on the ground.

– As long as the system is what it is and we can't change it, what matters when choosing an institution—a kindergarten or a high school? My experience as a parent comes down mainly to making sure the teacher deserves trust, manages to build a connection and to light the spark… I think the person remains what matters, even more than whether the school is public or private, in a small town or a big city, specialized or general.

– I'd take it up a level. For me the most decisive thing is the leadership. The principal and the key people around them—I want to see that they share one language, one set of values, which I not only hear about but can see in action.

I may like a particular teacher, but if they're at odds with the school's leadership, they may soon leave. The school, though, stays with its leadership, unless that changes. And that's the second element—how stable it is. Whether it has a clear vision, whether it's consistent, whether it has certain principles it stands up for and they're visible in the environment, in the feedback from students.

Besides, every parent has a different vision of what's important for their child.

– And still, at the root of it all are the people—the teachers, the principals… Here's hoping there are more thoughtful, motivated people, despite the system.

– Exactly! First and foremost, the parent has to be very clear about what matters to them and what matters for the child.

Self-discipline, setting high goals… These are important things. But with my own child, I see she's very ambitious and a perfectionist, yet she finds it hard to relax and is very influenced by outside opinion. I want her to learn to relax a little. If I sent her to a traditional school, her typical tendencies would be reinforced and would go in the opposite direction—toward low self-esteem and constantly judging herself by external yardsticks of success. That's certainly not the path to a lasting, inner, emotional contentment with oneself.

Our system breeds exactly that—being subordinate to external measures of success. Yet the truly successful people, the ones who don't collapse emotionally in the face of difficulty, who keep going and find the strength within themselves to cope with unexpected problems, are those who have inner confidence.

There's no universal answer, but when you're clear about what you're looking for and sense it intuitively, you go, you observe, and you see whether the leadership stands up for it.

From there, when there's a shared vision and shared values, the teachers, even if they aren't on that path yet, will gradually get there.

The school can be a partner, as long as it's open to partnering with parents,

something that matters to me as a parent, and to the schools of the future.

Over the years, the notion persists that the school educates and the family brings up, and each blames the other for not doing its job well. But in these challenging times, with constant exposure to screens, constant contact with social networks, with influences that neither parents nor teachers can track on their own… It's important to accept that we're one team, that

there are three participants in this process—the parent, the student and the school team—otherwise we don't stand a chance.

However good the conditions may otherwise be, the schools with high added value are those where parent, school team and student are together. Where the parent knows their job isn't just to drive the student to the school gate and check that the homework is done. It's far more complex, and it requires very good interaction with the school staff.

So far in the Digital Children series:

• How do today's children encounter technology? – a survey

• Hedgehogs Are Born Without AI

• “An era is coming in which we will have to reinvent ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what makes sense to learn today? – futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why does a programmer advise parents on how to get offline? – Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

Coming up:

• Why and how does humor save today's parents? – illustrator Neda Malcheva
• How did we damage two generations, and can we find the middle way? – psychologist and children's author Slavi Stoev
• How has technology changed motherhood? – Krasimira Hadzhiivanova, creator of Mayko Mila (Dear Mother)
• What does it mean to be a father today? – communications specialist Mihail Stefanov
• Children and books: why is this bond more important than ever? – Val Stoeva, creator of Detski Knigi (Children's Books)
• Meet… AI – an experiment in which I introduce my children to ChatGPT.

– Your story is a very interesting one. You worked as a programmer for quite a while, and then you created a foundation to give children back their offline experiences. How did that happen?

– I started programming while I was still a student, and I had six or seven years of active work in the field when I went on maternity leave. My thoughts on the subject started a little before that. One day I was just sitting at the computer, black screen, colored symbols. I had some super boring task, and I thought that this can’t be all there is to life. Here I sit, my whole day passing in front of a screen. I felt I needed something more.

When I went on maternity leave, I remember the first walk with my little one. He was two weeks old, the first sunny day after winter. We go out, I had decided I would enjoy the break, I wouldn’t pull out my phone for every little thing, and

I was shocked to discover that I had actually forgotten what it is to simply enjoy the time, just like that.

I started thinking about it and realized that, without noticing, I had reached the point of trying to fill every single free minute with something. If there was nothing to fill it with, I would just pull out the phone and look for what was happening somewhere. That is how I began to think about the influence of technology—on us and on our families. Especially in a situation where everyone has a TV in their own room so that we don’t disturb each other’s movies. And above all, about how it affects our children. I remembered our own childhood, how we spent all day outside with friends, going out, free. When we had nothing to do, we would start ringing doorbells: “Come out.”

Whereas the children I knew now didn’t know their neighbors’ kids at all.

– I’m sure almost everyone in our generation of parents has similar thoughts, against the backdrop of the online brain assault. And yet you didn’t stop at the idea—you took the next big step.

– I was thinking about it constantly. When my little one was seven or eight months old, I told myself: “All right, we won’t stop digitalization, our children will live in a technological world. But there are things that need to happen before they get to screens. Things they need to learn, such as how to communicate with others, how to look them in the eye, how friendships are made.”

Not to mention all the creative processes that need to happen and that will actually stay in their memories. Yes,

children won’t remember their best day in front of the TV or the phone; they’ll remember the experiences they have with us and with their friends.

That is how the idea for a Facebook group was born, where we could share ideas for offline activities with other parents as an alternative to screens. Instead of offering screens, we would offer games.

I kept thinking about the subject, reading, observing, talking to people and getting into their situations. That is how I realized that

we face a very big challenge as parents. Especially when children grow up and things slip out of our control.

– Definitely! That is exactly why I started gathering this series of texts.

– So I decided to create a blog first, and later the Offline kids foundation, whose mission is to help more families find the balance between the real and the digital. Our message isn’t that technology is something terrible—on the contrary, it can be a useful tool. But how we use it matters a great deal, and alongside that we must develop the most human skills in children.

Online there are endless arguments for and against screens. That isn’t the question. The question is the way they are used, and that is devastating for children.

A year ago, statistics came out on children’s screen time in Bulgaria. It shocked me: children between 0 and 2 years old spend 2.5 hours a day on phones alone! On top of the TVs, tablets and other screen stimulation they are exposed to. And 40 percent of these babies are on TikTok—an app meant for ages 13 and up, and there is even talk right now of raising the limit to 16.

Forty-four percent of children have a TV in their bedroom, which is also devastating. According to scientists, a large share of the negative effects of screen time come from the fact that it disrupts the quality of children’s sleep.

The usage is alarming! Our first goal is to inform parents about it, because it turns out many of them don’t know. Second:

to help them believe that there is something they can do.

From what they tell me, parents often think it’s already over, all is lost, and they just go with the flow, giving a three-year-old four hours of screen time.

The third is to equip them with practical solutions for what they can do instead of carrying on with the screen. That is the hardest task, but I believe there is a solution.

– So you stopped programming and devoted yourself entirely to these three causes.

– I spent five years on maternity leave with two children in a row. After that I had to go back for financial reasons. But somehow I already had a very big inner conflict. One of the reasons I began thinking about all this was that I myself had very serious addictions, first to TV series and then to social media.

For seven years I literally couldn’t fall asleep without a series playing next to me. Without it, all the anxious thoughts, fears and worries flooded me. My brain had adapted to such a degree that even after two hours of failed attempts, the moment I put on something on my phone, I fell asleep immediately.

It was very hard to break the habit; the first week I literally didn’t sleep. But afterward, once my brain adapted to the change, everything changed.

My headaches went away, the pain in my eyes, my mood lifted, my creativity and motivation came back.

I’m ashamed to say it, but everything I had blamed on the children turned out to change once I started getting good, sufficient sleep. Knowing that, it was very hard for me to go back to eight hours in front of a computer.

It was during COVID, and I had to be alone at home. Another problem I was battling was that, because of living online, I had lost the ability to communicate with people. For a whole five years I didn’t want to stand in front of another human being and communicate normally at all. Being left alone at home again felt like ten giant steps backward.

I want to do something far more meaningful, and I believe what we do with Offline Kids is just that. It was hard, but I decided to let myself go with the flow of a digitally minimalist life.

– Don’t you miss programming? It can actually be a pleasant and engrossing pursuit.

– Sometimes I miss it, but other things matter more to me. Usually the people who contact us are those who already

in some form feel guilty for having offered a screen, see the negative effects and suffer a great deal from what is happening.

The feeling that we have managed to help such a person take even one step forward in the process is far more satisfying than knowing I’ve written the perfect function.

– But how is it that, on a mass scale, we really fail to realize such a huge problem? Even in your case, quite a few years had to pass before you started thinking about it, and many people never reach that stage at all.

– What frightens me is that

we are so used to reaching for screens in every free minute that we are on complete autopilot and don’t think about anything.

Very often we don’t realize the consequences of what we are doing to our children. You know, these technologies can be so absorbing that we don’t see what is going on around us.

I’ve seen incredible things. For instance, a child was banging his head on the ground and gave himself a bloody wound trying to get the attention of his mother, who wouldn’t stop digging through her phone. In the end, when she finally noticed him, she slapped him for hitting himself. We have very serious problems.

– But how can we, as a society, really not notice? Isn’t it obvious? What’s more, the trend, in my view, is for screen time to keep growing every year, for children too.

– I’m almost certain that in most cases we do realize it. It’s just that

choosing the harder path—having your child live with screen limits—requires a lot of sacrifice.

On the one hand, we hand over the phone when the kids drive us completely mad—either we’re exhausted or under a lot of stress at work, we need a little quiet, and that’s the quickest fix. We justify ourselves with our own need, which is valid and real. On the other hand, I think there are also many irrational fears, for example that the child will end up isolated or fall behind their peers. I hear this from parents of three-year-olds. And when I ask them how they develop the child’s tech skills, they say: “We put on a cartoon for him.”

For me there is a huge difference between giving a three-year-old a phone with YouTube or TikTok and actually teaching them how to use technology deliberately and with some purpose.

– What steps did you go through to overcome your own screen addiction?

– I did it in very small steps. If I had decided to go on a total detox all at once and start a new life, it would have been very hard.

Perhaps the realization itself came after each small step. I made the first change when COVID began and the media constantly published the numbers of the sick and the dead. I felt very anxious, and at some point I realized I was taking that anxiety out on the children. I decided to stop following any news—we don’t have a TV, I only followed it online—but I stopped, and by the second day I could feel my anxiety dropping. I still had the essential information—what the bans, restrictions and news were—but I got it from relatives who passed on the most important bits. When I saw how much better I felt and how it affected my children,

I decided to take the next step—to sleep without my phone. That changed everything!

Once I was convinced how little I had grasped the impact, after all these changes, I decided to take the next step. With a solid foundation and the motivation that it works, I left social media for a month.

That too was one of the hardest things. It was still COVID, everyone was staying home and it was much harder to meet in person. And sometimes our emotions are irrational. When I stopped going on social media, by the second day I felt as if all my friends were ignoring me. It was completely absurd—I was the one who had taken the step—but the initial withdrawal of three or four days had to pass before I could really begin to understand what was happening and find alternatives: how to meet my need for connection and communication in a richer way, not just through text messages.

I began calling the friends I used to text more often, and gradually we started meeting in person, once it became possible.

Communicating face to face turned out to be so much more satisfying than what I had grown used to—chatting—that when the month was over, I didn’t even feel like going back to social media.

I did go back for the Offline Kids page and because I wanted to publish information on the subject. I set myself very clear rules: I log in once a week, schedule posts and allow myself five minutes or so to reply to messages. Because I had been through the detox period, through finding alternatives for meeting my needs, it was much easier for me to set limits.

Perhaps the key here is that I truly gave myself time to find a way to meet my real psychological needs.

– Which, of course, is individual. I don’t limit myself on social media because I do a large part of the things that matter to me there; otherwise I would most likely do it too—I see a very serious logic in digital minimalism. But aren’t we doomed from now on to be a minority, those of us who set such boundaries, both for ourselves and for our children? Controlling screen time is an individual decision, and society clearly doesn’t recognize it as an issue.

– It’s possible. These days I’ve been thinking how hard it is for a digital minimalist to exist in an environment where everyone prefers to give in constantly to the pull of technology. Because we really do function differently. At least the people I talk with who are committed to digital minimalism look for more depth.

– And they have concentration… And those, I believe, are the skills that will set us apart in some way in the future.

– We may well be a minority. I think more people are waking up and choosing to use technology more consciously, including for their children. But I don’t expect us to outnumber the rest.

– I’ve long liked this comparison with food a lot: in purely evolutionary terms we had to get more and more, and those who could do so survived, and later that turned into a problem. It’s the same with information; we’re easily lured by fast carbs, by scrolling. And in both cases the problem is more complicated with children, for many reasons. Once a child has put on weight, it’s much harder to do something about it, and the same goes for information addiction. If a child is used to spending hours every day in front of a phone and the parents realize there’s a problem, what is the way forward? What does the “diet” look like?

– For me,

the main solution to the problem as a whole is for us, as parents, to be more engaged with our children, to spend more time with them, to talk to them, to teach them values and to think critically.

And perhaps to slowly win them over to our side.

First comes the realization: we are not fighting against the child, but for the child. We cultivate values in them so that other, more meaningful areas of life can become important. Then we help them understand the influence of technology. That happens by teaching them to think critically, to reflect on their own experiences, by telling them stories. But about characters who are neutral to them, because when we comment on their own behavior, all their defense mechanisms kick in and it’s entirely natural for them to deny it.

But when we tell them about one child’s technology addiction and what it led to, they will look at the situation more calmly.

When it comes to winning them over, there are two main approaches. One is gradually reducing screen time until it falls within some limits. That can be quite challenging and hard, because it demands a lot of engagement from the parents.

At first we offer some alternative in the form of shared time—board games, books, sports. We increase the time in which the child feels comfortable away from the information stream. At some point we teach them to set goals and plan their time on their own. Because

part of the problem is that children have nothing to do with their free time and fall back on whatever is easiest.

The second approach is a digital detox: for a longer period we take away all screens, and then, once a certain time has passed, we reintroduce them with very clear boundaries. This approach works well with younger children or with those who have asked for the change themselves.

But with both approaches it is very important to teach them to meet their needs in real life—for communication, for socializing. I often hear this as the motive for turning to screens. One particular boy told me: “I realize the negative effects constant gaming has on my life, it’s true. But at home and at school everyone keeps telling me how stupid I am.

Online is the only place where I get good feedback about myself and feel good.”

Boundaries are one thing, and they matter, but at the same time we have to look closely and search, case by case, for the root of the problem. Why do these children turn to their devices so excessively?

It is important to keep in mind that when the problem runs deeper, the support of a trusted specialist will be needed.

– And it turns out the reasons are quite varied…

– Definitely. Sometimes children feel lonely and try to escape their discomfort. At school everything they do demands an awful lot of effort. Another reason is the way we talk to them. Many parents say: “You’re a zombie, you’re a screen kid, you’re a problem.” When we project that identity onto children, they accept it as normal. And they have nothing else to do but what we have said about them.

Another is the lack of boundaries. We ourselves can’t control ourselves, so we can’t expect a small child to achieve self-control at five or six. The idea is

exactly like teaching them to ride a bike: we hold the seat until we see they’re starting to balance, and then we let go. It’s the same with technology.

We can’t just hand them a phone and expect them to learn to use it in a useful and healthy way on their own if we aren’t there.

Especially with older children—13 or 14—setting abrupt boundaries would more likely backfire, because it seriously breaks the bond between parent and child. There, again, the goal is to win them over to our side in finding the solution. And the first step is to spend screen time together. To show genuine interest in what they do, what they like and why, what this game gives them, why they like this influencer. To talk, without interrogating, about their experiences there and what those experiences give them. Sometimes in the conversation both the children and we adults realize things we hadn’t noticed.

– Shouldn’t we have done our job before they become teenagers? Because then it’s much, much harder…

– Yes, that’s the ideal scenario: when children are small, they have very strict limits. And when we use a screen, we do it deliberately, knowing why. It’s better to watch a family movie on a Friday night and discuss it afterward than simply to offer a screen so the kids sit still and keep quiet.

Alongside that, we talk to them about values from the very beginning. And once we have cultivated values, our conversations can rest on the trust we’ve built. Then we teach them, we get them to think about how technology can help them live by those values—and how it can do exactly the opposite.

Communication is an example. Technology can help us stay in touch with someone close who lives abroad, and that’s wonderful. For babies, there is scientific evidence that video calls don’t have the same negative effects as, say, cartoons.

At the same time, all these technologies,

if we use them to escape the person who is next to us right now, even unconsciously, do the opposite job. They don’t bring us closer; they push us apart.

– I also think that fixating on a specific number of hours of screen time can be misleading, even though there must be limits. We don’t have a TV either, but I bought a projector precisely because I think it’s useful to watch a good film once a week and discuss it. That even compensates for the loss of focus and concentration, the negative effects that otherwise come with technology.

– There was a study showing that even the youngest children can develop empathy by watching a particular cartoon, but this happens only when there is an adult talking to them about what is happening on the screen. In other words, the screen should be an aid, not a substitute for the important things.

Personal example matters a great deal. Let’s set ourselves the goal of at least one hour every day when the children come first and our phone is left somewhere far away. If something truly important and urgent comes up, let’s tell them, so it’s clear that it is. Let them see that we aren’t scrolling aimlessly, just for the sake of it.

– I miss the times when children played outside too—in Sofia and in other towns and villages. Do you think we can get back there?

– I think we can, with a little more mindfulness.

I choose to believe we can. If we believe the opposite, woe betide us…

So far in the series “Digital Children”:

• How do today’s children meet technology? – a survey

• Hedgehogs Are Born Without AI

• “An era is coming in which we will have to reinvent ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what is worth learning today? – futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

Coming up:

• What will education look like tomorrow? – Evgenia Peeva, founder of Teach For Bulgaria and director of SoftUni Buditel, a school named after the buditeli, the National Revival enlighteners
• How did we harm two generations, and can we find the middle way? – psychologist and children’s author Slavi Stoev
• How has technology changed motherhood? – Krasimira Hadzhiivanova, creator of Mayko Mila (Dear Mother)
• Why and how does humor save today’s parents? – illustrator Neda Malcheva
• What is it like to be a father today? – communications specialist Mihail Stefanov
• Children and books: why is this bond more important than ever? – Val Stoeva, creator of Detski Knigi (Children’s Books)
• Meet… AI – an experiment in which I will introduce my children to ChatGPT.

– Technology is advancing astonishingly fast, and everything suggests that more and more human activities will be performed successfully by machines, indistinguishable from us. Against that background, what is worth teaching children today?

– The answer will probably surprise you, but

it is worth them learning everything that interests them.

The analysis some people offer, that there is no need to learn facts or accumulate basic knowledge the way we have done so far, is only partial. Yes, it’s true that

our education system is at the level of the 19th century, as Jack Ma says, while it has to cope with the conditions of the 21st.

On the one hand, it was built to serve industrial society. All our social systems were designed that way too. But perhaps soon

we will be mourning classical capitalism, because it needs people,

so it provides them with social systems—education, health care, pension funds. Technology, on the other hand, has no need for these systems unless they are business niches themselves, which means we will find them ever harder to sustain.

On the other hand, though, there is no way to develop our personal intelligence, our individual experience and awareness, which differ from the whole accumulated body of human knowledge and wisdom, without processing a large amount of information that settles in us as knowledge. Intelligence is a mark of dwelling in the material world, of experience and knowledge; it is a function of the neuroplasticity of the neural connections in our brain, which is unique to each of us.

In other words, to create these neural connections, to create intelligence as a personal quality, we have to encounter fundamental knowledge and, through a personal perspective and a personal refraction, develop unexpected links between different fields. That is individual intelligence—

every person combines this kaleidoscope of human knowledge in a very peculiar way.

– So, caught up in innovation, we must by no means underestimate the role of good old memorizing facts…

– Exactly. Classical learning, the way we have done it so far, is important because it creates this neuroplasticity. But it has to be dosed—if we spend our time cramming and reproducing facts that we forget afterward anyway, because that is how our brains are built, it is not useful.

It is no accident that some experimental schools in America have introduced the concept of the “flipped classroom.” At home, the children read and listen to lessons with artificial intelligence, which even serves them personalized content. Then at school, in the humanities, they do critical analysis of classic works such as Anna Karenina.

– Whereas, alas, reading an entire Tolstoy novel seems today an ever rarer and more underrated skill.

– We are returning to that most primal human quality of critical thinking, reasoning and debate.

In the United States, at least until recently, debate was considered an invaluable tool because it teaches pluralism. I hope that hasn’t vanished in recent years, when America has become so fragmented and polarized.

If we are truly very good at what interests us and combine it with technology and AI; if we don’t do our work mechanically, indifferently, just going through the motions with minimal effort, we have an advantage.

In this era in which we will have to reinvent ourselves, we will create many unconventional, interdisciplinary niches where, say, a musician and a neurobiologist come up with some new AI audio product.

So we are still at a stage where we can learn pretty much anything, as long as we are open and know that it may be basic knowledge we will need to build on and combine with much else.

– I see it in the software industry—AI is advancing, making things easier for us, and far fewer junior specialists are being hired. I think this will soon become a problem, when there will be no experienced people left to catch the errors and hallucinations the algorithms are doomed to produce.

– Exactly. Large generative language models are the reason why perhaps

as early as this year it will become clear that finding a job is no longer so easy.

The inertia of labor shortages in every field, in Bulgaria and around the world, will gradually fade. Big companies, especially software companies, are already reorienting and integrating many AI products—agents, chatbots that answer questions and write code. This will reinforce the trend of having no junior experts. The same has been seen in the media—the Fox group and other big media empires use ChatGPT both for editing and for generating trivial articles. At some point it will turn out that there are no beginners left to become experienced experts.

Youth unemployment will appear again, but of a different structural type.

Not as before, affecting people who have no experience and whom nobody wants to train, but people who were the first to feel the effects of artificial intelligence—lawyers, journalists, accountants, diagnostic imaging specialists, primary data processors.

Some kind of state intervention is needed here, because this is becoming a problem bigger than the companies themselves.

– Is there a way to predict which professions will disappear? Because we often speculate on the subject, and yet there have long been positions with no practical reason to exist, such as cashier or waiter. Having their tasks done by machines is no problem at all.

– Perhaps these professions won’t disappear, but will split in two—dehumanized and humanized. For example, going to the tax office in 10 years, we will be able to choose whether we want an automated process, a chatbot, or a humanized service that will be, say, 10 percent more expensive because a human factor is involved.

This will be purely psychological—driven by the desire for communication and human interaction, not by the quality of the service.

But there is categorically no reason for, and there are already almost no, graphic designers in America, people who process primary data, translators—unless they are Angela Rodel, the American translator of Bulgarian literature, and the work requires specific mastery—office managers, accountants. Also security guards at large production facilities and anywhere the necessary investment has been made in AI-driven security infrastructure, fingerprints, retina scans.

In the future, taxis will most likely be robotized in certain cities, first where the infrastructure allows it. It can’t happen soon in Naples or Palermo—it can in Saudi Arabia, or in Sofia.

The human role will rather depend on our needs and psychological wants, because otherwise we could go on for days living, receiving services or goods, without any human involvement.

– You mentioned translation, and it is a fact that AI already handles that task better than many people for whom it is a profession. Is there any point in learning foreign languages now, if you really aren’t Angela Rodel?

I made an effort to have my children start learning foreign languages as late as possible, because my logic is that it is far more important for them to learn Bulgarian in depth, in detail, with a rich vocabulary.

– Yes, there is still a need, if only because of that same neuroplasticity of the brain. It has been proven that in people who have a gift for languages, the more they learn, the more areas of the cerebral cortex develop, and they improve their overall level of intelligence. That holds, however, only if the person actually wants to learn. If it is forced and the pace of learning is slow anyway, then there is no need.

It is important to know your native language well, and it is important to know one that AI uses,

because it is clear how important the role of the prompt is, and the skill of detailing it with great precision so that it is effective. The more detailed and thorough our instructions to the AI, the more accurate, unique and individual the answer we will get. This matters especially for people who are creators—it is their personal signature.

But it is also important because of the overall cognitive decline and dumbing down.

With AI’s new capabilities as a voice agent, people will also lose the ability to write, to read, to use language correctly.

From now on, we will need a great deal of self-discipline to master things we have used for millennia and which now seem unnecessary. We will do it to preserve our intelligence, not because we need them directly.

– Isn’t it too late? Hasn’t the pendulum already swung for good toward brain rot—a cognitive decline that is not just a word of the year but, in my view, the most important phenomenon since our species came into being?

– It really has swung, and several generations are already its victims. I don’t want to be a prophet of doom, but I think there will soon be incidents of every kind that are a function of this “brain rot.” It will shock people—we always learn through bad experience, through cataclysms, through catharsis, not through successes and achievements.

There have been experiments in which children trust only their navigation app and not what they see. Mothers have burned their children because an AI hallucinated that food should be served at 42 degrees Celsius. A train derailed and released toxic gases into the atmosphere because responsibility had been diluted and there was excessive automation. Some such manifestations of “brain rot,” or perhaps one big incident,

will show people, belatedly, that they must take responsibility for themselves, for their own intelligence,

otherwise we really will see the decline and decay of rationalism and of our civilization.

– Or else a stratification between a minority capable of deep knowledge who control these machines, and everyone else, the vast majority of people, who will keep sliding down the chute of scrolling, consumerism, the easy path, brain rot.

– Yes, but if we reason in that direction in a very inhumane way, elites will emerge who control everything and are essentially a new type of human race. Yet they will have no need for the rest of the human mass, because it will have nothing to do for them.

Until now, always, even under the most inhumane regimes, slavery or Nazism, there was some need for the unprivileged, the downtrodden and the crushed—to build, to expand the empire. Whereas now,

if this dystopian future comes to pass, the remaining human mass will have nothing to occupy itself with. That would be the most ruinous and saddest moment in human history.

We can see how far robotics has advanced, fine motor skills like those of Boston Dynamics and Elon Musk’s Optimus; progress like that means they will be able to do everything that is possible.

In the past, some of

the elites flirted with the masses and took care of them out of fear of revolt, so that no social revolution would be “cooked up.”

But with these technologies of hypercontrol—AI that operates drones or is incomparable with humans in performing its tasks—that possibility falls away too.

– Meanwhile, along those lines, because of the way we communicate, social networks make us ever more manipulable, gathering or dispersing public anger. They steer it wherever they see fit.

– That social engineering is also very interesting. But

I also see the beginning of an attempt to prevent it.

A clear sign was a discussion at the London School of Economics a month ago with a guest from Harvard and a former MIT professor. The call was for serious regulation of social media—not as legal restrictions, but as financial mechanisms. Fines precisely for the fact that

social media deliberately exploit fragmentation and echo chambers, sustain the pathos of aggression as clickbait in order to turn it into a financial model and generate traffic.

This is already giving birth to a total dystopia, and we are living through it right now. In 1974 the United States had 4 television channels; in 1992 there were 28; now there are thousands—social media, podcasts, blogs, private radio stations. This fragments and dismantles the public sphere to such a degree that, in practice, we no longer have one. People cannot sense and take in the same message.

The same is happening in Bulgaria. Conspiracy theories, fake news, polarization, the splintering of the public space.

This takes away the big ideas, the big priorities. It replaces ideology with causes and turns politics into civic activism.

The conviction that acting in politics as civic activism for a few separate causes is enough.

But I think there will be financial sanctions as regulation, because politicians themselves understand that they won’t be able to govern. And that democracy is in a crisis that will give rise either to total, extreme authoritarian regimes, which we are already seeing, or to anarchy with some elements of democracy. However far the pendulum has swung in one direction, it is now starting to swing back.

– And yet many people still say: yes, technology is arriving, it has been destroying professions for two centuries, but new ones appear, there has always been work for everyone, and that won’t change. I’m convinced that’s not the case; far too many activities are being automated. But could they actually turn out to be right?

– I don’t believe so, because all the technologies and significant discoveries so far have been different. The stirrup made it possible to master the horse, for armies to restructure and no longer need foot soldiers, and that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Even if we talk about electricity, steam engines or anything else, each is a technology or a tool that permeates everything, but its basis stays the same as it was 200 years ago. It does not evolve.

Here we have a technology that, first, evolves constantly and, second, increasingly takes on the traits and qualities of an entity, of a new type of subject. It interacts with every other field and transforms it, and with each separate technology it produces many new qualities. With biotechnology, with CRISPR-Cas technologies, it makes total gene editing possible, the invention of new molecules, drugs, antibiotics—but also new parasites and pests. With the Internet of Things, it lets us create a digital twin of everything and run systems without human labor. With virtual and mixed reality, it makes the creation of worlds possible.

What we see here is not just development but exponential development. Our brain can’t even imagine what is going on. There is no way we can say it will create just as many professions. Yes, new ones are appearing—an AI product at a startup, if it succeeds, requires project managers, people who will deliver the service or product. These are new jobs, that’s a fact. But on the other hand, they are for people who are good specialists and can carry out their tasks, not just any jobs. And second,

it is only a matter of time before most of the tasks we perform are taken over.

The new professions are more in mentoring and coaching, meant to calm people down from this neurosis. It can already be felt. Perhaps not so much in Bulgaria or in Europe, but a permanent change that we cannot keep up with is undeniable.

It could only be done through a global human political consensus in which we say: even though the technology does everything better, people keep their jobs, even though they contribute between 5 percent and 10 percent to the product. But that is deeply anti-capitalist, against market logic, and imposing it as an effective solution would take either some boundless humaneness and humanism on everyone’s part, or a dictatorship.

– When OpenAI released ChatGPT, they were about 300 people, and they changed the whole world before our eyes. What kind of productivity are we talking about?! It’s discouraging. For me, a telling example was the experiment in which, in two consecutive poetry competitions, in two attempts, generated poems were chosen among the best. Examples like that make it seem very disarming to me to be only now learning to create. Why bother, when “it” creates better than we do, or at least better than the vast majority of us?

– I hear that answer from children. I visit some schools and they tell me: “It thinks better than me, it creates better than me.” This new kind of powerlessness can already be felt. Just as some judges in China, once the AI has ruled, don’t know how to refute it or keep it in check.

This is exactly where the self-discipline has to come in, so that

despite everything, we accept AI as a partner.

That we create together, that all products, poetry included, will be hybrid from now on.

Whoever wishes can impose limits on themselves and, as a poet, create entirely alone, and that will carve out different niches of art—human, humanistic, and hybrid, techno-humanistic.

But the most important thing is that we must not give up!

At least in the prompt, we must never stop trying to be as original as possible, to provoke, to experiment.

Because banning it… is no longer possible.

– That option is gone. At one of the poetry competitions they said they would require a declaration that no AI had been used. But since that can’t be proven, and the AI itself can write the declaration…

– It is precisely cases like these that will inevitably lead to regulations in which some intellectual property rights are awarded to the technology. Because without us, without our instructions, it won’t do anything.

– Because of all this, the role of today’s parents seems impossibly hard to me. It is clear that the first 7 years, the foundations, are essential, but after that… What I have formulated for myself as a parental mission in turbulent times is, first, to try to make things hard for them, so they don’t quickly grow fond of the easy path. And second, for them to develop a knack for being bored well. Not how they will succeed, but how, with free time on their hands, they can use it to enjoy a book or a game. We will need that soon, when for the first time we find ourselves the second most intelligent species on our planet.

– It really is very important today

for children to stick to the classical forms, to read.

“Brain rot” happens in children because on TikTok and other social networks the brain sees images. That way it works only with the right hemisphere; there is no transfer from the left to the right, which is what happens with reading—from the act of reading itself, through stimulating the imagination and visualizing in the brain, to transferring information from one hemisphere to the other. It shortens the path of information processing, and that is the heuristic.

The other thing really is creating challenges.

It is no accident that Elon Musk said his greatest fear was that his children would not have hardships. What we see in Generations Z and Alpha is that when they face some difficulty, it doesn’t mobilize them to succeed; their psyche is very fragile. They are more ready to give up and leave the problem unsolved than to look for a way. We are talking almost about this skill being forgotten altogether. So, yes, that is the direction.

– Perhaps these generations will also change the logic you mentioned—that we will pay extra for the human touch in a given task. Perhaps for them it will make no difference at all; what will matter is whether the task gets done, not whether there is a human on the other side.

– Perhaps it will be like that for the next generations, but for us—the transitional ones—there will be a need. On the other hand, COVID made us think that from then on we would work from home, would no longer go to offices and have normal human contact. It turned out, however, that it inflicted a huge social trauma.

There is no research on this, and I think it deserves reflection and study. The Spanish flu, which wiped out a third of Europe’s population, was an enormous trauma. Yet it appears in so few literary works, and it is analyzed so little.

Because of the epidemic came the Great Depression and the First World War.

In other words, the trauma is extraordinary, but it has not been brought to light. And the same thing is happening now.

– Definitely! Look how quickly we forgot the lessons.

– Yes, and I think it is the same now. Yet we would benefit from reflecting on the damage. So that we can learn the lesson: will we be able to carry on at all in this technologized world and dehumanize ourselves, or will it inflict such harm that our children and grandchildren will be totally depressed, even without understanding what they are missing…

– Will we indeed… Thank you for never ceasing to seek out the important questions about the future, and from the perspective of science. The ones we never seem to have time for, the very ones this site exists for… This conversation is worth continuing.

So far in the Digital Children series:

• Survey—children and parents in times of technology. Your opinion on the subject matters!

• Hedgehogs Are Born Without AI

• “An Era Is Coming in Which We Will Have to Reinvent Ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what is worth learning today? – futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why is a programmer advising parents on how to get offline? – Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

• What should education look like tomorrow? How do we choose the best teacher? – Evgenia Peeva, founder of Teach For Bulgaria and director of SoftUni Buditel.

• Children and books—why is this bond more important than ever? How do we light the flame of a love of reading? – Val Stoeva, creator of Detski Knigi (Children’s Books)

• “I want to tell today’s mothers to take it easier” – Krasimira Hadzhiivanova of Mayko Mila! (Dear Mother!)

If you have ideas about other important aspects, they are always welcome here too.

Coming up:

• How did we damage two generations, and can we find the middle path? – psychologist and children’s author Slavi Stoev
• Why and how does humor save today’s parents? – illustrator Neda Malcheva
• What is it like to be a father today? – communications specialist Mihail Stefanov
• Meet… AI – an experiment in which I will introduce my children to ChatGPT.

What kind of world will today's children live in?

What is worth learning today, and what would be a waste of time, effort and money?

When and how should we introduce them to technology so that both sides get to know each other without anyone getting hurt?

And when should we “introduce” them to artificial intelligence?

I will look for the answers to these and other important questions about children and technology. A long series of children's Digital Stories begins.

Here is why I believe it is vital to dig deeper into these especially important topics:

So far in the Digital Children series:

• Survey: children and parents in the age of technology. Your opinion on the subject matters!

• “An era is coming in which we will have to reinvent ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what is worth learning today? Futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why does a programmer advise parents on how to get off the grid? Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

• What should tomorrow's education look like? How do we choose the best teacher? Evgenia Peeva

• Children and books: why is this bond more important than ever? How do we light the flame of a love of reading? Val Stoeva, creator of Children's Books

• “I want to tell today's mothers to take it easier.” Krasimira Hadzhiivanova of Mayko Mila!

Play the video

Child's Play

They give us meaning, they give us pause… what kind of world will they live in? How do we prepare them for the future in a way that makes sense? Children in the age of technology. They are the first to find their bearings, yet they are also the ones to whom we must give the very best we can, because that is what the little flame of meaning demands.

This site exists because I want to do everything in my power so that my children can live in a more meaningful world. And who, if not us, holds the future in their hands?

The series begins with a survey aimed at parents of children under 11 and the people close to them. I will be grateful from the bottom of my heart if you go here and spend a few minutes telling me honestly what you think about each of these topics.

How many hours does your child spend in front of a screen? When does that become a problem? Do you think today's education system is adequate? Will artificial intelligence turn into a great opportunity or a problem for today's children? The floor is yours!

Play the video

My Childhood, Beautiful and Magical

While I wait for your answers, over the coming weeks I will hand the floor to the experts one by one. A series of interviews lies ahead, with people I consider authorities, and their answers show that they deserve it.

Only a few months ago, 750 people took part in the Digital Stories survey on how Bulgarians feel about artificial intelligence. The largest journalistic study on the subject (correct me if I am wrong) showed clearly that it divides us. And if there were two questions on which a consensus undeniably emerged, they were whether we discuss AI and its impact on society enough, and whether we are still far from the limits of what this kind of technology can do.

The fact is that remarkable news comes out in this field every week. And that we do not discuss it in enough depth—that is why this site exists, and I hope there will soon be more like it.

But amid all the commotion of technologies that challenge us in different ways and do ever better at activities that until recently were invariably human… What will the future look like for today's children? That is the next topic we will peek into in the series. With futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova, we will look toward a future in which inevitable, extremely complex social changes, important for every one of us, are looming.

Childishness

Yes, every attempt to peer into the future seems doomed to collide with the unexpected variables in the equation. And yet the only chance for it to look closer to the optimistic sketches and further from the dystopias lies in realizing that we cannot go on the same way in so many areas. That it is time to rethink ourselves as a civilization.

Which professions are doomed to disappear, and will the ones that emerge manage to make up for their absence? What is worth learning today, when technology remembers for us and is already able to translate, to help and to create better than most people? Is there any point in private tutoring today? In learning a foreign language? Or might the ability to learn, to look for connections, to go deep turn out to be more important than ever?

Education is meant to be a conservative institution that reacts to change more slowly. And yet today it in no way meets the demands of the modern person's success or happiness. We will talk about this with Evgenia Peeva, founder of Teach For Bulgaria, an education specialist with vast experience in a colorful range of roles on different sides of the textbook.

Can we change the system? And until that happens… how do we choose the best school, the right teacher?

Play the video

We Are All Children of Mother Earth

It is evident that parenting in technological times is very different from before. So far, this is one of the answers on which the people taking the survey are almost unanimous. And if we look more closely, we can find two phenomena that complement each other. On the one hand, topics related to parenting, to motherhood, to seeking help and advice on the relationship between children and technology are flourishing. On the other, as one of my special guests, Krasimira Hadzhiivanova, will put it, today's parent is lonelier than ever, drowning in a sea of information in which it is impossible to swim.

In the series of children's Digital Stories, we will look into the history of phenomena such as BG-Mama, Bulgaria's biggest online parenting forum, Mayko Mila! (roughly “Oh, Mother!”) and Mama Ninja, to trace the path the topic has taken online.

The internet era gave birth to another phenomenon as well: parenting as a source of smiles. A typical example is the artist Neda Malcheva, whose cartoons, drawn straight from real life, certainly help us find fellow feeling in our everyday woes. She is another of the series' special guests.

The Child Within

And if the “moms” are the engine of the internet era in Bulgaria… where are we, the fathers? How has our role changed? Have we gotten lost among the different models of fatherhood? How are our responsibilities different today, in technological times, when circumstances have changed so much and so unexpectedly?

I will reflect on this with communications specialist Mihail Stefanov, in search of yet another important nuance of parenting in digital times.

You surely know the feeling: you know you shouldn't shout, you know how you should treat your child… and you do exactly the opposite. As one of my guests in the series will say, you can have seven theories about raising children while you have zero children, but when you have seven children, you will certainly be left with zero theories.

Children's encounter with screens is a touchy subject. With psychologist and children's author Slavi Stoev, we will talk about how we have done irreparable damage to two generations already by introducing them to technology, and above all to screens, too early, too drastically and too thoughtlessly. Then came TikTok, and we keep underestimating the enormous problems we create for ourselves.

Play the video

The Phone as Babysitter

No, it is not normal to hand a baby a mobile phone or turn on the TV for it. Of course, there is no guarantee that this will cause problems, but the risk is very high. We will look deep into this topic and into the conclusions psychology draws today.

Life online is tempting, but… it is increasingly important to seek out the real deliberately. The human, the everyday, the natural. That is what I will talk about with Alexandrina Georgieva. For many years she was a programmer, then she stopped working to give birth to and raise her two children… Then she became convinced that something was wrong. Today she heads a foundation that helps children and parents find meaning offline.

How and why does this matter?

Where Are My Childhood Mice?

And what will change with the arrival of artificial intelligence? Can we be prepared? And can we prepare our children for the news in a field that shows impressive progress every week?

This answer is so hard that I will look for it in practice. I will introduce my own children to the advanced models to see whether they will find a common language more easily. What will it occur to them to use them for?

Quite a few interesting topics have piled up, and important Digital Stories await you. To close, there remains one focus that I believe will never lose its importance. Val Stoeva is the guest with whom we will talk about how to kindle a love of books in children.

Why is reading important? What is reading? How do we choose a book in the ocean of children's titles?

I am sure you have an opinion on this, as well as on the other questions raised. Over the coming weeks, important, practical and in-depth answers to each of them await you, from experts I would trust myself.

But your opinion as parents, teachers or people of the digital age who care about the future remains especially important. I will be grateful for every response, for every share of the survey, which you will find here.

If you have ideas about other important aspects, they are always welcome here too.

So far in the Digital Children series:

• Survey: children and parents in the age of technology. Your opinion on the subject matters!

• “An era is coming in which we will have to reinvent ourselves.” What will the professions of the future be, and what is worth learning today? Futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why does a programmer advise parents on how to get off the grid? Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

• What should tomorrow's education look like? How do we choose the best teacher? Evgenia Peeva.

• Children and books: why is this bond more important than ever? How do we light the flame of a love of reading? Val Stoeva, creator of Children's Books

• “I want to tell today's mothers to take it easier.” Krasimira Hadzhiivanova of Mayko Mila!

What kind of world will our children live in? And how do we introduce them to technology in the best possible way?

I have two kids, and this site exists because these questions won't leave me in peace. And there are so many other important questions that it is time we found answers to.

Let's talk them over, then go looking for the answers. Let's paint a picture together of digital parenting today and the way it looks toward the future.

The survey is aimed at parents of children aged 0 to 11 (and at grandparents and anyone else who has children in their life). Teenagers' issues are extremely important too, and their moment will come.

The survey is anonymous, and you can answer whichever questions you choose. You can also enter a prize draw for hand-picked books and T-shirts with the Digital Stories logo. The plan was to collect responses until February 28, but I decided it would be better to extend the deadline to March 20! Shortly after that, you'll find out the results.

This survey opens a series of important Digital Stories about children and technology. We'll talk about motherhood and fatherhood today, about the changes in education, about the professions of the future. I've invited remarkable guests from whom every parent (myself included) has a great deal to learn.

Heartfelt thanks for every response and every share!

So far in the Digital Children series:

• Hedgehogs Are Born Without AI

• “An Era Is Coming in Which We Will Have to Reinvent Ourselves.” What Will the Professions of the Future Be, and What Is Worth Learning Today? – Futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova

• Why Does a Programmer Advise Parents on How to Get Offline? – Alexandrina Georgieva of Offline Kids

• What Should Tomorrow's Education Look Like? How Do We Choose the Best Teacher? – Evgenia Peeva.

• Children and Books: Why Is This Bond More Important Than Ever? How Do We Kindle the Flame of a Love of Reading? – Val Stoeva, Creator of Detski Knigi (Children's Books)

– One of the ideas behind your academy is to get more young people into the education system. What does success depend on?

– The idea is to help people who want to step into the classroom figure out how to do it.

Teaching at a school today is more accessible than ever.

The law changed a long time ago: a person, even without a degree in education, can walk in and teach. Teachers and principals can bring in people like that and help them succeed in the school environment.

Our academy wants to help people gain all the knowledge and skills they need so they can teach with confidence. We're preparing various trainings that we'll run until the end of the year; one of them is on literacy. The teacher leading it already has a lot of experience and also teaches university students. She told me: “When I started, it was incredibly hard, because there were so many things I didn't know—the regulatory framework, the tools, how to plan a school year, a single lesson, what to do for the children, how to approach every case that came up.” Every young teacher runs into this and needs more support.

That doesn't mean universities don't cover it—students even have mandatory teaching practice—but from what I see and sense, there aren't enough tools and practices handed directly to teachers so they can bring them into their lessons.

For more people to sign up, they need to understand that being a teacher is something that can happen for them.

– What's the shortest path? Say I'm a programmer and I decide to teach—what do I have to do?

– I could recommend you to a school tomorrow, and they'd hire you on the spot.

That's the shortest path—find a school that needs someone like you.

Getting hired is easy; the next step is much more important, and that's what this is all about. The shortest path is to find a school that's ready to invest in you.

– What did your own path look like?

– When I went into a school for the first time, I already had experience training adults and running extracurricular activities for students. In my case it wasn't the shortest path, because I had 7 or 8 years of experience training sales staff; I had a background in teaching.

A friend of mine who's a teacher just told me: “Acho, we need someone to teach programming. You run extracurricular classes, let's give it a try.” We tried, and it turned out to work. And it's very

rewarding, because children are genuinely happy when they see a teacher who comes from the real world of practice.

If you have no teaching experience, I think the most direct path is our academy. In 9 months, from October to June, we'll give these people all the knowledge and skills they need to be ready to walk into a school.

I've already helped about ten people start teaching in various schools; two or three of them are still teaching. The others either lacked the knowledge and skills, or realized it wasn't quite for them. But they learned it the hard way.

Our preparation will help such a person start work as early as next September. What we'll add soon is that, together with partner universities, we'll enroll people in the postgraduate teaching qualification that many universities in Bulgaria offer. With it, you become a certified teacher in the subject of your university degree.

– What surprised you when you ended up in a school? What hadn't you expected?

– What surprised me most, perhaps, is that

I had to be not just the person who passes on knowledge, but also the one who listens, understands the students and supports them, even in their everyday troubles.

One day from my first school year comes to mind right away. An eighth-grade class walks in after some tough test. They all look tired, bored, sad. I'd planned to teach them something complicated, and I say to myself: “Okay, clearly we're not doing that.” “Do you want to play games?” Everyone's eyes go wide. “We're not doing anything today, I'll let you play. I just want you to keep it down.”

They were so happy, and the next lesson they came in so eager! They expected we'd play again, and I told them: “No, this time we're doing something else.” But because I'd listened to them, seen and understood that the moment wasn't right for teaching something new, the next time they were far more motivated to learn.

Back then I reacted on reflex, instinctively, without even thinking. Afterward I analyzed that situation a lot, asking whether it really was the right decision at that moment. And I realize that it was. Now I try to be more conscious when I make decisions like that, so that they serve the children's interests in the moment.

– Why do you think we've reached a point where the teaching profession is aging?

– In my opinion, because

for decades the teaching profession hasn't been held in the highest esteem.

When I was a student—and maybe this comes from my family—my parents always treated teachers with respect. I very rarely allowed myself anything disrespectful, and when I did, it was usually to look cool in some group. But it always made me sad.

After 2000, though, I think there was no longer that much respect for teachers. Because of lower salaries, because of many things that happened over the years.

In recent years the Ministry of Education has taken several very useful steps—it raised teachers' minimum salary, which immediately raised their average salary too. They created many tools to encourage learning and the development of these teachers, and they support principals.

Yes, it doesn't work equally well everywhere, but they've definitely taken good steps. A teacher's minimum salary is now, by definition, twice the national minimum wage. Which means that whenever the minimum wage goes up, teachers' pay follows immediately.

Right now it's around 1,500 leva (about $850) take-home; a teacher starts with that right away, no questions asked. And in a small town that's a pretty good salary.

And this isn't widely known. That's why most young people aren't interested, and naturally the profession ages. People in the system are overloaded across the board, especially math and science teachers, who take on more than the required hours. Simply because there's no one else. That's exactly why we created the academy.

– How many people need to enter the system for it to work well, be balanced in age, and have enough prepared teachers in every subject?

– Right now we have about 80,000 teachers. The National Statistical Institute gives an official figure of about 67,000, but only for general education schools; vocational high schools aren't included.

Those roughly 80,000 teachers cover, let's say, 90 percent of the need. Ninety thousand—in the perfect scenario 100,000—teachers would cover the country's entire need. It's a regulated profession; there can't be many more.

The bigger problem is that

15 percent of teachers are already of retirement age.

They shouldn't have to work if there are young people, and it's not a question of whether they want to—by law, if a person who isn't a pensioner can fill a given position, the school is obliged to hire them.

Those 15 percent are the system's huge need right now. That's 10,000 to 12,000 people. And on top of that there are another 20,000 to 25,000 who would be good to bring in.

At the same time, about 20,000 people graduate from universities every year with a teaching qualification, and far from all of them become teachers. Why? Partly, I think, because many are philologists who didn't enroll to study pedagogy. A very large share of them go in other directions—they become translators, consultants. Either way, there's a serious gap that universities aren't filling.

– How do you think we should teach technology? Every year, every month, something big happens in this field; lately it's artificial intelligence. But education is a conservative system that can't change the curriculum and introduce new things every year. How should we approach it?

– In our complete program, the first 3 of the 9 months—a third of the teaching—are devoted to digital skills for teachers. Three months focused only on that, because we believe it's crucial for these teachers to succeed in today's reality.

We believe technology should be taught within and through the other subjects, not as a separate subject.

Right now we have “Computer Modeling and Information Technology,” which starts in third grade. It teaches how to use a computer for specific tasks. To me that's very valuable, and it's important for a subject like that to exist up to a certain grade.

After that come the subjects “Informatics” and “Information Technology,” where programming is also taught. Under the national standard, HTML and CSS—the way websites work—must be taught everywhere in Bulgaria.

To me that's as valuable as history, geography, physics, chemistry. None of these subjects makes you a world-class chemist, but they make you someone who understands how the building blocks of that science work.

Once you finish school, you might have no interest in chemistry and never look at it again, but it's valuable to have basic knowledge.

Still, I think information technology shouldn't be taught as a separate subject; teachers in every subject should use it to teach. Then they'll naturally expect students to use it as well, to learn the subject or to demonstrate knowledge. That's why I think it's very important for every teacher to have digital skills they apply in their lessons, so that the students do the same.

– But that's hard to make happen, because of the system, because of the aging, and because there's a generational barrier when it comes to technology.

– We ran a training on media literacy and artificial intelligence—two elements of digital competence. How to spot fake news, handle information sensibly, check sources, and how to use the newest thing, artificial intelligence. A very large share of the teachers who signed up were older.

They were very eager to develop. I don't think age is what holds people back. Because a basic level of understanding of these technologies isn't out of anyone's reach. I don't think an older teacher would have a harder time grasping the basics and using Google search sensibly, with parameters, and showing students how to get to the right information quickly and easily.

These older teachers say their students are interested in these topics. They're not struggling with themselves, but with keeping up with their students, which is very sensible and very valuable.

The barrier is similar to the one with math. Lots of friends tell me they're not good at it; the bill arrives and they refuse to work out how much they owe. It's absurd not to be able to add up two or three numbers. It's running away from responsibility in one form or another.

I think it's the same at school with digital skills. They're something anyone can take on. Especially that basic level—absolutely every teacher can do it.

– As long as they have the desire and the energy to grow. You mentioned artificial intelligence—have teachers gotten used to the idea that it's not just something that will write homework, but can also be useful?

– The way we've built our training, we first tell teachers about the AI tools that help students. I say: “Students can use AI this way and that way. And—surprise!—they're already using it like that. If you give them this kind of homework, artificial intelligence can write it.”

First I even try to reinforce their impression that AI might be something bad, pushing it to such an extreme that they say: “Fine, so there's no getting rid of it—what do we do?” So they reach the realization that they need to know what this technology is.

Then I start showing them tools that help the teacher. The concept is that AI is a very smart neighbor you have no visual contact with. There's a door, you slip notes under it, and he slips others back. He's very smart, but he has no idea about you, he's never seen you, yet he can do very good things. You have to give him enough context, tell him what your goal is, so he can help. If you tell him, “Solve the problem my math teacher gave me,” he'll solve it without asking.

Whereas if the teacher sets the task so the student has to explain the solution—okay, you have a solution, but I want you to walk me through it. You wrote an essay; tell me why you reached these conclusions?

You can tell very quickly and easily whether a student has their own reasoning about it or is using an AI tool.

By the end of the training, I arrive at the point that artificial intelligence widens the gap between teachers who simply take some material and pass it on to their students, and those who really think, understand, and want to do something more with that class, with those students.

We finish the training with the “flipped classroom” tool. Many teachers tell us they worry that kids write their homework with AI. Don't give it to them as homework—give it to them as preparation for the next lesson. Give them the same tasks before you've taught the material. They'll find the answers, 50 percent of which will most likely be wrong, but you'll have room to discuss why they're wrong and to teach the new material after they've already used the “super cool AI tool.” And you can easily refute it, simply because it solved the problem wrong—2 plus 2 doesn't equal 5. I believe this can work in almost every subject.

– I don't know if you came across my experiment—I competed against ChatGPT to see who would score higher on the matura, Bulgaria's school-leaving exam, in Bulgarian language and literature. We both got pretty good grades, but I beat it by a little. There was an extra task: the examiner had to tell which answer was mine, and he managed it because of the literary interpretation essay.

– Even if it can write a good enough essay, I don't think that's bad. If that happens, we should start thinking at the level of the system.

Okay, until now the teacher has asked the student to write an essay; now there's a tool that does it.

Then the teacher can ask the student to build a set of such essays and find the similarities and differences between them—which AI can also do. But the analysis that happens afterward is a skill you need very often in real life. You see a huge amount of information and make connections; that's how the brain works—it tries to extract meaningful information from that data.

Fine, AI can do one of the tasks. Give the child 10 such tasks! Let them solve all 10, draw analogies, connect the ideas, understand why—or use 10 different AI platforms and see what the similarities and differences between these models are, why that is, what data they were trained on. That gives you the next tasks, which can do the same job as the literary interpretation essay.

As I understand it, its purpose is for the teacher to find out whether a student has understood what they're interpreting—whether they've read it, whether it has passed through them, whether they interpret it in a meaningful, logically coherent way.

– And whether they can express themselves fully.

– Expression is precisely what may be hardest. When you have a tool that can produce your means of expression for you, you lose interest in developing them, which means you may stop having them. Maybe that's where we need to think about how to improve the approach.

– When ChatGPT appeared, Bill Gates said it was a revolution precisely because of education and healthcare. Simply because a huge part of the world that never had access can now have a teacher or a doctor. Do you think big changes are coming to education because of AI?

– I don't think huge, revolutionary changes will come. Just as they didn't come after the introduction of the computer. There are evolutionary changes, a lot of good things are happening, but they're not a total transformation.

Gathering a group of children with one or more adults to do something together won't change, in my view. It will remain the way to consolidate or focus on a specific element of knowledge, skills or attitude.

Rather, what AI will help with, as I said, is flipping classrooms. First, so they're no longer: “I, the teacher, will now tell you, the student, what you need to know!” Good teachers don't do that now anyway, but it will simply disappear.

The setup where the teacher stands at the front and the children look at him will be turned around. Lusio Architects is a Bulgarian studio that designs schools, and they have many successful examples of how a learning environment can be shaped. It doesn't have to be children looking at each other's backs with one teacher at the front; it's more a space that can be rearranged. Small groups working on a task; a big circle for discussion; something happening in one corner, something else in another. Changing spaces that still let one or more adults with a larger number of children carry out some process.

That won't change. The physical need for these people to come together won't disappear, at least not because of AI.

It might happen with virtual or augmented reality, but that technology is still less developed.

– But we shouldn't underestimate it either.

– I think all of this will help such revolutionary educational systems emerge. I have an idea for one. The school year doesn't have to run from September to June—9 months of going to school every day and doing something specific, followed by 2 or 3 months of vacation.

A revolutionary system like that certainly won't be the mainstream way of learning, but I believe it will be very valuable for some. Children need rest, but not 2 or 3 months bunched into the summer. I imagine the year could be split into three four-month blocks, each with three months of learning and a month of rest.

And this learning doesn't have to happen physically in one place. For two months, assignments are prepared and students work remotely, being given the hard material they need to understand, learn and prepare. For one month there's intensive teamwork, where they physically gather in one place to put it all together.

With technology, this can be done very well. It requires a drastic change in the daily lives of parents, teachers, everyone, but I think it would help students who need more independent time and fuller rest. Without 3 months of vacation after which they have to start over.

– Quite a few new phenomena would help—remote work, for example. And again the problem is that we're talking about a very conservative system. I've also interviewed a teacher who has never set foot in a school. There's so much we could change and develop. The current school year was designed around farm work—so children could help out until September 15. Things change slowly and with difficulty…

– I think we'll see revolutions of this kind. And at some point, not necessarily because of technology, there will be successful examples that get applied more and more, even in the more conservative view of education.

And why is it conservative? I think about it in the context of why private tutoring exists. Parents want peace of mind that translates into: “I'm sure this child can handle a given exam.” It might be the matura or a class test. There are many specific moments when knowledge is tested, the child has to give 100 percent, and if they fail, it can have a very bad effect on their long-term development.

The system is conservative precisely because if something changes, it could be bad for an entire generation.

Even though the pandemic showed very clearly that overnight we switched to online learning, which is a fundamental change to the entire education system! And it turned out to work. Maybe not at 100 percent of what it would otherwise be, but it works. We'll see more and more changes like that.

– Interesting changes are coming because of technology and artificial intelligence… And I'll take the opportunity to invite you—and all readers—to take part in an important survey about our attitudes toward it, here. Thank you, and I hope many talented future teachers sign up at Sindeo!

Programming is still more than tempting: you set your sights on it and look for your future in the much-vaunted IT sector…

Our guest today is a programmer with 20 years of experience! He chose this path long before it became fashionable and so alluring. Until he realized he was tired of spending his time in front of computers, and that what he enjoyed most was being among children.

So, defying every stereotype, Bogdan decided to earn his living by looking after kids. It makes him happy and gives meaning to his days. The thought of going back to computers doesn't even cross his mind; for him nothing is more meaningful than the time spent with children…

Isn't it time we rethought a few clichés?

“You Get Up and Keep Going”

I find it hard, I admit. To see a little one who has tripped and is crying, and instead of rushing over to comfort them, to encourage them with words to get up and carry on.

It's not only true for the little ones; life is like that too. You fall and you get up, for as long as you can. Every fall makes you stronger and prepares you for the next time you rise. Bogdan Tsenov's story reminds us of that. I read about him on the site ladyzone.bg and grew curious to talk with him. About children, about new beginnings. About how important it is to choose your own path, the one that brings you pleasure and meaning.

He was drawn to technology from an early age. In 2002 he graduated from TUES, a specialized high school of the Technical University of Sofia whose students leave with everything they need to start working as programmers. Right at that time, however, he ran into a serious health problem. He spent weeks in the hospital, and the doctors were adamant that within five years at most he would be able to move around only in a wheelchair.

But Bogdan decided to get up. And to keep going. Twenty-two years have passed since then; he has been successfully battling his health problems, and not only is he not in a wheelchair, he is perfectly able to look after children and play with them in the park. He put his faith in alternative medicine, and his experience has turned out more than positive.

The Child Within

After high school he went on to the Technical University. But well before he received his diploma, he was already earning his living as a programmer. First he worked in his own company, then he moved to former clients… And so he stayed at the same company for 13 years! “It worked out well, it was stable,” smiles the “retired” IT specialist.

He specialized in technologies built around the PHP language, loved his work and found it opened up plenty of opportunities. Almost the entire time he developed online stores and other complex platforms. And he felt good—which is why he stayed with the company so long. He was the only programmer building the sites, and his bosses valued him. Well, since the system kept working, they had no wish to switch to more modern technologies, even though the software world had meanwhile changed from the ground up.

In the meantime Bogdan found love, and exactly ten years ago his daughter was born. His wife was also in IT, the family was happy, the little one was growing… and then came covid.

My Childhood, Real and Magical

“They locked us up at home to work. We looked at each other and looked at each other, and at some point it became clear that we had to part ways,” he recalls. He and his wife discovered they couldn't go on together, and soon the divorce was a fact. At the same time he felt inside that it was time for a change… He was tired of 20 years of programming without learning anything new, and the stress was becoming too much for him as well. “All that stress affected my health, which I was trying to hold together, to stay away from the wheelchair.”

Freshly divorced, Bogdan was also left without a job, but… his soul was at peace. For a few months he lived on his savings, until the question rose up in all its weight: Where to now? He was fed up with computers; he wanted to be around people, to breathe fresh air, to take care of his health, to have time for his daughter… And yet his experience and education were so closely tied to computers that there seemed to be no way out.

“When have I felt happiest?” our hero asked himself. And the answer came quite naturally. When his daughter was tiny, he spent a lot of time playing with her, watching her grow and learn new things… Couldn't he earn his living doing something like that?

Mary Poppins

“Yes, programmers are well paid, but the pressure is enormous too. Hurry, deadlines, new technologies. I told myself: ‘No, this isn't for me, I need something calmer.’ And what could that be? Children! We get along really well; for me the time with them isn't stressful, I feel great, we play, we talk, we learn.”

The idea came to him while he was visiting his parents. They suggested he seek advice from the woman who had looked after Bogdan himself when he was little. And she was blunt: there is huge demand for babysitters. Contrary to the stereotypes, many families specifically look for men, for one reason or another. Mostly middle-aged, calm, caring toward the kids. Just like him…

He found his first “job” minutes after posting his ad online. At first it was acquaintances who trusted him; then they began recommending him…

Before he knew it, two years had gone by in which Bogdan has earned his living babysitting by the hour. In the first months he went from home to home; gradually he set up a small center, where today he looks after four kids at a time. The new venture is clearly to the liking of his daughter too, who helps out, has fun with the little ones and teaches them new things. She is drawn to acting, and playing with the kids does her good.

A Child's Joy

For now he definitely doesn't miss programming. “The moment I decided to work with children, the first thing I did was make a web page. A babysitter with a website. So I write code for fun, and sometimes my old job calls me for some small fix.”

“As a programmer you create projects, people use them, something remains. But when it becomes an obligation, or you have someone breathing down your neck telling you how everything should be done, at some point it starts to weigh on you,” Bogdan says.

He doesn't rule out returning to the profession one day, but for now he has no desire to. And still, life can always surprise us. “Do you think ten years ago I imagined I'd be working with children?!” he smiles.

His first “client” was a three-month-old baby, whom he looked after by the hour for a year and a half. The children he cares for are younger than six—he decided so because after that it matters that they be in the hands of someone with the proper training. They spend their time playing—when the weather allows, you can often spot him with his charges in South Park in the capital, Sofia.

They learn to draw, to write, to solve puzzles. They read favorite books together. They model plasticine, cut with little scissors, make collages. Despite the babysitter's IT background, there's no electronics anywhere around—no singing toys, no TVs, no phones.

My Dear Little Giggler

“Children are so energizing! Even just watching them grow… One little girl was almost a baby when she started coming to me, and now she can put together a puzzle, draw, write a little. They grow up, and it's such a pleasure! It's like with a website—you start from zero, and in the end you have something good, meaningful, useful.”

But where does the stereotype come from that children should, almost by default, be looked after by women? It isn't hard to trace, but it's certainly worth questioning these days. Bogdan is often contacted by single mothers who want the male role to be present in their children's upbringing somehow.

“Maybe it's harder to be a man in this profession, because you run into people's fears. When you say a ‘male babysitter’ changing diapers, they get scared, and to me that's strange,” Bogdan says. And he goes back to the time when he and his wife had to choose a woman to help them look after their daughter. There were two candidates, and they invited them home to get acquainted. The first was an experienced teacher with a serious résumé… but as soon as she entered the room, the child hid. The second had no special training, yet she won the approval of her direct “employer” at once: the girl stuck to her and they began to play.

Children have a feel for people and are best able to choose whom they feel at ease with, Bogdan is convinced. “That's what matters most, that the child senses it. When they're small—three, four—it's important that they feel good, that they trust this person, and don't feel almost as if they're being punished.”

With Children at the Seaside

That's how a single mother of two kids chose him; the children were quite mischievous and would hardly have been left with an elderly woman. He copes, though, and being an outsider makes it easier for him to set boundaries.

“Very often, when a woman is looking after a child and it falls, she immediately starts wailing: ‘Oh dear God, what happened!’ Whereas it's easier for me to say: ‘Didn't I tell you you'd fall? You get up and keep going!’”

Looking after children who aren't your own turns out to be interesting. “Everything is radically different. My own child can always get under my skin somehow and get what she wants. With someone else's, the emotional bond is very different. The fact that the child is sitting there bawling, throwing a tantrum, whining—it doesn't move me. We go by the rules.”

Anyone who has looked for help with childcare knows how hard it is to find someone you can trust. From his experience Bogdan is convinced that there should be many more good people taking on this role. And men in particular. “Who should go into this profession? Someone who loves being with the little ones, who is gentle and attentive with them—children like such people. I see many people looking after kids, and it's obvious the kids irritate them… That's a problem! Yes, it's tiring, I get tired sometimes too, but you still always have to treat children well.”

Never to Grow Up

And so today Bogdan sometimes… hires a woman to pick his daughter up from school while he looks after the kids entrusted to him.

He is convinced the change came at just the right time, and today he certainly feels happy. “Things fell into place the way they should. The money that came from IT was very welcome. Now that my daughter is older, it's different. That was the right moment for the change. And it is risky—you drop everything you've built and set off to build something from scratch.”

So what does the programmer who chose to become a babysitter dream of? “To keep my peace of mind, my place. To do useful work for someone and at the same time feel fulfilled by what I do. Looking after children gives me all that, and I'd be very glad to keep doing it.”

What is happiness? I have a universal answer. Go to the park and sit down for a while. And watch the children playing their favorite game…

– What do you attribute the fact that Bulgaria ended up in first place after 20 years of international linguistics olympiads to? Good preparation, strong students, tradition?

– It's a combination. I think there are strong students everywhere. We can't say there aren't any in America or China. But

first you have to find them, then you have to fire them up, and finally you have to prepare them for the international level.

So it's a combination. Tradition comes into it too, because to get kids excited about this competition, you need lots of schools of thought. Most of the mathematics high schools and quite a few of the language high schools in Bulgaria have extracurricular work in linguistics.

We have national seminars and competitions. That creates an atmosphere that motivates the teachers. The pay is nothing to write home about, so it's important that there's something else that gives them a kick.

It's the same with the students. They value the chance to get into a good university afterwards, to have their success serve as a recommendation.

The second thing that motivates them is the party.

Making new friends, traveling.

We organize far more interesting events than other olympiads I've attended. Maybe that comes from the fact that my teacher, Prof. Ruslan Mitkov, had another hobby—he was a DJ.

When I started organizing the events, I got in touch with one of his DJ colleagues to invite him, and he snapped: “You linguists will never find a DJ in Bulgaria! You took the best one we had!”

As for the teachers—Ruslan understood very well how important it is to bring such a motley group together. There's no hierarchy, no financial motive; the point is to see your colleagues, to visit interesting places together…

– What won you over to linguistics personally?

– I got hooked in 9th grade at the English Language School in Sofia. My teacher, Prof. Ruslan Mitkov, walked into a math class and gave us a linguistics problem. He said: “Whoever finds this interesting, we're starting a club.”

A few of us went; some stayed, others quickly gave up. Later, as a university student, I decided to start such a club at the English Language School myself, because in the meantime Ruslan had moved to the United Kingdom.

In 1998 there were no competitions at all in Bulgaria. Those were dark years, and education had fallen into complete decline. Three of us teachers got together—from Sofia, Varna and Ruse—and for two or three years we went to competitions on our own.

– How did the national team come about?

– In 2003 the first international olympiad was held in Borovets, a ski resort in the Rila Mountains; I wasn't involved in organizing it.

Soon after that we began preparing more competitions and selecting a national team.

The process hasn't changed to this day. There are two stages—a national competition and an olympiad. The points are added up, then we invite the 16 best students to a two-week camp. At the end we run two tests, add them to the earlier results, and

the top eight become Bulgaria's national team.

In the beginning, the team leaders were the two teachers with the most qualified students. Since I was teaching at the Sofia High School of Mathematics, I was among them almost every year.

Later we decided that the team leader has quite a lot to do—register the country and the language, pay the participation fees, look for sponsors. At the Union of Bulgarian Mathematicians we decided there should be one person who serves a term as leader of the national team, with the second being the teacher with the most students. That's how it is to this day. And I've been elected leader for a third term.

– Why do people often say the competitions are in “mathematical linguistics”? Is that wrong?

– It isn't correct; they're just in linguistics. The “mathematical” part was added for formal reasons.

Linguistics is the science of language. We talk about it when the subject is not a single language—that's called “philology”—but several: the connections between them, their development, language groups and families, similarities and differences, changes.

Mathematical linguistics is just one branch, which was very popular in the second half of the 20th century. With the very first computers and programming languages, two big questions arose: can a computer understand human, natural language, and can it translate?

That's where mathematical linguistics comes in—a discipline that describes linguistic phenomena using mathematical methods.

That model, however, never really worked. The best-known example is from Canada in the 1980s. They developed software that translated a restricted language—only weather forecasts, from French into English.

Today's translation programs don't use mathematical methods; they rely on neural networks. They're fed information and find the patterns on their own.

– What do the problems look like?

– Every olympiad problem is solved through logic; you don't need any math. You get a text in an unfamiliar language—whether it's one longer passage or separate sentences or words—along with a translation into a familiar language, in this case Bulgarian. Based on these translations, the students have to draw conclusions about certain phenomena in the other language and translate new sentences to show they've understood.

No math at all, pure logic!

Usually the problems look for phenomena that don't exist in a language the solver knows. For example, Slovenian has the so-called dual number. In Bulgarian we only have singular and plural, while there they have a form for exactly two objects of a given kind. That can make for a not particularly difficult linguistics problem. To spot it, you don't need any math. You look, you think, you underline, you organize it in a table. And that's it!

– How seriously do the big countries take the competitions? I'd imagine that in any field they set their minds to, they could invest more resources than we do and turn out stronger?

– Every country approaches it differently. The big question is where there's an initiator to push the whole thing forward. Nowhere in the world is linguistics a compulsory school subject—it's there at universities, but not in secondary education.

The question is whether the local organizers manage to make a good selection and go through the whole chain—find, fire up and train the students.

In the US this worked thanks to a Bulgarian who, sadly, passed away a few months ago—Prof. Dragomir Radev.

He built their national team; the US and Canada select their teams together.

Dragomir put an enormous amount of effort, drive, connections, time and a little piece of himself into making it happen. There are people like that in other places, but not everywhere. That's my explanation for why there's no progress in China, for instance—they ought to be beating everyone. Since they do it in math and informatics, if they sent the same students after two weeks of training, they'd crush us, if not the first time, then by the third. And they've been taking part for quite a few years now and don't perform well. Maybe there just aren't enough driven people…

– Even so, it's astonishing that we're first in a field like this. Especially against the backdrop of our education system.

– We're first in one of the rankings. There's no official international ranking; this one is from Wikipedia, but it's accurate—we checked it. By total number of medals, for example, the US has more than us, and also if we count medals relative to participations. In medals per capita, we're indisputably first. It depends which ranking you look at.

– To me it makes sense for this one to be authoritative—after all, that's how countries are ranked at the sporting Olympics too.

– What amazed me was the reaction. When I posted it,

I wouldn't have expected 7,600 shares on Facebook! I didn't believe that was possible.

I don't know how nobody has called to offer me a job as PR for the Council of Ministers or some big company.

– Maybe we need something to be proud of, even though patriotism has lately become a touchy subject. Truly very few posts can collect that many shares—and with a positive charge, at that.

– Our education system really is in a sorry state. But, first, these are students from mathematics and language high schools, which are many times better off than the rest of the system.

And second—the problem lies in the very idea of secondary education in Bulgaria after the end of socialism, in this democracy we supposedly live in… I don't see much democracy, but never mind.

The idea of the Western education we aspire to is not to support outstanding students, but to have a solid foundation without too many holes underneath.

Before that, during the Cold War, every talented child was specially nurtured.

If someone was seen to have talent, the system itself supported and promoted them. There were all kinds of opportunities, an established structure. The Western model doesn't have that, and the reason isn't a bad one. There, too, a gifted child will find support, but it comes from the private sector. If you rely on business, things are less stable. A crisis hits, and the first thing to have its funding cut is initiatives like these.

– Yes, but the system also fails at the basic task you mention—providing a foundation. The proof is the schools where every single graduating student got a flat 2, the failing grade, on the matura, Bulgaria's school-leaving exam.

But there's another divide too, between children for the humanities and children for the sciences. I, for one, had to turn 33 to find out that I could program too. Is it right for such a stereotype to exist, or does a field like yours show there's no basis for it?

– That's quite a complicated question. Splitting students into tracks exists in most countries, and there's a tendency for it to happen ever earlier. The idea is that a student studies more of what's close to them, what interests them, and doesn't waste their time, roughly speaking.

If someone plays the violin perfectly, they can become Mincho Minchev, Bulgaria's great violin virtuoso, without solving quadratic equations.

Whether it's right or not is a very complicated question, because many people, like you, reorient themselves at some point long after they've graduated.

But there's something else where education is breathing its last all over the world—the idea that you learn something and then apply it for 40 years. That's how it worked in 1900, when the world barely changed over those 40 years. Now there isn't a single field where that's true, never mind the IT sector. Medicine? What about cars? What's stayed the same after 40 years? There's a computer inside, nobody lets you touch it, it's full of sensors. Back in the day you could replace everything on your Moskvitch yourself.

The entire education system has to change from the ground up.

– Who does better at linguistics competitions—the “humanities” students or the “tech” students?

– I can't speak to tracks, but the kids from the mathematics high schools definitely stand out.

– What becomes of the competitors afterwards? I assume everyone who's made it onto the national team has no trouble getting into prestigious universities.

– They get into universities, but, to me at least, that's not what becoming of someone means. They're very different. Quite a large share of them work with information technology in one way or another. A few continue with linguistics, but there are some. Their profile is no different from that of successful students from the mathematics high schools.

Not that many leave the country—far more did in the 1990s.

– And how have the generations changed over the 20 years you've been preparing competitors?

– I'm someone who really hates the idea of “Ah, what students we had back in the day, and look at this lot now!” Come on, enough!

But there really are differences. Back then they were much more disciplined and more obedient. They came to the courses; now they come if they want to. Homework—they do it if they want to. However,

that doesn't mean they're not sharper or don't do well. The results show it.

Education has changed too.

Interestingly, their relationship with music has also changed. Today they've had a phone in their hand since primary school; they're never alone. They no longer feel the need to put on some music and listen to it deeply. To have nothing else to do, to have 10 cassettes they can listen to.

They smoke and drink a lot less. Twenty years ago, when you went on a trip or to a competition, the first thing you did was get drunk. It's not like that anymore; all the policies restricting smoking and alcohol apparently do have an effect on young people.

They've become more self-assured, more open in the good sense.

They have opinions and are ready to defend them. Before, of course, they also thought and didn't keep quiet. But now I hear their opinions and arguments far more often than I used to.

– As large language models advance, will the skills from linguistics competitions become more valuable, or will algorithms take over these tasks?

– Ted Malchev, who has just graduated, won a silver medal and is heading to Harvard, took part in a research project on software that solves such problems. That kind of thing can probably be done; the question is who needs it. These problems aren't a real challenge for the science of linguistics;

their purpose is to assess a certain way of thinking in young people.

And I don't think making software that does it for them would have any practical use.

– And what about decoding rare or dead languages? In one of Ted Chiang's stories, aliens arrive and the biggest challenge falls to the linguists, who have to decode their way of communicating.

– Artificial intelligence helps. But can a linguistic problem be solved with a program? It doesn't seem likely to me. Languages fall into two types—those we already know everything about, and those we know almost nothing about. The latter are the ones that had no writing; the language dies, and what we'd need to reconstruct it isn't a computer but a time machine. We try reverse modeling from descendant languages, but there's no guarantee we're right, and that isn't science.

Phenomena in languages don't happen on command; they have their rules, but you can't apply reverse engineering.

Can artificial intelligence decipher some unknown scripts? I doubt it, because there aren't many undeciphered scripts left—and those are the ones with the least data. That kind of technology helps when you have huge volumes of information.

– Where do you think it's heading, the fact that we've all started communicating so much in English? That we've turned it into the global lingua franca…

– Language is a natural phenomenon; it can't be controlled. It changes, it develops. It's alive! We all know how our grandparents spoke—we don't speak that way. Leave aside the foreign borrowings; you won't hear anyone say “кому е нужно” (komu e nuzhno, an archaic “to whom is it needful”). You'll understand it if you've read Bulgarian literature from 150 years ago, but that's as far as it goes.

Another example: how the big differences between dialects, between the speech of Western and Eastern Bulgaria, disappeared.

Our grandmothers, who traveled far less, spoke very differently depending on where they grew up. You can still sense it in young people—some sounds and words are pronounced differently—but the differences are much smaller.

The other example of

how language can't be steered artificially is the full definite article. Nobody has ever spoken that way!

Sofroniy Vrachanski, the 18th-century cleric and writer, invented the completely artificial rule that it should be written after the doer of the action. (In standard Bulgarian, a masculine noun takes the “full” article -ът/-ят when it is the subject and the “short” -а/-я otherwise.) The truth is that in one part of Bulgaria people said “-at,” in another “-yat,” in a third “-ya.” Every country needs to merge its dialects into a standardized language, which is why the norm is what it is. It took hold, but nobody speaks that way! Most people can't even manage to write that way. Students haven't got a clue how to apply it, and I don't blame them. It's so unnatural, downright superfluous.

There are other similar cases in history. French words have such wacky spelling—one sound is written with four or five letters—because monks were paid by the letter. So beaucoup has eight letters and only four sounds.

Is that good or not? We can't stop it. Language develops. There are state norms; in our case they're set by the Institute for Bulgarian Language at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

– These are all important topics for Digital Stories too—our withered word-coining, spelling and the notorious full definite article. Heartfelt thanks, and good luck at the next competitions! I hope you hold on to the lead and extend it!

– I can't help starting with this topic—I don't know many people who have never been inside a school. Why did you and your parents decide on this?

– I was little, nobody asked me back then. My parents are divorced, so the decision was mainly my mom's, and she discussed it with

my grandmother and grandfather, since we live close to them. Both of them are teachers.

The idea came from various family acquaintances who had also decided to teach their children at home. One reason is religious—we are Christians, and we believe that since the Word of God says “teach your children the whole law,” it means doing it in the best possible way. It turns out that school never gets to God's law, to morals and values, so it isn't a very good option.

Other reasons have to do with quality and environment. Homeschoolers abroad, and here in Bulgaria too, achieve very good academic results, because for all 12 years they have been able to focus.

Homeschooling is individual; we can focus on particular subjects or fields.

– Your mother must have had to devote herself very seriously to your education.

– To some extent, yes. She was a lot more involved in my education than, so to speak, the average parent. On the other hand, that only lasted up to a point. From a certain age I became fairly independent. In the morning we would just agree on what there was to study and quickly go over the lessons to see whether there were any unfamiliar words, since some of them were in English.

Later she simply handed me the textbook. And every now and then I'd say I needed the next test. Some homeschoolers even go a step further and take the tests and fill them in themselves. But we're programmers, we somehow want the testing to be scientific, investigative. No contact with the test before you've read the material, and no reading the material during the test.

– My knee-jerk reaction—and I'm sure I'm not the only one—is that such a decision takes a toll on socialization. Because that's no small part of school's role, with all its imperfections.

– The socialization question comes up so regularly, I get asked it in every interview…

To some degree it's true, you really do have contact with fewer people. On the other hand, it's not at all clear

how much socializing with people of the same age and the same background corresponds to the real world.

For example, at our company I was the youngest on the team for a very long time. Now there are younger people too, finally… In general, my socialization in the real world has always been with people of different ages and different interests. I find that more enriching.

The parent can also do quite a lot to give the child a social environment. Signing them up for courses, lessons, sports. These things help. It's not as if parents say, “We'll study at home and never go anywhere.”

But even if they did say that, homeschooling would in that case serve those parents' interests. In my view, we shouldn't force all children to be in one place, under one system and one standard. There can be other ways.

– And what kind of children do you think it's a good option for? Ones who stand out in some way?

– The question is more what kind of parents. Because you can't tell whether a child stands out when they're 4 or 6. If they do, some kind of individual approach certainly helps. But

even if they don't stand out, this way children stay closer to the family. It's a matter of a conscious decision and clear values.

– Many schools can offer an individual approach as well.

– True. In Bulgaria we don't have all that much freedom on this, but some of the people who have studied homeschooling in the U.S. write that it is, on the whole, inefficient. It's much more efficient for parents to have a choice and send the child to teachers they've picked, or to hire teachers together with other parents. But the point is that, once again, control lies with the parent, not with the state saying, “We'll all study this and that.”

– And when you head toward a field where your parents aren't specialists, isn't that a problem? Say they're philologists, but you have a programmer's skills.

– Personally, I haven't had that problem. My parents, my grandmother—they're all in programming. Even if I'd wanted to do something else, I would still have learned this. But even otherwise there's a solution. For children with very different interests, you can always find a teacher, or someone to intern with and observe. That way they can both judge how interested they are and learn something. The parent doesn't have to be the only teacher.

– I read that you won a programming contest and then they stopped letting you in, because you weren't part of the system. Is that really what happened?

– As a kid I started doing competitive programming at Telerik, a Bulgarian software company. After a few in-house contests without top placings, we decided I'd go to Veliko Tarnovo and compete at the Winter Informatics Festival. As it happened, either the problems were easier for me at that point or I'd learned something in the meantime, but I took first place.

For the first time, the Ministry of Education and Science realized there were people outside the system who were, in this case, taking places at national competitions, and decided to take measures. Under the rules, the winner's school was supposed to get a scholarship, and since they didn't want to set a precedent, they said it couldn't be done.

I was turned away from subsequent competitions, including ones I had taken part in before. But word of the case got around, and I was invited to the privately organized competition “I Can, Here and Now,” even though I was a year below the minimum age. I went and teamed up with some students. We worked well as a team. The first year we came second, then first, and after that I started an internship at the software company Obecto.

– Don't you get tired of programming? I rarely see people who've been doing it for more than 10 years and still do it with passion, with eagerness…

– The mechanical writing of code itself really does get tiring. At some point, when you write the same function for the 40th time, you start wondering, “Am I doing something wrong, or is this really repeating itself? Wasn't the whole idea to automate what repeats?”

On the other hand, that's not the only thing that keeps you interested.

Right now I'm working on more interesting projects, things that haven't been done before, in the blockchain space, for example.

You can always find something new to get carried away with.

– I read that you're finally thinking of studying formally, that you'll start a university degree. Why?

– I focused on programming from about the age of 7, and from a certain point on it was the only thing on the agenda. In the meantime I missed learning some subjects to the depth I'd like.

Especially history. I feel it's my weak spot, and I think it will be useful for my general knowledge.

– Does one need to study history to be a good programmer?

– Well, to write the code itself you don't need it. Maybe just a bit of the history of the concepts you use. Why we call something a “class” or an “object”—things you read about in passing and remember at some point.

But as a person you need it. First, when you talk to others on the team, you need some common ground to start a conversation from. Someone can't mention “World War I” while you have no idea what happened back then.

And later you need it when you start organizing, creating new projects and products, planning. Then it's important to be able to find your way in the historical and political situation. And my sense is that both have a lot to do with history, especially the most recent history, which is what I lack most.

– But you could still catch up on that the way you're used to. It doesn't have to be in some academic form.

– Yes, but I want a theoretical grounding in subjects like higher algebra, higher mathematics, logic. I feel they largely set the course of programming, and they're not something I can grasp just by reading random articles.

I have some understanding; I can read enough of a paper on some algorithm without getting lost in the terminology and the complex algebra. But still, I want to understand it better.

To dig deeper into the theory, so that I too have a chance to say something to this world.

– What kind of projects do you dream of developing?

– Programming languages, compilers. The tools we use to explain the programs we write. We have quite a few right now, but most are object-oriented. I share the view of other programmers that object-oriented programming may not be the best, but I can also see it offers many conveniences when working in a team.

I feel there may be some concept which, if we borrowed it from logic, could help us achieve something better.

– What do you like about blockchain technologies, why did you turn to them?

– To some extent, blockchain showed that we don't need a centralized system to be able to work together. That it can be done another way. But it's a fact that decentralized systems still haven't been built to their full potential, and that makes me want to have a go too.

– A few years ago they promised a lot of applications for blockchain, but so far the only one that has stayed mainstream is in finance.

– I think the speed of this type of system is still too low and the costs are high. I can't, for example, use blockchain to host a blog if every time someone reads an article they have to pay 10 stotinki (about 5 cents). This isn't a physical library—it's on the internet, after all.

For now, blockchains themselves are optimized for security, decentralization and anonymity, but in the process they lose other important practical qualities, like high speed and low cost.

– I see here one of the solutions to what I think is the biggest problem technology has brought us—the way we take in information. And it will get more serious as artificial intelligence becomes more convincing at every form of fakery. Perhaps blockchain holds some possibility of preserving authenticity and credibility.

– I'm thinking along those lines too. It was a problem before as well—how long has everyone been saying we can't just trust everything that's written? But until recently there wasn't such a need to verify information.

Today we may no longer need centralized media.

Because the way we take in information changes a lot when you can find anything you're looking for online.

Maybe not blockchain in its current form, but cryptography can certainly be useful for tracing exactly how a piece of information came about. For example, that an article about some forest being cut down is based on information from such-and-such a source, from this eyewitness.

– What made you start teaching programming courses for children?

– I myself started programming at 7, through a course my mother organized for homeschoolers. I suppose she saw that I liked it and that's why she decided to turn it into a course for more children.

Somehow I wanted to repeat the gesture, to do the same for someone else.

I didn't quite know how to start, although I'd made a few attempts. The nudge to organize a course came from a program in which we not only write books but also start our own businesses. Selling a book isn't easy, so it's better to learn how to sell with something else first and then try with a book.

I had to come up with a business of my own, and the idea of a programming course was the most realistic. It turned out quite successful, and I hope I'll be able to keep it going.

– Why did you sign up for a writers' course? What did you write?

– Well, I've also talked to people with long programming careers who, at 40, wonder why they've wasted their whole lives on programming and, say, become shepherds. So I looked for another hobby, not just programming.

I liked the idea of writing, as something I could do alongside programming. I wrote a novel in English, since the whole program I mentioned was in English. It was historical, which is strange. History and literature were my weak subjects; I don't know what possessed me to sit down and write a historical novel. It's set around Smolyan, a town in the Rhodope Mountains, in an undefined past period between Ottoman rule and communism.

– I've interviewed all kinds of people about artificial intelligence, even a priest. I'm an atheist, but you mentioned you come from a religious family. Do you think religion has a place while we develop technology? What can it give us in developing artificial intelligence?

– Religion has a lot to do with ethics, in general. In developing technology you also have ethics, relationships with other people, moral values.

Religion can give us the starting point for ethical frameworks. It's a bit hard to say

in a democratic world like today's, where everyone is right and has their own truth.

Christianity at least, as a religion, defines an absolute from which everything follows—principles, presumptions, values. When it comes to developing, say, artificial intelligence, we could judge what is and isn't proper for a robot, or a programmer of robots, to do, again starting from that absolute. And I think that's considerably more effective than trying to grab some fragment of truth through democratic voting, endless debates or thousands of experiments.

– What are the most important skills a ninja mom needs?

– One of my sons came up with the nickname. He used to draw comics—he must have been seven or eight—and the characters were his father, his brothers and me. He drew me as a ninja. I'll admit I felt a little hurt. I thought: “Oh, why couldn't he draw me as a princess, or as Wonder Woman, say, instead of some ninja?” So I asked him, and he calmly explained that I was a ninja because I was fast, quiet and

on top of everything, I always catch him when he's plotting some mischief.

So apparently those are the qualities.

The nickname caught on because, I think, all mothers recognize themselves in it. When we have to, we become brave and fast, and nothing can stop us—ninja moms. The rest of the time there's no harm in being ladies, or housewives, or whatever anyone wants to be.

– And how do the most important skills of a ninja dad differ?

– Fathers today are far more present in their children's lives than they were twenty or thirty years ago. I've seen this positive change in our own dad at least, and the blog and my page let me stay in touch with hundreds, not to say thousands, of parents.

It used to be accepted that women raised the children, even though they worked too. Fathers… it was good, it was a gift from God, if they decided it was proper to “help” around the house. Other men even looked down on it.

For me, a real ninja dad is one who is present in his child's life not just as the person who takes them to the movies once a week. He takes part in all the countless obligations on an equal footing with the mother.

– How has the internet changed parenting?

– It's much easier to find all kinds of information and different points of view and to sift out what suits you. It's much easier to find people with similar interests and make friends with them, and not only virtual ones.

There are downsides, of course. One of them is

the pursuit of perfect parenting and the guilt of not measuring up to your role models.

But with time, quite naturally, that corrects itself and the fake role models fall away.

Another downside is that parents now worry not only about whom their child might meet on the street, but also on the internet. Every era comes with new problems. And with new solutions.

– Tell us some interesting stories from readers who've reached you online.

– There are hundreds of them, but I can say one thing about all of them—our family stories and the readers' alike.

Even the most unpleasant, embarrassing and confusing situation isn't so terrible if, some time later, you can tell it at the table and laugh about it with friends.

That point of view has helped me a lot over the years. That's why I always tell it to mothers and fathers when they share a problem.

The kid threw up on the dog and the dog ate it? Your husband's favorite sweater shrank? You dropped the car keys in the washing machine? You brushed your teeth with hair-removal cream because you were so sleepy you couldn't see what you were doing?

Imagine telling it to a group of friends and everyone laughing, you included. Well, yes, it's unpleasant, but it's also terribly funny. Like 90 percent of all the little things we get worked up about at home.

A friend once

told me I was as patient as an ox. To this day I don't know whether it was a compliment.

Patience may well be a parent's most valuable quality. But don't worry—even if you don't have it, like it or not, you'll develop it.

– Should we protect children from technology?

– No. They live in a world that is technological and will only become more so.

Protecting them from technology is like not teaching them to read so they won't read some bad book

and go down a bad path. Not protect them, no, but we do have to teach them to use it to their benefit, not their harm.

– When does using the phone as a babysitter become a problem?

– You mean giving the child a phone so they won't make noise, say when you're at a restaurant or a bank, right? I've done it, of course. But yes, it becomes a problem when there's no sense of measure. Same as with the TV and everything else. “The dose makes the poison” is a good principle, and not only in pharmacy.

– Your eldest son is a programmer. When did you realize that's what he'd do? How did you take it, given all the stereotypes around this profession of ours?

– I always knew he'd work with something to do with computers. He was practically glued to the computer, and not just playing games but making things—it interested him.

He talked me into letting him build me a website, just like that, so he could learn. At one point he enrolled in psychology—now that did surprise me. But his father and I never stopped him or talked him out of anything. All knowledge is useful and sooner or later it comes in handy.

– What's behind the success of your site?

– Lots of people write well and lots of people have something to say. Let's say my great talent is gathering such people together.

– Your children belong to quite different generations, so you have perspective. What changes most—in qualities, interests, worldview?

– I can speak for my own children; I don't know whether these observations hold in general. But it seems to me that

they're becoming more and more independent and standing up for themselves more and more, and from an earlier age.

They're much better informed—they know what's dangerous for them. Recently my husband was trying to persuade the boys to go to their youngest brother's match. It was a very interesting dialogue; I laughed out loud. After hearing him out, one of them told him he was manipulating them with “guilt tripping,” and the other added there were also elements of “gaslighting.” Our eldest son still comes when his father asks. I don't know what the youngest will answer when he grows up. I don't know whether that's good or bad. But I wish I'd once had the chance to defend my position like that in front of my own parents, who were quite strict and always right, even when they were wrong. I'm at peace knowing my children will never let anyone manipulate, boss or use them. That's not a bad thing.

– Has online advice been useful to you in raising your children?

– Yes, of course, both online advice and books. But always in moderation and always with critical thinking. It's good that the information is there; being able to sift through it is priceless.

– And what's the most destructive advice you've come across?

– The most awful advice I ever got was from my father, who was a very loving and responsible parent, but also a strict one. They never hit me or anything like that, but I was always afraid of them, which isn't the same as respect. Let me get back to the question. My first son was a gentle child, and I had a lot of help with him. The second, though, has always been a kid with character, and once he stood up to his grandfather. And then

my dad said: “You have to break him while he's little. Children are broken when they're small.”

And I looked at him in astonishment: why on earth would I want to break my child? Can't he just be stubborn? People are different, after all. I don't want a broken child.

After that I stopped leaving the kids with my mother and father. I was worried they might go and break him on me. With good intentions, of course. They weren't bad parents, just rather conservative.

Still, I owe some of the good traits in my character to their mistakes, so it isn't so terrible for parents to make mistakes. We're most likely making mistakes as parents too, but that will only become clear a good while from now.

– Can the mother-in-law, that legendary villain, turn into… a friend?

– She can. My son's mother-in-law and I became best friends. And the funniest part is that our children divorced, but the two of us stayed friends. Which, of course, isn't a must—sometimes you click with someone, and with someone else you may not get that close; it's a matter of character and interests, too. But even if there's no friendship, there has to be respect and consideration. That part is a must.

– Is the institution of the grandmother still alive?

– What a lovely question. Grandparents are a source of fascination for children. And the other way around. They're a leap into a completely different time and generation. I think contact between grandparents and grandchildren is equally good for everyone involved. And in that sense—yes, the institution is alive.

It has changed a lot, because very few grandparents take an active part in raising the children—not only because people rarely live in the same town these days, but also because the grandparents are still working. But whether you see your grandchild every day, every week, or just take them somewhere on vacation in the summer, that contact is important and rewarding.

I hope all mothers and fathers get the joy of a grandchild. It really is very different.

– Why are there so few women in politics and in leadership positions in Bulgaria? We've never had a woman president or an elected woman prime minister…

– Because to a large extent we're traditionalists. Once we had workmen over. I work from home, so we decided I'd deal with them—keep an eye on them, give them tasks. On the first day they came to ask where my husband was. I said he was at work, but why? They wanted to ask him something about a shelf. I answered them, and they still insisted on asking him. It was very strange; I've rarely felt discriminated against, but those workmen, otherwise very polite, did exactly that. They treated me as if I were feeble-minded and couldn't tell them where to mount a shelf. How do you imagine

those people voting for a woman president, when they don't think a woman can judge where a shelf should go?

– I have two little ones, aged two and five. What should I never, ever say to them?

– Oh, may they be healthy and well!

I never tell mine that they won't be able to manage something.

Even when I'm not sure they'll manage, I don't tell them. Even when I'm sure they won't, I don't tell them. Let them try. And it's amazing how often they do far better than we expected. Sometimes I think our children turn into good people not because of us, but in spite of us.

– What's the best thing about having lots of children?

– The best thing is that the emotions are always mixed, and even if you're worried about some particular story with one of the kids, at the same time there will always be joy about another. And

it's never boring, never ever. You live several lives at once.

– What's the strongest argument for not stopping at one or two children? Does the motivation always have to come from within?

– I don't know how this will sound, but I don't talk anyone into having children. However a person feels about it, that's how it should be. It's not something we should do under pressure because society or our mothers are pushing us. The only thing I can say is that

I don't know a mother or father who has held their baby and said: “Ugh, why did I ever have you, go back where you came from!”

There are probably some like that; I just don't know any. But it isn't easy either. A friend once accused me of making it look easy. It isn't. Not for me either. Only you manage, and not just manage—you have a pretty good time along the way.

– As someone who has contributed personally… how do we get out of this wretched demographic crisis?

– Maybe a good step would be for people to feel more secure. Bulgarians love children. But we have no sense of security—we don't trust our healthcare or our education, nor are we confident our children will grow up in a safe environment. Maybe if we had that kind of peace of mind, people would have more children.

Around me there are many families with more than two children, but they're all people with professions and businesses that give them some independence to raise their kids without relying on the state. We manage in spite of the state, not with its help. Maybe if we had a state you could rely on, more people would have children. God willing, that will happen too.

– They say “little children, little problems; big children, big problems.” Is there any truth to it?

– It's the plain truth. And it's rather unfair, because I used to imagine: there, now they'll finish school, go off to study, and I'll stop thinking about them. There, now they'll finish university and I'll stop thinking about them. Now they'll get married and I'll stop thinking about them.

But you never, ever stop, and there's always something to worry about with them.

In that sense the saying is true. As for independence, though—it gets easier and easier. And time, too: there's a huge difference between the time and care a baby demands, when you have to be available 24/7, and a teen who just needs a full fridge and clean clothes. And for you to be available whenever they deign to talk to you or sit down to watch a movie together once every few days.

– Do you have any favorite kids' sayings about technology?

– When my eldest son, the programmer, was little, he had a limit on how many hours he could spend at the computer. And he kept repeating how unfair it was—I remember his little face, those angry blue eyes, the knitted brows, the pouting mouth. He'd say: “One day, when I have a child, I'll never, ever limit them in anything.”

Guess how it turned out? My grandson Bobby wasn't even allowed to watch TV until he was two. I laugh a lot at those memories.

– Can we teach artificial intelligence to be funny?

– We're trying, but it doesn't come easily to it.

– Won't blogs become redundant now that ChatGPT can already give us even the most convoluted recipe?

– It's entirely possible they'll become redundant. People write books with artificial intelligence, paint pictures and so on. But I don't know a single creative person who's genuinely worried about it.

– Soon technology will allow children to grow in artificial wombs. As an experienced parent, how does such a future strike you?

– Very gentle on mothers. Why not? I believe in science.

– Why are screens so magnetic for children?

– We adults are often glued to them too—sometimes out of interest, sometimes out of anxiety.

A screen is something we would do well to keep an eye on at any age,

and be careful not to overdo it. From a technological point of view, what mainly attracts children is the visual stimulation. It is brighter, stronger, far more expressive at an early age. Sight is the most sensitive sense from 0 to 3 years, and children are even inclined to prefer visual stimulation over taste.

Then things change. From 3 to 6, the interest is already about content, about color stimulation. And when we talk about older children, after first grade, the social element kicks in too.

It is very important to realize that we are raising a digital native generation—these children were born into the digital, it is part of their everyday life. We all have phones in our hands. That makes it hard to talk about strict restrictions.

– What rules are worth following with the youngest children?

– The leading criterion is screen time—time spent on a laptop, tablet, phone, any device with internet. But also in front of a TV, a PlayStation, anything that has a screen.

Specialists recommend that from 0 to 2 years a child should not be exposed to a screen at all.

Even beyond the neurological point of view, at this age live contact with loved ones is of key importance—talking, interacting. The child should be praised, encouraged, should feel loved. This is also the time when the social bond with the parents is built.

Psychoanalysis regards screens as a conduit of communication with the subject. It is interesting how younger children often don't realize that there are people on the other side of the screen. In that sense, their communication resembles “talking” to a mirror.

– And once the child turns 2, screens are allowed, is that right? But within what limits?

– Between 2 and 4 years, we are talking about 30 minutes of recommended screen time a day, and it is good to split it up, for example into 3 sessions of 10 minutes. At this stage it is very important for parents or teachers to be next to the child when the screen is in use, to talk about what is being seen, to explain what is happening. That way the digital also supports the child's language development and strengthens the social bond with the adult.

These children are already in the window of active language development, and the digital can support them enormously with the right videos and with the good, steady support of the adults.

At this age it is good to have watched first what we are going to show, so we know whether there are situations or words that are not appropriate. Since content matters so much, my recommendation is to use the YouTube Kids platform. Age is marked there and the child has no access to inappropriate content.

Between 4 and 7 years, the Pediatric Association in Bulgaria recommends 1 hour of screen time, again divided into portions. Here, too, it is important to watch and discuss with the child, but now not so much for the sake of language as for social development and emotional regulation.

– We are talking about screen time, but doesn't that lump together screens with different purposes—whether it's the TV, the computer or the phone, whether it's passive consumption of content or communication?

– That's right, screen time is the factor at an early age. When we talk about the end of preschool and the first grades, we pay close attention to what exactly children are doing online, not how long they spend in front of the screen.

Passive watching, especially at an early age, is more harmful and more taxing than when they get involved in games and activities, with an adult explaining what is happening.

Screens have been a very interesting thing ever since our own childhood. I belong to the first generations of screen kids; the biggest punishment for me was having the TV taken away, and that's when I realized I had made some very serious blunder and needed to correct myself.

Screens are used the same way now—as a privilege that can be withdrawn, and that is part of social regulation. It's a fact that decades ago the technology itself was different; today's monitors are considerably gentler.

Back then the damage screens did was purely technical; now it is more psychological.

– So here we arrive at the “sore” question. What are the immediate results when some parents leave their children with a phone in hand for hours so they don't have to deal with them?

– It's true, there are children who spend long stretches in front of a screen at an early age, who eat that way. It's a lot like using a pacifier—the child is quiet, eats, behaves. But, especially from 0 to 2, it is by no means advisable. Reading books and singing songs are far more beneficial in place of electronic devices. It is worth avoiding contact with screens, but if there's no way around it, let's at least alternate them with live contact.

When we spend time with a child, we show them that we want to communicate, that they matter to us. That gives them the chance to learn their mother tongue, to put in the request for love that lies at the heart of social relationships in the years to come. In this sense, it is also very important that we monitor our own screen time and that it doesn't come at the child's expense.

At the same time, everyone has to follow their own authenticity, not only as a parent but also as a person. If the parents are gamers or programmers, live in the digital and decide to hide all the devices, they are punishing themselves—denying their own authenticity in order to be good parents. Every extreme should be avoided.

– Sometimes, though, feeding really is hard and the screen comes as the only salvation—I say this from personal experience too.

– Of course, there are children who are extreme in refusing to eat. Some joke that in this battle all means are fair, and sometimes that really is the case. It is important, however, for the parent to be clearly aware that this must not become a permanent ritual. Because in this small, still immature brain, connections between neurons are forming, and the screen can have a negative effect, for example, on whether the child learns to appreciate the taste of food. So instead of being fed, they will remain a picky eater precisely because of such interventions.

Whenever there is a screen, the word “balance” should automatically appear in our minds, regardless of age.

If a one-year-old eats only in front of a screen, the balance is clearly off.

I also consult with dietitians, and from one of them I heard something applicable. With any diet you have a 10 percent compromise—that is absolutely enough to keep a balance. If the child is fed in front of a screen once out of 10 times, in my view that is an acceptable compromise.

– What makes the digital so tempting for little ones?

– Children very often pay more attention to screens when something is missing in reality—whether attention, understanding, close relationships, or difficulties with socialization and emotional regulation.

Children are captivated by the digital because the simulation is much brighter, more dynamic, more visually interesting. Achievements come more easily—in a game you can jump 3 meters, unlike in “real reality.”

From a social point of view, slightly older kids manage to find the company they lack, especially if the parents come home tired from work in the evening and stare into their phones. A child has nothing else to do but follow their example. The parents' personal example is also among the reasons children are drawn to the digital.

– What are the risks if screen time is drastically exceeded?

– With a small child, any regression in development is a sign that something is wrong, and it is important to look for the cause. When children have grown up in front of screens, they begin to acquire language in a specific way; they don't always understand what they copy, in English, for example. Sometimes worrying bodily phenomena are observed as well—a child at this age starts moving and can't cope well with coordination. The earlier a child is exposed to screen stimulation, the greater the risk of such problems.

Up to 6 or 7, the biggest risk is inappropriate content.

In primary school, the main risk is online bullying. If we have done our job beforehand and explained to the child, while watching a video together, that the wolf is not speaking nicely to the little girl and that this is not acceptable communication, they will know how to behave online and to demand good treatment for themselves.

The second big risk concerns education—how to choose appropriate content. Again, it is up to us to have shown them how to do it when they were small.

At 10 to 12, if we have made our bed well, we can catch our breath. After fifth grade, the risks of online bullying remain. But again, if we did our job in primary school and explained to the child how to communicate online, we won't have a problem.

At an older age the risks are different—obesity, vision problems, difficulties with fine motor skills, sleep disorders, spinal curvature.

– What are the upper limits between ages 7 and 18?

– After COVID and online learning, these boundaries became quite blurred. Before, for primary school age—

from first to fourth grade, we allowed up to 2 hours a day. Now we no longer dare to impose limits,

because, in the end, children study mainly online. Now it matters much more what the child is doing than how much time they spend online. When we talk about slightly older children, we must be clearly aware that this is their main social environment; they very often play with their peers in the digital rather than the real world.

Of course, there are some basic rules that it is important for us adults to learn ourselves and instill in our children—that

live contact comes first.

When someone is talking next to you with their living voice, their living body, their living gaze, the chat can wait.

– So psychologists, too, increasingly appreciate that digital technologies are useful, especially in moderation.

– Of course! Not all screen time is harmful!

If it is shared, it can be part of family life, extremely rich time between parent and child.

We can improve children's motor skills, the eye–hand connection, which greatly helps with learning to read and write, and body coordination, especially if we use the screen for physical exercise. Also language literacy—later on it is strongly supported by communication; children start to pay careful attention to how they express themselves in writing, especially if they have been supported by their parents beforehand and it has been pointed out to them that the language we use online matters.

Interaction and socialization can also be supported by the digital—remember the pandemic. There are many people with relatives abroad for whom the internet is the only way to stay in touch.

– Are there specific important rules worth following?

– Don't use devices during meals. In our culture, sitting down at the table is part of bringing the family together, of talking, of communicating, of sharing with your loved ones how your day went.

Don't give children screens during meals, but limit your own too!

One of the risks is disrupted sleep. At least an hour before bed, replace screens with something else—calm games, pastimes, conversations, reading books.

Another recommendation is to designate a place in the home where no devices are used. At some point you will see family members seeking out this refuge on their own—to “unplug,” to come back to themselves. And, last but not least, it is very important to make sure we get physical activity—both the children and ourselves.

– And what are the limits for adults? What is the maximum recommended screen time?

– It's different for everyone; you can't tell a programmer to spend only 3 hours at a screen—they simply couldn't get their work done.

Even before COVID, there was a study by the European statistical institute showing that we scroll an average of 64 kilometers a year! Everyone senses it for themselves and regulates accordingly. What is peculiar about screens is that

there is an extra pleasure in them that we have to manage to break away from.

And that happens not only because of the information on offer, because of the entertainment, but also because of the sense of connection with others—with the people who are important and close to us. At the same time, we can be anonymous there, which is quite appealing to a human being.

There are basic rules. If we manage to introduce balance, to exercise for an hour once a day, to avoid screens for 1 to 2 hours before bed, not to eat while using a screen, everything should be fine.

– Let's go back to children. What can we do if the balance has already been upset?

– Restoring it isn't easy at all, we all realize that. Most often, when I come across such a case, I suggest the idea of the clock change. When we have a baby and daylight saving time is approaching, we start adjusting them gradually, shifting bedtime by 5, 10 minutes, then 20, until we gradually “catch up” with the new time, and the child has adapted to the change without stress for them or for the parent. We can approach screen time the same way when we see we have overdone it—with attention, control and care, reducing it gradually. If it's an hour and we want to bring it down to 30 minutes, we cut it a little each day for 2 to 3 weeks until we reach the goal.

It's true that some children react more stormily, but that isn't only about screens—it applies to anything important to them, for example not letting their favorite toy be washed.

Here the parent certainly needs to be firm. Second, it is very important to tell the child why the device is being taken away, to explain: “We're finishing this because we're going to have dinner, and we don't use devices then.” What exactly the child is doing at that moment matters too. If we reach for the device in the middle of a game, the reaction will be explosive. Check what the children are doing, explain why you are interrupting, give them a clear idea of what will happen after the screen is taken away. At some point they will be inclined to give up screens on their own.

– You mentioned that overdoing screen time at the expense of real life is often a sign of a problem in the real world. How should we approach that?

– The salvation is to talk to the children. That is the most important thing we must keep in mind as parents and as adults. So if we see something like this, we can take it as a clear signal that it is important to pay attention, to talk to the children.

What happens in such situations is like in Peter Pan. Neverland is an imaginary land where children run away to escape a cruel reality. The book was written during the Second World War; there is a very serious situation the children want to escape from.

The need for a “digital Neverland” for our children lies somewhere in reality.

And we are the ones who must support them right there, so that they are not so drawn to the digital, so that they can interact and communicate, and bring balance and calm into their lives.

I would very much like to appeal to parents to pay attention to what their children do online, regardless of age. It is very interesting to discover that what they are into is interesting for you too. And that is something we can use as a channel, as one more opportunity to communicate with our children. Parents of older kids have surely figured this out: it is much easier to communicate with a teenager in a chat than face to face. And if we have built a bond of trust, it continues very easily and naturally in the digital environment.

– When is it a good idea to give a child their own mobile phone?

– It used to happen around first grade, and mostly they used watches. The pandemic and online learning changed that quite a bit; now it is normal for a 5- or 6-year-old to already have devices with internet access.

– In that sense, at least to me, the idea of deliberately keeping children away from technology seems very unhealthy…

– I have met children at school who had never seen a screen, for various reasons. They cannot form a good social bond with their peers, because their peers are in the digital. There were children who could not take an active part in the educational process during online learning.

We must clearly realize that distance learning, in one sense or another, continues even now—children use a lot of materials from the internet to prepare and do their homework. Their encyclopedias are not on the bookshelf, but on Google.

The interview was conducted with the support of the 1 Naum platform, which connects parents with specialists from various fields.

– The story of how you went, quite unexpectedly, from an interested parent to a teacher is a curious one. Would you tell it?

– I really had no intention of teaching. For more than 15 years I worked in the software industry, in quality assurance. Completely by chance, my son’s school got word of some technology competition. The principal knew what I did for a living, so he asked me to look into what could be done and whether the children could take part.

I decided to do a little research and ask my colleagues at the office. Right at that moment I was very inspired by agile methodologies, and some of the techniques used there reminded me of a children’s game. I wondered whether it could be adapted for kids, and it turned out there was very little experience with that anywhere in the world. But I decided to try. My son’s entire class joined in, and we won the competition first at the municipal level, then at the regional level, and finally at the national level. It was interesting for me; I hadn’t expected it.

– And how did the children do in an agile environment, working in a team with divided responsibilities, just as happens in the software world?

– That month we really did “install” an agile system at the school and assigned roles to the children. Some were programmers, others were QA, and others managed the project.

I saw a miniature of real-life processes. Exactly the way it happens in big teams!

The same problems, the same difficulties! It was interesting to watch how the children solved them. That’s when I felt the motivation to work with children; I saw that I enjoyed it.

Then the principal invited me to work at the school and handle projects. After that I retrained as a teacher of information technology and computer modeling.

I started working with the children, and the principal gave me a great deal of freedom in my teaching methods. That let me experiment. I grew bolder and bolder in my experiments…

– In which direction did they go?

– I started lowering the age of the children I brought into various projects and competitions. To my surprise, it worked. It turned out that you can work with little kids almost as successfully as with older ones. Especially when they get the right motivation.

Actually, the motivation is their own! It isn’t something that has to be forced on them by parents or teachers.

But it can be nurtured in a fairly informal, fun atmosphere.

We started entering competitions with different groups: municipal, regional, then national, and since this school year international as well.

It turned out that Bulgarian children can be trained to a world-class level. We are in no way behind any other country!

We may be three or four years late in taking part in this kind of programming format for children. In robotics, unfortunately, we are hopelessly behind; we don’t even have an olympiad for it, unlike other countries.

But little by little the successes started coming on their own.

– How young should children be when they first encounter information technology?

– I work with children from 1st to 7th grade, and I have some older ones too, but they are former students of mine who have moved on.

I start with five- and six-year-olds. To reach a higher level, children need to start studying this subject early enough. Under the Ministry of Education and Science’s current curriculum, computer modeling is taught from 3rd grade. For me that’s far too late. Most children get to know technology as early as 1st grade; they know what mobile devices are, they use them at home for games, and it never crosses their minds that they could use them for anything else.

I think it’s time to bring something like this into the official curriculum, even with shorter lessons. I do it at the school where I work, the Thomas Edison Private Primary School, but it’s by no means common practice.

– What can create the inner motivation you say matters most in children that young?

– There is one basic difference between the curriculum and what we do with students from 2nd grade up. The curriculum is built like this: here is the material, now repeat it.

There is no creativity in it; they don’t let children go through the research process on their own, which is hugely important if learning is going to stick.

Every adult who opens an app says, “I need to click around in it to learn it.” Exactly the same goes for children! They have an even greater need to click around, to play, to try things themselves, to make mistakes, to learn from their mistakes and keep going.

The curriculum isn’t built that way, though. “Repeat this. You’ve drawn a rabbit here, now draw it two ears.” And that’s it!

In my classes I turn the process around. I tell them:

“Now you’re going to make your own fairy tale, your own story, your own app! You’ll come up with the topic yourselves!”

Or, if I give them some direction, I leave them to make the images themselves and prepare the sounds themselves. That way they have a lot of creative work to do.

When they’re given a task and don’t know how to do it, they start inventing very creative solutions! Things that wouldn’t even occur to the authors of the textbook.

From a very early age we move quickly on to programming games. Children love to play! Some have never played games; they’ve only drawn. But even for them it becomes interesting, and they also get a chance to shine: the platforms I use for teaching include a drawing environment too.

Others don’t like drawing at all; they just want to write code. I make sure those kids aren’t bored either. I put them in teams where they play the main programming role, so they feel useful and at the same time don’t compare themselves with the others, who can draw much better.

Then there are children who can both draw and program but don’t feel like making the effort. For them I choose some other role, such as writing documentation or testing. Everyone finds a place in the project.

Some children have very pronounced leadership qualities; I make them project managers.

– And how does that suit them?

– It’s fascinating. I’ve noticed that things get hot in that position very quickly; suddenly it turns out that everybody comes to you for everything. A lot of kids give up fast. They come to me and say, “Miss, I can’t take it anymore, everyone wants something from me.”

That’s how it is: a manager’s life is hard.

They imagine that being the boss is really cool: you sit there, you get paid, and everything happens by itself.

But they see it’s nothing of the kind. I make a point of having everyone take a turn in that position, so they can see for themselves that it isn’t so easy.

The interesting thing is that once everyone has had a turn in the hot managerial seat, at some point the children start choosing on their own which role best suits their temperament and skills. That makes me happy too, because it happens completely voluntarily. And once they decide for themselves where each of them feels most comfortable, they start working together, more smoothly now, with great enthusiasm.

They feel very important when they have a role, and maybe that’s part of the motivation too. There was one child who was weaker at programming, and drawing wasn’t his strength either, but he had a different talent. I appointed him as the specialist in that area; he felt engaged and useful in the project, and he gained self-confidence. Today I see him walk into the classroom eagerly.

– For all this to work, though, the teacher needs an individual approach and needs to know the children.

– Yes, the individual approach is very important, and I think every IT teacher tries to practice it. The regulations allow a class to be split into groups of no more than 15 children. That is extremely important and helps a lot.

The groups are small, and I invite the best students to an after-school program, where we study even harder, at a much higher level. That differentiation really helps me pick out those who are very capable and assign them to suitable roles according to their skills and abilities.

In first grade the children cry a lot, literally about everything. A year later, when I tell them stories about what they used to bawl over, they laugh and can’t believe it.

The transition from kindergarten to first grade is a very serious one

and that is the only year when I avoid putting children through competitions. They are very vulnerable and sensitive, and any failure could put them off. And the saddest thing is when a talented child gives up!

– How much of a stereotype is it that there are humanities people and science people? I, for one, had to turn 33 to find out that I could program, because I had always considered myself, and been labeled, a humanities type.

– Anyone can program!

If someone doesn’t believe it, I can send them links to platforms so they can go in and see for themselves that, at an elementary level, anyone can learn to write algorithms and create code.

The point isn’t that people are humanities-minded or algorithmic. In some people one half of the brain is a little better developed, and it’s easier for them. But that doesn’t mean the rest can’t do it!

I recently read about crows that perform recursion. If even an animal can grasp such abstract principles and work them out, what about humans!

I would rather divide people into the more artistic and the less so. If I make any division at all, though I don’t tell the children, it’s more like this: some children sing, draw, dance, and those talents usually go together. Others don’t like doing such things. There are children who are frightened by the very thought of drawing, and for no other reason than that they didn’t develop that skill when they were little.

In fact, nothing is impossible; anyone can learn anything!

If they put in enough effort, they can become a doctor or a police officer. You and I are proof of that: we retrained and completely changed what we do. Only at almost 40, after I had already become a teacher, did I say to myself, “God, why didn’t I go on to become a doctor back then!” But at the time I didn’t believe in myself.

It’s very important for a person to believe in themselves, and that applies above all to children.

The one thing a teacher must never do is say, “You can’t.”

There can be “I don’t want to,” “it’s hard for me” or “at this stage it isn’t easy for me,” but never “you can’t”! Everyone can! Only a short person can’t become tall, although even in growing up there are degrees.

You have to believe in yourself and keep trying; that’s the only way you get the chance to find what truly gives you pleasure.

One child came to me with extremely low self-esteem and no knowledge of the subject at all. His computer modeling teachers hadn’t followed the curriculum whatsoever; he had learned absolutely nothing. Entering a very strong class full of competitors, where everyone was advanced, this child developed a complex. Right at the start of the school year he came to me and said, “I don’t feel worthy of this class, I can’t do anything.” I answered: “Don’t look at what you know right now at all. I’ve had new kids come in before; they get ambitious, and through hard work they manage not only to catch up with the others but to overtake them.”

The moment I told him that with conviction, he believed it. And he started doing exactly that: working harder than the others in class, making up the lost ground. He caught up with them, and at some point he surpassed them. In the end,

that very same child won first place in a world programming competition.

In the space of just one year, you can go from absolute zero to number one!

Adults themselves don’t believe in themselves, and that’s why they can’t make children believe them. That’s where the problem comes from. Motivation comes from believing you can.

– I think a large part of the problem is that teaching isn’t a very attractive profession, and not everyone in it is motivated and well enough prepared. How can we make it more attractive, so that more people like you come in? Because it’s people who change a system, not curricula…

– I work at a private school, but I did my specialization at a state high school in Sofia. I got to know how things work there, and a lot of things struck me.

The difference is enormous, like night and day. Yes, on the one hand it depends on people’s motivation, but that in turn is largely dictated by the opportunities the school gives them.

Often, in such a complex bureaucratic machine with so many people in it, teachers’ individual rights and opportunities are severely limited.

Teachers are overloaded with administrative work; that is the first and biggest problem.

On top of that, they aren’t given a chance. I often talk to teachers who tell me, “The principal wouldn’t let me.” He simply can’t be bothered. There was an attempt to replace these irremovable principals and bring young people in their place. With respect for age and experience, but people who have the qualifications.

Right now the requirements for becoming a senior teacher are higher than those for becoming a principal. And the lowest of all are the requirements for working at the regional education inspectorate. A complete absurdity.

When people with few qualifications and little experience manage you and make decisions about your fate, it’s clear how you are going to develop. It’s as if junior programmers were project managers, mid-level ones were team leads, and the most proven ones worked as programmers. It’s obvious what the result would be. That is the upside-down structure in education today.

– And all of this inevitably demotivates people…

– Yes, many teachers in state schools have completely lost heart. That’s 20 years of constant changes, of experiments that are usually ill-conceived and then get changed again. Many people have lost all desire to teach: they don’t earn big salaries, everyone has an opinion about them, parents are becoming ruder and ruder, insulting and threatening them, and the children are increasingly demotivated and don’t want to learn.

They find themselves in a super-stressful situation in which it is absolutely impossible to work, and their motivation just keeps dropping.

The people working as teachers today, in my view, are either those with extraordinary motivation who keep fighting despite everything that’s wrong, or those who somehow have to hang on until retirement. It’s their main income, and they’re ready to defend their position tooth and nail, even though they neither can nor want to do the job. In other words, they’re there for decoration.

Other problems in the system are the delegated budgets, under which funding follows each student, and the fact that a student can’t be held back a year. Schools try to fill up their classes and don’t care what kind of children they get or how. All of this has an effect.

– I think society has the feeling that education is not a priority. Just look at the schools where every single graduate gets a failing grade on the matura, Bulgaria’s school-leaving exam. And that’s when the matura’s standards are appallingly low as it is.

– If I go back to the subject of technology, there is a particularly big problem in the older age range. That’s where we create the problems with exactly the people we need in the IT sector.

The problem is that there is no decent entrance exam for the mathematics high schools. There are schools specializing in mathematics and informatics, but many of them lack enough experienced staff to teach. Many parents want their children to study this and steer them toward the mathematics high schools, but admission there is based on the national external assessment exam, and the bar is very low. So children who aren’t prepared get into these schools. The parents are happy, but the problems begin as early as 8th grade.

Nobody wins from this! The state spends a huge amount of money to invest specifically in education for the IT sector. We sabotage ourselves, we make the wrong choices, we confuse the children. We create the false impression that once they finish 12th grade they can already work as programmers. Well, no, they can’t. For someone to become a truly good professional, they need to go through university, study mathematics and many other things.

These are just some of the many issues teachers in Bulgaria face. There are problems and there always will be; the question is what we can do, how we can change the situation as a whole. For me, the best way is to unite. That’s something missing right now. Unity among private schools, between private and state schools, standing together for common interests. That isn’t happening at the moment; everyone has hidden away in their own hole. As a result, there is no way to show everyone that the problems are shared, that they belong to society as a whole.

“Almost every child subconsciously sees their room as the safest place. That is where they express their innermost thoughts and hopes most purely,” says Sofia Simeonova. The young photographer has presented her exhibition The Room in You, which quite literally opens the door between generations.

Eighteen-year-old Sofia steps into the homes of her peers with her camera to show what their most personal place looks like—their own room. Most of them are strangers to her, and her only condition is that their little corner must not be specially tidied up for the photos, but look the way it does every day.

So what does the most personal space of young people look like today?

Thoughts Kept in a Room

As psychologist Ani Vladimirova says, one of our biggest problems as a society is the gulf between different groups, most clearly embodied by the one between generations.

This year Sofia finished high school. The idea for her project came at the end of two years of almost nonstop online learning, which turned out to be a serious challenge for students and teachers alike. “We were all spending so much time in our rooms, doing everything we used to do outside.” Around that time she came across the project of American photographer Adrienne Salinger, who in the 1990s went into young people’s homes to show their true, colorful nature, so different from the usual dry, idealized portraits.

The girl decided to show the same picture, only this time of her peers from the new millennium. Quite a few people quickly answered her call; she visited and photographed 16 rooms, and from them chose 32 shots for the exhibition.

“It was very interesting to enter the personal space of someone you don’t know, and for that to be your first meeting with them,” Sofia says. With every new meeting she became more convinced that a room truly expresses the character of the person who lives in it.

The Familiar Room

“Seeing how their story is reflected in the environment where they spend so much time made me realize once again how many things we put up as barriers and masks to protect ourselves from others. How rarely we manage to reach that deep point where a person is pure and real.”

Contrary to expectations, the rooms are not all that full of electronic devices. There are laptops and phones, but also… a surprising number of books. Of course, Sofia clearly stumbled upon an unrepresentative sample in that sense, but her ambition is to continue with a much wider circle of young people.

“The girls are tidier, while the boys go to one of two extremes—either total chaos or spotlessly clean, without a single unnecessary thing,” the photographer says. While it used to be fashionable to stick posters of singers and actors on the walls, today that is more of a vintage thing. What is fashionable, though, is putting up vinyl records—another interesting bridge between generations.

“The objects in the rooms are closely tied to people’s interests; nothing is there by chance. Books, incense sticks, flowers. One girl who plays in a band had three guitars, and each of them had a name,” Sofia says.

Stay in Your Room

In a month she leaves to study in France, where she will spend the first year learning the language, and in the second she plans to specialize in psychology. For her, photography is not an end in itself, but an attempt to get to know people and herself better.

And to look for the door between generations. Which often turns out to be precisely the door behind which parents are not allowed. Many of these doors bear signs like “Exit for Parents,” and perhaps her photos are a chance for fathers and mothers to peek inside.

To Sofia this is normal, because young people need freedom. She is grateful to her own parents “because they gave me a room where they never told me, ‘Don’t write on the wall, don’t stick that up.’ I had complete freedom to do whatever I wanted, and that helped me a lot to build a personal space that reminds me who I am and helps me grow as a person.”

Does she think her generation today knows how to talk to the previous ones?

“I don’t think so, and that is a big problem for society. Communication doesn’t happen, and in my view the problem starts in the family. Last summer I worked at a children’s camp and saw how often kids don’t feel comfortable sharing their problems and worries with their parents, because the parents somehow hold them back. Not that they are bad parents or treat them badly, but somehow they belittle their problems because they are children. That is exactly what often puts up walls that keep people from opening up. Communication, I think, is something extremely important for the bond between a child and a parent, and it helps with many other things in later life too—with socializing, with people, with friends.”

The Room in You

Through her lens Sofia captures many young people who this very fall will leave their rooms to fly out into the wide world and continue their education. “Many of them will part with their families and their homes, and for them this room will no longer be what it has been until now. And I’m glad I managed to do this for them—so that years from now they can see themselves from this point of view.”

“We spend time in our rooms, and they become a reflection of our true nature. Holding our memories, our individuality and our desires, they help us discover who we really are,” says Sofia.

Yes, we are all in a hurry. All of us faster and faster, yet we keep changing, we grow all our lives. And still, some things stay the same. Our childhood room, for instance, even if we come back a decade later. Or the quiet murmur of life that sends the next young ones off in flight. After that, all we can do is hope, believe in them, watch them fly… And try to talk to each other.

The exhibition runs until August 30, 2022. You can see it at the UniCredit Studio gallery (Sofia, 7 Sveta Nedelya Square).

Could the moment be approaching when little humans will emerge from artificial wombs? More and more research teams promise a breakthrough in a field that may turn out to be the answer to low birth rates in the Western world.

But are we ready for a time when parents can watch together as their baby grows in a high-tech incubator? Not just technologically, but emotionally…

Robot Mother

Few scientific disciplines have come as far over the past 40 years as reproductive medicine. If we go back a little further, about a century, we see that infant mortality was horrifying. Gradually things changed, and more children survived the critical months thanks to neonatology.

Then the very process of conception changed forever. In vitro fertilization gave a chance at life to many children who could not otherwise have been conceived. And then came surrogacy; it even turned out that a woman doesn't have to be pregnant to have a child of her own.

And yet the economically developed part of the world is melting away. For reasons that clearly have little to do with the technology of reproduction itself and have much deeper and broader roots, birth rates in developed countries are falling, and gradually the same is happening in other countries as they join the list.

Recently Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin turned their attention to the subject, and media attention followed. There was talk that the trend might be reversed thanks to an expected breakthrough that would make pregnancy unnecessary.

Life Is a Miracle

Prenatal education is a fascinating subject. There is serious evidence that while a baby is in its mother's belly, it takes in a huge share of the information coming from outside, and that information shapes it as an individual. It learns the language its parents speak, it gets used to their voices…

Today quite a few children come out of a womb that is not their mother's. Surrogacy became possible shortly after it turned out that there was no problem with a baby being conceived in a test tube rather than in the usual way… I mean the stork, of course.

In Bulgaria surrogacy is banned, except on objective medical grounds. Among celebrities in the West and the East, however, it is common practice. Yes, the baby has a mom and a dad; it's simply born from another woman's womb.

In some countries it's a business: young women decide it's a sensible way to secure a decent income, and the law allows it.

Now that there are plenty of children whose mothers never carried them “in their belly”… the next step seems logical. Let's build an artificial womb.

The Night Gives Birth from a Dead Womb…

The other medical specialty involved, neonatology, is advancing quickly too. Today specialists manage to save premature babies weighing a few hundred grams, tiny people no bigger than a hand's span, who a few decades ago would have had no chance…

The questions are meeting their answers. By all appearances, technology will soon allow babies to grow in an artificial environment. The bigger problem seems to be this: are we psychologically ready for that moment? Will it be the factor that reverses the birth rate trend? And at what price?

The occasion for talking about this came from one of the most interesting figures of our time. On his beloved Twitter, Elon Musk regularly posts crude jokes or claims that suddenly send a company's stock soaring. And sometimes he simply shares his views on the future of humanity, with the typical self-assurance of a court of last resort.

One such day was January 20 of this year, when Musk sparked the debate about artificial wombs. It began with the observation that demographics are humanity's biggest problem, and that because of them there will soon be no people left to send into space. Musk cited forecasts according to which the Earth's population will grow until the middle of the century and by its end will fall back to current levels. Over that time, however, Europe, Japan and China will be left with drastically smaller populations.

The Stork Retires

Nobody can accuse him, at least, of not doing everything in his power. He has seven children and shows no sign of slowing down. But as Musk also told The Wall Street Journal: “I think one of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate and the rapidly declining birth rate. And yet, so many people, including smart people, think that there are too many people in the world and think that the population is growing out of control. It's completely the opposite. Please look at the numbers—if people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble, mark my words.”

Sahil Lavingia, founder of the e-commerce platform Gumroad, chimed in on Twitter. He mentioned artificial wombs as a possible solution to falling birth rates. Another familiar hero of Digital Stories joined the discussion, Ethereum's creator Vitalik Buterin, who noted that synthetic wombs would ease the heavy social burden of pregnancy and reduce inequality. Buterin attached a chart that clearly shows how pregnancy affects women's pay today.

The fact is indisputable. Even in the United States, which has long fought for gender equality, women earn on average 79 percent of what men take home. In Japan the figure is 73 percent. Plenty of studies show that the cause is the period of pregnancy, which is entirely logical. Everyone has seen examples of this around them.

Mama Robot

According to Anna Smajdor, a professor of bioethics, pregnancy is barbaric. “If there were any other condition that caused such problems, we would classify it as a very serious illness.” This, in her view, is precisely what gives scientists a moral imperative to keep working on ectogenesis, as the scientific field aimed at creating an artificial womb is also called.

Yes, you will rarely hear politicians talk about such things, because the very idea still seems too strange. And yet, if it comes true, it could solve serious social and medical problems.

We already understand conception outside the human body well enough, and we can also care for a baby born much earlier than expected. All that remains is “simply” to cover the period in between.

Of course, it's anything but simple, because the mother's womb is a perfect creation of nature, the one that allows us to be on this planet at all.

Many teams are actively working on the subject, and news comes from all corners of the world. And although the big step doesn't yet seem very close, there is no shortage of curious details.

Born to Run

By tradition, the first serious progress comes with lab animals. In March of last year, a team of Israeli scientists reported that they had kept mouse embryos alive in an artificial uterus for a full 11 days. That's more than half the gestation period of our squeaking friends, which lasts 20 days.

This year perhaps the most interesting news on the subject came from China. Scientists from the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology announced that they are working seriously on the endeavor.

Among the curious details of their project is the involvement of artificial intelligence. The idea is that in its early stages, the embryo needs constantly changing and ultra-precisely maintained conditions in order to develop. The first weeks, when we turn from a fertilized egg into an ever larger and more human-like being, are full of complex processes that require careful delivery of the right substances, exact temperature and all kinds of conditions.

This is where the artificial intelligence comes in, which the Chinese scientists are counting on to control the parameters. The machine has a “bandolier” of fine tubes that deliver the necessary substances, plus a special device for supplying oxygen. For now it, too, works with rodents, and it's hard to say how long it might take to get permission for trials with humans.

In its article on the subject, the South China Morning Post noted that “mass ‘production’ of babies in an artificial womb factory could help maintain population numbers in a country whose citizens are reluctant to have children.” But at the same time it asked: “What might the social and psychological consequences be?” Interestingly, despite the demographic problems looming ever larger in China, surrogacy is not permitted there either so far.

Both Father and Mother

A team from the Netherlands has also been working in this field for years. In 2019 the specialists predicted that the artificial womb would be a reality within a decade, by 2029.

How close the breakthrough is, it's hard to say. Both because of the technology and because of regulation.

Of course, the whole pregnancy doesn't necessarily have to take place in such “devices.” Research on the subject could also help save many more babies who come into the world so early that medicine so far has been powerless. Today the 24th week of pregnancy is considered the critical point that largely determines the chances of survival.

Work in this direction has been going on since the 1950s. A laboratory in Philadelphia experimenting with lambs has made serious progress. As we remember from good old Dolly the sheep, these animals are an important stage in scientific research.

It looks shocking the first time you see the artificial womb in which the bleating little creatures develop. They are removed by cesarean section shortly after the midpoint of pregnancy, at a stage equivalent to the critical human 23rd to 24th week. The placenta is replaced by an oxygenator connected to the umbilical cord. Nutrients are also delivered through it, and carbon dioxide is taken away.

In a word: inside something resembling a plastic bag, you can see a baby lamb growing. The neonatologists and zoologists working on the study say there has been serious progress that could be applied to humans as well.

Robot Midwives' Day

Many of the prejudices have a basis. For instance, the purely everyday risks. A great many of the curses with which we in the Balkans express our attitude toward the world—most of them involving someone's mother—will have to change their meaning. It becomes even less likely that we'll get a new Stoichkov, after Hristo Stoichkov, the Bulgarian football legend as famous for his foul mouth as for his goals.

But joking aside, it's important to keep the psychological consequences in mind. And even more so those that come with the possible next steps. It's wonderful that women will have much more time to work, time that today goes to pregnancy, but… then why not go straight to building robots to look after our children while we work?

The baby incubator may give women a chance to work much longer, but it will put those who decide to give birth to their children themselves at a serious disadvantage. Meanwhile the hot spot in the labor market will shift from pregnancy and childbirth to child-rearing. And in many countries maternity leave is already horrifyingly short.

And what about the benefits of breastfeeding in the first months of a baby's life?

The claim that the family is the basic cell of society may sound like a socialist-era slogan, but it is actually Aristotle's idea. And the family is also one of the most conservative elements of everything that makes us human. How will it fare in the future, when babies start emerging from artificial wombs? The answer is clearly not simple, but it is directly tied to our future as a species…