Extended Child

Adapting to extreme environments, more parents will seek ways to augment their kids via pharmaceuticals, digital technologies, and surgeries, creating new expectations of normal and new kinds of divides.

Explore how this evolves in the 2020 Forecast in Cognitive Modification.

Real World Application

New norms create new expectations for childhood
Hyper-parenting will continue to spread and intensify as genetic report cards and body modification with technologies that build the capacity of children become mainstream. These enhancements will create new ideals for “the normal child”—with new kinds of cognitive divides. For example, kids with access to digital appliances, pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplements, and even surgeries and implants may think differently than kids without access.