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The short answer is no. Anything that is pure chance cannot be predicted. That includes next Saturday night's Lotto-winning numbers, unfortunately. It also applies to most natural disasters. We cannot predict complex social or political developments more than a year away – or often even those much closer to the present – with any degree of accuracy. Such forecasting is nothing more than calculated guesswork. Think of share market movements or decisions made by the North Korean leader as falling into this category.

Here is a guarded ‘perhaps' to speculating on anything up ahead. The analysis of everyday data offers some indication of what may occur down the track. We can determine with 70 per cent confidence what children will be doing on this day in exactly two years from now, especially if they are creatures of habit. With predictive policing, we can calculate with up to 90 per cent certainty the likelihood of some teenagers committing an offence.

TALKING WITH THE NEXT GENERATION

WHEN THEY SAY

‘The world is going to be awful up ahead.'

SOME RESPONSES YOU MIGHT OFFER

“‘It's possible, but it's not very likely. People have been saying for hundreds of years that the world is going to be awful up ahead, but it all still keeps going. You need to watch out for the doomsayers who try to scare you about everything in the future. They are nearly always wrong.'

“‘The world keeps getting better, not worse. While there are certainly lots of big problems we need to resolve, there are many other things that continue to improve. Here's one example: Most people are healthier than they've ever been before, and by the time you're grown up, we will have cures for most illnesses.'

“‘Admittedly, we can't easily predict the future. It might end up being fantastic, or it might sometimes be problematic. But here's a really important point: The future is not just something that happens to us. It's something we create. So start thinking about the sort of future you'd like for yourself and for others up ahead, and then begin to make it happen.'

Medical analysts can assess with 80 per cent confidence whether children will contract the flu, eight days before they actually get it.¹⁴ The GPS on the child's mobile phone can signal where they were today and who was in their group. If anyone in that group indicated on social media they were feeling sick at the time, the child's chances of contracting that illness are much higher, given their proximity to the ill person. However, none of this is outright prediction. It uses data analysis to determine the chances of an event occurring.

Some global events can be calculated very accurately. For example, we know there will be a major solar eclipse on 20 May 2050.¹⁵ Isaac Newton once said, ‘I can calculate the movement of the stars but not the madness of men'. He was no doubt swayed by the fact that he had just lost a lot of money in one of the world's first stock-market bubbles.¹⁶

Sharemarkets tend to follow seven-year cycles, and sunspot activity has an 11-year cycle, although betting your money on exact timing in either case is pretty risky. A group of very smart people called super-forecasters¹⁷ specialise in reading all relevant data and calculating the chances of an event occurring. This may involve no more than determining what will be the most popular Christmas toy a year away. It's still not guaranteed prediction, however. It's about developing a percentage probability.

Our best course is to prepare ourselves for whatever might occur up ahead. We stay fit and healthy to stave off illness in the future. Some people save money for a rainy day. We make the effort to raise beautiful kids so they can live a fulfilling adulthood. Great parents and educators build up capabilities in children so they will thrive, whatever happens in the years ahead. One of the great secrets to doing this is to implement protective factors. These are interventions in children's lives that lead to healthy development, and might involve mentoring, friendships, and engagement in sport and recreational activities.

Our best course is to prepare ourselves for whatever might occur up ahead.

On the opposite side, risk factors are negative effects that compromise child development. They include events that cause anxiety and toxic stress. The world will be an even better place in 20 years' time if we minimise the risk factors and maximise the protective factors in kids' lives today. A targeted intervention is always warranted for a risk factor such as anxiety. Many great platforms, such as the Australian-based FRIENDS program,¹⁸ have validated the positive changes that take place in children when they practise anxiety-reducing skills.

Mentoring programs are a powerful example of a protective factor. Children need supportive role models who show them what it means to be an inspiring and responsible adult. A Toronto study in 2013 determined that $1 invested in mentoring programs leads to an eventual $18 return. A child involved in an extensive mentoring program will earn, on average, $315 000 more in a lifetime than another child in a control group that did not receive this support.¹⁹

In some cultures, parents have the patience and wisdom to think many generations ahead. They understand that every protective factor today contributes to their children becoming more worthy adults later in life. Thinking ahead like this has become more complicated, though.

In the next 20 years, we will experience much more rapid change and increased complexity than in the past 20. Preparing today's children for the future is vastly more complicated and will require an advanced thinking capacity. To do this preparation we won't just need to think outside the square; we will need to explore the boundaries of what is possible.