To say that the next generation is primarily screwed in terms of resilience

They'll find it if they need to. Human beings by nature have a great deal of resilience, ability to adapt and to find a way to survive and cope with hardship. The people you're referring to have just never had to find it is all. If the world panders around them removing every small discomfort or inconvenience, turns itself inside out to avoid causing the tiniest upset, well of course they will take advantage of the huge comfort blanket wrapped around them, play on it for attention and enjoy the fuss. However, take it away and they won't dissolve. They'll kick up a little, then they'll adapt and get on with it.

What’s mother style parenting?

We had a phone but our next-door neighbours didn't have them in the early 70s. They gave out our number. I remember my parents had periods of unemployment. Luckily not at the same time! If your company went bust you didn't get redundancy. Maternity leave was virtually non-existent.

They stressed education and getting a degree. All four of their children went to University. Both my parents did part-time degrees when we left home.
I always think it is hilarious when MN thinks women did not work. My Granny worked, my aunties and my Mum worked Some of them owned their businesses.

Every generation faces different problems.
I went to Secondary school in the mid-70s. Our tutor would check the length of our skirts, we were made to wash our makeup off, and wear school shoes. Detentions and punishments for forgotten equipment and homework. I don't remember any serious problems at school.

The word 'resilience' is relatively new in the vernacular.

I often wonder if the increase in students who choose to study psychology has caused us all to overthink things.

I often hear parents and pupils use words and when you delve deeper their understanding is very superficial. It is a bit like my understanding of Physics I know the lingo but don't understand the concepts.

Before anyone gets upset my second degree was a MSc in Psychology.

From Wikipedia:
"The return of mobile warfare in World War II reduced the emphasis of trench warfare, as defenders commonly lacked the time to build up such battlefield defences before they were forced to redeploy, due to the more rapidly-changing strategic situation. But trench systems were still effective, wherever mobility was limited, the front lines were static, or around known critical objectives that could not be bypassed. More quickly improvised defensive fighting positions, using "scrapes" or "foxholes", that can be supplemented by sand bags, local materials, debris, or rubble, remain in common use. These are typically improved and expanded by the defenders, eventually becoming full trench systems, if given enough time and resources."

Although the history of the exact methods used in WW2 are not really relevant to the point I was making.

WW2 wasn't fought in trenches; you are thinking of the First World War @MrsSunshine2b.

Exactly. Hard times create damaged and hurt people. Just because they hide it well and push on doesn't mean they're coping.

No, hard times create traumatised, angry people with mental health and personality disorders. Otherwise we'd have had seen loads of strong people after WW2 sent a load of 16 yos to the trenches, instead of a whole generation of broken, shell-shocked men, and studies into parenting would have found that child abuse results in strong adults.

I still don't know what the point of exams are 30 years on.... failed mine then did a btec and a degree when I wanted to. Only retained tiny bits of stuff I had to do in school that was irrelevent to my life and I was in the top of the top band with brilliant people. One of whom went to Cambridge. What is the point of all that stress?

My favourite version of the same message is: the only place success comes before work is a dictionary.

Or...

My biggest mistake was my best lesson... you don't learn anything when everything is going perfectly.

(Olivia Newton-John)

Also parents were glad that other people were telling their children off if they needed it and asked them why they'd been told off. Not attack the person who let them know they were playing up.

I also hadn’t heard this saying until recently but think it is spot on. The problems we have now are societal not just generational. If you do everything for a child it doesn’t give then the confidence in there own abilities. My parents keep having to bribe the grandkids to go to school, when I was younger you would have be grilled if you didn’t go to school unless you were ill.

"Strong people create good times, good times create weak people, weak people create hard times, hard times create strong people

Wow never heard that quote before. So true!

ive also been doing some gcse mock exam invigilating recently and shocked by the number of students who go to the toilet during each exam. It’s clearly boredom for a lot of them. It is massively disruptive and will distract and impact the exams of students who are actually trying, but also the number of them who put their heads on the desk after ten minutes, attempting very little.

I do exam invigilating and the number of kids who don't even try, thay all want to be tiktok celebs. If that's the case who's going to cook/deliver their burgers and empty the rubbish etc?

I find that with some of our newer graduates. I will go through what I want them to do, point to resources or people to speak to and make it explicit if I want to see drafts or when I want them to come back to me before moving in.

Nine times out of ten they are on Teams chat a few hours after the meeting asking 100 different confirmation questions. Often some of the work I give them is specifically to test their ability to think through problems and come up with solutions.

There does seem to be an epidemic of helplessness.

I teach in a selective secondary school in a very affluent area (so these are theoretically the ones who we might reasonably have high expectations of) and it has got worse and worse over the last ten years or so - a large proportion of the kids I teach just don’t seem to have any ability to self-direct. I’ve been teaching for over 20 years, so I can think back to how it used to be and the tasks I used to be able to expect students to do. Today, in a lesson, I emphasised the basics (for the nth time!) really carefully, told them explicitly where the ‘cheat sheet’ resources were, told them that if they had their hand up I would expect that they will have looked at that first. First 6 students I went to with their hands up asking for help hadn’t even got the instructions in front of them, let alone read them or looked at the cheat sheet. And they were asking for help with the most basic part that they’ve already done a few times, not the part that was supposed to be the more challenging new learning for the lesson today. There were also some really fantastically engaged problem-solvers and kids who were getting on with it and doing their best, of course, but so many who just weren’t able to do the absolute minimum of getting going on the task. My pet theory when it comes to school is that the ‘Govian’ curriculum introduced in primaries since 2010 has destroyed the opportunities for truly independent work in primary because it has to be so structured and fast-paced. And of course the more they struggle to work independently, the more we end up spoon-feeding to get them through the SATS/GCSEs, etc.

I agree with a previous poster that this over-structured existence extends outside school too. I suspect a lot of parents expect their kids to do much less for themselves than they used to as well.

Instead they are on games where they shoot all opposition down, run like the wind no matter what their fitness is, only experience surreal lives.

Just to throw in a thought...

Is what's seen as a lack of resilience merely a change in priorities?

I dont think its that many young people can't cope but they don't see the point.

Money doesn't go as far, many won't be home owners etc, so what's really the point in busting your butt at work? What's the end goal?

Covid showed that a lot of the ways we ran things were unnecessary. 9-5 in an office isn't actually needed to get stuff done.

I dont think such a thing would work well in today's climate with how polarised everything has become. It would certainly be an incredibly healthy thing to do to explore the nuance in situations.

100% agree.
15 years in my role and things have been getting increasingly worse.

One young man was recently supposed to be having a teams call with his new manager following a successful job interview. Didn't show up because he "was having a bad day" bless 🙄

Also where you sometimes have to take the opposite position to the one you identify with, and try to find its best strengths. Very healthy. Interesting idea.

My son is half Dutch, born and raised in UK. He is confident, strong and resilient, pleases people when it suits him. Will express his opinion in an intellectual and emotionally intelligent way.

I think it’s genetics and parental influence, not where they are born and schooled.

Schools have become rigid with harsh disciplinary policies to deal with the wave of poor behaviour.

https://naomicfisher.substack.com/p/be-more-resilient

Until the school system becomes less rigid, less micro-managing, less prison-like, less about nothing but academic achievement and an obsession with GCSEs, young people are fighting a losing battle. Like Naomi says in the article, unless the world in which young people are educated in becomes more resilient itself (it is so rigid and fixed) then they themselves won’t learn resilience from it. In my opinion young need some control over their own lives/paths to build resilience, as it stands they have very little (or no) say over much at all, especially in school.