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

Are you actually serious? You realise others come from abusive homes or have real trauma happen in their lives and they’re far more resilient? Kids from third world countries where just having clean water is a challenge, never mind a chance to go to school and they manage without crying every 5 minutes and moaning about their mental health. Being out of school for a year is not some big traumatic, life changing event that removes any resilience. In fact you’ll find hard situations tend to increase resilience if anything.
Get some perspective.

Did you just wake up from a coma? 🤣
It’s not a point about grammar!

Are you actually serious? You realise others come from abusive homes or have real trauma happen in their lives and they’re far more resilient? Kids from third world countries where just having clean water is a challenge, never mind a chance to go to school and they manage without crying every 5 minutes and moaning about their mental health. Being out of school for a year is not some big traumatic, life changing event that removes any resilience. In fact you’ll find hard situations tend to increase resilience if anything.
Get some perspective.

I think young people are the opposite of cossetted and are put under a lot of pressure to perform well academically. Universities all want As for courses that required Cs a few years ago.

And not many other options or alternative routes are given for those who are not academic, or are capable of getting qualifications but not at the prescribed time 16 or 18. It's either you get As or you're a failure.

It's certainly not that they aren't allowed to fail, it's that so many are made to feel like failures.

My relatives who are mainstream teachers say the same thing - something is wrong now, starting with attendance, which is down. They also believe part of the problem is the irrelevant curriculum. Students say there is no need to know "x" and it is hard to argue with them most of the time.

In the work place, I see people claiming "work-life balance" and "anxiety" as a way to stop going into the office or agreeing to new tasks or even changing a process that needs to be changed. (I am in the states.)

@greatwesternmailman my son is similar, fully capable in the structured environment of the classroom, incredibly resilient when he had a major operation with a 6 month very painful recovery time at age 16 , great exam results followed by a huge breakdown at uni and is still in recovery. He has depression and been diagnosed with ASD and ADHD.
He's stopped masking and is rebuilding himself, I'm incredibly grateful he's still with us but the rebuild is slow and painful to watch, I would do anything to 'fix him' but he doesn't feel he deserves to be fixed, resilience isn't the issue.
Maybe we could investigate a school system that rewards bullies and ignores their victims, look to your own school processes for bullying, you'll find plenty of resources and interventions for how to support the bully but what support does the victim get, my son was told that his bully had a difficult home life as if that meant that the behaviour should be excused and ignored. I fully support troubled children having help but the people who dread going to school every day because of their bullying also need support.
Add ASD to the mix and the utter unfairness of the situation which becomes internalised as I don't deserve help because my home life is good and I should always be perfect, if I'm not, I'm a failure because I'm not disadvantaged.

And WTF do we do about it?

Obviously many young people are wonderfully resilient but the overall trend I’ve seen in my line of work (behavioural education) is that there are vast, and I mean VAST numbers of young adults who cannot leave the house, come into a classroom, look someone in the eye, make a phone call, speak infront of the class (if they make it in), cry when pronouns are wrong (daily occurrence), take responsibility to revise/get a job/learn to drive.

What is going to happen to these humans in the future?

We may never know why this is, but it strikes me there are certain factors and changes that have happened while these young adults were growing up that can't have helped matters:

1. The 'everyone is special' ethos in primary schools gives young children an inflated idea of their importance;
2. The tendancy over the last few years for parents to protect children from anything that might make them unhappy/bored/out of their comfort zone
3. The increasing isolation of childhood - the pandemic will not have helped - where parents shun any offers of advice/help/experience and gather their children up if a stranger dares to speak to them
4. The increasing tendancy to normalise mental health issues - in general this is probably a good thing, but it can lead to over-thinking and obsession
5. It used to be quite normal to be married and have children in your early-mid 20s. Nowadays this is fairly unusual, so young people have a bigger window of opportunity to think about just themselves
6. The tendancy for people to make excuses for everything. You see it all the time on here: A woman parked in a disabled bay and she was not disabled - she might have invisable disabilities, she might be collecting someone disabled, she might be fleeing some one and needed a safe space asap etc etc etc. The liklihood is she was just being a twat really, but excuses, excuses, be kind etc.
7. Resiliance isn't encouraged anymore. Everything is always someone else's fault and no-one is accountable for their own actions.
8. Finally - the internet. There is no longer any requirement to get on with others or fit in as no matter how niche your opinion is, there is always someone who will agree with you.

Both the school system and parents have a lot to answer for.

Resilience is all about learning how to fail, but we try to prevent our children failing and overly sympathise when young people are upset about something trivial, saying that their feelings are ‘valid’ (whatever that means).

Parents are very reluctant to allow their children to explore the world other than in a totally safe way, as fear of predatory paedophiles and muggers seems to trump the benefit of those scary experiences of getting lost, avoiding dodgy situations etc.

Grade inflation is massive. We talk growth mindset (wrongly) and tell young people that they can be whatever they want. In addition, most private schools now have drop in counsellors, where school kids can go whenever they feel a bit upset. We have validate MH as a legitimate complaint, which is fine except we don’t seem to think, unlike any other illness, it requires a medical diagnosis. People can just say their MH is suffering, and others have to accept it.

And now universities seem to be joining in, cosseting young people until they are 21. Loads on here want universities to contact them if their children are having problems, denying them the autonomy of adulthood at 18.

It just isn’t surprising that young people are conditioned into seeing the world as a scary place…

For me, resilience starts young.

Children need lots of play, try and fail type toys, try and change toys, things to return to, toys to help with problem solving, a chance to be independent, to think for themselves.
This includes jigsaw, construction toys, small world play and lots of time outside.
Teens need to realise ( and parents too) that not all children are ‘neuro-diverse’ - they just have different personalities, needs and interests. They require parental support to develop strategies to meet their own needs.

My DC’s are older - as a student, a sudden claim of MH issues was followed by lots of conversation, lots of checking in and unpicking. This uncovered a young adult who was a procrastinator, unable to manage time and failing through last minute pressures of assignments to complete. Strategies shared and adopted to improve time management, lessened the anxiety of completing work and increased DC’s success, resilience and self reliance and motivation.

In time, DC could recognise and laugh about ‘being just lazy’! ( and disorganised and tired from too many parties). He recognised procrastination as part of his personality. ( goodness me he was always last out of the changing rooms at age right, last to put his coat on to get in the car).

I'm not saying this is the case for all, I was very careful in listening and supporting and if genuine MH issues were evident the support would have been different. However, having personality traits does not mean there are MH issues.

So are you saying only academic people can be resilient as opposed to people who go down vocational routes and artsy careers?