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

Lots of solid suggestions earlier in this thread.

How about

• imminent climate collapse, meaning many young people expect to see breakdown of society in their lifetime

Or

• mass global experiment of parents happily giving very young children a glowing box to carry round with them at all times, with which they can access all the world's problems, be sent pictures of penises by adults, be harassed by their peers and adults to send pictures of their intimate parts, and have their attention spans fried by games, websites and apps, deliberately designed to make them addicted and grind down their self esteem?

(I'm a secondary school teacher)

I’m afraid that the “demand for safe and inclusive workplaces” has become part of the problem. Employers should employ working practices that comply with Employment Law, but some employees believe that their employer should bend over backwards at every unreasonable demand instead of just accepting that some things are outside of their control and thats the way employment works. What precisely do you mean by ‘inclusive’? Not everyone is able to do every job, and a job description is not, by its very nature, inclusive. neither is holding interviews or requiring specific qualifications for some jobs. Life itself isnt inclusive. The word is overused and exploited.

This generation learned what the vast majority of us didn’t learn until we were 30+, that were living our lives slogging away to make another person rich for next to no return in our personal lives. Doesn’t matter how hard you work the chances of escaping financial insecurity are minuscule so what’s the point in continuing to live in a society that doesn’t value us.

It's quite worrying re resilience not being taught or learned by doing.

As many others here, I learned resilience by doing things including travelling widely when younger. Yes, sometimes there might have been things go wrong but coping and troubleshooting is all part and parcel of that. My NDN/friend has an on the spectrum DS who now lives away from home but has built resilience by using public transport widely.

Huge sen backlogs.
Very little mental health support.
Huge pressure on children to be in school when ill.
Family Court forcing children to spend time with physically abusive men.
Overstretched stressed out teachers meaning a poorer learning environment.
Parents struggling with a COL crisis.
Children aren't less resilient, they are just expected to get on with it with very little support.

We were anxious, but we learnt that we could deal with public transport mistakes.

This is so so important. And it's such an important part of building resilience. You don't build resilience from never suffering from anxiety. You build resilience from being anxious and getting through it.

Dh used to work in theatre. He regularly tells our DC that he often felt anxious before performances but he'd done it enough times to know that the anxiety was just going to keep him sharp.

DD has to go on a school residential recently. She was really really anxious. The school did a good job of digging up the positives but I also told her that this anxiety was normal, and it would make her feel even better when she got back and realised that even though she was anxious, she did it anyway. And she did.

In DS' year, there were many children who just didn't go on the residential because, according to their parents, "they were too anxious". Now, I'm not saying that every child's anxiety about this is the same or that it's not true that some might be experiencing much higher levels of anxiety, but I do think that parents aren't always good at telling the difference.

I agree with you wholeheartedly though I do sympathise with young people.

An example for me. I was bullied in secondary school, had to leave and attend a private school for age 14-16 years.. Also had severe undiagnosed PMDD which resulted in approx 3 mini nervous breakdowns with insomnia, anxiety, depression and slightly psychotic behaviour. Could also have been PTSD from my childhood which was traumatic sometimes. I also was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid in my 30s which meant it could send up same symptoms as PMS/T. No one thought to test for that either. I ended up seeing a therapist through the council mental health team (he just listened) from when I was approx 14-16 and I was on largactyl, valium, sleeping pills etc when I was suffering but these were only approx 3 week periods. My DM eventually made the connection it was PMS/T. But as in 80's there was little or no help for it. I had counselling and therapy privately but that wasn't much good either!

Throughout all the above, I was encouraged to take exams, go to school/college independently, get a job and move out when I was ready (early 20s) and learn to drive. Some things I couldn't cope that well with though.

I think if I didn't have the help and support I needed then to make me more resilient I'd definitely have become far more scared of life in time.

This video touches on some of the issues around lack of resilience these days. It makes for very interesting viewing.

@Bushmillsbabe this is so true. Even I as an adult feel like I might soon be in an existential crisis when I follow the news too much. I can't imagine what some of these messages do to kids and teens.

I sometimes think to myself that I'd be lucky to not experience war in my lifetime. But is this even true? There were wars in the 90s in the balkans and others...I didn't understand it all then as I was just a kid. I do remember going to school one morning and being told there was bombing in Yugoslavia and wondered if I might hear it at night. But it didn't feel like my existence might disappear etc. then there was Tschernobyl... I think we heard about things that happened a day later and the got some daily news but you weren't flooded with it and it still seemed far away.

@Ohanotherflippingcold safe and inclusive workplaces? I wish
Employers do not care about either, whatever lip service they pay to it.

@ghostyslovesheets anyone who works in a SEN school will tell you they do not take those children any more, because there has been an explosion in the numbers of children with more complex SEN needs.

Think you've just hit the nail on the head

I disagree on the MH snowflakes thing

My dd has asd and adhd. Late diagnosis and she is the bravest person I know !

Once she finds her feet I am
Sure she will fly. She is already so much happier after leaving the toxic environment of her sixth form and working part time. Learning real life skills and earning. She is really coming on now.

I feel the issues are multi faceted
School is too controlling and standards set too high for many.
Govt too nanny state
Covid held kids back from vitalSocial Skills
Too Many exams, levels at a too young an age
Climate change is desperate yet govt do sod all. Move the goal post every year
War all over
Housing is inaccessible

Yet social Media tells us we need to have it all.

I'd be fed up too if that's all I had to look forward too.

What about thinking. Creativity. Aspiration, freedom
Hope

@Twatalert I didn't see 'all these issues' either in the 80's - because 'those kids' where either in SEN schools, not in education, bunking off, etc

I agree with this, but I don't think we just have to throw up our hands and say 'Oh no, it's gone, everything is different now'.

If we think there need to be more opportunities for young people to be supported by adults in their community to build resilience (which is basically what Scouts/ Guides is), then we need to create these.

I'd say there's an equal problem of adults being a bit drained and disillusioned, and not putting in the same amount of energy to actively guiding and shaping young people. They aren't getting the same input so of course they are going to struggle.

More adults need to volunteer, to put themselves out there, to help young people.

It's weird that this thread has popped up on the day the Daily Express has done it's 'culture wars' bit on people not working due to poor Mental Health , and they ask is it just ' snowflakey ' ?

I'm glad secondary school children are now disclosing poor mental health in schools instead of just putting up with and having a lifetime of anxiety and bitterness about how they were treated.

I'm glad schools are being confronted with these statistics and issues and are being made to look at the culture they are creating.

Kids of today are not any less resilient than in the ' good old days' , I look at it as an enormous progression that they can take control of their own feelings instead of being made to suffer and to fail.

These kids will demand inclusive and safe workplaces, not accept bullying and will look after their mental health. Good on 'em.

I work as an invigilator in schools. There seems to have been an explosion of kids who cannot be in the main exam hall, and need various forms of extra support/mitigations. So there’s the room for the anxious kids, the room for the challenging behaviour kids, one to one invigilator for kids who literally cannot be in an exam room with any other kid. There’s 25% extra time for kids with mental health issues. Oh and if we can’t fit all the anxious ones in their particular room so they are in the main hall, we have to take them out for a walk in the corridor when they get overwhelmed. It’s meant a lot more invigilators are required!!

The more interesting question is how to build resilience.

I think a lot of that comes from being successful at non-school activities.

So learning to use buses and trains on your own, maybe with parental support at first.

Learning to cycle a bike and how to fix it when it goes wrong.

Guides, Scouts, and the various cadet organisations are very good at this because they support children and young people to learn life skills through badges etc and help them get used to working with other adults and young people away from the home.

Schools have become increasingly focused on academics rather than the rounded person, and a lot of music, sport, trips etc which I think did build resilience is gone.

I think a chunk of this is down to the messages they are receiving from adults and social media. They are constantly fed information about 'environmental threats' 'cost of living crisis' 'war' and are taught to be very easily offended. When I was younger I think it was easier for parents to filter what information we received and ensure that was age appropriate and not so overwhelming. Now they are constantly receiving messages of society being 'under threat' from 1 thing after another, and their developing brains go into a form of panic or shutdown as its just too much for them.

I try to keep my girls away from screens, news etc (except newsround) as far as possible as they need the chance to just be children and worry about nothing bigger than what they want for dinner or whose birthday party is coming up. There is plenty of time to worry about the bigger issues when they get older. We build resilience through outdoor activities which develop skills and confidence such as Brownies, climbing, Athletics etc and have seen a huge drop in anxiety levels

@ghostyslovesheets the country I come from has nothing like TAs or CAHMS etc. I didn't know what this when I came to the UK. So we grew up without all this and seemingly didn't have all the issues back in the 90s.

I do agree that families have it harder. Children no longer have it better than their parents did. Work seems less rewarding, i.e. pay is not keeping up with cost of living. Lots of cost cutting in companies and the system as a whole..I feel like capitalism has become as extreme as it can be? I.e. not as many teachers as before, too high a workload in many professions. A lot less focus on the human than I remember it a couple of decades ago.

There really are!

I started a hobby group which attracts a large number of young people and I get to speak to them and share my own experience and hopefully guide some of them a bit.

If adults did more of this, and tried to give more to their community like this, then perhaps young people wouldn't feel so lost and alone.

I'm not saying I'm a pinnacle of wisdom or goodness (definitely not!) but I think it's important to do your bit to help, rather than just complain about young people. They aren't living in an easy world.

The only kids who will have a plan are those with SEN. These kids can't just learn their way out of that.

Children also need to do chores. This builds resilience and character. It gives kids self esteem and makes them feel they can do tasks. Little steps of success.
So many kids aren't given chores anymore when they're young. It's then too late to expect them to comply when they're teenagers and instead they live in disgusting unhygienic bedrooms where parents think 'it's their room. They can keep it how they want'
That's not good for their mental health either.