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

You’re right, of course, but the underlying causes are complex, IMO.

If I had to pick a single social trend I’d say it’s the growth of the ‘I’ve got rights!’ culture.

Responsibility and resilience have got rather lost in the blizzard of “rights” issues.

People have difficulty separating the genuinely important injustices from petty personal grievances.

@MandyRiceDavies it’s all over the news - again - today. Wonderful that you don’t know any young people struggling but it is definitely worse than ever now.

@Rumors1 Sport is not the answer for everyone. It’s great for kids who are good at sport and good for them. For some, being bad at sport is part of the problem and schools don’t encourage enough noncompetitive sports, for self esteem and fun, just encouraging enjoying movement and exercise. But funnel everyone into the same old team sports which is mortifying for some with poorer hand eye coordination.

YANBU, and I don't think we do them any favours. I'm a lecturer and we're now seeing many students with adjustments for disabilities - but the form will say things like "X becomes anxious around exam time and so can choose to defer" or "X gets stressed at times of high workload". There is nothing unusual or unhealthy about being stressed during exams or when you have multiple deadlines.

Allowing those students to defer their exams and extend their deadlines just lets them kick the can down the road and the problems tend to build and build.

(There are of course students dealing with all sorts of terrible problems, chronic physical and/or mental health difficulties but that's not what I'm talking about.)

@gannett There is truth in that. When i was at university there was the well known issue of the very high achieving but very mollycoddled child who went off the rails or had a breakdown at univerity - we all knew one. I think probably now thought that is the norm rather than the exception. Younger colleagues look in horror when i say my dad didn't take me to any university interviews and I was expected to come home for the holidays on the train.

He was a single parent with a busy job and had left school at 16 - he just assumed i was an adult and therefore it was for me to sort out.

As always, there's no single issue.

Are the issues really that much worse or are they a bit worse, but seem worse because a) we have more children (DS' school, for example, had just 6 form entry a few years ago, now it's 8 form entry - that's a lot more children so if the numbers are up, are the ratios?). Also, similarly, society has changed a lot and a lot of children who would have struggled at school might not even have been in school, and certainly weren't always as visible and tagged for support, which again, messes with ratios.

Then there's Covid - the gift that never stops.

Then there's the fact that the vast bulk of schools have improved in terms of their thinking on behaviour and other issues. Punishments and codes still exist, but increasingly schools are expected to look more deeply etc.

In the last few years we have the COL crisis and the adult burn out someone else has mentioned. This can make things tougher for families, and more likely that families are struggling with the basics, never mind the more complex issues.

Then there's an increased mindset of paranoia. It wasn't that long ago that children were routinely allowed or even encouraged to play out, walks to school etc from a relatively young age. Studies have shown this helps children build resilience and problem solve. But now, even when parents want to allow this freedom, it can be difficult - eg our school will not allow children to walk alone pre year 6. Plus there's the censure you get from the broader community...

These are just the issues I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are a lot more.

Yeah, those kids in wheelchairs or who are blind...

They'll get a real shock when they enter the real world and if they don't pull their socks up and walk or learn to see no-one will want them.

Thankfully many of the kids on a plan will get extra support - these days you can even take wheelchairs on trains and I hear sometimes they let disabled people actually have jobs!

But focusing too much on menatl health difficulties can make them worse.

Unfortunately, just about all the young people I know have very little resilience and some have serious mental health problems. So, whilst there are many who ARE coping, there seems to be a downward trend.

cry when pronouns are wrong (daily occurrence)

I call bullshit on that for starters. (I have several friends who work with teenagers and have discussed their attitudes to LGBT people, and their own identities, a lot.)

Secondly I don't believe everyone in previous generations was as resilient as it appeared. We just didn't have the language or knowledge to express what was wrong or the awareness that asking for help was permissible. There's so much more knowledge around both mental health issues and social issues. I consider myself a resilient person, by and large, but there was one particular moment when I was 19 where, if I'd known as much about anxiety and stress as I do now, it would have literally altered the course of my life now. As it was I bottled everything up and no one really knew what was going on, to my detriment.

Thirdly when you look at the world today's teenagers are growing up into I'm not bloody surprised they're anxious. From climate change to war to an increasingly fucked economy, I'd be surprised if any but the most privileged viewed their future with any sort of comfort.

My FIL is a teacher and laments the number of children on some sort of ‘plan’. It’s going to be a generation who can’t do anything without it being tailored to them. They’ll either get a shock when they have to enter the real world…or they’ll just go on the dole.

Yes, I work in healthcare and the students now just can't seem to cope with anything. Working nights, working long days, working weekends, seeing patients, dealing with relatives, health care in general. I saw a first year who was finding the responsibility so stressful she had 1/2 of her placement off with stress.

We had a long conversation about whether this course was right for her as she will only gain more responsibility the more senior she became. It took 5 years for her to make it through a 3 year course and she left the profession in the first 6 months.

This is not a unique situation

I think it is easier to talk about poor mental health and anxiety now without stigma - which is a good thing. However I also think we can encourage people to patholgise normal feelings of uncertainty, anxiety and sadness.

I remember going to university in 1997- it was only two years after my mum had died suddenly. I was worried and apprehensive of leaving my dad and brother to cope alone, I was a bit overwhelmed and lonely for first term. I remember a lot of tears.

But I did cope and it was ok in the end.

One of the differences I noticed with my stepson's rocky start to university a couple of years ago is I was forced to go out and meet people - we had shared bathrooms, shared kitchens, a computer centre (hardly anyone had their own laptop), we had to queue endlessly for all sorts of things (NUS card, registering to our faculty, sudent finance etc..), essay deadlines mean you physically had to deliver the printed essay to the department secretary by 5pm.

So you were forced to meet people and go beyond your comfort zone all the time.

@FKAT I completely agree. I was going to say that the single biggest factor in my opinion in building resilience is sport. My three DC are quite resilient. They all play sport, they have had to deal with joining new teams and knowing no-one, dealing with shithead coaches who dont play fair, practicing to improve skills, dealing with losing, dealing with not making more elite teams, being gracious in winning, etc.
My 16 year old DD joined a new team yesterday, the team is older than she is (in 20's) and she had to walk into the dressing room full of strangers, worried about how she would be received, how she would perform, etc. Yes she was nervous but she got on it with and ended up having a great time. A lot of kids her age would have said they were too anxious and backed out. She has been doing this since she was young so she knows most times it works out fine and when it doesnt she can deal with it.

Children are not making decision for themselves, their parents are doing it for them and not allowing them into situations where children have to problem solve. In my day children of all ages played together and figured out tricky situations without their parents doing it for them.

My nephew has very little resilience, he has left sport because he isnt good enough but wont put in the work to improve, he doesnt play out on the street but on video games. His mam micromanages everything for him. Where is he to learn to be resilient?

Well we need to remove barriers to resilience - so we might want to ensure people can access healthcare, we might like to look at reducing poverty or improving the quality of housing, or making things safer out and about.

Then in terms of helping people cope with stress, there are lots of things like having hobbies to give purpose, sleeping well, socialising, building support networks, learning how to manage your time

Then there is a bit of reflection on what you find difficult and what you can change, things you have overcome or just accept you find something hard and what to do with that feeling.

Im sure its not a lost cause - but i think we need to look how resilient societies structures are too, not just individuals. Our education system itself has zero resilience for instance. Its falling apart, no teachers etc

💯 % agree with you OP.

There is a huge crisis in the making. A whole generation of young people will shortly be entering the workplace and are simply not prepared for reality.

They are (and I use this word deliberalely) weak. And their weakness will be taken advantage of by people who are more capable. I don't know what the answer is.

The world doesn't care about your anxiety.

I think it will lead to the downfall of Western societies. That's not being overly dramatic. Look at the armed forces, they cannot recruit because most young people see no value in fighting for anything. They would rather have an intellectual debate, and they think such debates indicate progress, that as people they are somehow superior. But it only takes someone who is infinitely less agreeable (Putin for example) to overpower you and take advantage of you.

The old adage

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

@Namechangechangeobv "Persistent misgendering of someone (again regardless of intent or your stance on gender philosophy) is a sign of disrespect to that person, that's how they will interpret it."

I disagree that this is the case "regardless of your stance on gender ideology". If you use pronouns to describe people's sex rather than self-identified gender, it's nothing personal. We have just reached a position in society in which your freedom to be offended trumps my freedom of expression.

There is that, but we now have to be supportive and have to keep our more cynical thoughts to ourselves 🤨

But it’s the same here (on MN). I’ve been here for 20 years (I know!) and there never used to be endless posts from people who won’t answer the door/phone, or who freak out if a stranger says hello or touches their baby. I don’t think it’s a generational issue, I think it’s a societal issue. And particular to the U.K. In the last five years, I’ve lived in Southern Europe and the Middle East, neither of which seemed to have the same problems.

There's a strange sort of undertone that suggests people believe the school of hard knocks builds resilience.

It doesn't, security builds resilience, knowing that bad things happen, but they get better, there are peolel there to catch you.

Our current young people have has 3/4 years of communal trauma, on top of whatever else they're going through.

Agreed 1000% I have cousins much much younger then me and they rely on their parents for everything. Inmeam everything. They have 0 social skills with adults and don't know how to hold a conversation.
One cousin always asked me for help with all her home work when I asked of she attempted it herself she would say no. Did she ask the twacher - no. Friends - no. Just wanted me to do it. I was asked by all of them to write their CVs, not to check drafts etc no. Write them! Apply for work no they slant want jobs. Work experince no unless someone applied for them. They are all born 1998-2010 and they all have the same personality lazy and unbothered.

This is what we get for falling for the biggest crap to ever come out of pedagogical theory - the child-centred approach.

I assess parenting, children, family dynamics, teach parenting etc for a living.

It's multifaceted as a pp said but one of the main contributors is parental burnout. Both parents working, often full time, trying to run a household and take dc to activities, juggling so many plates alone. Very few people have actual support these days and those that do it's minimal. Life has become busier but real practical and emotional support has decreased. Parents are exhausted. It's difficult to go beyond meeting basic needs when you are running on empty. Most people are drudging through the day praying for bedtime. Parental mental health is on the floor. Resilience needs teaching but the parents are too exhausted to teach it.

YANBU. Parents and teachers unable to or want to discipline, no consequences, mobile phones/social media, no winners (taking part is enough), giving children everything they want without having to earn it, no work ethic for some reason, always doing an activity (no time to be "bored" or think for themselves), little face-to-face contact or socialising with people - but this is is the most recent 2 or 3 generations, not just today's children.

@FKAT
That is really interesting, thank you.

I am interested in this (on a personal level as I had MH problems in my teens in the 1990s which were completely ignored) - do you have links to a research study or more detail. I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

My kids also both had MH problems as teens and they are now (largely) much better, but a key difference is that I got them treatment.