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

I think the pendulum will swing the other way in terms of parenting. The ‘gentle’ parenting and (misinterpreted) ‘child centred’ approach will be stagmatised as being harmful to well-being and healthy social development.

Children desperately NEED boundaries and their immature whims less pandered to and taken oh so seriously. I think as life gets harder we are going to have to return to grown ups being in charge.

And that doesn’t mean children aren’t loved, played with, cherished and read to. It means we treat them as children. We nurture, cajole and Mary Poppins them rather than putting them on lofty pedestals of preciousness.

We have a young generation who are mentally weak due to helicopter parenting. Going to school isn't optional! MH covers everything. Some have poor MH others use it as an excuse because as a society we are to scared of questioning it. I work in this field my personal views are not my professional stance but I see too many teens using MH interchangeably for I can't be arsed.

@AgnesX "People talk about it much more freely it seems."

Or, more cynically: people can gain social cachet by labelling themselves as suffering from various mental health disorders.

I too despair and, writ large, liberal democracy as we know it is in trouble.

I suspect this website self-selects for a more no-nonsense style of parenting, as people who think correctly sexing someone is "literal violence" will have long gone elsewhere.

Pretty ageist - so maybe il join in?

I worked in an office with a lot of people 40+
Who would get upset over:
Not being said hello to in the morning individually
Not being able to sit next to their friend
Being asked to learn a new piece of technology
Being asked to train on something new
Being asked to change shift pattern (with several months notice, with change only to one shift a week, no overnight working, had always been in their contract from day 1)
Being asked to read emails
Being asked to put in annual leave correctly
Not getting complimented on doing their day job to the minimum standard accepted, then when we did compliment them, claim its patronising.
Being asked to walk less than 50ft to the car park after dark in a safe part of town with adequate lighting
We don't supply free biscuits any more
The company is restructuring and this is a PERSONAL SLIGHT AGAINST THEM (and 50 other people) and HOW DARE THIS COMPANY DO THIS TO THEM (their job is literally no longer needed because noone wants the service any more)

...I could keep going. Do I think this means all 40+ people lack resilience? No, obviously not.

I would also point out here that I would consider something like 'getting upset because my partner is invited to his work colleagues wedding and I'm not, despite having never met this work colleague, because it's 'rude'' pretty lacking in resilience but people get their knickers in the twist all the time about stuff like that and that's considered normal...

Boring but evidence based response - lack of access to sport, green space, independent playing, and being outside.

It's multifactorial of course but that's the biggie. State schools selling off sports facilities and playing fields, local authorities selling off any patch of land and closing playgrounds/parks along with car culture - these are all driving children inside - and devices are keeping them there.

The link between sport & exercise, unsupervised play, outside activity and personal resilience / mental health is very well researched and established.

Please pay attention to the current Housing, Communities and Levelling Up inquiry.
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/7981/children-young-people-and-the-built-environment/

Having poor mental health doesn't appear to be such the stigma as it used to be. People talk about it much more freely it seems.

What is "behavioural education"? Is this education of kids with behavioural problems, or more general than that? If the former, then more kids than average will have "behavioural problems", which might affect your sample.

I made some interesting observations of teenage behaviour when I was a driving instructor, some twenty years ago. Of the 17-year-olds, I found that the more middle-class and academic they were, the harder they found it to make decisions. It was as if it was the first time in their lives they had had to make decisions quickly, without an adult doing it for them.

Also work in behavioural education and tbh I disagree, I see young people every day who are overcoming significant barriers and are still going. It sounds like you've forgotten how hard it is to be a teenager and contend with peer pressure, bullying, hormones, lack of self confidence, figuring out identify. Teenagers are going through a lot, even the well adjusted well supported ones. I think we've created a society where they are better able to express their feelings and fears whereas in years previously that would have been kept silent. None of the issues you've listed are new to this generation I remember going through similar along with my sister when we were teens. And in terms of pronouns, ultimately regardless of where you stand on gender identity, for many young people it's about respect and being seen and having bodily autonomy. 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. Most young people will react to being disrespected and undermined so again, that in itself isn't completely unfathomable. You're asking someone to act like an adult when they haven't even finished with the necessary brain development to do so. I'm really surprised to hear someone in BE talk this way tbh. What we do about it is meet them on their level, invest in and support them and try to build their confidence and self esteem. The rest follows.

I'm not sure that it's just teenagers. There seems to be a collapse of resilience everywhere.

The previous mentality of just getting on with things or taking control of a situation as best you can or only worrying about what you can control seems to be gone.

Even with work queries, I'll help anyone but people don't seem to be able to help themselves anymore. It used to be "I considered this or that option, and wonder if you could give me a steer" now it's "I don't know what to do". This is without reading the procedural manual, without checking the source of the issue, without going back to a previous similar issue".

Resilience is reducing but self help and genuine effort appear to be reducing too.

They were talking on the radio about his mental ill health for people in their 20s has really increased.

It’s well documented that the mental il health of young people and teenagers has massively increased over the past 15 years or more. For all groups and especially for teenage girls.

Clearly something is going wrong and it’s probably multi-factorial.

My tuppencd worth us that I think the very controlled childhoods kids have will be a factor. I do think that the free range childhoods of old were needed to enable children to build social skills, emotional skills, problem solving and resilience. You just can’t do that in the same way at adult directed and supervised activities.

And of course all the social media stuff, pornographer, amount of time gaming rather than actual real life laying with other humans.

Our school system has a very narrow academic focus that only suits a certain subset of kids.

it’s not surprising they aren’t doing great.

I can’t meet with a group of friends now without hearing about a new MH problem in one of their DC (young adults). Feels like half of them can’t cope with uni for example.

Are we just more aware and more open? Is it a good thing? At work since it’s become acceptable to openly own one’s MH issues it has definitely become an exhausting problem for managers.

I think it depends on the circles you're in. The ones I work with, while very different from my peers or their parents, are very stable, bright and very hard working.

There are drama queens as there always have been but in terms of a positive working environment and the world around them they have more input. And they aren't afraid to share their thoughts. That appears to be a surprise for a lot of people.

PS I'm referring to the current crop of new new graduates.

How many schools in your area have behavioural education ?
Is that 200 from year 7 to year 13?
My kids go to a school which is 240 kids per year so 200 doesn’t sound excessive but happy yo hear why I am wrong.
Is it covid backlog catching up? Or are there more teachers available to deal with this?
The exponential increase is big but do you think that you are paying for resources at younger ages being cut and that some of these kids would have been seen at primary age?
I have a young adult child who had intervention at school back when Labour was in government. He was in year 2 at the time but it helped him become much more confident and able to cope with school. What I’m trying to say is this the repercussions of lack on investment in children rather than the current school children lacking resilience ?

I do enjoy the fact that you're asking what we should do about it, surely that's how the whole problem started? The previous generations babied them into adulthood and now many are in an anxious state because they don't know how to be confident in themselves and use their initiative? You don't learn resilience from getting everything handed to you and by being told you're great all the time. Imagine being treated that way and then BAM, you go into a workplace and suddenly you actually have to make an effort to become competent (let alone great).

I'm not saying all of Gen Z is like this, I've worked with some lovely Gen Z adults.

It's hard to understand. I have 2 DD. One now frequently misses school through anxiety and burnout, had lots of therapy, etc. (Previously was top of her class, did lots of after school stuff and had a great friend group.)

The other is still top of her class, involved in clubs, D of E, very proactive. Same upbringing but different outcomes.

I was worried that would be the case. What do you think the causes are?

I did all of those things you listed (speaking in front of the class and etc) at school and in other settings, was often told how mature I was. Turns out I’m autistic and have ADHD and was heavily masking the whole time. I’m a perfectly functional, successful, happy adult, but it’s taken a while to get here.

I've been thinking about this all morning after a few observations made last week and this weekend.

It's as if young people are unable to deal with minor issues or conflicts in real time which I feel ought to have been readily brushed off. It's a concern.

No-one's born with all the skills they'll need in adulthood, they have to learn them, so it's our responsibility as parents, teachers and colleagues to help them acquire those skills. I've benefited from more experienced colleagues showing me things like how to have productive meetings, phone calls (including having a script and making notes!), how to have difficult conversations. That's not new and it's not unique to this generation.

Is it really worse? When I was at secondary in the 90s students weren’t required to talk in class and loads of kids just didn’t finish year 11. Expectations have changed a huge amount.

10 years ago I was teaching a year 10 class and most of them weren’t able to write their own address. Some didn’t even know it.

I agree op

And it's not just school kids it's been going on a long time

Covid restrictions ( I feel) exacerbated it

Many twenty somethings are in this category