UK teens the most unhappy in Europe

@gottoget My local special school is outstanding. Making the grade has a totally different meaning from what you describe. It’s for DS’s with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

I don’t think it’s helpful to blame a politician. Schools set their own ethos. They don’t have to pile on excessive pressure. SLT set the targets. No one else. Well maybe the MAT but not government. Dc and parents expect all those 9 grades and A stars. It’s hardly Gove that piled this on.

16 Underfunding health and mental heath services. plays a huge part in problems that could be solved early on becoming very serious and life-long.

I think one difference to other countries is a set of major exams at 16 and another at 18, most countries only have them at 18. GCSE's isn't just one test, it is 3-4 full-on exams for every subject, the prospect of this terrifies a lot of kids from ages 14+.

Other things that are depressing for everyone might affect a developing mind more: the last 14 years of lack of infrastructure investment (poor roads, few cycle paths, poor pedestrian pavements/crossings etc, poor public transport, everything is falling apart and dirty), lack of investment in schools and the NHS, deregulation of areas of life that need regulation such as water quality.

Plus Covid has been found in studies to have very bad affected the age group who were mid to older teenagers during the lockdowns because they stayed at home more and did fewer social activities and independence/confidence-building activities.

I’m really not just saying this to be contrary and maybe I do think Brits have the best sense of humour (biased!), but it’s definitely declined. Everything is offensive or a micro aggression now - people don’t bother making jokes and clearly think hard every time they open their mouth for fear of causing offence. It’s very sterile compared to even 10 years ago and you see it a lot on here - clearly well meaning comments being turned inside out to search for hints of bigotry, before the poster is rounded on and called a fascist (or whatever).

I agree there’s potential, some at least, but it’s being squandered and to be honest if the best thing we have going for us is humour (an innate trait that isn’t really an indicator of quality of life) then we’re in trouble.

Yes really good points about the level of entitlement of people in general which will of course filter down to children and entitlement makes people angry and paranoid because they perceive they should have something/stuff but they're not going to get it = instant dissatisfaction.

Also needing to have some sort of public identity, having to share or disclose everything about yourself, makes people very self absorbed and self centred, that in turn causes anxiety because people think life is about them and therefore that what other people do/say/think is also about them, very anxiety provoking, kids are also like this. The best thing you can teach a child, in the nicest way, is that you are not special, you are not different, no one is looking or thinking about you, just get on with your day and life.

The fashion in Europe tends to be classic and doesn't change as fast and isn't as faddy as the UK. That makes a huge difference. Cos social media.

@Blueybanditbingochilli

"Take Finland. Excellent education and healthcare, good social housing, a progressive and mainly cohesive and equal society, but the weather is dire and it’s dark a lot of the time. Fine - you can mitigate that by going on holiday."

I think this is a misconception of the Nordic countries. The weather is not dire and it's not dark a lot of the time. We have more daylight hours in Stockholm than you do in London per year. We have loooong days in the summer (like 19h) and in the winter we only get 6-7 hours of daytime,

We have more sunny days too and less rain. There was 1290mm of rain in London in 2023 whereas only 555mm of rain in Stockholm and 2/3 of that is in the form of snow in the winter. The weather definitely made an impact on me when I lived in the UK and even the long dark winters here feels OK since the summers are really light, dry and comfortably warm (not hot).

I'd say the complete opposite, we teach children that they are not fine, they're anxious, unsafe, depressed, we pathologise normal human emotions and react as if kids cant do things because they're worried.
We adult children by involving them in choices and lifestyles they're not cut out to make but at the same time infantilise them by pandering and micromanaging risk and being risk averse. Everything is a 'safeguarding concern', everything is 'report it to the police/school'.

I blame schools (not teachers) but the targets, Ofsted, the extreme exam culture - the winners and the loser they have become excessively rules-driven and overly ambitious. I went to a strict grammar school in the 80's in comparison to the Comprehensive my kids went to - the difference is breathtaking, the comprehensive they went to needed to win awards for everything they did even being the best at mental health ffs ( they were shockingly bad but they ticked the award boxes) - the Grammar I went to also now wins lots of national awards - but at what cost - lots of parent only become aware when it's too late - blame the parents all you like - but where are the child development and educational experts who have allowed this to happen? The big experiment in turning our schools into businesses that pin banners to their wall and profess to be outstanding - when we know the cost of outstanding are the kids who couldn't make the grade and were well aware of how they let everyone down. In essence, I blame Micheal Gove for thinking the world needed him and his educational experience! He was a very clever but very stupid little man.

As a teacher I see it as helicopter parenting + social media = anxious teens.

Kids in France and Germany are much more trusted to go out and about and have freedom and the associated resilience with being both trusted and having their own space. They aren’t fretting on Tik Tok like kids in the U.K.

There seems to be this strange belief over here that they are safer on their phones (the opposite of true).

@Blueybanditbingochilli in the defence of the UK, as a long time German resident and also lived in Netherlands and Belgium (and other countries), that one nice thing about the UK which we miss a lot and which the kids love when they go back is just the everyday nice banter and politeness. People are just quite nice to each other and the level of humour and camaraderie is really good. So I do feel like we still have humour. The sheer hatchet faced practicality of your average German, don't get me wrong, they can be a blast but there is no default banter ever. Also per capita road deaths - best in Europe. Interestingly I feel like the French whinge a LOT about everything and yet they have a very supportive social state. Also I think the UK has a lot of charm and wonderful scenery, the stately homes, national parks, historic sites etc are really lovely - and unique. And you don't have to carry an ID. I think the global damaging trends for youth are mainly centred around social media, having to curate your personality online as much as offline, fake news, and very scary, fake image generation (what will happen to history!!), and the UK is doing a lot wrong mainly in that the state doesn't spend enough on young people, but not everything is wrong. There's a lot of potential.

@MavisPennies Theres always been inequality. It’s just that no one went on about it all the time. Remember that people lived in slums. We had an outside loo. We never had a holiday. I was aware some people had a lot more than us, but I was determined to do better. So ambition can come from this situation. Now we just moan about it and expect others to sort it out. Sometimes you are happy having a goal and getting on with living. I think there are more opportunities now, not less.

I think it is the rise of social media. There is a step change in teen behaviour where many hang out in bigger groups (online and in school) nasty sm conversations are rife and involve kids from all over the area, not just students in class or even school. Teenagers can send photos or videos in a instant which can be used to humiliate an individual to a large audience. Children can be in fear of being the next victim. Some students can be absolutely vile on social media. Not helped by parents allowing kids younger than 13 on these sm sites. Years ago, home was a break from any problems at school, now there is no escape if you have upset the wrong person. I think sm has made the world a more threatening place to many teens.

I feel like with other countries, they get 50-80% of it ‘very right’ and the rest ‘very wrong’. Whereas in the UK, there is nothing ‘very right’ but rather than being ‘very wrong’ it’s all just a bit shit. Does that make sense?

Take Finland. Excellent education and healthcare, good social housing, a progressive and mainly cohesive and equal society, but the weather is dire and it’s dark a lot of the time. Fine - you can mitigate that by going on holiday.

Italy - beautiful scenery and weather, excellent food and eating out, fabulous healthcare, but quite a lot of bureaucracy. You can’t really mitigate that but the positives make up for it.

Germany - good wages and a comfortable lifestyle, highly developed infrastructure, very safe. The weather isn’t great and the scenery generally fairly plain, but again you can go on holiday.

With the UK I can’t think of anything we do very well. Healthcare is pretty shocking right now, housing is not only expensive but cramped and of poor quality, wages are awful, the weather is shocking and the infrastructure is dire. We’re not famous for food or a healthy/relaxed lifestyle, working hours are long and education (while not the worst) is far from the best.

Bottom line is there are no upsides to the UK where we can go, ‘ok X is bad, but Y is fabulous’. It’s all below average to poor.

I'd add;
Inequality
Lack of freedom - they don't get to do very much free unsupervised play at all so they aren't used to overcoming even the smallest amounts of friction in life, this in turn makes them feel anxious and stops them from trying things out.
Lack of responsibility - very few have the time (outside of homework and long school hours) to take on jobs or regular chores.

Those last two are parenting mistakes of mine anyway, but where I was following a social norm.

Everyone is easily offended. Everyone is right, humour has taken a nosedive. There’s few programmes DC gel about. We used to be keen on Monty Python in my era. We never had youth clubs. I was aware they were built after I was a teen, but only in towns. Us country folk didn’t have one.

I also think little things meant a lot. We didn’t have high expectations and were easily pleased. Many lived in council houses. We lived in private rented. Quite a few were home owners though. I’d say about 1/3 of my primary class had owner parents. Before Thatcher and right to buy, far more rented.

I agree that overbearing schools and not giving dc freedoms doesn’t make them happy. I gave dc quite a lot of freedom, but I walked to school without my mum at 5! Y1. Everyone did. Took 30 minutes. We latched onto others to cross a road!

My DD1 went to a primary school where there wasn’t homework from y3. As a result she did all sorts of activities which pleased her. DD2 did have homework but it was flexible and not onerous. She did loads of dance and Brownies, etc. We just played down school and that also included the 11 plus.

I think the comparison with Sweden is interesting. At the moment we are an angry and confused country. Brexit expressed anger but was also self destructive. We row about everything and seem troubled as a nation. We want so much but expect others to provide it and I don’t think that’s a healthy atmosphere for children.

I'm from one of the countries near the top.

One main and very glaring difference is the different life stages the 15yos are at.

In my country, they would've just finished their first year of high school(or thereabouts) -with 3 more years until the really important exams- whereas here at 15 teens are smack dab in the middle of their GCSE saga and already considering A level and all that.

Belgium has one of the highest rates of teen suicide in Europe.
They have a very high rate of parents splitting up compared to many other countries.

I come across a fair number of people who have moved to the UK as they find European education too rigid so I definitely don't think 'Europe' is more relaxed about exams; quite the opposite in some countries. My European husband thinks that schools in Britain are too relaxed.
I've seen a lot of changes just in the last few years so I think some of the perceptions here are a bit out of date.

Do you think so? I’m no fashion expert unless Tu at Sainsbury’s counts as such but I’d have thought both France and Italy would surely be more conscious of fashion. I was a teenager at the height of heroin chic: not fun. TopShop and miss selfridge would never go above size 14 back in the day and even they were few and far between.

I think the problem is it's become like the US , but with none of the better aspects of the US - very dog eat dog- they are all competing against each other - be it looks, possessions, achievements.

Far too much emphasis on academic achievements and not enough about life skills, social skills- a decline in FE colleges and practical courses or support , and yes as someone else said- youth clubs!!

A lot of parents struggling too both in money and relationships- kids aren't deaf or blind.

The Children's Society said it is 'particularly troubling' that the gap between boys and girls is widening. Between 2015 and 2022 happiness levels among 15-year-old girls in the UK have also declined more sharply than the European average.
Data from the Good Childhood Report found that 22.6 per cent of girls reported being unhappy with their appearance in 2021/22, compared to 9.2 per cent of boys.

One teenager said their peers often feel they need to 'change' themselves to be accepted, because people won't 'acknowledge you or look at you' otherwise. They said people had to 'look a certain way to be accepted'.

The report said that the dissatisfaction relates to a range of factors including food deprivation, NHS waiting lists for mental health services, bullying in schools and levels of physical activity – with the UK having the fifth highest rate of pupils reporting no physical exercise.

@IceStationZebra i would slightly disagree on that having lived in Copenhagen and also go to Germany with work a fair bit. We got far more sun and less rain when we lived in Copenhagen- although it rarely got above 24 degrees and we got more frost, ice and a bit more snow too. My friend been posting her picks in Stockholm last few weeks, lovely blue skys most days. I've frequently been to Stuttgart or Frankfurt area mid to late April and been in a t shirt buying ice cream too - good weather seems to start earlier there and is way more consistent-although they do get more thunder and storms in the summer on odd days after hot weather. Northern France and Ireland though much the same here

The UK has always been the most fashion conscious country in Europe. That combined with social media and commercial pressures are the heart and soul of the problem.

They complain because it has got markedly shitter.

It is delusional to be positive about things getting shitter.

Toxic positivity helps no one, it's just papering over the cracks for people too scared of real life.

I think the humourless are completely lost when it comes to the concept of the offensive person ‘being’ the joke. They just assume you’re laughing because you approve of the bigotry.

Yes when I was at school it was South Park, the Inbetweeners (just as I left), things like Little Britain… all of which would NEVER be released now for being offensive.