UK teens the most unhappy in Europe

I could be wrong but I feel schooling in the uk is not child centric. The main purpose of school seems to be to provide childcare so that both parents can work. My main concern is Why do kids need to start school at such a young age? What is the need to start learning how to read at age 4? Kids at this age NEED to play for healthy development. And school is a jungle. Too much academic pressure, too much stress from being thrown in with 30 other kids who have equally underdeveloped empathy and social skills, too long days and just not enough play. My child (born end of August so I possibly feel this particularly acutely) was able to read fluently by Christmas but who cares? At that age she should have been learning social skills, and confidence and resilience (in a controlled setting like a nursery / home and not a jungle like school). And I'm not saying the school is solely responsible for these skills but when kids spend upto 8h in school every day then there isn't that much time left for anything else.

I also feel that kids in the uk appear much older than their chronological age. They are very much into structured activities like sports but seem to stop playing make belief games eg with dolls / teddies really early.

I know this thread is about teens but how can you have mentally healthy teens when their early childhood was not conducive for healthy development.

So this is my theory anyway..I'm convinced I'm right that the school model in the uk is wrong but what I don't know is

1. whether it is necessarily better in other countries where teens are apparently less unhappy. I grew up in northern Europe. I joined school at almost age 7 and I only had 5h of school from year 2 to year 10 (4h in year 1). And, yes we all walked to school on our own latest by year 2 and a lot of us were latchkey kids though I'm not sure if that was that great. We were definitely more independent.

1. If what i want is even possible the days. Both dh and me work full time ( and id never not work) and even if school hours were shorter dd would still not have more time to play at home. I do think though that something less structured like after school club or something like a nursery is healthier than school.

It probably doesn't help that accessing any sort of help for mental health problems is really hard.

It was awful 9 years ago when I needed help (depression + anxiety, diagnosed far too late imo). Camhs wasn't great, I was on the waiting list for several months before I was seen, which is probably quicker than it is now. As soon as I turned 18 (which was about 6 months after I started) I was dropped and put on the waiting list for adult mental health services, which I never got off the waiting list for. My primary school never noticed I was depressed (or didn't care), and my secondary school didn't do anything when my friend told a teacher about my mental health issues. I was given a sheet on safer ways to self harm and that was it. I only got help after my mum read an online post I had written about how I didn't want to be alive anymore.

When I was an adult at university, I was passed around until a service would take me and it took me 2 years to get seen, and then covid happened and I finished university so was back to square one. I was fortunate enough that my husband could afford for me to have private therapy.

That mixed with COL, definitely doesn't help, as well as a huge amount of girls going undiagnosed for autism/adhd as the diagnostic criteria is how symptoms present in boys. I know my issues stem for being undiagnosed with autism.

@gaininginsight

You've hit the nail on the head.

I have relatives and many friends from different parts of Europe and we have often talked of similar issues. One striking difference here is that it is a very elitist system, one that can't shake off this centuries old class system. Of course in every country there is mega rich and poor but there is a difference in attitude to it. I once spoke to a friend who was from an Eastern European country and they couldn't understand the fact that people moved areas for certain schools here but he could see why based on the system, and said how sad it was that one school 5 mins away from another would have a completely different reputation. Children in his country would always go to their local school and there is a strong sense of community and because of that they all help eachother out. Also in a friends group they will all be very mixed. One may be super clever and another not but that is accepted and they still hang out together happily. The clever kid will be admired by the others and not labelled geeky or ridiculed about it. Therefore the parents aren't worried the other kids will 'bring him down', like they are here. Kids are more accepting of eachother. Here people are wary of neighbours, are very much looking their nose down on who is better and who isn't and people stay within their social circle pretty much which fosters fake and competitive friendships. This guy was a builder, quite young in his 20s and his best friend at school who lived down the road turned out to be a top barrister in his country. They are still very close and can get together and have fun. None of them have a complex about it. My point is although there are many factors involved in teenage misery, the class system here really doesn't do good for each especially the working class teens who are massively stereotyped here in UK.

@Nuggetnuggety Social mobility has completely changed for the better over the last 50 years. Just look at the opportunities for going to uni! Completely transformed, 38.% go now. 8% when I was that age. In the early 50s we had 22 universities. Well over 100 additional ones now. Far more opportunity. Of course there’s been a cost / a graduate tax to pay fees rather than the working class paying.

Far more people own houses, have pensions, go on holiday and have professional
jobs. Unfortunately not enough take advantage of what’s available, but that’s another story. If people want to be socially mobile, they have to work at it. Many current middle class did exactly this. They didn’t settle for more of the same. Some people don’t want to join another class. They like who they are.

I remember reading something a while ago about how Lithuania and Romania ranked very highly in youth happiness. I think one of the main takeaways for Romania was that young people were aware that their lives would be better (more free, more materially wealthy etc) than their parents and grandparents who had lived through Communism and then the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were grateful and they were hopeful. (Iirc, this also applied to Lithuania, but there were other factors there such as the investment in higher education and generous grants for an art/music scene to increase their cultural capital, which young people were also benefitting from).

Life in the UK is still better than life in the majority of the world (and still better than almost any other point in history) but it's getting worse, not better, and has been for a while now.

So how come UK's over 60s are the most miserable in Europe as well?

It's definitely not all down to helicopter parenting. My poor kid was born with severe food intolerances that led to him having surgery twice as a toddler to keep his airway open. I worked like a slave to keep him alive for his first four years and got nothing but criticism from all around me. People were calling me a helicopter parent, and they wouldn't just open their eyes and see that both of us were sinking together. If we could only have got a GP appoitment that lasted more than 18 seconds we might have had a chance.

I think the fact that the NHS and schools are in meltdown really is not helping.

Also the screen-based teaching in schools would give anybody the heebie jeebies.

Also climate change.

Also the fact that we haven't had a proper statesman in government for this current crop of teens to help these teens feel safe. The Trump/Johnson era didn't nothing for anybody's nervous system.

My 10 year old daughter has friends who aren’t allowed to the nearest park without a parent! These parents think they are keeping their kids safe.

But there’s so much judgement. If that 10 yr old has an accident or worse people would be falling over themselves to say “I would never have let my dc do this”. Look at the Kirsty Interrailing drama.

I think it’s to do with being micromanaged and controlled, not having any freedom or being allowed to make mistakes. Basically, parental anxiety and neurosis are having a negative effect on kids.

Kids aren’t left to their own devices (or in the company of other kids, without parental interference) long enough to build a sense of self or learn how relationships are formed. Then they are mollycoddled and not allowed to take risks (not allowed to go out alone or go to the park or the shops) so not only do they lose valuable freedom and outdoor playtime and exploration, they don’t get to build confidence in themselves. They don’t build confidence in identifying and navigating risks, they don’t find themselves in tricky situations successfully/think on their feet/use their wits and therefore learn that they can be relied on to handle themselves. They don’t build self confidence and self esteem.

I believe that a lot of useful and healthy character traits are only discovered and developed through a certain amount of risk, freedom and adversity. Which, ironically, we take away from kids when we try and protect them too much. It’s like the cure is more dangerous than the poison!

My 10 year old daughter has friends who aren’t allowed to the nearest park without a parent! These parents think they are keeping their kids safe. That locking them up doesn’t have a negative payoff. But it does, in the form of a lack of self confidence, life skills, self esteem, and furnishing their kids an internal model of the world as a dangerous, scary place And them as helpless within it. Ergo anxiety.

Do we have any insight into why Romania is the second happiest, when they have a pretty low standard of living, and all strive to emigrate the minute they can?

Of the millions out of work

most of the 2.7 million "inactive" under-25s were students

Among 25- to 49-year-olds, 1.1 million people did not work because of caring responsibilities. Nearly one million people in this age group were not working because of illness.

The main reasons that 3.5 million over-50s were out of the job market were illness and early retiremen
The rise in over-50s inactivity appears to be highest for lower-middle income workers, and workers from lower income industries and occupations.

Im not sure how you force sick people to work.

The local school circa 1985-90 doesn’t sound much different to now. Difference is knowing and seeing everything via the internet and the constant worry about looks, crime, housing, exam pressure, student loans, climate change, future. We had safer roads to cycle on, drank more, had youth clubs to go too and less worry about money. I grew up poor but it didn’t really matter, the difference in lifestyle wasn’t really great. More well off people I really lived similar lifestyles.

@Blueybanditbingochilli that was the other thing that was really noticeable- there just didn't appear to be a culture of sitting on your arse. Childcare was so reasonable that both party's in a couple usually worked , as did single parents and the benefit system wasn't structured in such a way that if you were 'lowish paid' ( all relative as minimum wages seemed higher than uk) it made more sense to only work minimal hours or not at all- partly helped by masses of affordable housing too.

The downside of that though was if you were a SAHM there didn't look much going on socially with little ones

@Blueybanditbingochilli there aren’t enough income tax payers to take more income tax from the highest earners. When you compare tax on higher earners the Uk is pretty much in line with other countries, they just tax the middle earners more. We can’t really do that as so much income is taken up by housing costs.

The ageing population is a real issue, we have more over 65s than under 15s. In the 60s we had one pensioner to 5 workers now it’s 1:3 and we aren’t far off 1:2. It’s just not sustainable particularly with our healthcare model.

mathanxiety · Today 22:31
Shesshinysheila · Today 19:18
Or maybe it's the fact that loads of people seem to hate teens and kids in this country as evidenced here.

Yes to this, sadly.

Agree, lots of people are deeply suspicious of and unpleasant to teenagers. Usually with no justification whatsoever.

Yes to this, sadly.

As a 90s teen I remember so much hope and excitement about the future. I don’t think teens feel that now. Can’t blame them, young people are not centred in any government policies, they are pretty much ignored.

There can’t be the sort of equality PP speaks of. We have too many people unwilling or unable to work. You can only do so much with such a low number of tax payers

I do agree with that and I think that's one of the main things that needs looking at rather than "pfft! Snowflakes".

However, how the hell is Romania second then?

@Blueybanditbingochilli feel the same.

@NowImNotDoingIt yep- I don't think it's all about shit parenting and crappy dads etc- I refer back to the original post- I think it's a huge mush mash -

Will give you an example- we work in music business- did a festival with a band ( who we manage) my H was chatting to one of the girl festival helpers- young girl 18 , this was near Düsseldorf- our son was 18 at time so she was chatting about Uni and my H asked about 'halls' or did they do shared houses? She looked baffled- 'no I have my own flat ' - H asked if this was common- yep, apparently it was- !

It is well known that the UK has immense wealth in certain demographics but huge amounts of deprivation- my own observation in Germany and Denmark was that whilst there were still
Lots of wealthy people around- there appeared to be far fewer hugely deprived - certainly never saw a food bank or trolleys for donations in supermarkets etc - girls looked more like teen girls , not as if they were trying hard to look like a 24 year old 'influencer' -

To do that we would have to take more money from higher earners to give to those who don’t want to work at all. We have so many people out of work it’s really quite scary.

That doesn’t target wealth inequality & financially we are fucked due to zero planning for our ageing population.

@noblegiraffe one difference though, is that Facebook is still one of the most popular SM (even with teens) in many of these countries, rather than tiktok. Not entirely sure it's that significant, considering Facebook has reels which is its own version of tiktok.