UK teens the most unhappy in Europe

Do you work with children? I do, and within the teens, it is social contagion with regard to this or that self diagnosed disorder, the main ones being ADHD, ASD and bi polar. Mainly girls that do this. When offered to be assessed they dont engage.

Agree 100%. I hate to sound Daily Mail but all the families posting on Facebook about being skint or asking after the next CoL payment, will be asking in the next post about expensive local attractions or the best tablet for their toddler.

Where I'm from , there's also International Children's day (actually celebrated, gifts, parties etc ) AND an extra gift session for St. Nicholas. A few other extras too, and yet we are near the top.

Maybe it's because we don't have a Father's day.

It can only work if there's some common sense , some experience of other countries and their systems ( not just a vague stereotype) and a willingness to look further than shit dads, shit parents, shit schools.

I gave one main reason between at least one country I know well (born and raised there) and the UK, that being the different life stages 15 yos are at in both countries.

Who will be happier? A bunch of teens in their second year of highs chool with 3 more to go before big exams or a bunch of teens in the middle of the GCSE stress?

P.S. There's no way in hell my country is as high as it is in that table in reality, so the results are dubious anyway.

@soupfiend I totally agree with all the making memories BS. Parents are bending backwards to afford to pay for Xmas eve boxes, light walks, seeing santa's grotto, elf on the shelf, memory boxes, matching PJs, picture perfect holidays, new cars, the list goes on and on. After a while expectations get so high, nothing is fun anymore and the level of disappointment when completely normal things happen is immense. I have lived in 5 countries and the UK has definitely been the worse when it comes to milking parents to pay for things that is completely fake and unnecessary.

It is not helpful to blame league tables? - not helpful to pay schools per pupil so schools on a low birth year that don't attract the pupils are defunded. You think a Gov directed and funded education system that fails children is blameless and it's not fair to blame Government policy. I think that's quite insulting to the Dept of Education to call them completely inert but if that's the case maybe that is the problem - should they be so utterly useless?

People don’t have mental health issues because it’s “fashionable” 🤦🏼‍♀️

Well its more nuanced than that in my view, there are low expectations in terms of what is expected from kids in terms of behaviour and ability, but high expectations in terms of lifestyle and wanting this that or the other, I dont just mean material things, I think that the introduction of 'making memories' and other vacuous concepts are part of this, everything has to be an 'experience' or special, or amazing, or social media worthy, relationships and friendships have to be perfect (see it all the time on here with people advising to go no contact at the drop of a hat), little acceptance of people's flaws, unless its really poor behaviour and then there are acceptances of someones trauma or difficulties which mean everyone else has to adapt around that person.

We are topsy turvey in that respect.

I agree with this. I love the chat you get in Britain and you certainly don't get that in Belgium. Perhaps in South Belgium but certainly not in Flanders.
France and Belgium lack that lighter attitude to things that we have.
They also still drink drive in a way that I find horrendous.

Yeah everything is ‘why should I have to…’

@NowImNotDoingIt that's what it is though-- it's a discussion as to why this might be the case based on what we all know through our ears and eyes and teens experiences -

I think we are, quite possibly, a nation of whinge bags. Just look at the threads on here!

I think we are a nation in depression. People used to be a lot more stoic, a LOT funnier, much more polite, and complete strangers were a lot more willing to speak to you. Now they are all staring at their phones, looking depressed. Many are also fairly aggressive where I live, so you have to be on your guard. Going out isn't fun like it used to be.

Not a popular opinion but I suspect that some of the unhappiness is down to being given so much and having so many rights but very little in the way of responsibilities.

Information overload. For everyone. The 70s and 80s were much simpler, in that respect.

@Blueybanditbingochilli I agree with a lot of that- when we were living in Copenhagen , so much was so right and functioned well that the stuff that for me was a bit shit ( no Uber, no Amazon , expensive) kind of balanced out and as you say re shit weather- we had a few extra odd trips on money saved by my cheap compared to UK superlative geothermal heating ( immense )

Think you are underselling Germany a bit though-we've always had decent warm summer weather right from April ( and go a lot for work) no way was weather as consistently crappy as the UK- scenery in some parts is very lovely indeed too - and yes many do go on holiday a fair bit because there seem far fewer really struggling partly due to far more good social housing options and a lot more well paid manufacturing jobs still

As you say in the UK - there are few areas of excellence as things stand and a lot of below average performance in many areas. The problem is you will get people who own a big Hampshire pad , pay private health, private school - rarely use public transport and eat and holiday well who don't seem to notice or give a shit that they are in a small and privileged circle and that for many it's like the Wild West out there

That's pretty much what a discussion forum is. None of us are experts and none of us claim to be. We are sharing thoughts and ideas.

I mean, surely it depends which country you compare it with. If you compare to Eastern Europe then I'd say lack of boundaries- my mum friends from Poland/Lithuania etc are insanely strict compared to the average UK mum and expectations re. school and behaviour are way higher.

Too much expectation about what everyone's life should be like. Everything from how you look to how you conduct yourself has a increasingly narrow band width.

I see once again people are falling over themselves to say what they THINK is wrong with the UK, parenting, kids today etc. All based on random judgements and prejudices and not much else.

Very few of the random ramblings and assumptions don't apply to other countries as well.

Agree but I don’t think there’s anything you can actually ‘do’ about that - it’s a cultural mindset which has developed over many years in other countries and isn’t a government policy issue.

It became worse here when manual jobs (mines, factories) were closed and huge numbers of people began to see benefits as an entitlement and a lifestyle choice, and work/education as optional.

Too many feckless dads. Period.

I think the expectations for kids in the U.K. are very low in terms of education, how they behave in society, ambition in school which translates to the workforce. Not enough individual accountability for parents’ choices which invariably trickles down to children.

Not high enough expectations, too much entitlement.

edited for spelling

But we won’t ever end up like them. Their model relies on a small population, huge space, an abundance of natural resources and many other factors. We would have to pay FAR more than they do, to see the same kind of results. A lot of our taxation is almost in line with theirs now.

Sixty-two per cent of young people access the internet daily using their mobile phone and 39% use a computer. A third of the participants use tablets.
The average time spent online daily is 2 hours and 6 minutes during the week and 3 hours and 16 minutes during weekends. Eight per cent of the participants spend over 6 hours a day online during the week and 18% at weekends. Those who spend more time online are young people aged 14 to 15 during the week and those aged 16 to 17 during weekends. Fifty per cent of the children have a profile on a social network. The most used application is Snapchat (25%), with a significant difference between girls and boys (31.6% vs 17.7%). Facebook comes second, with 23%. The majority of children in France use the internet for entertainment (videos and music) and communication.

in Germany 96 percent own a smartphone. However, their media usage also includes other electronic devices such as laptops, tablets, and gaming consoles. According to a survey, adolescents spent an average of 204 minutess_ (just under 3 and a half hours) on the internet. Internet usage, perhaps unsurprisingly, peaked during the height of the pandemic in 2020.

Social media
There are a variety of internet activities that are undertaken on the internet. One that has increased in popularity over the past ten years is the use of social media. Although initially it was mainly used as a form of keeping friends and family updated on life, now many people have turned their social media into a business. This means that they share their daily life online with their followers and often make deals with brands promoting various products. One of the most popular social media sites is TikTok, on this platform people post short videos that are between 15 seconds and three minutes long. In Germany, over half of 14- to 19-year-oldss_ use the app regularly.

Social media is used by the majority of children in the United Kingdom (UK) and it plays a large role in the daily activities of kids. An October 2021 survey found that 91 percent of 15 to 16-year-olds used social mediaa, and 87 percent had their own social media profile. Whilst this may not be surprising for those in their teenage years, it was also found that almost a quarter of children aged three to four years had their own social media profiless, indicating that social media exposure begins at an early age.

UK kids and social media platform usage
Social video network TikTok, which is very popular with younger social media users, was used on average 97 minutes per dayy by kids in the UK. Snapchat followed, with over half an hour being spent on the platform daily. Although TikTok influencerss found their largest audience with women aged 18 to 24, the second-largest audience was girls aged 13 to 17. Over half of all UK children surveyed in 2021 said they had used TikTok more than oncee in the past few weeks. As of April 2022, Facebookk had approximately 736 thousand users aged between 13 and 17 years.

Key are the comparisons with Scandinavia, which has the countries with the highest happiness and quality of life.

A large part of the reason is the high taxation that provides excellent public services, infrastructure that works, good schools, good healthcare, a washing machine for every block of flats etc.

Ironic that the press in the UK is scaremongering about the tiny bit of extra tax that Labour might introduce, it will still be far less than Nordic countries that actually work and are nice to live in.