Or are young people becoming increasingly insular/scared/lacking in motivation and drive?

DC1 was the absolute opposite of this. Tbey took absolutely every opportunity that came their way.

DC2 is very very anxious and also loves technology. They also spent a lot of time in their bedroom. However even DC2 wants to do well academically and did carry on with their main sporting hobby until Covid struck. DC2 is at university now and doing very well.

So yes, I think spending most free time online instead of out and about could potentially make the idea of going abroad very anxiety-provoking.

Covid has also had a terrible impact on children. OP yours are obviously younger than mine and I suspect would have been impacted more.

Not sure what you can do but maybe start with some simple and fun family activities eg board game night, family badminton or ping pong match.

When my son was young ( he’s now in his 30s) he had dyslexia dyspraxia and mild autism
he was very much of the not wanting to to do anything
I basically had a 3 times rule - you go to xxx activity 3 times - if after that you don’t like it you don’t have to go again

I did this with everything from holiday clubs when on holiday to sports clubs and scouts boys brigade after school clubs

pretty much everything had the 3 times rule
i massively oversocialised him as I knew he would struggle with social stuff due to autism even though it’s pretty mild

if he moaned he was told that while he lived in my house it’s not a democracy 😂

he stuck everything out - made loads of friends through doing this and is a well grounded adult now

even with learning to drive ( he passed on his 4th attempt ) I just said keep at it your 90 percent there

He’s bought a house with his partner
and he’s incredibly house proud
something I never would have thought possible due to the state of his bedroom in his teens 😂

Kevin & Perry had nothing on him

So what are you going to do?

If that is what they want to do, approaching adulthood, there isn't much you can say unless you lay down the law they they absolutely will work towards a career with a higher salary and do better.

Perhaps not giving them a phone until 16 was a mistake as then they are suddenly like a kid in a toy shop, with much less parental control over their phones, so it is a shiny new thing, they can contact friends, see all the online stuff everyone talks about, and they haven't had previous teenage years to sort out these teething problems where they realised that a lot of what you do online is a waste of time and contributes zilch to your future life.

Perhaps the pressure of uni and graduate jobs and debt just doesn't appeal right now, perhaps they have looked at work that might interest them that robots won't replace, perhaps they think they could make a difference within childcare and want to learn from the ground up.

Open up a conversation with them where you listen, not instruct, and try and push them towards doing childcare certificates at college so they get qualifications and experience if that is what they want to do. Nudging them towards solutions or at least next step progress might be more effective than expressing that you find their current choices a disappointment.

I'm more on social media than my teens. Oldest is a little bit, 14yo not at all and not interested other than watching youtube.

You can go to university as a mature student without A Levels.

You can take a degree through the Open University without any qualifications.

Your child's choices at 18 do not define the rest of their life.

Your child is more likely to do well if they are actually self motivated, and it's not just something her parent tells her they should be doing.

My son has not great A Level results (they are lower than most results that MN typically calls "totally disastrous"). He worked in Tesco for nearly a year after leaving sixth form without any clear idea what he wanted to do. He spent most of his non-working hours playing PlayStation sat in his bedroom and only emerging for meals. I was despairing that we would ever do anything "useful" with his life. However, it helped him to realise that he didn't want to work in retail on a minimum wage job. He is now working in IT and studying for a degree via distance learning.

I would have liked him to go to university at 18 and do better in his A Levels, but actually this way round may work out better in the long run.

“working in childcare as a flexible career around their own family”

How do you suppose one can afford to raise a family on typical childcare wages? Who should make up the (very large) shortfall?

Or should OP just advise her young daughter to get married to a higher earner and make herself financially dependent on a man and vulnerable in
in the relationship. Because that always turns out so well for women…

On a more helpful note - have a look at TJ Power and The DOSE effect.

He has an app (other irony isnt lost) on finding more natural ways of getting dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins to have a life outside of phones.

He did a talk and project at a school im governor at. It seemed to help.

But what's wrong with working in childcare? They will be earning a wage and getting work experience. And they are likely to be always employable.

The decision they make at 18, does not define the rest of their life. They might work in childcare for a few years and then decide to go to university or change to a different career. Or maybe they will stay working in childcare as a flexible career with their own family in years to come.
Much better than the seemingly myriad of MN children who go to university just because it's expected, without much idea of what they might want to do afterwards.

And changing your mind about direction between 15 and 18 is really not that unusual. Both my children did so.

Shops, golf clubs, men's clubs. Rough as... and cash in hand. But they'll learn.

I really think parents need to take responsibility for lining these things up for their kids as well.

Really? How many people, of any age, do you know who have got bored of their phones like they would a toy, bike, car etc? They are fundamentally different. They never get boring, that's the whole point, and why they are dangerous.

My 77 year old mum is as addicted to her ipad as any teenager I know.

I think this is the downside of not letting them have a phone until they were 16.

At 11 you can be pretty strict with screen time and insisting on monitoring phone use regularly. At 16, it's much harder to impose parental rules and your child will want to spend all their time with their new "toy" rather than getting a lot of it out their system at a much earlier age.

I'm surprised that your relative's parents are tolerating this.

Yeah, unfortunately I think a lot of kids tend to drop hobbies when they get to their teens. For some things especially sport it becomes less fun and more competitive, it can slowly dawn on you that you don't shine in that area compared to other people who stand out, and that's hard on a teenager's self-esteem.

I recognise a bit of what OP is talking about. I think it comes down to self-confidence and having the ability to try things out and realise with each little boost to your cofidence that actually you DO have something to offer the world, you DO have a place and you'll be able to support yourself financially and live independently eventually. So many entry level jobs which led to something else have gone. It's hard for teenagers to know what careers exist, and how to get an "in" when you dont' have any experience.

I tried to get my youngest to get a job during A-levels. He had the time. But he didn't do it, didn't seem to have the confidence, and he just used birthday and Christmas money if he wanted to go out, or DH felt sorry for him and gave him some money. Eldest is more driven and much more proactive.

It's hard not to worry, but I think sometimes our worry and expectations can rub off on them and exacerbate their anxiety and low self-esteem. Social media and doom scrolling mean that they don't have the experiene of ignorance being bliss.

The point i was making is that young people are told there are no graduate jobs, so wont get a job at all if they do a degree or only a low paid job they could have got anyway, are told all the office jobs and creative jobs will go to AI so wont exist, but if they find a job that doesnt need a degree and wont go to AI - it doesnt pay enough so they still arent getting it right. Its quite a lot of doom thrown at them.

I wasnt suggesting for a second that the purpose of work isnt to get money or they should pursue chikdcare to make themselves happy, but suggesting they are getting a lot of messages all over social media and the press that the traditional education and graduate role path is more or less over and the reality of the apprentiship route is quite often low paid. Id feel demotivated too.

Yeah,I think that's a good point. There's definitely some areas where you should be testing your boundaries or even ignoring them entirely when you're young!

Yup. No oomph. No interest in travel. No imagination. Scared of everything. Very sad and worrying. That’s based on the few young people I know. The whole ND headphone wearing thing drives me bonkers. I was stealing cider and get the Magic bus to Paris and Amsterdam at their age. Made me the psycho bitch I am today. 😜

Tricky. Anyway, I sympathise, I have a nephew in his early 20s with similar issues. I try to get him out of his very small world, but he always finds some excuse. I do think it's a lot to do with personality types, because his mother (my sister) is similar, but the devices both exacerbate the problem and enable them to indulge their fears by distracting them.

The way some people on MN pretend that the purpose of work is not primarily to make a living and earn enough to have a semi-comfortable life is ridiculous. There was a thread recently where a poster was bemoaning the fact her very-high-calibre-graduate daughter couldn’t get a job ‘related to her degree’ at some museum paying £25k or so with very limited progression. When several posters commented that she could walk into a graduate scheme in Finance, Tech, Law or Civil Service with her credentials, it was all “but I want DD to be happy”, as if grinding poverty and watching your friends accelerate past you in their careers and financial accomplishments is a recipe for happiness. 😑

I agree with this ^

and I don't think this is a young person thing. I think it is a your children thing.

I'm not just speaking anecdotally about my own dc and extended family and friends, I volunteer with young people and see huge amounts of motivation and drive.

I also agree with the value of getting out and getting a job. It brings huge benefits.