Parents - we need to do something drastic, don't we??

[BrianOfBritain]

Another report about the huge number of teens with mental health problems in the press today. So many of the adolescents I know are anxious, low, self-harming, self-loathing, etc. And almost all the parents - myself included - think phones and social media are partly to blame. But instead of changing it much, we all struggle on with them, saying "well, I'd better let him/her, or he/she won't have any friends" or whatever. We look to systems of online protection to "keep them safe". But this won't even scratch the surface, I suspect. Why are we putting up with/going along with this? I seriously think we might need some kind of revolution, where thousands - millions - of parents act together, pethaps to get rid of smart phones for kids altogether. Millions all going back to old style non-smart tech, all at once so kids are in it together and won't be left out?

Of course the technocracy have more and more ways to get us - and more importantly our kids - most and more hooked. But if we acted together, surely we could step away from it on behalf of our kids. Surely we can do SOMETHING? I suspect it may have to be drastic, to try to turn this juggernaut. Are there any initiatives to get lots and lots of us together to sort this? Is there even any appetite for it?? I just feel like we're passively allowing our kids to be so harmed, and assume we're powerless when we're not...

I think if you asked the average teenager these things they would chose not to study at all!

But it’s up to parents to implement rules to begin with. All very well for the likes of fb etc to have minimum ages, but I can point a finger at several younger ones whose parents have set them up social media accounts much earlier.

and the poster above who mentions parents being on their devices when the children are at parks. My peeve are the ones on the mobiles as they take the kids out for a stroll, no interaction as to what they can see up ahead…and it’s never just one phone call.

change has to come from parents, not the govt, ISP’s or the programme makers…

I think a lot of the pressure on kids these days is due to the economic status of the housing market. I live in a large town that has a huge range of housing - from large council and housing association estates right up to multi million pound detached mansions with everything in between.

To buy a house, even in the grottiest of estates you’ll be looking at at least £200k for a 2 bed.

How is an average child who might go into retail, hospitality or caring EVER going to get on the housing ladder with these jobs? Even a degree based professional career like teaching, nursing or accounting will still not bring in enough without ferocious saving and a partner on a similar income.

It must be soul destroying for today’s teenagers to think that even if they slog their guts out, go to a good uni and get a degree it will still be years before they can own a house. And for the less fortunate who can’t get to uni? They must feel on the scrap heap by 18.

A lot of these kids don’t see a bright future so no wonder their mental health is at rock bottom. It’s very sad.

Yes, they get graded but the grades are based on how they are doing in class throughout the year and there are tests too, but the tests are much smaller and there is several of them throughout the year. At least where I’m from. That way they don’t have the pressure of studying for one huge exam, and even those who don’t work well under pressure can get good grades.

If your grades aren’t good enough to get in to the uni course you want to you can also do a maths and language test after you’ve finished secondary school, and you can apply using the points from that instead.

But it works in other countries so why would it not in the UK. Most young people thrive with autonomy.

I agree with this post from @urrrgh46 I don't think it's social media that's responsible for poor mental health.

Mental health issues have been around for donkeys years - before social media - back then there was a serious lack of awareness & most teens sank or swam with it, or it translated into antisocial behaviour, drug issues etc. It has increased but I don't think we can blame mobile phones for this.

But also there's not enough support for mental health issues that emerge with teenagers. No-one seems to know what they're doing & this is from personal experience, I think this is where the work needs to go, we don't need to take phones off of our teens we need decent mental health awareness & support. Phones can be a lifeline to children with mental health issues if used to access support, after all.

And we're in recession, enough to depress anyone even resilient youths.

God I'm sick of the pandemic being blamed for everything.

Let's teach our young people some bloody resilience. We could start by modeling it ourselves.

My DD's GCSEs and sport training were disrupted. Her prom cancelled. Couldn't see friends and family. Like hundreds of thousands of young people! She didn't moan about it OK she did a bit she knuckled down to home schooling and accessing her inner resources of coping and getting on with things.

She's now enjoying socialising, studying working like millions of other young people who refuse to be defined by a few months of being confined to their very comfortable homes.

Your concerns are valid and well expressed @BrianOfBritain

You only have to consider this site, Mumsnet, seemingly as benign as it gets, and yet at a stroke, they have designed a widget which appears at the bottom of the screen, which uses algorithms to dish out additional content to users of this site.

MNHQ has responded (and remediated) however many of us expressed some very strong concerns about how easily amalgamated content through the power of a computer algorithm can be enabled on this social media platform, with very harmful distressing repercussions - example someone in distress posts about a bereavement, 4 similar threads about bereavement appear in the list, someone posts about anorexia, 4 similar threads appear in the list. Those additional threads were not required or expected (and could do more harm than good to a vulnerable user), but there they are, in a list, as if by magic. How easy is it to get these things wrong due to poor understanding about the negative unintended consequences of a computer programme.

now consider how this could translate to other sites that can also easily use an algorithm, but this time to intentionally attract young people to view harmful content. It doesn't bear thinking about. I'm certain MNHQ didn't deliberately mean harm, but it shows how easily risk can be introduced by not knowing the consequences and releasing content without having rigorously tested the functionality before going live.

it is frightening what risks people of all ages are confronted with, they aren't protected nor are they prepared. People have had mobile phones thrust in their hands with zero health warnings!

IMO all this MH bollocks is down to schools and probably the younger generation of parents. Anxiety, worry etc are all natural, normal and actually really useful emotions to have, Yet nowadays its drummed into kids from such a young age that being anxious or worrying is a negative emotion and there is such a fuss made about it. Dont get me started on the teaching kids they can be a boy/girl/dog or unicorn etc if that wont fuck up a kids mind then I dont know what will.

I totally agree with this. I also think that social media is the problem. Teenage angst has always been a thing, it's not something new, and it certainly isn't caused by exams, uniforms, lack of control of their life etc. - teenagers have always coped with that. My local secondary school has just banned the use of phones in school, which I think is a good start.

I’m 37 so had a mobile phone for the tail end of my secondary school experience. I was bullied and having the phone made it worse at times as there was no escape at home. It’s not like people would call your landline to be mean! My friends and I say all the time that we thank our lucky stars there was no social media and smart phones when we were growing up - I dread to think how much worse it would have been.

I don’t think you can blame social media and smart phones as both have access controls that parents are choosing not to use. My DS13 does not have social media, he has a fully managed smart phone via the free app and parental controls on his Xbox, yes we fallout over it occasionally but my view is that it’s my job to keep him safe on all these platforms

How many anxious, depressed teens have anxious parents who talk about 'my anxiety' as if it controls them?
How many people have normal emotions medicalised?
How many teenagers have the vocabulary to discuss this, in a way that wasn't available to us?

Reading my old diaries, I was a seriously depressed teen. I was a highly strung child and then hormones created a perfect storm. I spent most of my early teens counting down the days until I could leave home or thinking about how long my parents would be out of the house for for me to successfully take an overdose. My parents weren't bad people; I just didn't really want to exist.

Had anyone actually bothered to ask me, I would have probably said I was fine, because people who weren't, were stigmatised.

Teenagers have ever copied each other. Girls used to faint like goats when I was in school. My cousin teaches and tells me girls don't faint anymore, but about 5 years ago started having panic attacks, which turned into anxiety. Now any display of defiance is met with 'I can't do x because I'm anxious'.

@SaltyCrisp all fabulous for your daughter who sounds like she has a nice home and few problems or issues. Surprisingly not everyone is the same. When teachers say they see more frequent and more serious problems since the pandemic I believe them, official figures back them up. Perhaps some people are more fortunate rather than more ‘resilient’?

I do think that part of this is the fact that MH problems are recognised now. When I was a teen I was an absolute nervous wreck and if I was at school nowadays I would be told I had anxiety and put on a waiting list for support. There was no support then, I just had to get through it as best as I could.
I think there's another thing happening too, but it's not a popular thing to say. I used to work in a day nursery and often wondered if some of the children might grow up with attachment issues, especially the babies who were there from 7.30am to 6pm five days a week. I'm not being judgemental, obviously parents need to work, but it's worth considering what this does to a developing brain.

I don't agree with this. Logically, for the vast majority of human existence we would have been together physically. Now the majority of us live with our nuclear families in isolated units, and if your parents aren't around because they're at work, then you really are quite isolated. I don't think it's how people are meant to be.

I don't understand why you're arguing the point that people are too "medicalised" with their feelings when you yourself had depression which you could have benefited with support for?

The fact that we are more open about mental health is not a weakness surely.

I think it's massive pressure in abstract future events i.e exams, future finances etc. I'd never really thought about these things! But kids today do.

Mixed with no avenue to actually do character building things i.e play in the streets, get a weekend job, help with DIY, cars etc.

You might not want to finish school at 16, go into full time work with your mates from school and buy an house but there's little options to even do that now!

I was on a bus the other day with a young mum and her small child. Throughout the whole journey she held her phone up so this child could stare at the screen. No talking, no interaction, just an American voice on the phone screen entertaining the child. I found that so, so depressing. When parents start using screens to shut their kids up from a very young age it’s depriving them of proper human interaction during that time. Watching a human face , hearing a familiar voice responding to them personally. It just goes on. The teenager glued to their phone during meals, when socialising,
in their room.
I think that phones are only part of the problem though. We live in a world where all we hear is doom and gloom. You are going to die if you don’t stay shut in your house for months on end. The world is going to end . The climate is fucked. There’s a terrible war going on which means your parents can’t heat your home or afford to eat.
If you’re ill you can’t see a doctor. Your biological sex is a up to you. Your sexuality is up to you.
Porn is hard wiring their brains in destructive ways.
Pressure to look perfect, have a perfect body, get great grades. However there are no jobs and you can’t afford a mortgage at the end of it anyway. You feel anxious about all this? Here’s a pill.

This is so true. There is also no one to turn to to talk or provide support if kids can’t talk to their parents.

THIS. x100000!!!

It is when it becomes contagious. When suddenly everyone decides that they're not just going through a bad patch, but that this is it.

How many women are offered anti depressants instead of hrt? How much of this is just a natural part of the cycle of being human?

This.

I think it's really getting old to blame a few months of staying at home for all the evils in the world.

I have a 12-year-okf who took it all in her stride and now enjoys socialising with her friends. All her friends appear to be completely unaffected by and have mostly forgotten the lockdowns.

This is anecdotal so probably of no use but my 15.5 year old who is pretty popular along with his friends have ditched social media, he has deleted tik tok and was reading a politics book from my bookshelf last night. I think the tide is turning since the end of Lockdown, they want real experiences, real not virtual connections. They have gone to 5/6 parties over the last 9 months which is quite a bit. They hang out almost every day after school playing football, at one another's homes at the weekend. I really think that level of online exposure as a hobbie or way of life is going to become history, end of an era, as the very young people (not 20's) find it dull. I read that Netflix interest is down, another indication of the rejection of the hermit life and the novelty of 'online life' being of its time I.e last 20 years. I'm not suggesting technology is not being used or won't be but I think it is changing for the young generation and this will have a positive impact on mental health. My 11 year old finds is boring as well she wants to do stuff, be with friends. I work in data protection and can see for myself the regulatory limits now put on companies that had much more freedom 10 years ago, people are waking up to the value of their data and the particular vulnerability of children in this area.

Well, you know nothing of the problems my daughter has faced in her life. She's overcome them with courage and determination. Hence, I'm encouraging us to teach our children resilience rather than pathologising shyness, worrying and insecurity.

Sorry ^ that was me - can't get used to MN not saving usernames like it used to!