Are we raising a generation of helpless kids?

[YouTheCat]

Interesting article in the Huffington Post about if we (generally) are doing too much for our kids, letting them get away with things and not letting them take the consequences.

I have to say I find a lot of it quite true, though obviously not about every parent but in a general way. I see a lot of this at school. Parents descending full of violent indignation that their child has been reprimanded or hasn't got a place in an after school club, where I had never seen this behaviour when I was at school (bloody ages ago).

My own dd (18) has some funny idea that she will waltz into a fantastic job after college when, in reality, she will probably have to work in Asda and gain some experience first.

I agree and do try to encourage domestic chores - not always successfully or consistently admittedly. I was amazed yesterday on discovering that a high proportion of my kids' peers cannot tie shoelaces yet - year 4 (age 8/9) - is this normal? I guess it's because so many kids' shoes are Velcro these days

Picking up on that point about the velcro shoes, I think there is a distinction to be made between generalised helplessness of the type that doesn't expect to have to think for itself at any point and the kind of specific helplessness that comes from the fact that certain skills are less called upon in our society.

My mother thought it was a sign of my generation's helplessness that we didn't know how to darn our stockings. I am now in my 50's and when have I ever seen a darnable stocking? Otoh I do sometimes shake my head over mother's complete helplessness when faced with the internet.

If you took my parents back a couple of generations in a time machine, their helplessness around horses and farming implements would no doubt make their greatgrandparents think they knew nothing. But perhaps less of an issue in the 20th century middle class life they have lived.

I am still not good at tying my shoelaces (double jointed) and also struggle with holding a pen. But I don't have a generally helpless attitude to life.

I think my age group (early 20s) did get a bit of a bum deal tbh. We were sold this idea that you finish school, go to sixth form or college, go to uni and waltz into a fantastic job at the end of it. That was the done thing. Of course, they're all struggling to find work, the ones who do have jobs are on zero hour contracts and earning peanuts, and I can't help thinking I dodged a bullet by going out to work at 16. I may "only" be a SAHM now, but at least I'm not saddled with a mountain of debt and a degree that isn't worth the paper it's printed on!

As far as independence goes, every teen (13+) should be able to cook, clean and manage money. It's such basic stuff!

DH and I joke about sending DCs to cookery school so we can have nice meals cooked for us during the weekends…

You might be. I am raising mighty, knowledgeable champions.

Apologies if they kill and eat yours when they all grow up, or rule over them with a just but nonetheless iron fist.

Don'tGiveAway - I agree you were sold a bum deal. And some of us older ones were sitting on the sidelines muttering, they will never all walk into well paid jobs.

The reality is most people have to work their way up. And recessions come round about every 20 years. The young people who leave school in the middle of them, do have a harder time.

A couple of years ago I had a pair of 15yo girls for work experience and I asked them to empty the washing machine and hang the (2) blankets on the line and put another wash on. An hour later I went into the garden and the blankets had been thrown over the line in the 'rope' shape they had come out of the washing line. I asked the girls how they thought they would be likely to dry like that and they both had no clue what the problem was! They hadn't put the next wash on either. I told them to spread the blankets out on the line so the air could dry them and they were incapable of doing this without them falling off the line. I had to go and do it for them in the end as it was too painful to watch. Ridiculous.

DontGiveAway agreed, far too many of our generation were pushed into uni. I remember nearby universities coming to do sales pitches to us where they would breezily tell us about how all that debt was nothing to worry about because we wouldn't have to think about it for years and we wouldn't notice a measly 8% of our income being taken anyway - come and have the 'student experience'.
I also remember the teachers telling us how there weren't any jobs now (2008-10) and if we went to uni then the economy would be all better by the time we got out! Ha, they must have had some kind of quota to meet.
The main reason I am pleased I went to uni then was that I avoided the fees I would have had to have paid if I had decided to go later, but that just means that kids now are getting an even worse deal. It's totally irresponsible, IMO, to try and pressure so many teenagers out of tens of thousands of pounds before they have even gotten out of school.

We have had trouble getting trainees...one was on sick leave in first week as she said standing all day made her back ache...she was 17,

Another left because she ran out of money and 'didn't have her bus fare'. Err walk?

And even the good ones are off all the time especially on a Monday morning.

It really wasn't like that amongst me or my friends.

But I do understand argument that the government today may make teens feel a bit hopeless.

Pretty shocked by post judging bigger kids with bottles, buggies and dummies. My very tall 7 year old has a Sippy cup as she can't manage a cup. And is sometimes in a buggy.

I just assumed people would realise she had SN and I was not just a weird babying parent. Seems not..no wonder people stare.

Admittedly I couldn't do a washing when I went to Uni and just put all colours in at 95. I learned. Could cook though.

Is anyone concerned about the over-reliance on reward charts seemingly these days? Kids are learning that they can get rewards for the most basic task. Praise isn't enough these days it seems. I worry that kids are growing up with the attitude of "what is in it for me" rather than doing something because it's part of life or kind to do so.

Reward charts have ther place. Maybe a particularly hard to grasp behaviour or a problem issue can be helped with a reward based system. However I think some parents use them for everything and he rewards are too easily achieved and disproportionate. I think this contributes to the sense of entitlement in kids.

Slightly off topic sorry :)

I've never gone in for reward charts,my cat, but I get what you mean about praising kids for very little. I find the same in my dd' s school at parents' evening: the teachers are so busy trying to be positive about the kids that it's difficult to form a realistic picture of how the kid is doing. My dd is doing ok, I know that, but I'm fed up of being told eg how good she is in English when I know for a fact she can't spell. The praise is empty and meaningless albeit well-meaning.

DS 24 and DD 21 are ok with general chores though they can be lazy at times. They're both independent and can find their way round the train/tube without any difficulties.

The thing that does worry me though is what I call "admin" jobs.

My DS hasn't really mastered the art of managing his money. He's has several letters regarding unpaid bills etc, he will pay eventually but not before interest has been added and/or warning letters sent. Then when his car broke down, he calls me not the RAC even though he's covered. I just wonder when the reliance on "mum" sorting out stuff will dwindle!

My DD spends money like it grows on trees and doesn't think about possible bills, or things that go wrong requiring a contingency fund. She has had letters from the Inland Revenue asking her to fill in a self-assessment form but because she didn't understand what they wanted, the letters remained in a drawer "forgotten" with a hope that it would just go away. Obviously it didn't go away and I have had to sort it out for her - she was too upset and traumatised by the whole experience. I just wonder how on earth they will cope with a mortgage, utility bills, etc and keeping important paperwork like P60s etc.

'It's nothing new. My DP didn't know how to do all sorts of things by the time he went to university at nearly 19 - he'd never caught a train alone, or cooked, done laundry, etc. His mother did it all. And that was quite normal, especially for boys.'

YES to this.

As it so happens, dh was pretty competent because he had been taught by his father, who (being quite a bit older than MIL) became a SAHD on retirement.

But I have known so many incompetent men in my father's generation (again, not actually my own father): men who could not have cooked a meal or sewn on a button if their lives depended on it.

Come to think of it, MIL couldn't cook- she had been an evacuee in a wealthy American family during the war, so completely missed out on the learning years. Dh remembers a diet of spam and SMASH.