To worry about the resilience of adults

[MyKingdomForACaramel]

Am not trying to come across as goady or insensitive but have seen a distinct upturn recently both irl and online of adults not being able to deal with, what are essentially day to day life/set backs in a rational way -what was once a mishap is now a crisis.

To be clear I’m not talking l about those suffering with mental health issues (I have had my own), but more generally

The Handmaids tale, dystopian fiction, serial killers, abortion, famine, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the death penalty. It doesn’t do any good to the mental health of 13-14 year olds to be studying all this at the same time.

I'm not sure. Young people do seem to have a fascination with the dystopian genre, and in some ways, this can be a good thing as they're often political in basis and can be educational in that way. But in the current curriculum, there's overkill. My students always arrive at university with a surfeit of knowledge about the Holocaust, and this seems to be to the detriment of other things as their understanding of other components of history seems patchy at best.

I'm in emphatic agreement about The Handmaid's Tale, though. I think it's a truly offensive, odious, nasty little book which definitely wasn't Atwood's finest hour, yet for some inexplicable reason never seems to be off the A' level literature syllabus. I've no idea why it's so popular!

'I think it's a truly offensive, odious, nasty little book which definitely wasn't Atwood's finest hour'

Why? (Genuine question, and apologies for going OT but would like to know why you think that)

The amount of people who won't let a 8/9 year old walk to the local shop on their own is horrifying

What evidence is there that not letting an 8/9 year old walk to the shop on their own leads to a lack of resilience as a young adult though. I don't think I let my children do that at age (due to very busy roads) but that doesn't mean they are less able to do things as older teenagers/young adults.

I'm in emphatic agreement aboutThe Handmaid's Tale, though. I think it's a truly offensive, odious, nasty little book which definitely wasn't Atwood's finest hour, yet for some inexplicable reason never seems to be off the A' level literature syllabus. I've no idea why it's so popular!

Because it's highly revered by a number of truly offensive, odious, and nasty little people who would have us believe it's a fair representation of today's Britain, where both young and childless women outearn men and the primary cause of death in young males is suicide.

I'm guessing the not encouraging the next stage of growing up can be a cumulative thing, starting with pushing a healthy 4-5 year old in a buggy to save time, to not letting an 8-9 year old walk to the shops because it makes you anxious to not giving a 12-13 year old responsibilities around the house because its quicker for you to do housework, to not letting a 14-15 get the train because you aren't sure they will cope. I'm guessing these people without coping skills don't just suddenly find themselves in that situation.

@TinklyLittleLaugh the boomer generation did have it easy! Not every individual member, but as a generational group the boomers had the easiest ride of any generation in history, before or since them. Notably my generation and Millenials will be the first generations for centuries that will be poorer in real terms than the one that preceded it.

Having access to cheaper goods is a result of the standardisation and automation of manufacturing processes and of globalisation (both of which have their own negative consequences). My generation, Millenials and others might have unheard of oppprtunities to travel but in terms of getting a higher education, secure employment opportunities, social mobility, pensions, housing etc (the things that actually matter) we are way behind.

I'm guessing the not encouraging the next stage of growing up can be a cumulative thing, starting with pushing a healthy 4-5 year old in a buggy to save time, to not letting an 8-9 year old walk to the shops because it makes you anxious to not giving a 12-13 year old responsibilities around the house because its quicker for you to do housework, to not letting a 14-15 get the train because you aren't sure they will cope. I'm guessing these people without coping skills don't just suddenly find themselves in that situation.

What evidence is there that those who wouldn't let their 8 or 9 year old walk to the shop don't give them housework when they are 12 or 13 though. The two don't seem related (the first is a question of safety whereas the second isn't) but even if they were, why would not doing house work at 12 or 13 have any impact on resilience as an adult? I don't think I lifted a finger around the house as a child or teenager (apart from tidying my room) but I think that most people would say I'm very resilient as an adult. Why would doing a bit of hoovering as a child effect with how you cope with adversity as an adult.

Just going by my own friends who aren’t very resilient, their parents do everything for them. Still, at 40+. Their houses were bought by them, their children are raised by them, their careers are built by them (Dad is getting me a place at his work etc), their cars are their old cars, and can’t cope if they need to be somewhere on time.

One friend has turned her life around completely since her parents died. She had to grow up very quickly after that, and I think that’s part of building resilience. For me with only one parent (who wasn’t even awake half the time) I got myself to school. I got my siblings to school. It was that or we didn’t go. For my friend in care, she was left to her own devices pretty much.

Just going by my own friends who aren’t very resilient, their parents do everything for them.

In what way are they not resilient though? Someone able to cope with parents dying and turning their life around afterwards is already resilient in my opinion. Children brought up in care and left to their own devices are often the least resilient to adversity as adults. Your friend may have coped but evidence suggests that is despite the lack of care in childhood rather than because of it.

I think it all comes from the same place, parents doing what's easiest in the short term. I'm not judging, a lot of parents are run ragged with working long hours and cummutes that I can sympathise with them not feeling they have time to teach things like road safety or life skills or feeling too anxious about doing so.

I said that was part of building resilience. She hadn’t looked after her children on her own for a single day prior to that because she had absorbed that she “couldn’t”. It was just easier to have her mum there everyday and so she felt that she couldn’t do it on her own. How could she possibly do a school run with her smaller child with her? How could she be expected to do a weekly shop on her own? She couldn’t park the car without someone in the passenger seat to take over:

She isn’t like that now, she needed the hardship in order to grow. My friend who was in care is an emotional soldier, nothing beats her. I know statistically that’s not the case and I can only go by her experience and my own parents death when I was a child and it’s made us stronger for sure.

When you’ve seen the worst you don’t care if that job doesn’t work out, or if someone doesn’t like you, or if your Instagram looks boring compared to someone else, when you’ve seen the worst these things can’t touch you.

It's a good point that its parents anxiety that holds kids back.
Something I will think on with regards to my own children.
We only live a 15 minute walk from school, but there is a busy unmarked crossing, and i dont think i should let my ten year old do it alone, especially accompanied by his 8 year old brother.

I said that was part of building resilience.

You have a different definition of resilience to me then. You seem to feel it is about having the skills to do things whereas I would say it was about the capacity to adapt to challenging circumstances. I would say that she had it in the first place as she was able to recover from the death of her parents and learn new skills following their death. Whilst her skills and confidence may have grown following her parents death that isn't the same as resilience

Hmm Noel, just what percentage of Boomers do you think got into higher education? 10% maybe? How many bright working class kids never even had a sniff?

And what about all those oh so secure jobs in areas like coal mining, shipbuilding and manufacturing? Boomers have lived through massive economic change and terrible periods of economic devastation. The eighties was only loadsamoney in a tiny area of the south east. The rest of the country was in a shocking state.

What evidence is there that not letting an 8/9 year old walk to the shop on their own leads to a lack of resilience as a young adult though. I don't think I let my children do that at age (due to very busy roads)

Well that's obviously different with very busy roads. I'd imagine the poster meant a trip to the shop where there's minimal risk.

I don’t really get your point because in your first comment you say that she was resilient all along to be able to turn her life around from her parents death and in the second you say her recovered confidence that isn’t the same as resilience. Which is it?

I consider resilience to be the ability to recover. I lost a parent as a child, and I think I’ve kept my inner confidence and self esteem in spite of that as well as other significant knock backs. What other people think of me is not very important to me at all.

My friend had no inner confidence reserves because she was always told she needed help. She didn’t and was always able. So both are resilience - rebuilding what was broken, and building some strength from scratch.

It’s ok for us to interpret resilience differently Strength is a synonym, as well as recovery.

I suppose you can't tell if you are resilient or not until you get some knocks

It’s parents to answer for a lot of that. You see it at the school gates all the time - preschoolers in buggies because their parents can’t be arsed to make them walk the five minutes to school, right up to the Y6 parents who refused to let their children go on school trips. The internet in general has been bad, as why figure something out yourself if you can instantly find an answer or have an audience for your drama flapping?

Or another example - the man who was astonished that I thought it was inappropriate for him to be in the communal ladies changing room helping his KS2 daughter get changed. I mean wtf?

Also I fucking hate the word resilience with a passion. It's an overused term in social work where a whole host of structural problems are individualised and if people aren't coping then they are not 'resillient' enough. It's very neoliberal. Let's sort out the social and economic inequality rather than blaming it on a lack of individual resilience. I particularly hate the term when applied to children. Children are highly delicate and vulnerable beings. Asking them to be endlessly resilient is going against their very biology.

Maybe you're better at coping than a lot of people?
Maybe it's more common place for people to express how they're feeling than in the past? If so this is not a bad thing in my opinion.
Maybe you don't mean to come across as very intolerant of what you perceive to be other people's failings?
Maybe you would would enjoy life more if stopped allowing yourself to be annoyed by trivial things?
Personally I like to live by the idea if you can be anything in life, be kind. That's just me though. You are you, with your own perceptions and life experiences.

I don’t really get your point because in your first comment you say that she was resilient all along to be able to turn her life around from her parents death and in the second you say her recovered confidence that isn’t the same as resilience. Which is it?

I didn't say that she recovered her confidence! I said that she coped with the death of her parents and rather falling apart following their deaths she learned new skills. That demonstrates that she already had the ability to recover i.e. she was resilient in the first place!

I just think it bizarre that people are suggesting that walking to school or making sandwiches at 8 will have any impact on whether that person becomes a resilient adult. How does walking to school teach a child to overcome trauma? A certain amount of adversity (but not too much) as a child probably does increase resilience but that will come from coping with things not going right at school, breakdown in friendship, loss of pets etc. Even the most protective parent can't prevent that so the idea that there are adults who aren't resilient because their parents didn't let them walk to school or use public transport seems ridiculous to me.

That's resilience in action (over a very minor thing, obviously)

I agree, CatteStreet - but the telling thing is that, nowadays, it's noteworthy, rather than something to which no one would give a second thought.

I think that the OP has a valid point. The upscaling/exaggeration of language over the last ten or so years does not help things too.