To ask you why so many children have anxiety these days

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Why is today's parenting producing youngsters with so little resilience?

@Thehouseintheforest completely with you on this. I think making anxiety into a ‘serious issue’ is the problem. Social media and so called celebrities are making this an issue when sometimes you just need to put your big girl or boy pants on and get on with it. Children seeing parents struggling with a normal emotion doesn’t help - again will caveat that with there are people who seriously struggle. I’m talking about the people who use this willy nilly...

That is crap. I am not anxious. My ds is. He was bullied. The internet doesn’t help. Compared to when I was at school 35 years ago school is much harder....

There are several reasons, it is simply not fair to lay it at the door of parents.

DobbinOnTheLA
There's lacking basic resilience and then there's genuine mental health issues.

Eg. As a child, I directed by hobbies and interests through school. When I was a student, if I wanted to do my sport/drama/music then it was expected that I kept on top of my work, did my homework etc. My mum would encourage me and support me but if I started slacking in school then it would be an enrichment that was dropped. It taught me a lot about time management, prioritising, when something is good enough etc.

Now we see parents actively pushing eleventy billion activities on their child from 4 or 5. They're driving place to place with almost no down time. Homework slips and those parents excuse their child from doing homework because they had music lessons / swimming / band etc. The child doesn't get to learn time management or resilience or that it's fine for a homework piece to take 45 mins Vs an hour, or that sitting down and revising with no distractions means seeing friends later. The lack of down time means that they don't get the same opportunities to chill and socialise, and when they do they're ferried back and forth because they're 13 and haven't had the time or freedom to learn how to get from A to B safely and so on.

Then we wonder why these kids fall apart and struggle later.

They need lots of time to play (not on gadgets), to be outside, run around, let off steam, space/time to work out their emotions, parents to listen but not step in too quickly. Stay off social media until they are teens. To learn to read for pleasure and to be creative. To play music for fun and to learn to stick at an instrument if can afford lessons. Doesn't sound much like a lot of modern primary aged life after about reception to me..

Bollacks and bollacks.Did all that, reading for pleasure yada yada....News flash only a few can afford hoards of extra curricular activities. In the real non rich non MN world kids aren’t doing hoards of activities.

We are now living in an age where we are
more in tune with our mental health as well as our physical health, so it is heightened.

But, I would say a large proportion of people I see who are "anxious" aren't actually suffering with anxiety, but, are unable to cope with situations that are deemed stressful and this gives them an anxious feeling, but isn't actually anxiety.

If the simple thought of leaving the house brings you to a point where you can't do it, there is an issue. If you feel anxious about doing so, but achieve it, you are much more likely to be suffering with environmental stress which can be helped hugely with CBT.

To feel anxious is a perfectly normal human reaction and I fear that parents are mismanaging this feeling and emotion with children rather than equipping them with coping strategies that will help them later in life, and, be invaluable to them.

A lot of the kids called anxious these days used to be known as just shy years ago. I was incredibly shy when younger, would hardly dare speak to anyone. I also think some children are a bit attention seeking.

Do share these coping strategies that simply make it disappear.

And attention seeking how? Where did you get that fact from?My ds’s anxiety has an impact on nobody but him. He’d rather die than bring attention to himself.

Don't be facetious @V1daw1inter

You need to engage with professionals for a period of time, don't be as childish to one line me on a forum.

I had my first panic attack at age 11.

I’m 56.

Children have always suffered from anxiety, it just wasn’t spoken about ( or understood? ) back in the day.
Thankfully things have massively improved.

You said parents are mismanaging.How?

And how do you get help from professionals over a period of time? Very unlikely to get anything from CAMHS they’re snowed under.

You also accused parents of mismanaging the feeling and thus inferred they were the cause of anxiety in children. So don’t call me calling you out on a ridiculous statement childish thanks.

I said parents are mismanaging a feeling of being anxious, not that they are not dealing with anxiety. I made it perfectly clear there is a difference.

It is a perfectly normal human emotional response to a situation that is new/different or emotive to be anxious. This is where parents need to help children with identifying these feelings and putting in place tactics to help them rationalise their thoughts that accompany them to allow them to work through the emotion and move forward. That isn't anxiety.

CAMHS is the service provided by the NHS, which I am sure you are unaware is underfunded and under resourced. Have you tried seeking CBT therapy for your child outside of a referral if you think they have anxiety?

As a child I suffered terribly with what my parents called shyness - I now recognise it as social anxiety. There was no therapy & I was pushed & made to do things which just made it worse. Eventually away from my parents & their pressure, I gradually learned to cope & grew more confident but I still struggle in certain situations.
I've seen my teen daughter suffering the same & also low self esteem which lead to a period of self harm. I feel I'm more able to sympathise than my parents ever did & we were also able to seek CBT for her which has helped.
I think as with most things we are more clued up into mental health problems these days. The issue I have is not with the children but I do feel some "celebrities" are jumping on the band wagon & almost making it feel that true anxiety is less crippling than it can be.

"News flash only a few can afford hoards of extra curricular activities. In the real non rich non MN world kids aren’t doing hoards of activities."....
Trust me, they are. Lots and lots of activities going on every night near me, and they are all full to bursting with kids and have waiting lists. Karate, swimming, dancing, ballet, netball, football. .you name it, they are doing it.

I didn't accuse "anyone"

Your hostile and inflammatory behaviour though is not going to help anyone. Just a word of advice.

In my area( and we’re not poor it in a poor area) parents can only afford 1, 2 activities at a stretch. By the time they get to secondary most teens choose to ditch everything. Those with a talent( not many) stick to that.

While I think it's welcome that society and schools are all more aware of MH issues like anxiety, I can't help feeling that we might have reached a point where it has become all consuming. At my DCs school they have weekly talks and assemblies about MH to the point where they are really quite fed up with it. DC1 says the constant focus on it is just not helpful as 'they talk about it so much you start to question if there might actually be something wrong with you that you never considered before'.

DD2 has actually found some of what was said about serious MH issues like schizophrenia quite upsetting and alarming because 'if you hear a voice in your head that means you have it'. The message and the delivery of this education in schools should be well thought out and age appropriate or it is in danger of causing more harm than good.

Glad the CBT has helped @Neversaygoodbye

Urge your daughter to keep going. She may need to revisit at different times in her life as well as she grows and changes 😊

You did accuse. You said parents mismanaging was a factor. Parents have been parenting since the beginning of time. Your assumption doesn’t account for the increase in anxiety amongst children and adds to the blame the parents brigade- which doesn’t help anybody.

My ds does have anxiety as diagnosed by the GP. On waiting list for CAMHs and no haven’t sought CBT help as wouldn’t know where to start looking. Parents of teens get zero help or advice- just the blame.

"Parents of teens get zero help or advice- just the blame."
Do you mean parents of teens with specific mental health issues, or just parents of teens in general? I'm a parent of teens and dont feel I need any help. What help do you mean?

"I fear" is an opinion based on many many years of professional experience, there simply was no accusation there, and I could continue to be pedantic and correct you, but, it's pointless.

The whole system is under supported and under funded, not just teens. Google CBT in your area. Look for child psychologists. There are lots of online resources to help. I will give you one to start with; Kooth.com is a fantastic online service for the teens. They can participate in live forums, chat 121 with trained counsellors and talk to other people who suffer similar issues to what they do.

We have an NHS. It is stretched to its max, there are other options and they don't all cost the earth to access.

The problem here is the disparity between parents running for a 'label' and genuine , medically diagnosed anxiety.

Too many parents looking for a label to excuse them from telling their children they just need to get in with 'it' (whatever the 'it' is ) because it's just too easy to cop out and say 'dc suffers from anxiety' .
Yes there are a LOT of children with serious, need-some- professional-help issues. Without a doubt . However theirs are more with parents who won't step up and parent.
This is a parent issue for the majority and a NHS one for the minority. For which I have huge sympathy as the services just aren't there.

As a side note, a GP doesn't have the relevant qualifications to diagnose anxiety. They can listen to the symptoms and express a similarity, but a diagnosis of anxiety would need to be from a whole different skill set of professional.

Bit like a GP being able to conduct brain surgery just because they are a GP...