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?

VIdawIinter my teen's anxiety has very much resolved, just to give you hope.
A friend whose son suffered extreme anxiety and school refusal was transformed when he was finally given meds by NHS pysch through CAMHS at 15/16 (setraline) in combination with a long period of CBT also funded by CAMHS. However, I would say that they should have gone private earlier with the pysch referral. As it was, It was all free through CAMHS but the wait was excrutiatingly long to be seen cos unless you are at risk of suicide you keep dropping to the bottom of the list. My friend's son is doing very well now, back in school - she said he is transformed after a dark dark two years. Avoid the wrong woo pyschotherapists too - none of that helped him. CBT offers lots of coping strategies, don't let McGinty put you off it.

Your son sounds incredibly brave, and you sound a very supportive mother. There are no proper signposts, the professionals can be surprisingly unhelpful.
Home education helped us a lot with our son's social anxiety as a teen. Then he went back to school, and found it much much easier to manage as a result of his new coping strategies/confidence. I'm just putting that out there to anyone suffering from their child's struggles at, and for the children suffering, of course.

LolaSmiles I'm not really following, as it reads to me you're saying these children are given the wrong priorities, rather then lacking resilience. I'm assuming they're participating fully in the out of school activities.

It's the same here V1daw1inter, most primary age it's swimming plus another, secondary really is the after-school clubs at the school, all sports and for the sporty ones, not for fun. We're also semi-rural so there's not masses of choice if not a school club.

I've struggled to get mine to join clubs and resorted to private swimming lessons. I'm the sure the proper thing would have been to work through it, but crying children in a swimming pool environment isn't really fair on anyone.

I suppose DS2 lacks resilience but it's knowing when and what to push I think. I got it very wrong with a party he didn't want to go to. He arrived home with Sharpie over his face and clothes and really upset. I still feel bad about that.

They do a lot of mental health stuff at DS2's school but as it's just over a year since they had to announce the loss of a pupil it's much needed.

I recommended CBT @Nettleskeins and a private appointment route 🤔

DobbinOnTheLA
My point is that because some kids get ferried from activity to activity, they don't get the opportunity to develop the resilience to set them up.
E.g. ferrying kids around place to place Vs having time to play at the park with friends means they miss out on social skills, life skills etc that they'll need later

If parents are pushing activities and then making excuses for their child to not have homework, not have revised and they call school up with the excuses then the child never learns how to prioritise and be organised (both essential skills for being resilient and managing independently)

If the parents having made all those exudes and mollycoddled etc then find their child doesn't do as well and they call school up wanting to know what the TEACHER is doing about their child not performing, what 1-1 will the teacher do etc (Vs as a parent taking some responsibility) then yet again the child doesn't have to learn key skills.

For kids to be resilient it's not enough to say "promote resilience". The adults in a child's life need to actively nurture the appropriate skills and approaches that allow the child to be resilient.

I have Googled and there is a whole list of CBT “counsellors” no idea re how Im supposed to know which are any good or how to pick.

Ds has to fill out a form at GP who said he thought he was suffering anxiety as opposed to depression which ds had already surmised. He has suffered from some really nasty bullying and the anxiety is having an impact in many ways.School involved and trying to help.

And re help for parents of teens I’m surrounded by parents of teens struggling in all sorts of ways some quite serious. The threads on here particularly in the teen section indicate the same.There is no help or advice anywhere. No teen parenting courses in our area. I feel there is too much emphasis on the early years and money should be spread to teens. The modern day pressures on teens and their parents are huge. Great you don’t need any support but many do.

Lola I think you are talking rubbish. My parents never did any of the things you suggest these interfering mollycoddling parents do, and I was certainly anxious and disorganised. Tbh I would have appreciated them interfering and "mollycoddling" a bit more.
I got through it, I suppose I am resilient scarred by failure for want of a better word, but parents are there to support and advise.

My experience of other family members and their anxieties is that it always comes out when you are older and then you end up needing even MORE from your parents, than if they had given what was needed at the crucial time. There is a window when we give our children the skills they need to be confident adults by showing them we want to help, and it is a not a window for dropping them in the deep end (if I may mix my metaphors)

Children want to be independent, they don't want to cling onto their parents, they don't want to bother their parents with their problems,in fact most anxiety is related to children not communicating to their parents what they feel, the opposite of attention seeking and winding them up.

I feel for today's children. There is so much expected from them. They are not expected to be just children/teenagers and enjoy life. (Including school, because school should and can be enjoyable. And if you enjoy something you will perform better as a by-product).
They are being told they MUST achieve, then achieve more and more.
In school they are being stressed, home they are stressed. Do they even need to know about SATs for example?
Can't they just go to school and take that test as a taking a break from normal activity in school? It's not even important for them, it's more important for school.
HALF of all children will have academic results below average. HALF of all schools will have results below average.
Children DON'T have to go to after school activities. They can, but they shouldn't be made miserable over it.
There seems to be some kind of competition to create some kind of super achievers. They pick up on the fact that they don't fullfil what is expected from them and feel like loosers, not good enough.
I understand that thinking of adults is that work now will pay rewards later but it goes way too far.

Nettle how do you pick and find a good CBT counsellor ? How much does it cost?

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

Quick answer, it’s not. It’s likely you have come to this incorrect presumption due to social gossip rather than science based fact.

Longer evidenced based answer.

This question is fundamentally about human biology & development. Unless you believe humans are comprised of some “alternative” mystical substance than biology, in which case the scientific research can’t help you find your wish.

So as not to come across as being arrogant let me say that every statement written here is based on research that I did not perform my self. i.e., I’m just inferring the general scientific consensus and have no social axe to grind on this issue (unlike many on social media it would seem). In fact thousands of researchers and the scientific papers they produced over the last decade or so have shown that parents don’t influence their children’s key characteristics (psychologies) any where near as much as do the genes that the children inherit. i.e. Jonny doesn’t grow tall because his parents taught him how to grow tall, he grows tall due to good nutrition and the genes he inherited. Likewise, Claire inherits a potential for above average intelligence & with the right nurture (e.g. by parents and culture) Claire can develop and express her above average intelligence. Though, if Claire got her intelligence more from her, for an example, grandfather as genes are inherited in discreet “packages” not specifically a mix of both parents and Claire’s parents don’t perceive that their daughter Claire is above average intelligence, eventually (other things be equal) Claire will develop her intelligence regardless of her parents. i.e. The parents of children have a limited, short term effect on the type of Adult are child will be. So to be clear, of course Parents can/do make a child’s childhood a happy or sad time. But the parents teachings etc have no effect on the child’s innate personality.

A good laypersons book which summarises the overall research is ‘Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are’.

www.goodreads.com/book/show/39074555-blueprint?from_search=true

“In Blueprint, Robert Plomin, a pioneer in the field of behavioural genetics, draws on a lifetime's worth of research to make the case that DNA is the most important factor shaping who we are. “

There is no Nature V’s Nurture. The genes develop a human whom will express their “true nature” under differing environmental circumstances.

Extracurricular activities are not all bad, I think that it is important for kids to have something outside school that they enjoy. Developing another skill in music, sports, dance or art etc can help with self confidence and social skills plus any time spent away from social media and actually engaging with life is a bonus in my book. However there has to be a school/activity life balance. I see so many kids go straight from school to hours of activities every afternoon and all weekend. They are training like professionals and juggling far more than their own parents ever did.

nettle
You're choosing to focus on one explanation of one area that another poster asked me to clarify whilst ignoring the fact that in my earlier posts I've also said:
I've had anxiety
That we've got better at supportingnand identifing issues
There's a whole range of social factors that I think make life for current teens hard
But, I also think changes in parenting do play a role

Resilient doesn't mean scarred by failure.

From day one, I don’t think enough parents try to raise secure children. They’re usually forced to be independent before they’re ready. The way a child is treated in the first 3 years of their life has a big impact on brain function and emotion resilience.

So v1daw....sorry but dont think you answered my question. Do you mean teens with specific mental health issues, or just teens in general?

God, I remember my mum popping valium at every little stress. She had such bad anxiety she couldn't leave the house sometimes. And, according to her, she was like this as a kid in the 1950s (minus the valium of course!). Except no one called it anxiety. It's not a new thing!!

I feel for today's parents. Why did so much of them miss out on learning biology at school?, thus miss out on understanding themselves, but instead get so much of their guidance from magazine and newspapers and social gossip internet sites.

Judging by the Kids whom are demonstrating, due to the fact that the adults are "leading" in causing a sixth mass extinction event, I think many of the Kids are more grown up (taking responsibility for our actions) than the Adults.

Teens in general. It isn’t just mental health that parents struggle with.

You obviously don't see any value in the out of school activities LolaSmiles but I'm not sure how that equates to having a lack of resilience? Teens hanging around in parks is a constant source for complaints in FB community groups, often warranted.

Obviously parents shouldn't be expecting allowances from school if their child's activities aren't leaving enough time to do homework. But again, isn't that a parent in the wrong rather than a child lacking resilience?

I dont actually think we can blame kids going to activities for anxiety...certain activities help build resilience and teamwork, and often kids have different friends at activities than they would do at school. Most of the parents and kids I know, do activities and also go the park, so I do not think anyone can say they aren't getting just downtime at the park. Round us all the parks are full and so are activities .

Because the world is shit and they are aware of it.

So he "thinks" hasn't diagnosed, and this is because he filled out a form.

So, that basically confirms what I have just said to you about being able to professionally diagnose anxiety then?

I hate to be blunt, but, "how am I supposed to know" well, as much as anyone is. Research, asking questions, reviews, recommendations. The people will be qualified, they would've studied for years to receive such qualifications so pick one that you like the feel of and ticks your boxes. Phone them up, ask questions...

Re mental health services, I was told they couldn't offer any support for DC with an ASD dx (DS1 has ASD), but when we finally got to see the Clinic Psych, she immediately said about the CBT for DC with ASD they ran for secondary age and a parent course on CBT for primary children with ASD.

Whether it's from not informing their own staff or just OTT gate-keeping, I'm not sure.

I find curling up and reading with the family relaxes us all... maybe now we don't always plan time for the activities what ever they may be that relax us!

I definitely see this with undergrads- normal anxious feelings about giving group presentations have been pathologised instead of grappled with. We give them 1-1 presentations and we are not allowed to suggest ways of combatting that anxiety and finding out how they can manage it. Instead we reinforce the message that presentations are a big scary thing that they should avoid. Then they graduate with loads of debt and cannot find work at graduate level, because graduate level jobs require endless presentations. And I can see all of this happening but according to our student support unit, I’m contravening the mental health and equalities acts if I intervene. I feel like such a crap educator because of it and I know I am setting up these students to fail in life (though they will pass their presentation) and it’s really upsetting.

There was a poster recently who had to give a presentation for her dream job and has severe anxiety about presenting, but by receiving support and advice on here, she managed her feelings and did really well. Anxiety is crippling but its effects can be managed or dampened with strategies and support - neither of which we are allowed to give!

"Teens in general. It isn’t just mental health that parents struggle with."
Ah ok....I think part of the problem is a lot of parents seem to think they need support / help etc with quite a lot of general life events that should be quite manageable...so perhaps there is an element of parents needing to be more resilient and passing down that resilience to children.

therealmcginty DS1 was no less anxious pre-disgnosis, and indeed that he'd been having difficulties for some time was relevant to making the diagnosis. But are you saying he wasn't anxious before diagnosis? It took 3 attempts to get a referral accepted, the GP said I had to persist as he couldn't intervene.