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?

You obviously don't see any value in the out of school activities LolaSmiles
How does having an issue with a packed schedule of ferried around activities from a young age equal don't value activities?
How does "this is how we were shown to balance enrichment and studies when we were kids" equal doesn't value activities?
but I'm not sure how that equates to having a lack of resilience?
If they aren't learning the key skills of time management and social skills and they don't have time to chill out because they're busy going one thing to another then there is a knock on effect.
Teens hanging around in parks is a constant source for complaints in FB community groups, often warranted.
Sometimes they are. Sometimes they aren't. I'm not advocating anti social behaviour. I'm saying that parents who won't allow their kids to walk to the shop or go to the park on an afternoon are the parents who turn up on threads like a recent one where a poster was worried about their 11 year old child walking to school. Children should be more than capable of having appropriate freedom and independence.

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?
The parent is in the wrong, but their actions actively hinder a child developing the skills required to be resilient.

For example, our most confident and resilient students will do enrichment, have a few hobbies they love, but they also have time with friends, their parents have made it clear that they have to prioritise studies/enrichment as appropriate. They will often walk/get the bus to and from training. Parents give enough time free so their child can chill, manage their homework and revision etc.

Our less resilient students have a list of things as long as their arm, half of which they don't really want to do but home have decided it's good for them. They get picked up and dropped off, we get notes from home about why they couldn't do homework. They're often really stressed by GCSE options pickig because they have an idea what they want to do but home have an opinion and that comes first. They're expected to be brilliant at everything, but then haven't actually got the time to devote to getting good. I've had kids in pieces in my room because theyve done badly in a test but they didn't have time to revise because they had Sunday afternoon free but they couldn't fit everything in. Those poor kids end up feeling overwhelmed and then when it gets to GCSEs they've not had time to develop the life skills at age appropriate stages and it's heartbreaking

Your correct. Human physiology/ anatomy hasn't changed that much for thousands of years. In fact much of human psychology evolved during the Pleistocene Epoch (e.g. stone age brains worshiping deities) . What has changed is the amount of News we hear about. And News broadcasters tend to focus on the Bad news.

For example, "Two local Cruel people got found out that they were doing cruel things yesterday" is far more the 'news as usual' that people tend to be attracted to , compared to " Ten thousand people in Africa were lifted out of severe poverty over the last year".

Steven pinker's book ' Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress', highlights the discrepancy on how the information we read/watch can lead to a distorted view of the bigger picture.

i.e. Human psychology Evolved during the Pleistocene epoch (Small hunter,gatherer communities) & some "modern" environments have many elements that are no good for us. Air,Noise & light pollution are causing some significant negative psychological/psychological health issues.

whoops!. Psychological & Physiological.

VIdaw my son didn't see a CBT counsellor or any in fact, the family therapist arranged through the LA was quite enough for us, and he didn't cope well with it (although it was helpful for me in some ways)
However, I've seen one in the past; I cannot remember the cost - about £70 a hour? for six sessions. The BACP is I think the organisation which accredits counsellors and pyschotherapists. In our area you can choose different specialisms and conditions that you want help with, and different approaches, and then you just get a list. There is also something called AChiPP the association of chartered independent pyschologists in private practice, which again gives indication of different specialities and approaches.
My understanding is that undertaking therapy can be a long term commitment whereas a CBT approach can be shorter and more strategic. But tbh I am not very experienced in this field, more with SEN as a cause of anxiety.

Lola..I'm amazed you know so much about your students. In my High school, teachers wouldnt have a clue which walks to school and who gets dropped off. They dont know what kids do what activities or how much free time they have.

We’re perfectly capable of handling life events. Bereavement, not having the latest this and that etc.

Being able to cope with modern day dangers on line, screens impinging on school work, alcohol, modern drugs,self harming, grooming, sexuality, modern bullying and how to handle modern teens vileness and stress without having the old threat of a clip round the ear as back up is the support parents I know would like. All of the above are issues several of my non remarkable friends have had to cope with. Some work with teens themselves.

Nettle thanks. It’s such a minefield, I don’t know where to start tbh. Where do you get the family ciubsellircftom?

Counsellor

McGinty counselling costs a lot. There will be good and bad. It’s important to get it right. How are parents supposed to be experts in mental health and finding support whilst on the CAMHs list. When you have a child struggling you don’t want to make it worse.

The Council! Through a school referral when ds2 was about 10. Sen related. Tbh it is a cheaper way of dealing with pysch issues than CBT 1:1 with the child, and a way to get parents thinking. Can be good can be invasive. My other kids detested it, I learnt a lot about the family dynamic. Which was good I suppose, not just the anxious child being the issue.

Ah thanks. Don’t think we’d get that then.

cheaper for the Council I mean

"Being able to cope with modern day dangers on line, screens impinging on school work",......take the tech stuff off them.
"alcohol, modern drugs."....definately not allowed.

self harming, grooming, sexuality.....again, a lot of this stems from the amount of time online.

There was definitely a lot of anxiety in children, years ago. Forty years ago, I was in an adolescent unit with other 'emotionally disturbed' children. Young people would also 'drop out' of college, university or even school. Children would run away for school or from home, just as they do today.

We are just more open about it now

Not necessarily. The self harming, grooming and sexuality difficulties I know parents had to deal with had nothing to do with the amount of time being online.Quite the reverse. Why did you come to that conclusion?

TabbyMumz
It never occurs to me that staff wouldn't want to get to know their students (though I'm all too aware that some don't).
I can tell you all sorts about my students from which enrichment they do, to what their home life is like (form plus those who I have got to know well over time), to who copes well with pressure, who needs homework in stages and steps to revise to avoid being overwhelmed. Naturally you get to know some at more depth than others, and different students click better with different teachers, but to me forming those relationships is really important.

It's probably why I feel quite strongly about the impact of social media/smart phones, regressive gender stereotyping, the impact of too much mollycoddling, parents passing their own hang ups onto their kids, why I dislike the ridiculous so called "motivational" assemblies before mock exams and so on. I see the effect of those things day in day out and it concerns me seeing the effect on some kids.

@DobbinOnTheLA nope, not even remotely what I was saying.

AChiPP = Association of CHILD Pyschologists in Private Practice sorry not Chartered

?

Sorry what doc you mean? Is that what they need to be part of or a qualification?

I am resilient, I have had to be. I also have anxiety. I am not anxious because I lack resilience. As a child I was described as a worrier. Now a days I would have gotten some help for it.

My son suffers with anxiety. He watched his dad die when he was 10 years old and it traumatised him. Not my fault, or his dads. I would never say he lacks resilience though.

I might get awful anxiety at times, but I always bounce back and fight my way through it. That is resilience. Resilience doesn't mean you don't get anxiety.

Over stimulation plays a part as well I am sure. Over stimulation can trigger the fight or flight response.

"Youngsters with so little resilience"? That's a classic,I'll remind my 10 year old daughter of that next time she asks why she is so scared of dying after her little 2 year old brother had cancer....

I grew up with awful anxiety that was completely ignored. I was told by my parents, teachers, and society, that I was simply wrong. I was too quiet. I was not Social enough. I missed social cues that were obvious to everyone else. I worried too much. I had coping mechanisms that needed to be punished away.

Now I have a dd who is very much like me. She has a diagnosis of high functioning autism and anxiety. We have her in therapy to help with the anxiety and it is working wonders. Most of her sessions involve the whole family and I find myself using the techniques too. She has classroom adaptations to address the autism. Basically, she is growing up supported and in a world that admits there does not have to be only one way of being a person.

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..

But interestingly this stops generally at about 10. There is often sneering about swim club (they have to swim every day for 3 hours don't y'know ); football acedemies; dance shows or anything that requires a bit of parental input over and above only when they can actually be arsed. I think it is actually good to get good at one thing at least