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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask you why so many children have anxiety these days

535 replies

Tvstar · 02/11/2019 10:11

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

OP posts:
winniestone37 · 04/11/2019 11:40

Wow, just wow. So little resilience?! Did your hands itch because you wanted to write snowflakes. Try this. This social milieu is not the same as when we were young, times have moved on and they have a different set of issues to deal with and we are better at recognising and articulating anxiety now. Is this need to sum up people in such derogatory ways true for your whole life? If people struggle they just lack resilience! Idiots! The person with the problem here is you - you are awful.

Damntheman · 04/11/2019 11:41

It's literally not though. Your idea of resiliance seems to be yay for the kids who are suited for this kind of thing and fuck all those who aren't! People are different, people need different levels of support, people learn different ways, you can't box them all under one.

I for one thing it's a wonderful thing that diversity is recognised in this day and age and that all the children who have different needs are better taken care of. That said, we still have a LONG way to go before all children get the support and care that they both need and deserve.

Footiefan2019 · 04/11/2019 11:41

@Holyshitbags that can only be a good thing !! Bloody toy ads...

Footiefan2019 · 04/11/2019 11:43

To me, resilience is finding something difficult and carrying on, not ‘yay for those who find it easy and fuck everyone who isnt’. It’s something that should be celebrated. I teach a ‘hobby’, and I will often give my star of the week sticker or a special mention or even have a word with a parent about how pleased I am, about a child who TRIES despite not being naturally able. Giving up when you aren’t the best is easy but putting the work in isn’t.

Damntheman · 04/11/2019 11:45

Yeah but OP's opening post insinuates that everyone with anxiety is not resilient. Which is bullshit and ablist and a very damaging thing to say.

SuperFurryDoggy · 04/11/2019 11:50

I haven't RTFT yet, but I doubt it will be any single factor.

I have 2 DC with an 18-month gap between them. Our 9 yo has terrible anxiety whereas her older brother does not. Same parents, same school, same rules. DH and I are very laid back with a healthy attitude to risk etc. DD's anxiety is very much focused on school, but she has always been more 'highly strung' than her DB. My MIL is also very anxious, so I think there is perhaps a genetic predisposition. That said, whilst she still would have had some anxiety, I suspect that she would have found my 1980s childhood easier than her 2010s one. Then again, MIL tell me that she had terrible school anxiety back in the late 1950s/early 1960s, so who knows..?

OP - you ask why so many children have anxiety, then immediately answer your own question by blaming modern parenting causing low resilience. I can understand why as I have seen cases where this is probably true. However I would say that out of my 2 DC, it is DD with her anxiety who is the most resilient. Resilience is the ability to cope with setbacks. DD has does not let the uncomfortable symptoms of her anxiety stop her. Every Single Day she faces her fears with a smile on her face. She doesn't stop trying. That is true resilience.

Footiefan2019 · 04/11/2019 11:51

I didn’t get that. I got that anxiety and resilience can be linked. Which I agree with. But not always. I think we all project our own experiences and thoughts onto things though.

Themazeoflife · 04/11/2019 11:55

SATS in year 2

SATS in year 6

Exams to get into school

Exams end of every school year

Social media bullying

Social media "norms"

And more

Damntheman · 04/11/2019 11:55

Perhaps Footie. I don't have anxiety though, I'm very neurotypical and a secure and confident person. I still found OP's original post very goady and unnecessary.

SuperFurry has it exactly.

Wehttam · 04/11/2019 12:02

So many reasons....

Social media creating unnecessary presssures
Drinking energy drinks filled with caffeine and chemical crap
Huh sugar / additive diets
24/7 culture
New trends every few days
Education pressures
Access to electronic devices with blue lighting
Instantaneous satisfaction
Targeted marketing
Continual access to mainly bad/ negative news
Being able to send a message and see the person has read it and wondering why there’s no immediate response
Trying to be their best self outside of an Instagram filter

The list goes on but it’s easy to understand why

Footiefan2019 · 04/11/2019 12:06

I think the difficulty in addressing this @damntheman is that you can see anxiety as something totally removed from a persons life and experiences, perhaps as something genetic, and keep it totally medicalised. Or you can be in the camp that links it intrinsically with a persons life, way they’re brought up etc. or you can take a middle ground approach where you see it as a combination. I think that’s where I stand. The problem is where it comes to children, it is very very hard to link it to parenting when parents believe there is literally nothing that can cause their child to be anything but happy and thriving. Not saying that is anyone actually on this thread by the way but a general comment.

I have a friend with mental health issues. Anxiety to the point of medication, missing days of work because she’s just so stressed out about the day to day of living. Things are overwhelming for her. To the outsider there is NOTHING that has caused this. Privileged upbringing, parental support to the extent of paying for tutoring to help through school, lifts everywhere when she couldn’t be organized to get public transport due to the anxiety, money in the bank when she couldn’t keep a job, thousands of pounds for a gap year traveling experience. But whilst they are lovely and supporting in many ways, they’ve never forced her to confront why she is the way she is. And it’s most likely a large contributing factor that she was sexually abused as a young teen but never told anyone in her family and then turned to recreational drugs which she used weekly for about 10 years hidden from her family and still uses occasionally and which I think has basically rewired her brain into being panicky etc.

So whilst there is certainly an ‘inherent’ factor there, there are huge environmental and upbringing issues at play but her parents would say she has literally had a perfect life.

hazeyjane · 04/11/2019 12:20

I find it quite hard to put into words, but I dont think 'anxiety' is one thing.

The anxiety my ds struggles with seems very removed from the anxiety that I have seen in, for example my parents (whose mental health issues have been a fun feature of all our lives)

My 9 year old ds has a very rare genetic condition (de novo...so not familial), the majority of children and young adults with this condition struggle massively with anxiety. With ds it utterly overwhelms him, and he explodes and then just dissolves into shaking ball of fear and panic.

(He has resilience by the fucking bucketload though)

Lulu49 · 04/11/2019 15:03

There’s lots of reasons why, the parents mental health plays a part as well I think. It’s very hard not to pass on anxiety if your modelling it every day

BackInTime · 04/11/2019 15:43

Speaking to a friend recently about our lives v our DCs lives and she commented that we had a lot less materially, a lots less parental involvement especially as we grew older but we also were happier, free to just be and free of the the expectations to be perfect, clever, model pretty, talented sporty A* super star kids. It was ok back then to be average but today average = failure. The competitive nature of life for kids today brings enormous pressure, added to this that they are bombarded with images of their peers 24/7 appearing to be perfect, popular, beautiful and clever.

MadMadaMim · 04/11/2019 16:13

this is the most flippant, loaded, confrontational and judgemental post I've seen in a long time - even for MN!

Clearly wanting to start a heated, sparked debate. For what reason?

And for the record - IMO, children today are much more resilient given the world they are growing up in. Constantly scrutinised in every way and from every angle - behaviour, academic prowess, physical 'norm' (not norm), social. Constantly called out negatively - exactly like this OP has. constantly told that they'll amount to nothing.

Constantly bombarded with advertising wherever they look. Human beings have become a 'commodity' to exploit and make money from. They have to have the right clothes, the right phone, the right haircut, the right car, the right address, the right parents, go to the right school. it's never ending

All that plus knowing, when they're old enough to understand, that they will have less opportunities and lower standard of living than their parents. Being told that whatever they did will not be good enough - you have to be brilliant at everything to get amount to anything.

It must be exhausting.

And it's all very well to say we can protect them from that, avoid it etc. the reality is if we want our children to have friends and be part of the modern world, then all the above baggage is part of that.

Comments like that of the OP are 90% of the problem. And it annoys the f#ck out of me. Especially when it's so transparently goady and for no other reason that to incite negative 'debate'.

Stop being so glib. And judgemental. Be nice. It's just as easy to be nice as it is to be nasty.

oabiti · 04/11/2019 16:14

OP, rather than stating that children are anxious, you need to go to the source of that anxiety.

I'll give you a breakdown of why my child is anxious. Two words, her father. He has messed her around and the way he and his vile wife have treated her, is enough to make me break down and sob!

She never showed any signs of anxiety when she was younger. Had he have treated her with the respect she deserved, and not married a woman who thought it was okay to verbally abuse her, things would be very different.

By the way, I didn't know about the VB until a later date, and naturally stopped my child going over there. She made fun of her weight, told her she was ugly..and the very person (apart from me) who she thought she could turn to, went ahead and married her; even though he promised her that they would never get married and that he would put his 'little girl first'.

This has, unfortunately, spilled to other areas of her life, mainly at school.

I have tried EVERYTHING in my power to try and counter all the negativity. But the fact remains, that the one person she thought she could trust, was full of shit and complicit in making her life difficult.

She is just a child. That secure bond that was meant to be there, was broken. She went from daddy's girl to nothing.

This will impact her as an adult. So perhaps you should be asking the same question about adults.

I bet most will trace back to childhood.

Selfish, selfish people (being polite) who are too self-absorbed to realise the impact of their actions.

Thank goodness she has me.

ThatMuppetShow · 04/11/2019 16:19

I am just finishing reading a (true) story about a 7 and 9 year old boys given money for their journey and sent to the other side of the country by their parents during the war.

Exceptional circumstances maybe, but no, I cannot agree that children are more resilient today. It's parents blaming the "modern world" and the "excuses" from same parents who would give anyone anxiety.

that they will have less opportunities and lower standard of living than their parents. Being told that whatever they did will not be good enough - you have to be brilliant at everything to get amount to anything.
I don't know any child who is being told that - but actually quite the opposite!

WhiskeyLullaby · 04/11/2019 16:27

I think it's very simplistic as well to infer that anxiety = lack of resilience.

Some of the kids with anxiety I know are fucking resilient too, just for the fact they're still here, that they come to school,that they do try, that they do learn some things, that they do manage to form bonds with some of their peers and grownups, despite the trauma,abuse,neglect, chaotic lifestyle, vicious custody battles,their SEN and so on.

They worry about money,about where the next meal will come from,their parents,their siblings,where will they sleep tonight or in a month's time,their own safety,why no one understands them and the world doesn't make sense etc. but most of the time they still try and that's with very limited support. They can be as young as 4.

They might be difficult,but they are fucking strong,especially when you consider how young,vulnerable and helpless they are.

But you keep on sneering about snowflakes.

V1daw1inter · 04/11/2019 16:27

My anxious child could have done that at that age. He has handled plenty more besides.

Hideous bullying that still happens and being made to feel worthless caused his.

I think some need to know the symptoms of anxiety and what it feels like. I think they picture an anxious child as a wet mouse afraid of the world. Couldn’t be further from the truth in our case. My anxious child is the epitome of resilience. Gets himself up and starts again time and again.

www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/anxiety-and-panic-attacks/anxiety-symptoms/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1L-NkffQ5QIVRrDtCh1GIgHJEAAYAiAAEgLDm_D_BwE#.XcBLrSWnwlQ

corythatwas · 04/11/2019 16:48

Anxiety runs in my family since at least the 1880s (quite possibly before then). Affects several people per generation. Difference is, my daughter has the sense to go to a doctor, to work with exercises, to try to manage her anxiety. In consequence, she is training for a difficult career and hardly ever takes her stress out on other people.

My mother was less lucky: had to stick with a job she hated because that was all anxiety allowed her to do. Grandfather went through dark periods of depression every year: one of the snowflakes of the 1890s. My brother is signed off with stress at the moment, not for the first time. I know perfectly well that the reason my own anxiety is manageable is that I was put on medication for high blood pressure in my early 30s: it has the side effect of calming me down, so I never had to go to a doctor and acknowledge that I have mental health issues. I'm 56, so hardly the outcome of modern parenting.

We are not snowflakes in my family. We are also not overinvolved or given to helicopter parenting. My grandfather grew up in rural poverty with 10 siblings. His mother was a widow who married a chronic alcoholic to keep the farmstead from being sold: I would be very surprised if she had caused my granddad any issues by solving all his problems for him. He was a strong, brave, enthusiastic, hardworking man. He also had mental health issues.

Dd is dealing with disability and chronic pain on a daily basis. Far from mollycoddling in childhood she was the wheelchair bound child who was made to crawl into the school toilet on her hands and knees because the head wanted to keep the disabled loo for visitors (I didn't know about this). She was told every day for years that "nobody is going to put up with this when you get out into the Real World". She couldn't believe it when she did go out into the real world and found how much easier holding down a job was.

motherogod · 04/11/2019 17:24

MadMadaMim exactly

LovelyIssues · 06/11/2019 18:21

much more pressure these days and children did actually have anxiety, Autism, dyslexia etc back in the day but it just wasn't talked about so much. It was brushed off

StrawberrySquash · 06/11/2019 22:07

i I am just finishing reading a (true) story about a 7 and 9 year old boys given money for their journey and sent to the other side of the country by their parents during the war.

I wonder what long term effects that had on them. You hear stories of people who went through awful things back then and how they never really got over it. It's not a new thing.

Having said that I don't think our society's kids are happy and I think we need to address why that is.

Chienloup · 06/11/2019 22:20

I work in children's mental health and this is a huge question. I think that children's worlds are so much bigger now, and therefore there is a lot more to be worried about. They are aware of so much more than we were (I can only speak for my generation - I'm 40). Plus there is no escaping from things - if we did something embarrassing at school, we would go home and not have to think about it, as would our classmates, and mostly it blew over quickly. Nowadays there is no escape, as soon as you leave school the phones come out and everyone is talking about what happened at school, blowing things up much bigger than they were.
There is shall a danger of pathologising normal feelings too. I know a young lad who said to me "I wish I didn't have anxiety..." In told him that he didn't "have anxiety," he simply felt anxious sometimes, as we all do. But his belief that he had anxiety perpetuated those feelings and beliefs.

But there is also the fact that we can are recognising that children have mental health needs and issues as much as adults do, and hopefully although we are seeing a rise in childhood anxiety now, early intervention means that they won't grow into anxious adults and won't pass anxieties onto their children.

ThatMuppetShow · 06/11/2019 22:31

I wonder what long term effects that had on them.

According to the writer in the book later and the following interviews he's done , at the time it felt like an amazing adventure and a very long holiday. It took them several weeks to reach their final stop.
He said that it's only many many years later that he started to see his life with different eyes and understand what his parents might have gone through.

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