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?

I see it a lot when parents have split and parent differently especially involving kids in adult decisions - they want to please both but can’t

@Nettleskeins you are making very good point about vit D. When mine goes down (I have deficiency and admittedly do forget my supplements for a week once in few months) I suffer horrible nerves! Permanently tight chest, feeling of impending doom and all that. Car rides are the worst then. I just keep having the feeling that someone will crash into us. But when I take my supplements properly, I have none of this extreme and don't feel down in general.

I think there should be more holistic approach in medicine. Our bodies and mind are very much working together. Ill mind can cause ill body and vice versa. I do wonder how many people with bad anxiety are offered regular blood tests.

I don’t know that more children have anxiety these days. I think we’re just better at talking about it. There are a lot of screwed up adults who didn’t get help as children, and maybe addressing it while they’re young will help them to lead happier lives as adults.

My 70 year old DM was recently diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder. Her doctor thinks it stems from her father dying when she was 15 and she had to leave school and get a job to help support her family. I’ve always known her as an unhappy and anxious woman, controlling, and scared when we went out - not sleeping until we got home (and we weren’t wild children at all). It’s a hard way to live your life. She’s getting help and is on medication now and is much better than I’ve ever known her, but we’d all have been so much happier if she’d been able to have help at the time.

Maybe it’s just a phase in human development. We feel like life should be so much more fulfilling than it generally is but in the end we’re just mammals. Eat, sleep, breed and survive.

Just read a Z-list "blogger" saying that learning about WW2 would be too depressing for people...

He's clearly stupid enough to genuinely believe it, why do people make these people "stars" and a goal?

people like Meghan M telling us that we are all entitled to thrive not simply survive is total bollocks
I would disagree to that, it's what even my grand-parents were taught and having kids knowing they don't have to settle and deserve to do well in life is how you don't end up in a shitty job in a grotty home miserable.

Exactly what @cauliflowersqueeze said.
You only have to look on Mumsnet to see the amount of posters, the majority who are parents who have 'anxiety'. Everyone gets anxious sometimes, it is a normal emotion. I certainly feel anxious a few times a week, before a meeting, giving a presentation, stress etc, doesn't mean I have anxiety though. Children learn from their parents how to regulate their emotions and overcome challenges. If parents struggle to do this then it's no wonder that children do.

I'm in my 50's and when we were children we just sort of slotted in to the family.

Yes, exactly this. I'm in my mid-40s and it was the same. It was a very low-pressured way of existing - you had your school time, homework and a few jobs to do round the house - then as long as you did as you were told and didn't cause trouble, you were just left to get on with it. I used to spend hours playing imaginary games, riding round on my bike, drawing, writing stories - complete freedom in leisure time (not being ferried here and there to organised activities) - but clear and simple rules about what constituted polite and civilised behaviour.

The world seems utterly hopeless.

Climate change is irreversible and a threat to human life.

The political world is polarised and fractious.

In our society, future generations are now expected to have worse quality of life than previous.

Children are not immune to any of this, no matter how much of a stable and resilient home life you can give them.

"Why is today's parenting producing youngsters with so little resilience?"
Well, there's a loaded question. You have clearly decided already that it is down to today's parenting so, if you think you know the answer already, why ask the blooming question?

Haven't RTFT as about to go out...

With older DC, social media. With younger ones, parents on social media and ignoring the DC.

Too little time outside. Helicoptering. Lack of freedom to make their own small mistakes.

And, finally, more openness and recognition.

Nettle / Fiona re: shouting at your child when she is being really clingy.

Sometimes kids need to get a bit of a grip and to know there is nothing to worry about.
Sometimes sitting and talking through feelings continuously actually feeds into it. Fiona knows her child best and knows if snapping quickly is the best way to help her move forward more healthily.

Given that we now recognise and label things much more than we did in the past, I can't see how anyone could tell either way whether it's more common now or not. The idea seems ridiculous really. I mean, there are millions of people in the UK still alive who grew up in the 30s when a significant proportion of children spent their childhoods hungry, or in the 40s during WW2. Does anyone really think we have the foggiest idea about the state of child mental health then? Or even in more recent decades. The 50s living with parents who were mentally processing the effects of said war, did they only have anxiety in small numbers or did we just not know about it? I'm still youngish but even the 80s and 90s when I grew up were a different planet compared to now.

I think screen time, social media, smart phone use really messes with your brain chemistry, creates more anxious children and adults too.

I think a lot of it is down to the parents passing their stresses on to their kids.

I regularly see threads on here with parents becoming seriously over exercised about every little exam. ‘Oh Timmy can’t possible do SATs he’s so little, he won’t cope - we’re pulling him out of school that week’. If they do that, how is Timmy ever going to learn to put the next exam into perspective without having a breakdown or trying to avoid school? If they relaxed and stop going on about it maybe the kid would also relax and realise it’s not a massive life changing event.

I remember when DC had to do the reception baseline test and some parents were all over WhatsApp freaking out, organising meetingswith the head, threatening to not allow their kid to do the test. Meanwhile, my DC didn’t even know they were being tested. The school hadn’t used that word, the teacher was relaxed and didn’t stress them out. All they said was which week it would happen. I asked DC at the end of the week if anything had happened and at first they didn’t remember but after probing remembered another teacher had come in to read with them and point at some picture cards. That was about it. Massive overreaction and stress from some of the parents which would’ve filtered down to their kids.

I also agree that the need for some parents to involve their children in every decision causes stress also. They may think it makes them better parents but I think it puts responsibility on shoulders who are too young to deal with it. Even I as an adult sometimes become overwhelmed with the choices and decisions I have to make, however, you have parents out there who are even negotiating with 11 year olds on where to buy a house. I’ve seen several threads like this on here.

Many children had anxiety in times past. It just wasn't treated or diagnosed

I agree that I don't think children are more anxious than previous generation, but whereas a certain level of anxiety was considered part of normal life and needed for progression, nowadays it is considered something to avoid at all risk.

It's part of our current culture that encourage instant gratification rather than accepting some level of hardship to better ourselves in the future.

What is sad is that even before kids leave school at 16/18, there is such a difference between those who are able to face to demanding world of adulthood, not phased by interviews, dealing with the public, not scared to do long hours, face negative feedback taking it in their stride, and those who are so ill equipped, they can't face any form of challenge, or collapse as soon as facing it. There shouldn't be such a big gap between kids at that age.

Found the moron:

www.ladbible.com/entertainment/tv-and-film-apprentice-star-learning-about-wwii-could-affect-kids-mental-health-20191101

Clearly he's proudly stupid, but what kind of upbringing did he have at home to end up like that?

Of course parenting is the main issue with "anxiety" today.

A lot of this "anxiety" is parentally diagnosed.

Some one is going to be anxious if there parents tell them and everyone around them how anxious they are, every 5 minutes.

One other thought, we spend years teaching our children to talk about their feelings, and I guess when they do we badge it anxiety. We just need to know help them deal with it, problem is we don’t always know how to help them - especially if we were brought up to just get on with it. It’s hard.
I was brought up the old fashioned way, and felt very strongly that I wasn’t listened to. I never wanted DD to feel that, so we discuss the world with her. Maybe we were wrong.

Interesting point about primary curriculum- it is really complicated and hard (IMO) we did country dancing and nature study! I think it expects too much from them too early on.

@ThatMuppetShow add to it jazz hands at unies instead of clapping... Perfect storm...

I think a lot of it is down to social media. There was none of that when I was growing up.

Just also read the threads where people are "outraged" by kids knowing each other marks, work given back in result order, class list and so on.

Or parents shocked and outraged that a teacher could joke about a funny sentence written by ONE child in a class of 30.

Books used to be published about the funniest mistakes, it was lighthearted, but ridiculous parents now are making such a huge deal about nothing - some kids haven't got a chance.

And let's not start about sports day....

Certainly as a school we give parents more and more information, more meetings, more advice and guidance, more email contact and updates. Some parents are getting a fairly high number of emails or phone calls every week about their kids. When I was at school there was a written report at the end of the year and a parents evening (to which kids were not invited). Parents have never known more about how their kids are doing.

I remember my friend collecting her son from nursery and being given a huge sheet every day documenting and photographing what seemed like his every movement. I remember her saying “crikey I wish they had just played with him”.

Schools are in a constant state of tension from inspections and league tables and the threat of negative press etc. The only other route to getting kids to do better and work harder is the parents. So I think we put them under more pressure to attend information evenings, insist kids work harder at home etc etc. It’s all a vicious circle.

Internet
Social media

Because they don’t understand the difference between being anxious - a normal response to certain situations - and anxiety which is crippling and affects all aspects of your life.
Because they don’t understand the difference between confronting a situation and being confrontational.
Because they don’t understand that the teen years are full of questions, confusion, upheavals and a recalibration of life as you now understand it and not full of answers, clarity and unquestioning acceptance.
Because people have been sold this idea that life should be constantly happy and full of good things which is utterly unrealistic instead of striving for contentment so you can enjoy the good times and cope with the bad times.