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?

👏🏻 Gatehouse

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

Jazz hands is the BSL expression for applause, it is also less stressful for people who have sensory or auditory issues and therefore is considered to be more inclusive. Please feel free to continue your ignorance though.

DawnOfTheDeadleg

One feature of anxieties due to wartime and other global events was that everyone was in the same boat and there wasn't much, if anything, you as an individual were expected to do to influence it. I grew up in the 80s when there was a lot of generalised anxiety about nuclear war, and yes, it was frightening, but there wasn't anything you could do to change things, so you just got on with your life.

Nowadays, there is global anxiety about climate change, but the focus is very much on what you should be doing to influence this for the better. There is anxiety about terrorism (as there was in the 70s and 80s, although from different sources) but rather than a terrorist incident being (unless you or close family are direct victims) something you hear about on the news, it is all over social media with people 'checking in' even if they're 50 miles away - in other words, all sources of generalised anxiety have been made to seem much more personal and closer to home.

Children had anxiety 40 years ago. They were just told to get a grip or being over sensitive. (Bitter experience talking).

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

I honestly thought it was a weird joke..
We are becoming equally anxious AND stupid these days..

It's depressing.

I wish I'd let my kids drag themselves up more and tried less hard to be a perfect parent. I'm sure I "helicoptered" too much and has contributed to my kids anxiety.
But this is also in conjunction with the pressures at school and the need to do well in exams to succeed in life.

I agree with some PP's that you can be anxious without having anxiety. Not that anyone else should have the right to label it or define it. I also think that it is more recognised and supported now, which is obviously a good thing. I don't know if I agree that it's more stressful for children now, although admittedly I guess it depends on what your experiences growing up were.

I really take offence at some of the smug ill informed claptrap on here.

I have an anxious 16 year old child, he is not weak but hugely resilient. He drags himself to school day after day and gets on with life even though he feels shite.Said child has worked hard and achieved at a high level of his own back in a chosen area,has been capable of travelling from city to city and around cities navigating public transport alone for years. He has dealt with grief amazingly well.

Anxiety is shit and not caused by parenting.

I have 3 children, all are resilient, two aren’t anxious in the slightest.

My sons anxiety was caused by bullying. The internet hasn’t helped and neither has the crappy format of the present GCSE years and education system. I suspect genes play a small part too.

My son diagnosed himself and the GP confirmed it. It’s crippling and deserves not to be belittled. He’d do anything to get rid of it. I am thankful we live in an age that he can acknowledge it, not hide it or keep it to himself and get help.

@EmeraldShamrock
"Are you blaming parents for anxious DC? Really. I find that highly offensive as a DM with a DD with MH issues and anxiety, I lay in bed at night wondering will she be a teen statistic and take her life."
Without wishing to offend doesn't lying in bed at night wondering if your DD will take her life constitute severe anxiety? If a child is around an anxious parent they may well become anxious themselves. They do share their parents' dna.

Parents not to be able to use the word "naughty" anymore..

The outrage from some parents questioning the behaviour of some kids, at school or clubs or whatever, immediately starting the "how dare you not be inclusive" nonsense.

No, the kids were just being naughty. As they should at that age, and they should be told off accordingly, but parents are too lazy or playing the "anxiety" card nonsense.

Oh do f*k off.

When you have a child struggling and have seen children taking their own lives in the media it is perfectly natural to dread opening the bedroom door in the morning for fear of what you’ll find.

So many teenagers are struggling. I know two who have attempted to take their own lives as a cry for help and several who self harm.

I think my ds will be ok and we’ll beat this but I do still worry and I am in no way anxious. It’s perfectly natural.

Absolutely @V1daw1inter . I could not agree more. My DS17 is on an even keel at the moment but from age 9-14 battled every day to do ordinary things. He would get a late mark at school and I'd think DONT YOU KNOW WHAT IT COST HIM TO GET THERE AT ALL?????
His anxiety was triggered when he was 9 by his father taking a year to drink and starve himself to death- so perhaps OP is right after all???? If that counts as bad parenting.

And everything is sensationalized in the news. As a child I wasn't really aware of many issues. Now they know it all. They don't have the mental ability to rationalise and break down the odds. They really do think thinks are likely to happen to them.

Madeline McCanns story traumatised my kids. The posters everywhere meant they couldn't avoid knowing. Psychologists say that this has had a huge impact on kids in general.
All the knife crime reporting etc is also having an impact on how kids perceive the world.
And they have too much medical knowledge as this is spoken about openly and seen on tv. Again growing up, I was largely ignorant about such things so I didn't worry about it. Now kids think they are close to dying with every symptom.

I think though it's a case of time changing with language to a certain extent.

One of mine has bad anxiety. However I can recognise a lot of the traits in me too. My dm used to say I was "highly strung".
So I think the difference is that for me it was just considered part of my personality, and I had to get on with it. For my dc it's considered a extra need.

Is this helpful? Sometimes. When dd is really stressing out about something, then to say to her teachers that her anxiety is high, means they listen and usually try to help. It means that I, and others, can recognise that sometimes it's out of her and our control to be able to cope with it.

Sometimes though, it can be used (and I've seen dd do this) as a get out clause. "I can't do it, I have anxiety". It's easier at the time for dd to say she can't do it because of her anxiety, than give it a go.

I know from experience from both me and from her, that if she can be persuaded to give it a go, then doing it and succeeding (which she almost always has if she's tried) helps the anxiety far more than any other help does. She managed it. She will probably do it again next time, still nervous, but without being pushed.

Jazz hands is the BSL expression for applause, it is also less stressful for people who have sensory or auditory issues and therefore is considered to be more inclusive. Please feel free to continue your ignorance though.

@ThatMuppetShow

Doesn't it discriminate against the visually impaired though? Not being goady, a genuine thought/question.

I didn't realise until I joined Mumsnet how many women have, or claim to have, anxiety.

I suspect that anxious mothers have anxious children.

@Whitleyboy Well considering she self harms taking her life is usually a bolder step in the path of MH destruction.
I am a very strong mother, unlike my mother was for me. I came through the other side fought my demons before DC. If DD needs a rock I am solid. She more than likely did inherit MH issues from me, I am aware she shares my DNA. It doesn't explain how kids are more anxious today considering it is inherited through generations.
She certainly didn't learn how to be anxious shy and timid from me.

Also, there's a difference between a label, and a medical diagnosis. Anxiety can be a tendency or a personality type but when it has a diagnosis and requires psychological help, it's something else completely.

Jazz hands is the BSL expression for applause, it is also less stressful for people who have sensory or auditory issues and therefore is considered to be more inclusive. Please feel free to continue your ignorance though.

It is also embarrassing to do for people who have applauded all their lives. As there are more over-30s around than those with sensory or auditory issues, you might like to consider the majority.

Just for the record, I have an autistic son (now an adult) who never had any problems with people applauding, or applauding himself (though I had to tell him when to applaud).

If I were at an event where people were doing jazz hands, I would applaud if I felt the situation deserved applause. No way would I sit there waggling my hands in the air.

Jazz hands is the BSL expression for applause

I didn't know that but for some reason it THRILLS me. I love it!

I think it was just not noticed or 'diagnosed'. I only realised that that was what my problem was about 2 years ago, and I'm in my fifties now. I have a copy of my first ever school report which says "Reggie is a very nervous child". And another one from when i was about 11 says "Reggie is very highly strung". These days we'd have realised that the problem was anxiety.

VIdaw spot on.
Kate one of the things that dealing with "school anxiety" and dealing with three children struggling at school has taught me, is that "needing to do well and succeed" is a false goal. You can become happy and succeed in many many different ways, whether it is by getting a 3 in your Maths and English and then going on a vocational course, or doing an Access course later in life, or just learning through work and slowly changing your life's goals as you mature. Succeeding academically at school between 13 and 18 is not the be all and end all of existence. There is plenty that can go wrong after that.

My anxious auditory sensitive child thinks Jazz hands is complete nonsense. He rang me up to complain about it.

I am in no way anxious. I too am incredibly resilient. How dare you lay my ds’s anxiety on me. The belittling of such a hideous illness is appalling. We can all be smug, but you never know what is round the corner as regards parenting.

Fearmongering. Before social media, there was only news or newspapers to inform us of wars, terrorim and crime. Now all the negativity takes so much more of our time.