To ask why children and teens have such bad mental health? (pre-pandemic)

[peepeelongstocking]

Surely there must be something massively wrong in society, but what is it? I’m inclined to think it’s social media (screens as a whole really), and a lack of prospects for the future (due to high house prices and lack of jobs). Surely there must be more to it though.

I know we’re diagnosing MH issues much more, but it’s rare that you’d find an older person who remembers feeling suicidal during their teen years for example. That seems to be more or less standard now.

I’d love to know what others think it is!

@PrincessNutNut

My lifelong mental health problems, which were dreadful in my teens, are most definitely the result of shit and abusive parenting. Social media might have helped, as I would have been more likely to discover I was depressed and what to do about it, rather than being limited to my family telling me that the problem was that I was irrational, insane and didn't know how fucking good I had it. I had friends, but too many of them were in exactly the same position, worse even. None of us had diagnoses.

That's it exactly.

@Aquamarine1029

Not being taught self-control. Not being taught coping skills. Not being taught life skills which instills confidence and independence. Not being properly disciplined. Not being allowed to fail and face the consequences.

Wow, never expected to read such sense on MN! I do hope that the use of 'taught' isn't an attempt to off-load parental responsibility onto the schools though.

I honestly don't think most of these posters know what resilience actually is/means.It's just the new buzzword and stick to beat people up with.

In the same way that people don't understand what poor mental health means, being a bit fed up isn't a mental health issue, its a normal human reaction to minor situations.

Nobody on the thread is being unreasonable imo. Bad parenting, traumatic events, problematic use of social media, excessive screen time, bad schooling and a host of other things can all create mh problems. Just because they don't all apply in all cases doesn't make any of them untrue. Equally, saying 'Parents pander too much to their children' doesn't mean all parents do.

So which is it oh wise parents who don’t have children battling mental health?

1. People on the thread aren't a hive mind. They are allowed to have opposite opinions. 2) Peoole who do have children with mh issues, or who had mh issues as a teen themselves also sometimes at least partly ascribe some of those issues to parenting (of either extreme, because quite obviously too lax parenting and too overbearing parenting can both cause problems).

My depression was there for a reason and that reason was a terrible life. I wasn't depressed because I was well cared for and a room full of electronic gadgets and I was upset about something a friend said or did on Instagram.

Most children and teens today aren't depressed because of that either.

Guess what? They're still neglected,abused,dealing with shit etc.
The majority of children and teens with MH issues have had trauma or significant stressors too. Just because YOU don't know about it it doesn't mean it's not there.

People see what they want to see.

I don't know any who have. I was a difficult child though and depressed a lot of the time. Nobody cared back then and I'm still 'ere.

Whether you seek help or not depends how serious children's depression is. It's quite normal for them to be moody, lazy and non- communicative at times, especially teenagers. If they are crying, shaky, suicidal and self harming that is a different matter and one would hope parents would pick up on signs before it got that far.

Lack of control over their lives - if you are bullied in a job you can quit and go elsewhere, if you are bullied at school you often realistically can't (and if you do it is because you convinced your parents, not an action you could take yourself). Similarly lack of income, lack of transport, external restrictions on how you spend your time and what you eat when, etc etc. At 4 you don't realise there is any other way, at 14 you know there is but you have no access to it yet.

The implication that if you mess up your GCSEs and it will all be over for you at age 16 plays a huge part and I see that attitude displayed by multiple parents right here on MN.

In girls I think a significant number have spectrum conditions going undiagnosed leading to huge pressure and anxiety because they don't "fit in".

I think in some areas where drugs and gangs are a problem, those kids feel that there's no chance to escape when they have conflict in their closely confined neighbourhoods. My Dad had a job where we moved every couple of years. More than once the utter relief that I was going to get away from bullies and negative influences in the current area, was off the scale. Most kids never get the chance to escape and social media means those people and the problems they're having socially follow them into their homes and cannot be escaped.

Schools don't suit probably around a third to half of the children/teens in them and yet they have no choice but to go daily into an environment they despise and now "education" goes on till they're 18 rather than being able to escape and get a job at 16, sometimes younger.

Shit being a teenager these days really.

Nobody on the thread is being unreasonable imo

The premise of the thread is the increase in mh issues of young people.
The fact is it has not increased much.
The fact is we hear about it more than earlier. It leads us to believe there is a massive increase.

Because it's really hard being a kid and a teenager nowadays. So much uncertainty and expectation.
Older generations will tell you how much harder they had it because you had to wash clothes by hand etc but there was so much less expectation on them and social pressure.

Kids cant escape bullying. Parents are more likely to be separated nowadays. Social media puts ideas in theirs and their parents heads of what they COULD be achieving if they tried. Trends move so fast and so many more people see you and judge you.

Too much external stimulation and not enough opportunity to create a rich inner life. Too much in material terms, designer labels, gadgets, even travel, so that they are jaded by the time they are teens.

@ScrapThatThen

I wonder if not learning to self soothe as infants is part of it.

Given my anecdata (two of my own no significant issues, one child of friends with anxiety) I'd say on the contrary.

(but of course, there are wider problems)

Not learning how to deal with disapointment etc all this everyone is a winner in a race etc , no there not ,someone won and some lost , but those that lost will prob be better at something else the winner of the race isn't
Also so many parents ignoring bad behaviour and then being over top with good , there is nothing wrong with saying to a child throwing stuff , stop do not throw its dangerous rather than turning a blind eye etc
Too much pressure with exams etc don't remember being under that much pressure because i knew i could leave school and find a job even not a great one regardless of exams, and I could still afford to move out : go out
Life on sm all the time no escaping , even at home where you should feel safe
And hugely mh is recognised more now than it ever was , people never spoke about it but it was there

There's so much pressure on young people and there's no escape with social media. They grow up and do adults things far too quickly and it's really sad.

@niceday The premise of the thread is why is there SO MUCH and an acknowledgement that it is diagnosed more than was in the past, not why is there so much more than in the past.
That was the premise I shared my experiences on, I thought people genuinely wanted to figure it out. Obviously we don't have the answers because it's still a huge issue yet people cling to the soundbites they've heard in the past as if, this time, they might be right.
No I didn't mollycoddle my children, they heard the word 'no', we didn't have the money to lavish them with whatever they wanted, we had enough for them to feel safe, we told them when they were wrong and equally when they were right, they have imagination both writing non fiction for pleasure, my son played video games my daughter didn't, they had clear bedtimes, they were able to play freely in the field next to our house. We weren't perfect but we didn't pass on the difficult task of parenting.
But my children are rare and don't count.

Pretty much agree with everything. Only other thought I have had is family time so linked to screen time. If both parents work and spend lots of time looking at screens not engaged with children and the kids spend a lot of time on iPads / tv. Most working parents I know overcompensate for the guilt of working loads and buy more material things.

Not bashing working parents I am one! It’s always my worry about work life balance.

Teenagers don't get taken seriously, never have. I know they're prone to drama and self-centredness, but a) so are many adults and b) that's normal and, depending on context, might even be healthy as a means of discovering and developing their identities and their place in the wider world. I know this is a bit of a tightrope and balancing act, and I don't claim to be an expert, but I'm pretty sure that when your teenager is upset about something, dismissing it entirely out of hand and telling them they're just spoilt, weak and stupid because social media/pop music/mobile phones/Elvis's suggestive dancing isn't the answer. (And no, I don't mean they should have unlimited screen time or no oversight over the content they consume. But there often does seem to be a tendency to assume that teenagers don't generally have a right to be upset over things that really are pretty huge when you're at that stage of life.)

It sucks being a teenager. People carry teen experiences with them all their lives. It's a very formative time. I see posts on here all the time of grown arse adults talking about stuff that happened in their adolescence; whenever there's a thread about revenge or karma or whatever, there's an avalanche of posts about the injustices suffered as a teen, even if that was 30 years ago or significantly more. The phrase is "teen angst" and it exists for a reason.

It happens to every generation of teens. They're always being told that they're so much worse than the preceding generation was at that age despite having everything so much easier. Any generation, it happens, the Who wrote a song about it and it's still relevant now.

I am 50 and I suffered mental health problems throughout my childhood as a result of my mother's abuse and neglect. I'm glad that things are better for children now and when our adopted teens lost their mother we were able to access good mental health support for them - and for us in understanding how to help them.

However. There does seem to be a prevalence in thinking that this generation have it much worse than every other generation in history. Frankly that's bollocks. I grew up during the Thatcher years and it was shit then for young people and there were no jobs. The 90's we had the recession and there were no jobs. Then after a few good years we end up with 2008 - Banks crashing, world recession, austerity and no jobs. For many people in every generation it has been impossible to get on the housing ladder. For many people in every generation there has been poverty, unemployment and lack of life chances.
None of us predicted covid19, but it is affecting all generations, not just children and young people, and I'm not sure the message that some people are expressing that young people are sacrificing more than anyone else, that they will solely be responsible for paying it back (err, current taxpayers will be paying it back a long time before your 10 years olds!), that their life chances are over, will never be able to buy a house etc etc. I mean, no wonder they are depressed and anxious. We don't know what the future will be like after covid, but I kind of like the idea that young people will get more of a choice in how they work and finding new industries in which to work, where they work and live etc.

I attended a teenage wellbeing talk at DD1's school recently. Parents worry about the effect of social media, but the absolute number one source of pressure for teenagers is exams and school work. I don't remember a single mention of child/teenage wellbeing whenever there has been a revision to the exams/coursework/education system. It's always about standards and teaching. Don't blame social media, this stuff has been going on for years and we are only just starting to address it.

There was a lot of self harm when I was at school in the 90s. It was just hidden from all adults so nobody knew about it. Tons of mental health issues and we all supported each other as best we could due to lack of awareness of other sources of support. I remember a friend having bulimia and we just talked worriedly about it among ourselves and didn't even think to tell a teacher. Another v close friend had depression and we just thought she was behaving strangely.

I work in a school supporting teenagers with mental health and I do think there are more issues now but I don't think the past was rosy.

For students being bullied things are certainly much worse now as bullying continues when you are at home. I was bullied horrifically at school but was only between 8am and 3pm. None of the bullies called my landline! Now you will get WhatsApp messages continuing the abuse or even messages through online games in primary school.

Watching this with interest as I am intrigued with promoting positive mental health, mindfulness and coping strategies with my 3 year old and people think I am bonkers! Why would a 3 year old need Mental Health support.

I think people definitely underestimate the development that goes on in early years and the impact it has on their future.

I think teaching techniques to deal with the stresses of real life in an age appropriate way is really useful.

I also agree that media, politics, school and societal pressure, family dynamics along with many other things all play a part.

A lot of children are/were parented by people with unaddressed mental health issues and the cycle continues (certainly was my case growing up!)

I feel the pandemic is only going to make this worse, sadly!

Incidentally this idea of talking about mental health issues being a self-fulfilling prophecy is bullshit. People with depression have visible physiological differences in the brain. You don't think yourself into clinical depression. Same with talking about suicide. Talking about suicide, sensitively, does not increase its prevalence.

If anyone watched the film The Social Dilemma, there’d be no doubt that social media affects the mental health of children and teenagers.

To think that 50 young designers working for google in California are responsible for 2 billion people having thoughts each morning that they didn’t intend to have because of notifications they put on google, is just one hard hitting claim made by a google insider. To think that all those ads that constantly pop up have one aim only........to change the mind set. That all those filters on snap chat that teenagers love to use......actually makes them want surgery to look like that false image......

They’re literally bombarded every day with all that shit and loads more.....

Is it any wonder there’s so many kids suffering with mental health. Their minds are being altered, but not in a good way. So depressing, and so sad.

I think there is a combination of things. Media and social media, people compare themselves much more. I mean as parents no one really knew the ins and outs of each other's lives and now people publish and boast about their children parents evenings.

I think ability to get a job or university place is harder now and of course the whole world (if feels like) will know from your social media if you got a job or uni place. Same with boyfriends etc.

Children grow up faster and are exposed to the world of social media way too young when they don't have the maturity to really understand what they post.

I think expectations are high now, we see others achieve and as parents we want that for our children. We see what others have, money etc and we want that, whereas before, we frankly didn't know what other people did and didn't have.

It's like we are living much more exposed now and much more aware of everyone around us. We compare ourselves and our situation more than we ever did. We judge each other more than we ever did before.

We hear and see so much information now and it's hard for young people to digest and understand it all. This past year has shown is that a significant amount of adults struggle to understand information and will repost false or conflicting information.

We distrust everyone, sometimes for good reason and sometimes not, but we don't have faith in others to be looking out for our own best interests.

I think we don't appreciate what we have anymore and there is always people out there with more and we want want more, so we are never satisfied.

Too much pressure. No one ever says it's OK to have a normal job and rent a house and live an 'average' life.

Plus social media accentuates this as all anyone sees is perfection and super rich lives.

So they're terrified to get average grades and be a normal person without a major passion just living an average job with a family.