To ask why there are so many kids with mental health problems?

[Newmama29]

I’ve been scrolling through some threads recently & I find people are talking a lot about their kids/teenagers having mental health problems. Why is this so prominent now? I, myself, was only a teenager 10 years ago so I am baffled as to how many people claim their teens have mental health problems. Is it just that we talk about it more or is society causing this?

Your describing attachment, but a huge number in society have insecure attachment and manage perfectly fine with normal emotional reactions to abnormal situations

Social media, bullying( which isn't always dealt with at school)
Covid
I do think there's a lot of pressure on DC now( sats etc) too which didn't exist when I was at school( and even my DC in their 20's)
It's really worrying

Just to correct you there, different trusts CAMHS also offer a service to NDD, learning difficulties, accrued brain injuries etc so not “very ill”

See what pisses my boil is lay people talking in medical terms that they get so wrong and diagnosing all and sundry.
As a pp said sad does not equal depression
anxiety does not mean incapacitated etc.

Social Media (massive proliferation in last 10 years) esp on mobiles
pandemic (more time being spent on devices too)

Yeah you prove my point! Nobody else finds your children "darling" and that's why life is a horrible shocker for kids who are raised to expect everyone to dance around them like handmaidens for the littlest emperor.

I don't think your take on this is universal. Don't you see a problem with normalising referring to children as C's on Mumsnet of all places! I haven't met anyone in my whole life that feels that extreme bitterness about children. It wouldn't even cross my mind to think about anyone like that and I don't know anybody in friendship circle, peers, family or colleagues that thinks like this.

giggly

who said it did? 🙄What I meant was Cahms across the board( going by forums filled with parents tearing their hair out across the country) aren’t interested in the “ a bit sad” kids. The ones on waiting lists are really struggling and quite ill.

And give over with your patronising lay person references. We’ve walked this way for several years. Parents are pretty experienced in how things are across MH services.

This has always been the case for most, though. 100 years ago, many children were in very large families, with fathers at work up to 14 hours a day, mothers exhausted with chores and too many children, and the toddlers often getting very little attention or being mainly looked after by an older sister. The well-off minority often left their children in the care of paid nannies, and sent their sons to boarding school from the age of 7 or 8.

Most studies suggest that child-care, so long as it is good quality, does not harm children's development.

I think "DC" is absolutely ridiculous. Appreciate it might be how people talk in the Mumsnet heartlands but it's stupid. Sorry Mumsnet.

Really what has changed is parenting styles. I have an issue with attachment parenting - ie you have to have your baby on you all the time, respond all the time and if you don't they get insecure attachment. It's bollocks when it's that extreme. Babies in romanian orphanges may have not developed properly because of lack of response but attachment theory is just a theory. It's got loads of holes in it and it's very easy to criticise it. Also attachment theory says you only need to respond 30% of the time for normal development.. the parenting books using attachment theory as a way to parent so they can sell books are cherry picking bits and pieces out of one theory that can be easily disproven.

Children and babies had far less attention /pandering/a say in generations and generations ago. That's not to say ignoring your baby/children is right either but there really is a middle ground. Children who are brought up in charge of the house do awful in teenage years and beyond.

I very much doubt it's this.

12 years ago Gina Ford was all the rage!

Attachment parenting has only been mainstream for about 8 years and when then most parents don't follow it.

I probably did a very loose version of what people might call "attachment parenting", though I certainly didn't call it that at the time. Most people around me seemed to be doing Gina Ford or some version thereof.

At 18, my dd is not one of the ones who is struggling with her mental health!!!

I think @Torven is using "C" to stand for children. Are you thinking of a different c-word @Goldenbear ? 😂

But my father left home to go into the army at nineteen in 1940. He got away from his rather negative and critical father, into an environment where his superiors were actively looking for men who could achieve, who could be encouraged to develop leadership skills, to learn new skills. He undoubtedly had a better life than if he had followed his father into a job as a retail clerk. He always spoke highly of the army ( in spite of lying under an unexploded bomb for thirty hours until rescued).

So it wasn’t always a traumatic experience.

Oh I see, I've totally misunderstood you, very sorry about that, I thought you were referring to C.😳

Just my opinion but life is too fast now. Every second of every day is spent loading our brains with stimulus from phones, computers, tablets, TV. And now our brains are basically overheated tripping computers.

Because

• their parents have poor mental health and so therefore model it. Poor mental health is a consequence of having a shit life which is usually related to difficult circumstances

• their parents have split up and kids have to deal with step mums/dads, half siblings when those dynamics can be anything but plain sailing

• it’s a get out of jail card for a lot of parents who haven’t patented correctly

• bullying, education that’s of a poor standard…. Christ I could go on and on and on and on!!!!!

Do go on as you haven’t mentioned one reason for my dc being mentally ill.

Social media
Covid
Cost of Living Crisis
Ukraine and Russia

I think lockdown definitely had an impact but I also think there was more undiagnosed mental health issues in the past. I was a teenager 20 years ago and many of my friends has mental health problems their parents weren't aware of. I knew one friend at high school who committed suicide and several who attempted suicide and many others who self harmed. Not to mention those using drugs/alcohol to cope. More awareness is definitely a good thing.

I suffered racism even by teachers. It depends on your lived experience of course, but at least my Mum and GM couldn't be called the names mine were, in school, work etc nowadays. The racism in workplaces, in the days were page 3 could also be left lying around and if you entered a male environment, the pictures were displayed on walks etc, was blatant and ongoing. The anti racism support wasn't there, because of a lack of confidence in other people. The police etc underperform, but then they could just ignore crime against ethnic minorities and there was no redress. In the background racism might be as bad, but I don't think that it is.

@Tincan5555 I don't think anyone is suggesting that these cause ALL mental illness. Merely that they may have contributed to the apparent increased occurrence , particularly of anxiety.

It wasn't Gina Ford in the 90/80/70s etc but it was routine, crying it out in prams in the garden, children should be seen and not heard.

I'm not advocating for crying it out btw, I'm just pointing out that children in previous decades were left to get on with it more. Children played outside, took more risks, had more autonomy and freedom. They went to bed and stayed in bed, they knew their parents were in charge. It has swung too far the other way, like parents of those generations have gone the complete opposite instead of a middle ground.

CAMHS in my area also deal with neurodiverse diagnoses. People with ADHD are not ill.

Many are my dc included because it’s debilitating. My dc got her Cahms diagnosis during being treated for being very unwell.