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?

My youngest has OCD. I have been able to inform family members, teachers and hospital staff (he was in hospital with something else) in the knowledge that they will know what I mean and roughly how it affects him. I had OCD as a teenager in the 80s and I was seen as weird and awkward and intransigent because there was very little information about such conditions. So I agree with other posters that knowledge about mental health issues has been improved and people are more willing to talk about their problems. There is still a long, long way to go to remove the stigma, but it's better than it was.

Poverty and linked parental stress, social media, lack of funding to schools means stressed teachers and to community projects means less on offer that helps them build resilience. Parents and children on phones all day, comparison is the thief of joy.

Algorithms reinforcing the view you’ve found

lack of opportunity, lack of optimism. Future looks bleak

Racism, housing instability?m, domestic violence exposure or experience

We've been through a pandemic

And mental I'll health is no longer a taboo

Thank you everyone for your insightful replies. Of course I had an inkling on the causes of the increasingly poor mental health, social media & a pandemic for example, but other posters have made some other suggestions that are interesting & a different perspective

Austerity
covid
social media
current education system
collapse of the health system
lack of funding for early years and youth services

I think social media is a factor, if I think back to when I was a teen, magazines were blamed for putting pressure on kids - I mean one magazine a week v 24/7 social media there's no comparison?

I also think we have an overwhelming urge to explain everything with a label.

As a teacher I find that so many children are being raised with a lack of rules and boundaries at home. Lots of parents don't hold their children accountable for their mistakes so the children don't get to learn from them. Many children have all the obstacles removed from their lives so that when they find something challenging later, they don't have the resilience skills to help them get through it. This isn't all children or all parents of course.

The internet/social media.
Was a really interesting woman on radio 4 a while ago, she said she thought social media/smart phones should be an over 18’s thing in 20 years time.

Covid and the isolation/withdrawing into families or smaller groups hasn’t helped either.

Sometimes and I mean sometimes and not to sound evil or disrespectful to those with mental health at all but sometimes kids are given too much time to think about there feelings if you know what I mean.

Some of this gentle parenting almost can backfire in the sense that Johnny was called a nasty name in school and beforehand your parents would have said just ignore it and move on from it where as now it's a big fuss made about it and how Jonny is so upset then next thing you know the parents are down the school after a long evening of talking to Johnny about how he's feeling which gives the incident power. A weak example I know but just giving a rough idea

I wouldn't want to be a teenager now

Covid/lockdowns/social media pressures/war in Europe/parents stressed to hell and always at work due to cost of living...

It's no wonder really

For decades teens have been talking about mental health issues. It’s only now people are listening.

Point 2 about reading levels is interesting.

The thing is, there was once an expectation that kids that topped out exams like that, who would go on to university, were a fairly small group of kids who were especially academically talented.

Many many normal children had results that were closer to the middle, and would go on to business, trades, and all kinds of work that at that time did not typically require university qualifications. These kids were not seen as stupid or failures, just normal. The academic top achievers were like track stars, no one thought everyone was going to come up with first place times.

What's your basis for that claim?

It's both.

It's more recognisable now and people are thankfully more aware of the signs and symptoms. People, especially children/teens, are more encouraged and supported to speak up about stresses.

It's also because there are more instantaneous triggers due to the immediate and wider access to information, media, entertainment, bullying, etc.

For my dd, too much pressure at school, we are hoping things improve now she has finished school. My niece has also had a lot of problems, thankfully recovering now. I don't think it's just kids though, everyone seems to have some kind of anxiety issues or think they have adhd . Life is tough, although it always has been.

I don’t think its just teenagers, I think mental health problems have probably increased across the board and think a more 24 hour lifestyle, modern technology and rising cost of living all play a big part, there are less opportunities to just switch off. One wage is no longer enough to comfortably raise a family.

In relation to teenagers specifically there are a huge number of factors. Technology and social media mean that things like bullying are no longer confined to just school playgrounds, home is no longer a safe space, its round the clock online. Access to inappropriate material is now readily available. Lack of free and cheap things for kids to actually go out and do, when I was younger there were several local youth clubs and cheap to access to places like skating rinks etc. Now there is nothing like this and everything costs a fortune meaning that opportunities are only for the well off. Computer games are no longer about getting together and going round to your mates houses to share and swap and play together its all on line, everyone has to have their own copy to join in and they lack the proper social skills they learn from properly interacting. Covid hit many hard too hitting during important life stages for many. Then there are also changing attitudes to mental health.

First:
Screens
Parents who stare at screens
Parents and communities stressed by worsening living standards
Lack of exercise and imaginative play

Then:
Social media
Porn
Realisation the world is in crisis and the future looks bleak.

That’s a fair point. Previously you could get on well in life if you had a bit of drive, there was apprenticeships, training. You didn’t have to get that gcse in English or maths to be able to get by.

even the lack of social housing, the extra support if you need it.
ability to retrain later in life. Kids need to get everything right from the get go as there’s little chance to correct your path

But the only thing that's increased is housing instability.

I do think that SM and lesuire being in screens is hugely damaging. I don't think that things are more violent now, but being filmed and adults not stepping in to stop the fights, must increase anxiety.

I fainted when out. When I came round one woman was calling an ambulance, another few were filming it?!

Reading all this i wonder if people/parents are aware that a lot of trauma and dysfunction gets passed through generations and that a chunk of mental illnesses results from family dynamics, amongst other factors. It is almost as though parents have huge awareness of how COVID, social media etc affects their child but there isn't really anything wrong with how they do things. Lots of mental illness also has the root in the family system besides other factors. And unless adults become aware of this we can blame just external factors forever but it's never going to be the complete picture. I think that today's parents and grandparents still have a lot of healing to do, and dysfunction is still being passed down to the next generation.

Looking at the people I know and talk to about such things openly, they always say they have issues either due to their home life as children or a combination of home life and external factors such as bullying etc.

There’s access to everything on phones. Before you’d have to sneak into the woods to see porn, people killed, animals hurt.
you’d have to seek it out before. Now it’s just in your po key or sent on what’s app

I see a lot of teenagers with mental health issues as part of my job. There has been a definite increase, this is due to a combination of factors. Covid certainly didn't help. But that's because it exposed and intensified the issues that were already brewing and had been for some time.

Social media has a part to play. "Normal" teenage struggles, embarrassments, disappointments and friendship issues are now played out publicly on social media so become blown out of proportion and are more difficult to 'bounce back' from. Kids who struggle socially don't get a break from those struggles because it's 24/7, whereas pre-internet they would have just had to deal with it at school.

Services that used to support families with social issues have either been cut altogether, massively reduced or have huge waiting lists. Poverty, unstable housing, parental conflict, antisocial behaviour in communities, drugs and alcohol...all these things impact the wellbeing of parents and children. Services cannot focus on prevention or early intervention because they don't have the resources so families have to be in crisis before they get any help and even then they have to wait. Many of the kids I see with significant MH issues don't respond to therapy because their home lives are chaotic, stressful and unpredictable so no amount of talking is going to change that.

There is also a tendency to medicalise normal human emotions. Genuine MH issues absolutely have increased, no question. But so has self-diagnosis based on being exposed to a huge amount of unhelpful content about MH on Tik Tok and Instagram. Often Year 11 and 13 kids will tell me they "have Anxiety" and then when you actually unpick this with them the only thing they feel anxious about is their upcoming exams. But now its "anxiety" not exam nerves. Instead of being upset by an argument with a friend or a break up they're "traumatised" by it. They will tell me they "have anger issues" when actually they're feeling angry about something very specific and completely justified. I'm seeing this from parents too, not just the kids themselves. It worries me how many kids, and parents, think that if a child isn't happy and relaxed all the time something must be very wrong.