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?

Why do you say"claiming"?
You're implying it's not true.
Are you saying that because you didn't have any MH problems then they don't be real?
I have 3 of the younger generation of my family (of a total of 8) with MH problems. Should I tell them that it's not real because you say so? A debilitated daughter who struggles with life every single bloody day. I'll just go and tell her that she's wrong- because yet again someone with no experience or psychiatric qualifications says so.
Good grief. Stay in your own lane. Please.

Something to remember with the social media thing, which all the experts say is key:

It's not just about the content. Comparing apparently perfect lives, bullying, etc.

It's also about the way it changes brain function (gaming does this too.) It means kids don't find the same satisfaction from doing other things, and they experience withdrawal symptoms when they are off sm or gaming. It works the same way as gambling addiction, and if you think about how much time many kids spend on sm, it is like they are at the slot machine all day, every day. it's in their pocket.

It's also the time they are not doing other things. And actually opposite things. It's the time they are not with other people, building real relationships. Online relationships don't work the same way and don't have the same kinds of fulfilling outcomes.

it's the time they are not alone with their thoughts, or bored, or resting and sleeping, even.

And it's the time they are not playing sports, baking, reading a book, noticing their mum needs a hand and pitching in, etc.

Hours out of the day that used to include these other things, plus what is really a state of addiction.

It's a huge change in brain function, not just exposure to bullies or bad media.

I really agree with this.

A colleague of mine tried to ask the school to make special dispensations for her daughter because exams gave her anxiety. She said she’d be up for nights worrying about them. All I could think was haven’t we all been like this at some point or another? Is this anxiety or nerves?

I think lockdown and modern day life issues are at play too but kids today just seem so jittery and nervous about everything.

Did you sleep through the plague year(s)?

Also I agree with posters who say TOO much talk about feelings and mental health problems can be counterproductive.

I remember as a teen mentioning casually to my mum that I had low self esteem. She looked at me like I had grown an extra head and said “you don’t have low self esteem, you’re just hormonal”.
I felt very aggrieved by this and moaned to my friends about how misunderstood I was, and then I just carried on as normal. Looking back - it WAS just hormones and I’m glad my mum didn’t take me too seriously and get me counselling etc etc - I can’t explain exactly why, but I’m sure it would have just created a problem where there didn't need to be one.

Obviously teens with true mental health difficulties should be taken seriously and listened to - but we mustn’t forget that mood swings, over-emotionality and feeling misunderstood are a normal part of being a teenager and do pass with time.

Have a look at this Office of National Statistics "Half a million more people are out of the labour force because of long-term sickness"
Between June and August 2022, around 2.5 million people reported long-term sickness as the main reason for economic inactivity, up from around 2 million in 2019

Look at the ages of the people off work for mental health issues. People seem fixated on teens but the statistics show its older people and females in particular that have the biggest problems with 'mental health issues'

Look at the stats for the NHS and the staggering amount of leave for mental health issues. Again, you don't hear about 'lack of resilience for nurses etc' In fact it's quite the opposite. Here is a direct copy and paste from The NHS digital press office
* "Reason for sickness absence*
Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses is consistently the most reported reason for sickness absence, accounting for nearly 539,300 full time equivalent days lost and 19.9% of all sickness absence in January 2022."

You would be thrown off Mumsnet if you suggested nurses shod be more resilient.

This. All of this.

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.

This is so true! It's what posters on MN do as well. Everything and everyone needs some kind of lable, when actually it's totally normal to feel angry/sad/nervous/scared etc in various situations.

@Ponoka7 racism has increased in my opinion with the alt right increase and social media dividing everyone, the more the world goes into poverty the more marginalized groups get blamed and discriminated against or neglected. Plus these things have a compound effect so if you're homeless or if you're homeless and black too you'll be even worse off and racism might impact your ability to get out of that situation.

Yup. I remember lots of films about it when I was a teenager - things like “Pump up the volume” and “Heathers”. I had severe mental health issues as a teen, but they were just ignored. It didn’t make me more resilient. But if you’d known me back then, then chances are you wouldn’t have known what I was going through.

Absolutely. 100%.

Because every time someone is sad, or a bit anxious they've got 'poor mental health' I do think we create a lot of this - my nan's generation would have said 'pull your bloody socks up and get on with things' I think she'd be turning in her grave right now.

Embarrassing that 20 year olds were fighting in WW2 and were grown men. Can you imagine what they'd think of today's society?

1. Tik tok, Instagram, other social media but especially these two.

2. Covid.

3. we're open and accepting of mental health issues to a fault nowadays. It's gone too far and now everyone has anxiety.

4. parents and schools are failing to instil resilience in young people meaning they struggle to handle criticism or anyone who has a different opinion.

my nan's generation would have said 'pull your bloody socks up and get on with things'

They just demonstrates a lack of understanding and empathy. Nobody is helped by being told to 'get on with it'

In my view as a parent of teens and as someone who is working and studying in mental health I think it’s a number of things. This is not to judge or blame anyone but-
I think that we as a society have a very unrealistic expectation on how we should be feeling and therefore how our children should be. We stop our children developing emotional resilience and neuroplasticity because we do everything we can to stop our children feeling pain, sadness, anger or hurt. This is understandable don’t get me wrong! And I do the same! But unfortunately the brain needs to “practice” these when young on a small scale often in order to create resilience/neuroplasticity. But I see so many parents who will do anything to avoid their child feeling left out/ picked on/ dissapointed/ failing at something/ being bored… but all these things are important learning and practicing opportunities.
I also think this is compounded by societal messages and social media that encourages us to compare, “live our best lives” have the best of everything.. so our expectations and especially those of young people are completely warped.
I also think that we err on the side of caution and over-diagnose normal teen emotions as something more sinister. When we were younger it was written off as “teen angst” which everyone has and then mostly grew out of it once our brains put themselves back together again after teenhood finished. But now we are giving out the message that these feelings aren’t normal. Instead of telling our kids that feelings come and go in peaks and troughs throughout life we give it a name and try and fix it- giving them the message that it’s something wrong with them. That in itself can cause anxiety and make things feel much worse. So now these kids not
only feel that way but also feel worried that its
not normal and common.
I think we have somewhat mollycoddled our kids into this unfortunately.

lastly and probably the most important thing is that we aren’t living as naturally as possible. Kids don’t get outside enough, they aren’t left alone enough to explore a bit of danger, challenge themselves and experiment because of our own fears. Society is now safer in many ways yet how many kids go off exploring in nature with just their friends anymore?? Screens are messing up their circadian rhythm (as is ours) and the overall effect is being seen in kids now.

I do not understand the attitude of 'I did not think I had depression so am going to act as if the depression other people are experiencing is not real'.

There is so much information online about why there is a big increase in MH problems amongst young people.

Increased awareness
social media
social contagion
lack of resilience.

Every child I know that has serious mental health problems is addicted to their phone and TikTok/Insta etc. it might be a correlation but it is enough for me to keep DD off it for as long as possible. She kicks off about DS having Insta at 12 or 13 and it didnt do him any harm, but I have changed my view.

The girls I know that are suffering don’t all have busy, over worked parents or shit diets or lack of fresh air, or too much/not enough money in the house, the social media thing is the one common factor.

I so agree. All the drama about how during Covid kids were asked to not go to school for a few months and now they're apparently forever traumatised by it. Quite ridiculous when you think of what kids of previous generations had to live through.

Many of those young men were broken by their experiences. They drank, beat their wives/children, got into fights, got into other difficulties.

I think they would think today's society was a lot less unsupportive. MH issues amongst those who were in the forces are very common.

I think the world has gone from not doing enough for genuine MH issues to way over the top every little thing has a 'anxiety' or some other label attached to and over the top thinking and complicating everything, for example a lot of the threads on here

I so agree. All the drama about how during Covid kids were asked to not go to school for a few months and now they're apparently forever traumatised by it. Quite ridiculous when you think of what kids of previous generations had to live through.

Fucking hell. I think there was a bit more to it than not going to school for a few months. The ignorance of some people blows my mind.

My son has severe anxiety due to his autism and severe learning disability including society not catering for his needs. The mental health of people like him was not even considered until very recently.

1.social media and doing adult things earlier.

1. Diagnosing anxiety when the feelings are normal for the situation. E.g. kid is worried about friendships and doesn't want to come to school is described as anxiety and requires mental health support.

👏🏼 All of this!!

Covid didn’t do anything. Lockdowns did. It was a choice to lockdown healthy adults and even children who are virtually no risk at all.

You just need to go back and read the threads on this very forum, where morons who frequent MN were screaming demanding harsher restrictions. Oh well, you got what you asked for.