To say that the next generation is primarily screwed in terms of resilience

[Namechangechangeobv]

And WTF do we do about it?

Obviously many young people are wonderfully resilient but the overall trend I’ve seen in my line of work (behavioural education) is that there are vast, and I mean VAST numbers of young adults who cannot leave the house, come into a classroom, look someone in the eye, make a phone call, speak infront of the class (if they make it in), cry when pronouns are wrong (daily occurrence), take responsibility to revise/get a job/learn to drive.

What is going to happen to these humans in the future?

Completely agree OP. The is a whole industry of people being paid to propagate dependency -in my school the SENCO is endlessly canvassing us for pupils to ‘assess’ and parents are only too happy now fur their child to be given extra ‘support’ hence it is an epidemic amongst the girls especially.

Fadhionable is
girls/anxiety
boys ADHD
basically get out of jail free cards for them to be pandered to

This!!

Teens are supposed to be putting it right whilst simultaneously not being allowed to resent it too

I mean how dare they not feel anything but utter respect for those that have fucked up the planet, the economy and public services...

But nobody has to be bombarded by information 24/7. I'm certainly not, we do have a choice about what we read/listen to.

It's attitudes like this which make me despair for the future of the world, this idea that we don't have choices.

As for our brains only being meant to cope with picking berries off trees and hunting some food, I really think our ancestors had a few more things to concern themselves with than that!

That girl‘s anxiety is probably a symptom of undiagnosed adhd because womens healthcare is piss poor

But those generations weren’t having the news and photos of atrocities shoved down their throat all day every day.

I grew up in the 90s - news came in the form of the newspaper or on the TV at 6pm. Even as an adult I have gone through phases where I have had to mute my BBC news app’s notifications and just this morning I woke up and the first post on my Instagram feed was a photo of the US soldier who set himself on fire in protest of the genocide in Gaza. So even without a news app, it’s still over all the social media sites.

I would argue that in WW2 it was unavoidable, but you cannot say that didn’t have any affect on them, I’m sure plenty of teens from the 40s carried trauma with them for the rest of their lives.

Are this the first generation to grow up with the majority of both parents working.
I wonder if spending much time away from parents when little contributed to this anxiety. Many countries have cheap labour who provide childcare at home.
On the other hand this may result in children being more sociable and having more experiences so better able to go out in the world.
Haven't seen any stats on this.

I really hope you're not a teacher.

And our teens are growing up with wars, several of them starting off with 9/11 aftermath and more recently Ukraine, Palestine/ Israel acceleration….The global warming war is the biggest of the lot and there are no answers for any of it.

Many of the students I teach are refugees from war torn countries, they have witnessed atrocities beyond belief. Amazingly, they are very resilient. Wouldn’t dream of not going into school! In fact, they see it as an absolute privilege to get a free education. They certainly don’t see global warming as a war though and if you asked them about 9/11 they wouldn’t have a clue. My 28 year old DD has little memory of it too and she was 6 at the time.

Have you heard of WW11? No, this is NOT the first generation of children who had 2 working parents.

It depends on the circumstances

Accompanied refugees have a slightly lower school absence rate than non-migrant children, whilst unaccompanied children have a slightly (understandably) higher absence rate than non-migrant children

But then the lower absence rate could also be explained by the fact that there is a slightly lower proportion of disabled children in the refugee population than the non-migrant population

ETA the data i was looking at was from 2021 and therefore slightly out of date

Same in my school. It’s one of the main reasons I am leaving this year. Children are endlessly asked how they are feeling and that they need to look after their mental health. Normal emotions are now anxiety and they are given various aids to apparently help them with their anxiety. Parents buy into all this and pander to it even more and so the cycle carries on. I am leaving because I can’t in all good conscience be part of it anymore. I have tried to voice my concerns that we are creating a generation who will not be able to cope in the outside world because the world is not fluffy and nice but it falls on deaf ears so I am leaving.

Re the 1 in 20 20 somethings being off work. That is a shocking stat. I do think the work place is pressured in a way it wasn’t years ago, or maybe I’m biased based on where we’ve worked. Although dh and I have done a range of jobs both professional and ‘menial.’ The constant monitoring of performance creates such a pressure and unless you have very skilled management it feels like you are failing more often than succeeding. Having to account for your time every 6 to 10 minutes in some firms, giving a receiving constant feedback. Mistakes are often made a big deal of whilst praise is less forthcoming. The day can feel like a mental assault course. Shite pay comparatively to generations before as well. In low paid menial jobs it can be the same what with the collection of ‘data’ now that wasn’t available even a few years ago. The truth is that lots of 50/60 somethings who are now generally at the top probably wouldn’t have coped with that either. It was a less competitive world then and I wonder how many would actually succeeded now given the workplace is global. They’d never admit that though.

It's not the first generation of both working parents at all. Non working wives was a very short term thing mostly in the 1950s/1960s.

Women worked throughout the industrial revolution in mills/factories etc. Woman used to work on the family farm or shop etc.

The difference is that their children were looked after by extended family as entire families lived close to each other and multi-generational living was the norm. So there'd always be an elderly relative living in the same house, or at least grandparents/aunties/uncles living on the same street to look after them and they'd play with their siblings or cousins in their own houses or on their own streets. Everything was familiar to them!

None of this palming off your kids into nurseries to be looked after by random carers and having to play with random kids.

Same with old folk - again, mostly lived with family at home and looked after by extended family who lived around them.

It's the fragmentation of families that has caused the problem. Kids are encouraged to go to Uni and many never return to their home town because of centralisation of "degree" level jobs in a handful of big cities, or they meet partners at Uni and go to live in their partner's home town. We've had the brain drain of workers having to move to a handful of cities because their local town/regional workplace has closed down and all staff relocated to London, or Birmingham, or Manchester etc - they've taken their families with them, otherwise they'd face unemployment if they lived in one of the many run down regions, seaside towns or ex mill towns which are now severely deprived.

depressing but predictable that teachers/school staff are talking about
"pandering" to anxiety. When I worked in a school as a counsellor, I regularly came
across cold, obstructive teachers.
They didn't understand mental
health and saw behaviour as deliberate acting out, something to be smacked down hard, rather than any attempt to figure it out. Behaviour is
communication.
Zero positive reinforcement. Just behaviour points, detentions, lack of support,
lack of resources and blaming parents, even when their child was clearly and obviously autistic and diagnosed. On a number of occasions, including a time when I was waiting in reception for an interview, I've heard teachers talking disparagingly about students. Some teachers seemed to enjoy the power imbalance of being in charge of young students.
I still work as a counsellor but not in schools.
Never again.
Also, as someone who now specialises in working with neurodiversity, I've lots count of the number of clearly and obviously autistic students who have struggled to get evidence from schools because schools say they're fine and nothing wrong with them. I mean, you'd have to be totally fucking clueless to think that. These are very obviously autistic young people: limited eye contact and gesture, constant stimming, sensory sensitivity all over the place, social communication deficits which are clearly evident. But school say they're
ok.

Saying people lack resilience isn't necessarily victim blaming.
The lack of resilience is absolutely the fault of the society that we currently live in.
Overall we do not support our young people to develop the coping strategies needed to deal with many of life's uncomfortable situations. Some can be avoided but many can not and those that have the coping strategies to get through difficult situations tend to do far better than those that do not.
Sadly many adults now do all they can to protect and shield young people from uncomfortable situations and this is amplified 10 fold by social media, influences etc.
We have gone from one extreme of 'stiff upper lip' 'just get on with it' to the other 'of you don't like it, you don't have to do it' there has to be a middle ground.
It's complex though as other PP have said this is the result of many things. Parents with less time, stretched school systems, huge exposure and access to social media to name a few

“None of this palming off your kids into nurseries to be looked after by random carers and having to play with random kids.”

What ridiculous rhetoric, what do you expect parents to do?

1 in 4 people are disabled so 1 in 20 20 something's being off work isn't that much of a shock.

having to play with random kids

So to be clear children are simultaneously less resilient because they are no longer spending all hours outside their homes playing with other children and because they are spending too long outside their homes playing with other children

And re the 1 in 20 not working. I bet many are waiting for MH treatment. They will have been bumped off broken inadequate CAMHS with zero treatment into adult services where you can have multiple overdoses and still get nothing. Bet most would have preferred not be unwell during their teenage years and working. Maybe fix the atrocious MH provision in this country rather than berate the young people who need to use it. Older generations who haven’t had to deal with the current pressures instead enjoying a very pampered time in history berating youngsters who are having to navigate an utterly shite time won’t help improve anything

’I mean VAST numbers of young adults who cannot leave the house, come into a classroom, look someone in the eye, make a phone call, speak infront of the class (if they make it in), cry when pronouns are wrong (daily occurrence), take responsibility to revise/get a job/learn to drive.’

My kids are at university and can do all the above fine. But I would say they are probably less resilient than I was at their age. But I think that’s down to ‘me’ and their upbringing. I had the childhood from hell and was unhappy and did not have parents I could talk to. I have gone the opposite way and been somebody they can tell anything to and turn to in a crisis.

I had to deal with all shit on my own and it’s turned me into an adult that finds it impossible to ask for help. Which is unhealthy.

On balance I will take the lesser ‘resilience’ in my young adult kids if they know they have loving parents who have their back. I think it will come with time as they are only still 18 and 19 and doing well socially and academically at uni living away from home.

“Palming off” no it’s called needing to be pay a mortgage and use childcare.

I think "resilience" is becoming the most over used word in the English language at the moment.

I also think if people of any age are constantly bombarded with negativity, criticism, ever changing expectations and compkete environmental uncertainty in both senses, you're going to get a range of reactions.

Those without "resilience" may well turn inwards / become self absorbed and anxious - some of them may snap and take more direct action against themselves or others. It's all a form of self defence against an uncertain and constantly changing world IMHO.

No body likes it. Especially not the people constantly worrying because they KNOW they're being judged for lack of resilience but their natural response to trauma and difficulty isn't easy to control nor is there time or support for it.

No idea what the eventual outcome will be, but as it's not just young people I reckon the end of the world will be collective nervous breakdown and some days it feels as though we're well on the way.