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

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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?

Does that not answer your own question?

Poverty, inequality, breeds trauma, mental health issues such as depression & anxiety, physical health is poorer, crucially, sleep affected.

Those kids don't feel resilient, they feel tired & broken & like they don't matter.

You seem to think they're not resilient but, they're often showing resilience such by showing up.

Exactly. It makes me roll my eyes when I hear this. There were many fucked up and brutalised people, who then went on to rear kids.

I don't think people make the connection between the generation of angry, messed-up parents who were authoritarian to the point of traumatising their children, a generation of new parents who are so terrified of traumatising their own kids they lean towards permissive, and a generation of children who are used to having their emotions heard and validated, but perhaps a little lacking in experience with adversity.

That's if we put aside the fact that the majority of the ones ranting on about the second world war and how kids today will never know the struggle were born quite some way after the second world war anyway. The over-78s are not well represented on Mumsnet, but you wouldn't know that from the credit people take.

My dps or dgps for that matter were never like that. Both dps born in WW2 or my PILs but I'm sure there were dps like that.

DM had a friend and we used to go there as dc and they had dc my age. I was frightened of their dad as he was strict

The effects were legion. My grandfather killed himself in the sixties, after being depressed for two decades. The effects on my parent lasted their whole life and directly influenced their own parenting. And not in a good way.

Here's to a different government and better funding! I also recommend Jonathan Pie!

@WestwardHo1 I am sorry to hear that.
Suicide is more common as people get older as if they struggle with depression all their life, they stop believing that things will get better.

I think comparing different age groups is probably as old as time. I'm in my 70s, I have always been in awe of my grandmother who had my grandfather, my father and my uncle fighting in WWII. She had younger children as well and was pregnant when grandfather went off to the war. How did she cope? No mobile phones, sometimes months when she didn't hear from them. Would my generation have coped like she did? Who knows, we weren't tested like that. Maybe we would, would young mothers now who can't bear their child to be out of contact so they have to carry a mobile everywhere? Again who knows, they are just used to what they have. I daresay if some dystopian future comes to pass we'd all adjust, well most of us would because that's what we do and why we've survived this long as a species.

I have great faith in the young, when I was young I was fighting for equality, they are fighting for the future of the planet and I wish them well. I won't be around to see if they succeed but I hope they do.

I think if things get tough, most people cope and get on with it. Especially if they have children they need to protect.

Yes I totally agree with you. The question is - what do we do with a generation where a very large minority are like this? What is society going to be like when this number of people cannot cope with day to day life?

I was reading an article a while ago about the link between reading and empathy, well-being and resilience.
I know kids don't read much anymore. I wonder if those who do have better resilience.

True about the reading

That's why some of them struggle so much with education

Haven't read the thread so don't know if it's been mentioned.

I've just seen an article in UnHerd by Mary Harrington about a book called Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier.

The gist is that bad therapy and therapeutic parenting are bad for children and don't produce resilience. Father-style authoritative parenting is absent and mothers are in the dock for mother-style parenting. Not a cheering read.

https://unherd.com/2024/02/bad-therapy-is-stunting-our-kids/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3

https://naomicfisher.substack.com/p/be-more-resilient

Until the school system becomes less rigid, less micro-managing, less prison-like, less about nothing but academic achievement and an obsession with GCSEs, young people are fighting a losing battle. Like Naomi says in the article, unless the world in which young people are educated in becomes more resilient itself (it is so rigid and fixed) then they themselves won’t learn resilience from it. In my opinion young need some control over their own lives/paths to build resilience, as it stands they have very little (or no) say over much at all, especially in school.

Schools have become rigid with harsh disciplinary policies to deal with the wave of poor behaviour.

My son is half Dutch, born and raised in UK. He is confident, strong and resilient, pleases people when it suits him. Will express his opinion in an intellectual and emotionally intelligent way.

I think it’s genetics and parental influence, not where they are born and schooled.

Also where you sometimes have to take the opposite position to the one you identify with, and try to find its best strengths. Very healthy. Interesting idea.

100% agree.
15 years in my role and things have been getting increasingly worse.

One young man was recently supposed to be having a teams call with his new manager following a successful job interview. Didn't show up because he "was having a bad day" bless 🙄

I dont think such a thing would work well in today's climate with how polarised everything has become. It would certainly be an incredibly healthy thing to do to explore the nuance in situations.

Just to throw in a thought...

Is what's seen as a lack of resilience merely a change in priorities?

I dont think its that many young people can't cope but they don't see the point.

Money doesn't go as far, many won't be home owners etc, so what's really the point in busting your butt at work? What's the end goal?

Covid showed that a lot of the ways we ran things were unnecessary. 9-5 in an office isn't actually needed to get stuff done.

Instead they are on games where they shoot all opposition down, run like the wind no matter what their fitness is, only experience surreal lives.

There does seem to be an epidemic of helplessness.

I teach in a selective secondary school in a very affluent area (so these are theoretically the ones who we might reasonably have high expectations of) and it has got worse and worse over the last ten years or so - a large proportion of the kids I teach just don’t seem to have any ability to self-direct. I’ve been teaching for over 20 years, so I can think back to how it used to be and the tasks I used to be able to expect students to do. Today, in a lesson, I emphasised the basics (for the nth time!) really carefully, told them explicitly where the ‘cheat sheet’ resources were, told them that if they had their hand up I would expect that they will have looked at that first. First 6 students I went to with their hands up asking for help hadn’t even got the instructions in front of them, let alone read them or looked at the cheat sheet. And they were asking for help with the most basic part that they’ve already done a few times, not the part that was supposed to be the more challenging new learning for the lesson today. There were also some really fantastically engaged problem-solvers and kids who were getting on with it and doing their best, of course, but so many who just weren’t able to do the absolute minimum of getting going on the task. My pet theory when it comes to school is that the ‘Govian’ curriculum introduced in primaries since 2010 has destroyed the opportunities for truly independent work in primary because it has to be so structured and fast-paced. And of course the more they struggle to work independently, the more we end up spoon-feeding to get them through the SATS/GCSEs, etc.

I agree with a previous poster that this over-structured existence extends outside school too. I suspect a lot of parents expect their kids to do much less for themselves than they used to as well.

I find that with some of our newer graduates. I will go through what I want them to do, point to resources or people to speak to and make it explicit if I want to see drafts or when I want them to come back to me before moving in.

Nine times out of ten they are on Teams chat a few hours after the meeting asking 100 different confirmation questions. Often some of the work I give them is specifically to test their ability to think through problems and come up with solutions.

I do exam invigilating and the number of kids who don't even try, thay all want to be tiktok celebs. If that's the case who's going to cook/deliver their burgers and empty the rubbish etc?

ive also been doing some gcse mock exam invigilating recently and shocked by the number of students who go to the toilet during each exam. It’s clearly boredom for a lot of them. It is massively disruptive and will distract and impact the exams of students who are actually trying, but also the number of them who put their heads on the desk after ten minutes, attempting very little.