UK teens the most unhappy in Europe

[coffeeandteav]

www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/29/uk-teenagers-low-life-satisfaction-europe

Why is this? Many reasons discussed in the media today. What do you think has caused this?

I can say as a teacher and having a 16 year old it is sadly very true.

Lots of suggestions some sensible others not so much.
Why are we different to Europe? They have video games and tech. So what is it?

1.	The weather lack of vit d. ( thats not new though)
2.	Rise of the nuclear family. No more it takes a village..... Europe has more involvement with extended families.
3.	Loss of youth clubs. Apparently they have them in Germany and its cheap and relaxed.
4.	Too many organised activities kids can't be bored anymore and all their time is structured.
5.	Cost of living and see the pressure on their parents so no hope for things being better than them.
6.	Strict army style school system vs 90s uk and Europe.Blazer uniforms even if hot. Screamed at if have a coat on in the corridor, silent corridors.  Toilet control.
7.	Affordable houses, some parents can't even afford to buy.
8.	Brexit knock on effect of costs and schemes such as erasmus being defunct.
9.	Lack of resilience and entitlement here in UK.
10.	Helicopter parents and mollycoddling . Kirsey Allsopp highlighted this. A Dutch lady said kids walk to school at 8 in Holland. Apparently since M.Mcann as a nation we are more fearful ( don't know how true)
11.	Nursery from 9 hours a day. Does this happen abroad?
12.	Sewage in water ( that would be adults too though)
13.	Too much homework. 
14.	The diet.
15.15.	Constant media input about the poor pensioners eg. The vast majority of pensioners are richer than the childs parents. ( obviously a lot are not but a high portion are) so shows a lack of understanding for youth. 
16.	Underfunding health and mental heath services.

All of the above? Some of the above?

Anymore?

Everyone is easily offended. Everyone is right, humour has taken a nosedive. There’s few programmes DC gel about. We used to be keen on Monty Python in my era. We never had youth clubs. I was aware they were built after I was a teen, but only in towns. Us country folk didn’t have one.

I also think little things meant a lot. We didn’t have high expectations and were easily pleased. Many lived in council houses. We lived in private rented. Quite a few were home owners though. I’d say about 1/3 of my primary class had owner parents. Before Thatcher and right to buy, far more rented.

I agree that overbearing schools and not giving dc freedoms doesn’t make them happy. I gave dc quite a lot of freedom, but I walked to school without my mum at 5! Y1. Everyone did. Took 30 minutes. We latched onto others to cross a road!

My DD1 went to a primary school where there wasn’t homework from y3. As a result she did all sorts of activities which pleased her. DD2 did have homework but it was flexible and not onerous. She did loads of dance and Brownies, etc. We just played down school and that also included the 11 plus.

I think the comparison with Sweden is interesting. At the moment we are an angry and confused country. Brexit expressed anger but was also self destructive. We row about everything and seem troubled as a nation. We want so much but expect others to provide it and I don’t think that’s a healthy atmosphere for children.

I'd add;
Inequality
Lack of freedom - they don't get to do very much free unsupervised play at all so they aren't used to overcoming even the smallest amounts of friction in life, this in turn makes them feel anxious and stops them from trying things out.
Lack of responsibility - very few have the time (outside of homework and long school hours) to take on jobs or regular chores.

Those last two are parenting mistakes of mine anyway, but where I was following a social norm.

I feel like with other countries, they get 50-80% of it ‘very right’ and the rest ‘very wrong’. Whereas in the UK, there is nothing ‘very right’ but rather than being ‘very wrong’ it’s all just a bit shit. Does that make sense?

Take Finland. Excellent education and healthcare, good social housing, a progressive and mainly cohesive and equal society, but the weather is dire and it’s dark a lot of the time. Fine - you can mitigate that by going on holiday.

Italy - beautiful scenery and weather, excellent food and eating out, fabulous healthcare, but quite a lot of bureaucracy. You can’t really mitigate that but the positives make up for it.

Germany - good wages and a comfortable lifestyle, highly developed infrastructure, very safe. The weather isn’t great and the scenery generally fairly plain, but again you can go on holiday.

With the UK I can’t think of anything we do very well. Healthcare is pretty shocking right now, housing is not only expensive but cramped and of poor quality, wages are awful, the weather is shocking and the infrastructure is dire. We’re not famous for food or a healthy/relaxed lifestyle, working hours are long and education (while not the worst) is far from the best.

Bottom line is there are no upsides to the UK where we can go, ‘ok X is bad, but Y is fabulous’. It’s all below average to poor.

I think it is the rise of social media. There is a step change in teen behaviour where many hang out in bigger groups (online and in school) nasty sm conversations are rife and involve kids from all over the area, not just students in class or even school. Teenagers can send photos or videos in a instant which can be used to humiliate an individual to a large audience. Children can be in fear of being the next victim. Some students can be absolutely vile on social media. Not helped by parents allowing kids younger than 13 on these sm sites. Years ago, home was a break from any problems at school, now there is no escape if you have upset the wrong person. I think sm has made the world a more threatening place to many teens.

@MavisPennies Theres always been inequality. It’s just that no one went on about it all the time. Remember that people lived in slums. We had an outside loo. We never had a holiday. I was aware some people had a lot more than us, but I was determined to do better. So ambition can come from this situation. Now we just moan about it and expect others to sort it out. Sometimes you are happy having a goal and getting on with living. I think there are more opportunities now, not less.

@Blueybanditbingochilli in the defence of the UK, as a long time German resident and also lived in Netherlands and Belgium (and other countries), that one nice thing about the UK which we miss a lot and which the kids love when they go back is just the everyday nice banter and politeness. People are just quite nice to each other and the level of humour and camaraderie is really good. So I do feel like we still have humour. The sheer hatchet faced practicality of your average German, don't get me wrong, they can be a blast but there is no default banter ever. Also per capita road deaths - best in Europe. Interestingly I feel like the French whinge a LOT about everything and yet they have a very supportive social state. Also I think the UK has a lot of charm and wonderful scenery, the stately homes, national parks, historic sites etc are really lovely - and unique. And you don't have to carry an ID. I think the global damaging trends for youth are mainly centred around social media, having to curate your personality online as much as offline, fake news, and very scary, fake image generation (what will happen to history!!), and the UK is doing a lot wrong mainly in that the state doesn't spend enough on young people, but not everything is wrong. There's a lot of potential.

As a teacher I see it as helicopter parenting + social media = anxious teens.

Kids in France and Germany are much more trusted to go out and about and have freedom and the associated resilience with being both trusted and having their own space. They aren’t fretting on Tik Tok like kids in the U.K.

There seems to be this strange belief over here that they are safer on their phones (the opposite of true).

I blame schools (not teachers) but the targets, Ofsted, the extreme exam culture - the winners and the loser they have become excessively rules-driven and overly ambitious. I went to a strict grammar school in the 80's in comparison to the Comprehensive my kids went to - the difference is breathtaking, the comprehensive they went to needed to win awards for everything they did even being the best at mental health ffs ( they were shockingly bad but they ticked the award boxes) - the Grammar I went to also now wins lots of national awards - but at what cost - lots of parent only become aware when it's too late - blame the parents all you like - but where are the child development and educational experts who have allowed this to happen? The big experiment in turning our schools into businesses that pin banners to their wall and profess to be outstanding - when we know the cost of outstanding are the kids who couldn't make the grade and were well aware of how they let everyone down. In essence, I blame Micheal Gove for thinking the world needed him and his educational experience! He was a very clever but very stupid little man.

I'd say the complete opposite, we teach children that they are not fine, they're anxious, unsafe, depressed, we pathologise normal human emotions and react as if kids cant do things because they're worried.
We adult children by involving them in choices and lifestyles they're not cut out to make but at the same time infantilise them by pandering and micromanaging risk and being risk averse. Everything is a 'safeguarding concern', everything is 'report it to the police/school'.

@Blueybanditbingochilli

"Take Finland. Excellent education and healthcare, good social housing, a progressive and mainly cohesive and equal society, but the weather is dire and it’s dark a lot of the time. Fine - you can mitigate that by going on holiday."

I think this is a misconception of the Nordic countries. The weather is not dire and it's not dark a lot of the time. We have more daylight hours in Stockholm than you do in London per year. We have loooong days in the summer (like 19h) and in the winter we only get 6-7 hours of daytime,

We have more sunny days too and less rain. There was 1290mm of rain in London in 2023 whereas only 555mm of rain in Stockholm and 2/3 of that is in the form of snow in the winter. The weather definitely made an impact on me when I lived in the UK and even the long dark winters here feels OK since the summers are really light, dry and comfortably warm (not hot).

The fashion in Europe tends to be classic and doesn't change as fast and isn't as faddy as the UK. That makes a huge difference. Cos social media.

Yes really good points about the level of entitlement of people in general which will of course filter down to children and entitlement makes people angry and paranoid because they perceive they should have something/stuff but they're not going to get it = instant dissatisfaction.

Also needing to have some sort of public identity, having to share or disclose everything about yourself, makes people very self absorbed and self centred, that in turn causes anxiety because people think life is about them and therefore that what other people do/say/think is also about them, very anxiety provoking, kids are also like this. The best thing you can teach a child, in the nicest way, is that you are not special, you are not different, no one is looking or thinking about you, just get on with your day and life.

I’m really not just saying this to be contrary and maybe I do think Brits have the best sense of humour (biased!), but it’s definitely declined. Everything is offensive or a micro aggression now - people don’t bother making jokes and clearly think hard every time they open their mouth for fear of causing offence. It’s very sterile compared to even 10 years ago and you see it a lot on here - clearly well meaning comments being turned inside out to search for hints of bigotry, before the poster is rounded on and called a fascist (or whatever).

I agree there’s potential, some at least, but it’s being squandered and to be honest if the best thing we have going for us is humour (an innate trait that isn’t really an indicator of quality of life) then we’re in trouble.

16 Underfunding health and mental heath services. plays a huge part in problems that could be solved early on becoming very serious and life-long.

I think one difference to other countries is a set of major exams at 16 and another at 18, most countries only have them at 18. GCSE's isn't just one test, it is 3-4 full-on exams for every subject, the prospect of this terrifies a lot of kids from ages 14+.

Other things that are depressing for everyone might affect a developing mind more: the last 14 years of lack of infrastructure investment (poor roads, few cycle paths, poor pedestrian pavements/crossings etc, poor public transport, everything is falling apart and dirty), lack of investment in schools and the NHS, deregulation of areas of life that need regulation such as water quality.

Plus Covid has been found in studies to have very bad affected the age group who were mid to older teenagers during the lockdowns because they stayed at home more and did fewer social activities and independence/confidence-building activities.

@gottoget My local special school is outstanding. Making the grade has a totally different meaning from what you describe. It’s for DS’s with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

I don’t think it’s helpful to blame a politician. Schools set their own ethos. They don’t have to pile on excessive pressure. SLT set the targets. No one else. Well maybe the MAT but not government. Dc and parents expect all those 9 grades and A stars. It’s hardly Gove that piled this on.

Key are the comparisons with Scandinavia, which has the countries with the highest happiness and quality of life.

A large part of the reason is the high taxation that provides excellent public services, infrastructure that works, good schools, good healthcare, a washing machine for every block of flats etc.

Ironic that the press in the UK is scaremongering about the tiny bit of extra tax that Labour might introduce, it will still be far less than Nordic countries that actually work and are nice to live in.

Sixty-two per cent of young people access the internet daily using their mobile phone and 39% use a computer. A third of the participants use tablets.
The average time spent online daily is 2 hours and 6 minutes during the week and 3 hours and 16 minutes during weekends. Eight per cent of the participants spend over 6 hours a day online during the week and 18% at weekends. Those who spend more time online are young people aged 14 to 15 during the week and those aged 16 to 17 during weekends. Fifty per cent of the children have a profile on a social network. The most used application is Snapchat (25%), with a significant difference between girls and boys (31.6% vs 17.7%). Facebook comes second, with 23%. The majority of children in France use the internet for entertainment (videos and music) and communication.

in Germany 96 percent own a smartphone. However, their media usage also includes other electronic devices such as laptops, tablets, and gaming consoles. According to a survey, adolescents spent an average of 204 minutess_ (just under 3 and a half hours) on the internet. Internet usage, perhaps unsurprisingly, peaked during the height of the pandemic in 2020.

Social media
There are a variety of internet activities that are undertaken on the internet. One that has increased in popularity over the past ten years is the use of social media. Although initially it was mainly used as a form of keeping friends and family updated on life, now many people have turned their social media into a business. This means that they share their daily life online with their followers and often make deals with brands promoting various products. One of the most popular social media sites is TikTok, on this platform people post short videos that are between 15 seconds and three minutes long. In Germany, over half of 14- to 19-year-oldss_ use the app regularly.

Social media is used by the majority of children in the United Kingdom (UK) and it plays a large role in the daily activities of kids. An October 2021 survey found that 91 percent of 15 to 16-year-olds used social mediaa, and 87 percent had their own social media profile. Whilst this may not be surprising for those in their teenage years, it was also found that almost a quarter of children aged three to four years had their own social media profiless, indicating that social media exposure begins at an early age.

UK kids and social media platform usage
Social video network TikTok, which is very popular with younger social media users, was used on average 97 minutes per dayy by kids in the UK. Snapchat followed, with over half an hour being spent on the platform daily. Although TikTok influencerss found their largest audience with women aged 18 to 24, the second-largest audience was girls aged 13 to 17. Over half of all UK children surveyed in 2021 said they had used TikTok more than oncee in the past few weeks. As of April 2022, Facebookk had approximately 736 thousand users aged between 13 and 17 years.

But we won’t ever end up like them. Their model relies on a small population, huge space, an abundance of natural resources and many other factors. We would have to pay FAR more than they do, to see the same kind of results. A lot of our taxation is almost in line with theirs now.

I think the expectations for kids in the U.K. are very low in terms of education, how they behave in society, ambition in school which translates to the workforce. Not enough individual accountability for parents’ choices which invariably trickles down to children.

Not high enough expectations, too much entitlement.

edited for spelling

Too many feckless dads. Period.

Agree but I don’t think there’s anything you can actually ‘do’ about that - it’s a cultural mindset which has developed over many years in other countries and isn’t a government policy issue.

It became worse here when manual jobs (mines, factories) were closed and huge numbers of people began to see benefits as an entitlement and a lifestyle choice, and work/education as optional.

I see once again people are falling over themselves to say what they THINK is wrong with the UK, parenting, kids today etc. All based on random judgements and prejudices and not much else.

Very few of the random ramblings and assumptions don't apply to other countries as well.

Too much expectation about what everyone's life should be like. Everything from how you look to how you conduct yourself has a increasingly narrow band width.

I mean, surely it depends which country you compare it with. If you compare to Eastern Europe then I'd say lack of boundaries- my mum friends from Poland/Lithuania etc are insanely strict compared to the average UK mum and expectations re. school and behaviour are way higher.

That's pretty much what a discussion forum is. None of us are experts and none of us claim to be. We are sharing thoughts and ideas.