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?

@Blueybanditbingochilli that was the other thing that was really noticeable- there just didn't appear to be a culture of sitting on your arse. Childcare was so reasonable that both party's in a couple usually worked , as did single parents and the benefit system wasn't structured in such a way that if you were 'lowish paid' ( all relative as minimum wages seemed higher than uk) it made more sense to only work minimal hours or not at all- partly helped by masses of affordable housing too.

The downside of that though was if you were a SAHM there didn't look much going on socially with little ones

The local school circa 1985-90 doesn’t sound much different to now. Difference is knowing and seeing everything via the internet and the constant worry about looks, crime, housing, exam pressure, student loans, climate change, future. We had safer roads to cycle on, drank more, had youth clubs to go too and less worry about money. I grew up poor but it didn’t really matter, the difference in lifestyle wasn’t really great. More well off people I really lived similar lifestyles.

Of the millions out of work

most of the 2.7 million "inactive" under-25s were students

Among 25- to 49-year-olds, 1.1 million people did not work because of caring responsibilities. Nearly one million people in this age group were not working because of illness.

The main reasons that 3.5 million over-50s were out of the job market were illness and early retiremen
The rise in over-50s inactivity appears to be highest for lower-middle income workers, and workers from lower income industries and occupations.

Im not sure how you force sick people to work.

Do we have any insight into why Romania is the second happiest, when they have a pretty low standard of living, and all strive to emigrate the minute they can?

I think it’s to do with being micromanaged and controlled, not having any freedom or being allowed to make mistakes. Basically, parental anxiety and neurosis are having a negative effect on kids.

Kids aren’t left to their own devices (or in the company of other kids, without parental interference) long enough to build a sense of self or learn how relationships are formed. Then they are mollycoddled and not allowed to take risks (not allowed to go out alone or go to the park or the shops) so not only do they lose valuable freedom and outdoor playtime and exploration, they don’t get to build confidence in themselves. They don’t build confidence in identifying and navigating risks, they don’t find themselves in tricky situations successfully/think on their feet/use their wits and therefore learn that they can be relied on to handle themselves. They don’t build self confidence and self esteem.

I believe that a lot of useful and healthy character traits are only discovered and developed through a certain amount of risk, freedom and adversity. Which, ironically, we take away from kids when we try and protect them too much. It’s like the cure is more dangerous than the poison!

My 10 year old daughter has friends who aren’t allowed to the nearest park without a parent! These parents think they are keeping their kids safe. That locking them up doesn’t have a negative payoff. But it does, in the form of a lack of self confidence, life skills, self esteem, and furnishing their kids an internal model of the world as a dangerous, scary place And them as helpless within it. Ergo anxiety.

My 10 year old daughter has friends who aren’t allowed to the nearest park without a parent! These parents think they are keeping their kids safe.

But there’s so much judgement. If that 10 yr old has an accident or worse people would be falling over themselves to say “I would never have let my dc do this”. Look at the Kirsty Interrailing drama.

I think the fact that the NHS and schools are in meltdown really is not helping.

Also the screen-based teaching in schools would give anybody the heebie jeebies.

Also climate change.

Also the fact that we haven't had a proper statesman in government for this current crop of teens to help these teens feel safe. The Trump/Johnson era didn't nothing for anybody's nervous system.

It's definitely not all down to helicopter parenting. My poor kid was born with severe food intolerances that led to him having surgery twice as a toddler to keep his airway open. I worked like a slave to keep him alive for his first four years and got nothing but criticism from all around me. People were calling me a helicopter parent, and they wouldn't just open their eyes and see that both of us were sinking together. If we could only have got a GP appoitment that lasted more than 18 seconds we might have had a chance.

So how come UK's over 60s are the most miserable in Europe as well?

I remember reading something a while ago about how Lithuania and Romania ranked very highly in youth happiness. I think one of the main takeaways for Romania was that young people were aware that their lives would be better (more free, more materially wealthy etc) than their parents and grandparents who had lived through Communism and then the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were grateful and they were hopeful. (Iirc, this also applied to Lithuania, but there were other factors there such as the investment in higher education and generous grants for an art/music scene to increase their cultural capital, which young people were also benefitting from).

Life in the UK is still better than life in the majority of the world (and still better than almost any other point in history) but it's getting worse, not better, and has been for a while now.

@Nuggetnuggety Social mobility has completely changed for the better over the last 50 years. Just look at the opportunities for going to uni! Completely transformed, 38.% go now. 8% when I was that age. In the early 50s we had 22 universities. Well over 100 additional ones now. Far more opportunity. Of course there’s been a cost / a graduate tax to pay fees rather than the working class paying.

Far more people own houses, have pensions, go on holiday and have professional
jobs. Unfortunately not enough take advantage of what’s available, but that’s another story. If people want to be socially mobile, they have to work at it. Many current middle class did exactly this. They didn’t settle for more of the same. Some people don’t want to join another class. They like who they are.

I have relatives and many friends from different parts of Europe and we have often talked of similar issues. One striking difference here is that it is a very elitist system, one that can't shake off this centuries old class system. Of course in every country there is mega rich and poor but there is a difference in attitude to it. I once spoke to a friend who was from an Eastern European country and they couldn't understand the fact that people moved areas for certain schools here but he could see why based on the system, and said how sad it was that one school 5 mins away from another would have a completely different reputation. Children in his country would always go to their local school and there is a strong sense of community and because of that they all help eachother out. Also in a friends group they will all be very mixed. One may be super clever and another not but that is accepted and they still hang out together happily. The clever kid will be admired by the others and not labelled geeky or ridiculed about it. Therefore the parents aren't worried the other kids will 'bring him down', like they are here. Kids are more accepting of eachother. Here people are wary of neighbours, are very much looking their nose down on who is better and who isn't and people stay within their social circle pretty much which fosters fake and competitive friendships. This guy was a builder, quite young in his 20s and his best friend at school who lived down the road turned out to be a top barrister in his country. They are still very close and can get together and have fun. None of them have a complex about it. My point is although there are many factors involved in teenage misery, the class system here really doesn't do good for each especially the working class teens who are massively stereotyped here in UK.

@gaininginsight

You've hit the nail on the head.

It probably doesn't help that accessing any sort of help for mental health problems is really hard.

It was awful 9 years ago when I needed help (depression + anxiety, diagnosed far too late imo). Camhs wasn't great, I was on the waiting list for several months before I was seen, which is probably quicker than it is now. As soon as I turned 18 (which was about 6 months after I started) I was dropped and put on the waiting list for adult mental health services, which I never got off the waiting list for. My primary school never noticed I was depressed (or didn't care), and my secondary school didn't do anything when my friend told a teacher about my mental health issues. I was given a sheet on safer ways to self harm and that was it. I only got help after my mum read an online post I had written about how I didn't want to be alive anymore.

When I was an adult at university, I was passed around until a service would take me and it took me 2 years to get seen, and then covid happened and I finished university so was back to square one. I was fortunate enough that my husband could afford for me to have private therapy.

That mixed with COL, definitely doesn't help, as well as a huge amount of girls going undiagnosed for autism/adhd as the diagnostic criteria is how symptoms present in boys. I know my issues stem for being undiagnosed with autism.

I could be wrong but I feel schooling in the uk is not child centric. The main purpose of school seems to be to provide childcare so that both parents can work. My main concern is Why do kids need to start school at such a young age? What is the need to start learning how to read at age 4? Kids at this age NEED to play for healthy development. And school is a jungle. Too much academic pressure, too much stress from being thrown in with 30 other kids who have equally underdeveloped empathy and social skills, too long days and just not enough play. My child (born end of August so I possibly feel this particularly acutely) was able to read fluently by Christmas but who cares? At that age she should have been learning social skills, and confidence and resilience (in a controlled setting like a nursery / home and not a jungle like school). And I'm not saying the school is solely responsible for these skills but when kids spend upto 8h in school every day then there isn't that much time left for anything else.

I also feel that kids in the uk appear much older than their chronological age. They are very much into structured activities like sports but seem to stop playing make belief games eg with dolls / teddies really early.

I know this thread is about teens but how can you have mentally healthy teens when their early childhood was not conducive for healthy development.

So this is my theory anyway..I'm convinced I'm right that the school model in the uk is wrong but what I don't know is

1. whether it is necessarily better in other countries where teens are apparently less unhappy. I grew up in northern Europe. I joined school at almost age 7 and I only had 5h of school from year 2 to year 10 (4h in year 1). And, yes we all walked to school on our own latest by year 2 and a lot of us were latchkey kids though I'm not sure if that was that great. We were definitely more independent.

1. If what i want is even possible the days. Both dh and me work full time ( and id never not work) and even if school hours were shorter dd would still not have more time to play at home. I do think though that something less structured like after school club or something like a nursery is healthier than school.

I have no real insights but have a few Romanian friends and have met many of their country people through them. They are all insanely stoic, they’ve seen truly hard quite recently and stuff doesn’t seem to get to them. The ones I know want a better quality of life, but not in a ‘flash car’ kind of way, more in a ‘securing the basics’ kind of way.

This attitude definitely seems to have filtered down to their teens. Plenty of parents of current Romanian teens will have lived through things like food shortages and facist rule. So maybe they’ve passed on a combination of stoicism and gratitude? They also seem to be socially well connected

They get up for nursery about 0745/0800.

But they all have a 2- 3 hour nap until.the year they turn 3 and start school, at which point the have a 1 hour nap in the first year of school.

No idea really, not being British, but one thing that strikes me, mostly from being on here, is that a lot of your schools sound horrendous in terms of how pupils are treated ... Also your school year seems really long..

I think the lack of family and society is the biggest issue.

Social inequality much higher in the UK so kids get down and anxious.
Stressed parents also reflect feelings to stressed kids.
Lack of social connection and loneliness all round.

Social mobility has completely changed for the better over the last 50 years. Just look at the opportunities for going to uni! Completely transformed, 38.% go now. 8% when I was that age. In the early 50s we had 22 universities. Well over 100 additional ones now. Far more opportunity. Of course there’s been a cost / a graduate tax to pay fees rather than the working class paying.

@TizerorFizz More dc go to uni but I’m not sure that has improved social mobility, do you have data to show that? It’s undoubtedly a great experience for many dc but it’s often a requirement for jobs that never needed a degree for the generation previously. I think many young people would rather avoid the debt & still be able to access the same job market, don’t you?

I don’t understand your point about graduate tax vs working class paying? Surely if social mobility has improved by going to uni then they working classes would also have to pay for uni debt?

“It may be harder now than at any point in over half a century to move up if you are born in a position of disadvantage,” said David Sturrock, a senior research economist at the IFS.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/07/social-mobility-uk-worst-50-years-report-finds

There is a lack of independent play and travel among British kids which I think is a real problem.

Agree with the "There is a lack of things that the UK does well" post (English schools do produce quite good results, mind you).

The US and Oz tend to have big houses and gardens and cars - these "private spaces" are much more spacious and enjoyable than the UK's are.

Many European countries have nicer public spaces and "third spaces" (town centers, high streets, plazas etc) and have better connected cities where children can move around independently and play outdoors more easily. Their "public spaces/third spaces" are nicer.

The UK has tried to adopt the US/Oz model of car-centered, private-space-centered lifestyles, but does not really have the space to do a good job of it. So it ends up with cities where public spaces (town centers, high streets, parks, third spaces) are crap and roads are full of traffic, but also has tiny houses and gardens so private spaces aren't enjoyable either.

Lack of community amd feeling part of something