What's happened to young people? Can parents give me insight.

[EveningSpread]

I work in Higher Education, and I'm increasingly worried about young people.

So far this year, I've encountered more students than usual who:

• say they are unable to attend classes due to anxiety
• who are afraid of being in classes
• who won't speak when spoken to by staff or other students
• who say they find getting on a bus and getting to class to overwhelming
• who find the thought of doing their work so stressful that they can't cope
• who don't come to classes due to family parties / their hamster dying / waking up late (to name the reasons I've had just this morning) and expect you to fix what they've missed - in other words, who seem totally immature and unprepared for life (a different problem to the other things above, perhaps)

Obviously we express sympathy, reassure, and explain that they need to access the help that will enable them to function - to enjoy life, succeed on their degree, and get a job afterwards. (So the wellbeing services, and their GP.) Often the reassurance really helps. But equally a lot of these students don't cope at University. I'm sure this problem is exacerbated by the fact that I work in an institution that attracts students from postcodes with multiple indices of deprivation.

Part of me hopes that mental health issues are sometimes exaggerated or even an excuse, as an increasingly large percentage of my students seem essentially afraid to leave the house -- which would be much worse than them just trying it on/being a bit lazy! It's great that we have a language to talk about mental health now, but it's hard to know how/when to tell people that (a) they are responsible for improving their own mental health so they can function in the world, and (b) experiencing some mild discomfort and difficulty, such as being nervous around new people, is normal and crucial to development.

But I'm left wondering: how are parents coping with their young people if these are the miserable lives they're living? If they're not going to classes, are scared to leave the house, and can't function?

So AIBU, or is this problem getting worse? What can parents of roughly 16-20 year olds tell me? Are we still dealing with the legacies of COVID? What's the word on the street among young people about mental health these days?

@ReturnOfTheSausageHostages yes I agree but again I do think the social media thing is directly caused by COVID. Thats when it became normalised to allow your kids all these things and to spend hours on social media so they socialise. This wasn't so big before. I do think it's an indirect effect of covid. Like I said in my post a lot of social norms were scrapped in that period.
I suspect 90% of all CAMHS referrals would be gone if social media, violent games and smart phones were banned for under 16s.

I agree with many of the reasons given. The suggestion I'd like to offer is we have raised a generation of children who are terrified of face to face communication.A phonecall, either the need to make a call or answer a call can result in a huge degree of anxiety. They are so conditioned to communicate by email, text, WhatsApp, Facebook & various other platforms which they are more comfortable with nowadays.If this issue isn't addressed from an early age it will only get worse.

Depends on the employer, I guess. But I think some younger employees have expectations that are quite hard to meet.

We bend over backwards to provide a supportive environment for our staff. Employee Assistance Programme with legal advice and counselling support. Mental health first aiders. Mental health awareness training for everyone. Training for managers. Regular supervision and support. Lots of peer mentoring. Multiple staff wellbeing initiatives. Paid wellbeing time. And we try really hard to ensure that workloads are manageable etc.

It still isn't enough for some. I did an exit interview with a young employee recently and she complained that her line manager wasn't supportive enough. Pressed for more detail and it transpired that he hadn't spent long enough listening to her talk about a recent relationship break up - he had expressed sympathy, asked if she was OK to be in work and pointed her towards the many sources of support that were available to her, but didn't set aside an hour of his time to listen to her woes. She clearly felt that this was a reasonable expectation - almost as if he was supposed to act like her dad, or something, and be a shoulder for her to cry on.

I've also been asked by staff to make adjustments for their mental health that are anything but reasonable. Like one employee who didn't feel able to do the central part of her job because it triggered her anxiety - I genuinely couldn't quite work out why she had applied for a role that was so obviously unsuitable for her, but she somehow expected me to come up with a solution. A bit like a salesperson asking for an adjustment that would enable them to avoid having any contact with prospective customers, and thinking that that was a reasonable request!

Of course, not all young people are like that! But I do see quite a lot of younger staff now with quite high expectations about what their employers will do to help them manage their mental health. On one level, I think it's great that employers are being expected to step up... they should certainly not be causing harm to employees' mental wellbeing. But u do think that there is a line where personal responsibility also has to kick in!

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves your final paragraph is 100% correct

That anyone could compare the two, is CRINGE!

Be that as it may, the rest of your post is also entirely “CRINGE”. Because the issues you list really didn’t exist pre-Covid, did they? It couldn’t possibly be that you just have never been impacted by them, therefore would rather stick your fingers in your ears and pretend they don’t exist, could it?

This. No respect

Lockdowns are probably a part of it
also schools are massively under funded too which effects education

but also I think there has always been young people with MH issues but it used to be much more of a taboo but now people are more open about it. I am early thirties and suffered with anxiety since I was 8 and late diagnosed autistic, I used to keep a lot in and mask heavily.

Absolutely nailed it 👌

I don't think you should be flamed; it's certainly a discussion point. We'll never know for sure, as there's now way to measure this, so we all form opinions based on personal experience. My own experience means I disagree with you. My great grandmother worked, my grandmother worked, my mother worked. Both my mother and I were latchkey kids, as were many of our generations. It forced resilience and independence. However, I do wonder whether a consequence of this is that some parents who had to be responsible from a young age overcompensate when they have their own children, believing they should let their children actually be children for longer. Then there's the follow-up question of whether this actually matters. We're going to live for about 70 years or so...does it matter in the grand scheme of things if kids take a few more years to mature than the generation before them? I suppose that's what society is trying to figure out now. (I do think the reliance on technology to communicate has taken away fundamental social skills from many young adults.)

I think there are multiple factors. Kids used to learn independence and resilience by playing out in the neighbourhoods unsupervised with their mates. That died with increase car ownership and fears of stranger danger. Then after school classes took over from free play, so kids are told what to do rather than learn how to create and problems solve and work together and deal with situations and social interactions themselves. Then online came in and kids increasingly play with their friends online rather than going to each other's houses.

Kids need high levels of independent play and real life socialisation with their friends to build confidence, skills and resilience and what you are seeing now is what happens when that is removed.

I'm not in any way undermining the enormity of mental health problems and I am pleased that it is being brought out into the open. Very important that mental health is destigmatised and support is readily available, where required.
That said, there is a massive shift towards pathologizing every aspect of mental health that would previously have been considered part of the process of growing up/adolescence. I am aware of some people who pursue the seeking of a diagnosis ( separation anxiety, as an example) for normal life events that are part of history.
As for covid, that has affected everyone.
What about previous generations who have encountered enormous emotional trauma and had to somehow find the resources/resilience to carry on?
I appreciate that there are extremes of examples and as I said, it is very important that there is appropriate support but matters have gone too far.
The enormous rise in ADHD to the point where it is normalised (as one example). I know young people who have been diagnosed with this who are seemingly 'normal' to me. IMO, their parents seem to want to pursue a diagnosis.
My own personal experience is of extreme childhood trauma ( details spared ) . There was no support/recognition re support from my school etc and I just 'got on with it'; the result is that I consider myself to be a well rounded, individual human being.
I'm not saying that my lack of support was right and at that time, nobody talked about mental health. And mental health support needs to be readily available for such circumstances. But, the labelling and pathologizing of every emotion is unjustified .
I sincerely hope that there is appropriate support and increased awareness of defined mental health diagnoses

Children of war didn't cope, my mother and uncle are complete basket cases because they were brought up during the war but their generation and mine were told to shut up and put up. nobody wanted to hear that we were suffering, we were made to hide it.
I have CPTSD with hallucinations and hearing voices from around age 10. I was never allowed to mention it and as an adult grew up just suffering, I was a trained nurse and remember feeling massive anxiety on every shift and invisible people talking to me. Nobody noticed, I was used to keeping it well hidden. GP's weren't interested.
It was only much later in life that I got a diagnosis and some antipsychotics after it all spiralled out of control at the menopause.
I think had I not had treatment I'd probably have committed suicide eventually.
Today's society is extremely toxic for youngsters, cyber bullying, ridiculous beauty standards, not being able to afford a home or a family, extreme porn messing up relationships.
Things have got to change because if they don't I fear for our childrens future.

My DC is the same. It's so many things:

• Born into the austerity period.
• ASD
• Couldn't access child or maternal health care so his life has been a constant grind of his health problems and mine
• Schools on their knees but aggressively assessed by league tables and ofsted. Driving the kids relentlessly with no money or staffing to support this level of progress.
• Schools using cheap tricks to try to motivate kids, like leaving them with screens all day and gamified apps, and using horror and nastiness to motivate.
• Covid was so hard and led to yet more time trying and failing to access healthcare.
• Pressure from grandparent generation who have no idea at all of what we are coping with. (they have been told and are now starting to understand.)

At home he had too much time on screens because we had no idea how bad it would be for him. We've put the screens away now and it's all walks and music and proper fun, but it's hard to undo the damage from all the above.

DS just crumbled eventually, and the school were awful about it, which made everything worse.

My Mum (rip) was a Boomer. Never had enough to eat as a child, no electricity, no holidays and no handouts from parents. Clothes were all hand-me-downs. She wasn't allowed to do A levels, because he was sent out to work. Even after she was married, she skipped meals so me and my sister could eat. I'm sure she'd love to hear you explain how she was handed her life on a plate?!

'Resilient', not individual

I actually think, that what has fucked up our young people, is the CONSTANT talk about :
Mental Health
Anxiety
Trans
Non binary
All the made up genders, when we KNOW they are only 2
Be kind
Racism
Cultural appropriation
And a ton of made up crap, that didn't even exist when we were kids.
Plus all the posting and consuming on Social Media, "Look at meee, and how I am very different and special".... "If you're not special, then you're nothing"

ALL OF THIS CRAP WENT ON BEFORE COVID!

There is always, always the poor in every generation so your mum's experience doesn't suprise me. There is no capitalism without the poor. However, generally speaking the boomer generation did have it the easiest out of any generation for a long time before and since.

Covid and appallingly indulgent parenting.

Covid was awful for everyone, and the way young people were isolated and told to make sacrifices wasn’t good. I don’t think it was wrong given the situation, but that doesn’t make it less damaging.

But parents who indulge children not going to school, not get up in the mornings, not keep clean and tidy rooms etc have created adults who feel that what they want comes first and they cannot understand the real world which comes with consequences.

They didnt or dont. If you go back to the 1st and 2nd world wars it was business as usual and people just went back to work with no support. Nowadays they would have been diagnosed with PTSD. They never spoke about it either.

@rainfallpurevividcat I agree about school 6th forms infantilizing 17 and 18 year olds. Had this with both my sons! But daughter has gone to a 6th form college instead (rather than stay at the school) and she is treated like an adult - expected to do her own admin, run an electronic diary, take digital notes etc etc. It is preparing her far better for university!

My kids aren’t anxious at all - but they certainly found out a few things they may never have questioned but for Covid.

DD, then at primary, found out that when you worked from home you could get your work done by lunchtime and have the rest of the day off. She’s never taken it totally seriously since then. Though I think (hope) she will when GCSEs start.

DS, then in year 8/9, learned that you could nip out of lessons online, if your teacher didn’t arrive, to go and meet your friends in the park and nothing would happen.

It was also a time when screen time rules went by the by so we could get our work done and it’s harder to establish them when they’ve been shown to be entirely optional.

I am a full time working mum aswell. I do think this is a good point. I think there is a lot more pressure on exceeding these days.

women are expected to compete with men in the workplace which yes it’s great for equality but massively increases pressure on them but also on men who have a lot more competition for jobs etc

As the parent of 2 adult children I think we moved too far from 'mental health problems are shameful, should never be talked about & certainly never understood' to 'mental health issues are a badge of honour, encompass every single human emotion and should be constantly made allowances for in every situation regardless of whether the 'sufferer' is in fact just being a bit of a dick'

@EveningSpread

“And at GCSE, there has also been a (very small) increase in top grades: they are up from 22.4% of entries last year to 22.6% this year. And both figures are higher than pre-pandemic: in 2019, the proportion of entries graded 7 or above stood at 21.9%.”

I think if there was something dreadfully wrong, GCSE grades wouldn’t be improving.

Hasn't there always been general tutting by adults : the youth of today, in my day things were so much better : in every decade?

We need to see the good in people/young people/children. Not create a negative cloud around them. Focus on their strengths and have a positive, can do attitude, high expectations. Then you tend to get the same back.

I do think the inability for women to raise their kids is a HUGE problem. Anecdotally it was terrible for me as a child being a latchkey kid. Honestly awful. I am beyond grateful I’ve been able to be there for my kids every morning and every afternoon after school. What a difference that has made to their confidence also. I have adults telling me how refreshing it is that my kids are conversational and interested in things. That’s because we talk all the time as I have the time to be interested in their lives.