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?

Yes, I can see that lockdown probably was challenging for those who were already experiencing social anxiety before it all started - or rather, lockdown itself might have been a real relief but getting back to ordinary life must have been challenging.

Over indulgent, inattentive parenting, overprotective, no boundaries, no supervision, no manners.
Over exposure to social media. Expectation to be physically perfect, wealthy.
Too much pressure to keep up with peers
Too much time spent in their room alone, no exercise, no fresh air,
Addiction to phones, no physical interaction, poor social skill
Too much blaming on Covid.
Overall, a huge chunk of it is down to parenting imo!

My dd is 15 and has ASD. Her literal transition from primary to secondary school was interrupted by the pandemic. She missed out on major life skills that were already going to be harder for her to learn.

we are lucky in that we are able to afford private services. Dd still struggles a bit because of asd, but she is doing remarkably well. I can’t imagine how tough it would be without access to real help.

Agree with this, although I don't blame boomers, we'd all be the same with those opportunities. Boomer women may wonder where they’d be with all the opportunities of more available childcare, better maternity leave, protection from discrimination, protection from sexual harassment in the workplace, wider job opportunities.

It’s a lot more nuanced than “boomers had it all, and actively denied everything to later generations”.

This has always been the case. Children have to be taught how to deal with it. Parents have to parent.

Wow. That sounds so different to many students' experience in the 1900s, 20s, 40s, 60s, 80, 00s. So modern. Very new. Much recent.

capstix · Today 11:32
The boomer generation had everything handed to them on a plate. They had peace, low taxes, moderate interest rates, low housing prices and quietly ignored global warming. They were handed our utilities, BT and the railways as if they alone owned them. Gen Z is the poorest generation since Dickens's time. 30 year olds can no longer leave home. They work 20% longer hours for 20% less pay and 35% lower pensions than boomers. They have little promotion structure in modern corporations. They have been left the bill for global warming and the boomers propensity to fund tax cuts through borrowing. If they don't see the point, why am I not surprised?

This is the mindset that will keep you down and become a self-fulfilling prophecy, @capstix . When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, no one wanted to identify as a loser and yet now victimhood seems to be everywhere. People used to celebrate picking yourself up, dusting yourself down and plugging on. Now it's failing, being broken and oppressed that seems to get you sympathy and win you prizes. It's a very unhealthy mindset and you need to break it.

I am aware of two Gen Z people I know living lives travelling the world while working remotely — he designs clothes and accessories for gamer's avatars, she designs bespoke weapons and guns for gamers. Your generation is a generation that can be persuaded to pay real money for an outfit for an avatar in a computer game....

I have a 28-year-old nephew who didn't go to university. Neither did his girlfriend. They did apprenticeships and they worked in the evenings and at weekends and now they have their own home in the SE. My partner's niece did a throwaway sort of degree at a new university, then decided to move to London with friends and worked two jobs until she found her niche in recruitment. Earns £100k pa, is in South America one moment, Malaysia the next. She's coming up for 30 and has a half share in a flat she's bought with a friend. No lump sum handouts from family, none of them lived for free at hime for years. What they all have is a strong work ethic, a willingness to grit their teeth through difficult times and a lot of common sense about career and spending choices.

Boomer women may wonder where they’d be with all the opportunities of more available childcare, better maternity leave, protection from discrimination, protection from sexual harassment in the workplace, wider job opportunities.

Well, quite @MereDintofPandiculation It was "boomer" women who fought like fury for these rights. Often facing very public abuse and excoriation, damage to marriages and familal relations, and risking their careers to get these rights for women.

Agree with a huge amount of what you have written. If parents raising a new generation don’t understand resilience, not having everything, then all that happens is the next generation dilutes it further, unless they are exceptional, and can rise above their upbringing.

I have a niece, headteacher at infants. Her school has children aged four/five turning up still in nappies, never used a knife or fork of any kind to eat, never seen a book. Frankly, unless they are of a resilient nature, then their tiny little lives are already blighted, they are the next generation of failed in some way statistics. Nothing to do with education, no jobs around, poor NHS, just born to inadequate parents.

The world has completely changed in a new way to be so much more uncertain and much more anxiety provoking than it used to be. Far less social mobility. Environmental collapse. Public services fucked due to 14 years of the Tories. Social media pressures. Housing crisis. International instability. End stage capitalism putting any kind of economic stability for so many people way out of reach.

I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to imagine that all of that doesn’t massively affect young people? Young people have less resources and less experience of life to draw on, than older people do.

Look up collective trauma.

Some of it is people not wanting to accept the negative consequences of covid policy they supported.

I don't know if it is that. I'm willing to believe that lockdowns may have had an impact, but that alone doesn't tell the whole story. Why were some young people so terribly damaged by covid policies while others bounced back as if nothing had ever happened? Surely it is too simplistic to say that it is all because of lockdown? There must be other factors that have contributed to how those young people responded to the experience?

Young people are more stressed than ever - social media has a big part to play in this, but so has the Tory's education policy of push, push, push, exam after exam after exam. The other considerations are that it is more socially acceptable to claim anxiety inertia / mental health issues than it used to be, and also far more young people are in higher education so lots that might not have gone due to a plethora of reasons are now struggling through. Personally, I think you'll get more from them and they will do better if their concerns and issues are taken seriously.

Helicopter parenting and molly coddling
My theory is that mums of dc currently aged 0-16 have had their kids older, they are more precious about them, they see them as an extension of themselves, any normal frustrating events in a kids' daily life are taken as a personal slight by parents, kids are not allowed to walk to school until they're 11, even if it's round the corner, they don't often interact with extended family has people have smaller families and move around more.

Kids are basically not allowed to do anything foe themselves not even stay at home for 30 minutes when they're 9 as mum has to go shopping. It's very overbearing. At the same time, many have unlimited access to gaming and social media form around 8. It's a lack of independence and purpose, they are not allowed to actually do anything so don't grow with their tasks and challenges. At school they are told to sit still and be quiet, they only go out with parents so never have to speak to the shop assistant or bus driver hence so mute.
Many parents go steer crazy when their kids fal out at school or are 'left out'. It's normal! Kids bicker, argue fall out and then in again. Then their mums feel personally offended and hurt, get involved with and make it all worse for everyone so it's then impossible for the kids to make up.

Tech
Screen addiction and reliance on instant gratification. Not just kids but their parents too. Everyone expects to get their own way as that's their experience online. Shop online, no need to wait for the guy that misses that the traffic light has changed to green. Book your GP appointment online, click, click, click and lose your ability to speak courteously to people in the surgery or wait your turn. Something doesn't work in real life and you have to wait? It is intolerable to many. So they speak rudely and with no connection to their fellow human.

Living in an extremely consumerist society, money, money, money. The Taylor Swift tickets were a perfect example of this. Shopping, online even window shopping, look at all the things we need and should buy, we are consumer before makers and producers.

High School
It's all about exam, exam, exams and abiding by infallible bureaucratic rules. We need this rules, as many kids have not learned manners and good behaviour at home, their parents never say no, but it means there is no space for teenagers personality, to make honest mistakes and learn from them. 240 students in a year group, it's easy to get lost in a system like this.

edited for spelling mistakes and adding schooling

One of the things that's really hard for parents whose children are mentally ill is not only dealing with emotional fallout of their children's illness, but also knowing that ignorant people will usually assume that parents are responsible for it.

Other posters have also touched on this. One of my concerns is the range of experience young people have as a result of the proliferation of TV/streaming channels, social media and information on the internet.

When I was a child, you had so little choice that you ended up being exposed to a much wider range of views, concepts, facts, etc. You watched what was on the 3/4 TV channels of an evening. Alongside your favourite programmes it was often the least worst option and you'd see a documentary/political/historical programme, etc. With no phones to scroll on, you read the newspaper. You didn't just go on Amazon and find a book an influencer suggested, you went to the library or a book shop and picked from the selection available which could open other avenues of interest. You absorbed a wide range of music on the radio not just songs you picked yourself. It opened all sorts of horizons.

I'll put my hands up and say I love the internet and modern technology. I have no desire to go back to those times for myself. However, I do have some concern that the horizons are getting limited for our young people. It is too easy for them, and a lot of adults, to just end up in echo chambers of people with views exactly the same as theirs that are never challenged. Or worse, in situations where their views are influenced by those who don't need to abide by journalistic standards. Or they can simply end up completely overwhelmed by all the noise.

It seems that the young people I come across have less general knowledge and are quite self-focused which is completely understandable if they have been shaped by a life where technology allowed them only to see and hear what they wanted to and not necessarily what they needed to.

I'm not sure if this makes sense. However, I would say that a lot of the young people I've come across have been far more confident and capable than I ever was at their age!

There are other factors, yes. But that's a separate point.

There are people who won't allow lockdown to have had any impact at all, and in some cases that's a refusal to take ownership of the negative consequences of a policy they wanted. It doesn't matter, for these purposes, how much of the problems OP cites were caused by lockdown. It only needs to have been one of the causes.

Young people have less resources and less experience of life to draw on, than older people do.

And yet, when we discuss other huge changes eg divorce, the idea that DC are flexible and will adapt is regularly agreed upon.

We tend to think that in many big life changes, young people are more flexible, adaptable and open to change. This is why there's such a prejudice in the workplace against women over 40, for example - they're "too old" to adapt to change.

Combination of...

Social media - to speak to friends we used to have to see them or at least speak to them on the phone
Covid - no explanation needed
Safety is prioritised over freedom - kids have less freedom to roam now for example at 7 or 8 I was going to the park alone or walking to school

Horsesontheloose · Today 14:59
Was being anxious and worried not always there though, it's just we talk about it now? Personally, I hated secondary school. I reckon nowadays I would have had help , but as it was I was just told to get on with it. My children are in secondary now and are thriving. Lockdown genuinely didn't touch the sides for them. They are very different to me but for an anxious person I can totally understand why lockdown would have been a game changer.

Do you think, in retrospect, that just getting on with it meant that you learned to cope? You learned to override the feeling and get on with life. It sounds as if you've managed to bring up two very resilient young people. Do you think perhaps your resilience — just working on through — transmitted to them?

I think anxiety is a natural part of everyone's life, for good reason: anxiety makes us rethink decisions, change plans, look for better jobs or ways out of unhelpful situations. It's a useful human emotion. Clearly there are some people who have absolutely crippling anxiety. They need help. But once people with ordinary useful levels of anxiety started thinking they have a problem and become 'anxious' individuals we're in trouble.

"There are people who won't allow lockdown to have had any impact at all"

I personally don't know anyone who has this view - and everyone I know was supportive of lockdown.

So, I haven't read the full thread, forgive me if it's been covered but a study done in the US found that the cohort of babies in utero in the 1918 spanish flu pandemic suffered 'reduced educational attainment, increased rates of physical disability, lower income, lower socioeconomic status, and higher transfer payments compared with other birth cohorts'. Throughout their entire lives. Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/507154#:~:text=Data%20from%20the%201960%E2%80%9380,compared%20with%20other%20birth%20cohorts.

How long can we blame covid for the effects on these young people? I don't know, but a hell of a lot longer than 3 years.

There's one on this thread.

Fortunately I don't know any IRL either. Hopefully you and I are representative rather than just lucky.

It’ll be interesting to see how children born since 2020 fare. They’ll be able to socialise etc at parent and tot groups, nurseries etc. Will they be more resilient?

But how can they tease out the effects of the flu epidemic from the effects of the end of WW1?