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?

Nothing to do with lockdown here.

I first asked for support in 2013. Now the shit has hit the fan my teenager is costing various services a fortune. Tory austerity didn't help either.

Does anyone follow Jonathan Haidt? A lot of what he says makes perfect sense in relation to anxiety in young people and the link to smartphones and social media.

www.instagram.com/jonathanhaidt?igsh=MWR0c2NqdjV4YnNuMg==

Parenting is a learned behaviour, so there's got to be an element of responsibility attached to the parents of parents, who in turn learned from their parents.

The Baby Boom generation made extraordinary leaps in social advancement to create opportunities. But you can't help feeling that they now have a degree of resentment that succeeding generations haven't followed those opportunities exactly the way that the boomer generation intended. I could see this in my parents well before Covid.

I wish I could find the screenshot, I only saw it on X last week. Someone from the Boomer generation posting about how ridiculous free school breakfasts for every primary school child was and why couldn't parents take responsibility for feeding their children, and then a few days later complaining about how unfair means testing of the winter fuel allowance is. Boomers can choose to stop being seen as Boomers just as soon as they stop behaving like Boomers.

There are too many ways to opt out too quickly.

I have bipolar disorder and GAD - diagnosed over 30 years ago and managed well with medication - so I am not unsympathetic to mental health issues. DD (15) is also ADHD.

But, if you want a normal and happy life, you do have to take steps to make that happen despite mental health issue and neurodiversity. That means realising that not all sadness, worry and anxiety is illness - some of it is just normal life. And realising that sitting at home with a label doesn't help you.

I've been really strict with DD in terms of having to face worries and anxieties face on and learning that the world doesn't end. That the scary thing wasn't actually that bad.

I've also encouraged her to spend most of her childhood in professional performing arts where the disappointments are constant and you learn you can work really, really hard and still not be the one that wins, and not everything you want happens. But sometimes the stars align and that is brilliant.

My mother thought I was awful for letting her do it as she is upset when she doesn't land the role or the job and better not to allow her to face that. But actually she's learned that neither failure nor success define her. That you can be utterly miserable but the next day there's a new opportunity.

I see way too many of her friends too scared to get on a bus or a train, or to ask for help in a shop. It's sad.

There’s a movement where I live called “Delay Smartphones” and, having watched my ADHD teen disappear into an online world, I am fully signed up to this where my nine year old is concerned. She’ll get an old school phone when she goes to high school but no smartphone until she is 16.

delaysmartphones.org.uk/about/

Totally agree. Not a day went by without me being smacked by someone in the corridors. With a tiny number of exceptions, the teachers didn't care, they were all working to rule doing minimum possible. Smoke from the loos mingled with the smoke from the staffroom.

That's crazy but doesn't surprise me. I might be hard but my three were responsible for all that jazz as soon as they walked in the door of secondary school. They were responsible for their books, their lunches, getting the bus or walking home from school (I dropped them off in the morning),doing their homework - it was their problem if they didn't do it! - and they all rose to the challenge because they knew it was in their best interests. Same with exams - I might have reminded them occasionally to study but they were left to their own devices to do it.

A mum close to me was the opposite, fussing over everything, doing homework with them, working with them for exam prep. Eldest didn't gel with school at all and is really at a loose end, with brains to burn! Youngest has just left home for uni. Will be interesting to see how they fare, although I think they have broken away more from the 'mother hen' thing perhaps.

I'm on the first page and agree COVID will have had a massive impact but I'm surprised no one has yet raised social media as an issue yet. There is a whole book written on it 'The Anxious Generation' by Jonathan Haidt.

Phones.

Social media.

The fact that it's ok to say that you're anxious whereas in previous generations you had to hide it.

The fact that it's a bit trendy to "have anxiety".

Might an apprenticeship work for her?

How do you mean, "resentment"? Just not sure I understand what you're saying? My parents have been dead for 18 years so I guess I don't know about that. I'm only just a 'Boomer' - I hate the term because it's used in such a pejorative way, but it's not something I ever give a thought too outside the realms of MN!

There's a happy medium IMO on both issues. 1. a lot of children do not need the provision of free school breakfasts but on the other hand, an awful lot do! and, 2. Same thing - a lot of pensioners depend on the winter fuel allowance, while many others don't need it - so how to make it all fair?

I can also see the appeal in a school breakfast for FT working parents, having been one for 21 years!

Why not? It seems like there has indeed been a sea change in the way we parent.

Thus was an issue way before Covid.

I will caveat everything I say with me talking about lower level mental health difficulties not suicidal behaviour and psychosis.

Unstable families are a big issue. Far too much focus on mental health. The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction from not talking about it go everything is about mental health.

We have lost a lot of our "just het on with it" attitude. We enable a lot of mental health issues to grow e.g. you can claim benefits and not work due to depression and anxiety / OCD but a lot these issues are improved by structure and purpose in your life.

Anxious parents are breeding anxious children. Because we no longer have a village to raise a child if you are very anxious then often for the first few tears your child's only exposure is to their anxious parent and it is a learnt behaviour.

We cut so much slack which enables issues to persist. You see people on here all the time questioning if children should do sports day if they don't like it... this starting tge opting out cycle.

In the UK poor diet and lack of fresh air and exercise has a huge impact.

I do and I think his book is worth reading and also the podcast he did with The Huberman lab was really eye opening.
The really sad thing is, the things he would advocate for (such as letting a 9 year old go to the shops for a pint of milk or whatever) would be so usual to see now that it would be called neglect. There needs to be a shift in attitudes.

I think a big impact to children was the fact that not only were they unable to go to school but they also had no access to sports/art/music clubs during lockdown. This stopped them from developing creatively, physically and socially. Having interest and hobbies is so important to us an humans, but most children turned to phones and social media, which shows a skewed version of the world.

Theres a huge movement at the moment called smartphone free childhood. They are tracking people who sign the pact by school and location.
https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk
You can see how many people have signed up in your area and in your local school. I really hope this is the begining of the change that we desperately need for our kids. Please share on your school WhatsApp if you haven't already seen it.

Mine are doing well. My 26, 24 and 18yo all have jobs. The 18yr old is doing her third year at college and looking to go into property maintenance and decorating. My 15yo is studying well for her GCSE's.

I think there is far too much emphasis on mental health now to the point usual feelings come under the MH umbrella in their minds.

I'm a single parent, my children need to be functional and independent (age appropriately). I haven't got time or resources to deal with anything but normal milestones. I don't know if this attitude influences them. The only thing I'm finding a problem is how to help them move out. I have no money to set them up and prices are far higher than their wages.

No but I think children will have started to recover from the ill effects of it.
Both my kids suffered quite badly at the time, the youngest particularly so, but they have come through it and moved on. Both are now doing well & are able to socialise etc.
I don't see them being affected forever more by it.

Do you think it's something children & young people will never recover from?

My opinion is that it is technology. People no longer have to go out of their comfort zones to socialise. A lot of teenagers never leave their bedrooms and it becomes self perpetuating

Your last sentence has hit the nail squarely on it's head. At a time when children were spending far too much time online, Our leaders had the ridiculous idea of shutting down face to face social interaction. All dressed up to save the old and infirm.

Any of us that spoke out and said that the fall out from this decision was going to be a major mental health crisis as well as leaving future generations with a bill they will be paying until they die, were pilloried and demonised.

Depends on the subject. Niece studies medicine. It is cut-throat. Nobody claims to be overwhelmed. Well, they do, but if they fail their exams or course work, they have to re-sit or repeat a year. Marks are deducted for everything - not just the content, but if you submit a few hours late (online submission), never mind a day late. Everything is checked and re-checked for plagiarism. They also rate each other, which is so harsh. Competition is insane. Sometimes they sabotage their fellow students, there is one-upmanship ongoing. All report to classes (if in person) on time. Don't share tips. It is like TV's Apprentice, only worse. No shrinking violets there. Stuff their faces between dissections. Sometimes I wish they would be more normal, they need to be more vulnerable, more hesitating, they need to find things daunting, they need to be more diffident. I don't like what I see in her. I am not saying shrinking violets are great, but the opposite is just so unappealing, so harsh.

This is one of ours. Happy and well
adjusted until lockdown. Covid hit and she was told school wasn’t safe. She had a breakdown trying to settle at high school with masks etc. she hasn’t been to school in three years and I have had to give up work. It’s ruined our lives to be honest and we have no plan - there is no help for her.

My son is 16. I honestly don't think Covid has made any difference to him whatsoever, for us it almost feels like it never happened now. I would assume that if children still are affected by Covid they must have had some issues around anxiety already.

I know parents who let their children stay home from school quite frequently for all sorts of reasons, but I would say that it's mainly a case of the child not wanting to go and so they support the child and make an excuse. I've never been like that with my children, they knew I expected them to be at school unless they were really ill.
I'm not sure why children are so anxious now, but I work in schools and can confirm they are much nicer places than when I was at school, and that the support children get is vastly better than it used to be.

I think it’s poor parenting. I think we are in the midst of an ocean of poor parenting. I think the ‘parent’ culture of our time is really flawed; and the lifestyles we have as modern parents’ is not helpful to our children. Screens, being time poor, small or no family groups, low levels of socialising, less community. More social media, less welfare state and low quality public services. All of these things create an environment that is detrimental to parenting well.

So damn true, especially for those kids entering or going through puberty. It is this time they start learning how to adult. This was removed from them. No wonder they are struggling.