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?

I've found it the same OP. Also in HE. Since covid the ability of our students to show any level self direction has plummeted. Its not only evident in how they approach their studies or assessments but also in basic day to day living. I teach over 800 students, am an academic advisor to 50 and I get daily emails requesting help because they've forgotten their email password, they don't know which bus to take to go between campus's, they want to know how to register with a GP. I do my best but I am spending increasing amounts of my day not supporting them academically but being mum to the masses.

I agree with other posters who mention lockdown, hours filled with screen time and gentle parenting approaches that do not allow children to build resilience

but I will also add something that will piss a lot of people off - there is far too much emphasis on mental health and pathologising normal behaviour, which encourages endless rumination resulting in more unhappiness and worry. Abigail Shrier writes about this in her book Bad Therapy.

i was seen as “the shy one” in my family but it wasn’t a big deal at all because it was assumed I would grow out of it, which I did. If I was a child of today I’d be slapped with a label of “social anxiety” and once you’ve been labelled it’s hard to escape

Some of them were traumatised in various ways. My mum remembers my gran having what we'd now call a panic attack due to an aeroplane engine cutting out overhead, reminding her of a V1. And my mum was born in the mid fifties, so we're talking around 15 years on.

I also think that the experience of war was a much more communal thing and the experience of lockdowns a much more an isolating thing. I do not at all mean that lockdowns were worse than war, but that they are not the same and we wouldn't expect them to have an identical effect on mental health.

Every generation blames the one before. Boomers were born into a world ravaged by war, no such thing as equal pay, hardly anyone going to uni, most left school at 15 and no bank of mum and dad. Guess what? Your kids are going to blame you for global warming etc.

Maybe not, but the kids who are affected are a lot less visible than the ones you - or anyone - meets. I know of about 10 young people who haven't managed to stay in school through their GCSE years, yet I bet lots of parents wth kids in their year group would not be aware of more than one or two of them.

I think COVID is a big part. They were sent a big message that going out, going to school is (a) unsafe and (b) not actually necessary.

Also the learning is just brutal now. The pressure is higher and the joy is less. More able kids could do pretty much anything they wanted with a clutch of As and Bs at GCSE, it didn't much matter, and you could get into uni to do Law or Medicine with BBB. Now, the more able kids are putting themselves under immense pressure to get 9s and you need at least AAA, or even higher, to do not only Medicine and Law at an RG but previously less oversubscribed courses like Computer Science, Maths, economics. Alongside that A levels are taught with less contact time (to save the LA money), and for my daughter, in an overly pre-learning regime. Mostly they have to teach themselves the work, then they go to the lesson where the teacher repeats it, and most of the writing they do they have to mark themselves. It's a slog, it strips the joy out and they are not getting the positive reinforcement to build them up, build their confidence. I know intrinsic drive is more important than extrinsic drive yada yada, but they need more nurturing, feedback and discovery in school than they are getting. Everything is just an endless treadmill of practising exam questions and marking your own answers.

I don't understand it either.

All I can say is that as a single mum, I have a 16yo who is happy and settled in school.

To support him, I ensure he is up, washed and dressed in the appropriate clothing, and well-fed by 7.30am. I drop him at the school mini bus before I go to work.

I ensure he has all the kit he needs. On the only occasion he was bullied at his present school, I reported it to head of year, requested a meeting, and got it sorted.

I provide a comfortable, secure home and home cooked healthy food. I help him with homework if he asks. I insist he goes to bed by 11 so he gets enough sleep.

I don't let him miss school, we don't holiday in term time. Education is treated with respect in our house.

At the weekend I back off and let him chill.

He has structure, boundaries and knows what is expected of him. He also knows I will always have his back if anything goes wrong. I always present a positive and optimistic view. I don't bother him with my worries.

Once when he was worried that 'girls will only go out with someone who earns £80k and has a BMW' - some total rubbish off YouTube - I proved to him that £80k would be the top 10% of earners, and then asked him if 90% of men were single? Obviously not, so we proved YouTube was presenting crap as usual.

If something worries him, we look at it logically, prove or disprove it and then deal with it. We talk, we work things out together. He knows I love him.

In the end, each parent can only do their best but at 16 my ds definitely still needs protecting from the realities of life, which I try to do.

woman beating and alcoholism usually, they functioned as wage slaves but didn't come out all sunshiney from it

er, yes?
I just googled and picked out the reputable sources, scanned through them and have picked out a few quotes from them as examples. I didn't read the whole things because papers are dull, but I didn't cherrypick other than by quality of source.

www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q897
"problems with memory or concentration"
"In the acute phase, common things like lack of smell, changes in taste, increase in headaches, cognitive dysfunction, and strokes have been reported, and there are effects on the peripheral nervous system,"
"Other studies have reported a range of neurological symptoms alongside general fatigue. These symptoms are much like those experienced after a “mild traumatic brain injury”"
"Participants who had been infected showed measurable long term cognitive deficits not evident in the no-covid group."

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10461218/
"Early post-infection anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances increased significantly in COVID-19 patients."

www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/does-covid-19-damage-the-brain
"We now know that, unfortunately, COVID can damage the brain in many ways. When people first become sick from the virus, they may develop encephalitis — inflammation of the brain — causing confusion, difficulty concentrating, and memory problems. COVID also can trigger the onset of new psychological disorders such as severe depression or anxiety."

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/236034/lasting-brain-impacts-severe-covid-19-equivalent/
"There is growing evidence that COVID-19 can cause lasting cognitive and mental health problems, with recovered patients reporting symptoms including fatigue, ‘brain fog’, problems recalling words, sleep disturbances, anxiety and even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) months after infection."

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-08-01-long-term-cognitive-and-psychiatric-effects-covid-19-revealed-new-study
"Two to three years after being infected with COVID-19, participants scored on average significantly lower in cognitive tests (test of attention and memory) than expected. The average deficit was equivalent to 10 IQ points. Additionally, a substantial proportion reported severe symptoms of depression (about 1 in 5 people), anxiety (1 in 8), fatigue (1 in 4), and subjective memory problems (1 in 4), with these symptoms worsening over time."

That generation didn't get everything 'handed to them on a plate' but thanks for being divisive and derailing this thread about young people who have been affected by lockdown.

My generation, baby boomers, had Cold War, Vietnam conscription, race riots but we, in the main, seemed to be resilient after/during crises.

I have a 18 and 20 year old. Both at uni, fresher and year 4. As a parent I wouldn't accept excuses but responsibility for actions and work. I'd like to think I'd helped, with their dad, instill a work ethic and some reliance. They never missed school unless really ill. Education has always been seen as essential and important in our household.

I'd like to think home is their safe space and they could discuss any issues bothering them and we would sort it out.

hi mine has just left school he is very polite in school, but now in college he is a very very quiet kid he never liked school i feel anxious for him in his adult life thankfully he is getting out of bed every day on his own and getting to college im worried he will not get a job I think the last 14 years of poverty have done so much harm to our lives they do not see past the day never mind the next stage in life work getting a girlfriend etc lockdown has effected many many people im just glad he managed to get a pass in maths only got a 4 not very good at school failed everything else my eldest is in university and a good grades all 8s hope he can do a bit better at college does not mean get a job though she only got one because her best friend got her an interview just be there for the kids all can do for them I had never got any vitamin d due to another bad condition i keep from my kids do not need the stress, that caused me lupus chronic fatigue brain fog the future is bleak for many parents

I work in a grammar school with students from mostly fairly middle class, mid to high income families. We have exactly the same issues. TBH it's been getting more prevalent since a good 5 years before covid. Though covid hasn't helped. I have no real idea what's causing it. Could it be the increasing use of social media?

Covid
Social media/gaming (online life more attractive than RL/ security of own bedroom but also threats of living up to online fakery)
Grim anxiety inducing secondary schools
General existential anxiety about identity and future and engaging with outside world.

This is what I've observed from mine, who I've obviously attempted to bring up as secure and resilient individuals. But their struggles are very real to them. Maybe they just need longer to grow up.

Absolutely this. Children learnt during Covid that going to school wasn't compulsory; that they could stay where they felt safe and not go out; that all the things they had been doing outside the home could just be dropped.

This is what happened to my autistic daughter, Covid was a time where she no longer had to get up and go out so she stopped. When school returned it was such a huge shock - the noise, the people, masking all the time - that being at home became the only place she felt safe.

Her father and I do not have anxiety, and her older brother is fine - it was a situation where the mental and physical well-being of children was sacrificed

Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is fascinating on the impact of the internet.

I was bullied at school, hated it, I was shy, nervous but had zero choice, had to go, so I went, made friends, still had all the other issues and if I’d been given an opportunity of taking long periods off and not attending due to anxiety I would have jumped on it. There has to be some aspect of this in regards that if we allow younger people to opt out of things for reasons we aren’t allowed to question then they will, there’s no fear of consequences or authority anymore, so it’s easy for them to just say ‘nah your alright, don’t wanna do that’ and many of them will. None of us truly ever want to go to work or school, being cosy at home is much nicer right?

It's quite conceivable that the effects of the massive social changes wrought by covid and lockdown will still be felt in the lifetimes of the people who experienced it, yes. Harder to tell beyond that. Did you think there was a statute of limitations?

Let's be honest though, a lot of kids these days are coddled by their parents and use anxiety as an excuse to not do something. I'm not saying ALL kids,before someone jumps on me, but come on now, some of the excuses are ridiculous.

The same goes for friendships, they don't feel the need to go out to socialise now.

The point at which they would have been developing independence in friendships and going out to socialise was the point at which they were told it wasn’t safe and only had online connections. Remember it wasn’t just the lockdowns - there were restrictions on numbers in your home and meeting up for the best park of two years. And when they were in school they were in ‘bubbles’, face masks and one way systems in the corridors. To have that at that developmental stage is not the same as having it as an adult.

I think it’s a wide range of factors contributing:

• covid and lockdowns, not only because these curtailed physical freedom but because of the sense of threat, coupled with wars all over the place
• harmful political narratives focused on blaming, scapegoating and lying
• helicopter parenting and over-attentiveness to alleviating even the most minor physics, social or economic discomforts
• school curriculum and a failure to properly value non-academic routes and show these can be both very lucrative and very satisfying
• changes to the way young people socialise. Less risk-taking behaviour like drinking in parks (good) but less opportunity to learn through mistakes and with your friends (bad)

I believe it's a wider society problem than just COVID.
Generally parents are so much more anxious now...kids aren't allowed to go out, walk to school, ride their bikes, etc etc ..their start off with an over riding fear of "outside"...the parents belief their is a paedophile on every corner.
So young children don't get to develop early independence skills...
Then they get to age where they access social media and " mental health labels" proliferation.
Understandably they cannot identify that normal uncomfortable feelings are normal and not a mental health diagnosis.
But by then it's too late ...and they get a label or give themselves one, then there is pastoral support and special passes and a quiet room and partial timetables etc etc...which reinforces and validates their feeling that they are ill and special.
While more talking about mental illness is good for genuine cases, we have medicalised normal to such an extent we have legions of young people unable to mature and develop and start " adulting"

I think we have the UK equivalent of the Japanese lie flat generation.
I think this is at least in part connected to the housing crisis and resultant impossibility of ever earning enough money to live independently from your parents!

I agree with a lot of points made here about covid and schools being such high pressure environments.

The other thing I would say is that the world can feel like an increasingly dark and scary place at the moment and it's overwhelming. Climate change, war. The future looks very uncertain for our young people.

I work in a paediatric team, referrals have tripled in past 5 years. Covid is definitely a factor, both the impact of isolation and disrupted education, and the fear around it, constant messages of death, pandemic etc creating an atmosphere of fear.

But the biggest factors currently are

• Social media/technology - both psychological impact of information overload, pressure to meet 'ideals' seen online, and also chemical/structural changes in the brain from watching screens with fast moving images. If they are experiencing bullying, where home used to be a refuge, now they can be targeted via messages, social media etc, so it's relentless.

• parental anxiety 'helicopter parenting' - we are in a culture of fear, we make sure our children have their phones on them in case of emergency, tracking devices etc, not being allowed to play out. This, while well intentioned, creates the impression that the world is a scary place, with danger lurking around every corner, people are not to be trusted, and they need to be on high alert all the time

• 'compassion fatigue' - again due to high technology access, being bombarded with stories of war, environmental catastrophe etc. As a child this was only seen when my parents had the news on, so we lived in blissful ignorance of the chaos going on. Children's brains are not developed enough to manage the big feeling around seeing images of these horrific things, and may shut down as a protective response
• Less physical activities, and less opportunities to take 'safe risks'. Children who attend guides and scouts and similar, have been found to have much lower levels of mental health issues, due to a combination of social opportunities, access to adventures, breaks from screen time, access to 'safe adults' who they can talk to more easily than they can sometimes talk to school staff or parents.