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?

Oh come off it, lack of parental interaction? Parents interact far more with their kids than they used to.

Kids used to be thrown out for the day and left to their own devices in the 1970s and 1980s, or left outside the pub with a packet of crisps - from Boomers and Gen X you'd think it was absolutely the making of them.

Generations of parents who were so irresponsible that hundreds of public information films had to be made to suggest that it might not be a good idea if their kids are out throwing fireworks, going off with strangers, playing on railway lines, climbing pylons or drowning in quarries.

Well you started off with "All generations blame the ones before". They don't. The boomers and Gen X worshipped the Greatest Generation for their wartime sacrifice. The boomers capitalised on that now becoming known widely as the Selfish Generation.

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.)

That's great. So what happens after these services tell them they can't - or won't - help?

I think children and adults usually end up doing what will get them the furthest in the easiest way. And right now that's having lot of mental health struggles and getting lots of help and fuss. Why would anyone not act that way? You'd be doing more work and getting less.

The people that just get on with things don't get rewarded.

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Covid. Spending 16 months not seeing anyone of your own age (or anyone other than your parents) because of household vulnerability is going to take its toll on anyone, let alone a young person in formative sixth form years.

I'm surprised this blindingly obvious conclusion hasn’t occurred to you, OP.

I'm fed up with people of my age (60) banging on about snowflakes, etc. when most of us have had it incredibly easy.

My son is 19.

He went to the sixth form attached to his school. What struck me was how baby-ied they were. They weren't helped towards independence at all. Hand held all the way.

And his friends seemed young. Parents who would host 18th birthday parties that finished at 10pm, kids not allowed out at the weekends, not allowed part time jobs, so had no money or freedom.

I was shocked.

He would sometimes text me to ask me if it was OK if he went into town after school. I nipped that in the bud telling him that he was old enough to just text to let me know, not ask permission. Apparently I was a cool mum because I let him have some independence. I wasn't trying to be cool,. I wanted my ds to be ready for the next stage of life! Managing his own time, his own money, his deadlines. I often said to him, I trust you to make a good choice.

I know Kirstie Allsop is an extreme example of this, but the debate around her son interrailing is a good example of what kids are and aren't allowed to do anymore.

so agree with you , but obvs on this site wont be many that do

I sometimes feel that the word anxiety is forcefed to children from a young age (by different sources). There’s a difference between feeling a bit anxious and an anxiety disorder. Kids aren’t being taught resilience, everyone tiptoes and pussyfoots around. People think telling your child off with a raised voice is abuse. All this cotton wool has resulted in children with no resilience and no robustness.

It doesn’t help that the world is going to hell in a handcart thanks to the decades long greed and incompetence of those that govern.

As a parent of a 21 year old with serious mental illness I have no answers as to why there's an epidemic of mental illness among the young, and I'm not sure anyone else does either.

Life has become much more precarious for young people: they have more difficulty accessing healthcare, more difficulty leaving home when they reach adulthood because in large swathes of the country housing is completely unaffordable for people on low wages.

Public health has taken a battering over the past few years and it's massively impacted on the wellbeing of young people.

I taught history for 10 years, but thanks.

I don’t doubt that covid had a significant effect, but I don’t think it’s responsible for all of it. I was teaching at a University up until 2019-2020 when the pandemic hit, and the other lecturers and I would discuss similar things the OP described. I’m sure it’s probably a lot worse now because of the lockdowns, but things were certainly heading in this direction before covid.

Aside from the pandemic, I personally think that a lot of it is to do with the abundance of technology and social media. Another aspect, I think, is different parenting approaches. As modern parents, I think we are a lot more ‘hands on’ than in years gone by, which is fantastic, but I do think a repercussion of this is less resilience in our children.

I think saying it's covid is a bit simplistic. Lots of generations who survived awful awful things like the blitz managed to get on buses when it was over. The trend was also apparent before covid. So its much more likely to be due to a number of factors. Helicopter parenting. No independence for kids. Social media meaning you don't need to leave home. The issues with the economy ans costs of housing which means that any efforts to improve seem futile. A general shift in society towards taking less responsibility in general

There are often threads on here with questions like 'should Iet my 14 year old go on the tube by themselves' and lots of people wouldn't for example. Which is not likely to lead to an 18 year old who is confident navigating cities by themselves.

No it's not. You might as well argue that the death of a child is just a traumatising as the death of a grandparents in their 90s. It's not.

I speak as someone who had innumerable small pets and even a dog die when I was at school and college and somehow, miraculously managed to keep going. We've created a generation in which too big a proportion are hyper-sensitive and emotionally quivering, always on the edge of some kind of crisis. People admire the quiet stoicism and persistence of their parents and grandparents' generation yet raise their children to be so nervous s/he can't travel on a bus.

Glad it's worked out well for you. I do hope you realise you're in a minority.

I don't think there's any evidence that shouting at children or raising your voice at them increases their resilience.

I am lucky my ds is 19 and in full time work since 18. He is really motivated but by far the majority of his peers seem to be drifting only working a few hours or just doing the bare minimum. Mine is saving hard enjoys money and feels he has really blossomed. Not commonplace by any means! Very few we know his age are making much effort in life. Such a shame.

To be fair, the current crop of adults didn't have to deal with schools as they are now or buses.

My secondary school was strict, for its time, and relatively high-achieving but there was none of the nonsense that modern schools peddle.

As an example, we've had 5 emails in seven days from my DD's school about the type of earrings allowed to be worn, and the rules are so strict as to be ridiculous.

I agree that earrings in school should be kept small, neat, 'professional', and that giant neon dangly things aren't appropriate, but this is way beyond that, and with no logic behind it. What actual difference is there between a plain gold stud, for example, and a plain rose-gold one? It won't affect their learning in any way, it isn't any more of a 'safety' concern, but one is acceptable and the other is a detention.

Meanwhile, however, the girls are staying off school on their periods because all the sinks are in the corridors and open to view and their seems to be a complete inability to even start to address the fact that the boys are watching them and bullying mercilessly any girls with blood on their hands, and the toilets themselves are only open 45 minutes a day at break and lunch and so they're having to choose between eating or using them due to the queues.

Behaviour like that at my school would have had our otherwise mild-spoken head teacher reminding said boys (and their parents if needed) that everyone was scared of him for a reason and would have stopped immediately, and no-one cared a fig about a pointless fight over the colour of a stud in an ear.

We put children in high-pressure environments where anything less than a top grade is a fail, where the rules are arbitrary and seem targeted at the compliant kids who just want to get on whilst the feral trouble makers are never dealt with, and then we wonder why they come out anxious, socially-exhausted messes.

I do agree, and yet.... There was NO provision at all when I was growing up. Nor when my war-child parents were growing up. My mum and I both have very challenging ADHD. Mine was diagnosed when I was 59. I had depression in my teens, a breakdown at uni. None of this was treated with much more than a gruff: 'pull yourself together,' from parents, tutors, GP.

I am not advocating this, and I know my life would have been a lot more overtly successful if I had been properly supported, just as my mum's life would have been. But, in the absence of any support at all, we all just got on with things, and the one good aspect of that is that it does build resilience.

I think somehow recent parenting and teaching trends, alongside Covid and the pernicious rise of SM, have led an entire generation of children and teens to reach maturity with very little opportunity to build resilience or to acknowledge what it is and how they can use it as a strength in life..

I felt like this 20 years ago. I was undiagnosed autistic and found school so difficult. I think people are more open about mental health now, which is great in my opinion.

Living partially online makes kids hyper aware of image and less willing to take risks because of the spectre of going viral when you look silly.

They don't learn to deal with the unexpected, like a landline ringing or having to ask for directions or going to meet someone and they don't turn up.

And yes, the future is quite bleak. It was for boomers living under threat of nuclear meltdown, as well though.

I think social media and smartphones have made all ages more brittle and less resilient. We live in our own bubbles and feel threatened outside of them.

What happened was successive governments repeatedly cut back MH and support services until there was no emergency cushion, the Covid happened and anyone who was just about coping wasn't anymore and there was nothing to catch them. We knew at the time lockdown was going to have an impact and the implication was that young people were making a huge sacrifice and would be supported to recover from the negative effects.

Instead, we've pretended it never happened and expected them all to get back to normal with no additional support, then we call them weak and childish when they struggle.

Fantastic posts, I completely agree with all of that.

COVID, obviously. Plus the very brutal reality that even if you do all the "right things" in terms of studying, exams, university etc you'll likely still never own your own home, have any reasonable amount of savings or be able to afford to have a nuclear family. God forbid you have any personal standards and don't want to be in an unfulfilling relationship; you'll likely end up being 30 years old, living in a house share because lets face it, single people struggle to live independently even now, never mind with another 10 years of inflation on top. Or...they could always live with their parents forever.

Christ, I'm 37 and it's hard to stay off the ledge some days because the UK is such a fecking miserable place to be. I'd hate to be a teenager looking at this and wondering whether they are supposed to fit in.

I think you’ll find a good proportion of them can go out and socialise when work is not involved. They just don’t want to. And can get away with it.