Do today's teenagers/20-somethings lack resilience?

[ToutesetBonne]

Prompted by another thread, I'm reminded of the number of times, at work, when I shake my head in disbelief about the dramas some of the younger staff create out of nothing!

I work for a lovely organisation in beautiful surroundings, with some of the best 'perks' I've ever encountered. Our salaries are well above average and we have free lunches, parking, and private health care.

Despite this, so many of our younger staff throw complete wobblies if asked to do anything that they perceive to be outside their role description, and have close to a breakdown if a manager (I am not one - no-one reports to me) queries any aspect of their work or asks them to change something in a written paper, or suggests that they might need some help with a task.

Where is the resilience? I am a labour voter who cringes at the expression 'snowflake' but, gosh, I'm beginning to see where it comes from!

I'm training two twenty somethings at work and I'm not seeing issues with them except one struggling with his alarm in the mornings (been late twice, but he came in early the next day both times so made up the time). They both do everything they are asked to do, with no complaints, do things without me having to ask them like clean up, take piss-taking with good humour, and ask questions when they aren't sure about something to make sure they do it right.
But I do live in a country where helicopter and lawnmower parenting are extremely rare, and children are raised in a way that seems to encourage resilience (or to be more precise, to have sisu). I don't doubt though that they are different to young people from previous generations, due to exposure to the internet from young ages - I'm sure that has a big impact on many aspects of development.

1 million percent this - call it progress but this is entirely of our own making - children don't raise themselves - we made them this way and our parents before them.
I put up with so much exploitation as a young teen in the workplace during the 80's and I'm glad we have made it better for our young ones, but unfortunately this thread is the upshot of this.

I work in an office with a number of people in their teens/early 20s, there are also a handful of older people such as myself (50s). I'm afraid I agree 100%. With a couple of notable exceptions, they will not work a minute past their finish time no matter what, are off sick at the drop of a hat and kick off over the smallest things with jaw dropping entitlement at times to the frustration of my older colleagues and myself. I can count the number of sick days I've had in over 10 years on one hand, as can the other oldies. My kids, however, are not like this (I wouldn't stand for it tbh), so it's not all young people -my son wasn't apprentice of the year for nothing 🙂

I work in HR and in my experience those who are older also lack resilience and don't like being managed and push back against doing normal tasks within their job description

Proves the point really.

I see children with so much potential day in day out that just need the encouragement they get as school to continue at home but it never is. It's always "they have special needs so its hard". No, it's excusing the behaviour and nothing better. As someone that grew up when SEN was recognised but pushed against rather than expected, I think the severity was much lower vs today. How else can there be a 25% increase in diagnosis in the decade?

I don't think any illness should be accepted by a person, you should put yourself under huge pressure to live as normal a life as possible, everyone has hurdles but that's a huge swing in how you deal with them

The reality is that people in their late teens and early 20s don't yet have fully formed brains, are still learning how to socialise and are learning the realities of work.

Whilst I don't totally disagree with this, what has changed over the last couple of generations that has made some people, and this number seems to be increasing, lack resilience and the ability to just get on with things on their own For example, my Dad, who would have been 100 by now - left school at 14, went straight into an apprenticeship. When judged competent was sent to work all over the country for extended periods n his own, having to sort his own travel and accommodation. All this before he was 20. Didn't give it much thought, that's just how it was then and not unusual. I thought it was a bit much when he told me about it. However -

When I married in the early 70s I was 19, husband was 22, living in a rented flat. Never crossed our minds to ask our parents for any kind of help/support. All our friends and relatives were the same, many having their own families by the age of 25.

I'm not saying that we got everything right but we just picked ourselves up and carried on. It seems that just from experience of younger members of the family that so many of them don't seem able to make their own decisions on anything.

Probably not making much sense. TLDR - why do so many younger people seem so much more immature compared to just a couple of generations ago.

why do so many younger people seem so much more immature compared to just a couple of generations ago.

I don't think getting married and having dc at 25 makes you mature.

No child is leaving school at 14 and definitely wouldn't be hired anywhere until 18 - especially since they are facing retirement well into their 70's.

they will not work a minute past their finish time no matter what, are off sick at the drop of a hat and kick off over the smallest things with jaw dropping entitlement at times

Why should people work over their hours or not be sick if they are sick? I don't believe people worked are harder in their jobs back in the day if anything it was more relaxed with better pay & pension provision.

IME yes, they do. I have definitely observed some changes in my students (university) over the past decade or so. Many of them are quite passive, lack independence, require a lot of handholding, and blame others when they don't achieve the results they believe they are entitled to. Some claim to be "triggered" by the subject matter and won't engage with it. They seem used to being pandered to and mollycoddled. I have even been contacted by the parents of some students to complain or make excuses for their adult children. 🙄

Don't get me wrong. I really like this generation in many ways. They tend to be kind and supportive of their fellow students, they generally have a good sense of humour. And I think it must be a very challenging time to be a young person, certainly more so than when I was their age. But I would say that many of them haven't been well prepared to cope with the ordinary experiences of being an adult.

I agree. I think a lot of generation Zers think the world owes them a living. And as for all this 'trigger warning' stuff on texts that they are going to read,I think the culture of pandering to their sensitivities has encouraged them to expect it. I'm a boomer (very unpopular among gen Zs I believe!) and our generation just had to get over it and get on with it.

My OH works in a comprehensive school and regularly says this is the worst it's ever been. One example she gave me was an art student submitted a piece of work, the art teacher graded it and then offered some suggestions from another perspective, for example - an acrylic paint rather than watercolour would stand out more on this textured fabric. And then the student had a meltdown and actually went to their head of year to complain. You can't "criticise" these new kids coming through.

I really have no need to educate myself in SEN matters having worked in that field for more than a decade. My Grandson is Autistic, his mother uses it as an excuse not to parent as do many others. There is also a huge majority of parents that do parent and do try their best and do a fantastic job in raising their child but i can assure you there is a minority that love having that label put on their child because it absolves them of any "blame" and responsibility and it pays a wage. It may be unsavoury but it is the truth. There are good , bad and bloody awful SEN parents.

I asked my 16 year old to help me put away the shopping today. She got visibly stressed and said she couldn’t handle so many things going on at once. She then got really upset afterwards because she was worried she didn’t do it properly. She is autistic and I am used to these kind of reactions but I was trying to imagine her in a workplace and I just don’t know how she will ever be resilient enough. If I don’t keep her environment totally stress free she over reacts massively. After the shopping task she said to me that she found it very stressful. I try to be patient but her resilience is literally zero.

My all got weekend, school holiday jobs at 16. Which I think taught them some resilience. Hospitality is certainly humbling when dealing with the public who can be challenging. They worked through university for extra money.

From reading on here and locally on FB it's a lot harder to get casual work as a pupil these days.

Which is a shame because they learn a lot about work ethic.

There's a 25% increase because the numbers are levelling out having historically been underdiagnosed, for girls in particular. In fact, 80% of autistic girls remain undiagnosed by the time they're 18. They're also 13 times more likely to die by suicide than their neurotypical peers. So maybe pushing themselves through it (masking) isn't actually working out that well for many.

As for growing up in a time when SEN was 'recognised but pushed against', I can give plenty of examples of where that has proved absolutely disastrous.

I'm not surprised at all.

Yesterday there was a Mumsnet thread where a Mum was asking if she was being unreasonable to shout at her 3.5yr old for having ANOTHER crying fit over absolutely nothing. She also mentioned having a naughty step.

Well about 70% of the posters called her a witch - because she "should have explained, coached, coddled, she's too young, you should never shout and discipline at 3.5yrs." Bare in mind this kid is going to be in reception come September and most of these posters are suggesting never to shout at your kids for having a crying tantrum (OP described multiple happening each day).

Parents also have too much input with the school now that staff email addresses are shared with parents. It undermines any school discipline and school rules, because parents abuse this and will email the school to fight their childs corner over the most mundane things. Parents used to tell their kids "in life, sometimes that happens, sometimes life is unfair, sometimes bosses are unfair and sometimes rules seem unfair" - but not anymore!

Does your grandson also have a father? How does he support his son to grow, adapt and become more 'resilient'? Too often mothers are left dealing with SEN while fathers swan off because life is too difficult with a child with additional needs, leaving mothers (and it is usually mothers) to deal with the fallout - which no doubt also contributes to the efficacy or otherwise of raising a child with SEN. 80% of marriages end in divorce where children with SEN are being raised.

I do think this is part of it. Mine are really struggling to get p/t work and summer work seems not to be a thing in this area - not quite toruist enough and no factory/warehouse need temp summer staff.

They have volunteering in charity shop - and that's been a huge help to expand their horizons and confidence levels but not as useful as a proper paid job would be.

I got summer job post GCSE - DH didn't work till 24 when he was finishing his PhD write up and his Dad finally insited he work and got him a p/t gig behind a bar with a mate who owned pub. I didn't find DH less grown up but as only child was used to mostly adult company and his parents are social so a lot of it and travel in UK and abroad and was used to looking after himslef and gettinga round.

So working not only way to get more wordly experiences without parents managing it but was a very common one.

Why not? All bar one couple are still together and many now have grandchildren. We all just got on and dealt with it. If we had gone to our parents for a handhold we would have been told that this was the path we had chosen and to make our own decisions. I think the only help I asked for was when we eventually managed to buy a house and I asked my Dad's advice on the electrics because he was an electrician.

Compared to a 20 year old relative who, at a family meal recently, had no qualms about asking her Dad to cut her meat up for her, I think we were all adequately mature at that age.

I have not seen any evidence of it from my son or any of his friends or my own friend's children.
With regard to this section "younger staff throw complete wobblies if asked to do anything that they perceive to be outside their role description", Good for them many people have been doing loads of things outside their job description for years and not being paid for it and it becomes the expectation.

@DoraSpenlow "Compared to a 20 year old relative who, at a family meal recently, had no qualms about asking her Dad to cut her meat up for her, I think we were all adequately mature at that age."

Please tell me this isn't true ? 😮

Come on, you mist realise that’s a pretty extreme example. My 13 yo would be mortified if I did that, much less actually ask me to do it.

The children I see who lack resilience are the ones who don't spend enough time playing.

Unstructured play with a circulating group of children (playing out or in community spaces) is the very best thing to build resilience and a 'can do' attitude in children.

So to the extent it's an issue, I view this as a problem mostly of society's own making.

Shouting at kids for crying doesn't build resilience.