What happens when everyone needs ‘support’ and no one is left to give it?

226 replies

HereBeFuckery · 04/02/2026 22:19

Fair warning: I may well be BU.

The last five threads I have opened have contained variations on the phrase ‘I need support to/with/for’ or ‘there isn’t enough support for parents/families etc’

I genuinely feel that there is an epidemic of ‘needing support’. If everyone needs support, who is going to be left to actually give that support? It can’t be endless! If every child needs personalised support in school, and every adult needs support in the workplace, we are, surely, just marking time until everything implodes. Can no one just cope any more?

OP posts:

distinctpossibility · 11/02/2026 11:10

TempestTost · 10/02/2026 13:56

Kids (and adults) for the most part gain confidence through empowerment, finding out they can manage, or that even when things don't go as expected, it is ok.

Being able to manage for themselves, whether it is making a simple meal, entertaining themselves at home for a few hours alone, figuring out how to get home on public transport when they have got themselves in the wrong place, or arranging extra help from a teacher when they are struggling with something at school.

We seem to have removes more and more of these capabilities from kids, opportunities to practice these things, the need to rely on themselves. We don't let them get into a situation where they might get n the wrong bus, and if they do, we fix it when they call us on their cell phone. We arrange extra help at school. They aren't allowed to stay home alone.

It shouldn't be a shock that they become passive and afraid.

Show quote history

But the building blocks of this start through play and through a loosening of the reins much, much earlier than being left home alone etc. Letting them poke themselves in the eye with a stick and feel hunger and have a squabble and skid over on wet gravel and be cold without a coat.

Unfortunately the minute we started blaming parents for everything, from cot death (were they on their back?) to a broken arm (why did you LET them climb so high?!) it is no wonder parents overreacted by becoming overprotective. Add this to lack of free time for parents and kids to just "be", and there is no way for children to grow into balanced adults.

So-called 'risky play' is a biological imperative that is missing from so many kids' lives. Emotionally distancing from parents as a teenager is a similar biological imperative, along with seeking out peers. We deny almost all our other biological imperative in this modern world so it's no surprise these are also denied, and the result is kids with no real resilience, sense of self, link to place or culture... lonely little bundles of anxiety.

Flip

1 2 ··· 5 6 7 8 9 10