To think there will be many more disabled adults in 20 years?

[Walkyrie]

I’m disabled myself, just to put that out there.

It just seems like the number of people with a disability, usually a psychiatric one, is going through the roof.

40% of disability benefit claimants are claiming for mental health related reasons. The number of anxious children and teens on here, and that I know in my own life and family, is really really high. So many schools refusers and kids in need of extra support, special school placements and so on. It seems there are a lot of unemployed young adults living at home who simply don’t have the mental acuity to get a job, live independently, have a life of their own.

3 children in my family are currently school refusing, one we only found out about today but it was not a surprise as she’s always been very anxious and has selective mutism.

My AIBU is, should we be doing something to prepare for what may be a very high number of adults not working in years to come? How will we sustain them all?

You are not wrong. I work part time in primary schools with children with SEN and the numbers grow every year. A lot of these kids will never be able to work so the amount of income tax paid in the future will therefore decrease significantly and I often wonder who will make up the deficit?

It’s a bit depressing but also on other threads you get the we need to increase the birth rate discussion. Maybe not.

As medical knowledge advances there are/will be more and more people living with disability. Those people would otherwise have died or never have been born at all.

Remember that not so long ago, disability (or words which are highly unacceptable now, such as “crippled”) was considered much more shameful that it is now. Children with what we now call “special needs” were kept hidden away in institutions, so there was much less awareness of disability in general than there is now. People with dyslexia were merely “thick and stupid”.

In the 80's we all carried on working full time in spite of mental health issues. I was undiagnosed autistic and was hospitalised for anorexia in the 80's but went straight back to work and never had a day off. Also suffered selective mutism (not at work). High pressured job, one of very few women (dealing room). But no-one was there to support me so I dragged myself through it (and on to much better things thankfully) despite being near suicidal at many points. I could have ended up in a cardboard box under Hammersmith flyover.
I do think that indulging some of these mental health based claims for income support are unhelpful. What helps is understanding who you are and how to deal with yourself. That comes with long hard work, introspection and self discipline, and is often easier to achieve whilst you are actually doing a job.

I don’t know but I do think what would help would be if we tried to encourage people more to think what can I do in my own way to help and contribute to society even if they are getting disability benefits or whatever . My brother in law has autism and his mum was telling me how there was somewhere that people could go with disabilities who were making things hand made to be sold but market forces meant the place was shut down in the end which is typical isn’t it ,all about money . She has always made sure he has worked throughout his life though . If people become insular , playing games 24/7 we are all going to suffer. I think as a society we have become more selfish. I hope it doesn’t take a war for people to wake up and realise we all have a lot in life to be grateful for if we stopped feeling so entitled. Also house prices need to come down . It is totally unfair that young people who do work are having to work so hard just to put a roof over their heads. They will end up stressed out and on benefits too if things do not change . Sorry but I am rambling…

There always were but they had to suppress it and drowned it in drugs and alcohol. Which happens a lot less these days.

We had no tools to deal with our mental health issues, we learned them in our 20s and 30s. Now we're giving kids tools as kids and teens to be able to deal better with everything further down the line.

Nowadays we accept that kids hace emotions that are better off being dealt with.

Why do you want to write off primary school kids for struggling?

Lots of these posts highlight the problem as being with the system - getting EHCP’s, being in out of schools. Of wanting education to solve the issue of diversity.
And we just end up with stressed pigeonholed children who feel like failures.

Realistically well motivated, happy adults is the goal. These are the people that find or make jobs or career. Education and qualifications can be done at any age.

I’m not saying don’t educate ND or otherwise disabled children. But I see the constant focus on school being the answer as inherently wrong and counterproductive.

Well it certainly reduced child deaths - the mills for instance.

I'm hoping that euthanasia will be legal by the time I need care. I work as a carer and a lot of care provided is dire. Otherwise I will find some way to do it

When it comes to mental health, there are obviously very different levels. People who have anxiety and depression need to look to themselves to manage it, and accept that’s who they are. Putting labels on things, unless it’s for financial gain, does a disservice to many because being formally told they’re outside the norm can make people worse. I suffer greatly from social anxiety. Always have. I suffer sometimes with depression - managed for 20 years with anti depressants, but I just accept that’s me. It’s who I am, and I deal with it, and am on the whole contented with my life. I work full time, enjoy my job, don’t ask for anyone to accommodate my flaws, enjoy the relationships I have, and don’t force myself to do anything which escalates my social anxiety. I self manage. I do meet the criteria for some of my personality traits which suggest ADHD, but can’t honestly see the benefits of having some formal diagnosis.

Im not sure there's the jobs out there for them all anyway. Theres not enough jobs for well people with a good employment record..

A large chunk would just be relabelled job seekers or unemployed and we'd start seeing this odd correlation between certain types of disabilities and unemployment.

It would have to come on additional business taxes from companies who are making large profits from replacing humans with robotics and AI. We had thr first wave of human replacement with factories and saw how that decimated communities. If companies want people to buy things, they need to either provide jobs or funds so that people have the money to buy things. They have a responsibility to humans and the economy.

I don't know. Just because a child found school difficult doesn't mean they can't succeed in some sort of work. Perhaps it's the school system that needs rethinking and not the benefits system?

Definitely. Currently it's failing so many children who are perfectly capable of learning and being productive members of society. But our one size fits all schooling just doesn't fit a very large proportion of children.

Yes i agree this is my son
Not being academic doesnt a person a failiure.

Why do you think immigrants will do care work?

@ClawsandEffect Theres absolutely tons of alternative provisions out there. The problem is they cost councils a fortune. £45k a year and up.

Interestedly I’ve found these are often started by someone who failed at school themselves.

This. Yet I don't recall seeing thread, after thread going on about that fact. People are sleepwalking when it comes to the threat of AI.

I do agree with this. I've lived my whole life with chronic depression. There were times after uni that I could have just lived at home with mom, but I went out and did part time work. It forced me to spend the day thinking about other things, talk to people, and I earned some money to spend on something for myself. These are positive protective factors, not something to be avoided.

I think we need to go back to the definition of disabled - surely anxiety isn’t classed as disabled?

The thing about one size fits all schooling is that while it's imperfect, it gives all children the same opportunity. The rise of different provisions and different curricilum and home education means the generation coming through will have wildly different educations and not be standardised, so slotting them into work becomes even harder.

Agree with all of this - far too much pussy footing around these days

I think this is a very interesting question. My thoughts:

Of course, there are people with mental health disorders. However, I do think that we have people claiming to have anxiety or mental health disorders, when they don't. It's a get out of jail free card, especially at work : "You can't make me do that, because I suffer with X"

Invisible illnesses - anyone can claim "I have it", and you can't disagree. My sister has a pal with ME. She doesn't work, doesn't do anything at home, like cooking or cleaning, literally nothing - her DH does it all. However, at the weekend she can cut up a dance floor until 3am.

Too much soft parenting - means a lack of resilience in people. At 16, I was working full time and paying board. If I had told my parents I didn't want to work, and my plan was to play video games all day, I would have been given a clip around the ear and a boot up the arse - no way would that fly. Same if I had refused school - would have been marched through the door.

People having children too late. We all know that under age 35 is optimum. Once you go over that, you have much more chance of having children who have certain disorders. Why is this never mentioned? And this goes for men too, as sperm deteriorates as the man gets older, yet we regularly see 50 year old men getting women pregnant.

Ultra processed foods - why are we feeding our children utter shite and then wondering why they aren't thriving? Same goes for people not eating well in pregnancy.

Violent video games - why are we letting little boys play video games, where they are shooting shit up and murdering people? Do we not see how this is going to fuel aggression and put violent ideas into little heads.

Social media - dreadful for young people, because everyone looks like they're doing better than you/having more fun/are thinner or prettier (filters).

Lack of jail terms for offenders. If you do the crime, do the time. No early release. For really bad crimes, lethal injection.

That was a bit of a ramble and I've gone hugely off topic!

It is if you can provide compelling evidence you aren't functioning at a normal level or can't hold down a job because of it (so an anxiety disorder would usually be the diagnosis rather than anxiety). Eg for PIP anyway, you would need to provide compelling evidence you aren't managing to do basic things like getting washed or dressed or preparing food most days. Some people aren't managing to leave the house. Maybe a family member has had to take responsibility for your finances because you weren't managing to pay bills etc. Most people who are awarded have lots of evidence that they haven't been coping with life for quite a while before applying.