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?

How about paying people a wage to do their existing jobs, rather than getting rid of them to take advantage of your work camp activities?

To be honest, I don't think work in the past was particularly rewarding - factories, mines, in service etc...people work to survive, but it does give routine, and it does give purpose in the form of money to live on, and there is a pride in earning, and there are opportunities to be sociable.

Error: sorry to quote my own post but I meant correlation between academic achievement eg ft education and career success.

Money has become a digital construct and can be generated at the push of a button - see the bailing out of banks etc. The markets aren't a million miles away from gambling. We just accept that our weekly shop keeps going up because of far flung conflicts etc. We don't think in terms of needs and resources, scarcity is created to move money around. Money is a bartering tool because swapping jam for electricity is obviously a ludicrous idea on the domestic front, but essentially world trade is about exactly that - trading resources to meet needs. However it is out of hand and has become inherently unfair. The problem is the fixation on hoarding money. Hence the requirement to restructure the whole system.

Maybe a better question is what can we do to help these people. Anyone who has neurodiverse children in their family will probably have experience of school refusals but that does not mean you should write them off for life. School results are measured by attendance and exam results and the national curriculum attempts to teach them all the same things with no consideration for their interests, preferred learning style or sensory issues. Root and branch reform of the education and the welfare system is needed with more support and less focus on attendance.

I applaud your daughter and friends because they are working and studying - you are right that is is resilience. I’m talking about the people doing nothing.

Anxiety is a particular scam. It's the 21st century version of the bad back.

Exactly. When work is the only way to eat most people find the ability to work. The idea that work should be this soul enriching experience is pretty new.

There is no statistical facts that older people having kid is causing a issue , yes they are more prone to have a child with genetic issues but children from older parents also have more economic stability , do better in school and jobs .

People still live in poverty. Actually this is increasing in the UK.

Your attitude smacks of ‘well I got paid less than my male colleagues in the 1980’s so what’s your problem’.

I’m sure avoiding sabre tooth tigers was more stressful than simply being forced off land but that isn’t relevant to this conversation about life in 2026 either.

The point is that vast numbers aren't getting enough money to live on, and it's not as easy to improve ones lot, especially at the bottom end of the job market. Can you really not see that having to have a dual income household, plus state top ups makes a mockery of the "pride" in doing so?

As for "routine" - employers like part timers and flexibility that benefit them yet make child care an expensive nightmare for parents who want to work.

Whichever way you cut it, the "world of work" is far more precarious and less stimulating or enjoyable these days than it has been for a long time. Now that it is affecting older demographics who previously felt reasonably secure, alarm bells are going off, especially in the face of automation and the proliferation of AI.

People live in relative poverty, not absolute poverty as they once did. And my attitude smacks of "if you want to argue that modern life is more stressful than at any time in the past and that we're not adapted to cope with that, then you need to actually evidence that life is tougher now". And I'd argue that it really isn't.

Absolutely this. I've seen the same situation with my DH's friend, who's been a single mum on benefits for 18 years since her daughter was born (and no, I'm not bashing benefits here).

The mum hasn't worked really at all and sadly lost her partner to cancer a few years ago. Of course, this is obviously devastating for the daughter too, who's lost her dad young. The mum is, AFAIK, healthy enough to work, but says that she is better off on benefits 😳 Daughter is a very intelligent girl but has ME or possible long covid, and hasn't been able to go to school so doesn't have any GCSEs. Quite a shame, as she very bright and more than capable, but from looking at the situation, I personally think the mum haa almost hindered her daughter's potential. Perhaps there's a lot more to it, but from the outside, it seems such a wasted life and potential.

It's as though the mum hasn't worked, so it seems acceptable for her daughter to drop out of school etc too.

People need to be told to get over themselves. You're feeling sad? Cheer up and go to work. You're feeling anxious? Grit your teeth and power through it, and go to work. Negative emotions are part of being human.

What we should do is change the state school system so that appropriate educational environments are provided by the state school system that aren’t precisely what you’d devise if you were deliberately trying to torture an autistic child, so that these children’s basic legal right to have an adequate education which is recognised across the world in international law as well as UK domestic law is met by the state, just like it needs to be for all other children.

The Department for Education needs to set up schools which are appropriate for different children with different abilities and needs in sufficient numbers to ensure that these schools can be accessed when the need is identified without the state deliberately and illegally obstructing this for years on end and thereby traumatising these children and - in some cases, like with academically able autistic children who often simply need a calmer, quieter environment with smaller classes, the state providing NO appropriate schools for them at all, which is utterly shameful.

I.e. “what we need to do” is the precise opposite of what the so-called “Education Secretary” is proposing to do with her idiotic plan to double down on the failed model of pretending one educational environment is suitable for all children and untenable attempts to assert that forcing them to attend it regardless at the expense of their mental health - or to have no education at all once this becomes impossible to sustain - is “inclusive”, and her even more disingenuous claim that doing so is for the benefit of the children who are traumatised by this or their classmates.

If appropriate schools for these children to attend were established then a far larger proportion of them would reach adulthood with the qualifications and skills that they need to be successful adults and with their mental health in tact so that they can become productive members of society. Genetic and economic research indicates that every £1 spend on SEND education has a £3 benefit to the economy in the long term (exceeding the impact £1 spent on general educational provision), and that conversely underfunding the necessary educational provision for these children has far larger negative effects than underfunding the necessary educational provision for average children; dandelions can grow anywhere and survive a lot, whereas orchids are more fragile and need more care. If nourished they can flourish into something spectacular but if neglected they will wilt, and if stamped on they will die and not grow back again.

Therefore not only morally and legally but also economically it is beyond idiotic not to be funding the educational provision that these children require.

Oh well, that’s alright then. As long as it is merely relative poverty.

You can argue whatever you wish, but your particular argument isn’t actually relevant to the thread. Perhaps you could start your own thread about how nobody knows how easy they have it because they don’t exist in 1754.

People with serious neurodivergence as autism and adhd aside I think a huge part of mental health can be fixed and it’s actually caused by things we can prevent and learn to deal with , the reality is that my generation probably enabled a lot of lack of resilience in adults today ( I’m 44 by the way ) , I just think we wanted to give so much to our kids we might have messed up and some to much for them . And now they are reaching adulthood they can’t function as it’s expected from them .

There is a strong element of truth to that.

Not regarding people with physical and intellectual disabilities necessarily, I’ll stand by the point I made upthread that they’re being failed at education level. But the rise of ‘I’m too anxious to do anything’, I totally agree.

Anxiety is a real and debilitating mental health condition, but not at the levels we’re seeing currently in young people. Much of it is ‘I cannot cope with challenge’ and that is down to poor parenting.

None of that appears to have anything to do with the topic of the OP’s thread which stated it was about disabilities, not feelings.

Relative poverty is far preferable to absolute poverty, yes. If you don't believe me you can go ask one of the many millions of people on the planet who still live in absolute poverty.

People who believe 21 C Britain is as tough as it gets and that's why people cant cope lack both imagination and a grip of reality

What a strange thing to say. We see them around us, we don't need the internet to tell us. I used to see many through my workplace.

Society will continue as it always has adapting and changing.

The employment percentage rises after 25 it’s almost as if people grow up, realise staying at home online all day is boring and they see their peers starting to reap rewards from earlier hard work in boring roles.

Once it becomes a realisation that you aren’t a special little prince or princess and mummy and daddy’s income drops they start to sort themselves out and go out to work. They will be working longer than previous generations so why not start later?

A couple of friends of our teens are autistic, they are part of ambitious friendship groups and whilst some might find school harder it looks like from the outside as they edge towards real exams the acceptance and drive, help and support and just friendship from others helps.

It will work itself out one way or another.

I agree. This is a good conclusion for my post above.

Not everyone had large families. One of my grandmothers had three children, the other one - none of those were born when my GMs were in their 40s.