What is wrong with our kids these days?

[2021ismyyear]

So I live near a town that has a recent alarming number of teenage suicides. Mostly girls but there have been boys too. There seems to be a huge mental health crisis brewing. More and more are needing professional help. Schools are at a loss what to do. Parents are angry.

Parents are blaming social media, the schools, the teachers, the government.

One parent said that they had to remove their kids phone as there is peer pressure on social media with regards to suicide, becoming lgbtq, and going on anti depressants.

It’s just exploded here. Young people have lost it! I remember a few in my year with mental health issues (eating disorders, those that were abused etc) but it seems every teen has an issue at the moment. So severe in cases, that they are killing themselves.

What is this all about? How can we stop this?

@JellyTumble

Parents aren’t teaching their children any resilience.

They’re doing absolutely everything for them so they turn out as snowflakes and are unable to deal with the real world.

Horseshit.

Dd is 13 and a disproportionate number of her class mates are either trans or non binary. They are desperate to label themselves as anything other than the norm and anyone who isn’t lgbtq is seen as anti - you don’t seem to be allowed to be straight and identify as your birth sex without it being assumed you’re the enemy. Dd talks openly with me but I imagine dc who don’t could feel alienated in the current world of teens.

"Parents aren’t teaching their children any resilience."

This is a boundary problem. Not only must a child be free to say "No", they must also be able to accept "No" from others without throwing a wobbly, or alternatively, withdrawing.

“Young people today have experiences that most of us never had to endure... they are acutely aware of the climate crisis, they have been witness to countless terror attacks

I don't think that's at all true, certainly not as a child growing up in the UK in the 80s. I can remember the AIDS epidemic and those tombstone adverts exhorting you not to die of ignorance, I can remember horrific bombings on the television and the ever present threat of IRA attacks, and I remember the dire warnings of what CFCs were doing to the ozone layer and how depletion of the latter was going to adversely affect us all.

"I don't think that's at all true, certainly not as a child growing up in the UK in the 80s. I can remember the AIDS epidemic and those tombstone adverts exhorting you not to die of ignorance, "

We also grew up with IRA bombings and the threat of nuclear war. I wonder how the young 'uns would handle that!

We thought we were doing OK with our DS and minimising his social media use. He went right through secondary school without issues. Yes, he used SM, but he spent far more time in the "real" World, actually physically with his friends, family, classmates, etc.

Unfortunately, Covid has ruined his "good habits" re social media. We noticed an almost immediate change in him last March when schools were closed at short notice and he ended up spending all day in his room doing "online learning". We noticed he started getting very wrapped up in group chats with his class mates, then with his local friends, etc. He completely lost interest in school (it was his A level year, so simply no point continuing as the exams were cancelled), so he seemed to spend his time in group chats whilst "pretending" to finish his courses.

Then comes his first year at Uni. Just the same, really, he says he's in about 25 different group chats. There's a group chat for each of his Uni modules (9), there's a couple of group chats for his flat, then one for his Uni college, several for the different clubs/socitieties/sports that he's joined. It's all turned him into a zombie. He used to be good at "reading people" - that's easy if you're face to face, but almost impossible if online only, so he's started to get "weird" ideas and started to buy into all kinds of conspiracy theories, and, yes, for the first time ever, he's started to get anxious about his gender/sexuality as he says nearly everyone in his group chats are obsessed about gender identity and he doesn't feel he can admit to being straight as so many are claiming to be different things, many of which he had to google! We've noticed a massive deterioration in his mental health etc. The lack of face to face teaching, clubs, etc at Uni has had a massive detrimental effect as it's simply been replaced by anonymous people on SM and in their group chats.

We're just glad he's coming home at the weekend and hopefully back to plenty of face to face friends/family activities away from his group chats. He says himself he'd like a couple of months "off" social media to get away from all the Uni groups.

@BrightYellowDaffodil yes whatever happened to the ozone layer??

@Mousetown

Peer pressure to become LGBTQ?

I would absolutely believe this.

[quote 2kool4skool]@BrightYellowDaffodil yes whatever happened to the ozone layer??[/quote]
It repaired itself once CFC’s were reduced.

Or acid rain?

[quote 2kool4skool]@BrightYellowDaffodil yes whatever happened to the ozone layer??[/quote]
Where did the acid rain go - or has it been rebranded?

Xpost

@Mousetown

Peer pressure to become LGBTQ?

My DNiece(16) says that in her wider friendship group of around 15 girls (all girls school) only two of them admit to being straight.

I call bullshit.

Increasing social inequality. Kids see aspirational stuff on social media at the same time as their actual family lives become ever more precarious with mounting housing costs and job instability.

Climate change is the huge fucking monster looming on the horizon.

The idea you have to bury yourself in student debt to have any chance of becoming anything just compounds all the anxiety.

Dd has also been on a meaning group where a friend of a friend announced she was going to kill herself age 12. Dd came to me immediately and I had to be the adult and deal with something I’ve never faced before. A colleague’s older daughter had 2 friends take their own lives 2 months apart and it is known that it’s almost contagious in that sense which is why there’s strict media guidance on reporting it. There are trends in areas re methods as others are inspired. It’s terrifying.

@2kool4skool According to Wikipedia, it was reported in 2016 that there is a "gradual trend towards healing" of the ozone layer, presumably as a result of CFCs being banned/reduced.

If teens were that bothered about climate change they wouldn’t leave litter all over the skate park

There is nothing which compares with Covid since 1945. I lived though all of the above mentioned there and it is utterly fucking ridiculous and insulting to compare any of that to a global pandemic
Speak for yourself! Covid is nowhere near a life sentence for most teens, HIV was a death sentence for years before they found treatment, so yes I think it was much worse.

Covid has disturbed education which clearly AIDS didn't, but many teens have been fine through it and many, especially those of an introvert nature have actually fared better with home learning.

The economy crash was also as bad if not worse for many. At least the government introduced furlough payment. Not available at that time. People lost their jobs and homes with no recourse. I really don't think it was any better.

@IrmaFayLear

Or acid rain?

You still get that but in the UK we’ve reduced air pollutants quite a lot so don’t really hear about it. It’s a ‘thing’ in countries with heavy manufacturing industries.

2021ismyyear if there is one thing you do for your children keep them off social media.

I have a DD14 and a DS17 and the only social media they have is a family WhatsApp group (4 of us), otherwise they text or email friends. They have iPhones but no social media accounts. They are as happy as Larry, when they come home they do their prep and play some computer games (Clash of Clans and MineCraft) but nothing for longer than an hour. There is no back and forth gossip on phones, once they leave the school gates they are in home mode.

When DS reached 16 DH and I asked him if he felt he was missing out and did he want to have a Snapchat TikTok account or whatever. He said they were just stupid and no thanks.

Other parents get very defensive about social media, good friends have forewarned me over the years that my kids will rebel, be resentful, they will have no friends, they will never get invitations to parties blah blah. Well they do have friends and they are happy! DD is about to turn 15 and has thanked us for saying no to social media when she was 10 / 11 (when her friends all started opening accounts). She rolls her eyes at the nonsense that goes on and doesn’t care if she is called a nerd. Her proper friends just accept it and don’t care anymore.

Other reasons I reckon are marriage breakdown and lack of structured sensible rules at home.

Can’t say any of this in real life as other parents get angry! I will name change after this so I don’t have to read a load of abuse .

Keep them off social media OP, that’s a good start.

I am truly sorry for the teens who are self harming and suicidal but there are happy teenagers out there too, don’t despair.

We keep talking and talking about mental health without offering any real solutions other than talking. Mental Health services are overwhelmed so who are they going to talk to? Friends and family who themselves are being constantly invited to share their own woes ad infinitum. It minimises the reality of people who have real serious problems and reduces their likelihood of being able to get an appointment with someone who can actually help them. Few of us are therapists, counsellors or have any training in mental health support, and people telling you their problems can be distressing and worrying. There was a post a while back about building resilience and the benefits of a stiff upper lip, and I think there is some value in that.

Is the LGBT+ thing a class thing, we're in a very working class, even lower working class deprived area and I'm not seeing that among my DC's friends or the teens I work with. "Gay" is still used as an insult here

"Climate change is the huge fucking monster looming on the horizon."

They've been saying that since the '70s.

This isn't completely new, things have always been like this for teenagers in some way. When I was young the homophobia and homophobic bullying was horrendous, apparently that's less now (though gay is still used as an insult in DS primary school), but now there is pressure is to be LGBTQ rather than straight. There's always something young people are supposed to conform to.

If there is a major difference now it's the internet. these things can follow you everywhere if you're on social media. And of course there are online communities that actively encourage harmful behaviours in members, and even those set up to help and support people can have unintentionally harmful effects.

I do think that separated parents who "work together" and "co-parent" well (in their eyes) certainly underestimate the effect it has on their children. Divided loyalties, treating on egg shells so as not to accidentally report back something they shouldn't, different houses with different rules etc, new step relationships. It's all very difficult for teenagers to manage and they often put on a front that they're ok with it to protect their parents feelings. But underneath they are not. These are not "bad" parents, they're the ones who think they've done the right thing by providing two happy homes, reducing conflict etc etc. But the effects are deep and uncomfortable for everyone to face.