Soaring rates of anxiety in children

[Kitchandro]

It’s easy to just blame social media. I’ve no doubt it’s a factor, mainly because of all the negative news stories on there, like Parafox says, 25 years ago you were barely aware of this stuff. Now you have all this perspective of the world (i.e. it’s not a good place), and that’s too much for kids to handle.

 

But frankly, I just think these figures are an accurate reflection on what life is, especially for young people. I’ve always thought school was a horrible, depressing place focused on conditioning you rather than helping you to become the best version of yourself. Everything about it is about fitting in with social expectations and, in the long term, funnelling you into areas of society where you will be most useful to it, rather than teaching you how to make the best of your life for yourself.

 

Growing up is essentially realising that life is loads of pressure and expectations on you with no likelihood of fulfilment or enjoyment, the prospect of chasing down your next paycheque just to keep yourself alive felt very acutely even in your early teens. Connection is difficult because people (teens and adults) are just faking their way through life to be able to get through it.

 

I had anxiety for my entire adolescence and was not fully aware of it until I was an adult. In my opinion, this is a typical experience. Even as adults, I think most of us are empty or depressed on a regular basis, but that feeling is normalised until we have just accepted it as part of living. We then project this onto our own children and the cycle continues. That’s why young people are key to making society better, they can see why they don’t like it without the prejudice of being conditioned to accept it.

 

Society absolutely does not care about children or young people, I just think things are getting more accurately reported now (much like they are now with neurodivergence and sexual preference etc). This is one positive at least, the kids are understanding how they feel more and that’s a start.

[Sampson]

1 hour ago, Kitchandro said:

It’s easy to just blame social media. I’ve no doubt it’s a factor, mainly because of all the negative news stories on there, like Parafox says, 25 years ago you were barely aware of this stuff. Now you have all this perspective of the world (i.e. it’s not a good place), and that’s too much for kids to handle.

 

But frankly, I just think these figures are an accurate reflection on what life is, especially for young people. I’ve always thought school was a horrible, depressing place focused on conditioning you rather than helping you to become the best version of yourself. Everything about it is about fitting in with social expectations and, in the long term, funnelling you into areas of society where you will be most useful to it, rather than teaching you how to make the best of your life for yourself.

 

Growing up is essentially realising that life is loads of pressure and expectations on you with no likelihood of fulfilment or enjoyment, the prospect of chasing down your next paycheque just to keep yourself alive felt very acutely even in your early teens. Connection is difficult because people (teens and adults) are just faking their way through life to be able to get through it.

 

I had anxiety for my entire adolescence and was not fully aware of it until I was an adult. In my opinion, this is a typical experience. Even as adults, I think most of us are empty or depressed on a regular basis, but that feeling is normalised until we have just accepted it as part of living. We then project this onto our own children and the cycle continues. That’s why young people are key to making society better, they can see why they don’t like it without the prejudice of being conditioned to accept it.

 

Society absolutely does not care about children or young people, I just think things are getting more accurately reported now (much like they are now with neurodivergence and sexual preference etc). This is one positive at least, the kids are understanding how they feel more and that’s a start.

There’s an awful lot of truth in what you say. No surprise birth rates are on the floor and no one wants to bring children into this world anymore either. 
 

Of course we have better medicine etc. now and live longer but I do often wonder if humans were actually happier back in hunter gatherer times. 

[HighPeakFox]

1 hour ago, Sampson said:

There’s an awful lot of truth in what you say. No surprise birth rates are on the floor and no one wants to bring children into this world anymore either. 
 

Of course we have better medicine etc. now and live longer but I do often wonder if humans were actually happier back in hunter gatherer times. 

I've never been more at peace about my choice not to have children.

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, Sampson said:

There’s an awful lot of truth in what you say. No surprise birth rates are on the floor and no one wants to bring children into this world anymore either. 
 

Of course we have better medicine etc. now and live longer but I do often wonder if humans were actually happier back in hunter gatherer times. 

I do sometimes think this too, but then I think of seeing graveyards chock full of children pre-1950, imagine the suffering they must have gone through and then imagine the suffering their parents must have gone through seeing only two or three out of ten children reach adulthood, and I simply can't imagine that they would be happier, given the level of grief and suffering there must have been.

 

11 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

I've never been more at peace about my choice not to have children.

Not to mention it's the most socially responsible thing someone can do to guarantee the future by far, right now.

[HighPeakFox]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

it's the most socially responsible thing someone can do to guarantee the future by far, right now.

In more ways than one - I know I didn't want to pass on the difficulties I inherited/learned.

[Torquay Gunner]

25 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

In more ways than one - I know I didn't want to pass on the difficulties I inherited/learned.

I accepted long ago that I am totally not the right person to have children, fortunately my partner who is a decade younger than me felt the same way. 

[Parafox]

5 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

I've never been more at peace about my choice not to have children.

 

3 hours ago, Torquay Gunner said:

I accepted long ago that I am totally not the right person to have children, fortunately my partner who is a decade younger than me felt the same way. 

 

Slightly off topic but, with regard to having children, my wife and I struggled with IVF and then we adopted.

 

Anxiety has been the biggest thing we suffer from and that's as a direct result of adopting.

 

Unfortunately, due to pre-adoption trauma, our eldest (now 32) has ongoing and quite difficult emotional and mental health issues. Our younger (now 26) came to us as a 3 month old, with no trauma and was perfectly happy and well as a baby and small child. Sadly she too now suffers from anxiety and is quite socially reclusive as a result of what she experienced within our family caused by the unfortunate difficult fallout from the eldest.

 

I can honestly say, if we had known back then what our lives would be like over the last 30 years, we would have chosen not to adopt and had a much better life with just the 2 of us.

[Wymsey]

9 minutes ago, Parafox said:

 

 

Slightly off topic but, with regard to having children, my wife and I struggled with IVF and then we adopted.

 

Anxiety has been the biggest thing we suffer from and that's as a direct result of adopting.

 

Unfortunately, due to pre-adoption trauma, our eldest (now 32) has ongoing and quite difficult emotional and mental health issues. Our younger (now 26) came to us as a 3 month old, with no trauma and was perfectly happy and well as a baby and small child. Sadly she too now suffers from anxiety and is quite socially reclusive as a result of what she experienced within our family caused by the unfortunate difficult fallout from the eldest.

 

I can honestly say, if we had known back then what our lives would be like over the last 30 years, we would have chosen not to adopt and had a much better life with just the 2 of us.

That's very sad.

Do you genuinely see a positive personal/work quality of life for them, given their troubles?

[Jon the Hat]

10 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Not to mention it's the most socially responsible thing someone can do to guarantee the future by far, right now.

Utter nonsense.

[leicsmac]

6 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

Utter nonsense.

Either we sort world population numbers as individuals and get them to stabilise or events stemming from lack of resources will do it for us in a most ugly fashion. You know that as well as I do, Jon.

 

Yes, there will be a downside in the form of lopsided age demographics for a while and some folks might get a little annoyed that there's not enough people of certain skin colours around, and that will need careful management... but believe it or not, those are the best possible outcomes. All the others get very, very grim.

Edited 29 August 2024 by leicsmac

[Jon the Hat]

24 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Either we sort world population numbers as individuals and get them to stabilise or events stemming from lack of resources will do it for us in a most ugly fashion. You know that as well as I do, Jon.

 

Yes, there will be a downside in the form of lopsided age demographics for a while and some folks might get a little annoyed that there's not enough people of certain skin colours around, and that will need careful management... but believe it or not, those are the best possible outcomes. All the others get very, very grim.

The UK population is in organic decline already, so the impact on people here not having kids is undoubtedly a negative for standards of living in the future.  The developing world is also seeing dramatic reductions in the numbers of children being born as they get wealthier, so there is no need or benefit to suggest people should stop having children.

[leicsmac]

43 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

The UK population is in organic decline already, so the impact on people here not having kids is undoubtedly a negative for standards of living in the future.  The developing world is also seeing dramatic reductions in the numbers of children being born as they get wealthier, so there is no need or benefit to suggest people should stop having children.

And IMO the attitudes of people like Peaky are a contributing part to that decline, I don't see how they would not be.

 

Additionally, this is a human problem, not just a UK human one, in which the UK has to play its part.

[bovril]

Related article today 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/29/uk-teenagers-low-life-satisfaction-europe

[Babylon]

On 27/08/2024 at 10:50, bovril said:

Instinctively I'd agree it's down to overuse of social media but it'd be interesting to see if there are similar trends in other countries where social media use will probably be at the same levels as in the UK.

I think there are obviously other factors that play into it. From parenting (or lack of it), speak to any teachers and the shift in parents expecting schools to basically teach their children everything is huge. The general shift to digital and the online world of computing. Go past a park during the summer and nobody was about, in my youth the whole estate would be out there playing football or british bulldog etc. 

 

The notion that everyone is a paedo wanting to steal your kids, leading to huge fences around schools, with some looking more like bloodey prisons. People not giving kids the freedom they used to have to walk to school, to go and have fun with friends (god forbid they wanted to go out). The constant need to know where they are etc. 

 

The breakdown in community, it's probably alien to many now. But we knew every kids young or old on our street and we all played together, we knew every neighbour, we'd all be randomly round peoples houses on our street all the time. Now people barely seem to know their neighbours.

 

You can list 100's of things, but the digital life for me would be a the biggest aspect. 

[bovril]

21 hours ago, Parafox said:

 

 

Slightly off topic but, with regard to having children, my wife and I struggled with IVF and then we adopted.

 

Anxiety has been the biggest thing we suffer from and that's as a direct result of adopting.

 

Unfortunately, due to pre-adoption trauma, our eldest (now 32) has ongoing and quite difficult emotional and mental health issues. Our younger (now 26) came to us as a 3 month old, with no trauma and was perfectly happy and well as a baby and small child. Sadly she too now suffers from anxiety and is quite socially reclusive as a result of what she experienced within our family caused by the unfortunate difficult fallout from the eldest.

 

I can honestly say, if we had known back then what our lives would be like over the last 30 years, we would have chosen not to adopt and had a much better life with just the 2 of us.

I'm very sorry to hear this. I have close friends who've adopted and my Gran was adopted - I might not be here otherwise. I'm thinking of doing it myself in the future. It's a very selfless thing that you did and I think probably you've helped your daughters in many ways that might not always be apparent. Sorry if that comes across as a bit personal and intrusive but it's a topic close to my heart and I have great respect for people who adopt.

[Trav Le Bleu]

When I was a school kid, I was always off sick with nervous stomach and headaches. I hated school. This was the 80s.

 

I probably wasn't the only one, they just weren't looking to classify you back then. 

 

Anxiety aside, I think I'd still have hated school.

[Parafox]

2 hours ago, bovril said:

I'm very sorry to hear this. I have close friends who've adopted and my Gran was adopted - I might not be here otherwise. I'm thinking of doing it myself in the future. It's a very selfless thing that you did and I think probably you've helped your daughters in many ways that might not always be apparent. Sorry if that comes across as a bit personal and intrusive but it's a topic close to my heart and I have great respect for people who adopt.

 

Thanks for this. And you're probably right but, who knows? 

If our eldest had been adopted by different people it could have turned out better for her or maybe not. I can say however that despite all the traumas, the violence, the MH issues and many other things that have tested our resolve, we have never turned our backs on her although ostensibly she now wants nothing to do with us, yet she still sends up to 200 abusive, unpleasant, nasty insulting, texts a day. But that's her MH.

 

Having a child/children born to you is a lottery. In most cases it's fine and kids and their families thrive. 

With adoption, you do have a choice. Adopters need to think very carefully and take all the time to read file notes, understand the child's background and reason for adoption as well as any family history that's available and DON'T be pressured by the adoption agencies to proceed if you're not 100% sure the child is right for you, and you for the child.

Unfortunately, that happened to us and we've had an extremely difficult life as a result.

 

If you want, I'm happy to PM with you on this. 

[Parafox]

23 hours ago, Wymsey said:

That's very sad.

Do you genuinely see a positive personal/work quality of life for them, given their troubles?

 

For the older one, in short no, sadly.

 

Younger daughter works on a zero hours contract in hospitality about 10-12hrs a week so there's some hope there.

 

Neither have any meaningful relationships. Older daughter has cut herself off from any friends she did have and now lives as a virtual recluse.

 

Younger daughter has interaction when she's working but other than contacts through her gaming, nothing. We're working on her social anxiety but it's long and difficult.

[Foxdiamond]

1 hour ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

When I was a school kid, I was always off sick with nervous stomach and headaches. I hated school. This was the 80s.

 

I probably wasn't the only one, they just weren't looking to classify you back then. 

 

Anxiety aside, I think I'd still have hated school.

As I mentioned on another thread I hated school too. I left in 1972. 

[Paninistickers]

4 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

When I was a school kid, I was always off sick with nervous stomach and headaches. I hated school. This was the 80s.

 

I probably wasn't the only one, they just weren't looking to classify you back then. 

 

Anxiety aside, I think I'd still have hated school.

I'm with you. In the 80s there really wasnt anyone or anywhere to turn to for help. 

 

Teachers and Parents would often use phrases like 'dont tell tales' or 'it'll go away'  or 'dont be so ridiculous' ...that was about it. 

 

Maybe I'm lucky, but my two have had a far happier, far more balanced, far less stressful childhood than mine (and most others from our era) which - I  my case  - was essentially a mix of total boredom and (largely and fortunately successfully) avoiding the bullies...(but the stress of constantly avoiding being  the object of bullying was exhausting)

[Daggers]

4 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

When I was a school kid, I was always off sick with nervous stomach and headaches. I hated school. This was the 80s.

 

I probably wasn't the only one, they just weren't looking to classify you back then. 

 

Anxiety aside, I think I'd still have hated school.

Me too, and I was the Deputy Head.

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 minute ago, Daggers said:

Me too, and I was the Deputy Head.

You told me you were the school nurse and that I should give a cough.

[Daggers]

17 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

You told me you were the school nurse and that I should give a cough.

And that's why I'm no longer the Deputy Head

 

 

[Sly]

It’s an interesting topic and I think that answer is simple.

 

The advancement of technology has picked up pace so much in the last 20 years alone, that the world is a closer place now, with knowledge at their end of their fingertips. 
 

Someone said to me recently that the world has more criminals and people looking to inflict harm now (they used more aggressive words to describe them), so you have to watch your children and you can’t let them do what we did in the 80s / 90s.
 

I replied and said, they were always around, you just didn’t know about them.  
 

You had access to a newspaper and four TV channels in the early 80s, that was it!

 

Of these four channels, the 21:00 watershed for TV was far more restricted to exposure to more explicit content and violence then than it is now. With things like Netflix, YouTube, On Demand services etc, it’s basically pointless. 

 

Reporters for these were largely local so they tended to report on your local village fete etc! The overall standard of living was lower, so keeping up with the Jones then was having a house! At one time, you were special if you had a TV!

 

Now even having a wireless vacuum cleaner, GHD straightens or voice activated coffee maker has been a “flex” to put up on the social media as a barometer of how cool you are. 
 

Loads of people are chasing the dream that is the ideology that social media influencers portray. They’re toxic to the younger generation with their promotion of turkey teeth, lip fillers, orange bodies (I know I’ve gone a little off beat here but bear with me). They are gaining body dysmorphia as they are all chasing the same appearance. 

 

I’m aware of children getting bullied because they didn’t have a smart phone.

 

They’ll also be an element of 0.001% of the world are “wrong uns”. Obviously bigger population, more of them like but let’s no think about that too much! 

 

Ultimately the horse has bolted on this and we aren’t going to put it back into the pen by banning smart phones for children in my opinion. They’ll still be exposed to news via other social media. 
 

Also, again slightly off topic but Children are getting more aware and to a degree smarter at a younger age. Someone said to me a while back, that they’d caught their daughter looking at image of “exposed” women (again not the term they’d used) on the internet and they were 10! I found my first image in a discarded magazine in a bush when I was a bit older! I’m still not sure to this day who was discarding all of those magazines in random bushes in the countryside. I’m guessing that isn’t a thing anymore. 

[inckley fox]

On 28/08/2024 at 11:36, Kitchandro said:

It’s easy to just blame social media. I’ve no doubt it’s a factor, mainly because of all the negative news stories on there, like Parafox says, 25 years ago you were barely aware of this stuff. Now you have all this perspective of the world (i.e. it’s not a good place), and that’s too much for kids to handle.

 

But frankly, I just think these figures are an accurate reflection on what life is, especially for young people. I’ve always thought school was a horrible, depressing place focused on conditioning you rather than helping you to become the best version of yourself. Everything about it is about fitting in with social expectations and, in the long term, funnelling you into areas of society where you will be most useful to it, rather than teaching you how to make the best of your life for yourself.

 

Growing up is essentially realising that life is loads of pressure and expectations on you with no likelihood of fulfilment or enjoyment, the prospect of chasing down your next paycheque just to keep yourself alive felt very acutely even in your early teens. Connection is difficult because people (teens and adults) are just faking their way through life to be able to get through it.

 

I had anxiety for my entire adolescence and was not fully aware of it until I was an adult. In my opinion, this is a typical experience. Even as adults, I think most of us are empty or depressed on a regular basis, but that feeling is normalised until we have just accepted it as part of living. We then project this onto our own children and the cycle continues. That’s why young people are key to making society better, they can see why they don’t like it without the prejudice of being conditioned to accept it.

 

Society absolutely does not care about children or young people, I just think things are getting more accurately reported now (much like they are now with neurodivergence and sexual preference etc). This is one positive at least, the kids are understanding how they feel more and that’s a start.

I read this last week and it came to mind with something I read today.

 

I do this awful thing where I trawl through international newspapers for a bit each morning, mostly so I can impress (or, rather, annoy) people throughout the day with all the titbits I've come across. And today in the Spanish news there were two pieces side by side. One about soaring levels of depression - or sadness might be a better word - and anxiety among under-30s and teenagers. The other said that 25% of young Spanish males - i.e. the ones who never had to deal with Franco or the aftermath - would support a dictatorship. I couldn't help but feel they were different faces of the same beast.

 

Okay, the question itself was part of the problem, designed to show up young people's 'thickness'. The question 'Would you agree that sometimes an authoritarian leader might be better than a democratically-elected politician?' really isn't the same, despite their conclusions, as 'Do you prefer democracy or dictatorship?' But it backs up the idea that the disillusion among younger people is dangerous, can be seen everywhere you look, and has multiple causes. In the same survey over 40% said that it wasn't only social media which was feeding them with a misleading and unduly negative view of the world. It was (I can't remember exactly) I suppose also TV, news, parents, schools and so on.

 

I'm not sure what the solutions need to be, but I suspect they'll have to be fairly radical. On the back of what happened in Germany yesterday, or in the UK over the summer, we obviously need to find some kind of distinction between propaganda and freedom of expression. And we need people to fear each other's company a bit less.

 

Social networks, news channels, politicians, parents and (possibly the easiest area to impact on quickly) schools are all going to have to be looked at in some way or other. Banning mobile phones in schools may be a useful symbolic step, but a wider cultural shift - as Babylon mentioned - which backtracks on some of the post-9/11 paranoia is vital. We're too scared of the world, we don't get out and have fun enough, the arts aren't thriving (often apparent when cultures starts to come apart at the seams), the football's too expensive, and the rhetoric - in the Guardian as much as the Mail - is too divisive. We've become too cynical, fearful and negative about humanity in general. As others stated, much of life has become about simply doing what you have to do to get by in what's painted as a pretty dreadful world. I see a lot of anxiety everywhere, in all age groups.

 

As a final aside... For the smokers out there, would a measure which could lead to the closure of many pubs which are the last gathering-place for many communities, really help in a climate where people see less and less of each other? And where communal spirit was, in the end, the thing which brought an end to the riots a few weeks ago? Personally, I'd be doing all I could to try to give people ways of enjoying each other's company face-to-face, rather than taking them away. And I'd definitely prefer young people to be going down the pub and vaping and irritating me there rather than hiding the bloody things in their school ties!