https://www.vox.com/first-person/2019/1/10/18174263/anxiety-kids-burnout
Author claims that kids’ anxiety and burnout is due to being raised by parents who have experienced “30 years of stagnant wages, the rising costs of housing, health care, and education, and a recession” and who communicate fear of downward mobility to their kids.
I think there is some truth to this. We live in a society in which wealth inequality is growing AND in which we are inundated with messages that we have the freedom to be who we want to be if we just work hard enough.
That combo alone creates a lot of pressure. Upward mobility is increasingly difficult but it’s your own fault if you don’t achieve it. Yikes.
Competition is fierce. IMHO, it is harder and more difficult that ever to reach success. The bar has been raised, the hoops are higher and there is a lot of competition for whatever one wants to achieve. To not share that with our children would be irresponsible. I’m sure it does create some anxiety.
My kids would never use any of those words to describe their lives.
Mental health professionals say kids describe their lives this way at unprecedented levels at high schools and colleges across the country.
Add to these a steady stream of apocalyptic movies out of Hollywood, a constant reminder of global climate meltdown through news feeds, unknown and uncertain future… How can we expect today’s kids to not experience deep anxiety and existential angst? I feel so sorry for this generation of kids and what they have to deal with.
I believe we parents can temper that message and deliver a better one. What children hear and experience in their homes is the biggest influence in their lives. You can opt out of all that anxiety and decide not to model it or pass it on your kids. As a parent, you get to shape their young worlds and fill it with the right signals and better messages. I don’t blame Hollywood, the news, or any outside sources for my kid’s emotional health and internal outlook. We choose not to be victims of those messages. Like @Leigh22, I’m pretty sure my kid wouldn’t use any of those words to describe his life, not because he doesn’t understand them or hasn’t seen their effects around him, but because the tape he plays in his head, the one recorded early in his home, defined a better reality and that’s the one he believes and operates by.
Parental influence often declines as students age. Peer opinions and school and community experiences can have a big impact on how anxious students are regardless of parental attempts.
Agree, @roycroft, that’s why it’s so important that those better messages are instilled early, so those later influences can be viewed with proper, healthy perspective.
I remember reading a recent study that wealthy kids are twice as likely to suffer from anxiety and depression. Also more likely to developer a substance abuse problem.
I’d bet my last dollar that if this is true, it’s that they’re twice as likely to get dx’ed and treated for anxiety & depression.
If you ask my parents, I’ve been an anxious child since I was born. I was always moody and irritable and have been treated for depression and anxiety since I was in my early teens - long before I understood anything about economics or the future. I was just behind the generation raised with a tablet in their hands.
There’s just something that feels off to me about this article that I can’t put my finger on.
The media fosters “anxiety about anxiety.” You can choose how to react to these media baits.
I do think the present climate, in which we make treatment options more available, contributes to increasing labels. (If you didn’t know “anxiety” was a prevalent term, would you even state you’re anxiety prone?) Even some worries that, in the past, would be considered small and surmountable.
At the same time, I am grateful that there is more support now, for those who need it.
Beware the bloggy info sources.
We all deal with some form of anxiety in our lives. I believe one of the biggest differences today is that instead of teaching kids how to cope with and in some cases overcome anxiety, we tend to run away from it or avoid it. Kids today definitely have more to deal with, but the explosion in anxiety disorders among young people is partially due to trying to protect our children from everything while not really protecting them from anything (especially smartphones and social media by saying no until they understand the ills of both).
Anxiety has been around for a long time and what has changed most as a society is not equipping our kids to cope and overcome life’s eventual “curveballs”. If World War III broke out tomorrow, would our kids be ready to step up like the “Greatest Generation”? I think that us parents would volunteer in place of our young adult children (instead of with their young adult children) and that is part of the problem.