More than one million under-18s in England had an active mental-health referral last year. Are we giving children the support they need, or failing to build the resilience adult life demands?
I think there are many factors that lead our children into this new phenomenon.
Firstly I think that children are not being put into work environment until mid twenties!
This delay is detrimental. They learn not to work. They learn to be lumbered with the debt of University. They travel and learn to run away. And they are subjected to pressures from social media and the schools need to do well for their own benefits. Teachers and heads are under pressure to do well and that pressure is passed onto the shoulders of our children.
Parents who themselves are under pressure from debt and high costs of living. Or are from poor backgrounds and drugs are an obvious part of their growing up. But more do now are the struggles of their parents. With more family’s having to have two bread winners leaving the kids to fend for themselves.
Marriage breakdown and divorce can seriously affect our young. And this heady mix of stress worry and fear is more paramount than fun freedom and care free but caring life.
Our inability to do the right things in politics has a lot to make up for. But in all honesty they too are the children of the recent past too.
My father went to war at 15. He lied about his age. His parents split at a young age. He had an education of just a blackboard and chalk. Yet he could do sums in his head faster than a calculator. Write letters and prose like no other. And defend himself and his family at every turn.
He was sent to the western desert on a diet of biscuits and beans. And survived, just. He had to fight for his life and those around him. And he never stopped. He was one of the hardest men I have ever met in more ways than one.
He taught me and my brothers how to work from an early age and gave us skills and life skills growing up. I could make do and mend by my teenage years and could earn a living if I had to in my teens. I left school at 15. Like him. And worked for a Bank.
I was shocked even then at the incapability of graduates that came after me. Who hadn’t had that upbringing. They were in early twenties and I was 15. And they had no clue what to do it how to think in the environment because they weren’t educated in doing work.
I realised then just how wrong further education is. And I still think that now.
They are not taught to think! They are taught to remember. To copy. To reach an equal level of knowledge but not understanding. And they get spat out the end having achieved nothing at all. Except the same scores of the same unwarranted exams. Because that’s what their schools and universities need for their survival.
That’s not real life! Being stuck in a bedroom learning how not to work. How not to engage. And how to avoid the realities of real life interaction and disciplines. They leave university as weak adults. And this shows in your stats.
I wonder how many 15 year olds would be able to do what my father did? Fight a war to the death and survive.
When I was in school I had to write my own programs on punch cards to do computer science. I later wrote programs for fun on my SPECTRUM computer.
Knowing your way round a keyboard isn’t the same as that. I font see even that level of basic programming being a subject today as even I did then. What that taught me was joined up thinking. Combined with working young, I could decode a car engine at 10 years old, that type of learning gave me skills to take into work at 15.
I fear the type of schooling isn’t up to the modern needs. By not allowing kids to work or learn practical skills. They learn instead not to work. Not to engage or worse leave school and do nothing or stay in and still do nothing until they realise too late in the day that their working life hasn’t started till well into their thirties.
I want more thinkers to think for themselves rather than learn aspects of other’s opinions and disjoint them together.
Learn checks and balances and reasons to doubt rather than follow a doctrine someone had forced upon them. Learn how to think and work out a problem before they are 15 so they can leave at 15 and know what to expect.
I too fear that we are letting them down by giving them false hope and a wrong path just because politicians want to deal with adults and not have to deal with unemployed children.
Out cane up with this pattern. Because he had no answer for youth unemployment. That’s his failure not theirs.
You hit the nail on the head regarding the difference between rote memorisation and actual problem-solving. There is an immense, unquantifiable value in learning how to build, fix, and fail at things in the real world before the age of 15. If you can decode a car engine or write code on a Spectrum by yourself, a university lecture hall has nothing on you!
We’ve inadvertently traded practical resilience and early independence for a system that excels at exam-passing choreography but leaves young people entirely unprepared for the sharp edges of adult life. Moving the goalposts of "adulthood" into the mid-twenties hasn't protected them; it's just delayed the inevitable shock. Appreciate you sharing these reflections.
Yes, My mother started full time work at 14 as did most of her generation and class. She would be counted as a child now. She worked in the Cardiff docks as a messenger. She had her 100th birthday in April. My father started work at 14 in an apprenticeship but still in a working environment. By her account she enjoyed the work and she liked having some money. She has never been bitter about it or thought she was unfairly treated. I don't suggest we should force all kids into work at a young age but there is something about being in a working environment which makes people grow up, mature and get a bit "work hardened".
Happy 100th to your mum, Steve—what an incredible milestone! Working the Cardiff docks at 14 certainly sounds like a surefire way to get "work hardened" fast. There's definitely a sweet spot between protecting childhood and letting young people taste the independence (and pocket money!) that comes with real-world responsibility.
Brilliant question, Cattmint. The regional and demographic breakdowns always hold the real stories. I’m actually digging into that specific data regionally as we speak for a follow-up piece.
It's a bit of a cliché but I think the internet and social media has a lot to answer for. The internet seems to have the effect of amplifying anxiety and worry in a person, in adults too I think
It might be a cliché, Steve, but only because it’s entirely true. Carrying an algorithm designed to stoke outrage and anxiety right in your pocket 24/7 is an exhausting experiment, and adults are struggling with it just as much as the kids
Great observation Jamie.
I think there are many factors that lead our children into this new phenomenon.
Firstly I think that children are not being put into work environment until mid twenties!
This delay is detrimental. They learn not to work. They learn to be lumbered with the debt of University. They travel and learn to run away. And they are subjected to pressures from social media and the schools need to do well for their own benefits. Teachers and heads are under pressure to do well and that pressure is passed onto the shoulders of our children.
Parents who themselves are under pressure from debt and high costs of living. Or are from poor backgrounds and drugs are an obvious part of their growing up. But more do now are the struggles of their parents. With more family’s having to have two bread winners leaving the kids to fend for themselves.
Marriage breakdown and divorce can seriously affect our young. And this heady mix of stress worry and fear is more paramount than fun freedom and care free but caring life.
Our inability to do the right things in politics has a lot to make up for. But in all honesty they too are the children of the recent past too.
My father went to war at 15. He lied about his age. His parents split at a young age. He had an education of just a blackboard and chalk. Yet he could do sums in his head faster than a calculator. Write letters and prose like no other. And defend himself and his family at every turn.
He was sent to the western desert on a diet of biscuits and beans. And survived, just. He had to fight for his life and those around him. And he never stopped. He was one of the hardest men I have ever met in more ways than one.
He taught me and my brothers how to work from an early age and gave us skills and life skills growing up. I could make do and mend by my teenage years and could earn a living if I had to in my teens. I left school at 15. Like him. And worked for a Bank.
I was shocked even then at the incapability of graduates that came after me. Who hadn’t had that upbringing. They were in early twenties and I was 15. And they had no clue what to do it how to think in the environment because they weren’t educated in doing work.
I realised then just how wrong further education is. And I still think that now.
They are not taught to think! They are taught to remember. To copy. To reach an equal level of knowledge but not understanding. And they get spat out the end having achieved nothing at all. Except the same scores of the same unwarranted exams. Because that’s what their schools and universities need for their survival.
That’s not real life! Being stuck in a bedroom learning how not to work. How not to engage. And how to avoid the realities of real life interaction and disciplines. They leave university as weak adults. And this shows in your stats.
I wonder how many 15 year olds would be able to do what my father did? Fight a war to the death and survive.
When I was in school I had to write my own programs on punch cards to do computer science. I later wrote programs for fun on my SPECTRUM computer.
Knowing your way round a keyboard isn’t the same as that. I font see even that level of basic programming being a subject today as even I did then. What that taught me was joined up thinking. Combined with working young, I could decode a car engine at 10 years old, that type of learning gave me skills to take into work at 15.
I fear the type of schooling isn’t up to the modern needs. By not allowing kids to work or learn practical skills. They learn instead not to work. Not to engage or worse leave school and do nothing or stay in and still do nothing until they realise too late in the day that their working life hasn’t started till well into their thirties.
I want more thinkers to think for themselves rather than learn aspects of other’s opinions and disjoint them together.
Learn checks and balances and reasons to doubt rather than follow a doctrine someone had forced upon them. Learn how to think and work out a problem before they are 15 so they can leave at 15 and know what to expect.
I too fear that we are letting them down by giving them false hope and a wrong path just because politicians want to deal with adults and not have to deal with unemployed children.
Out cane up with this pattern. Because he had no answer for youth unemployment. That’s his failure not theirs.
You hit the nail on the head regarding the difference between rote memorisation and actual problem-solving. There is an immense, unquantifiable value in learning how to build, fix, and fail at things in the real world before the age of 15. If you can decode a car engine or write code on a Spectrum by yourself, a university lecture hall has nothing on you!
We’ve inadvertently traded practical resilience and early independence for a system that excels at exam-passing choreography but leaves young people entirely unprepared for the sharp edges of adult life. Moving the goalposts of "adulthood" into the mid-twenties hasn't protected them; it's just delayed the inevitable shock. Appreciate you sharing these reflections.
Yes, My mother started full time work at 14 as did most of her generation and class. She would be counted as a child now. She worked in the Cardiff docks as a messenger. She had her 100th birthday in April. My father started work at 14 in an apprenticeship but still in a working environment. By her account she enjoyed the work and she liked having some money. She has never been bitter about it or thought she was unfairly treated. I don't suggest we should force all kids into work at a young age but there is something about being in a working environment which makes people grow up, mature and get a bit "work hardened".
Happy 100th to your mum, Steve—what an incredible milestone! Working the Cardiff docks at 14 certainly sounds like a surefire way to get "work hardened" fast. There's definitely a sweet spot between protecting childhood and letting young people taste the independence (and pocket money!) that comes with real-world responsibility.
Great piece. One question: is there any anomaly in the demographic spread of claimants?
Brilliant question, Cattmint. The regional and demographic breakdowns always hold the real stories. I’m actually digging into that specific data regionally as we speak for a follow-up piece.
It's a bit of a cliché but I think the internet and social media has a lot to answer for. The internet seems to have the effect of amplifying anxiety and worry in a person, in adults too I think
It might be a cliché, Steve, but only because it’s entirely true. Carrying an algorithm designed to stoke outrage and anxiety right in your pocket 24/7 is an exhausting experiment, and adults are struggling with it just as much as the kids