A pal of mine said “this is absolutely the worst time ever to be young.”
Strong words. But he works in frontline full time education. So he kens of which he speaks.
I was surprised to hear it.
You’d think times like the Black Death, the various world wars and that time it rained loads and Noah built that boat were all more challenging circumstances than those of today.
I admit ignorance. I delight in a bairn-free existence. I’ve nae real notion of how the youth of today are getting on.
But to check oot ma pal’s claim, I’ve done some asking aboot.
I asked my pal Paul, who’s got a young son.
“In meh opinion, Al, it’s definitely tougher bein a bairn these days than when eh wiz growin up,” he said.
So many social pressures, social media etc. Autism seems to also be a huge hing these days.
“It must be torture.”
Is it hard to be a Dundee youth? Depends who you’re asking
Then there’s 14 year old, Robbie, that’s sits wi me at Tannadice.
He doesnae agree wi Paul at all.
He reckons technology makes life way easier now. Nae need to queue up at a library, you can do twice as much research in half the time online.
You can watch films at home on streaming services without having to queue in a video shop.
Football’s in colour on the telly, and not black and white.
His mum, a teacher, wasnae having it.
She pointed out the massive rise in child poverty in Scotland.
She also mentioned the mental health crisis among young folk, and lengthy waiting times for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
Being constantly online further undermines the fragile self esteem that kids naturally experience, she believes.
“The unrealistic standards they are constantly bombarded with have a hugely negative psychological impact.”
She does concede that bairns are listened to in the classroom and in public life way way more than they ever would have been previously, which is pretty good.
I’d add to that the fact that child safety is taken far more seriously than in ages past.
‘It’s a lot worse these days for teenagers’
I wasnae convinced one way or the other though.
Aye, Robbie has good points.
But as Paul said when I asked him what his own son thought about the question “WE ken it’s a lot worse these days for teenagers, it’s jist normal tae them as they’ve nuhin tae compare it wi so dinnae ken any better.”
I asked my social worker mate about how things are for younger kids.
He believes constant government cuts to local services have made things unsustainably bad for many young people.
The routine help once available to families and children is simply not there.
So when social workers do get involved with a struggling family, they have very few services to signpost those people to.
Lifeboats have been sunk, and lifelines cut.
I had a chat with another pal who works for a uni to see how older teens are faring.
The pal is a support officer for students and says several really significant patterns have been emerging over the last five or so years.
Membership of university societies is massively down.
I was into all these groups at uni – the cycling club, the athletics club, the student newspaper – and they were the engine rooms of my social life.
Declining membership is a red flag.
Depression, isolation and anxiety are way up among the students too.
My pal reckons these two phenomena are related, and the cause is a total lack of social skills among the arriving generations of students.
Three years sat in the hoose on their laptops has left them utterly unprepared for university life.
Is Dundee youth disorder a symptom?
Of course – of course – locking up young people as they turned from children to young adults, and keeping them away from friends, family and healthy normal social interactions was always going to have a big negative impact.
And now the world we’ve released them into is not a good one.
Failing services, a horrible online landscape, a crashed economy that offers little prospects for their future.
I am glad I’m not 17.
It feels like we’ve accidentally created a world in which being young is not the joy that it should be. And if that’s true, then it’s a very serious failure indeed.
Obviously, the events in Kirkton this week makes this question a bit mair relevant.
Young people being tremendously unhappy, dissatisfied and angry doesnae just impact them.
Some will rage outwardly.
I really want to hear your thoughts dear reader. Ask the 14-year-old in your life.
Reflect on your own youth.
Ask your older relation: “Is this the worst time ever to be young?”
Fire a response in the comments if you’re reading online.
Email in a note to the editor if you’re reading the paper.
This is a chat worth having.
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