Kids being kids?
I think the young of today are pretty messed up, but it is at no fault of their own. Instead, they have been pushed into an environment that is not conducive to healthy outcomes for them in the present, nor in their future. It is a cluster of conditions, not a single point, with the major ones being the digital environment that has been used as a substitute carer, the food supply which has pushed unhealthy and addictive alternatives, and the parenting structures which has put convenience over skill development. Each of these have complexities and complications, as well as a wide variety of impacts depending on the individuals involved, but they are pretty much all negative.
Is it any wonder that children are behaving poorly?
In some areas in Finland, a quarter of 11-12 year old boys are on ADHD medication, despite the estimates of global prevalence cited being around 5-8 percent. That is between a 300 - 500% more diagnoses. However, as I suspect, the diagnoses are false, even if the children themselves exhibit some ADHD traits, because their conditioning has built ADHD-looking habits.
Now going on that headline of schools pushing ADHD medication, while this is conjecture currently, I could believe it. Not because teachers and schools want to drug kids, but because over the decades the conditions in schools have changed, driven largely by the parents. The authority of the teacher has decreased significantly because many parents want their kids to "do well" even if they are not acting well, which has also diminished respect for teachers.
Not only this, many parents have taken the "soft parenting" approach, because they want to be friends with their kids, which has meant that the children often behave poorly, but believe they are entitled to being treated as if they are angels. And, the soft parenting approach has also led to many children having almost zero resilience, unable to deal emotionally with any kind of resistance. While soft parenting has some pros, the human tendency for ease and convenience, means that the pros are lessened and the cons are emphasised in most situations. Most parents aren't consistent or committed enough to do much themselves, because they themselves are struggling to deal with the environment that has conditioned them also.
So with few options in classrooms where there multiple children are running about, screaming, throwing things, becoming violent, refusing to do work, disrupting others, attacking students and teachers; and with very few tools to deal with them, it is pretty natural that schools will push some form of medication to these kids. Whether it is in the best interest of the child or not, because having this much disruption in the class is not in the best interest of any of the other children participating.
Home life is missing structure, school life is missing structure, and a huge amount of time is now being spent in digital environments that offer reward incentives without having to do anything of consequence, so it is "natural" that children are behaving the way they are. And without consequence for their behaviours, they are essentially having poor behaviour reinforced, without the experience or foresight to understand they are hurting their own future by behaving as they do.
The children can't be blamed.
But those same children are growing into adults, and adults are held responsible. That means that the parents of these children are responsible for the behaviour of their children, whether it be at home, in the class on on the street. If the kids aren't going to face consequences, the parents should. It is a pity there isn't a medication to give adults to make them better parents. But those parents have also been conditioned by their environment, which was already changing toward worse outcomes.
And this is a problem, because once the ship has turned and is powering ahead, it is very difficult to turn it again, and it takes a lot of time. Generations. For a couple generations now, the parenting approach, and the tools available for parents and teachers to manage children's behaviours, have lessened to the point that it comes down to medication. We see spanking a child for poor behaviour as abuse now, but giving them medication to cope with the impacts of how they were raised in an environment that left them malformed and misaligned, as a healthy solution.
Pretty sick, right?
But when that is the only tool available to manage situations that used to be managed in far more analogue and person to person ways, that is the tool that will get used. It is the same with many aspects of culture today, where for a long time people were conditioned to become fat to drive consumerism, then told to love their fat body to keep consumerism going, and then given weight-loss products to try to lose weight, and most recently, drugs that mean all those people who were pretending to love their fat selves, could take a pill and become more (or less) of the person they wanted to be.
We are treating a lot of conditions that don't need to be created in the first place, but are created because of consumerism of some kind, which drives various trends in everything from education to parenting, to pharmaceutical treatments. None of what we do lives in a vacuum, so when society shifts its direction to what might have even been backed by healthy intention, it tends to be hijacked by the marketplace for profit. Because that is what the marketplace is designed to do -
Make profit from our behaviours.
While we are hurting their future, we are also doing our children a disservice in the moment, because we are reducing their potential experience right now. Kids are moving less, passive more, overweight and unhealthier more often, less dexterous, more anxious, and increasingly lonely and depressed. They can escape into a screen for a time, but the reality of who they are is always with them, whenever they emerge from that digital fantasy world.
Reality harms them, just by them being the way they are.
It is like we are no longer teaching kids how to fit into reality and instead training them for a life of fantasy, where they will constantly have to find ways to escape in order to cope. The kids at school who want to learn have to escape the disruption from the kids who don't, but they are all going to impact on each other now and into the future, and escape isn't permanent.
Until it is.
And I think that is where we are now headed, with people getting engaged to AI chatbots and spending their time immersed into digital environments that have no contact with reality. It isn't an evolution of humanity, it is a symptom of humanity's failure toward collapse.
We aren't becoming better humans, we are becoming lesser humans.
Medicate on it.
Taraz
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It is just getting worse and worse and all we do as a society is patch the new problems kids face, with medication or psycological therapy. I would encourage every school to have at least one week off school activity per quarter, with no screens, doing physical activities, having conversations and socializing as it was done on the past. Maybe some of those kids would realize the good things "regular non screen" activities can bring them and start engaging in some of them afterwards.
And create new problems in the process.
I reckon this is a good idea. A quarterly "retreat" to learn life skills.
First of all, being a citizen of developing country in the South Asian reason, ADHD is not even consider a thing here. The problems kids face here — stunted growth, malnutrition, unclean water —are way different than the one in the European region i.e. Finland. So, our experience is way different than the one out there. And, there is nothing to be proud of. This Gen-Z, Alpha, Beta is the future and this behavioral problems are not good at all. With this much proportion, medicines are a mere escape from the reality and nothing else.
Secondly, the term 'soft-parenting' is not a thing here, I am in my mid-20s and believe me, my father still slaps me whenever I do the wrong. To others, it may sound 'abusive' or weird, but here in our culture/society, it is a normal thing. It does not mean that kids are too good out here, but I think they are still in somewhat better order. Even a stranger has the authority to correct the wrong-doers in a positive manner. Literally every week, I see a news stating firing in the school by a teenager and sometimes, even underage folks, killing, injuring others. Here the optics are bit different, to us teachers (respected same as parents) as well as school boundaries are a holy entity or place.
Thirdly, from kindergarten to colleges, no cell phones are allowed. Although, I find the college one wrong, because the times are changing and one must live in accordance with the change, in order to avoid the regress.
Fourthly, I just read a WHO report which states that "roughly one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections is resistant to available antibiotics", although it is different to what we are dealing here, but I think they are still aligned in some manners. Rather than teaching kids to go natural, we are pushing them into medical slavery (good for capitalism, I guess).
And in the end, the damn technology i.e. AI, social media is really getting out of hands. Even, the parents just to get rid of their parental responsibilities are willing to give away their innocent kids to the technology. My 12 years old niece knows how to use chatgpt, how to search videos on YouTube and she does not know anything about UNO, Ludo, or kid games. The pros are there but the world is neglecting the cons.
For sure it is. And i wonder what happens when starting from a "lower" (I use that with a grain of salt) position in many ways, combined with the changing habits of kids. How do things improve?
I am old enough to know. And people I know from other countries here, find it pretty lame that they can't smack their kids. I think it is child abuse not to in some way. No good parent will ever smack their kid to hurt them, but the law stops them. Bad parents don't care about the law anyway. It hasn't stopped physical child abuse at all here.
They have just brought this into Finland (finally) for kids up to 14 (I think).
Great! More reasons to develop for the pharmas! ....
In my own view, a lot of what we call “bad behaviour” in children today is really a reflection of the environment they are growing up in, just as you have said. I see it around me, too, as a teacher. kids with little structure at home, parents who are overwhelmed, and often complain when teachers try to punish the student for being wrong. It happens a lot in my country. the initial teacher has the liberty to disciple erring students even if it has to involve flogging, but now it is different, we were told stop using cain and I agree but the student will have these days are mostly unruly. Some of them beat their teacher and disrupt the school setting.
I honestly feel that many children are not truly ADHD; they’re just reacting to a lifestyle that doesn’t support healthy development. Screens, soft parenting, and lack of real-life engagement are shaping habits that look like disorders. Instead of tackling the root causes, we rush to medication because it’s the fastest solution, and I think the way is not the best. There is even a popular saying that spares the roard and spoils the child. We now live in a world where abnormal is now made normal even parent who are supposed to be disciple themselves are raising a child. Before, if someone saw an erring child in the community, an adult was ready to correct and disciple such a child, but now it is different. If an adult does that, he will be scolded by the child's parents, which is not so before in our society.
For me, the saddest part is that the children suffer twice, now and in their future. They miss out on learning resilience, social skills, and emotional balance. I believe things can get better, but only if parents, schools, and society admit their role and start making real changes. I meant the real changes. It is sickening to see the kind of adult and pupils we have in our society today.
They have an app site here where they complain about their angels. I have some teacher friends, and it sometimes borders on and crosses over into bullying the teachers. As a result, the teachers just align so they don't get into trouble.
Fastest solution to change some behaviours, but a cause for new problems to emerge.
I don't see it happening in the future. People are looking to get rid of responsibility, not take more.
Really sickening, it's an irony what the world is turning into. With all the things I see going on right now, I just hope and pray that I'll be a good parent in my time.
This is the root of the problem.
The lack of structure, the lack of intentionality. We're merely existing rather than living. What most people do is live in a fantasy digital world, no more societal values. I keep wondering how human race deviated so far. And worst is that it isn't getting better anytime soon.
It's more like those who recognise the decadence and try to live right will have to fight the society and fight the trends as well.
hope and prayers do little to change the world unfortunately.
We all behave on incentive, and when the incentive is to make money, people will work to influence our behaviours.
The overall standard of parenting has declined. Parents have less time for their children. But they have more time to consume digital content.
Most people do very little but say they have no time to do more.
I love how you are able to understand hidden facts that the rich and affluent in the society doesn't want us to know.
I feel like most of the time, we're being played.
It's so bad that it's not just about the capitalist enjoying autonomy, but the government is part of the conspiracy.
They create a problem by making us believe it's normal, then later when we realise that this is a problem they go ahead to sell us the solution.
I wonder if it's just the society evolving into whatever we have now or if there are people orchestrating and directing the direction of evolution.
I hope people will be observant enough to see and understand what is going on; but of course they won't let us because the world is becoming more noisy and rowdy as time passes.
We are playing ourselves. We have the choice to behave differently, but it is a harder choice than to do what we are conditioned to do.
Wow, lemme drop my views and how I think it should be.
Bad characters that influence children generated from the environment they're born into. It becomes a normals phenomenon to them not knowing how dangerous it is on the impact of a child's life. I have witness where a pupil refused to be corrected in high school because that's how he knows how to do things, we never experienced scolding or any form of discipline, back in the days where our parent would tell the teachers please do the right thing for my child to be discipline for us the parent and for the "society" also. I takes a community to raise a child responsibly that doesn't mean the parent can't do so but when they environment is of a discipline form every other things stay positive. Environment is actually important for a child up bringing. @tarazkp
Has the culture changed there over the last twenty years or so in regard to parenting?
Kids these days really piss me off it wasn't like this back in the days. Parents are the major ones to blame. Values are taught from home. Recently, online, I saw a little boy throwing food at an old couple in a restaurant. When apprehended, he was laughing with his friends not until he got smacked in the face by a random stranger who got irritated by his repulsive behaviour—something his parents have prolly never done since he was born.
Naturally children want to explore, play stupid games and do stupid things. If they are not taught right from wrong, they end up being stupid. Parents should do better.
I saw boy smacking his mum coz he saw his dad doing the same 👀
And I think there is going to be more "street justice" coming, which will often be far worse in outcome.
It's so weird that it feels more and more like either or. Either meds or violence. Parents are overwhelmed with the requirements of the system to constantly produce, making less and less money in relation to cost.
They, too, are somewhat choiceless. Everything we adults do is capitalized. We're constantly manipulated into consuming. To give our attention to what makes money, water for the mills - but not to what is the future.
Yes, adults should be responsible. But I see more and more of them who are not capable of it. They lack even the most basic tools. They can't even want to be what we determine as a "good, responsible" parent.
And then again, the question that we discussed before, and will for the next 10 years until our daughters are grown and we see the results - how do we prepare them for having to deal with that huge amount of quarter-mature beings that are suddenly called adults?
Sometimes, violence from meds.
For sure. The system is very broken. Everything is connected.
Society is breaking apart at the seams.
I have no idea. This is all part of the exploration of that too. I want to do what is right by her, but pretending it is all rosy will do the opposite. She is going to face a lot of hardship, that she wouldn't if society was healthy. A healthy society and the problems are still there, but are very different.
Behaviour patterns reduced to profit cycles for big corps. That's wht it is 😊
Greed for the Green
These are interesting statistics you've shared... It's regrettable to see situations like this happening all over the world.
I believe one of the fundamental causes is the inadequate educational process and lack of proper support that families provide for their children. This same situation with children diagnosed with ADHD sometimes stems from misdiagnosis, caused by factors that lead them to have similar symptoms when they simply need appropriate, personalized attention. For many, it's easier to medicate them and keep them distracted, and then the consequences follow...
!BBH
I have also experience where a child is exchanging words with his dad, I was so surprised as we blacks it is our nature to spank or whop a kid who is disrespectful to elderly ones. But to my greatest surprised the dad just shoved it away like nothing happened. Parent should please do more for their wards. The outside world is not a funny place again. Things changes.
I've watched thousands of videos on web2( mainly Instagram and Facebook) that use the TDH hashtag. Those are funny videos about how TDH people acts in a determinate situation. It seems like if everybody suffers of TDH. Now all have sense. Maybe that is the plan: To make believe everybody is a posible ill person, and of course, to create panic and money.
Btw, is spanish and english content I've watched, so this thing is global.
TDH=ADHD