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Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

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Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#391

Post by AviationAtom »

ip26 wrote: post #281
AviationAtom wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Educate them in the perils and pitfalls of life. Tell them not to fear them, but be aware of them, then let them know you expect them to take it from there. Kids are far more capable then we give them credit for. Not long ago they were forced to work in factories to help provide for the family.

Kids are far more capable… This is a nice sound bite, but is completely lacking a key element. At what age, precisely, is this reasonable? When are they old enough to be safe around traffic, mystery dogs, and foul weather? I can’t know if I agree or disagree without hearing whether you prescribe this approach for fifteen year olds or five year olds.

TBH? It depends on the kid. This article itself points out not all kids are the same. Sometimes it's best to let a kid try and observe. If they handle it well then look to what a next milestone might look like.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#392

Post by andix »

voviz wrote: post #240
lostmsu wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my sample of 1 young adults no longer fight to be treated like grown-ups. Moreover, don't seem to want that in the first place.

From my sample of also N=1 (me, a 22 year old college student) I agree. I don't fight with my parents because I'm conflict avoidant. Plus, I'm financially dependent on my parents. I'm not going to risk my food and shelter for abstract ideas like "agency" or "maturing."

I think it’s really important that parents make their kids financially independent. And if it’s just sending them a fixed amount of money every month as long as they are in college, without any other requirements („it’s not important what and how you do it, as long as you do an education you have xxx$ every month to spend. If you need more, get a job.“)

And they should pay all their expenses on their own. So they see how much they need, and that they may not be able to buy food, if they spend it all for gaming or partying.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#393

Post by cpsns »

dopeboy wrote: post #336
daxvena wrote: post #162

As a youngish adult (27) this is some of what I feel: - Climate change is slowly creeping up on us and corporations keep on trucking along with an endless growth mindset, not caring about the consequences of what is essentially a cancer - Somehow I lucked out and ended up turning my favourite hobby into a job that pays really well, but something feels empty. I don't feel like I'm working any harder than people in low…

This is an excellent summary of the current state of affairs from the ground level. Do you see your peers growing out of social media? Or do you think it will be a permanent fixture in their lives?

I'm not him, but the older I get the worse I see interactions with social media getting, so I don't think anyone is going to outgrow it.

When people start ignoring their children in favour of social media (something I've witnessed many times with people I know) I don't think there's much hope coming back from that point.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#394

Post by mindslight »

jdpigeon wrote: post #324
kazinator wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of zoning reform can fix the fact that it's not safe for kids in America, because it's crawling with predators. Even if you have school, shop, friends, and all that, within four blocks of each other.

What the Fox News are you talking about?

By uncritically repeating the nonsense that sensationalist mass media spews, OP does illustrate two of the main dynamics ultimately causing this. Parents are gobbling up this malevolent nonsense and then hovering over their kids to protect them from their own delusions, and the kids themselves are also being blasted with the apocalyptic media fire hose.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#395

Post by BeFlatXIII »

voviz wrote: post #240
lostmsu wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my sample of 1 young adults no longer fight to be treated like grown-ups. Moreover, don't seem to want that in the first place.

From my sample of also N=1 (me, a 22 year old college student) I agree. I don't fight with my parents because I'm conflict avoidant. Plus, I'm financially dependent on my parents. I'm not going to risk my food and shelter for abstract ideas like "agency" or "maturing."

I agree. When I was that age, I thought of people who would use conflict to achieve “independence” as being full of hippie ideals for idiots. Enjoy what you can and work behind people’s backs rather than spark conflict.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#396

Post by mindslight »

taeric wrote: post #38
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s such a strange blend of wanting to let your kids roam while being more aware of dangers that exist, both online and off. Unaccompanied roaming is, by it's nature, offline-centric. The primary, actual risks to children who are roaming are those that involve law enforcement and intolerant adults. What does not present a meaningful risk to unaccompanied children is strangers. > For my son, Scouts have been wonder…

Unaccompanied roaming is, by it's nature, offline-centric. Sorta? I think it is fair to say that independent access to the internet is a form of roaming, as well. Used to, it also involved dial-up management and maybe a known profile on Prodigy/AOL/Compuserve. Nowadays, it probably just means a device on the network.

I agree with where you're coming from, but would point out that the commercial-surveillance Web is more of a managed experience than the free range one we experienced on the early Internet. So Internet time is likely more akin to dropping your kids off at the mall rather than letting them roam in the woods.

If they've got the interest and aptitude to actually dig into computers and how they work (not just programming, but programming is a large part of it), and/or self-actualize in free form building games, that feels like it qualifies as undirected play. But not everyone is going to be so interested in deep computing.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#397

Post by Atheros »

theshrike79 wrote: post #368
giantg2 wrote: post #363

“Students talk about conflict like it’s this terrible thing,” Mallon said in an interview. “Is it that they’re afraid of [conflict], or are they lacking in experience?" It might also be that school and society has conditioned them to be this way. They've been told what feel about this subject. When I went to school, fights were fairly rare, but they did happen. Usually they were minor without any serious injuries. Yo…

"Calling the cops on an unattended child" is so very HOA-cul-de-sac American that it's hard to even fathom for a non-American. Over here (in the Nordics) kids walk/bike to school every day. In Finland the limit is 5km IIRC, after that you get a taxi or bus ride. Kids travel alone to their hobbies, again by walking, biking or public transport. I do use Apple's Find My on my offspring, but only to see how much of a war…

"Cops called on unattended child" doesn't actually happen very often. It makes the news in the U.S. specifically because it is rare.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#398

Post by BeFlatXIII »

bill_joy_fanboy wrote: post #98
plsbenice34 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harmful parenting styles lead to children that grow up to be debilitated and somehow it gets turned around to be called 'entitlement'. It's just shifting the blame from the bad parents to the child, like victim blaming.

Whenever someone uses the word "entitled", I just hear my mom. People who participate in and contribute to society are entitled to things. They should have a sufficient wage, safe housing, food and clean water. If I as a tax-paying, working member of society am not "entitled" to anything, why would I care about the perpetuation of the society? If I'm not "entitled" to anything, why should I care about anything or any…

Likewise, if the market price for housing and healthcare is unreasonably high, why would the populace continue to support capitalism?

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#399

Post by BeFlatXIII »

yucky wrote: post #80
Max-q wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, I don't blame them. I think it’s fair to say that the blame is on us, the current parents generation. We have formed todays youth differently than our parents formed us.

That's a cop out, and only reinforces their internalized belief that literally nothing is their own fault. Find a Gen Z person who is fully accountable for their own actions and you will have located a unicorn. It's uncanny how in-sync that entire generation is with the idea that they are not only owed the world, but have no fault. They are crippled by the actions of "others" (whoever the others are doesn't matter -…

You’re mixing up “your responsibility to solve” with “you created this problem in the first place”

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#400

Post by prox »

mbg721 wrote: post #375
prox wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see three comments saying it was there before 9/11, but really, the fear dial was amped to 11 then. It was a milestone in that sense. Furthermore, journalism changed dramatically. Instead of more open ended questions, especially TV interviews started treating guests like enemies for example “Why didn’t you do X?” to a guest, instead of saying “Can you tell us what you did?” Also more subtle changes in how media rep…

I'd place the journalism shark-jump more at the OJ trial than at 9/11.

Yeah, I place that in the same time frame. It was a warm up for what was to come.
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