(Potentially running) thread: Help! My daughter is a tween and the Mean Girls Era has begun!

We are failing. We are failing our daughters and nieces and granddaughters and it scares the shit out of me. (I believe this doesn’t have a paywall.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/17/teen-girls-mental-health-crisis/

 

My hot take:

Years ago, nobody really thought twice about teens smoking cigarettes. I have a picture of my uncle’s high school graduation in 1963 — he’s standing with my grandma and his then-girlfriend, and both the kids are holding cigarettes. My high school shut down its student smoking area in 1980, two years before I started high school.

I think the next generation of parents will view the idea of teenagers having smartphones the same way my generation of parents viewed teenagers having cigarettes.

 

My hot take:

Parents are lazy and failing their kids. (as is society in general ). Yes the social media and internet has led to an explosion in exposure and scrutiny. However their effect doesn’t have to be so fatal. Kids need guidance in how to handle those influences and need the positive examples of what’s important.

 

My hot take:

Children of all ages and backgrounds all over this country are struggling for reasons largely out of their or their parents’ control. And they’re being ignored or told to toughen up by people who haven’t even tried to understand the challenges they’re facing.

 

This. Oh my God this.

 

I feel like those exact words could be used for my generation (I'm in my 40s), and many, many others.

 

Yes. Then throw in a three-year (so far) global pandemic on top of everything else.

 

The thing is going through high school in late 80s to early 90s, you had the bullying and awkward teens and friends who become not friends and people talking shit just like today. But unlike today, you got a break from it when you went home. Maybe your friends called and you exchanged gossip while pulling the cord into your room or getting in to scraps when you *gasp* went outside.

Today, everything that anyone says or thinks is coming through in a group chat or social media posts. There's no getting away from it and it causes problems at school.

Add a pandemic when we were shutoff from everyone else and it's worse.

 

I realize all of this. I have a 13-year-old son.

Doesn't really change what I wrote. Which parents have ever really understood their kids?

 

I don’t know if it’s misunderstanding our kids as much as it’s just not remembering everything that we went through. And how we did or didn’t overcome our problems.

I’ve learned more from my 14-year-old in the last year than I ever imagined. To my benefit, and theirs.

But it’s never easy.

 

Maybe “empathy” is a better word than “understanding.”

I’ve learned a ton about how my kids look at a post-pandemic world and how they process extreme emotions, good or bad.

I feel like any parent should at least be able to do that.

 

Empathy from parents is a far more recent development, if secondhand stories of how my parents' generation was raised are any indication.