“Chasing Childhood” contrasts the play-based childhood of the 1980s with the over-supervised and fearful childhoods of today. It’s great for inspiring collective action.
This will be, at best, a peripheral comment but it's really on my mind wrt the whole topic of why kids are so unhappy. I'm in the final chapter of "The Identity Trap" by Yascha Mounk (which mentions Jon Haidt peripherally) and am finding it a revelation. Finally I begin to understand some of the jargon regarding human relationships that has shown up in academia lately (as an ABPN-certified general psychiatrist with over thirty years clinical experience, I thought I knew something about this topic already). Mounk thoroughly debunks the whole direction of our American academia's preoccupation with group identities as a trend that pushes separation and resentments above considerations that most classic liberals have viewed more positively, such as equal treatment and free speech. This topic puts me in mind of how negative the media have become, and the more "liberal" the more negative it seems. I read about WWII, I heard about Korea, but Vietnam was in my living room every evening and from there we seems to have spiraled into an endless rumination about how badly America has failed in its obligations. Then I recall how we as an entire nation went to war on two fronts, defeating Hitler and Tojo, then rehabilitated our former enemies and helped them become the greatest democratic and economic competitors in the world. Then I think about how the average American newborn can expect to live to age 80 whereas 40 used to be the norm. Then I think that I've been ever so fortunate to have grown up in the best time and place of history as far as I know it, and I start hoping that the rest of America will not look back on this as some sort of lost Eden. Just my loose association of the moment, but maybe part of the reason our kids are hopeless is that now that's what they learn in school and from their media immersion?
Wonderful to discover that the message of "The Anxious Generation" and the "Let Grow" programs has been translated into film! Looking forward to sharing the documentary with my readers :)
Having stories come to life visually will offer added inspiration for parents who would like to offer their children a childhood of free-play, independence, and resilience. Among our homeschooling community, the "free-rage" version of childhood is still a current reality. Academic learning is only one part of the equation in preparing our children for adulthood, and surprisingly the other part does not require us to do more for them, but less.
This rings true not only for my generation but our children’s generation as well. I moved from Arizona to Texas in an attempt to mitigate this issue; seeing as though it is hot as ever to be a kid playing amongst other children (even though this is something I had to cope with and make due, though arguably it was not nearly as hot when I was a child in the early to mid 2000’s) and I am pleasantly surprised and relieved to see children being out and about playing and cultivating their own experiences. I find myself trying to not be involved so much during these moments. Growing up, I can recall having more freedom before high school, and as I grew into myself my days became filled with a lot more activity and LESS freedom. I was allowed to walk to school but I couldn’t go to concerts, raves, parties, or even take the local bus to the movie theatre. Some of those I’m sure are experiences I could do without, but seeing my friends be given more TRUST who were doing way less than I was academically and extra-curricularly I feel really messed me up in college, leading me to burn-out right at the finish line. This has taken years of recovery, and now with littles of my own I am wanting to be less fearful than my own mother. I’d say moving to a new state with my family is a great place to start. Now, with that being said, parents and teens alike are constantly on their phones, using snapchat, tiktok, taking pictures and videos of other people without their consent, among other various things. Where is the line drawn when we, as the adults, cannot seem to control our response to such a tech-savvy era? It starts and ends with us.
I love the idea of independent play, but I have a very specific example of why parents still need to supervise their kids. Teens in my town have been running wild without parents being involved. There’s been a Snapchat element to it, where the kids have been communicating online and parents are unaware of the issues. But the parents have let their kids roam free, unsupervised and now it’s lead to a beating death and arson.
Please look up “Gilbert Goons” and “Gilbert Teen Arson”.
These kids are from “good” upper middle class families but I think what we’re learning is that there wasn’t enough supervision of them early on or teaching consequences/accountability when things go wrong. I’d love for you guys to take a look at this. I’m curious about your take. How do we strike the balance between unsupervised activities and making sure our kids are doing the right thing when they’re out in public?Social media definitely played a part in these cases. But also it’s just kids making bad decisions.
One of the substrates of “religion” is the apprehension of “the sacred”. The words “sacred” and “holy” have their roots in the notion of “the taboo,” which are activities (or items) ritualistically “set apart” from casual (profane) activities. Rituals are not just ceremonies, they are also habits and “habits of mind” that prime us to deal responsibly with what might otherwise overwhelm us with joy, attraction, disgust, or fear. The taboo and the sacred are inescapable facets of the human mind which is created by and which is continually creating human cultures with all their vast, powerful, abstract, and bewildering mechanisms and forces.
I’m tempted to argue that most what we apprehend as sacred (or taboo) are related to violence, sexuality, and nurturance. These are all charged with conflicting mixtures of attraction, joy, disgust, and “fear.” These supercharged emotive mixtures make it extremely difficult for us to think about them slowly, rationally, and analytically. Instead we behave ritualistically or habitually, often by unthinkingly conforming to what seems expected or demanded by others. Or, we grudgingly conform (or try to appear to conform) to structures and expectations that may seem odd, absurd, useless, or even somewhat wrong because we (sometimes only temporarily) can’t come up with—or justify—a possibly better alternative.
Here we are looking at “nurturance,” specifically the often selfless engagement with the pulsing assortments of fears, disgusts, attractions, and joys emerging from all it takes to raise infants to toddlers, toddlers to school children, school children to adolescents, and adolescents to fledgling adults. Our children are sacred to us. So is “the family” that strives to protect them and us from the profane and dangerous intrusions of other powerful forces in our cultures. On the roiling white tipped currents of physical and cultural realities, there is no clear course to sail between the Scylla of smothering overprotectiveness and the Charybdis of asphyxiating neglect. We raise and lower our sheets. We lean into and pull back on the rudder. We hope we are guided by reliable maps, that the stars we steer by can be trusted, and that the advice we choose to accept isn’t coming from lost souls who’ve been emotively entranced by deadly siren songs sure to lead them (and us) to unknown sources of destruction.
So many of these things are all linked together. It's not a coincidence that one of the differences between 'then' and now is that there are many more cars on the road, and the cycling and walking experience for kids has got more dangerous as cars have taken ever more priority. I've just read Thalia Verkade and Marco Broemmelstroet's excellent book 'Movement' which identifies how much harder it is for children to move safely outdoors these days - which links so strongly to these messages. While in many ways, things are safer, it's also safer because kids aren't out there on the streets, because the actual infrastructure of the streets means it's not safe for them to walk and cycle around with the same freedom and safety as we enjoyed as kids https://www.amazon.co.uk/Movement-take-streets-transform-lives-ebook/dp/B09JTW58M4
This!!!!! People are on their phones as well, while driving, not paying attention. There’s a park across the street from me but it’s difficult to get to it without a car, which is silly considering it’s only a 10 minute walk from me. Instead I have to opt for the park right next to my complex or walk to the one by the lake, which is a longer walk for small kids (30 minutes). It vexes me.
100% feel this. i am still pondering how to get creative for my almost teen since traveling to town on her own feels genuinely dangerous where we live. i feel like everything but DRIVERS are safer now. i live outside a metro area and the people on the road are just NOT paying attention.
My son is 18. Early on in his life he watched me meditate. He has learned a few things that help him observe himself so that he can understand himself and do what works for him. He keeps having long conversations with me about the things on his mind. I guide him where I can. I make him aware of consequences of the choices he is making. I won't lie. As a parent, it's normal to worry. But the more I let go of it, the more positive changes I notice in my son.
I recently conducted a workshop for a very young professionals between ages 18 to 25. They learned about their values, prioritizing things in their life based on their values for optimal mental wellbeing. The exercises they did are covered in my book Wired For Self-Love. There's chapters in my book dedicated to meditation and adopting identity.
Meditation changed my life as a new mother. Meditation changes the brain. I hope this is helpful.
"When we were kids, the concrete sidewalks were our unsupervised playground. Independence was not an aspiration but a necessity... Sometimes we ran outside to play with our siblings or neighborhood kids"
I'll never stop to repeat what I wrote last year (1):
"what feels really otherworldly in series like Stranger Things, and therefore constitutes their REAL appeal. It's not the superpowers that make giant superlizards explode. It's seeing kids as young as 11 free to spend whole days unsupervised, because their parents won't call 911 the first time they don't text back within 30 minutes."
As someone who has been teaching since 1997, I’ve been witness to the profound changes in our young folks’ behavior. From raucous but good natured freshman at a state school known for its party culture, my last uni job was at another state school where students frequently came to office hours ( unheard of in the 90s and early 2000s) and would quite frequently CRY! They couldn’t id why they were stressed, but were terrified of “making mistakes” no matter how often I assured them that was part of the experience. Then students started getting quiet in class around 2016 and weren’t willing to engage in the freewheeling but respectful discussions I’d always encouraged in class. Between their timidity and worry I was absolutely flummoxed until I discovered Dr Haidt’s YT talks. Every point he was making were changed I’d been witnessing.
Bravo 👏 Anytime kids are not doing well, we adults must look at ourselves and see what WE are doing wrong. I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I loved my freedom, and I still refuse to look at it as some kind of abuse. I do not have kids, but have been a teacher for over 20 years. I love all the kids I teach but scoff at how fragile the generation is as they approach adulthood. We messed up big time, and it's time to be honest about it. Hovering over them and assuming they can't handle responsibility is not helping.
A reality check is badly needed on this Substack’s smug claims flattering their supposedly idyllic, interconnected, free-range childhoods of the 1980s Gen X and before. As a Boomer raised in the ‘60s, I can attest that was not at all the way Gen X teens were viewed at the time, nor how cold statistics show they acted then or now as grownups.
Young people should never believe older generations’ self-praising legends of their childhoods or flat-out lies about being wonderfully behaved now. My ancestors did not trudge 10 snowy miles to school uphill both ways. My generation’s Sixties childhood was not peace and love. Jonathan Haidt’s and Jean Twenge’s 1970s and ‘80s adolescences were not loving phone-free togetherness and pastoral joy.
In fact, Gen Z is being raised by the worst parent and grandparent generations ever reliably documented, and older generations’ bad childhoods are one big reason. Kids of the 1980s and ‘70s were berated for indulging increasingly violent, explicit music, television, movies, music, video games, corporate ads, and popular culture that seduced them away from healthy outdoor activities. Think kids back then didn’t spend lots of time on phones or staring at screens (TV, arcades)? Think again.
Obesity skyrocketed among Gen X youth. Their suicide rates doubled. Haidt’s teen and young-adult generation set records for school failure, single-handedly wrecking young men’s educational attainment.
Back then, mental illness was deeply stigmatized as a moral failing, so comparisons of surveys of depression and anxiety among more honest youth today to surveys of youth decades ago and adults today are pure junk. Middle-agers’ phony claims of perfect mental health, no drugs, blissful happiness, etc., are provable lies.
In fact, middle-agers take anti-depressants by the trainload and die from suicides and drug/alcohol overdoses far more than teens. It is tragic that 253 14-year-old girls and 433 17-year-old girls died from suicides and overdoses in 2022, but their self-inflicted death tolls are far, far below those of 53-year-old women (Twenge’s age, 1,884), 47-year-old men (Surgeon General Murthy’s age, 4,390), and 60-year-old men (Haidt’s age, 4,467).
That this Substack and popular media pretend that teen girls are miserable and suicidal while middle-agers are safe and happy proves how deeply stigmatized suicide, poor mental health, and addiction remain. The behaviors of Twenge’s and Haidt’s teenage generations were so terrible that 1980s and ‘90s lawmakers imposed harsh anti-youth restrictions and policings that persist today – even though Gen Z doesn’t need them.
I’m all for teens participating more in public life, which requires repeal of worthless anti-teen driving laws, youth curfews, mall and store bans, adult-chaperone mandates, drinking ages, and other age-based banishments most societies worldwide don’t impose. Advocates on this site claim they want teens to abandon screens and get outdoors and into society more. Are you boldly willing to let them actually do that?
Let’s be blunt. Despite the silliness indulged about social media, the real world is wildly more dangerous to teenagers, both physically and mentally, as these authors admit. Get more teens away from screens where the <delete> and <block sender> buttons eliminate 99% of threats, and out into society where they confront real physical dangers, and many more teens will die, be injured, be raped, be bullied, and suffer mental health damage. Still, I bet if you polled teens, they’d say: sure, the world is dangerous, but let us grow up. Let us participate in our cultures, both on- and off-line, without nannying by today’s grownups who act far worse than we do. Gen Z can handle freedoms.
Teens exercising freedoms was a problem back when Twenge and Haidt were growing up, their frame of reference for viewing young people negatively. In the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, it was young people who made their societies more dangerous. That is not true today: older generations make societies more dangerous while young people make them safer.
It's sad that elders have sold some Gen Zers that the young are miserable and need rescuing by elders who act far worse and impose far more serious mental-health, violence, and crazed-politics dangers on teens than anything their peers or social media present. Older folks (including my Boomers, no better): How long are we going to continue lying to kids to make ourselves feel good?
Ahhh it's interesting. The generation of latch key kids grew into hyper-vigilant parents. Not really unexpected, they decided to overcorrect, which is human nature. Maybe because I'm south of Seattle in a metro. I'd consider it completely irresponsible to let your kid roam around. Crime, drugs, homeless, mentally ill. You literally have to watch for drugs at the playground and bathrooms.
Children seems to be more feral as well, these days.
Maybe raising your children away from the crazy epicenters and forming a community with like minded people and letting your kids roam in groups. Ahhh, American society is rapidly becoming uncivilized, so I agree but also in practice, it is hard.
This will be, at best, a peripheral comment but it's really on my mind wrt the whole topic of why kids are so unhappy. I'm in the final chapter of "The Identity Trap" by Yascha Mounk (which mentions Jon Haidt peripherally) and am finding it a revelation. Finally I begin to understand some of the jargon regarding human relationships that has shown up in academia lately (as an ABPN-certified general psychiatrist with over thirty years clinical experience, I thought I knew something about this topic already). Mounk thoroughly debunks the whole direction of our American academia's preoccupation with group identities as a trend that pushes separation and resentments above considerations that most classic liberals have viewed more positively, such as equal treatment and free speech. This topic puts me in mind of how negative the media have become, and the more "liberal" the more negative it seems. I read about WWII, I heard about Korea, but Vietnam was in my living room every evening and from there we seems to have spiraled into an endless rumination about how badly America has failed in its obligations. Then I recall how we as an entire nation went to war on two fronts, defeating Hitler and Tojo, then rehabilitated our former enemies and helped them become the greatest democratic and economic competitors in the world. Then I think about how the average American newborn can expect to live to age 80 whereas 40 used to be the norm. Then I think that I've been ever so fortunate to have grown up in the best time and place of history as far as I know it, and I start hoping that the rest of America will not look back on this as some sort of lost Eden. Just my loose association of the moment, but maybe part of the reason our kids are hopeless is that now that's what they learn in school and from their media immersion?
Wonderful to discover that the message of "The Anxious Generation" and the "Let Grow" programs has been translated into film! Looking forward to sharing the documentary with my readers :)
Having stories come to life visually will offer added inspiration for parents who would like to offer their children a childhood of free-play, independence, and resilience. Among our homeschooling community, the "free-rage" version of childhood is still a current reality. Academic learning is only one part of the equation in preparing our children for adulthood, and surprisingly the other part does not require us to do more for them, but less.
This rings true not only for my generation but our children’s generation as well. I moved from Arizona to Texas in an attempt to mitigate this issue; seeing as though it is hot as ever to be a kid playing amongst other children (even though this is something I had to cope with and make due, though arguably it was not nearly as hot when I was a child in the early to mid 2000’s) and I am pleasantly surprised and relieved to see children being out and about playing and cultivating their own experiences. I find myself trying to not be involved so much during these moments. Growing up, I can recall having more freedom before high school, and as I grew into myself my days became filled with a lot more activity and LESS freedom. I was allowed to walk to school but I couldn’t go to concerts, raves, parties, or even take the local bus to the movie theatre. Some of those I’m sure are experiences I could do without, but seeing my friends be given more TRUST who were doing way less than I was academically and extra-curricularly I feel really messed me up in college, leading me to burn-out right at the finish line. This has taken years of recovery, and now with littles of my own I am wanting to be less fearful than my own mother. I’d say moving to a new state with my family is a great place to start. Now, with that being said, parents and teens alike are constantly on their phones, using snapchat, tiktok, taking pictures and videos of other people without their consent, among other various things. Where is the line drawn when we, as the adults, cannot seem to control our response to such a tech-savvy era? It starts and ends with us.
Will be looking this up- thank you!
I love the idea of independent play, but I have a very specific example of why parents still need to supervise their kids. Teens in my town have been running wild without parents being involved. There’s been a Snapchat element to it, where the kids have been communicating online and parents are unaware of the issues. But the parents have let their kids roam free, unsupervised and now it’s lead to a beating death and arson.
Please look up “Gilbert Goons” and “Gilbert Teen Arson”.
These kids are from “good” upper middle class families but I think what we’re learning is that there wasn’t enough supervision of them early on or teaching consequences/accountability when things go wrong. I’d love for you guys to take a look at this. I’m curious about your take. How do we strike the balance between unsupervised activities and making sure our kids are doing the right thing when they’re out in public?Social media definitely played a part in these cases. But also it’s just kids making bad decisions.
❤️ thank you for this post and for sharing the documentary!
One of the substrates of “religion” is the apprehension of “the sacred”. The words “sacred” and “holy” have their roots in the notion of “the taboo,” which are activities (or items) ritualistically “set apart” from casual (profane) activities. Rituals are not just ceremonies, they are also habits and “habits of mind” that prime us to deal responsibly with what might otherwise overwhelm us with joy, attraction, disgust, or fear. The taboo and the sacred are inescapable facets of the human mind which is created by and which is continually creating human cultures with all their vast, powerful, abstract, and bewildering mechanisms and forces.
I’m tempted to argue that most what we apprehend as sacred (or taboo) are related to violence, sexuality, and nurturance. These are all charged with conflicting mixtures of attraction, joy, disgust, and “fear.” These supercharged emotive mixtures make it extremely difficult for us to think about them slowly, rationally, and analytically. Instead we behave ritualistically or habitually, often by unthinkingly conforming to what seems expected or demanded by others. Or, we grudgingly conform (or try to appear to conform) to structures and expectations that may seem odd, absurd, useless, or even somewhat wrong because we (sometimes only temporarily) can’t come up with—or justify—a possibly better alternative.
Here we are looking at “nurturance,” specifically the often selfless engagement with the pulsing assortments of fears, disgusts, attractions, and joys emerging from all it takes to raise infants to toddlers, toddlers to school children, school children to adolescents, and adolescents to fledgling adults. Our children are sacred to us. So is “the family” that strives to protect them and us from the profane and dangerous intrusions of other powerful forces in our cultures. On the roiling white tipped currents of physical and cultural realities, there is no clear course to sail between the Scylla of smothering overprotectiveness and the Charybdis of asphyxiating neglect. We raise and lower our sheets. We lean into and pull back on the rudder. We hope we are guided by reliable maps, that the stars we steer by can be trusted, and that the advice we choose to accept isn’t coming from lost souls who’ve been emotively entranced by deadly siren songs sure to lead them (and us) to unknown sources of destruction.
So many of these things are all linked together. It's not a coincidence that one of the differences between 'then' and now is that there are many more cars on the road, and the cycling and walking experience for kids has got more dangerous as cars have taken ever more priority. I've just read Thalia Verkade and Marco Broemmelstroet's excellent book 'Movement' which identifies how much harder it is for children to move safely outdoors these days - which links so strongly to these messages. While in many ways, things are safer, it's also safer because kids aren't out there on the streets, because the actual infrastructure of the streets means it's not safe for them to walk and cycle around with the same freedom and safety as we enjoyed as kids https://www.amazon.co.uk/Movement-take-streets-transform-lives-ebook/dp/B09JTW58M4
This!!!!! People are on their phones as well, while driving, not paying attention. There’s a park across the street from me but it’s difficult to get to it without a car, which is silly considering it’s only a 10 minute walk from me. Instead I have to opt for the park right next to my complex or walk to the one by the lake, which is a longer walk for small kids (30 minutes). It vexes me.
100% feel this. i am still pondering how to get creative for my almost teen since traveling to town on her own feels genuinely dangerous where we live. i feel like everything but DRIVERS are safer now. i live outside a metro area and the people on the road are just NOT paying attention.
Do you have any plans or direction to help people in their 20's to over come the damage that they have?
Hello Chris,
My son is 18. Early on in his life he watched me meditate. He has learned a few things that help him observe himself so that he can understand himself and do what works for him. He keeps having long conversations with me about the things on his mind. I guide him where I can. I make him aware of consequences of the choices he is making. I won't lie. As a parent, it's normal to worry. But the more I let go of it, the more positive changes I notice in my son.
I recently conducted a workshop for a very young professionals between ages 18 to 25. They learned about their values, prioritizing things in their life based on their values for optimal mental wellbeing. The exercises they did are covered in my book Wired For Self-Love. There's chapters in my book dedicated to meditation and adopting identity.
Meditation changed my life as a new mother. Meditation changes the brain. I hope this is helpful.
"When we were kids, the concrete sidewalks were our unsupervised playground. Independence was not an aspiration but a necessity... Sometimes we ran outside to play with our siblings or neighborhood kids"
I'll never stop to repeat what I wrote last year (1):
"what feels really otherworldly in series like Stranger Things, and therefore constitutes their REAL appeal. It's not the superpowers that make giant superlizards explode. It's seeing kids as young as 11 free to spend whole days unsupervised, because their parents won't call 911 the first time they don't text back within 30 minutes."
(1) Source: https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/the-city-reboot-for-2070-that-we-122
As someone who has been teaching since 1997, I’ve been witness to the profound changes in our young folks’ behavior. From raucous but good natured freshman at a state school known for its party culture, my last uni job was at another state school where students frequently came to office hours ( unheard of in the 90s and early 2000s) and would quite frequently CRY! They couldn’t id why they were stressed, but were terrified of “making mistakes” no matter how often I assured them that was part of the experience. Then students started getting quiet in class around 2016 and weren’t willing to engage in the freewheeling but respectful discussions I’d always encouraged in class. Between their timidity and worry I was absolutely flummoxed until I discovered Dr Haidt’s YT talks. Every point he was making were changed I’d been witnessing.
Your task is not to seek love, but to find a door that leads to it.
——The Power of Now (written by Eckhart Tolle)
Bravo 👏 Anytime kids are not doing well, we adults must look at ourselves and see what WE are doing wrong. I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I loved my freedom, and I still refuse to look at it as some kind of abuse. I do not have kids, but have been a teacher for over 20 years. I love all the kids I teach but scoff at how fragile the generation is as they approach adulthood. We messed up big time, and it's time to be honest about it. Hovering over them and assuming they can't handle responsibility is not helping.
A reality check is badly needed on this Substack’s smug claims flattering their supposedly idyllic, interconnected, free-range childhoods of the 1980s Gen X and before. As a Boomer raised in the ‘60s, I can attest that was not at all the way Gen X teens were viewed at the time, nor how cold statistics show they acted then or now as grownups.
Young people should never believe older generations’ self-praising legends of their childhoods or flat-out lies about being wonderfully behaved now. My ancestors did not trudge 10 snowy miles to school uphill both ways. My generation’s Sixties childhood was not peace and love. Jonathan Haidt’s and Jean Twenge’s 1970s and ‘80s adolescences were not loving phone-free togetherness and pastoral joy.
In fact, Gen Z is being raised by the worst parent and grandparent generations ever reliably documented, and older generations’ bad childhoods are one big reason. Kids of the 1980s and ‘70s were berated for indulging increasingly violent, explicit music, television, movies, music, video games, corporate ads, and popular culture that seduced them away from healthy outdoor activities. Think kids back then didn’t spend lots of time on phones or staring at screens (TV, arcades)? Think again.
Obesity skyrocketed among Gen X youth. Their suicide rates doubled. Haidt’s teen and young-adult generation set records for school failure, single-handedly wrecking young men’s educational attainment.
Back then, mental illness was deeply stigmatized as a moral failing, so comparisons of surveys of depression and anxiety among more honest youth today to surveys of youth decades ago and adults today are pure junk. Middle-agers’ phony claims of perfect mental health, no drugs, blissful happiness, etc., are provable lies.
In fact, middle-agers take anti-depressants by the trainload and die from suicides and drug/alcohol overdoses far more than teens. It is tragic that 253 14-year-old girls and 433 17-year-old girls died from suicides and overdoses in 2022, but their self-inflicted death tolls are far, far below those of 53-year-old women (Twenge’s age, 1,884), 47-year-old men (Surgeon General Murthy’s age, 4,390), and 60-year-old men (Haidt’s age, 4,467).
That this Substack and popular media pretend that teen girls are miserable and suicidal while middle-agers are safe and happy proves how deeply stigmatized suicide, poor mental health, and addiction remain. The behaviors of Twenge’s and Haidt’s teenage generations were so terrible that 1980s and ‘90s lawmakers imposed harsh anti-youth restrictions and policings that persist today – even though Gen Z doesn’t need them.
I’m all for teens participating more in public life, which requires repeal of worthless anti-teen driving laws, youth curfews, mall and store bans, adult-chaperone mandates, drinking ages, and other age-based banishments most societies worldwide don’t impose. Advocates on this site claim they want teens to abandon screens and get outdoors and into society more. Are you boldly willing to let them actually do that?
Let’s be blunt. Despite the silliness indulged about social media, the real world is wildly more dangerous to teenagers, both physically and mentally, as these authors admit. Get more teens away from screens where the <delete> and <block sender> buttons eliminate 99% of threats, and out into society where they confront real physical dangers, and many more teens will die, be injured, be raped, be bullied, and suffer mental health damage. Still, I bet if you polled teens, they’d say: sure, the world is dangerous, but let us grow up. Let us participate in our cultures, both on- and off-line, without nannying by today’s grownups who act far worse than we do. Gen Z can handle freedoms.
Teens exercising freedoms was a problem back when Twenge and Haidt were growing up, their frame of reference for viewing young people negatively. In the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, it was young people who made their societies more dangerous. That is not true today: older generations make societies more dangerous while young people make them safer.
It's sad that elders have sold some Gen Zers that the young are miserable and need rescuing by elders who act far worse and impose far more serious mental-health, violence, and crazed-politics dangers on teens than anything their peers or social media present. Older folks (including my Boomers, no better): How long are we going to continue lying to kids to make ourselves feel good?
Ahhh it's interesting. The generation of latch key kids grew into hyper-vigilant parents. Not really unexpected, they decided to overcorrect, which is human nature. Maybe because I'm south of Seattle in a metro. I'd consider it completely irresponsible to let your kid roam around. Crime, drugs, homeless, mentally ill. You literally have to watch for drugs at the playground and bathrooms.
Children seems to be more feral as well, these days.
Maybe raising your children away from the crazy epicenters and forming a community with like minded people and letting your kids roam in groups. Ahhh, American society is rapidly becoming uncivilized, so I agree but also in practice, it is hard.
Thank you.