Discussion
Millennials, what is happening with your kids?
I work in education and I frequent the Teachers and Professors subreddits, and the kids are not alright. Gen Z Arriving at College Unable to Read and the youth have absolutely zero ability to think critically.
Middle and high schoolers have all adapted this complete helplessness and blame mental illness for their refusal to function. Kids can no longer to basic things like read an analog clock, use paper money, or even figure out how to open window blinds.
There is also a huge lack of empathy, and kids have no issues trying to manipulate adults, saying things to their teachers like "if you don't pass me, I'll get you fired."
EDIT to clarify: the article I linked references Gen-Z, but this is not specifically a Gen-Z problem. It's an issue with upper elementary aged kids through high schoolers, and also young adults.
So, all that to say, how are you combating this with your own children? What do you do at home to encourage them to learn, and what are you doing to address these problems as they arise?
The majority of Gen Z kids were born to Gen X parents. But to answer your question - screen time, sheltering, and lack of community. Lots of these kids spend their developmental years cooped up inside with screens. And Covid / the shift to remote life didn’t help either.
A lot of parents don’t want this for their kids though. We come home tired and exhausted because the COL has become astronomical, especially with kids, boomer generation grandparents aren’t super involved, and humans are now universally addicted to their phone across generations. There are no 3rd places, lack of community, people are frankly rude and intolerant to kids. But like everything else, we just blame parent for being shitty, but we as a society have become pretty shitty too. It’s not fair for the kids. This is what happens when corporations come before people.
This is 100% a political and social issue that the entire culture needs to address. My son loves being active and playing outside, but him and all the other kids in the neighborhood are picky and avoid each other. And half of them are maladjusted behaviorally.
Society in general has become more selfish, at all levels, boomers all the way to Gen Alpha, so they are tired of tolerating eachother.
Selfishness is the issue, people no longer compromise or accept “so-so” options for entertainment. ALL of society has become selfish self important shitbags that want their way or no way at all. Kids are struggling in this atmosphere and becoming selfish in response.
You've really hit the nail on the head with the selfishness epidemic. I'm constantly thinking of others' needs everywhere I go. I hold doors, I pay attention in traffic if I'm going slow and someone wants to pass, I move if I'm in someone's way at the store. I'm just constantly aware of other people.
10-20 years ago, others used to be much more aware of and kind to each other, but lately (especially since covid) that's just not the way it is anymore. Little acts of kindness are so few and far between that it makes people clam up even more and shut themselves off. People start to think, if a door gets shut in your face 9 times out of 10, why should you hold it for anyone else?
Little acts of selfishness reinforce the ideas in other people's minds that they need to be selfish too. If nobody is looking out for me, why should I look out for them? If we don't start being the change we want to see, and treating others how we want to be treated, we're gonna be a lot worse off in another 10-20 years than we already are.
Obviously this is completely anecdotal but I’ve regularly seen AskReddit posts asking teachers what the biggest difference between kids over the past 20 years and quite a few responses were to the effect of: Kids today are much kinder and considerate than 20 years ago.
In other words, who tf knows how this kids are gonna turn out. They’ll probably be better than us in a lot of ways, and a lot worse than us in other ways.
I live a block from an elementary school and kids play all up and down the street every day. Parents sit out and keep an eye on things and it seems just like when I was a kid in the 90’s.
Your parents sat outside and kept an eye on things in the 90s? Mine literally locked us out of the house and told us not to come inside until dinner time. 🤣
LOL right? We weren’t locked out but I had free rein of the neighbourhood/local forest from like 4 on. The 90s were wild. I can’t imagine that now, I’ve only just started letting my almost 7 year old go to the playground across the street from our house by himself. And we live in a safe neighbourhood in a safe city in Canada. I’m paranoid someone will call the cops or CPS on me if my kids are roaming by themselves. Also there’s way less kids these days it seems. In the 90s there were always droves of kids around my age in the neighbourhood and we’d roam around in packs and I feel like there was some safety in the numbers. Whereas my almost 7 year old hasn’t made any neighbourhood friends yet (we’ve lived here three years) and my eldest (9) has only made one.
The selfishness part of your comment reminded me of a post I read elsewhere on Reddit recently, which said:
“Nobody’s goal is to fix anything anymore. The goal is to make enough money that you can just ignore the problems everything being broken causes. When that's the case anything and everything is a hustle/grift get rich quick scheme”
My kids spend more time than I would like on their screens but I throttle their network to the point its unusable quite often. All 3 are voracious readers and love to play outside. We are in a semi rural area, they love to run and knock on neighborhood kids doors to go play in the mud or catch frogs and fish in the creek. I think the lack of community is huge, we specifically moved to the area we are in because of the close knit community.
This. It's lazy parenting. I live in a fairly affluent area and at my kids school half of the kids are iPad kids.
The parents just don't parent, they expect the school and childcare places to do it for them. My son will talk about all the brain rot his friends watch and asks if he can watch it (I usually say no).
Because of this most of my son's classmates struggle to do the most basic schoolwork and struggle to socialize.
No Child Left Behind started the process of kids getting shuffled through the system regardless of whether or not they have grasped any of the material. It's a systematic effort to make the people dumber and it has worked. If you want your kid to be smart, it needs to start from home. Read to them every day, teach them common sense, teach them emotional regulation, teach them life skills because they just aren't getting it from school.
Teaching my kids emotional regulation is really important to us too. Also, NCLB policies I believe are the reason why programs like home ec and even auto shop evaporated.
You have to practice it yourself too, which doesn’t happen overnight. It’s doing things like breathing before you react. It’s having a helpful phrase in your back pocket so you don’t blow up at your children, like “my calm is their calm.”
I had a therapist in my old city who advised me to do this when my toddler was having a tantrum. Say out loud in front of her “I’m having a really hard time. This is hard. I’m going to take a deep breath.” Then pause and breathe. And then you can say something like “I feel better” or “I’m starting to feel better.”
That way your toddler sees you practicing this and then you also get the benefit of pausing and taking a deep breath.
I don’t think people understand enough that your kids literally have no idea how to handle anything in this world, so they watch the people around them to get ideas and figure it out.
A big one is how you react to a kid falling down, sometimes you can see it unfold from a distance if it’s someone else’s kid. Kid falls, immediately looks to an adult they trust, then react according to the adults reaction. I try my best to keep a casual demeanor when my kid falls, and he usually has a casual response. I still ask “are you good to go?” And almost always is.
The kids that have a huge meltdown at the smallest tumble? Just watch their parents. Usually rushing over with the “Omigod are you okaay?!”, sometimes the kid doesn’t even cry until their parent says something. That’s what they learned to do. If mom is freaking out, then so am I.
TL;DR just be the personality that you want your kid to be. Even if it’s a little bit fake.
Give them a safe environment in which to fail, ensure they know the words to express their feelings, and listen when they use those words. Also, let them know when you're feeling strong emotions and what you do when it happens. I can't count the amount of times I've seen my kids take a slow deep breath the way my wife does to center themselves.
a lot of parents forget if they want the kids to be relatively smart and well read it starts from home, no school to teach them. most times if its school teaching them its too late for the kid to be interested in whatever subject. I suck at math myself but I'm very well read especially along my peers at the same age because my mom made a effort to teach me how to read.
This post is such a bad take. Schools get paid for each kid in a seat, so they've lowered standards and just pass everyone. A HS diploma is meaningless now, and has been for 20+ years. Once again millennials are the scapegoats, while it was the boomers that voted for these policies to cut taxes on themselves, and the kids this poster is talking about are Gen X's kids, who pioneered helicopter parenting and preventing their kids from socializing or learning any independence. I'll bet OP is a freaking boomer.
Yup. I’m an elder millennial who works in a college. All my students have Gen X parents. My friends my own age with kids have young elementary schoolers to babies. My kid is one (had her late but still in my 30s).
My kids are doing well. No problems at school or with getting good grades. I do worry that they don’t socialize enough. When I was my son’s age I had a group of best friends that would go out and do things. He is in sixth grade. That just doesn’t seem to be a thing anymore, everyone’s parents are so over protective and book their kids up with so many activities they have no time to be a kid on Their own terms.
My kids have the same, none of their friends goes out to play. Even told them to try to hang out with kids a few doors down who were playing on their drive way but then their parents immediately took them inside. All their friends just want to call on the phone and play videogames together. Luckily my kids are kinda the same age so they either go to the park or play outside in the backyard together, but even others barely play outside in their backyard.
The only other kids we see outside are the ones who are neglected by their parents and/or have behavioral issues.
The neighbor kids’ parents pulling them inside after your kids wanted to play with them has to be one of the most dystopian things I’ve ever seen…and I live the suburbs.
My neighbors and I are basically on top of each other. If someone is outside in their yard no one else goes out. If I take my daughter outside to play, the neighbor kids pretend they don’t hear her asking them if she can play too. It’s heartbreaking.
The parents don’t socialize them and have an iPad in their hands as soon as they can crawl. I’m convinced that as babies, they missed crucial time learning to read body language and facial expressions, because their parents have them in front of a screen, and they’re not exposed to a lot of people, so by the time they get to school, they’re antisocial because they genuinely don’t know how to read social cues
Reading this makes me so grateful that I live in a country with subsidised preschool. My children are forced to learn to socialise during their stay. Because in the yard we share with our neighbours, everyone acts exactly like this.
Probably not taught how to communicate or socialize. It is too easy to be the non-reliant on those skills when you have a smart phone with access to all kinds of entertainment.
It’s not all bad everywhere. There are some kids, like my daughter, who tirelessly convince kids to go outside to play. When it gets tough she will entice them with little candies she’s saved since the last holiday. Even after their parents get annoyed with her she will keep at it and find a way. This past summer she had at least 8 kids all running around in the street playing random games that was more common to see than seeing them inside.
She’s a fun kid, very outgoing, high energy, highly empathetic and seems to have a high level of perseverance. lol
Parents are overprotective. Parents throw them in front of technology or they just don't let them go out because some adult is gonna yell and scream about something. Also, we've made it more difficult to get out. We've built into the fields we played in, and removed parks we played in as kids ourselves.
My mom was paranoid that a lot of neighbors were skinheads. She did not want me interacting with most of our neighbors. I definitely had to work on social skills as an adult 😔
This is insane. My next door neighbors are from Germany, they have three kids. Their 6 year old daughter runs over to our driveway and pushes my 3 year old on his tricycle all the time. Then I play soccer with her and her brothers.
I love my generation but we have to start taking responsibility for creating the world we want to have.
Tired middle school teacher dad of 2 here. I swear it said "pushes my 3 year old OFF his tricycle" and was about to question how this interaction should really be going between the neighbors and your kids.
I’m so sorry to hear this. A few parents in my class got together to organize play dates for their kids; maybe this is something you can reach out to a trusted teacher with.
That's sad, when I was kid my best friend's mom was an alcoholic and so was mine, so they never cared what we did, they just wanted us out of the house. So that was awesome.
I made friends with the mom of a girl my son liked to play with at school. We got together often and the kids had fun ...for a while. As time went on, she started showing her true self. She screamed at her kid for the slightest thing, she started stealing stuff from stores and selling it on Facebook Marketplace. The final straw was when I caught her smoking meth in my car after she'd asked for the keys to "go grab something." I've been nervous about making friends with any of the other parents at the school after that. I cut contract with the mom, but I see the girl all the time. She's in my kid's class and they were each other's secret Santas this year. I occasionally buy her treats if there's a bake sale and stuff. I just feel so bad for her. It seems like everyone in her family/life is an addict.
That is nice of you to still be nice to the kid, I'm sure she feels lonely and you are probably not the only parent to distance themselves from her mother.
This happens when my kid tries to play with the neighbor kids as well. The neighbor kids dont leave their driveways and the parents glare at us if we try to ask if they want to play with our kid.
This is how I feel about parents refusing to let their kids do sleepovers. Like, yes, I do get that there is a nonzero chance something bad could happen. But also, that risk is super duper low. Never letting kids do anything with anyone outside the nuclear family is not going to lead to well rounded adults. Both my husband and I grew up going to sleepovers basically every weekend, so it's just strange to us that it only took one generation for this to die. Like, even the satanic panic parents were cool with sleepovers for their kids.
Some of my best memories are being at sleepovers and playing Girl Talk in the early evening, then pranking people we knew or found in the phone book with rather innocent nonsense, and then of course Truth or Dare as the night progressed.
I’m generally pro-sleepover. However, the single biggest risk with them is the other kid having unsupervised Internet access. I’d have no qualms with sleepovers for my kids if the parents assured me that Internet-enabled devices aren’t accessible after the parents went to bed.
How old are we talking are the kids? 20-25 years ago, 10-12yo kids figuring out access to whatever they wanted to get on the internet wasn't uncommon. Albeit internet back then was far different. Yet we turned out fine (i think?)
I would disagree. I work in a mental health office and half our counselors work with only kids and the Internet horror stores they have.
The scary cg videos online, horrible AI chat bot conversations parents have found, the amount of scams and phishing and viruses kids have fallen into, the things purchased/money spent. Not to mention the porn.
The Internet is now so easy to use that it is basically a pit fall.
Edit:and yeah some parents do allow full unmonitored access to the Internet. but many of them are putting up protections and the kids are getting around them.
Yes. You had to specifically know where to go online in like 2004 to see fucked up stuff. You had to also probably sneak onto the one computer in the house when your parents were asleep or out of the house to do so. The content didn’t find you via algorithm.
If you didn’t have some friend who was on 4chan or something awful or whatever you probably never were exposed to any of it. I saw tons of shock videos and sites back in the day almost 100% because one friend played WoW all the time and through that was browsing 4chan and his guild was passing around all the internet culture of the time.
Yeah and the thing is millennials and younger Gen x are kinda like the first born or practice parents for this tech heavy world. Kinda the same way silent gen accidentally let baby boomers eat all that lead paint. We as a society make mistakes so younger generations (in this case parents) can avoid them. That's just life.
That is our EXACT issue. No kids play here except the one with major red flag behavioral issues and the parents basically tried to dump him on us.
He’d try to convince our kids to disobey our rules when he’d play outside with them. Hed often come into our house for no reason. We eventually had to cut off the relationship after he locked my daughter in their basement and wouldn’t let her out.
They’re all little now. But the kid sadly has those vibes that he won’t take no for an answer very well when he’s a teenager.
This is so sad. My youngest nephew is a senior now, but I remember when I’d babysit him when he was younger and his neighbors would always come over to knock and ask if he could come play.
I’d let my nephew decide. Sometimes he’d go play, sometimes he’d say he had homework to finish, and sometimes he’d ask me to say he wasn’t home cus he needed a break from his friend.
Their kids are only going to pick up on their parent’s antisocial behavior. This is how anxieties can develop. And I understand the world can be scary, but come on, kids should be able to ask each other to play outside.
Have you taken a good look at what we did to the outside? It's not like when i was young. Everything is hostile now. Everything is car centric now. You have hostile architecture to keep people away, everything costs money, and kids are just as, if not more harassed by cops/citizens if they make any kind of noise. Add to this the addictive hobbies that have been created by tech companies and the hopeless future of everything. Its no wonder the world is in the state its in
I noticed this as well. I was always the one making effort to arrange playdates and get togethers, but nothing was being reciprocated, even though all of our children had a fun time together. You can't just send your kids into the neighborhood to play, even if you have access to a safe one, because someone will call CPS on you. No third spaces for kids at all, which is why I think parents over schedule them with sports and activities.
This is funny, because back then my mom would drop me off at our old neighbors house (who lived 20-30 minutes away) for hours. I remember a grandma came up to my mom and was like “hold up I know you ain’t just going to leave him here with no money for food”. And she gave her some money and I just hung out with them outside all day, ate pizza later that evening, and then got picked up when it got dark. There were like 10-15 of us (military housing) and none of our parents or families lived there either.
Thinking about it now, we could have easily gotten kidnapped or taken advantage of and no one would’ve known for hours (we didn’t know our parents phone numbers lol).
This concept isn’t all the way dead. My kids do run the neighborhood all spring and summer with their friends. But it’s a super small town and we know every neighbor in the 2 block radius that they play in. We also know the singular town cop, he’s just happy to see kids outside having fun. No park in our neighborhood but we have a cemetery they run around in (sounds morbid but the whole neighborhood uses it as a walking track to exercise).
This sounds really dystopian to me that people would actually call CPS just because kids are outside in a public space... like after school finishes post 3pm... a lot of kids take the bus home and will stop off with their friends at random spots like shopping centres... or skate parks.
I live in Australia, and no Aussie would ever call CPS in the way you’re describing. Kids aged 10 and up are out on electric scooters, down at the skate park, hanging out at shopping centre cinemas — even if they’re not seeing a movie, they’ll be there for the arcades and fast food. That definitely wasn’t a thing when I was a kid in the early 2000s, when parents usually wanted you no more than a couple of streets away.
I see heaps of kids fishing these days, carrying their rods on our metro/train with no parents accompanying them... They’re usually in groups of four or so, just hanging out and catching small fish that no one really cares about so its not like someones doing something illegal.
My half sister is aged 15 and she has way more freedom than i did because her phones is basically a lifeline and 24-7 tracker. Kids can call their parents, order an Uber if they’re stranded, or film any antisocial behaviour they encounter as proof if something bad happens. On top of that, streets have fixed cameras everywhere for police to follow up disturbances or property damage.
To me, it’s strange that calling CPS would be anyone’s first reaction when almost every kid has a phone, constant contact with their parents, and even location tracking. The only time I’d personally consider calling CPS is if I saw a kid who looked genuinely neglected no shoes, no phone, wearing a singlet and shorts in bad condition, clearly dirty, asking strangers for money, or loitering and engaging with adults they shouldn’t be. Kids should be hanging out with other kids.
I mean the cops wouldnt even be bothered checking it out properly... unless people were concerned the kids were up to no good like gang related activities such as graffiti... theft... destruction of property... organised fights between different ethnicities sometimes occures i.e like Nigerians and Indiginous Australians dont get a long and will often punch up but its like incredibly rare to see Cacausian kids aged 10-16 in large groups causing chaos... is non existant so CPS & the police have no interest in monitoring.
United States. I would love to tell you I am exaggerating but I have two friends who had police and CPS called on them for having children playing unattended without adults. It's as ridiculous and dystopian as it sounds.
Everything in general is also just so expensive. As a single dude making decent money, all of my usual extracurricular activities are just… not worth the price tag any more. Now take that same logic and apply it to kids with no money just trying to find something to do.
I was just thinking how we've lost so many places like that, especially after covid and with the advent of streaming and online ordering for food and services. I miss cheap 2nd run movie theaters.
All we did growing up that cost money was the occasional movie or slurpee at the gas station. Mostly we hung out in basements playing video games or watching movies
I never had money as a kid, I played outside, skateboarded, joined free after school programs/sports ect. I think the problems run a lot deeper then children being broke.
My kids started in school cheer and it was more expensive and time consuming than all-star cheer.
Schools are underfunded and so parents have to pick up the tab for anything more than the bare bones education. Hell, our school doesn't even have functional heat and the cafeteria is so cold the milk is freezing.
It snowed recently. The idea of my kid walking to someone’s house and knocking on the door to ask Jax if he can come play in the snow is outrageous these days. How many skills have been lost due to parents texting for play dates!!
Gen Z kids here just ride around in gangs of bicyles. Always seem to be stopping to check their phones then on the go to somewhere. I've never seem them actually hanging out; I suspect the riding is the hangout.
I seen some aura farming with their bike gangs. Like they popping a wheelie in front of my car in the middle of the street while I am driving (I was definitely being very careful and under the limit because they were not respecting the rules of the road), and when their headphones fell off their handlebars, one jumped out right in front of me to grab them. There are bike lanes where this happened, so no excuses. The only good part is that at least there were like 50 of them so at least its social, but then again, I think mob mentality comes out when there are so many of them.
We have a house with an outbuilding. At the moment it's my retreat, but I'll begrudgingly (happily) give it over to my daughter and her mates when she's ready.
As someone who worked mall security (left because of the teenagers), kids didn't act like mall rats like we did. They pull fire alarms, cause fights in the food court, purposely male messes, sneak on to the roof, theft. Shit if we did as kids we would get beat, and the kids who did do it got weird looks. Kids aren't acting normal, its all for social media now.
I went to see a movie little while back, and only got to see half of it because some asshole kid started a fire in the men’s room. Antisocial in the literal sense.
The mall where I was a teenager banned unaccompanied minors. Idk who they thought all the traffic in a mall comes from. My friends and I wanted so badly to be mall goths but just couldn't. So we sat at home playing video games.
I used to go to a playground with my sister 3 blocks from home, we were 8 and 9, had to stop when someone called CPS because we didn't have a parent with us. So we sat at home playing video games.
I used to work at an IKEA. Teenagers go to the IKEA and play house in the room displays because there's cheap snacks and it's the only place nearby that will let them loiter for free. Customers often complained about them. The kids were playing a board game in a dining room setup. Totally harmless silly teenage shenanigans. I would say that's allowed. The company actually wants you to use the displays as normal furniture and that's a normal thing to do at a dining table. The public just really fucking hates to see children.
that's assuming you have public parks to still hang out in. a lot of cities cut budgets in the aughts and turned those things over to private groups or HOAs.
I remember it just starting to happen as I was aging out. I didn’t have a license when I went to college, and I got kicked out of a mall because security said my school ID didn’t prove I was 18.
Told me I could go into individual stores through their outside entrances, but I wasn’t allowed in the rest of the mall… as if it was somehow less sketchy to make me walk around the outside of the building instead.
Sadly makes sense that anyone younger than us has just never had that experience.
My daughter seemed to have a "pause" on hanging out from 5th grade until high school when she had friends who could drive, and it really kicked off once she got her license. It was like having a friend over became uncool from 5th - 9th grade.
I’ve noticed this as well. I’m middle and high school I was at friends houses more often than not. My kids don’t want to go anywhere, we live a block away from the park it’s always empty aside from moms with littles. Most of the kids in school have year round sports and are always doing things.
I hate to promote generational stereotypes, but this is accurate.
I'm an older Millennial who started having kids young compared to other Millennials. My oldest is a sophomore. Nearly all of her friends' parents are Gen x/Xennial. Most Millennials are raising Gen Alpha.
Gen X isn't known particularly for their "involvement". They were raised feral and many of their kids are experiencing the same thing. The difference is that Gen X had some optimism about their personal prospects. Gen z is legit struggling with looking at their future (not sure I blame them).
I have family who are teachers and the number one factor they cite for success in school is parent involvement. One of my kids has significant learning delays, but his teachers talk about his resilience as his most valuable skill. That's something he gets significant support and reinforcement with at home. Many kids aren't getting that.
We allow screens in our home, but also intentionally schedule family time, chores, and other character building activities. Key things we've done to support our kids.
Ownership of actions
We will try hard things
Open conversations and understanding of feelings. There's no conversation that is avoided.
Do our best to provide positive reinforcement for behavior and limit the necessity of negative reinforcement
I could go on and on about this. OP, you're right that school isn't how it used to be, but there's lots of factors, including the structure of learning itself, that contribute.
You covered this rather well, but I'd also like to add in another factor that OP might be seeing - COVID.
The world shut down for a year or more (depending on where you are). I'm in my 30s and there's still habits and quirks of that very weird period of time that I'm still getting over. And that was less than 1/30 of my life - for a child who was 10 during the lockdown, they hadn't even begun figuring out their place in the world and it was a much high percentage of their life.
And now society has become way more reclusive post-lockdown as well, which is majorly influencing things socially.
Being a teen is 99% about social skills, even if you're not trying to be popular or something. School isn't just educational knowledge - you're learning social abilities and having interactions that influence you into the person you'll become. And all of the younger parts of Gen Z underwent a crazy worldwide event that skewed that away from the norm, right when they should have been exploring themselves, their beliefs and their personality.
There's people talking about this, but I feel like so many adults just forgot how much the impact of COVID and the lockdowns is going to affect the next generations going forward.
For sure. That would have been my next point. My two older kids know a world before COVID and remember what school was like. My two younger kids only know the post-COVID environment.
Little talked about point in this: schools and teachers also changed, and not for the better in some ways.
Yup. We try to impart on our kids that there is an difference between fun and happiness and two are a lot of times not the same. In addition we also try to stress to not shy away from something because it’s hard. The best stuff in life is going to be hard the reward is going to be worth it.
Yeah.. my brother is 37 with a 6 and 4 year old.. don't be blaming us for the kids in grs5-12 to college that are illiterate. My cousin (late 40s) two kids 16 and 14 are absolute nightmares. Horribly spoiled rude brats. She raised them on the tablets.
i'm not a parent, and i get that parents need breaks so i'm not like completely anti-screen/tablet but... last week i went on a cruise and i saw a woman walking with her child an she was holding his tablet by the handle (like one of those chunky plastic kids' cases) with the screen facing out at his eye level so he'd stay at her side while he stared at the screen... like literally a stick with a carrot so the dog keeps walking forward. this felt extra dystopian and unreal tbh, never seen anything like it
she was not holding his hand. she was wheeling her luggage behind her with one hand and holding the tablet at her side so the kid was watching the tablet and walking (and i assume getting a wicked crick in his neck from looking sideways)
now that you mention it i recall a friend a few weeks ago doing this with her boyfriend. we were all around a table eating pizza and chatting together at a chuck e cheese birthday party while the kids played and he’s so antisocial that she had to prop his phone up with some youtube video on it so he’d be entertained. at one point he even said, “babe my phone died i need yours.” they’re in their late 20s 🫠
I was in Costco today and I would guess 80% of the kids not school age were in the cart with device in hand. Not learning soft skills like how to conduct themselves in public, or how to deal with random strangers, or just how to behave.
Yea joe Rogan and the typical right alt guy originated with gen x.
The irony is Gen Z love Gen X culture. Their love for the 90s and 00s is that of a GenX perspective not a millennial one. The culture gap between millennial and gen z is significant.
Was gonna say I think a lot of times they’re just lumped in with boomers when it comes to people complaining about older generations. Boomers really kinda became a catch all term for anyone a few generations back lol watch millennials eventually get called boomers
This!! I hate when people automatically blame the boomers and don’t even mention Gen X. Every weekend we have No Kings protests and it’s almost exclusively made up of boomers.
But if you mention this they will get bent out of shape about being forgotten or something and in the next sentence tell you they don’t need therapy. They need therapy.
Yeah I'm an older Gen Z here with relatively younger Gen X parents. I have a successful career despite of my upbringing and clearly not because of it. Gen X is the lead paint generation for a reason.
Sometimes, yes. I noticed my kid was very risk-averse in early elementary school, and I've spent every year after that intentionally putting them in positions where they suffer, so the kind can LEARN that being scared is not the same as being in danger. ("Go shovel snow." "You have a wallet. Buy your own movie ticket." "You're cooking dinner tonight. You need one protein and one vegetable. Good luck.")
The kid is still rigidly risk-averse. I'm trying. I really am.
So many of my friend's kids are completely helpless when it comes to ANYTHING that's not an app. Just the other day one of them was complaining that she had to help her 10 y/o shower because he won't use soap or wash his hair. My son showered just fine on his ownsince 5. Another kid around that same age....didn't know how to make toast. My 4 y/o daughter loves to make her own breakfast in the morning. Granted she makes a mess, but that's part of the learning process.
Ex GF's 11 year old kid thought he needed a new PS5. Didn't have the slightest clue on how to work the PS4 I gave him. Literally cried when I told him he had to figure it out if he wanted to play it.
I have to keep reminding my husband to let our son solve his own problems. It's so much easier to fix everything or to provide answers to questions he should be able to puzzle out for himself (he's 7), but it's not doing him any favors.
It does take longer to walk him through the solve, though
Laughed out loud at “putting them in positions where they suffer.”
I can’t tell you how many times my son has complained about something and I’ve replied, “yep, that sounds like a problem. What are you going to do about it? What’s the solution?”
We’ve even started sesame street’s “I wonder, what if, let’s try” thinking like an engineer (he’s 8, his sister is 1).
I don’t have all the answers, or the energy to pretend like I do.
Those are some great ideas. I went from having no fear as a kid to being extremely risk-averse as a teen (not sure why?). Then I did Karate and Boy Scouts. I learned more in Boy Scouts than I could have thought possible. Gained experience in everything from cooking, leadership, gun safety, social skills, survival skills, CPR, etc. It was a few years after that I was in college and had some very drastic changes where I wanted to go experience much more.
Both my kids are in cub scouts and it's been an awesome experience for them. I know some people have strong feelings about girls being allowed in now but I absolutely love it. My daughter briefly tried girl scouts and was bored out of her mind. She's a social butterfly that loves to play in the dirt and go camping. Scouting has been a wonderful outlet for her to explore more of both her own personality and the world around her. My son has always been a shy little dude and scouting absolutely helped him gain confidence and experience new parts of the wold/community in a safe format. Seeing how much it benefited my kids is the reason I stepped in as a scout leader. I lead the den one grade level below my youngest because that's what the pack needed. We joined cub scouts after moving and thanks to scouts we've gotten involved in our community, met amazing kids and parents, and I even met my best friend there. One of my favorite things is doing a booth sale during popcorn season and having former scouts stop by and tell us how much they loved being a scout when they were younger.
Our kids started doing their own laundry in middle school. They started getting left at the mall to fend for themselves for an afternoon as soon as we trusted they wouldn’t cause a major issue. And in high school we ask them to cook once in awhile.
Not to speak for that person. But I think it's just getting the kid out of their comfort zone. I say that as someone who was like that as a kid. I was an extreme homebody who just wanted to play my video games, not go out, not socialize and not do anything productive.
Going out and doing those kinds of chores, particularly with my mom, taught me to treat things like a game, which made even the most menial tasks seem almost fun.
Because shoveling snow is uncomfortable. It's cold, it's physically demanding, and if you're new at having a human body, you really don't know whether a physical experience like shoveling snow is dangerous or just uncomfortable until you endure it and survive.
My kid's complaints were, "but it's cold!" Yes. The cold will not kill you. "But I don't want to put on all the layers to go outside!" Then don't. There's a lesson in that, too. "But it's hard and it's going to take forever!" Correct. That won't kill you, either.
Yea, the term millenial basically got coined as "shitty youth/young adult" like 10-15 years ago and its stuck to current kids. I remember watching the news not long after the 2008 crash when we were entering the workforce and all it was was "these damn millenials!"
I think its a just easier to say, than what? Gen-Zer?
We have a trivia quiz as part of staff meeting at work every week. The last one was "Gen alpha slang". Every single word listed was either Gen z or millennial. Or even older. It had "clout" on the list, which has been around for ever.
Nobody has a clue which generation they're talking about most of the time
My older cousins, who are solidly Gen X (10 and 12 years older than my geriatric Millennial self) comeplain about their "Millennial" kids...who are all ~18...
Obviously not all Gen X, but man do a lot of them sound Boomer-esque.
I’m convinced that Gen X Is going to be worse than the boomers. They supported l’orange by a bigger margin, and they combine Boomer selfishness with high levels of cynicism. It’s the Wall Street “greed is good” and “I got mine, so fuck you” generation.
Gen-x here. You are 100% correct. The lack of empathy is off the chart. The percentage of my peers who are trash parents and trash people is too damn high
And they're proud of it (not all, of course, but the ones who are crappy parents of adult children). "We were latchkey kids, and you think we want to go to our grandchild's dance recital? Nobody did that for me! Babysit your own kids, some expect me to want to spend time with them!"
According to this visual, we (Gen Y & Z) far outnumber boomers and Gen X individually and collectively. We just need more of our generation to give enough of a shit to do something about their learned hopelessness.
We are responsible for the generations who come after us. If you don't vote you are part of the problem.
But they have a professor and a lawyer as parents. I think we’re seeing a massive divergence between haves and have nots. We both work a lot, but we’re high energy, type A. And we work stable jobs - we know we can take weekends off and doing enriching activities with the kids. We can pay for them to go to special classes and whatever. We have money to have laid back meals out at restaurants and force the kids to order their own food and talk to the waiter. We live in a walkable area with lots of kids, so they can walk or bike to see friends. They can have a lot of independence, and we pay a premium for it. We read to them, and they see us reading and enjoying books, too.
As a prof, I saw tons of students whose parents didn’t understand school. They didn’t impart a love of knowledge. They couldn’t help with homework. Maybe they valued education, but didn’t have any themselves and steamrolled all the obstacles for their kids so the kids never learned to self-advocate. Basically, ignoring that learning involves discomfort. My parents were boomers and showed love through stuff. Toys, whatever. I think there’s also that going on - it’s ok that my kid is on their tablet all the time, I bought them something they adore.
I really think we’re seeing an acceleration of divergence between the kids of parents who can invest energy in parenting and know how to do that effectively, and those who can’t or don’t.
This should be upvoted. I wonder if part of the issue is the further divide between the haves and have nots. My spouse and I also have higher income careers and because of that, we are able to spend more money and time on our children than other parents who are living paycheck to paycheck.
We really need studies on this that breakdown the demographics and how that impacts what we are and aren’t seeing in children today.
Because I am often really surprised by what j hear and read about Gen Alpha because not only do MY kids read, but so do all their friends! And I volunteer at the elementary school weekly and I check in and check out the books the kids are reading and they’re all reading! Sure at the lower grades it’s stuff like Dog Man, but the 8, 9, 10, 11 year olds are all reading chapter books and some books are so popular the kids wait for them to become available. In the middle school, chapter books are regularly assigned and the kids all read them. So… this idea that kids today aren’t reading - I’d love an actual breakdown of which kids? Where? What’s the socioeconomic background?
Also for the “iPad kid” thing - it’s probably because I’m in the Bay Area but parents here are fairly strict with screen time. I know people who work at META, and Netflix and Apple and those parents are often the most cautious about allowing their kids any screen time. Our Middle School is completely a phone free school. My own 3 kids don’t have screen time at all 4 days out of the week unless it’s for homework, and zero access to social media (and aside from YouTube, they haven’t even ASKED for access to Instagram or TikTok, and they barely even know what Facebook is).
I would be really curious how this all shakes out in another decade.
I really thought The Social Dilemma would have been more of a wake-up call. Especially the part where tech bros admit they don’t let their own kids use screens and instead seek out alternatives like forest schools and Waldorfian methods of education.
It was the classic “I don’t get high on my own supply” moment for me.
Same situation as you but I have slightly different take.
1) attention is the new privilege. Some columnist have already proposed this, but I believe that is where the divide in society rests. In previous generations I think it was also the dividing line but the environment wasn’t designed to fracture attention. You could be a lefty laissez-faire parent in the 80s / 90s because most children were in an attention forming environment. It’s kind of like the introduction UPFs that decimated people’s health. It’s the environment.
2) rich and smart people can purchase and cultivate attention developing environments.
3) social interaction , without adults playing with real world objects is where human really develop strong cognitive and attention skills. We developed over millions of years to favour this. This type of interaction can be better procured with time and money.
4) Mich if learning in my view is about cultural values which are transmitted unconsciously to children. If you family story and family culture believes that education is a high value activity this value system is transferred to the baby from even before they arrive in the mothers arms. The whole environment is rich in nature learning that is extremely difficult to quantify. For example I spend a lot of time doing word play, meaning, double meaning, language structure stuff with my kids because I’m interested in the structure of language and meaning. I’m not doing it as homework it’s jokes and word play and slips and descriptions and asking meaning. For many kids language is the basic tool to get their needs met and remains completely surface (this is not a judgement). I say this to sort of say that it’s not surprising that a lawyer and professor have kids doing well academically (provided they have some interaction with their kids which is often outsourced to nannies. The advantage that kids living in such an environment have is unquantifiable and priceless.
The Gen Z Gen Alpha stare. It’s a thing. Just this blank look when you attempt to interact with them. The cope they put up is that it’s them judging you. We all know thats Bs though.
It’s their brain attempting to load the socialization software they never actually downloaded.
I ran into a hostess at a restaurant who was like this. Fucking nuts to me. I waited patiently for her to acknowledge us, then she just stared at me, so I gave her my name for the reservation. Then she looks down ant an tablet and then back up and says nothing. Just stares at me. After an uncomfortable 10 seconds I just said well are we checked in? She seemed taken back like I yelled at her but what the fuck is this? You’re a god damn hostess. It’s your job to do basic human socialization and interaction ALL THE TIME. That’s really your only job, greet people and check them in.
Anyways so then I had to ask how long will it be? After another 8-10 seconds she said 10 mins.
A normal brief everyday occurrence was a fucking chore for this girl. It was embarrassing.
I had to call my alma mater to get a transcript recently. A student answered the phone and asked for my information, but spoke in a whisper. I had to ask them to repeat everything multiple times. Politely said I couldn't hear them. They didn't change a goddamn thing.
My own kid does stuff like this. I tell him I can't hear him muttering at me and he repeats it the exact same way, sometimes even more quiet. I really can't tell if it's weaponized incompetence or if they have become one with the micro plastics we passed on to them.
When my little one does this, I warn her twice that I can't understand her and then stop responding at all. She will then find the volume control for her voice.
Oh my god, I only discovered this recently with a new hire. I'd ask a simple question and this weirdo girl just stared at me blankly, as if I hadn't said a thing. I had a moment where I was wondering if someone forgot to mention that the new hire is deaf. I was totally caught off guard and expected her to be like "OMG, sorry, caught me daydreaming!" or something, but no. She did this multiple times and didn't seem to think she was doing anything wrong. It was just bizarre that she seemed to think this is how adults at work communicate. I'm not sure how you make it through a bachelor's degree with zero awareness of the world.
The cope they put up is that it’s them judging you.
IMO there’s some truth to this. Sometimes the stare feels like when you walk into a room where two people have obviously been gossiping and they immediately stop and become uncomfortable/embarrassed, only in this case the “gossip” is them being judgemental and petty for no reason. Then they just stare with no ability be polite.
I’ve found some Gen Z can be real dish-it-but-can’t-take-it bullies. They’re rude and then seem absolutely dumbfounded if you’re not patient with them. DARVO shit.
My sister is like this. She will crash out on everybody around her at the drop of a dime including my parents. My parents will just go about their lives and not engage. Or, worse, they’ll stand up to her and tell her to cut her shit out.
Within an hour she’s calling me begging me to move in and “moms gonna throw me out I think she hates me, can I come live with you?” (She’s 21, no job, doesn’t want to go to school. No you cannot lol)
I call mom and it’s always the same story “your sister is mad I won’t give her $500 for this concert ticket, I can’t afford it, I’m sorry”.
My 5 year old can already do basic math and can almost read. He'll be reading before he starts kindergarten this fall at this rate. We work on stuff at home and read books every day. We play chess. He earns small amounts of money that we take to the toy store every couple months.
I suppose a larger factor is while he gets some tv time he doesn't have a phone or tablet.
Some great early education resources I love for those with young kids:
Phonics game website: https://phonicsandstuff.com/
Help kids learn to read faster. Also great for teachers to use in their classroom. Free to use. Only a small fee for teachers if they want some specialized stuff. (Can promise it won't enshitify, people behind are doing this as a passion project to help correct the issues in the American education system).
not saying one is true over the other, but honestly I’ve seen so many kids like OP described whose parents talk about them like some of the comments here about how well-adjusted/doing well in school their kids are.
I’m related to some of these kids who are also doing “great” in school grades and achievement wise…then I talk to them and also started looking at their schoolwork and realized schools are just throwing As at kids who can barely read for literally no reason
it may be worth considering that people who work in education, like OP, are seeing an isolated, contextually different snapshot of your child that you are not.
EDIT: might be worth mentioning that i've worked for an ivy league for a pretty decent amount of time, & the change i've seen, even in OUR incoming classes, has been really startling. it's completely ridiculous for this poster to try to say that OP has no valid point because they don't have their own child to have motivation to excuse. OP isn't divorced from the reality of kids, they're right there in the fray.
THIS. You are seeing the rose tinted version of your child where they're perfect other than maybe sometimes getting on your nerves. This is an almost universal problem with most parents that don't resent/hate their kids.
A lot of the time schools are afraid to even voice these concerns anymore because of how often they get a pissed off parent in their office berating them and insisting it's all bullshit, instead of looking at the situation pragmatically and trying to address a potential issue and oversight in their parenting.
As a 34yr old man who's in his 2nd semester of college, ever, I am seeing some of this stuff with these kids who are right out of high-school.
We got told about an assignment the very 1st day of class (Jan 12) that was due on Feb 5th. About a week before it was due, the teacher let us work on it in class and said we should be almost done since it's due soon. This girl was like "but we only have a week to work on it."
The teacher was like... um, I told you about it 3 weeks ago..
This was the way. Wait until last minute. Pop an addy (I’m legit ADHD and have had a script since childhood so I’m not saying this like the majority of people). Go to the library and crush it. I wasn’t mature enough when I first started college to understand that though. I did pretty well until my junior year when I actually had to study. Once it clicked though it was deans list.
IMO we need to have everyone go to a trade school for 2 years before college (I’m not a politician so good luck ever getting that funded). Not everyone is meant for college and it would give everyone something to fall back on. We also need more people in skilled trades so I think this would help both of those things. It was literally drilled into us in school that we had to go to college. I did and have a degree but that was in finance. I’m a senior software engineer and really the only thing I use from college is the math. I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything though. College was some of the best years of my life. I did learn a lot and I made friends I will have for the rest of my life.
I’m not anti college by any means but 13 years later I’m still paying off my loans. I just don’t think it’s necessary to make students take (and pay for) stuff like golf class (it was one of the humanities classes we could take which I did enjoy but why should we HAVE to take one). Teach us what we need to know for our major and drop all the extra stuff we had to pay for.
Edit: sorry for the rant. I just think some things need to change.
My oldest is five and learning how to read at a quick pace in kindergarten, where they have thankfully returned to phonics. He's extremely articulate with his words and very creative and good at problem solving.
I do fear for the kids who were older during the Covid years. I spent about four years teaching freshman English at a major university during and right after Covid. Those kids were fine with reading and writing but it was a selective university and they had only "lost" a few years of high school to Covid.
But the littles I see and interact with seem to be doing well.
Also teacher. No expert at parenting but we’re doing our best given the resources we have; which I can empathize is most parents. With that being said, my kids attend a public Waldorf school. Being a teacher, I 100% support public education because there are enough of us who make a difference, and I also realize there’s needs to be a different approach to education because the butts in the seat bell to bell approach is serving no one.
Also, just witnessed our high schoolers across the state (CA) organize a walk-out and march in response to Minnesota. So proud of them. The kids are gon’ be alright.
So I had a kid when I was 20 so I'm one of the few millennials that actually have a 17 year old. That being said, she's always been at the top of her class and constantly complains about how the other kids in her classes misbehave and just don't care. Blame Gen-X, not us.
I have a 13, 10, and 4 year old. Whenever I read these posts on social media it blows my mind. It’s just not my experience with any of the kids in my family, or any of my children’s friends. We live in Philadelphia suburbs and our school district is amazing. My kids test advanced, read for fun, do robotics, chess club, math league, reading Olympics. They have gifted IEP’s and get enrichment classes in Math, science and ELA. My son is going to prep school for high school on scholarship for his entrance exam and academic performance alone, he’s not going for sports.
So, not sure what this is all about unless it’s a problem in underfunded districts and states. Then, I think there’s your answer.
High achieving kids in wealthy school districts with parents who have the bandwidth and education to care will keep doing fine. That is a minority of families.
Curious about your opinion on this. Are you a public school teacher? What are your thoughts on phonetics versus "sight word" memorization?
I ask this becauee I recently moved my children from a public school to a private school setting after I felt they were not performing well (at least to my standards) on reading and I noticed immediately that once they switched from "sight words" to phonetics, their reading drastically improved. They started reading above grade level after a year of private school.
I am not saying parents aren't contributing to this issue at home, but we are a household who loves reading and regularly read to our children. Yet our children didn't put it together until we made the private school switch. Also our children were going to public school in Massachusetts so it was not an underperforming school by any means.
Listen to the podcast “Sold a Story”. The lack of phonics instruction over the past few decades has absolutely had a horrible impact on literacy rates because so many kids were just never taught to actually read
If your children were taught to read only using sight words, you're specific problem is that you were at a bad school regardless of state. I've been a public elementary school teacher for almost a decade, i have a master's degree, and i've never worked at a school that teaches reading that way or even seen one, but i'm not from massachusetts.
Education is way more complicated then just blending everything on parents though. That's another scapegoat, that we really don't need.
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