100 days of hope — 10. Young people’s mental health
I’ve been confronted by two startling articles related to the mental health of young people over the last few days.
The first says that 2020 saw a 46% increase in the number of new referrals of young people experiencing an eating disorder to secondary mental health services in the UK.
The second says that in a recent study 7% of people reported having attempted to end their life by the age of 17 and nearly 25% of young people people have self-harmed in some way.
Those are some alarming numbers. They cause me to consider what’s going on at a societal level that’s leading to this. Some will want to blame social media, others will suggest it’s because stigma to come forward has been reduced, the really over-simplistic take would be that we’re raising snowflakes. But like all complex issues there is no simple answer. The reality will be a confluence of factors.
But in the spirit of this blog I want to look at these findings through the lens of hope. What might be getting in the way of young people feeling hopeful about their lives and their futures?
The generation growing up now are the first generation who don’t know life before the internet, before mobile phones, or Youtube, Facebook, Google.
For them there is no hiding from the complexities of the modern world. In a single day any one of us who uses the internet regularly will be exposed to content about climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the exponential rise of technology and artificial intelligence, maybe even the idea we could all be living in a simulation, internet trolling and polarised conversations and opinions.
As an adult this is information that we can barely integrate but for a 12 year old how does this all land? I think as we become increasingly connected via the internet children become increasingly exposed to harsh and challenging aspects of our reality at earlier and earlier ages.
Children then look up to the adults around them for guidance on how to navigate this complex world and I don’t think collectively the adults are doing very well at leading them through this.
I’m not trying to blame adults — because the twists and turns of life and society are new for every one of us. The painful secret you learn as you become an adult is that we’re all bluffing our way through it in some sense. But I see this snowballing mental health crisis amongst our young people as a real signal that the world does not feel like a safe place to be emerging into at the moment. And for me that is a real call to action. A call to put my best energy into changing that fact.
For me right now that means living a life that resonates with a more hopeful, regenerative future. Working out what that means practically, working out who else is taking this journey seriously and aligning with them, working out what skills and talents I have that can make the most impact.
PS. A friend who works with children said that the actual top reason children give for stress in their life is the pressure for achievement at school. Maybe it’s time the education system started asking, are we really helping children learn the most meaningful skills in preparation for the world beyond school.
