During three dissimilar, but not unlike events, one an Innovation Sprint on teacher-led innovation in 2023,the Ministry Of Education’s Summer Institute in 2019, and this year a Teachers in Catholic Schools Conference. There I was first alerted to the fact that the kids aren’t alright.
We may think we know what it means to be a kid and sure we did back then. But even today’s youngest millennial is often light-years away from understanding the pressures and realities of what Generation Alpha faces.
The pre-covid conference in 2019 was among the more eye-opening events that I had attended because it opened my eyes to the reality that the world was more topsy turvy than it was. That as teachers we often were in our own silos and failed to realise what was staring us in our face. How bad the social issues were that affected students and of course resulted in such antisocial and dangerous behaviours. Our session led by two secondary school counselors revealed that they received more calls from the primary schools in their district than from both their two secondary schools. This belied the myth that once the children get to secondary school, they become lost ; in fact it further exemplifies the reality that many of our programs need to be redirected and refocused at the primary level instead of the secondary level.
Primary schools currently lack the resources to deal with the social rot and/or decay that is pervasive within our societies. Unlike their secondary counterparts, many may be perceived as too small to have their own guidance counselors and depend on the assistance of a district counsellor who may already be overtasked. Social workers and youth development workers are also overburdened and understaffed. As they are stretched and stressed by the chaos that is consuming the youth.
The world over students are being faced with mental and emotional issues such as bullying and increasing anxiety and depression. These are not aided by the overstimulation of their brains due to unregulated screen time. In a society where capitalism via the tourism market often forces parents to become strangers to their children due to long hours. They are bombarded with flawed ideas of what body image and self-worth are, especially now in the age of AI where image can be anything and children are becoming even more susceptible to eating disorders and other gender dysmorphic ideas.
School, usually a safe haven, is wrought with casual, snide bullying done just covertly enough to escape notice and many times ignored by those in authority. The authority figures who fail to grasp the seriousness of the situation. Additionally, they are over-tested to meet standards in an academic setting which often view enrichment in the form of sports and art education as ‘disturbances’ rather than an effort to develop the holistic child. For many without these outlets available or supported at home and in the community whether it be parental -support, economic-ability or community inactivity, their much-needed outlets for self-expression and examination will be lost.
Families are often ill-equipped today to deal with what their children face. They often speak different languages and many though not true Luddites, they are on different superhighways of the internet when it comes to their children. The shorthand that they use, the apps they engage with are foreign to many parents, let alone the ability to navigate them to understand what is being exposed to their children. Many are often tired from working late-night shifts, hustling two jobs in order to survive in today’s capitalist society, to meet the rather absurd standard of living, to provide the moral, academic, social or psychological supervision or guidance needed to create upstanding citizens. This has created a very dangerous issue, that of parentification. You may not be aware of the word, but you definitely have seen it in action, where the older child, usually the daughter, becomes a third parent and takes on an inappropriate level of responsibility in the household before they are emotionally or developmentally capable.
What’s the big deal, right? Too many kids don’t have responsibility. However, kids who undergo parentification usually have difficulty setting boundaries in their adulthood and have an inability to develop healthy attachments. They also may be prone to anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues.
The kids aren’t alright folks.