8 student deaths so far this year at NC State

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 9th grade and had one B+ on her report card first semester. Reading DCUM it appears she is no longer in the running for our state flagship, UVA. Why are we expecting kids to excel in every way at such a young age? Is there no room for error or mistakes? The pressure to be perfect academically, beautiful, popular, etc. at age 14, which is only compounded by social media, is leading to a lot of depression and anxiety.

The room for error just isn't there anymore. I had a C in high school and a few Bs as a freshman as I adjusted to high school and ended up at a great college. I just checked and my college now has an incoming unweighted freshman GPA of 3.95.

+1. I got into a popular in-state college with a few B's and probably even a C in my high school transcript (usually higher weight classes, but it wouldn't be competitive today).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So what's changed in the past 20, 30, 40 years that makes suicide more common?

just in the last 15 years. Internet, social media, and cell phones.

I have a 17yo, and she is a complete mental mess. for no reason at all, except having her nose in her phone 6 hours per day. I, and many parents try to fight against it with sports, structure, rules, love, support, guidance, etc, but we are powerless. Schools require computers and cellphones for activities, so they unknowingly set them up for mental failure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents allow electronics, teachers, daycare workers, Nannie’s, and coaches to raise their children, then expect them to be able to handle the stress and changes that come with college. They give them cell phones at 8 or 10 and that device quickly shuts out the parenting capabilities even more. They send them to schools that don’t even use textbooks and expect them to handle college life with note taking, writing, studying and reading from actual books and professional publications is often a requirement. They coddle them and cater to their every whim, claiming little Suzy doesn’t have time for learning how to cook, clean, do chores, plan a menu, learn finances because she has sooooo many activities. They don’t prepare them for the real world, too much coddling and not enough actual parenting. Then they get out on their own and lack basic skills and now college seems so much more difficult because someone missed how to adult 101 during the first 18 years of life.

I see this from the opposite side. With school standards that are developmentally unreasonable for many kids beginning at a young age and schools focused on "college and career readiness," the role of grades and testing looms large over kids. Their adult monitored activities consume their lives, leaving little time for free play. There's little time, inside and out of school, for free play - barely any recess. Teachers have increasingly been held to impossible standards and not given sufficient autonomy, which causes them to push back on students and their parents when adequate progress isn't being made. We also shifted to an ideal of intensive parenting, where parents are expected to cultivate their kids' lives, monitoring and supervising every minute. You can't blame parents for doing exactly what society tells them to do.

Look at this forum and the contradictory messages.

DCUM: You need to stop coddling your children and let them fail.

Also DCUM: If your children fail, it is evidence that you are a terrible parent.

Also DCUM: I'm a hiring manager, and I only hire students from top schools students with GPAs above 3.0.

We didn't coddle kids too much; we collectively deprived them of the unstructured experience of childhood where they could socialize without adult interference, make low-stakes mistakes, and learn how to problem-solve on their own. With college and career readiness school standards, we pushed adult ideas on them when they weren't ready, while we (both parents, teachers, coaches, etc.) modeled a stressed-out adult existence that no one would voluntarily choose. Many kids haven't had the experience to figure out who they are, which is exacerbated by the pandemic. They have been taught to focus too much on achieving goals, often by winning the approval of adults, and not enough on developing human connections. Social media exacerbates this problem.

Resilience isn't developed through failure and adversity alone. Resilient kids need support to try and fail and the strength to get up and try again. In this fractured world, many of them are terrified of making even a minor mistake because we taught them that their entire future depends on adhering to a particular path that doesn't include missteps or failure of any kind. Fear and anxiety are controlling their lives, which is why they have trouble forming the relationships that would help them become more resilient.

My personal favorite: I didn't marry for money, DH/DW was struggling when I met them but on the path the make hundreds of thousands. The message is pretty clear that if you want to be desired you better be on that path. Look through any of the relationship threads about what makes a partner eligible, even people who say they didn't care about money are quick to throw in qualifiers about how the future spouse was on the path to making money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Suicide is to some extent contagious, so you see clusters like this at universities. We had this happen at W&M when I was a student.

I think this is key. I also think there's less and less stigma attached to suicide. Go read the comments on social media account of a kid who kills him/herself. Peers are saying things like "be w/ the angels," "fly away," "peace," etc. I'm not saying that's bad, but there's some idealization of suicide going on w/ this generation. Finally, I don't think anyone has mentioned the decline of religion/faith, which undoubtedly is playing some role in this phenomenon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So what's changed in the past 20, 30, 40 years that makes suicide more common?

just in the last 15 years. Internet, social media, and cell phones.

I have a 17yo, and she is a complete mental mess. for no reason at all, except having her nose in her phone 6 hours per day. I, and many parents try to fight against it with sports, structure, rules, love, support, guidance, etc, but we are powerless. Schools require computers and cellphones for activities, so they unknowingly set them up for mental failure.

We can not "ground" our child and take away the phone becasue they can not complete assignments without tools that are a part of the phone. Teachers only accept assignments if they are scanned and loaded - no paper assignmments accepted for some of my children's classes.

[Anonymous]

Suicide is a social contagion, which is why there can be clusters among young people.

Social media is definitely causing a mental health crisis among young people. I believe gaming is also a huge issue - especially among young men who become addicted to it, and they lose any desire to interact in the real world which is much more boring.

It seems to me that suicide has become more "acceptable" in recent years, and almost glamorized. That makes it more appealing to a young person in crisis, who feels worthless. They can fantasize about how they will be the center of attention and loved, even if it only happens after they've died. JMO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 9th grade and had one B+ on her report card first semester. Reading DCUM it appears she is no longer in the running for our state flagship, UVA. Why are we expecting kids to excel in every way at such a young age? Is there no room for error or mistakes? The pressure to be perfect academically, beautiful, popular, etc. at age 14, which is only compounded by social media, is leading to a lot of depression and anxiety.

I think this is a big deal. Kids feel like they cannot make mistakes. There is fear that one bad grade will ruin it all. That a misstep will end up on social media forever. The is intense pressure to pick something to be good at (be it sports, an instrument) a young age. When I was growing up, kids were encouraged to explore different sports and interests. Now everything has to be curated for college. And then you add social media to the mix. And honestly colleges are enabling this madness. They don't care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 9th grade and had one B+ on her report card first semester. Reading DCUM it appears she is no longer in the running for our state flagship, UVA. Why are we expecting kids to excel in every way at such a young age? Is there no room for error or mistakes? The pressure to be perfect academically, beautiful, popular, etc. at age 14, which is only compounded by social media, is leading to a lot of depression and anxiety.

The room for error just isn't there anymore. I had a C in high school and a few Bs as a freshman as I adjusted to high school and ended up at a great college. I just checked and my college now has an incoming unweighted freshman GPA of 3.95.

Of course there is room for error. If you insist that “only UVA is acceptable” then that is forbidding error. But there are many other colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 9th grade and had one B+ on her report card first semester. Reading DCUM it appears she is no longer in the running for our state flagship, UVA. Why are we expecting kids to excel in every way at such a young age? Is there no room for error or mistakes? The pressure to be perfect academically, beautiful, popular, etc. at age 14, which is only compounded by social media, is leading to a lot of depression and anxiety.

The room for error just isn't there anymore. I had a C in high school and a few Bs as a freshman as I adjusted to high school and ended up at a great college. I just checked and my college now has an incoming unweighted freshman GPA of 3.95.

Of course there is room for error. If you insist that “only UVA is acceptable” then that is forbidding error. But there are many other colleges.

Who said UVA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 9th grade and had one B+ on her report card first semester. Reading DCUM it appears she is no longer in the running for our state flagship, UVA. Why are we expecting kids to excel in every way at such a young age? Is there no room for error or mistakes? The pressure to be perfect academically, beautiful, popular, etc. at age 14, which is only compounded by social media, is leading to a lot of depression and anxiety.

Stop listening to DCUM. This place is full of terrible info. Your kid is still in the running for UVA. Step away from this place if you have ben duped into thinking that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Suicide is a social contagion, which is why there can be clusters among young people.

Social media is definitely causing a mental health crisis among young people. I believe gaming is also a huge issue - especially among young men who become addicted to it, and they lose any desire to interact in the real world which is much more boring.

It seems to me that suicide has become more "acceptable" in recent years, and almost glamorized. That makes it more appealing to a young person in crisis, who feels worthless. They can fantasize about how they will be the center of attention and loved, even if it only happens after they've died. JMO

I feel differently about gaming. It’s a type of free play that boys do together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 9th grade and had one B+ on her report card first semester. Reading DCUM it appears she is no longer in the running for our state flagship, UVA. Why are we expecting kids to excel in every way at such a young age? Is there no room for error or mistakes? The pressure to be perfect academically, beautiful, popular, etc. at age 14, which is only compounded by social media, is leading to a lot of depression and anxiety.

The room for error just isn't there anymore. I had a C in high school and a few Bs as a freshman as I adjusted to high school and ended up at a great college. I just checked and my college now has an incoming unweighted freshman GPA of 3.95.

Of course there is room for error. If you insist that “only UVA is acceptable” then that is forbidding error. But there are many other colleges.

Who said UVA?

Someone upthread. But subsitute whatever other college you’re fixated on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its 100% social media. That's the big different between when we grew up and how they are growing up. That's it.

I know teenagers that have tried to kill themselves who are not on social media.

I think social media is a big culprit but not the only factor.

In addition to Covid, academic pressure and the related economic insecurity, there is also climate change and the state of the world in general which I think is really on the minds of some/many teenagers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents allow electronics, teachers, daycare workers, Nannie’s, and coaches to raise their children, then expect them to be able to handle the stress and changes that come with college. They give them cell phones at 8 or 10 and that device quickly shuts out the parenting capabilities even more. They send them to schools that don’t even use textbooks and expect them to handle college life with note taking, writing, studying and reading from actual books and professional publications is often a requirement. They coddle them and cater to their every whim, claiming little Suzy doesn’t have time for learning how to cook, clean, do chores, plan a menu, learn finances because she has sooooo many activities. They don’t prepare them for the real world, too much coddling and not enough actual parenting. Then they get out on their own and lack basic skills and now college seems so much more difficult because someone missed how to adult 101 during the first 18 years of life.

I see this from the opposite side. With school standards that are developmentally unreasonable for many kids beginning at a young age and schools focused on "college and career readiness," the role of grades and testing looms large over kids. Their adult monitored activities consume their lives, leaving little time for free play. There's little time, inside and out of school, for free play - barely any recess. Teachers have increasingly been held to impossible standards and not given sufficient autonomy, which causes them to push back on students and their parents when adequate progress isn't being made. We also shifted to an ideal of intensive parenting, where parents are expected to cultivate their kids' lives, monitoring and supervising every minute. You can't blame parents for doing exactly what society tells them to do.

Look at this forum and the contradictory messages.

DCUM: You need to stop coddling your children and let them fail.

Also DCUM: If your children fail, it is evidence that you are a terrible parent.

Also DCUM: I'm a hiring manager, and I only hire students from top schools students with GPAs above 3.0.

We didn't coddle kids too much; we collectively deprived them of the unstructured experience of childhood where they could socialize without adult interference, make low-stakes mistakes, and learn how to problem-solve on their own. With college and career readiness school standards, we pushed adult ideas on them when they weren't ready, while we (both parents, teachers, coaches, etc.) modeled a stressed-out adult existence that no one would voluntarily choose. Many kids haven't had the experience to figure out who they are, which is exacerbated by the pandemic. They have been taught to focus too much on achieving goals, often by winning the approval of adults, and not enough on developing human connections. Social media exacerbates this problem.

Resilience isn't developed through failure and adversity alone. Resilient kids need support to try and fail and the strength to get up and try again. In this fractured world, many of them are terrified of making even a minor mistake because we taught them that their entire future depends on adhering to a particular path that doesn't include missteps or failure of any kind. Fear and anxiety are controlling their lives, which is why they have trouble forming the relationships that would help them become more resilient.

Honestly reading DCUM has made re-evalute a lot of things, including deciding not to enter the rat race with my kids. It is not worth it. I want them to be happy and productive adults but they don't need to go to a T20 school to do it. I am letting them explore different interests. I think there is something bigger going on....I think parents are (rightly) anxious that their kids will not be able to sustain the same lifestyle they have. The Atlantic has covered some of this intensive parenting.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/01/intensive-helicopter-parenting-inequality/580528/
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/05/intensive-helicopter-parent-anxiety/629813/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents allow electronics, teachers, daycare workers, Nannie’s, and coaches to raise their children, then expect them to be able to handle the stress and changes that come with college. They give them cell phones at 8 or 10 and that device quickly shuts out the parenting capabilities even more. They send them to schools that don’t even use textbooks and expect them to handle college life with note taking, writing, studying and reading from actual books and professional publications is often a requirement. They coddle them and cater to their every whim, claiming little Suzy doesn’t have time for learning how to cook, clean, do chores, plan a menu, learn finances because she has sooooo many activities. They don’t prepare them for the real world, too much coddling and not enough actual parenting. Then they get out on their own and lack basic skills and now college seems so much more difficult because someone missed how to adult 101 during the first 18 years of life.

I see this from the opposite side. With school standards that are developmentally unreasonable for many kids beginning at a young age and schools focused on "college and career readiness," the role of grades and testing looms large over kids. Their adult monitored activities consume their lives, leaving little time for free play. There's little time, inside and out of school, for free play - barely any recess. Teachers have increasingly been held to impossible standards and not given sufficient autonomy, which causes them to push back on students and their parents when adequate progress isn't being made. We also shifted to an ideal of intensive parenting, where parents are expected to cultivate their kids' lives, monitoring and supervising every minute. You can't blame parents for doing exactly what society tells them to do.

Look at this forum and the contradictory messages.

DCUM: You need to stop coddling your children and let them fail.

Also DCUM: If your children fail, it is evidence that you are a terrible parent.

Also DCUM: I'm a hiring manager, and I only hire students from top schools students with GPAs above 3.0.

We didn't coddle kids too much; we collectively deprived them of the unstructured experience of childhood where they could socialize without adult interference, make low-stakes mistakes, and learn how to problem-solve on their own. With college and career readiness school standards, we pushed adult ideas on them when they weren't ready, while we (both parents, teachers, coaches, etc.) modeled a stressed-out adult existence that no one would voluntarily choose. Many kids haven't had the experience to figure out who they are, which is exacerbated by the pandemic. They have been taught to focus too much on achieving goals, often by winning the approval of adults, and not enough on developing human connections. Social media exacerbates this problem.

Resilience isn't developed through failure and adversity alone. Resilient kids need support to try and fail and the strength to get up and try again. In this fractured world, many of them are terrified of making even a minor mistake because we taught them that their entire future depends on adhering to a particular path that doesn't include missteps or failure of any kind. Fear and anxiety are controlling their lives, which is why they have trouble forming the relationships that would help them become more resilient.

My personal favorite: I didn't marry for money, DH/DW was struggling when I met them but on the path the make hundreds of thousands. The message is pretty clear that if you want to be desired you better be on that path. Look through any of the relationship threads about what makes a partner eligible, even people who say they didn't care about money are quick to throw in qualifiers about how the future spouse was on the path to making money.

That is my favorite too. It's a dcum classic: a SAHM who married her husband when he was broke but is now making 500k. UMC people are sending the message to their children that sons must excel to become rich breadwinners and girls must be beautiful and smart enough to go to a good school and catch a rich husband. That's what I learned about upper-class white people in this area! I'm an immigrant so it was fascinating to me to realize this after years of reading dcum.