University students have increasing emotional problems
This isn’t going to be a post bashing college students for being fragile flowers. It’s true they are more fragile than they used to be, but here’s a serious discussion in The Guardian, of all places, about the phenomenon.
Reading it, I felt a sense of sadness and came to the conclusion that today’s students are not being served by anyone very well. Politicians and the universities themselves have pushed the idea that just about everyone should go to college, and that means that people are attending who struggle with the work and remain highly stressed. It doesn’t help that secondary schools generally do much less to properly prepare them than they used to. Then there are the enormous student loans that result from a pact between government and universities, and allow students to attend while mortgaging their future earning power, all for a piece of paper that doesn’t reliably offer them a job payoff after school and yet is considered obligatory to get so many of today’s jobs. The family is much less of an emotional bulwark than it used to be, and that means a lot of students come to school with pre-existant emotional difficulties that are exacerbated by the stress of the workthere.
The article doesn’t mention it, but I bet substance abuse is part of it for increasing numbers of students, too. And of course there’s social media, which seems to do more harm than good and offers an illusory closeness and interaction, a forum for bullying, and impossible standards with which to compare oneself. Lastly (unmentioned by the article too) is hookup culture, which beckons and seduces but doesn’t fulfill. And especially for men, there is the fear of being falsely accused.
There’s probably more, but that’s enough for now. No wonder the suicide rate is up among university students.
[NOTE: The piece is about students in the UK, but I think most of it applies here, too. In the UK in particular, there aren’t enough funds for adequate mental health services at colleges, and waiting lists are long. I’m not sure that part is true in the US – yet.]
Because the students are on their phones so much I would imagine that they have a problem in lecture classes staying alert. College is so much more demanding than HS.
Young people are being indoctrinated this way on purpose. They are being taught to be fragile so that they will constantly appeal to those in authority to protect them from the vagaries of life. The adult world is a scary place: college administrators and certain politicians are happy to protect them — in exchange for their continued dependency and patronage.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” — H.L.Mencken
(I agree that there aren’t enough resources on campus for mental health. However, there aren’t enough resources for mental health — anywhere.)
I would search to show i was ringing this bell 10 years ago…
But being AHEAD of the curve is not productive… (seriously)
Lets just make it easier to understand..
Children raised in single mother homes as a dominant thing, end up being emotionally damaged and psychologically dysfunctional.
The worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; She must remember that there are only our children, the children of communist workers Alexandra Kollontai feminist hero from a feminist state
[you know.. like cows on a farm, or slaves who serve other purposes than being part of a family given feminism’s STATED goals are destruction family, which they have done a great job doing while most sit in denial of it]
Single Mother Parenting and Adolescent Psychopathology
Do not say anything or read this stuff, you may experience dissonance between what was lied to women so they would destroy their lineages, ruin childrens lives, and make a mess out of our ability to defend ourselves… but were told they were doing great (but then again, great for WHO? not them, not the kids, but definitely for states like Russia, and even better for places like china, who technically seek to own the planet and every person on it).
HOWEVER.. despite a list of poorer school, more mental issues, worse relationships, higher drug use, higher prison attendance, and really a huge freaking list… you have happy doctors writing articles like this:
10 Ways the Children of Single Parents Defy All Stereotypes
In some ways, they do even better than the children of married parents
(Chapter 9 of Singled Out provides many more details and lots of references.)
[singled out is her book on getting rid of your husband and being a modern (soviet) woman]
and its comical as if she expects people who read a passage dont look back and what she is leaving out..
of course that sounds great… doesnt it.. but her number 2 says
well. see? its all great… they are better but actually worse! just minimize things..
Overall, nearly 20 million children under age 18 live with one parent, composing 27.1 percent of all living arrangements for children under age 18.Nov 16, 2017
So what she is really saying (in Psychology today, a feminist rag now) is:
1,140,000 – will be using drugs.. compared to 20 mill in two parent families
900,000 – will be on drugs
her small difference threw away 240,000 kids..
who cares about a small pittance of a quarter million dysfunctional EXTRA people who will need care, treatment, and will be more likely to steal, and when in relationships of their own, more likely to abuse their kids and use their kids and do drugs in front of, or even with their kids…
have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, eh?
And in case you were wondering:
so a lot of their claims as to why it is this way, collapse in the face of the above.
but you wont realize that if you dont look deeper, like not getting that SBA 8a has been discriminating against unprotected classes who are not allowed to have their kids or be part of their life in any easy meaningful way…
we have had almost 60 years (3 generations) of increasing problems from the new world the women have created… but will not take credit or responsibility for their actions as a group or even individually… you know, like the practices of narcissists and passive aggressive people…
pass the popcorn… this might get interesting…
Almost no mention of, and certainly no emphasis on, broken homes. Kids brought up where their mothers are not married to and living with their fathers in a nuclear family.
The social choice to support and culturally encourage promiscuous sex is one of the key, if not the single biggest, influencers in the adverse mental health of young people.
This has been married to the socialist “pro-victim” ideas that the society, as represented (almost only) by gov’t, is responsible to help all victims to achieve a life statistically comparable to the non-victims.
That won’t ever happen – so there will always be calls for more gov’t funding and more gov’t services.
The Guardian never suggested the obvious answer – NOT go to college, go find a full-time, lower paid job, and see what “real life” is about. Grow up. First. Full job, and joining other social groups, or(/and?) even group therapy,
Lower Expectations.
There is a mention of the failure of secondary schools (gov’t!), but not so much of families – because an obvious issue of “families” is how often the problem is the (well named) “broken home”.
Broken homes are based on the lifestyle choices of the parents.
Housing is expensive, there UK and in the USA, because not enough houses are being built. Usually because gov’t restricts and forbids most building. Only more housing near the colleges can really reduce the housing costs.
The “college premium” is likely to go down, as the increase in college graduates does NOT translate into an increase in Fortune 500 CEOs, or even small company CEOs or VPs or other “top” jobs which need the college paper. Most jobs which require a degree to get hired don’t need the degree knowledge, they’re just using the college as a training ground to see if the graduates are willing to put up with admin BS (like in an office), and do the assignments / lick the boots, of the teacher (like a boss in an office).
Without mental problems.
The degree makes the Human Resources job a bit easier, and creates a larger “elite (& elite wannabee)” class, which more often votes in the elite interest rather than in the interests of the avg IQ worker.
Simultaneously, the colleges are becoming indoctrination centers for the “leisure beliefs” — ideas that sound good but are bad in practice overall, yet the rich can afford to have them since implementation won’t hurt them as much.
https://quillette.com/2019/11/16/thorstein-veblens-theory-of-the-leisure-class-a-status-update/
Today 1 in 4 children under the age of 18 – a total of about 17.4 million – are being raised without a father and nearly half (45 percent) live below the poverty line (U.S. Census Bureau).
Unmarried mothers generally have lower incomes, lower education levels, and are more likely to be dependent on welfare assistance compared with married mothers (Child Trends Data Bank). [so democrat socialists love them]
Around 49 percent of single mothers have never married, 51 percent are either divorced, separated or widowed. Half have one child, 30 percent have two.
Single mothers earn income that place them well below married mothers in the income ladder. The gap between the two groups is significant. [hey, but they are having it all!!! you go grrrrl!!]
The median income for families led by a single mother in 2013 was about $26,000, one third (?) the median for married couple families ($84,000). Nearly half of single mother households had an annual income of less than $25,000. [living large!!!]
Without financial aid, single mother students — a total of about 2 million — have little or no means to contribute financially to their educational expenses.
-=-=-=-
Most single fathers are divorced. As shown in the Census figure below, the majority of children living with their fathers only are living with divorced dads, although the share who are living with never-married fathers has risen in recent years. By comparison, most single moms (49%) have never been married.
[and usually they can get the kids only if mom dont want them, mom is in jail, mom is a real piece of work that is so bad, you cant imagine… mine ex robbed a bank with the kids and retained custody]
Single fathers are more likely to be white, older, and somewhat better educated, compared to single mothers. According to a recent report on single-parent families by the National Center for Family & Marriage Research (NCFMR), 56% of children living with single fathers identify as white,” compared to 33% of children living with single mothers. [they are trying to remedy this given that WHM are evil people about equal to Nazis and so are losing jobs, and that will help balance them with poor never married single mothers]
but truth is… while better on many counts… the best is THP (two heterosexual parents)…
“Someone once said that not everyone with vocal chords is an opera singer. And not everyone with a womb needs to be a mother… When The Pill came along we were able to give birth — to ourselves.” — Gloria Steinem, American writer and feminist activist
“give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of the tongue. my name makes you want to tell me the truth. my name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.” — Warsan Shire, Somali-British writer, poet and teacher
The nuclear family must be destroyed… Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process. — Linda Gordon
Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women’s movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage. — Sheila Cronin, the leader of the feminist organization NOW
Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. — Andrea Dworkin
The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race. — Sally Miller Gearhart, in The Future – If There Is One – Is Female
If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males. — Mary Daly
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
And because its all about selfishness hidden as something else, this is the best song to hum along as you watch the world burn like Nero…
Shock Treatment – Me of Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQywVJeRFVc
Pass the popcorn!!!!
[women are the selfish sex, men are the selfless sex.
and that really peeves off people who are natural narcissists… dont it?]
“Leisure beliefs” – what the rich claim to believe. Even if they don’t live it themselves. (essay above)
This is well-illustrated by the finding that in 1960 the percentage of American children living with both biological parents was identical for affluent and working-class families—95 percent. By 2005, 85 percent of affluent families were still intact, but for working-class families the figure had plummeted to 30 percent.
Only 30% of the working-class families have kids whose fathers are married to their mothers. 26 of 27 deadly mass-shootings happen because of fatherlessness (2018).
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/markmeckler/2018/02/27-deadliest-mass-shooters-26-one-thing-common/
No talk of mental illness is complete without explicit discussion of how many of the “problem” people grew up in broken homes.
I think the young are over-served, and would benefit from more indifference and rejection.
The kids at my university don’t look happy. Or sound happy.
Just a few weeks ago I noticed an odd thing at a nearby cafe table — a group of young people boisterously laughing. I couldn’t remember hearing that before in over two years at that cafe.
Maybe school hours aren’t the best time to catch students having a good time. But I remember a lot of laughter when I went to college in the 70s. Of course, having ostentatious fun was practically a requirement for being young in the 60s/70s. But still…
Then there’s the phone thing. Always staring into their phones at any off-task moment. Can’t be good.
Art and Tom beat me to it: the most well-adjusted students I have had in the last 10 years were those came from a stable, two-parent home. In fact, the best student I had in 38 years of teaching (class of ’15) had an amazing set of parents. I got to know her parents quite well, and then her younger sister came along and also an amazing student. Both are quite bright, but not the highest in terms of physics IQ I’ve seen, but their work ethic and general attitude propelled them to places other students could not reach. I credit their parents totally.
Also saw an article a few days ago, probably off of facebook about an experiment where students gave up their phones for two weeks. They underwent withdrawal symptoms, but at the end of the experiment reported being much happier, and accomplishing more in their academic work.
Then there are the enormous student loans that result from a pact between government and universities, and allow students to attend while mortgaging their future earning power, all for a piece of paper that doesn’t reliably offer them a job payoff after school and yet is considered obligatory to get so many of today’s jobs
Less so than many people think. It depends largely on the job. And you don’t NEED to go into deep hock to get it, there are a number of alternatives.
The biggest issue is that students are not taught to properly investigate alternatives. Online universities are much cheaper, and several of them are rated quite decently. Furthermore, many serious universities allow you to complete a considerable percentage of attendance via online classes, allowing you to greatly reduce the cost and up front outlay needed to get an education.
And there are always the trade schools and two-year degrees. Welding is the obvious one for the trades, it can net you a better salary right out of the school than most non-STEM non-Med majors can, and considerable opportunities for advancement. As for 2y programs, there are paralegals and any number of med degrees which are 2y or thereabouts, all of which have decent initial salaries and offer considerable salaries later with experience.
The problem is not even in the system. It’s a lack of actually TRYING to look at alternatives which is the REAL problem. The traditional process is fairly bad, but the biggest issue with it — the main ones complaining — are the ones who listened to the BS notion that “do what you love, people will pay you for it” crap, which meant that they imagined they could get a degree in Feminist Dance Therapy and actually get some kind of job after college with it… then, instead of spending as little as possible to get that degree, they compounded it by taking the max loan amount and using it to party while in college.
Ditto to physicsguy, Tom and Art on intact families.
In 1970 I scored 1564 on my SATs. I was deeply interested in learning. But when I got to college, I fell apart. My family had imploded, I was troubled and I had no support. I had to drop out.
I eventually made up for it, but at the time I felt like a gruesome failure. I’m back in college now in no small part because I want to Get College Right.
I’m sure many more college students today are having similar difficulties.
“26 of 27 deadly mass-shootings happen because of fatherlessness (2018).”
I don’t doubt that it’s a huge factor, but here’s another:
https://spectator.us/big-dope-marijuana-benefited-slickest-pr-campaigns/
There seems to be a coinciding time period – that is, the increase in the situation of single parenting (fatherless homes) plus the use of marijuana, all within the same time frame. That might be linked, or not.
I once read an article on lesbian marriages and learned that the divorce rate for them was 90%. I was very surprised so I read a bit more about marriage statistics and found that in hetrosexual marriages women file for divorce 2/3 of the time. Given that stat, it is not surprising that the divorce rate is so high in lesbian marriages.
Another issue that others have mentioned is smartphones. This has led to total lack of planning. Everything is done at the spur of the moment and this in turn has led to underdevelopment of the area of brain that is used for planning.
100% Correct re the single mother thing.
Dr Georgia Ede is student psychiatrist for Smith College. She posits that a major contributing factor to student mental health problems is the Standard American Diet in the current year.
Well worth googling and watching her presentation and reading the slides.
Lots of interesting comments; and suggested answers. Most of them no doubt valid.
I am not a psychologist, thank God; but, I recall something about “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”. If I remember correctly after all these years, the theory was that once the essential needs were met, then the opportunity for “self actualization” was presented. I wonder if Dr Maslow was familiar with the concept of unintended consequences? We have learned that once the essential needs are met, many members of modern society simply become unfocused and fall apart.
A possible corollary is that with modern marketing strategies, people are encouraged to believe that their “essential” needs are never fulfilled. Hence, two earner families, or broken homes because one or the other parent must seek fulfillment elsewhere. On and on.
If I have it wrong, I expect someone will enlighten me.
On another level, I notice that some experts have picked up my favorite drum beat. That is the dehumanizing effect from the constant gratuitous violence in the entertainment media and video games.
I once read an article on lesbian marriages and learned that the divorce rate for them was 90%. I was very surprised so I read a bit more about marriage statistics and found that in hetrosexual marriages women file for divorce 2/3 of the time. Given that stat, it is not surprising that the divorce rate is so high in lesbian marriages.
As the wag said, it’s two single mothers. A lot of drama. Not a lot of money.
“I believe in mom and daddy, I believe in babies, I believe in love.” – Don Williams
This has been lost. Isn’t it a pity?
“The article doesn’t mention it, but I bet substance abuse is part of it for increasing numbers of students, too.”
Okay, I’m a boomer, so it was a long time ago; but, I do remember two people in my freshman dorm who had mental health issues. And, yep, both of them were known as drug users.
The one was also very much into one night stands. I wasn’t privy to his health issues (and maybe he didn’t have any STDs); but, I’d be willing to bet that both the drug use and the sleeping around pushed whatever mental health issues he had to the forefront.
Both of them dropped out by the end of the school year.
Todays college students are being screwed. The high school diploma has become a worthless piece of paper signifying nothing and the college diploma is well on the way to joining it. The parents spend thousands of dollars to obtain a piece of paper that means you know little or nothing. As an example I point out Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes. I am still waiting for the FBI to investigate her parents to find out how much they had to bribe Boston University.
Colleges have taken up a social justice mission
“Social justice is an actual impediment to acquiring human capital”
–Thomas Sowell
Colleges are very big for social media
“Imagine being in the worst aspects of junior high school, 24 hours a day, forever.”
–Greg Lukianoff on social media
And the one thing schools at any levels won’t teach students is how to study.
“When a student has formed the habit of collecting and valuing the ideas of others, rather than his own, the self becomes dwarfed from neglect and buried under the mass of borrowed thought. He may then pass good examinations, but he cannot think. Distrust of self has become so deep-rooted that he instinctively looks away from himself to books and friends for ideas; and anything that he produces cannot be good, because it is not a true expression of self. This is the class of people that Mill describes in the words, “They like in crowds; they exercise choice only among things commonly done; peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes; until, by dint of not following their own nature, they have no nature to follow; their human capacities are withered and starved; they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own.” 1 Such people cannot perform the hard tasks required in study, because they have lost their native power to react on the ideas presented.
“The evil is most serious with young children because of their youth. Many of them, while making good progress in the three R’s, outgrow their tendency to ask questions and to raise objections, in other words lose their mental boldness or originality, by the time they have attended school four years. But all along, from the kindergarten to the college, there is almost a likelihood that the self will be undermined while acquiring knowledge, and that, in consequence, one will become permanently weakened while supposedly being educated. In this respect it is dangerous to attend a school of any grade.”
–How to Study and Teaching How to Study (1909) by F. M. McMurry, Professor of Elementary Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
That McMurry piece (and Mill) looks like more warmed over Rousseau. But that can’t be surprising.
Lots of good comments here. You have an impressive commentariat, Neo!
It is interesting, is it not, that people who make and sell cellphones tell us we are a “connected” society when we use their product, but in fact we seem less connected, not more. Or our connections are, as someone has suggested above, less meaningful and more transitory.
The idea that the women’s movement has resulted in more broken homes appears intuitively valid. I’d like to see more enlightened (and non-polemical) discussion of this.
JK Brown’s comment about teaching how to study resonates on a personal level. It is not a new issue. I didn’t learn in high school–and that was back in the late ’40s, early ’50s– because I didn’t need to, and no one made me. I didn’t study in college for the same reasons. Dropped out of college as soon as I qualified for the Naval Aviation Cadet program. There, they made me learn to study.
Much later the generous American tax payer sent me back for under graduate and graduate level degrees. I enjoyed my time back in school; probably because someone had forced me to discipline myself to study in order to achieve a goal I desired.
I remember very little of the subject matter from my college days; but, the ability to focus on a goal, and study to achieve it, served me well when I transitioned to commercial aviation.
If high schools and colleges cannot inculcate effective study habits, they are of little value to the mass of students who are not pursuing specialized knowledge.
As part of Getting College Right, I bought a book, “How to Become a Straight-A Student” by Cal Newport, who teaches compsci at Georgetown but has also written self-help books on learning.
In such books I’m always hoping to find the magic secrets that will kickstart me to some amazing new level of accomplishment, but that’s not what Newport is selling.
His advice has some tweaks but it’s mostly obvious stuff like set up a calendar and schedule, set goals, work steadily towards them, don’t cram, space your learning sessions, approach college like a job, and focus, focus, focus when studying.
I’m an old father of two girls, 13 and 17. I’m 65 (a late bloomer, I guess).
Even in an intact family it’s tough. Smart phones and social media and staying connected. I don’t fully understand it, but somehow it is totally seductive to most folks, and not just teens.
I feel it’s all not going to end well – this instant access to mostly mindless info. When it first started it was touted as a wonderful thing – connecting us all in a new way that would help bring understanding. Instead I think it’s unraveling too many norms too fast.
And it’s everywhere, in every country.
Have more fun. Go skiing. Go surfing. Fall into what you like to do. Fall in love. You won’t want drugs.
Art Deco on November 18, 2019 at 3:45 pm said:
I think the young are over-served, and would benefit from more indifference and rejection.
* * *
Second the motion.
You can show your kids you love them without being in their lives 24/7.
My parents and grand-parents did not make it their life’s mission to be my on-call play-date or companion, but they did let us kids hang around and “help” them work on their projects, or gave us a hand setting up the swings, tree-houses, or whatever, when we needed it.
Best decision we ever made with our own kids: they had to earn the money to buy their video games, and we didn’t play with them (family time was for board games, which required learning social skills and civility).
Americans have emotional problems, especially given the polarization and Othering, as well as splitting, demonization, projection defenses, and displacement defenses shown by both factions in Red vs Blue.
Demoncrats are not “like demons”, they are in the service to demons, literally and factually.
Things that were considered character flaws or personality defects when I was a kid have been redefined as “conditions”. This shifts responsibility away from the person and on to society in general. It’s been going on for decades; back in the 80s “Designing Women” did an episode in which one character was diagnosed with “obnoxious personality disorder”.
So, part of the problem may be the changing definition of “emotional problem”.
Things that were considered character flaws or personality defects when I was a kid have been redefined as “conditions”. This shifts responsibility away from the person and on to society in general.
No, it generates business for the social-work-and-mental-health-trade.
Have more fun. Go skiing. Go surfing. Fall into what you like to do. Fall in love. You won’t want drugs.
Sorry, seen this up close and personal. What they like to do is drink and take street drugs.
A social worker I met back in 1993 – who specialized in alcohol and drug rehabilitation – told me he had two allies in his job. (1) banks and (2) the criminal justice system. The reason, he explained, was that (1) banks don’t care about your problems; they just want their money and (2) for all that is wrong with the criminal justice system, it has one virtue, “it just keeps coming after you and after you until it is DONE with you”. He said his clients need to be brought back to reality, and the strongest forces toward that end were these two.
I can’t stand libertarian wankers.