From time to time, we hear complaints about how kids today are awful for one reason or another. Let’s be real -- occasionally, these comments aren’t justified and are just plain hate towards children without any proper reason.
At the same time, sometimes, these criticisms can be absolutely valid. After all, sometimes even children deserve some critique, especially if it's going to lead to an improvement in their behavior. And that’s why we’re here today -- to see what people online deem to be reasonable criticisms of kids today in a discussion on Reddit that was initiated by the platform’s user u/Jerswar.
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I mean the amount of teachers in America complaining that students of all ages, including teenagers are unable to read properly is probably something to be concerned about
Maybe they would feel more motivated to read if we policed the things they read a little less.
Kids today don’t know how to be bored. They don’t know how to entertain themselves. They grab the phone the moment they’re not being stimulated. I had to learn how to deal with boredom. They don’t have those skills.
Anyone remember a time they were so bored it was nauseating and painful, physically, and nothing could shake that feeling for at least an hour or more?
Kids today will self-diagnose mental health conditions to justify their difficulties in life.
Don't get me wrong, young people with legitimate mental health struggles affecting their lives do exist, but unless a medical professional evaluates you and makes a.diagnosis, I will take your #ActuallyAutistic TikTok with a grain of salt.
I also have a hard time believing that so many people from Gen Z have DID, it's an exceedingly rare diagnosis, so much so that there's even a debate among trained psychiatrists about it potentially not even being a real thing at all.
They are worse in school - not just academically but behaviour-wise as well.
A teacher friend told me about how she is constantly getting s**t on by her classes. From how she described it, it sounds like outright bullying.
She basically said that they openly mock and laugh at her for everything she says or does. In her words ‘a running commentary of criticism’.
A school in a nearby town lost 18 teachers at Christmas, all quit from being sick of the abuse.
My year was considered awful when I was in school, but it was mainly refusal to do things, arguments, the usual.
Nowadays it’s less back-and-forth with students and teachers and more just a barrage of insults and threats.
After hearing that I really wonder how long teachers will last as a whole if something doesn’t change.
Kids today are still suffering with the aftermath of lockdowns combined with the overexposure to certain badly regulated forms of social media(TikTok).
Kids really don't need to be on social media. Too much herd behaviour. Too much inappropriate stuff. If people were concerned about kids being indoctrinated in public schools, then they should be terrified of the indoctrinating going on in social media land.
The kids today have victim mindset. They will over-react instead of accepting their fault and working on them if you try to criticise them.
They seem to have a lot more anxiety than my generation. We were more relaxed. These kids have anxiety and crazy expectations.
No one played a sport year round for 20 hours a week when I was kid with few exceptions. These kids play constant sports and after school tutoring and need to do homework, get good grades, and be start athletics at the same time. Gen X didn’t give a s**t about any of that. We opted out.
Add the acute fear of gun violence, lingering fear of global war, almost no hope for retirement...
They're overly anxious. Our brains were not fit to withstand criticism on a global scale (which social media offers) and children without yet a prefrontal cortex are stunting their mental health capacity.
Um, children have a prefrontal cortex. It's just not fully developed.
Having worked at a university, younger people aren't very good expressing their needs. Whenver someone came to my office for something, I had to play with words to try decipher what they were trying to say in order to give them the help they needed.
we're constantly told not to bother people so much we dont know how to ask for help
I really dont mean to sound like a boomer here, but instilling work ethic before adulthood is critical, and I think there's been a decline in that lately. Make sure kids are helping around the house, show them how to wrench on s**t, things like that.
I think its a good thing to instill a good work ethic in kids, and when doing something, to take pride in doing it as well as they can. But that needs to be balanced with teaching them to recognize the bovine fertilizer that workplaces try to dish out and to not take that c**p.
I feel like Gen Z is growing up in an era filled with rage bait more than there’s ever been in the past and public discourse is going to look wild when they’re in the 30s and 40s
I saw a meme- 50 years ago car manuals showed you how to adjust the valves….today they warn you not to drink the contents of the battery. And every year I’m alive I understand why my grandparents were so crotchety.
To be fair, they do this because someone would get the bright idea to drink it and sue the manufacturers, saying "they didn't say it was harmful!"
I have never seen such a failing in basic math and study skills. I’ve taught freshman in college who didn’t know how to do the simplest algebra possible and regularly failed open-book tests with the answers verbatim in the book. It hurts to grade.
Can someone explain to me how come somebody incapable of basic maths (or reading, whatever) has passed their high school exams and/or college entrance exams? I mean, how do you get into college if you can't read properly?
Schools are no longer places of education, they are daycare centers that process kids in and out. If you start keeping kids behind the school doesn't qualify for state and federal funds, so kids go in and out now.
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Im sorry, but in many cases this is completly inaccurate. In the Area I live in (I am Gen Z, still in Grade school) The amount of preassure for good grades is INSANE. In my math alone, multiple kids have had panic attacks before or after tests, because of parental expections, or preasure put on ourselves. In my area, its the norm to be taking as many advanced classes and activitys as possible in order to get into college. We have alot of fear for the future, because in this day in age, college is expensive, and we all want scholarships. So its not that we can't do it, its that there are new standards.
I think I’m more disturbed that American kids don’t know basic civics in this country. If you have no idea how the government actually works, and what the Constitution says are civil rights, you’re going to elect morons.
I've been hearing this complaint since I was in school, 3 decades ago.
I kept almost failing from math too because I wasn't interested and I hate math. But I always made sure I would pass somehow so I really forced myself to do the work. It felt like hell.
When everything you're taught focuses on passing a state test (often a bad one), you learn how to pass that test - not to understand that subject now or in the future.
I never understood or did algebra, it’s never affected my quality of living and it’s never come up, why do we teach kids algebra anyways 😂 seriously, educated my arty farty a**e
You are part of the problem if you are giving open book tests with the answers.
They need to stop f*****g disrupting foot traffic in public places to film themselves badly dancing to loud awful music on tiktok. Especially here in nyc. We've got rules man, don't block the f*****g sidewalk.
Kids today have subpar typing skills compared to the generation that grew up with physical keyboards
I typed up a letter for a customer to confirm that her vehicle was in our auto shop because she had to reschedule her emissions test. She was floored at how quickly I typed it up. I learned to type almost 20 years ago in a computer class with a big wooden cover over my hands so I couldn't look at the keys. Kids nowadays have it easy.
Around 2012-13, I spent a year working as an online tutor for essay writing. I had several students and graduate students from a well-known Christian university that had very low enrollment criteria.
I had undergraduates who couldn't form a complete sentence, who totally lacked any knowledge of proper English grammar and punctuation, and who couldn't tell me what the verb was in their introductory sentence. And yet, I was expected to tutor them in their writing skills in a very short period of time.
Their college had purchased a subscription for all of their students, and so avoided having an on-site writing center for students who struggled.
I had one essay I long remembered: a doctoral student's dissertation was given to me to review, and the student's "research" involved a Survey Monkey survey with 10 questions, that all of 10 people answered. ALL of her conclusions were reached from "interpreting" her survey results. The *only* source of information she used other than her survey results was the Bible. Really.
And it was only 5 pages long. FIVE PAGES!! For a doctoral dissertation!! Liberty University. Never hire someone from there.
They don't hold kids back anymore and summer school is rarely an option, so kids that fall behind have almost no ability to catch up. Intervention programs can only do so much in the time they have and are over-filled. Parents, please read to/with your kids!
The ability to troubleshoot things. I've noticed this to be an increasing trend. If something isn't working, they don't appear to know how to find the answer. They grasp things quickly but I expected them to be able to solve things more easily. It seems to be going the other direction.
Related to this, I have see teachers saying that children today get frustrated very easily when they fail an exercise at school. The fact that they are used to have instant gratification thanks to internet (being able to search for something and get the answer instantly) makes them have very little patience when they do not.
I work at ulta and I also know that sephora has this issue too. Kids (specifically preteen girls) today are actively using retinol. Using retinol at such a young age (the only exception is prescription-use) will damage their skin barriers.
They aren't as sociable they used to be. When I was a kid, going to the neighbors house to wrestle in the backyard was common, now kids are much happier just sitting at home playing a game.
10 year old girls asking Santa for expensive skincare with active ingredients which should not be used by anyone under 25 or so, and literal kids flocking to Sephora and destroying samples.
Ugh. In my opinion, I think girls should be going to makeup stores like Sephora and Ulta when there are AT LEAST 16. *Sigh*
*some* kids today have a very limited attention span and can barely read despite being high school graduates. One of my kids’ friends is like this. A sweet person but basically consumes a media diet of YouTube shorts. She doesn’t read anything ever. When she talks she sounds like she’s speaking Newspeak from 1984. Instead of saying “this is delicious”. She might say “this is so so good.”.
It is getting creepy. The newest season of Digimon (one of my favorite childhood shows) switched to the episodic "Monster of the week" format instead of having one main story, with the justification that today's kids don't have enough attention span to focus on one overarching story.
One of rhe odd things about "the kids today" which I think will be important to look at in the future, is that kids today are consuming content made by Kids. That's never happened before. But a lot of the youtube channels tiktok accounts, etc. That they look at, are made by kids the same age as them.
There's a commercial here that shows a twelve year old girl getting her first smart phone, then flashes of her using it for weight loss videos and such, then her being taken into an eating disorder recovery place at the age of nineteen. I don't know if it's the actual person, but it's about a real person.
I think Gen Z are very progressive when it comes to things like LGBTQ, disabilities and neurodiversity, but they have a big issue with ageism.
It feels like a pathological need to be young and a big fear about getting older.
Meh, back in the 1960s, the slogan was "Don't trust anyone over 30." I think this is something that's universal and has been throughout history.
The kids today need to stop putting Botox and fillers into their faces before they've even finished developing their frontal lobes.
Sidewalk and hallway etiquette. Walking 2-3 abreast as others come toward them. I'm not going to walk in the street so you can hear what Aiden is saying. Move over or be moved over.
The non-existence of media literacy. The amount of misinformation that is easily spreading on social media is scary. Especially when it comes to stuff like basic biology..
Edit: after gaining some new perspectives on this from the comments I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe this is more of a me problem since I’m so sceptic so I tend to double-triple check facts I see on the internet 🤔
Sadly, most adults lack the ability to vet sources for credibility and/or fact-check. It drives me insane. I would have hoped that school kids in the 21st century, where misinformation and disinformation spreads at the speed of light, would have been taught this incredibly necessary skill.
A new meta-analysis with studies from mainly Western countries just showed, that kids overestimate their own abilities more than before.
I haven't read it yet, because I just saw it yesterday, but it proves the research by the American psychologist Jean Twenge showing that Americans are getting more narcissistic. It's just happening everywhere in the developed world, and the trend began way before social media. I believe wealth is the cause.
Basically that their parents failed them.
Well that would be because their grandparents failed their parents, just ask them, they'll tell you. The next generation will have the same gripe. Guess what? Nobody has it all figured out, everybody is trying things out and winning and losing. *disclaimer for actual physical and psychological abuse, that's a moral, legal and ethical issue and has terrible suffering for its victims*.
A lot of kids nowadays don't think they have to take responsibility for their actions. If anything, they think it's hilarious and post it to YouTube and TikTok as a "challenge" . For example, the enormous rash of Kia and Hyundai break-ins, thanks to kids finding out how easy it is to break in.
Is this really just a kid thing? There are a lot of adults who do the same thing.
Knowing professional phone etiquette... Or how to talk on the phone period
The real problem is the insane way they make a heart with their fingers…
As someone who counts as "Kids today" I agree with this one. Like what is up with that it's needlessly complicated.
None of these are valid criticism of today's youth. All of them are valid criticism of the people that raised them. We let our kids fall in to this, we failed them... now we are blaming them because we made horrible mistakes?
Oh, great, we're doing the exact same sh!t to Gen Z that was done to Millennials, blaming them for things that the adults around them should have taught them better. Knock it the f*ck off, BP.
Exactly! Every generation has issues with the next one... can't we just let them be?
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“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” ― Socrates. I have yet to figure out the crossed leg thing but the rest is spot on.
This was absolutely s**t. I'm sorry, but not a single thing on this list was a valid criticism of today's youth. "Kids are anxious and depressed!" No f*****g wonder, look at the world we have to live in while being told we're the ones who have to save it, which btw I have no idea how we're going to do. "Kids have poor literacy and math skills!" Duh, the teachers are barely paid enough to do their jobs properly, not to mention the fact they expect children to learn in an environment where they have to do active shooter drills? "the kids have low attention spans and don't know how to safely use the internet!" if you give a kid unlimited social media and tech and don't teach them how to be safe online or have certain rules about how much they consume and what they consume, of course that's going to happen. "The kids talk with memes and silly phrases!" every generation has slang and pop culture. Not a single good point was made here, BP is totally pissing me off with this generational bull
Apart from the posts specific to social media, modern technology etc, most of these aren't "kids today" issues, they are simply "kids" issues. I'm in my late 50s and relate to almost all of them.
A whole lot of these entries are giving big "get off my lawn" energy
I liked Bo Burnham's movie, "Eight Grade" (2018). It showed what kids are up against these days, and also showed how hard it is for parents. Even well-meaning, engaged parents don't completely understand what kids are being exposed to online, and how young it starts. Even if you don't let your own kids view social media, much less porn, what about their peers? What your kids' peers watch will affect your own kids, too, and it affects the whole culture they're living in.
Frankly, reading these…it’s the parents refusing to engage with their children. It’s all “society’s” fault. As if “society “ is this amorphous figure that stands over their children, blocking all efforts from the parents…parents that, reading these posts, don’t guide, teach, or engage with their own children.
Can't stand how parents got blamed for everything, sure they have a hugh influence in the early childhood, but I know a lot of teenparents fighting again social media standards and commercials. Most of them didn't invent social media,influencer, crazy challenges,deep fake and the ability to sneak out easy to the forbidden fruits. But I also can't stand blaming the kids, cause we would do same. We dreamed of being stars,they dream of getting rich by being watched e- gaming. My mother didn't rose me to wear wasted jeans and neon shirts they never get teached by their parents to behave like furries. they don't know coins? I am pretty sure,they have to help us with technics n a few years. And there are some kids out there with awesome crafting skills, fighting for their future and try to live a good way..or do fearless discover the world by trekking. It's a lifelong wheel ..even in old greece the youth seemed to be lost
This isn't a criticism as such because it is down to the adults around them not paying attention, but younger children now can not read analogue clocks or recognise coins. Bear with me. There is six years between our two, and the eldest learnt to tell the time the old fashioned way: "what time will my friend be here?" - "half past two, look, when the long hand is on the six and the short hand is just passed the two" - gets into the habit of checking clock to see the time. The younger child, although we did exactly the same thing, came along after tablets and smart phones, and found it so much easier to check a screen. Suddenly, one day, we realised this one couldn't read a dial clock (we worked hard to put that right) and have noticed others his age cannot either, although parents don't seem to notice. The coin thing came to light recently and is even younger children. When they go to buy sweets at the shop their parents put some money on the app on their phone, and when they get to
the till they just tap their phone on the machine. No counting out coins and calculating change. Really bizarre to watch a child of eight or nine not know what the coins in their hands are.
Load More Replies... None of these are valid criticism of today's youth. All of them are valid criticism of the people that raised them. We let our kids fall in to this, we failed them... now we are blaming them because we made horrible mistakes?
Oh, great, we're doing the exact same sh!t to Gen Z that was done to Millennials, blaming them for things that the adults around them should have taught them better. Knock it the f*ck off, BP.
Exactly! Every generation has issues with the next one... can't we just let them be?
Load More Replies... “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” ― Socrates. I have yet to figure out the crossed leg thing but the rest is spot on.
This was absolutely s**t. I'm sorry, but not a single thing on this list was a valid criticism of today's youth. "Kids are anxious and depressed!" No f*****g wonder, look at the world we have to live in while being told we're the ones who have to save it, which btw I have no idea how we're going to do. "Kids have poor literacy and math skills!" Duh, the teachers are barely paid enough to do their jobs properly, not to mention the fact they expect children to learn in an environment where they have to do active shooter drills? "the kids have low attention spans and don't know how to safely use the internet!" if you give a kid unlimited social media and tech and don't teach them how to be safe online or have certain rules about how much they consume and what they consume, of course that's going to happen. "The kids talk with memes and silly phrases!" every generation has slang and pop culture. Not a single good point was made here, BP is totally pissing me off with this generational bull
Apart from the posts specific to social media, modern technology etc, most of these aren't "kids today" issues, they are simply "kids" issues. I'm in my late 50s and relate to almost all of them.
A whole lot of these entries are giving big "get off my lawn" energy
I liked Bo Burnham's movie, "Eight Grade" (2018). It showed what kids are up against these days, and also showed how hard it is for parents. Even well-meaning, engaged parents don't completely understand what kids are being exposed to online, and how young it starts. Even if you don't let your own kids view social media, much less porn, what about their peers? What your kids' peers watch will affect your own kids, too, and it affects the whole culture they're living in.
Frankly, reading these…it’s the parents refusing to engage with their children. It’s all “society’s” fault. As if “society “ is this amorphous figure that stands over their children, blocking all efforts from the parents…parents that, reading these posts, don’t guide, teach, or engage with their own children.
Can't stand how parents got blamed for everything, sure they have a hugh influence in the early childhood, but I know a lot of teenparents fighting again social media standards and commercials. Most of them didn't invent social media,influencer, crazy challenges,deep fake and the ability to sneak out easy to the forbidden fruits. But I also can't stand blaming the kids, cause we would do same. We dreamed of being stars,they dream of getting rich by being watched e- gaming. My mother didn't rose me to wear wasted jeans and neon shirts they never get teached by their parents to behave like furries. they don't know coins? I am pretty sure,they have to help us with technics n a few years. And there are some kids out there with awesome crafting skills, fighting for their future and try to live a good way..or do fearless discover the world by trekking. It's a lifelong wheel ..even in old greece the youth seemed to be lost
This isn't a criticism as such because it is down to the adults around them not paying attention, but younger children now can not read analogue clocks or recognise coins. Bear with me. There is six years between our two, and the eldest learnt to tell the time the old fashioned way: "what time will my friend be here?" - "half past two, look, when the long hand is on the six and the short hand is just passed the two" - gets into the habit of checking clock to see the time. The younger child, although we did exactly the same thing, came along after tablets and smart phones, and found it so much easier to check a screen. Suddenly, one day, we realised this one couldn't read a dial clock (we worked hard to put that right) and have noticed others his age cannot either, although parents don't seem to notice. The coin thing came to light recently and is even younger children. When they go to buy sweets at the shop their parents put some money on the app on their phone, and when they get to
the till they just tap their phone on the machine. No counting out coins and calculating change. Really bizarre to watch a child of eight or nine not know what the coins in their hands are.
Load More Replies...