A woman with over 20 years of teaching experience posted something very troubling on Instagram the other day. She’s been teaching third grade for many years now, but this year’s batch of third graders is less functional than the average kindergarten student. Her class consists of eight year old children who can’t tie their own shoes. When she asks them what they did on the weekend, they stare at her blankly. And when she gives them quizzes, they just write their names on the pages and hand them in blank.
Similarly, an educator on YouTube shared the following: “These students demonstrate a lack of discipline and self-control, struggling to remain quiet for more than 15 seconds.”
These kids can barely read, they ask for help with everything, and expect to be told what to do, what to say, what to think. Furthermore, they blurt out whatever they’re thinking whenever they like because they aren’t socialized to understand body language or conversational verbal cues. These aren’t autistic kids either: they’ve simply been raised by iPads and TV instead of human interaction, and had their foundational learning years shaped by COVID-19 lockdowns and remote interactions with their peers.
These kids’ behavior is so bad that teachers are quitting in droves. Their caregivers are seeking diagnoses to explain away their children’s poor performance. Ultimately, the bottom line seems to be that the kids simply haven’t been parented.
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It Isn’t Just Young Children Who Behave This Way
Generation Alpha, born approximately between 2010 and 2024, has been plugged in since birth. Most of them had tablets, streaming services, and smartphones in their faces as soon as they opened their eyes. When given workbooks in school, many of them try to open them horizontally, like iPads. They can’t write things by hand: they can only type, and try to swipe on book pages instead of turning them.
Additionally, they have terribly low attention spans and have meltdowns when separated from their tablets for too long. These individuals were raised, or are currently being raised, in households where there are few boundaries and even fewer consequences. As a result, they throw temper tantrums in class. They scream, throw their desks or chairs, and slam classroom doors as they stomp out of them.
That said, it isn’t just young children who behave in this fashion. Many Gen Z individuals, who are now between the ages of 14 and 28, also seem to have arrested development. Their Gen X and older Millennial parents didn’t “burden” them with the chores and obligations that they had growing up. As a result, they haven’t learned how to do things independently. They may be physical adults (or young adults), but essentially behave like much younger children.
Many parents are frustrated because their adult children don’t know how to do anything, nor do they want to. But how did this happen?
The First Generations in History who are Less Capable than Their Parents
According to cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, Gen Z is “the first modern generation to score lower on key cognitive measures and IQ tests than their parents“. Gen Alpha seems to be keen to either catch up or surpass them.
So how did we get to this point?
One common consensus is that Gen Z and Gen Alpha aren’t just products of end-stage capitalism: they’re completely aware of everything collapsing around them. There’s little motivation for them to achieve anything, because they see it all as pointless. The economy is dead, the oceans are dead, crops are failing, job prospects are non-existent. As a result, they get ChatGPT to do their thinking for them, because they can’t be bothered to think for themselves. They’re content to push buttons for dopamine hits, and spend their time basking in soothing brain rot.
People who don’t believe they have a future have no incentive to work towards one.
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Burned-Out Parents Have Little Energy for Parenting
It’s easy to blame parents for not teaching their kids the essentials, but it’s important to understand why this is happening. The cost of living crisis has caused many parents to need second — or third — jobs to get by. They’re so exhausted that they don’t have the time to devote to child rearing.
They don’t teach their kids to cook because they don’t have the energy to instruct them. Furthermore, if the kid makes a mistake during this learning process (which is inevitable), ingredients are too costly to replace. It’s simply easier to do chores themselves and tell the kid to go watch TV or play a game. While this is more convenient to the parent, it prevents the child from learning self-sufficiency.
Additionally, many of these parents are trying to be a friend to their children rather than an authority figure. As such, they allow their kids to weaponize incompetence without correction, and permit unruly behavior without consequence. This may work well enough in a home environment, but not at school, and certainly not at work.
Young adults who actually manage to get jobs will show up whenever they want to, rather than adhering to stipulated work hours. They don’t meet deadlines, and weaponize victimhood when reprimanded for poor performance. Many of them quit at the first sign of stress or discomfort, and a startling number of them feel no desire to move out of their parents’ homes. Why would they, when they get taken care of so well where they are? These individuals are socially awkward and depressed, and feel like there’s no future for them.
Why would they put effort into anything, including learning to take care of themselves?
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Parents and Teachers are Understandably Frustrated, but What’s the Solution?
With reports like the UN’s recent “strategic retreat” regarding positive climate change and global citizens being warned about imminent food shortages, it’s difficult to have much optimism for the future. How can people inspire ambition and positivity in young people when they don’t feel it themselves?
The key seems to be to accept that the future won’t be as bright as we’d like it, and to become as capable as possible.
- Restrict screen time for younger children and give them books and crafts
- Assign age-appropriate chores so they learn vital life skills
- Set blocks of time aside weekly to learn things like cooking, food gardening, and first aid
- Teach all children how to do basic repairs, and encourage creative problem solving
- Expose them to different social situations so they learn how to interact with others in person, rather than solely via text
The role of parents has always been to equip young people with the skills they need to survive and thrive in life. Although existence has become easier now than before, that doesn’t absolve us of our duty to do exactly this. Considering the upheaval that the planet is going through now, today’s youth needs to become as capable as possible.
The only way these younger generations are going to thrive in our uncertain future is to equip them as well as we can.
Featured photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash