James LaughlinHigh-performance leadership and executive coach. Covering all aspects of life and career.

we're raising a generation of kids who are anxious

18 Nov 2024 · 1 min

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Caroline Adams Miller (speaking in a YouTube video titled "we're raising a generation of kids who are anxious") argues that the current generation faces elevated anxiety and suicide exposure. She links this to overpraise and social changes—children being told they are "winners" prematurely, reduced academic/competitive structures (e.g., no valedictorians), softened playgrounds, and cultural practices like providing "comfort animals." She says young people have big dreams but lack instruction in goal setting, persistence, and curiosity; she proposes that goal-setting theory can address many of these problems.

Chapters

I have three adult children. They've all lost friends to suicide, and that didn't happen to me. And my husband and I connect some of that with what I wrote about in Getting Grit, which is they all have big dreams and they have goals, and they see examples of success on social media and everywhere. But this is the generation that was told they were winners before they did a single thing that made them deserve that praise. We dumbed down the world around them. We dumbed down playgrounds, we took away valedictorians, we gave them comfort animals, we gave them great inflation. And then they had these big dreams, and no one taught them goal setting, and no one showed them how to persist. No one showed them how to be curious. And goal setting theory solves a lot of this.