May honors Mental Health Awareness Month. The goal is to raise awareness, reduce stigmas, and provide resources for mental and emotional well-being. Here is the good news: “Kids are learning about mental health. It’s not so stigmatized,” says Cary Hamilton, therapist and owner of Olympia Therapy. On the flip side, she adds, “However, there is no support or scaffolding to enable them to improve their health.”
What’s Going on With Gen Z’s Well-being?
“There’s research about massive Gen Z firings,” Cary notes. Hiring managers report issues with basic workforce etiquette including arriving late, not dressing appropriately and having poor communications skills. “These youth lack the skills to push through, be resilient and delay gratification,” Cary adds. Evidence shows that this group of young people can identify stress, anxiety, and depression and yet have no ability to do anything about them. It appears that many Gen Z do not have skills to handle stress, deal with feedback or face conflict without falling apart. They blame someone or something else and wait for rescue.
How did children get to helplessness?
Many of those from ages 14-29 (Gen Z), grew up where parents went to great lengths to keep stress, conflict and hardship away from their children. They were rescuers. “We took the risk out of childhood,” says Cary. On the surface, this sounds right. However, the result is that these youth never got to practice dealing with the normal ups and downs of life. Childhood is the time to learn appropriate developmental life skills. Without them many end up in college or at a job and do not know how to cope.
Olympia Therapy is aware of middle school children who wear the same clothes for a week and don’t shower. Making choices for better mental health begins with things like choosing food to eat, tending to personal hygiene and picking bedtime. Children who have not learned and practiced basic life skills have huge challenges as they grow up.
Olympia Therapy Hears a Cry for Help from Parents and Children
When a child has had years of being shielded from normal life, like dealing with failure, not winning or facing consequences, parents are in a tough place. Older children can be defiant, distant and uncooperative. Ultimatums do not solve the problems. There are no magic pills to take. Life skills are not learned overnight. It is about setting boundaries, more skillful communication and consistency. Parents can learn to stop enabling their children.
These are difficult places for families. It takes time.
Parent can take Steps in New, Healthy Directions
Parents of the very young are often familiar with milestones for babies like crawling, grabbing and making sounds. Parents seem less aware of developmentally appropriate behavior as their children get older. What are these things?
Children’s Ages and Abilities to Gain Life Skills
There is no perfect or normal timeline, as children’s brains and bodies grow and develop.
However, there are milestones and guides that can be noted along the way. For example, a baby needs help to be dressed. A very young child might choose between the blue or red shirt and need help putting it on. A 10-year-old can dress without assistance. That would be because they practiced many times. A teenager could pick out their own clothes and even have a budget to work within.
As children move into the tween age, they shift from concrete, literal thinking to better understanding abstract, symbolic and hypothetical concepts. They can have better reasoning skills and consider long-term consequences. This age group can learn to use a planner, operate basic tools, manage allowance and understand needs versus wants.
As the teenage years unfold, teens can grasp complex, global concepts like politics and history and come up with their own opinions. They can begin to understand that current actions have long-term consequences with things like grades and attendance.
Teenagers can clean bathrooms and do laundry from sorting to putting away. They can vacuum the house or water the lawn. They can prepare a full dinner once a week from a recipe and even write the grocery list based on needed ingredients and those missing from the pantry. They can make their own lunch and get up on their own.
As teenagers move through the high school years, they gain increasing independence, responsibility and competency in high-level life skills. These youth can manage tasks that require time management, budgeting with minimal adult supervision. They can manage car care, like checking tire pressure and noticing fluid levels. They can figure things out without serious intervention from a parent. They can set goals and recover from setbacks.
At 17, teenagers are on the cusp of adulthood and moving out, so chores should focus on total household self-sufficiency. They should be able to manage tasks with zero oversight, balancing them alongside school, work, and social schedules. Of course, if they have had no practice along the way, it is unrealistic for a parent to think these things will happen. They need coaching, practice, and accountability along the way.
For a more information about age-appropriate development and life skills that build resilience and real-world readiness go to the Olympia Therapy website or the American Academy of Pediatrics.
It’s hard to make changes. It’s hard to be a parent. Your children are not supposed to be your best friends. Creating a home environment that is safe and supportive with boundaries and attention helps children become responsible, capable adults. The joys of watching your children move out into the world with confidence and grace is profound.
Olympia Therapy works with youth and their families to understand dynamics and to learn implement skills for greater health. You can find helpful information on the Olympia Therapy website.
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