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We Raised a Generation of Hikikomori: Gentle Parenting Failed Gen Alpha
In this episode, Simone and Malcolm delve into the shocking new statistics regarding youth mental health. They challenge the common belief that social media is to blame for the decline, suggesting that a lack of hardship, discipline, and boundaries plays a more significant role. With numerous anecdotes and studies, they discuss the impact of 'gentle parenting' and how these practices may be contributing to an increase in anxiety, depression, and school absenteeism among kids. The conversation spans various topics including the unintended consequences of the COVID-19 lockdowns, the rise of therapy dependence, and potential cultural shifts among Gen Z. They also explore historical parenting practices and the importance of religious communities in providing support to modern families.
[00:00:00]
Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today's episode is going to be an interesting topic, or we are going to be going over new statistics on just how bad mental health is for the youth of this coming generation. It is worse than even the previous statistics may have indicated.
What is likely causing it? I think a lot of people blame it on social media.
Simone Collins: Oh, the phones. I'm
Malcolm Collins: so done with
Simone Collins: that.
Malcolm Collins: Enough. The stats just don't agree with this. And even, it's not even an issue of the stats. I can look to my generation and look at who was the early adopters of intense social media usage.
Like myself and my friend group. And they actually had much higher mental health outcomes than the groups that were not using social media. So what we should not have seen is the individuals who were most using social media first with, , better mental health. than the individuals who abstain from it in the early days.
I think that this is downstream of something [00:01:00] entirely different, specifically the lack of hardship, discipline, and boundaries that we are giving to young people. And the stats we're going to go over that are, are shocking. To, just to give you an example of like two that we're going to go over, 78 percent of parents in 2024 are practicing gentle parenting.
That's 78 percent by one study, 74 percent by a different study. That is terrifying. If it's as bad as I suspect it is. Are you going to share that clip
Simone Collins: that you shared with me on WhatsApp last night? Cause that was terrifying.
Malcolm Collins: She could be the next president.
Yeah. I think some people may assume when they hear me telling stories about how, when I lightly discipline a child in public, like even scolding them, I get accosted by people. And in this video, I think I'm pretty vindicated. You can see that any sane person would think this kid needs to be disciplined. But when people try to just restrain the child, other people are threatening to call the cops on them.
And then in a different instance, yelling, you don't know [00:02:00] what she's been through
Speaker 7: To go. Ooh. Ooh.
Oh s**t. Don't y'all do that to a little girl. Y'all don't know what she's going through. Hey, ,
Speaker 2: Damn it, I hate you! You're ruining my life! Please Herbert, [00:03:00] remember our agreement! We have an agreement about how we behave in a store, Herbert! Give me
Speaker 5: stop. Have you ever tried beating his ass? The belt.
Speaker 6: Faithful! You must have lost your gut!
Malcolm Collins: Oh my God. The little girl who's like storming the store and like, they want like my kids doing that.
And I like disciplined them and everyone's like, how could you?
Simone Collins: Yeah, no, that's the crazy thing is I feel like you have caught more open animosity
Published on 1 year ago