Why We Need More Structure for the Young

Current studies show that many of today’s youth are in trouble. They are more distant from their parents, go out with their friends less frequently, study less, are less happy and more lonely, and are more likely to commit suicide.

Professor Jean Twenge at San Diego State has been studying generational differences for decades. One of her largest concerns about the group known as Gen Z’s (born between 1995 and 2009, which she has christened iGen’s) was expressed recently in an article in The Atlantic, “Has The Smartphone Destroyed A Generation?”

“Psychologically…they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.”

Certainly this malaise is not limited to the young. There is a wide-spread disconnect of people from themselves, from others, and from our culture in general, which seems to unraveling at the seams. This breakdown has caused many, but especially the young, to “look for love in all the wrong places.” While often playing a negative role, the phone is not the whole culprit, but a vehicle for trying to find solidity and validation as society’s normal stability mechanisms dissolve.

There are many reasons why our society is troubled, but I think a big part is the near complete lack of structure. As structure dissolves, people start looking for substitutes, such as the phone’s social media offerings. Facebook for one subjects participants to intense highs and lows---no stability at all. Some people have no substitutes and experience disorientation and even despair as they look vainly for healthy stability. They live lives of not-so-quiet desperation, usually causing them, youth and adults, to act out in ways that damage themselves and society.

Societal structure is a complex of relationships, norms, and generally shared values. Both rights and obligations to others are fairly clear. Stability and balance are maintained by various formal and informal rules, limits, responsibilities, and consequences. To the degree that these are beneficial for and generally accepted by people, you have a healthy society. They can be rigid or relaxed, but a society’s health depends on some appropriate balance. Too much of either extreme means societal challenges. We went from considerable rigidity in the 50’s, with its attendant problems, to near total relaxation today. Some of this loosening was clearly needed, but as we have ignored or dismantled many of the good structural elements, we left children and teens in particular with nothing healthy to replace them. The results are the emotional challenges Dr. Twenge has found in her research, and which has been supported by other scholars.

Perhaps our most prominent failure is at home. Among other problems, many parents want to be their child’s best friend, which keeps them from passing on healthy standards of behavior and exercising helpful and supportive discipline. Or, they may think that setting firm, reasonable limits damages the child’s creativity or self esteem, completely unaware of the difference between real and faux self esteem. Or, perhaps the parents want to do the right thing, but lack the emotional energy as both work, or are simply disinclined.

In these homes, limits are few, and erratically enforced. Even getting a child out the door to go to school is often filled with tension and anger. The more the parents flex the “established” limits, the more the child pushes. He realizes that he may well get all he wants, but at least a considerable part of that, and so pushes against everything---what and when to eat, what to watch on TV, when to go to bed, when and how to use his I-Pad, etc. The parents and he are now part of a mal-functioning system in which the child is mostly in control, and is reinforced by the parents for his pushing and creating family upset.

Melt-downs, many children’s tactic for getting what they want, are at epidemic levels, in great part the result of too much flexibility and inconsistency. Caught between a rock and a hard place of their own making, parents cede to the child yet more independence simply to keep peace, independence he is ill-equipped to handle. Further ceding has occurred with social media, where many teens hope to find something they can latch onto. Ephemeral and volatile, that something provides no structure at all. It promotes the opposite---fear, emotional dependence, and instability.

To grow emotionally healthy, a child has to test herself against standards, obligations, norms and rules which are not completely fluid nor inconsistently applied. On occasion she will, and should, experience push back from her parents, actions leading to the formation of healthy boundaries and limits. The child needs to find the limits and borders to her own growing sense of self. She gradually learns that strong inner and inter-personal boundaries are vital. She develops a healthy sense of who she is and what she owes others, a view coming mainly from parents espousing important values, consistently applying limitations, and loosening those as the child learns. (this should be provided at school as well, but is generally not) Love and support are  vital, but by themselves will not necessarily produce a confident and resilient young person.

All children test limits and strictures, and certainly accountability. Even while pushing against these, unknowingly the child seeks the structure they provide. Lacking limits, responsibility, and consequences, the child cannot determine where the boundaries of her world are, leaving her in a sea of uncertainty and a much harder task of developing a healthy self image.

In the healthy household there is greater consistency in application of those elements, and in the consequences arising from the child’s misbehavior, or good behavior. Further, values such as respect and restraint are taught and rewarded, as is the important strength of resilience, from which the child learns she can take a “hit” or serious disappointment and get right back up---one of the important elements in real self esteem. The solidity and structure provided by the family setting are critical. Just as important is the child’s gradual development of a sense of confidence and competence, characteristics providing their own enduring internal structure for the child, something she can count on no matter what. Also, in this process she gradually comes to understand the value of proper personal and interpersonal boundaries, and to not violate those of others, while also not allowing her own to be violated.

A colleague recently told me about how his son, when young, had misbehaved rather badly. He got into trouble at school, got into constant fights, had a drug problem, and even had run-ins with the police. Fortunately, the boy got though this period. Sadly, many years later he angrily told his father: “Where were you, Dad? I wanted limits and you gave me none.”