In a recent Mission Australia study, Australian youth reported that stress, school and body image were their top three personal concerns. In Australia, 1 in 5 young people experience a mental health disorder and there is 13% youth unemployment rat – twice the national average. According to many older Australian’s millennials simply need to ‘toughen up’. But, as we head deeper into 2017 and take a look at how the problems of the world have changed, we explore why our young people might feel like this and some simple things parents can do to help their kids be happy.
In the past, one of biggest problems we faced was famine. When it comes to famine, a small mistake or a bit of bad luck could be a death sentence for an entire family. Globally, severe drought would result in provisions becoming scarce, crops dying and with unsophisticated transport, quickly replenishing stock was not possible. Going back to the 1600’s famine killed almost 15 per cent of France’s population. Today, however in the twenty-first century we have almost eradicated this problem and sadly overeating is a bigger problem than famine, by 2030 it’s expected over 50% of the population will be obese.
Plague and infectious disease was also a big burden on the world. Back in 1300’s when the black plague hit, between 75 million and 200 million people died. In 1918 when the Spanish Flu started spreading globally in less than a year, it killed between 50 and 100 million people. Despite hysteria bought about by the media, the severity of plagues and infectious disease today has almost been totally eradicated by the advancements of twenty-first century medicine and the investments in vaccinations, antibiotics, improved hygiene and better medical facilities. Globally smallpox has now been completely eliminated thanks to vaccinations. In 1967 it infected 15 million people and killed 2 million, but in 2014 not a single person was killed or infected. Even the threat of Ebola in 2014 was quickly contaminated and controlled. Doctors and medicine have become so advanced, their ability to manage infectious disease is better than ever before. While infectious diseases still develop, the race between medical advancements and disease control continues however with huge investments in research, labs and science innovation humans continue to come out on top.
War was the third big problem facing the previous centuries, these too are disappearing. Last century violent related deaths caused about 5% of deaths, so far this century violence causes about 1% of deaths. In 2012, about 56 million people died throughout the year: 620,000 due to human violence towards others (war killed 120,000, and crime killed another 500,000). However, 800,000 committed suicide and 1.5 million people died of diabetes. Despite threats of terror and recent attacks, data from 2010 show that terrorists killed approximately 7,697 people while 3 million people died from obesity and related illnesses. You could almost argue that sugar and fat kills more people that terrorists and internal violence is now a greater concern than external violence.
To remain aligned with current news, these ‘big issues’ have not disappeared but to a large extent have become managed due to stronger Governments, policy making, medical advancements and technology. It’s not to say we won’t be faced with war again, but today humans are faced with different types of challenges.
In the past it has been very much about having the skills to survive. Now, we can survive, humans are learning how to thrive. No longer do we need to focus on being fed, avoiding infectious disease and war. Today, humans are starting to shift their focus to consider how make the most of what we have, in other words how to live the best life. This includes how we live a healthy life, be our best self and be happy.
Governments across the world and the health care sector have been one of the first to realise the importance of being happy. In the twentieth century, GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was the measurement countries used to evaluate their success. In line with this thinking, countries like Singapore whose citizens produce an average of $56,000 worth of goods and services per year is more successful than a country like Cost Rica who produces an average of $14,000 per year.
However, nowadays politicians, economists, psychologists and Governments are beginning to replace GDP with GDH or Gross Domestic Happiness. They are now saying a country is at its best when people are happy. Why? Because when people are at their best they are healthy, which results in less strain on the medical systems. They are engaged in employment, which eases the burden on the welfare system and boosts overall economic growth. They have better relationships which reduces violence, mental health issues, divorce and the list goes on. We are even seeing schools and workplaces now shift their focus to teach students and employees about well-being and positive psychology. HR magazines and workplaces are constantly publishing articles to advise how to have ‘work/life balance’ and ‘be productive at work’. At home, you only have to turn on the TV to see new fitness programs to help you lose weight, shape up and get fit quickly, or to sign up to the next fad diet promising to detox and cleanse your body.
As our quest to be the best continues and people have become ‘wealthier’ (that is, devoid of famine) many of these initiatives have made huge positive changes and tackle big global issues. For example, in America, since 1970 the childhood obesity rate has tripled and now 1 in 5 children are obese. In Australia, it’s 1 in 4. However, with a focus on being the ‘best’, in a world united by technology, consumerism is influencing the way people live their lives like never before. Which might start to explain why body image is such a concern for our youth and why so many young people struggle with the reality of real life compared to the perception of the lives plastered across social media.
As young people move into adulthood today, they are faced so much choice about the type of life they will live. This is true of careers, further education, diet, social groups, friendships, fitness and the list goes on. Yet, if you ask almost any parent what they want for their child, their biggest want is, happiness. Which ironically, is seeming hard and harder to attain. In a time when, our world is safer than ever before we are seeing a sharp increase in mental health issues, stress and youth unemployment. And sadly, many people look for happiness in the wrong places.
Time to thrive: How to find happiness
According to the 2017 world happiness report which looked at the relationship between work and happiness levels, unsurprisingly it found that people in work are happier than those who are unemployed. In short, being unemployed makes you miserable. Being in a career is more than just about money too, it’s about building relationships, social status, having goals and providing structure to your life. When it comes to helping your children or yourself be happy, the first path is finding a career and working. Individually, socially, financially and economically, working is good for us.
While careers matter, the second path to happiness is finding the right career, finding work that is engaging, meaningful and enjoyable. As we move out of the realm of having to ‘survive’ and into the sphere of learning to thrive. Young people have so much choice and the best career choices are made when people find careers they are interested in and play to their strengths. When it comes to being happy we need a level of autonomy in our life, a feeling of being in control. To have this parents need to invest in helping their young people navigate possible career pathways that suit their child. This can be facilitated by talking about their interests, what type of work they see themselves doing, whether that be outside work or inside work, what industries seem interesting, exploring desk work or something more hands on. Whatever career path it is, going to work and doing what we are good at, helps us live our best possible lives.
The third path to being happy is mastering the mental side of things. Simply working and finding a career path in an area you love will go a long way towards this. In addition to this, young people need support, they need encouragement and they need to build resilience. The good news about building resilience is that our brain is malleable, the more we use it the better it works. When things go wrong, whether that be with employment rejections or breakups, while you may say and believe ‘they’ll be fine’ in each of these setbacks are huge teaching moments for your child. Rejection, failure and exclusion, while never nice are part of life and talking through how your child feels during these setbacks, validating their feelings and helping to provide strategies for next time, helps to re-wire the brain out of survival mode and into thriving mode. The same goes for role modelling. When you experience a bad day at work, talking through your coping strategies which teaches your child techniques to handle stress. Just like sporting teams need coaches to improve how they play, in today’s consumer driven world, kids too need guidance and their biggest influencer is their parent.
The real concerns of young people today are similar but different to those faced by older generations. With the exponential growth of technology, the notion the ‘ideal’ life and having it all is constantly fed to our children. Ideals about the way young people should look and live appear in everyone’s Facebook and Instagram feed, twenty-four hours a day. So as your child starts to grow up and face the challenges of the world, take a moment to reflect on what the challenges of this century are. Find some time to invest in helping your child navigate what it means to survive but also how to thrive and be happy – the right way.
For more information or to help your child with this, head to www.skillsroad.com.au to take the career quiz or job fit test. You can also head to www.viacharacter.org to discover your child’s strengths or www.beyondblue.org to learn about more tips to deal with mental health issues.