Stressed out young people

Sad news today of the suicide of two young girls in Glasgow, following on from a report of anxiety overload in young people aged from 18 t0 24. 66% questioned in a recent survey report feeling stressed out or worried about money, jobs, and school or university pressure.
None of this is surprising in these uncertain times. There's more pressure on everyone nowadays to be well-educated in order to secure on of the few jobs available, and then keep it. And prospects for our young today are so bleak. I've blogged previously here about the hell of being unemployed and it's certainly no way for young people to begin their adult lives. Then if they are employed they're likely to be on a relatively low wage, so hardly surprising that this incurs money worries.

Something I'd like to see addressed here though is this habit we seem to have aquired in the last 20 or so years to label people according to their work - and then to judge them accordingly.

Young people easily fall into the trap of thinking they don't amount to anything unless they've got work, and yet, as I so often say to their parents, they are so much more than the sum of their exam results!

Why don't we stop and value our young people for who they are rather than what they're capable of? If we could only bring ourselves to do that - as families as well as society - then we could help them see that there's always something to get up for.

Most people have skills to impart - a young musician, for instance, could help inspire other youngsters at a youth group. Kindly types could volunteer to befriend the lonely. Out-going jolly young people would be hugely welcome visitors for the elderly.

There's huge scope for matching up people with time on their hands, to local needs. And if we could only begin to value the things that people do in their spare time, as well as in paid work, we might begin to encourage some of today's young to use any enforced period of unemployment to broaden their experience of life whilst contributing greatly to society.