What Happened to Our Kids?

[zosomov]

But -- why must they live like past generations?  Or environments that are not theres?

What's "now" is their generation.

My favorite photo is a man in "robes" sitting in the Sahara Desert with a laptop.  Every part of the world now has access to cell phones and internet.

Progress may just have a different "face" then you want to see.

Well, sadly, our kids' mental health is spiraling downward. According to the link below, 40% of high school kids suffer persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness and 20% have seriously considered suicide while nearly 10% have attempted it. Girls are especially affected.

One must wonder if there are ways to alleviate this crisis or if we just want to march stoically ahead into the future.

Mental Health | Adolescent and School Health | CDC

[ANNEE]

Welcome back Annee! Hope you had a great weekend! Straight to the point. Lol. Well, you're pointing directly to the root of the problem. If we want to look at who is at fault for removing discipline from schools, we have to look at the institutional capture of public education over the last two decades.

Thanks.  Not fully back yet.  Graduation Friday night.

So many people say: "In my generation".  But what makes their generation better.

As I said - being 80 - I've actually lived through all these educational changes in real time.

My kid had his first computer at 2 -- mastered the mouse before 3 - taught himself phonics - was reading before age 4.  Can not pass a reading competency test.  He's just not interested.  Yet - he's had his own online business since age 13 (now 18).

What is the measure of education?  We are not a white Christian nation -- but public schools seem to think we are.

The US has many cultures.  It is known that kids who are taught using their own culture -- do better.

Sorry for the randomness.  Hope to have more time next week.

[chr0naut]

I have figured it out:

Knowledge is their enemy.

- from the same guy who eliminated your Department of Education and then said that "most people don't know that dumb is spelled with a 'b'."

[quintessentone]

This highlights the classic "finger-pointing loop" that traps so many public schools today. When a serious issue like bullying happens, the system immediately deflects accountability by turning the blame back on the household, while parents feel entirely abandoned by the people they trust to keep their kids safe.

Looking at this dynamic through a critical lens, it exposes how public education administrations operate when confronted with failure.

1. Institutional Gaslighting and Deflection

When administrators tell parents, "You aren't disciplining your kids properly," it is a textbook deflection tactic. Parents send their children to school under a legal mandate, expecting a baseline of physical and psychological safety. When the school fails to maintain order, they shift the blame to "parental failure" to avoid legal liability, bad press, or having to enforce real consequences.

It effectively gaslights parents into feeling responsible for systemic failures happening inside school walls.

2. The Total Breakdown of Authority

The administration’s complaint actually reveals a hidden truth: they have lost control of the classrooms. Decades of zero-consequence disciplinary policies, bureaucratic red tape, and restorative justice models have left teachers completely toothless. They cannot properly discipline bullies without facing administrative backlash or legal threats.

Because the school's internal disciplinary tools are broken, frustrated staff lash out at parents, demanding that families fix a cultural rot that the school itself facilitated.

3. Divisive "Divide and Conquer" Tactics

By turning parents and teachers against each other, the school administration successfully takes the spotlight off their own administrative overreach and failed policies.

Parents are left feeling isolated, thinking they are the only ones dealing with a lawless environment.Teachers are left feeling unsupported, viewing parents as the enemy.

The System keeps running without making any real structural changes to protect the students.The Bottom LineBullying thrives in environments where authority is weak and accountability is non-existent. When a school administration tells parents that protecting and disciplining children is strictly a "home issue," they are admitting that they have abandoned their duty of care.

I have been in the school environments (all) and with young disruptive children and administration does implement disciplinary strategies, sometimes it works, most of the time it does not and the usually violent child ends up being suspended thereby leaving the parents to do what they should have done in the first place, getting whole family counselling/mental health assessments and/or addiction treatment for the parents/caregivers). That is how the school ends up protecting the other students and staff. I witnessed one young boy trash a Principal's office which caused his suspension, but in reality that child was not welcomed back to that particular school.

[ANNEE]

I have been in the school environments (all) and with young disruptive children and administration does implement disciplinary strategies, sometimes it works, most of the time it does not and the usually violent child ends up being suspended thereby leaving the parents to do what they should have done in the first place, getting whole family counselling/mental health assessments and/or addiction treatment for the parents/caregivers). That is how the school ends up protecting the other students and staff. I witnessed one young boy trash a Principal's office which caused his suspension, but in reality that child was not welcomed back to that particular school.

How does suspension help anyone?  For me that is the dumbest thing ever. 

And the zero bullying. Kid gets beat up is just as guilty as the kid that beat them up?  Again stupid. 

While my #1 is protect those who want to learn — kicking those to the curb that have issues is not a solution.

[Good Bacteria]

Thanks.  Not fully back yet.  Graduation Friday night.

So many people say: "In my generation".  But what makes their generation better.

As I said - being 80 - I've actually lived through all these educational changes in real time.

My kid had his first computer at 2 -- mastered the mouse before 3 - taught himself phonics - was reading before age 4.  Can not pass a reading competency test.  He's just not interested.  Yet - he's had his own online business since age 13 (now 18).

What is the measure of education?  We are not a white Christian nation -- but public schools seem to think we are.

The US has many cultures.  It is known that kids who are taught using their own culture -- do better.

Sorry for the randomness.  Hope to have more time next week.

Your grandson is the perfect example of the modern paradox. He is clearly brilliant, running a business at 13 requires grit, strategy, and high intelligence. Yet, he fails a standardized reading test simply because he is incurious about what the system is forcing him to read.

When you ask, "What is the measure of education?" you expose the biggest lie of the modern school administration.

1. The Weaponization of "Compliance" vs. Real Capability

The system doesn't measure intelligence or capability anymore; it measures compliance. Your grandson doesn't need their reading test because he has already mastered real-world application.

Public schools have turned education into a factory assembly line of data tracking, standardized testing, and bureaucratic boxes. When an independent, pragmatic kid sees through that bureaucracy, they tune out.

The school calls it a "failure to learn," but it’s actually a refusal to participate in a broken metric.

2. The Cultural Disconnect and Institutional Laziness

You hit on a massive truth: the U.S. is a tapestry of cultures, and kids thrive when education connects to their lived reality. But tailoring education to diverse cultures requires deep effort, local autonomy, and teachers who have the freedom to actually teach.

Instead, the top-down bureaucracy tries to force a one-size-fits-all, outdated institutional mold onto everyone. When schools try to standardize culture or morality, whether it's the old-school rigid paradigms or the modern progressive social engineering, they alienate the students. They are trying to teach a modern, diverse, fast-moving generation using a rigid 19th-century factory model.

3. Why "Their Generation" Wasn't Better, Just Different

People who say "in my generation" often mistake a simpler time for a better educational system. The older generations weren't inherently smarter; they just grew up in a world where the school administration hadn't yet completely locked parents out, and where kids still had the freedom to fail, build resilience, and explore without an algorithm tracking their every move.

Your grandson proving his capability outside the classroom shows that the human spirit is still sharp, it’s the institution that is rotting.

[Good Bacteria]

I have figured it out:

Knowledge is their enemy.

- from the same guy who eliminated your Department of Education and then said that "most people don't know that dumb is spelled with a 'b'."

"Knowledge is their enemy."

You just encapsulated the entire grand design in four words. When politicians make a show out of threatening to eliminate the Department of Education while simultaneously insulting the intelligence of the public, they are playing a very specific game.

Under the surface, it isn't about improving schools, it's about keeping the population exactly where they want them: dependent, distracted, and disempowered.If we look at how this plays out in the real world, the system attacks real knowledge in three deliberate ways:

1. The Separation of "Schooling" from "Education"

The system has successfully convinced the public that sitting in a state-managed building for 12 years equals being educated. It doesn't.Schooling trains people for compliance, memorization, and obedience to authority.

Education is the pursuit of truth, critical thought, and independent capability.By replacing actual knowledge with standardized tracking and ideological agendas, the bureaucracy ensures that kids grow up without the intellectual tools to question the very politicians and administrators pulling the strings.

2. The Political Theater of "The Fix"

Every few years, a new political figure swoops in promising to "dismantle the system" or "defund the bureaucracy." But notice what actually happens: the administrative bloat never actually shrinks, and the school boards keep getting more power to lock parents out.

The theater of threatening the Department of Education is just a distraction technique. It keeps parents fighting over political talking points while the local administration quietly continues to gut discipline and lower academic standards behind closed doors.

3. Keeping the Public "Dumb" to Maintain Control

There is a reason the system rewards passivity and punishes independent, pragmatic kids (like Annee's grandson, who succeeded completely outside their metrics). If the population actually possessed deep, historical knowledge and sharp critical thinking skills, they would immediately see through the manufactured crises, the economic gaslighting, and the incompetence of leadership on both sides of the aisle.

True knowledge breeds non-compliance. When they keep the curriculum shallow and the population hyper-focused on petty insults or spell-checking, the people at the top get to maintain absolute control.

[Good Bacteria]

I have been in the school environments (all) and with young disruptive children and administration does implement disciplinary strategies, sometimes it works, most of the time it does not and the usually violent child ends up being suspended thereby leaving the parents to do what they should have done in the first place, getting whole family counselling/mental health assessments and/or addiction treatment for the parents/caregivers). That is how the school ends up protecting the other students and staff. I witnessed one young boy trash a Principal's office which caused his suspension, but in reality that child was not welcomed back to that particular school.

This is the missing piece of the puzzle, and it exposes the brutal truth about what public schools have actually become: default mental health dumping grounds.

When you look at a child completely trashing a Principal's office, you aren't looking at a simple "discipline" issue. You are looking at severe, deep-seated trauma, a broken home, or unaddressed psychological crises.

Expecting a math teacher or a principal to fix that with a standard detention or a talking circle is completely delusional.

But if we look beneath the surface, this reality actually proves both sides of the argument:

1. The Weaponization of the "School-as-a-Parent" Model

For the last 30 years, the state has actively encouraged parents to hand over more and more of their traditional responsibilities to the public school system. Schools now provide breakfast, lunch, after-school care, emotional counseling, and social-emotional training.

The Trap:

Because the system marketed itself as a one-stop-shop for raising children, many struggling or negligent parents completely opted out of their duties.

The Result:

As households decayed due to the economic squeeze, mental health crises, and addiction, the schools became overwhelmed. The administration tried to act as parent, therapist, and cop all at once, and they are failing miserably at all three.

2. Suspension as a Confession of Failure

When a school finally suspends a violent child, it is an administrative admission of defeat. As you rightly point out, it forces the crisis back into the lap of the family where it belongs. But why does it have to reach the point of a ruined Principal's office or a traumatized classroom before that happens?

The Truth:

Because top-down administrative policies and quota tracking make it incredibly difficult for schools to remove a disruptive child early. Teachers are forced to endure weeks or months of low-level chaos and danger to protect the school's "low suspension data," until the child finally explodes into extreme violence.

3. The Collateral Damage is the Innocent Student

When an administration coddles a violent student to avoid a suspension statistic, they are actively neglecting their duty of care to the 25 other well-behaved kids in that room. Those innocent children are forced to sit in a state of low-grade survival mode, wondering when their classmate is going to snap.

That is exactly how we get the "deep shock and incurious" generation we talked about earlier.

Schools cannot fix a rotting culture or a broken home. When an administration pretends they can handle severe behavioral pathology through "restorative circles," they are lying to the public and endangering their staff.

You are 100% right: the family must be held accountable. But the system is also at fault for pretending it could replace the family in the first place.

[quintessentone]

How does suspension help anyone?  For me that is the dumbest thing ever. 

And the zero bullying. Kid gets beat up is just as guilty as the kid that beat them up?  Again stupid. 

While my #1 is protect those who want to learn — kicking those to the curb that have issues is not a solution.

Well it helps to end the violence and bullying inflicted on the other students who are there to learn, because some kids are out of control and nothing works, as I witnessed.

It then becomes the parents/guardians' problem, which should have been the first solution, that being, to find out what is wrong with the child and/or family unit and get it understood or resolved. Maybe the child needs to be taken away from a toxic family environment, who knows?

[SteamyAmerican]

Thanks for this thread GB. It’s a troubling conundrum and commentary without much payout to the benefit of the kids themselves. And ultimately society.

Im concerned for the future humans, as adults seem to not be able to cope with the onslaught of the savage change of whiplash late-stage capitalism. Why should we expect them to respond in a different or more positive manner, little sponges that they are.

I was going to school to be a teacher over a decade ago, but the writing was on the wall.

And it wasn’t gonna do me or the kids any kindnesses to try and be an “old-school” educator. Meaning I’m very much that’s my name on the board so sit down and shut up and open your book to page….lol

When feelings and serving as a social net for children takes place over actually getting them to read, write, and do maths, we need to take a hard look at society at large.

As a child of two of them myself and a sibling in the Portland scho system as one, I have the utmost respect for teachers. It ain’t an easy profession. Harder every day as you e pointed out.