Teach The New Dogs Old Tricks

Generations Matter

Everyone has heard the hoary aphorism that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

What if the old dogs aren’t the ones who need to learn the tricks? And what if the tricks that need to be learned aren’t new?

When it comes to the average mental health state of our younger generations, we absolutely need to think about these two questions. A growing body of data suggests that it’s not the “old dogs” who need to learn the “tricks” of mental health maintenance, but the “new dogs”—and it’s the “old dogs” who have the “tricks” the “new dogs” need to learn.

A Gallup poll from September of last year showed that “Generation Z”—those born from the mid-1990s through the early 2000’s—are experiencing significantly lower levels of self-assessed mental health than earlier generations:

A smaller share of Gen Z is thriving compared to millennials at the same age, and members of Gen Z are far less likely to describe their mental health as “excellent,” according to a new study.

“Less than half (47%) of Gen Z Americans are thriving in their lives — among the lowest across all generations in the U.S. today and a much lower rate than millennials at the same age,” a report from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation said.

What often gets overlooked about this study data is that, just as millennials are doing better than Gen Z Americans, Gen X Americans are doing better than millenials, and Baby Boomers are doing better than Gen X Americans, if we look at the percentages self-reporting poor mental health.

Note how the distributions from “Poor” to “Excellent” mental health and emotional wellbeing shift from Baby Boomers down to Gen Z: 14% of Baby Boomers rated their mental health as “Poor” or “Only Fair”, but 36% of Gen Z members gave one of those two assessments, and each generation reported noticeably worse levels of mental health.

The older generations are reporting higher levels of mental health and emotional well being than the younger generations. Why is this?

Nor is this a new finding. A 2018 study by the American Psychological Association titled “Stress In America: Generation Z”, showed a similar trend.

Our 2018 survey results show that high-profile issues, such as sexual harassment and gun violence, are significant stressors for Gen Z. America’s youngest adults are most likely of all generations to report poor mental health, and Gen Z is also significantly more likely to seek professional help for mental health issues.

Even before 2020 and the COVID “Pandemic” completely fractured daily life for just about everyone, younger generations were showing themselves increasingly less resilient than older generations. Why was this? Why is this continuing?

Pre-pandemic, even millennials were faring noticeably worse than Generation X and the Baby Boomers, as a 2019 Business Insider examination of the mental health state of millennials reported.

A recent Blue Cross Blue Shield report found that millennials are seeing their physical and mental health decline at a faster rate than Gen X as they age. Without proper management or treatment, millennials could see a 40% uptick in mortality compared with Gen Xers of the same age, the report found.

This report is from 2019—before the pandemic and most importantly before the mRNA inoculations began skewing mortality statistics in the US—and Blue Cross Blue Shield was reporting then that millennials might show a 40% uptick in mortality relative to Gen X.

Millennials in 2019 were demonstrably more fragile and less reslient than Generation X. Why was this? Why is this continuing?

Broad generalizations are always inherently dangerous, but one reported possible cause for Generation Z especially was identified by the Cleveland Clinic in 2019: changes in parenting styles and techniques—changes which were themselves triggered by significant events which impacted the parents of Generation Z members, according to Psychologist Scott Bea, PsyD:

“This is a group whose parents were experiencing 9/11 when they were young ― 6 years of age or younger. Our world really changed and we became more sensitive to threat,” Dr. Bea says. “During this time, the news media exploded as more and more people wanted news and we started engaging in more safety behaviors.”

As parents became more protective, children had fewer developmental opportunites in which to build out their repertoire of coping skills.

If we’re not allowing young folks to solve problems … to develop active coping strategies, we’re robbing them of those opportunities. And while we’re doing that, in a benevolent way and for a good cause, we may be inadvertently handicapping them at the same time.

What this data shows is not just that younger generations’ mental health has been steadily deteriorating literally for years and even decades, but also that at least a portion of that deteriotion may be fairly attributed to a lack of “generational wisdom” being transmitted from the Baby Boomers and Generation X to their millennial and Gen Z offspring. Whether as parents, teachers, or mentors, the older generations have not transmitted their life lessons (and the skills which accompany them) to younger generations.

While each era and even each day presents challenges which are unique unto themselves, the one constant in every era and on every day is that there are challenges. People face adversity at work, at home, in school, and in the community nearly all the time—and always have.

Adversity happens. People must either adapt and grow through that adversity or be damaged and even destroyed by it.

The growing body of evidence suggests that younger generations are not adapting and are more likely to be damaged or even destroyed by their experiences of adversity.

The growing body of evidence suggests that older generations have the tools, the life skills and life lessons, younger generations need to be better able to adapt and avoid being damaged or destroyed by their experiences of adversity—and those tools, life skills, and life lessons are not being transmitted to the younger generations.

We can change this. We must change this. A major reason I made the decision to shift my focus with All Facts Matter, as well as to start The Houses Of Refuge Project, has been to address this lack of “generational wisdom” transfer.

Facts Matter. Action Matters More

How do we transmit life experience and life lessons from one generation to the next?

Ideally through parenting. The very process which has in large measure helped create these challenges is the very process which is best suited to reverse the trend. What has not been done, or at least has not been broadly done well, needs to be done better in the future.

Yet it need not all be on the parents. Those who have lived a life—especially those who have gone through a time of darkness and tribulation, and come out the other side—have powerful stories those who are just starting their lives need to hear. We need to tell those stories.

Nor is it merely a question of telling powerful stories. Whenever people face adversity, the community around them intrinsically has the capacity to offer caring, compassion, and respectful assistance. I also believe the community has the calling to do exactly that.

We do not need to have fancy credentials, or extensive education. We but need to have a generous heart. We but need to choose to extend the helping hand, and to stand between the one needing the safe space and whatever violence threatens to come down upon him from the world. We but need to show tenderness and compassion. We but need to have mercy.

What the ever-expanding body of evidence tells us about the mental health state of our younger generations especially is that the need for caring, compassion, and respectful assistance is growing in just about every dimension.

What the ever-expanding body of evidence tells us about what our communities are doing to address the adversity confronting younger generations especially, but truly all generations, is that not nearly enough is being done, and absolutely more needs to be done.

Everyone has their own prescription of what that “more” is. My prescription is to focus on the simple solutions first and foremost. A pair of shoes, or a new suit of clothes, or even a monthly bus pass can easily be the difference between a person getting and holding a job, or losing that job. Taking the time to mentor and tutor people in both technical and life skills—which is nothing more than people who know sharing their knowledge with people who do not—increases everyone’s potential to contribute both in the workplace and in the community.

In the process of doing these simple things, a simple message is communicated to younger generations especially: there is always hope because there are always people around who care enough to help.

The data shows that this is a message younger generations desperately need to hear.

Fortunately, the data also shows that the older generations have the wherewithal to send that message to the younger generations.

The data is telling us that it is past time for the older generations to make a renewed effort to send a message of hope to younger generations. The data is telling us that it is past time for the old dogs to start teaching the new dogs some old tricks.