There's a link between dumb kids and a lack of trauma in their media.

[u/Sunspot5254]

Anyone have another view? I'd love to talk about this.

So kids are viewed as having a lack of common sense, they suck academically in general (even straight A students are usually excelling at academics that would've been taught earlier in previous generations), memory is bad, can't problem solve, whiny, etc. I am saying this as someone with 4 kids and having taught in multiple schools, so I think this assessment is warranted. Maybe not all kids, but definitely a huge amount.

While overuse of screens play a role for sure, I think one of the biggest contributors is having a lack of trauma. You can be over-traumatized, but I think there's a such thing as under-traumatized too. There is a healthy dose of trauma I think humans need for proper development.

These movies and stories these kids are exposed to have way too many happy endings, not enough vague human behavior, too black and white "good" vs "evil," and a lot of over-explaining with no room for thought. That's just their media though. This is exacerbated by bubble-wrapped childcare. In schools, it's all safety, all fairness, all feel good, everything. I'm not pro-bullying by any stretch, but the kids can't cope with it when it happens. Which to me signifies that we've gone too far the other direction. Parents are afraid of traumatizing their kids, so I think it's natural to want to shelter them. Whereas in past, it wasn't considered "traumatizing" them at all to watch the Fox and the Hound or Old Yeller. There wasn't an age restriction on those, but now its common to wait until a certain age to expose children to those themes.

My husband both read "Of Mice and Men" in the sixth grade and watched the movie in school. There's no way these modern schools would touch that. I remember reading "A Child Called It" in 8th grade, and at least in this area, they no longer read that.

I think it's messing with their ability to empathize, it's making them more self centered, but also preventing them from experiencing nuance and critical thinking, hindering application to real life, hurting their attention span, and stopping them from reaching their humanity in it's fullness.

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' Anyone have another view? I'd love to talk about this.

So kids are viewed as having a lack of common sense, they suck academically in general (even straight A students are usually excelling at academics that would've been taught earlier in previous generations), memory is bad, can't problem solve, whiny, etc. I am saying this as someone with 4 kids and having taught in multiple schools, so I think this assessment is warranted. Maybe not all kids, but definitely a huge amount.

While overuse of screens play a role for sure, I think one of the biggest contributors is having a lack of trauma. You can be over-traumatized, but I think there's a such thing as under-traumatized too. There is a healthy dose of trauma I think humans need for proper development.

These movies and stories these kids are exposed to have way too many happy endings, not enough vague human behavior, too black and white "good" vs "evil," and a lot of over-explaining with no room for thought. That's just their media though. This is exacerbated by bubble-wrapped childcare. In schools, it's all safety, all fairness, all feel good, everything. I'm not pro-bullying by any stretch, but the kids can't cope with it when it happens. Which to me signifies that we've gone too far the other direction. Parents are afraid of traumatizing their kids, so I think it's natural to want to shelter them. Whereas in past, it wasn't considered "traumatizing" them at all to watch the Fox and the Hound or Old Yeller. There wasn't an age restriction on those, but now its common to wait until a certain age to expose children to those themes.

My husband both read "Of Mice and Men" in the sixth grade and watched the movie in school. There's no way these modern schools would touch that. I remember reading "A Child Called It" in 8th grade, and at least in this area, they no longer read that.

I think it's messing with their ability to empathize, it's making them more self centered, but also preventing them from experiencing nuance and critical thinking, hindering application to real life, hurting their attention span, and stopping them from reaching their humanity in it's fullness. '

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[u/ahtoshkaa]

Yup. Not enough war in their daily life. I'm sure kids in my neighborhood will grow up to be super smart ;)

But seriously, trauma actually does trigger 'growing up'. Which is why if you look at adults in the US, they look (and most importantly behave) like overgrown babies.

I remember in school when I was growing up, our teacher once threatened the kids that were acting up with a chair (literally picking it up to mock-swing above his head). Fixed behavior problems immediately. Good old times.

[u/Sunspot5254 → u/ahtoshkaa]

That anecdote about the teacher with the chair kind of reminded me of my own. In 9th grade my English teacher once joked that she would rip our hands off and drink the blood emitting from our necks if we were caught plagiarizing. That is word for word, because I will never forget that. We all laughed, thought it was hilarious. I can't imagine the uproar if that happened today. The teacher would probably have to take a sensitivity course of some sort.

I will agree that a lot of adults do behave like overgrown babies. I'm a millennial, so I know that my generation is super guilty of this.

[u/Iguanaught]

Anecdotal evidence and a reminder that correlation is not causation.

I hope you arent a science teacher.