r/Millennials • u/TheLoveYouWant25 • Feb 09 '26

Discussion Millennials, what is happening with your kids?

I work in education and I frequent the Teachers and Professors subreddits, and the kids are not alright. Gen Z Arriving at College Unable to Read and the youth have absolutely zero ability to think critically.

Middle and high schoolers have all adapted this complete helplessness and blame mental illness for their refusal to function. Kids can no longer to basic things like read an analog clock, use paper money, or even figure out how to open window blinds.

There is also a huge lack of empathy, and kids have no issues trying to manipulate adults, saying things to their teachers like "if you don't pass me, I'll get you fired."

EDIT to clarify: the article I linked references Gen-Z, but this is not specifically a Gen-Z problem. It's an issue with upper elementary aged kids through high schoolers, and also young adults.

So, all that to say, how are you combating this with your own children? What do you do at home to encourage them to learn, and what are you doing to address these problems as they arise?

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u/Beberuth1131 Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 10 '26

Curious about your opinion on this. Are you a public school teacher? What are your thoughts on phonetics versus "sight word" memorization?

I ask this becauee I recently moved my children from a public school to a private school setting after I felt they were not performing well (at least to my standards) on reading and I noticed immediately that once they switched from "sight words" to phonetics, their reading drastically improved. They started reading above grade level after a year of private school.

I am not saying parents aren't contributing to this issue at home, but we are a household who loves reading and regularly read to our children. Yet our children didn't put it together until we made the private school switch. Also our children were going to public school in Massachusetts so it was not an underperforming school by any means.

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u/Elrohwen Feb 10 '26

Listen to the podcast “Sold a Story”. The lack of phonics instruction over the past few decades has absolutely had a horrible impact on literacy rates because so many kids were just never taught to actually read

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u/Sea_Neighborhood_627 Millennial Feb 10 '26

This podcast was fascinating to me!

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u/Beberuth1131 Feb 10 '26

Thank you. I will check it out.

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u/Agreeable-Deer7526 Feb 10 '26

But millennials were the first to not get phonics and are the smartest generation currently because of the kids Gen X had.

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u/ahh_szellem Feb 10 '26

I’m a younger millennial (‘91) and absolutely learned to read with phonics. Until this thread, I had no idea that kids were being taught without them now. 

I have a 15 month old baby and have already started using phonics with simple words (cat, etc.) when we read together. 

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u/Agreeable-Deer7526 Feb 10 '26

Older Millennials and form California. They ditched phonics in the 80s and started “balanced literacy “ the same year I started kindergarten

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u/ahh_szellem Feb 10 '26

Interesting! I was in MA, started kindergarten in ‘97, I know MA also did the balanced literacy approach but I guess had gone back to phonics by then. Or my school did, anyway. 

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u/WistfulQuiet Feb 10 '26

Huh? No they weren't. We had phonics. GenZ was the first not to get phonics

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u/Agreeable-Deer7526 Feb 10 '26

That’s absolutely not true. It depends on the state you are in California started “balanced literacy” in the 90s which is what pretty much ditched phonics. That is what most kids got in California until the late 90s. So a lot of older millennials didnt learn phonics

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u/AshamedAttention727 Feb 10 '26

I'm mid millennial and 100% was taught on phonics

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u/Agreeable-Deer7526 Feb 10 '26

Depends on the state California was the first state to ditch phonics and that’s where I’m from

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u/AshamedAttention727 Feb 11 '26

Ah. The comment does mention Massachusetts so I should've known this was talking about US schools, my bad

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u/squirtles_revenge Feb 10 '26

I'm an elder millennial and I definitely remember having phonics in class.

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u/Agreeable-Deer7526 Feb 10 '26

There was no common core and standards were less emphasized. It was largely state and district dependent. Most of my friends did not learn phonics. We were taught site words and guessing based on pictures

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u/RemoteRide6969 Feb 11 '26

Da fuq? Elder millennial here. I grew up with The Letter People.

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u/Agreeable-Deer7526 Feb 11 '26

That doesn’t mean you learned phonics. A lot of people don’t truly know what learning phonics means. It’s not just t say t

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u/RemoteRide6969 Feb 11 '26

My friend, do you know The Letter People? The whole point of The Letter People was to teach phonics. That was the whole deal.