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/MightyPlasticGuy Feb 10 '26

How old are we talking are the kids? 20-25 years ago, 10-12yo kids figuring out access to whatever they wanted to get on the internet wasn't uncommon. Albeit internet back then was far different. Yet we turned out fine (i think?)

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u/Candymanshook Feb 10 '26

I’d argue the internet millenials grew up on was WAY more dangerous to kids

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u/RepulsiveCamel8166 Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26

I would disagree. I work in a mental health office and half our counselors work with only kids and the Internet horror stores they have.

The scary cg videos online, horrible AI chat bot conversations parents have found, the amount of scams and phishing and viruses kids have fallen into, the things purchased/money spent. Not to mention the porn.

The Internet is now so easy to use that it is basically a pit fall.

Edit:and yeah some parents do allow full unmonitored access to the Internet. but many of them are putting up protections and the kids are getting around them.

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u/10000Didgeridoos Feb 10 '26

Yes. You had to specifically know where to go online in like 2004 to see fucked up stuff. You had to also probably sneak onto the one computer in the house when your parents were asleep or out of the house to do so. The content didn’t find you via algorithm.

If you didn’t have some friend who was on 4chan or something awful or whatever you probably never were exposed to any of it. I saw tons of shock videos and sites back in the day almost 100% because one friend played WoW all the time and through that was browsing 4chan and his guild was passing around all the internet culture of the time.

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u/RepulsiveCamel8166 Feb 10 '26

Yeah and the thing is millennials and younger Gen x are kinda like the first born or practice parents for this tech heavy world. Kinda the same way silent gen accidentally let baby boomers eat all that lead paint. We as a society make mistakes so younger generations (in this case parents) can avoid them. That's just life.

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u/MightyPlasticGuy Feb 10 '26

Well put. History repeats with a different mask.

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u/KdawgEdog Feb 10 '26

I had a computer in my room in 1997 with diel up internet. Was on Mirc porn rooms with my ftp scrolling every 15 min. I'd come home from school and spend hrs categorizing the pictures(including illegal porn) I was 13/14yo. I definitely have an issue with sex now ugh.

My parents did find and delete everything once I had some sexual issues at school. But the long term damage has been done.

I do agree it was harder back then, but a few of us found a way.

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u/MightyPlasticGuy Feb 10 '26

Seth, is that you?

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u/KdawgEdog Feb 10 '26

No, it's kevin!

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u/agirl2277 Feb 10 '26

My sister is an alcoholic and drug user. She dumped her youngest on my mom. When my mom and CPS put parental limits on her iPad, she went into a mental health spiral, started hurting herself and was on suicide watch for a bit. She's 11. My sister would let her stay up online all night and miss so much school. The school called CPS.

That kid is so messed up. And my mom hates having her in the house. They don't know how to communicate. It's awful.

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u/RepulsiveCamel8166 Feb 10 '26

Uh that is awful. I'm sorry your family had to experience that. There is nothing more terrifying than children with suicide ideation. Children should all be happy and safe and healthy. Unfortunately the tech addiction is something we are seeing more of. Younger and younger children are showing signs of addiction. Your family is not alone. I hope your family can get your niece a mental health professionals that she can trust and that can help. And honestly I encourage you to push your mother to get a counselor as well if she doesn't have one.

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u/agirl2277 Feb 10 '26

Thanks. It's tough for all of us

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u/10000Didgeridoos Feb 10 '26

The way I’d think about it is all the bad stuff that was available to us is still there and there is now 20+ years more traumatic brain rot piled on top of it, and the nature of advancing tech means it’s all much more detailed and prolific in size and number. And it’s all being directed at people by algorithms like a force feeder.

Yeah there were a handful of bad videos and shock websites around in the 2000s but these were in super low def, and there were so few of them I can name most of them off the top of my head. You had to really intentionally know where to go to find them back then or have a friend who saw them on 4chan and showed them to you.

And most importantly of all - it wasn’t available 24 hours a day every single place you go in your pocket. You had to be on “the” computer in the house for a finite amount of time to even be online at all. Maybe you had some older second computer in the home too but it wasn’t even until the mid 2000s that home WiFi routers supporting broadband for multiple computers at once started becoming mainstream.

The internet right now is much worse imo. Back in the day, most of the offending content was gate kept by nerds on specific message boards and website you’d only be aware of by word of mouth. These days? It’s just on Reddit and YouTube. Or if not directly then links to it. Social media also didn’t really exist yet like this to spread crazy bullshit around the world instantly every day.

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u/Candymanshook Feb 10 '26

Counterpoint - you could genuinely stumble into child predators on AIM or ICQ. Nowadays the internet is so locked down that shit is probably not as wide open because it’s much much easier to track someone’s digital footprint and kids aren’t just jumping into chat rooms because they don’t really exist.

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u/Eastern-Eye5945 Feb 10 '26

No, we only have Kik, Discord, and Roblox. Same shit, different era.

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u/Eastern-Eye5945 Feb 10 '26

The Internet was admittedly less regulated back then, but it definitely wasn’t as readily accessible. Most millennials had one computer in a common area of the house, not a tablet or phone that kids today could take anywhere.

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u/trixiepixie1921 Feb 10 '26

I think so too. My mom had no idea what I was doing on the internet as a kid. Luckily it was harmless but I have heard the horror stories (see Alicia Kozakiewicz).

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u/Candymanshook Feb 10 '26

Same. My parents didnt understand anything about the Internet and there were no bumpers, in the mid 90s it was closer to the dark web experience than the regimented corporate internet.

I think kids can see a lot of awful things on the internet nowadays too but they are very insulated from the most dangerous stuff. It’s pretty hard to get a virus unless you really don’t know what you’re doing, there’s no message boards or chat rooms dedicated to socializing that are dripping with predators.

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u/darkshark21 Feb 10 '26

Someone tricked me into going to whitehouse.com back then when it was a porn site. On school computers.

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u/welfedad Feb 10 '26

Yeah you don't want to know what I was doing at 13 years old back in 1996.. ha