What's wrong with kids today? (and I'm not even that old)

[Florence NightinFAIL]

I'm in my mid twenties and I'm just shocked at how kids my age are acting. It's not just one or two experiences that have made me - but several, here are the ones that stand out:

• 21 year old who left AMA in the middle of the night because I would not let her boyfriend sleep over in a 4-bed room. She claimed that she needed him to sleep or she would 'freak out'.
  
• 24 year old who would whine and cry and writhe on the bed while her family was there and act ok when they left. She liked having them coddle her and hover over her in concern.
  
• 18 year old who wept so much upon admission that I thought something was wrong. When I questioned her - she was crying because this was her first time in the hospital and she was 'scared'. She came in with abd pain NYD - current pain 3/10, walking independently, absoultely fine, no horrific injuries or crazy stuff that would warrant a freak-out.
  

I don't know. What's going on? Why are these supposed adults so immature? Maybe it is how I was raised, but I would be embarassed to cry in public if I was not in great physical or emotional pain. I would not dream of insisting people to sleep over just so that I would 'calm down' and 'sleep better'. I would not endanger my health just because my boyfriend could not sleep over. WTH????!!!

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

I don't think there's really anything so wrong with wanting family's attention, boyfriend's presence, or crying in the hospital.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

I work labor and delivery and many of these immature 18,19,20,and21 year olds are having kids of their own. They are the worst patients to take care of. Very whiney, don't want to feel anything and extremely demanding and spoiled. Also taking full advantage of Medicaid. These are the people raising the future generation!!!! Heaven help us!

Promote tubal ligation and other effective forms of birth control.

But in L & D, who in their right mind wants to feel anything? Is feeling labor a badge of honor? is enduring pain a fabulous experience?

I agree about Medicaid - it needs to be drastically reduced.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

I don't know. I support myself and am in the age group of the whiners. I have been working since I was 16.I see plenty of whiners in the 40+ age group as well. People crying and carrying on for minor stuff. How do your friends get their laundry done? Do they pay for someone else to do it? I also have these friends who, "don't know how to cook". But who cares they are getting fed somehow. Some of the walkie-takies tend to be the biggest whiners. I don't think this is limited just to patients in their 20s. I have had plenty of pts threated to leave AMA for beign NPO when it was medically waranted. The bigger question is why do they think I care if they leave AMA???lol

I was with you until you expressed such a lack of caring about your patients.

Maybe you could try a little kindness and some sympathy, some teaching, some humor, some encouragement instead of just figuring that your load will be lighter if they leave.

[xtxrn, ASN, RN]

Inadequate discipline, no accountability for actions, materialistic hedonism, no respect for others, and this is what we have....large brats...

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

I work peds as well as adults and it drives me nuts seeing my parents of 20-something adult pts treating their kids as if they are a minor. Maybe it's because I'm 23 and am out of the house, have a "real" job, etc but I know if I was in the hospital I'd be taking responsibility for my own health, not acting like a spoiled teenage girl.

Until society as a whole starts expecting people in their 20's to act like adults and not children, I fail to see this problem getting any better.

People have different experiences, .Christine. And you really don't know what you'd do if you were hospitalized. Maybe you'd be comatose and on the vent, in traction and totally dependent, in a body cast, paralyzed, God knows what.

I think the trouble is that our nation has strayed from its Judeo-Christian roots - no God = problems.

[OCNRN63, RN]

Uhm, I broke down crying in triage after suffering for days with a terrible bronchitis that earned me an admission. Days and days of unrelenting coughing and SOB wore me down. I was in my mid-40s. I sure would hate to think the triage nurse looked down her nose at me and thought me "immature." Fortunately for me, I knew the triage nurse well, and he was an absolute peach.

Fear, pain and stress can make people react in ways they normally would not. Try to remember that the next time you're so quick to be harsh.

[xtxrn, ASN, RN]

We as a population are living longer so you decide: do you want to be a kid longer or a geriatric longer? I would much rather be a kid longer.

We as a population live off our parents, live off welfare, and live off social security. No one is truly independent at all stages of life.

Uh...I'm not even 48- and paid into Social Security for over 20 years- never expecting to become disabled and NEED it to not be homeless- ... please don't equate that as lack of independence. :) I also paid for disability insurance when I was working- so paid for that income, live on my own, am dealing with cancer with very little emotional support, have most of my friends at least 1200 miles away, and the others moved on when I became disabled (so was dumped from the old 'out of sight, out of mind' deal- I guess).... Contact with people here is more than I've had in YEARS.... I don't even have face-to-face contact, so not even dependent for interaction with people. Please don't equate me with some 20-something brat with no common sense or compassion.

Being a mature adult is a lot more respectable than some twit with an incomplete brain (doesn't finish development until 25 y/o-- no true capacity to fully anticipate the longterm consequences to actions). I'd hang with my 97 year old grandma any day over a whimpering 20-something (I'm not saying ALL 20-somethings, but there are plenty of duds to represent the age-group).

Ain't like it used to be, and I'm not impressed with what's going on....It's embarrassing how absolutely apathetic the overall age group is... all about having a good time- not growing up...I'm old enough to be the parent of these "kids" (an insult to actual children)...and I'm glad I don't have to claim a lot of them.

Before lumping people into the "not independent" category along with these selfish brats, remember that one day you could end up needing help. I know at 21, when I got my RN, I never dreamed I'd have the medical problems I do.... it can happen to anyone. And, unfortunately, nurses have been the most judgmental...

[Blu rose]

Exactly! Teenagers want to look mature and want to be in a relationship (whithout actually attaining the maturity of mind)..and, considering the behaviour of people in their twenties that you explained, it's hard for me to accept that they can be excused saying that parents want to extend their childhood :/

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

I work labor and delivery and many of these immature 18,19,20,and21 year olds are having kids of their own. They are the worst patients to take care of. Very whiney, don't want to feel anything and extremely demanding and spoiled. Also taking full advantage of Medicaid. These are the people raising the future generation!!!! Heaven help us!

I suppose I was an exception to this. I had my children at age 16,20, 22 and 27. I was great at L&D. Although I have a high tolerance to pain and am a breather but I was an easy patient to have. Out of 4 kids I had 2 naturally, 1 with half a epidural (only effected one half of me, the other half was very alive and kicken and feeling pain. BUT I don't think there was anything wrong with having an epidural. The one I did have that worked was great and made for a much more enjoyable childbirth experience with less focus on the pain and more on that baby. So far I think I am raising my future generation pretty well with a good balance. All of my children were planned.

I don't think you necessaily have to move out. I'm part of a culture that children live with parents until they get married. So I can afford to move out - but I'm still at home.

However....I was cooking, cleaning, and taking care of my siblings since I was 15 - and it was not asked but expected as part of being in the family that you contribute to it. Same for my siblings when they reached around 15 - male or female. When I graduated from nursing - I was expected to contribute to the family financially. I pay some of the bills, for my siblings school fees etc. I don't resent it - I plan on raising my family the same way.

I guess it's about how much responsibility you are willing to give your kids. I have friends who got married in their mid twenties that don't know how to cook or do laundry - really? We have gotten so far as a society that a machine does the work that used to take hours - and you don't know how to turn a simple switch?

I have to crack up at this because I don't cook, I LOATHE laundry, (I have a clean pile and a dirty pile and every once in a while I will put it all away. I will pay people to deep clean my house. I can not sew and can't iron. I pretty much would make Martha Stewart cowar and cry. That said, I know HOW to do all of it and can do it well. I used to be pretty OCD before kid number 3 came around and always had laundry done and the house spotless. I can cook and can cook well, I just don't like to do it and get no enjoyment out of it and don't do it anymore. (the husband does and I have to do it like once every few months). As a kid I did laundry for 5 people, did dishes, cooked, had to have the house spotless, I was poor, I was far from spoiled and I lived on my own with no family in the state for a period when I was 15. (almost a year). So I am not the way I am now because I was spoiled growing up. If anything, I spoil myself now and enjoy life more because I had nothing growing up and because I had to do it all. Anyway, I see some points you are making. Just throwing another side out there.

My question is where are the parents to control their teenagers to make sure they don't end up in that situation. The parents are going to end up raising the kid because the "parents" are not going to have a stable job to support the child.

There is no CONTROLLING teenagers, you can try and guide them, you can try to do right by them, show them the right way. But trying to CONTROL them will get you no where and often come back to bite you in the rear in some form. Ask my Dad how it worked out for him when he tried to control me

Also had to add that most of the patients I have seen act the way the OP described were in their 30, 40 and 50's. Although there was a young mom I dealt with the other night that made me cringe. She wasn't the patient.

[franko98]

That goes for patients of all ages. I have a 21 yr old to an 85 yr old act the same way. writhing in pain and suffering when family is around and calm when they leave or not around. We just need to deal with it and move on.

[nursel56]

I didn't know how to do laundry until I met my DH. Not because I refused to learn but because there was never a need to learn. I suppose I have the epitome of the "hover mother" although I love her dearly. I am now 27 and work full time and my grandma still send me "spending money" for no reason on occasion. I think it super cute and love that in her 90s she still is able to remember my name, much less keep track of all her own finances.

Anyone who would criticize you or your grandma for that needs a swift one to the backside (metaphorically speaking of course!! :)) We accept that it makes our grandmas happy to do it!! My grandma used to slip me a quarter when I was a child (big money in 1965) . The conspiratorial wink we get from them is priceless ...

We as a population are living longer so you decide: do you want to be a kid longer or a geriatric longer? I would much rather be a kid longer.

But living longer doesn't change how long we are a child physically, so it means that you want to act like a kid longer, not be a kid longer.

We as a population live off our parents, live off welfare, and live off social security. No one is truly independent at all stages of life.

I don't think that's true, and all. Parents assume financial responsibility until a child is 18 and social security taxes are withheld from your wages. As written, "welfare" comes in many guises but is intended to be a temporary safety net. That some game the system shouldn't be used as a stick to say that people who use it as intended fall in the same category as those who don't.

Same age (and older) as the kids who stormed the beaches at Normandy.

Talk about having a reason to cry.

Brittanic suppression of the Celts; the Irish Potato Famine; Pol Pot, Rwanda, Zaiere, Ethopia; Armenia and Azerbaijhan. I will differ with you on that, the "social pressures" have only changed in the First World in that we do not have to face the reality of them. Children and people in general have been uprooted, seperated, starved, raped and killed since humans discovered the pleasures of serving "I".

Now, we have counsellors to tell us that we don't have to go on and function, but can live in perpetual victimhood. But, I'm considered harsh, occasionally...

I fully agree with you, however, in that we know things are unlikely to improve until the appointed time.

Considering the above makes me cringe at all that "pat pat pat, poor baby . ." when it is done by enabling adults. Teaching our children to be independent as soon as they are able to master the associated tasks give them a gift, not bailing them out of the painful consequences of their own mistakes time after time.

I remember one early childhood expert say that by allowing our children to experience the consequences of their own behavior when the price is not too high gives them a better chance of avoiding making that same mistake again when the price is very high.

[rn/writer, RN]

Adolescence/young adulthood and responsibility are not mutually exclusive. All of our kids (six of them) learned to do their laundry when they hit junior high. They learned to cook simple meals and sew on buttons. Their dad taught them to change a tire and change the oil on their vehicles. We expected them to get jobs and/or go to school and manage their finances. They saw us shop second hand and look for sales. They had chores around the house and understood the meaning of discipline and accountability.

Did they make mistakes? Of course, they did. But we were a soft place to fall while they regrouped, a temporary place to get some TLC and heal from life's hard knocks and their own unwise choices. Then they went back out into the fray.

Four of the kids are married with children of their own. They have their own homes and spouses whom we love and appreciate. The other two are working on it.

Despite all this, when our youngest daughter was 26 and seven months pregnant, she had to have her appendix out. She was put on a morphine PCA that gave her no relief. It took more than 24 hours and a squawking mama (me!) to get them to change her to hydromorphone (which finally helped). You'd better bet that I held her while she cried and fed her popsicles while she had an ileus from the morphine.

She was my baby girl who was in excruciating pain, and she needed somebody in her corner.

That said, once she was on the mend, I backed off and she got up and walked the hospital hallways as she was told.

I think some of the chronic immaturity (as opposed to the acute kind illustrated above) comes from the fact that so much of our daily grind is artificial. Yes, some folks live hand to mouth, but most of us go to the grocery store instead of hunting for wild game. We adjust the thermostat rather than chop and bring in an armload of wood. We don't have to haul water from the creek or the pump; we just turn on a faucet.

When life was harder, families had to start their young'uns working in some capacity as soon as they could walk. Even little ones could gather eggs and weed the garden.

Many, many parents determined that their kids would have life easier. They didn't expect them to pitch in and take part in the family's success. They thought that letting the kids enjoy their childhood was kinder. It didn't dawn on them that the more challenging existence they had led had its benefits. Nor did they realize the softer lives of their children had a down side.

Some parents hover when their kids are hospitalized because of guilt. They're away from home long hours and even when they are home, they may not make time to just hang with their kids. Instead, they make sure their offspring have the latest techie toys and hope that will keep them entertained enough not to notice that mom and/or dad are always busy.

Then there is the false notion some parents have (and instill in their kids) that it's a parent's job to protect their child from all pain. Protecting them from harm is one thing, but sparing them pain means they will be shielded from a highly powerful learning tool. Natural consequences can hurt, but that helps the one feeling the pain to remember the lesson. It's a parent's job to modulate that pain so that it doesn't finish the kid off, but to protect from all unpleasantness is a horrible idea.

Sometimes the best thing we can do when our kids come running to us with a problem is to ask them, "How do you think you might handle that?" Be there for moral support and coaching, but let them retain ownership of the situation.

TLC is great. But it has to be balanced by realistic expectations for the child's age to get the best results.