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Speaker 1: An insight in the fragility of our young people. One

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Speaker 1: in five of our fifteen to twenty four year olds

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Speaker 1: are experiencing what they call high psychological stress. This comes

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Speaker 1: from the work of Sir Peter Gluckman's think tank. They

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Speaker 1: tell us children need to build better resilience. So I

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Speaker 1: suppose the question, or one of the questions, is how

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Speaker 1: do we do that? Doctor Felicia Lowe, is whether us

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Speaker 1: or all of this Felicia.

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Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Good morning mine.

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Speaker 1: The twenty percent is interesting because that I suppose, if

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Speaker 1: you want to be positive, glass half full means eighty

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Speaker 1: percent don't suffer high psychological stress. So is that good

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Speaker 1: or bad? Or we don't know?

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Speaker 2: Is twenty percent too many? I mean it's one in five,

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Speaker 2: and you know that could easily be your own child,

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Speaker 2: or you know, your your nephew or niece, or you know,

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Speaker 2: your good friend's child. You know, we want every single

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Speaker 2: young person in New Zealand to be able to, you know,

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Speaker 2: feel mentally positive and to be able to thrive in life.

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Speaker 2: And if they're not feeling if they're feeling distressed all

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Speaker 2: the time, then it's going to really impact how they

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Speaker 2: can function and live their lives.

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Speaker 1: What is high psychological stress? And how do you measure it?

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Speaker 2: So it's basically in this case, I think the survey

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Speaker 2: was about the self report of you know, various measures.

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Speaker 2: There are tests that are available that have lots of

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Speaker 2: different questions and then you might answer, you know, yes

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Speaker 2: or no, all right, how you know strongly you agree

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Speaker 2: or disagree with them, and you know, you come up

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Speaker 2: with the score. And generally when you exceed a certain score.

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Speaker 2: That's how we distinguish whether someone is distressed or not.

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Speaker 1: Is it getting worse? Do we know if it's getting

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Speaker 1: worse or not? I mean that the rhetoric would indicate

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Speaker 1: it's been never been harder to be a young person.

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Speaker 1: Is that true?

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it is. What we have noticed is not

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Speaker 2: just that young New Zealanders are not doing well, but

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Speaker 2: it's been getting worse over the last you know, several

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Speaker 2: years or past decade. And yeah, a big reason for

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Speaker 2: this is that the world Lion is very different from

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Speaker 2: the world that you and I grew up in. And

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Speaker 2: you know, we've got things like, you know, the aftermath

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Speaker 2: of a global endem it, we've got climate change anxieties,

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Speaker 2: we've got the impacts of social media so it's a

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Speaker 2: really different world that young people are growing up in

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Speaker 2: the exposed to all these different challenges that we have,

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Speaker 2: and it's not a surprise.

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Speaker 1: Really, this is not true to say though every generation

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Speaker 1: grows up in a different world, and every generation has

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Speaker 1: said since time memorial, we'll tell you what we're growing

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Speaker 1: up in a different world from when you and I

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Speaker 1: grew up.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I can understand that perspective. But these

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Speaker 2: are some very, very very different issues that young people

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Speaker 2: are facing. And it doesn't matter I guess whether it's

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Speaker 2: different or you know, worse or better or whatever than

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Speaker 2: previous generations. The issue is that we know that young

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Speaker 2: people are not doing well and we have to do

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Speaker 2: something to help them well.

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Speaker 1: Well. Being a parent of five, so I've got some experience,

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Speaker 1: and most of them, as it turns out, in fact,

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Speaker 1: all of them turn out to be in the fifteen

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Speaker 1: to twenty four bracket. I can tell you as a parent,

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Speaker 1: their attitude to life, their outlook on life, how life

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Speaker 1: affects them is different for each individual person, despite the

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Speaker 1: fact they've been raised and broadly speaking the same way.

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Speaker 1: So that would indicate to me it's genetic as opposed

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Speaker 1: to societal I.

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Speaker 2: Wouldn't say, I mean there are some aspects of personalities

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Speaker 2: that are innate for sure, And yes, I mean there

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Speaker 2: are many parents that can have anecdotes about how one

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Speaker 2: child is completely the opposite from you know, another child,

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Speaker 2: despite being raised in the same environment. But we're looking

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Speaker 2: at a whole, like the population as a whole, and

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Speaker 2: I know it's easy to pick up examples where you

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Speaker 2: know there are these sort of unusual differences within a family.

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Speaker 2: But as a whole, we know young people are people

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Speaker 2: are not doing well, and we know that there are

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Speaker 2: some ways that we can do to help them, and

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Speaker 2: that's what we should be focusing on.

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Speaker 1: And who should be doing that is that school? Is

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Speaker 1: that parents? Who is this all of us?

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Speaker 2: So when I say we should be helping them, that

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Speaker 2: includes parents in care githers, the schools or education system,

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Speaker 2: as well as you know, policy makers who might develop

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Speaker 2: policies that can more broadly support parents and schools and

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Speaker 2: the communities to help our young children.

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Speaker 1: Nice to talk to you, Felicia Felicia Looe, who's out

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Speaker 1: of the Quoitu Center for Informed Futures. That's Sir Peter

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Speaker 1: Gluckman's very good.

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Speaker 2: Work for more from the Mic Asking Breakfast.

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