Adults just do not care enough to care

Sir — In response to Ciara Kelly in last week’s Sunday Independent (‘A silly attempt to protect our children has me spooked’), I don’t agree that young people cannot cope and have no resilience.

We have a culture in Ireland where years ago young people never talked about how we felt. Mental well-being was an unknown term. Talking about feelings was taboo.

Society would have us believe the story is different today. That every young person is anxious and unable to communicate with their peers. This is not true.

We are a resilient generation, anyone who argues with that is mistaken. Parents, teachers, columnists and adults tell us we aren’t resilient; we don’t know how to cope, we have no ability to bounce back.

Yet we exercise this resilience daily when we are berated by ‘the lads’ at the back of the classroom for speaking out, or when our ‘friends’ betray our trust. And that is the nature of being teenagers, when we are torn down by adults who say we “have lost the run of ourselves”.

It isn’t easy being a teenager. Difference is not appreciated here. In the depths of rural Ireland, the freedom to express yourself has yet to arrive.

Despite this, young people power through, for we are resilient. Yes, our resilience can turn into an inability to ask for help when we need it. But when we do ask, instead of listening, the adults we turn to preach, pontificate and tell us how to live our lives.

Adults tell us of their woes and worries, and would have us believe they have it harder than we do. And we are reminded of all the things they do for us. When all we really need is for someone to listen, to understand. All we need is five minutes to ask: “Are you OK?”

But adults do not care enough to care.

Stephen Donelan (15),

Killimore, Co Galway