The kids – acting like canaries in a coal mine – are signalling to the adults that they are screwing up the management of the planet. The self-indulgent, egocentric adults don’t get it but the kids do. The kids see it and feel it. They see a bleak future but the adults are still messing around with climate change and getting into wars. It simply isn’t good enough. The grown-ups need to listen and look at what the kids are telling them.
The Times has covered this very well. There is an increase in suicidal thoughts, self-harming and eating disorders among teenage schoolgirls in the UK. It has been like that for a good while and it’s getting worse.
Kids’ behavior is a warning
They are acting as canaries in the mine for the adults of this world. They are forewarning the people who run the country and those that manage the world that they are doing a terrible job and it is all going pear-shaped.
The schoolgirls and boys don’t like what they see and they are protesting by going on hunger strike which is interpreted as an eating disorder by the experts but I see it as a protest.
Hunger strike
Today’s article in The Times tells us that, “distressed teenage girls are going on hunger strike and being treated at A&E, doctors are warned, amid a surge in emergency mental health admissions for children.”
Canaries in the mine
You see, as mentioned and I’ll say it again, I regard today’s children as canaries in the mine shaft. You might know what I mean but I’ll explain. Back in the day miners used to take a canary down a mine shaft to warn of dangers; odourless gases such as carbon monoxide because the canaries would respond by dying or behaving in a way which indicated the gases were present.
So, I say that the schoolchildren are signalling to the adults through their extreme behaviour that the direction of travel for the world is utterly incorrect and dire. There is a very strong drift at the moment towards aggression among countries and like some military generals, I can see the world drifting to a World War 3 scenario. It almost seems inevitable. It even makes me slightly anxious. I have felt this way for about four years.
Six-fold increase in eating disorders
New statistics from the UK reveal that there has been a sixfold increase in children with eating disorders being admitted to hospital from A&E over the past 10 years. Admissions to NHS children’s wards in a mental health emergency in 2022 amounted to 40,000 children aged between 5 and 18 which is up 65% from 2012.
Of those receiving inpatient treatment, 53% had self-harmed and 79% were girls.
Refusing to eat
The report is that paediatricians are concerned about girls simply “refusing to eat” because they feel “sad, anxious or out-of-control.”
That simple statement sums everything up to me. It encapsulates the problem. The kids are telling the adults that they are screwing up. And the adults should be ashamed of themselves.
The assessment comes from a study led by a team at University College London which is to be presented next month at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) conference.
This is horrible
Dr. Karen Street, the officer first mental health at RCPCH said:
“We’ve seen a massive rise in the number of children presenting at A&E in acute distress. They may be crying, shouting, have harmed themselves or are refusing to eat. During lockdown we saw a sudden spike in teenage girls who were not eating. For some it is not to do with body image. It is almost like a hunger strike, a refusal to eat because of what is going on around them. It is almost another form of self-harm. There are children and young people who are so distressed they feel their only answer is to refuse to eat. Obviously, they get very ill very quickly.”
Dr. Karen Street
She further added: “We need to ask what it is about society that has become so unbearable for children and young people at the moment.”
Opinion
I’ll provide my response to that enquiry. As mentioned, the future looks bleak for these kids primarily because of global warming and secondly because of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The behaviour of Russia intimidates the world. The behaviour of China is also intimidating and aggressive. North Korea looks dangerous. The world looks dangerous. The kids pick this up and they don’t see a future. All they can do is to protest in the only way they know how; to go on a collective hunger strike.
What has this got to do with cats!? Everything and nothing. With this level of screw up by the leaders everything on the planet is jeopardised.
