Play Deprivation Is a Major Cause of the Teen Mental Health Crisis

Re:Play Deprivation Is a Major Cause of the Teen Mental Heal... by medvezhenok on Friday July 28, 2023 @03:37PM (#36912152)

You happened to luck out by choosing a career that's in demand (whether consciously or unconsciously), and are probably pretty good at it. Otherwise your story would sound very different. I am the same way, but straddle the professional world and the artistic world (trained / educated in both), and certainly appreciate the randomness involved and how much luck was involved in the fact that I happened to be interested in tech (and had the opportunity to pursue it when I did).

I have many friends without the same opportunities and I would be struggling just as much as them if it weren't for the tech bits (and a little bit of being in the right place at the right time)

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Re:Play Deprivation Is a Major Cause of the Teen Mental Heal... by teaearlgraycold on Friday July 28, 2023 @04:53PM (#36913171)

Definitely luck involved there! But also I think that as long as you have a realistic plan and are able to consistently work on it early (I started learning web dev at 8) you can mostly disregard the standard education and progression systems. I think that railroading a child through the systems without a plan is wasted effort. Not that there aren't good things to learn that way. I ended up learning a ton about art and art history thanks to my college's degree requirements.

I guess what I'm saying is you can throw a child into extracurriculars and just sort of hope the extra work makes the difference between comfort and struggling. Or you can encourage them to find hobbies and reinforce the ones that will lead to comfort and stability as my parents did.

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