Turn Radio 4 off and have some fun together, say Mariella Frostrup. It’s vital children are allowed to be frivolous
The dilemma My daughter is 13 and while she seems like a normal, happy teenager much of the time, she has frequent breakdowns about her future, the future of the planet, politics. It came to a head when she couldn’t stop crying and said: “I hate living. I wish I was born in a world before TV and internet, so I didn’t have to deal with all this stuff.” She went on to say: “What’s the point when we’re all going to die anyway? All we do is wake up and it’s the same thing again and again until we die.”
I’ve seen no signs of self-harm and she has a trusted group of friends around her. I’ve suggested that we do something that is tangibly meaningful, like helping out at a refugee centre, but it all meets with the same response: it won’t make a difference. I talked to her about people who have made a difference – the suffragettes, Martin Luther King, Greta Thunberg – but all are met with tears of resignation. I’ve talked to her about what we can do, or are doing: being vegetarian, recycling, reducing packaging, but it doesn’t allay her angst.
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