As a mother of a 12-year-old girl and a teacher at the ESAD Eòlia, I come into contact with young people in their teens every day, and I have noticed a rising trend in the appearance of mental health problems at an increasingly early age.  Pandemics aside, it may be worth asking what we are doing as a society to make our young people seem increasingly vulnerable to a wide range of mental disorders, some of them very worrying.

Although concepts such as neurodivergence are becoming increasingly normalised, and we have hyper-diagnosed and over-diagnosed and over-treated children, the fact is that they are under such pressure for a reason. The spiral of unleashed capitalism has driven us away from our homes in favour of a more productive working life. This, coupled with the emergence of the efficient tool of mass distraction that is smartphones and social media, has created a breeding ground that is now hard to swallow. However, we may still be in time to change some of the drifts that have led us to where we are now, to correct the course for the next generations. Of course, we will all have to roll up our sleeves and think of solutions together!