The Problem with Youth Today...

While we may be convinced about the ‘problems with youth today’ through the media we consume or how our politics lean, perhaps the biggest problem is how few of us believe in young people in the first place.

I stumbled across a phrase last week which pulled this into focus for me. ‘Unconditional Positive Regard’, the idea of accepting and valuing a person up front, without judgment and worthy of respect just as they are.

You may have heard this phrase in relation to youth work, social work, psychology, therapy etc, but the notion of seeing young people as good humans who we value in society, feels at odds to so much of the narrative around them.

Life Experience to Vote

Now I’m going to be doing something more on this later in the year, but lowering the voting age is a prime example of the lack of unconditional positive regard young people face in our society.

The hyperbole around whether they could possibly have the life experience to make an informed decision seemed to underline the critique of this move. But the unique experiences of growing up in a pandemic, living through lockdowns as a young person, facing education and career choices within the current economic and global climate… sorry but that’s quite exclusive to those experiencing it too! How could older generations possibly understand what’s most important to young people?!

That’s why if democracy matters, so too should a unconditional positive regard to enabling young people to have a voice in political decisions.

Why are we so obsessed and jealous?!

I joke (kind of), but as a society we’re both obsessed with staying relevant and can’t help ourselves when comparing what life was like for us and how things change. We really do need to get over ourselves.

There are many things that are (generally) cyclical in some form when it comes to attitudes, beliefs and experiences. As Profession Bobby Duffy, Director of the Policy Institute at Kings College London references in ‘The Perils of Perception’ and in commentary around some of the misinterpretation of Gen Z wanting strong leadership – not dictators, last year. He said;

“We always think this latest generation of young people are the worst in history. You can look at any era and find similar sentiments, going back to Socrates in 400BC, who lamented the ‘disrespect for authority’ shown by the young people of his day. This has been supercharged for us today with the media and social media’s use of generational labels to stereotype and divide generations.”

“We need to avoid the distraction of attention-grabbing figures and look carefully at what our younger generation actually believes. We do have serious issues with their faith in the system and our institutions, but mischaracterising these concerns only gets in the way of addressing them.” Preach.

They’re powerless, so they’re the problem?

There’s definitely a power imbalance with youth audiences too that this automatic positive regard would address head on. The labels and stereotypes are placed without much opportunity for discourse or debate.

Young people are often labelled as intimidating and problematic. Yet being able to play, meet up and socialise in public spaces is so vital now, not least because of the demise of the youth club and youth spaces.

Listening to Today in Focus last week with journalist and author Emma Warren, who’s written ‘Up the Youth Club’, referenced ‘automatic positive regard’ in relation to how youth workers and youth clubs let young people show up in spaces.

Outside of home and school, being able to turn up to a space, to socialise, maybe learn a skill, have a go at something and just have someone believing that you’re a good person and worthy of that…is there anything more valuable to a young person’s self-esteem?

It’s why youth spaces are more that keeping young people off the street and preventing crime and violence, although they do of course have a positive influence on those issues. They’re about helping young people fulfil their potential, to feel like their voice and perspective matter.

How could any of this influence how you engage youth audiences?

From a marketing and communications perspective, ensuring youth voice is involved in your campaigns and activity, particularly when youth audiences are aimed for, is base level.

But how you work with and treat young people? You could remove the power imbalances and tokenism we see in a lot of ‘youth informed’ approaches, by having this universal positive regard about young people.

Trusting their talent, valuing opinions, offering paid work, ensuring they can derive as much value out of a project as you can… the list goes on.

So that’s another ‘in’ for 2026 if you’re taking notes.

You can sign up for my free Engaging Youth substack with articles, research, examples in every Friday here btw – bring your universal positive regard!