In many public schools, they're effectively told that if they DON'T do (the "right") drug -- e.g., Ritalin -- they'll be punished, suspended, harassed.
They're given unrealistic expectations in terms of appearance, conduct, academics, thrust on them by parents who are living vicariously through them and by an education system that is nothing more than a giant social experiment with them as the lab rats.
Their image comes from trash TV, gangsta (c)rap, loudmouth athletes, and punks who paint the picture of a hostile, dog-eat-dog world that will savage them unless they're bullet-proof.
They're suffocating under a blanket of good intentions, manipulated by every adult with a leftover dream from Woodstock, and lied to by everyone they've ever been told to trust.
They get trotted out every time some thief needs a tear-jerk mascot for his new entitlement scam. The thief gets rich off taxpayer money and the kids go to hell.
There's a "village" meddling in every aspect of their lives, contradicting the little moral value their parents try to impart in between golf games and Survivor reruns.
And we wonder why they're depressed ...
And the Socialist Baby Boomers are INSANE it they think the young generations are even going to be able to pay the taxes for the Boomers' social programs.