Brenda McNally looks at how parents can best tackle those difficult years HEN the Sex Pistols unleashed an expletive on tea-time TV, the result was uproar.

Goaded into calling avuncular host Bill Grundy 'a dirty f ****r', the Pistols became public enemy number one.

Middle England and its press were apoplectic. Giving rise to the infamous 'The Filth and the Fury' headline, outraged commentators focused on what was seen as moral degeneration. Where would it all lead?

Thirty years on, Generation X stands at another crossroads. Having pogoed their way to 'Anarchy in the UK', the generation that eschewed the repressive stranglehold of state, church and hierarchy faces the bitter taste of its own nihilistic medicine. Now that the disaffected youth of the '70s are parents themselves, a whole set of teenage problems confronts them. And cussing and contempt for society are only the half of it.

In Ireland, the very people that paved the way for the Celtic Tiger appear at a loss as to how to parent their cubs. From underage sex to binge-drinking and increases in mental health problems, liberal parenting looks more like parents losing the plot. Or is it?

There is no doubt anti-social behaviour is on the rise, but is that because there's an increased focus, or because teen behaviour is more dramatic now? And if parents aren't giving their kids too much freedom, they're putting too much pressure on them to achieve. Today we hear more of 'helicopter W parents', those who constantly push their kids to achieve more. As a result, more middleclass families are churning out soulless, vacant offspring, without any idea of who they are or what they want to do.

In her book, The Price of Privilege, American psychologist Dr Madeline Levine argues that affluent parents are pushing their children to be competitive . . . at the cost of their future mental health.

"Children from affluent homes are three times more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression than the average teenager. This puts them at greater risk of drug abuse, eating disorders and self-harm."

In September . . . in fact the day after we witnessed the annual excesses of a generation, flush with their parents' cash and liberal attitudes, also known as Junior Cert results night . . . a group of 100 intellectuals across the water penned a letter to the Daily Telegraph calling for a re-evaluation of childhood.

Championed by Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood, they wrote a devastating attack on modern parenting and its consequences.

"Children are apparently more miserable than ever before. They are forced into a premature adulthood. The recreational play their parents enjoyed has been displaced by computer games and television. Life, as with their parents, is lived at a frantic pace: and young minds, still forming, cannot cope."

The letter provoked one of those seismic bouts of self-doubt that parents are prone to, with a long debate punctuated by a healthy level of cynicism towards the idealised musings of a bunch of old fogeys longing for a golden age that never existed. But for parents, the problem is that more and more studies seem to convey a growing feeling that a lot of children are very troubled these days.

The shocking findings of the Clonmel Report, released last month, appear to bear out some of their concerns. Examining the mental health of 75% of school children in the town, the report found one in five teenagers experiences a significant psychological disorder and almost one in six has seriously considered suicide, with 9% attempting it.

The first study of its kind in Ireland, the findings, which are hardly confined to an urban blackspot, also show children under the age of 11 are being clinically diagnosed with alcohol dependencies. According to Maeve Martin, the project's principal clinical psychologist, the report shows "huge gaps" in support services. It's a finding many who work with teenagers will be familiar.