I know it's not exactly the point of the post but I want to go on a tangent and note that it's 100% valid for kids to complain about school even if you have it harder. You should take their feelings seriously because their feelings are just as real to them as you hating your job is to you. When a toddler spills their juice and starts crying, those feelings are just as intense as yours, and you should respond accordingly instead of thinking "don't they know about the wars in the middle east?"
I had an absolutely terrible time in my small underfunded high school due to chronic illness, family tragedy, coming from a poor home, and just generally not having that many friends. I got picked on, I struggled intensely with untreated ADHD and depression, and was just all together miserable.
But to spite all that, I completely understand what people mean when they say they miss that period of their life, and I'd never seek to make them think they're wrong for feeling that. There's a weird defensiveness about this topic where people seem to feel anyone else having any sort of positive association with that period of time somehow invalidates their own hardships.
High School is not a good or bad thing. It's just a thing. An experience that was different for everyone. It's okay to leave it at that.
I feel this way even though I'm doing alright nowadays. I think past a point of environmental or social stress, it takes away the ability to express certain feelings.
I don't have strong emotions anymore but nothing is particularly painful either. That was not the case for me in high school, dealing with particularly bad depression.
I feel you there, I was told I was gonna die in my 20’s due to an aneurysm from an inoperable mass in my brain.
Got an experimental surgery, which technically failed… yet, here I still am alive lol. My neurologists don’t really know what to say decades later, so short of having a huge luck stat, I might be unkillable? 😂
And honestly, I would’ve rather go out in better shape, not achy af like I am now. 🥴
Sure, a kids worst day of their life is probably still a better day than the worst day of an adults life. But it is still the worst day of their life and they are entitled to feel like so.
I fucking hated school. I remember my freshman math teacher would give us packets with work for each day of the week. I would finish my folder of work either Monday or Tuesday and would just sleep. I had an A in that class for my work and my tests.
I failed that class because "participation is half your grade"
Get fucked, cunt.