If you spend any real time around kids or teens right now, you likely see the same pattern over and over again. They don’t stay in things. Something gets uncomfortable, frustrating, or difficult, and they immediately find a way out of it. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s loud, but the outcome is the same. They exit.
In our world today, there is almost always a way to do that. If something is boring, it gets replaced. If something is uncomfortable, it gets avoided. If something is hard, there is usually an easier option within reach. Phones, distraction, withdrawal, pushback...there is always an immediate alternative. Not later, but right now.
There Is Always an Exit
Because there is always an exit, they are not getting much experience staying in something that doesn’t feel good. They don’t sit in frustration long enough to work through it. They don’t stay with pressure long enough to build any tolerance for it or resilience to it. When something starts to feel bad, the instinct is not to push through it, the instinct is to get out of it.
That shows up in ways that are easy to label as behavior. It looks like defiance, lack of effort, attitude, or disrespect. So it gets treated that way. But most of the time, what you are actually seeing is someone trying to get out of something they don’t know how to stay in. The behavior is the exit itself.
What People Blame Instead
Most people don’t see this clearly.
They blame the phone. They blame social media. They blame “kids these days.”
Those things are part of the environment, but they are not the core issue. The core issue is that there is almost always a way out, and over time, that changes how someone responds to pressure. If there is always an exit available, there is no reason to develop the ability to stay in something that doesn’t feel good.
So the focus stays on the surface, what they are using to get out, instead of what is actually happening underneath.
The System Supports the Exit
The part that gets missed is that the environment often supports this. Expectations get lowered, pressure gets reduced, and things get adjusted in the moment. Sometimes that is intentional, sometimes it is just the easiest way to get through the situation. But the message that gets reinforced is consistent: You don’t have to stay in this. It is optional.
Over time, that adds up. There is no real tolerance for discomfort, no ability to sit in something that is not immediately rewarding, and no experience working through something that takes sustained effort. Not because they can’t, but because they rarely have to.
What Happens When There Is No Way Out
Then eventually, something doesn’t move. A teacher holds the expectation. A parent holds the line. A situation doesn’t shift the way it usually does. Now there is no clear exit, and that is when things escalate. What looks like things getting worse is often just the first time someone has had to stay in something without an immediate way out.
From the outside, it can feel like behavior is getting more extreme or more oppositional. But it is not actually random. You are watching someone hit a level of pressure they do not have the capacity to handle yet, and they are using the only strategy that has consistently worked for them. Trying anything to get out of it.
Why Removing Everything Doesn’t Fix It
In my experience, this is where people most often overcorrect. They hear this and assume the answer is to remove everything, make things harder, or take away every possible exit. That is not the point. The point is not eliminating every way out. The point is to not reinforce the exit every time it shows up.
There have to be moments where the expectation holds and the pressure does not immediately disappear. Not in everything, and not all the time, but in something consistent enough to actually matter. That is where the shift happens. Not by overwhelming someone, but by not removing the moment when that moment becomes uncomfortable.
The path to getting out has to change. It can’t be avoiding it, pushing it away, or waiting for it to go away. The only way through has to be staying in it long enough to work through it. That’s what builds the ability that isn’t there right now.
This Is the Hard Part
This is also the part that is hardest to tolerate as an adult. They will push, shut down, or try to change the situation repeatedly, and the instinct will be to end it, fix it, or move past it. That is usually the exact moment where the pattern resets. The exit gets reinforced, and nothing changes.
If this seems familiar, it is not because they do not care or are incapable. It is because they have learned, over time, that they do not have to stay in things that feel bad, and nothing around them has required it consistently enough to build that internal ability.
Where This Actually Starts to Change
The starting point is not doing everything differently. It is picking one situation, making the expectation clear, and holding it. Not escalating it, not over-explaining it, and not removing it when it gets uncomfortable. Just holding it and staying steady long enough for them to experience that they can actually get through it.
That is where the capacity for this starts to build.
If You’re Seeing This in Your Own Situation
If you’re dealing with this right now, it is important to realize that you are not alone. This pattern is showing up across the country.
Most people are trying to manage what’s happening in the moment. The issue is usually not effort. It’s that the pattern underneath hasn’t shifted yet. Once you are aware of it, you have the power to change it.