Jennifer Hogan: This won't go viral, but the kids are alright
Pamela O’Leary is having ‘incredible conversations with young people in schools'. She finds herself dealing with 'very thoughtful, articulate, positive kids’. File picture
Imagination can be personal and it can be public. I’m wondering this week about our public imagination when it comes to young people.
I find myself thinking of the medieval phrase: Here be Dragons. Here be Dragons, or hic sunt dracones, was used on the Lenox Globe to indicate an unexplored region, where all sorts of dangers were imagined existing. The classical version was hic sunt leones (Here be lions).
Stephen King used yet another as the title of a 1968 short story, . This peculiar little horror is about a boy called Charles who is disgraced in front of his class by his teacher, Miss Bird. His imagination invents a savage tiger to take revenge on both the teacher and Kenny Griffen, the boy who sniggers loudest.
Imagination is a powerful thing — it can turn even innocence into something deadly. Is that what we’re doing to young people these days?
I had an uplifting conversation this week with an old colleague, Pamela O’Leary. With years of teaching, scouting and parenting experience, she’s recently embarked on a new venture alongside psychotherapist Richie Sadlier, creating resources that put young people and their teachers at the centre of conversations about sex, relationships and health.
Their newly launched platform Let’s Talk SPHE is a much-needed addition to the education landscape.
During our chat, Pamela shared her concern that we’re horribly misrepresenting young people, turning them into people to be feared and warned against, like those imagined creatures on medieval maps.
Research from America backs her assertion.
A article shares a 2025 study in which 61% of 1,300 parents believe young people are lagging previous generations in their morals and values.
The article cites studies suggesting the opposite is true, and that “youths are more empathetic and less narcissistic than in the past, as well as more open-minded and inclusive… IQs have gone up, and kids exhibit more self-restraint and patience than they did 50 years ago.”
This gap between our fears and reality is widespread, she says.
“There is a lot of hand-wringing and hopelessness in the media when it comes to the youth of today, and there is a lot of deficit thinking. It doesn’t match my experience.
"I am having incredible conversations with young people in schools, and I find that I am dealing with very thoughtful, articulate, positive kids who have a lot of capacity for life and learning.”
O’Leary is particularly struck by the narrow lens of public discourse, referencing a dominance of male experts discussing male-only problems.
“I am only ever asked about the most extreme topics, like Louis Theroux’s manosphere documentary, AI girlfriends, or . Certainly, those issues exist; I would never suggest otherwise, but they are not representative of most young people.
"There is very little discussed about girls. When I talk to young people, they have shared concerns.”
She explains that Let’s Talk SPHE starts with students, not adults. Groups are shown recorded conversations between their peers as a stimulus.
“They have a lot of information and are very clued into topics that are important to them. They are quite wise and good at interacting with each other and empathising.
"Sometimes you have someone who has a controversial opinion. If we jump in too soon it doesn’t work — they are more able to resolve things themselves. Having different opinions is ok with them.”
O’Leary also reports an unacknowledged benefit to online spaces.
“The para-social relationships they are having online can make them emotionally intelligent. They have more time to reflect in these conversations. They are less daunting than real-life interactions and so they build certain skills.”
She feels she has a duty to shine a light on her work, suggesting that in many instances the media and parents are getting it wrong.
“We are living in a world where media is entertainment. It’s getting more sensationalised. Yes, misogyny exists and teachers encounter it in schools.
"I don’t deny that, but we need to have some balance. We also need to include the voices of young people. I don’t hear them in the conversation.”
I’ve since been wondering if the sensationalism of our online feed has indeed infected our parenting. With so many mental health experts, is our perception becoming skewed?
It’s possible that our panic also lets us off the hook — spending time worrying about the murky under world of youth culture reduces the actual time we spend engaging with young people.
The awful ‘Epstein Files’ float, splayed across local and national newspapers following St Patrick’s Day, reflects this jump to outrage among grown-ups. No question the float was in terrible taste.
But young people make terrible mistakes and, naturally, lack adult judgement. That’s why they need adult guidance. Condemning them on national adult forums is possibly not the best way to correct them, especially when we’re not equally hot on policing ourselves.
I’ve been sent the ‘Andrew in the back of a car’ picture as a gif multiple times now, and by highly intelligent people. Harry Styles even joked about the man in his opening monologue during (SNL) at the weekend.
Is what he is accused of doing funny? Or is it only funny when adults are laughing? If children laugh it must mean the world is destined to implode, I guess. It must mean the dragons are taking over.
Pamela O’Leary suggests a different approach to ensuring a brighter tomorrow.
“You can present young people with questions and be curious. Sometimes they are not ready to tell you — that tells you something. Don’t sit them down in front of or Manosphere. Don’t lead with your panic — trust them.
"These shows are from the adult perspective and are sensationalised. They tell us that every man has a capacity to harm, to hurt, to create chaos. These are not the boys I meet.”
My last question to her picks up on something Pamela mentions early on in our chat — that we’re missing things by focusing on extreme behaviour.
“Some of the most powerful conversations are about navigating learning difficulties. Neurodiversity is not covered in any curriculum. It’s compartmentalised, so there is no general understanding.
"Students might think people getting supports are getting an unfair advantage. Students describing what it’s like to go through school as an autistic person is very powerful.”
Students also want to discuss everyday relationships and pressures.
“The rules are quite rigid in relationships now. There is a pressure for them to have their location on their phone turned on, for example. That’s a concern, but it’s a quieter thing, not blown up in the media.
"They also worry about hyper-sexualisation but not porn; it’s more about the messaging across their spaces. It’s porn stars advertising make-up. They are very aware of it all and they want to discuss it.”
Pamela O Leary isn’t sitting down with dragons, or lions, or tigers, but she is sitting down in a place and among people we’re increasingly setting at a distance, eyeing with suspicion.
She’s sitting down with kids.
She won’t go viral for saying it, but she thinks they’re alright.
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