April is my favourite month of the year. The curtain to the beginning of summer is unfurling. Birds sing, flowers blossom and the top coat can be left back in the wardrobe. Well most years anyway. Oh and April is the month in which I celebrate my birthday.

Although I am at the stage now where I try to ignore my birthday in the same way you’ll look the other way when you see somebody annoying approaching on the street. I hate getting old. I really do. I go for a run and when my knees hurt or my back aches I wonder what on earth could be wrong? “It’s called getting old”, is how one friend bluntly put it. And you know what, when you hear about hospital trolleys and waiting lists, it makes the prospect all the more daunting.

But would I like to be young again? I’m not sure. The challenges facing young people today I certainly wouldn’t enjoy, not least the pressure to look good whether you are male or female. Girls are introduced to teeth whitening and fake tan far too young, while boys are being pressurised into having a body like Cristiano Ronaldo or Conor McGregor.

Look, when I was a teenager there was a certain fashion trend which made all teenage boys look and dress the same with a certain type of hairstyle. It has always been as such, even in our parents’ time. But the bar now seems to be set extremely high. The smartphone revolution, fat shaming, online bullying and the reality TV age of instant stardom adds to the pressure of dealing with puberty and being a teenager. And it is why we should support rather than scold.

It is natural that we always look down on the generation coming behind us and pick up on what they are doing wrong with the wisdom of age. And most of the time, the propensity is to admonish for being bereft of the skills and hard work we developed at their age. And we do. But we are wrongheaded to do so.

The reality is that the younger generation could actually teach the rest of us plenty. It wasn’t young people that destroyed the country.

I was in Croke Park a few weeks ago for the Angus Producers Group secondary school competition. It was a real pleasant experience to chat with the students about their projects, just wonderfully articulate and polite young men and women.

Last Friday I attended a conference organised by FBD and the HSA on farm safety. Again, there were three young secondary school students there who stood up in front of one hundred adults and presented their amazing solutions to farm accidents.

And earlier this month, my daughter’s transition year organised a fashion show to raise funds for charity. I was roped in to be master of ceremonies, but I was almost left speechless by the professionalism of their endeavour. The sophistication and dedication these sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds displayed was a credit to them and their generation.

In a decade or so, these teenagers will be the ones beginning to steer the destination of the country.

Our focus should always be on helping the elderly, but we need more than ever to show our support and encouragement for our teenagers too. More than previous generations, they need it. Us in middle age probably don’t know our luck. CL

Abortion referendum

When referendum day on 25 May is over, there are so-called adults on Twitter from both sides of the debate who should take a good, hard look at themselves. Some of the online campaigning, trolling and arguing has been nothing short of shameful.