And alarmist politicians and doomster academics may, in pointing to the state of decay, miss a nation's continuing strengths and attractions, which have to be weighed against its problems and worries.
I think for parents, what tends to happen too is we see our kids fighting with each other in a way that all kids do, and we start to project into the future and like catastrophize.
I saw it described as, I think in the New World Encyclopedia that you could consider calling somebody like uptight or high strung or like just a worry ward or something.