Teens: An epidemic of hopelessness
American teens are facing “a mental health crisis,” said Aaron Blake in The Washington Post. Last year, 44 percent of high school students admitted to “persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness,” according to a newly released Centers for Disease Control survey of 7,700 teens. Nearly 20 percent reported seriously considering suicide over the past year, including nearly half of gay teens. Girls were twice as likely as boys to report poor mental health or suicidal thoughts, as well as “higher rates of drinking and tobacco use.” Although the pandemic clearly worsened teens’ feelings of hopelessness, “this crisis very much predated the pandemic.” Suicidal ideation and actual suicide attempts by teens have been steadily rising for more than a decade.
This crisis “was utterly predictable,” said Matt Lewis in The Daily Beast. Prolonged school shutdowns—not justified by science—left many teens feeling disconnected from friends, teachers, and activities they enjoy. Some schools were closed “for as long as 18 months.” Teens are intensely social, and isolating them at home with stressed-out parents “was bound to have negative consequences.” More than half of teens surveyed reported experiencing emotional abuse by a parent or adult at home, and 11 percent reported physical abuse. When families are stuck at home 24/7 and parents are asked to serve as teachers on top of their own work, “you’re going to have a lot of people living at the end of their ropes.”
To see why teens are suffering, said David French in The Dispatch, we have to look at adults. Our children are “reflecting and amplifying the anxiety and pain they see in their parents every day.” Intense cultural and political polarization has eroded the sense of community Americans once felt, and our kids frequently witness adults demonstrating “raw animosity against their fellow citizens.” At the same time, “suffocating modern parenting,” in which helicopter moms and dads “constantly hover over their kids,” prevents teens from learning independence and resilience— critical skills for mental health. Add to that the pressure to “blaze an educational and career path” at a young age, and the corrosive effects of constant immersion in the cruel judgments on social media, and it’s understandable that kids do not feel safe. If adults want to know why so many kids are unhappy, we should ask ourselves: “Are we facing the future with faith and hope, or with animosity and anxiety?”