The Free Press
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Why the Kids Aren't Alright
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Why the Kids Aren't Alright
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American kids are the freest, most privileged kids in all of history. They are also the saddest, most anxious, depressed, and medicated generation on record. Nearly a third of teen girls say they have seriously considered suicide. For boys, that number is an alarming 14 percent. 

What’s even stranger is that all of these worsening mental health outcomes for kids have coincided with a generation of parents hyper-fixated on the mental health and well-being of their children.

Take, for example, the biggest parenting trend today: “gentle parenting.” Parents today are told to understand their kids’ feelings instead of punishing them when they act out. This emphasis on the importance of feelings is not just a parenting trend—it’s become an educational tool as well. “Social-emotional learning” has become a pillar in public schools across America, from kindergarten to high school. And maybe most significantly, therapy for children has been normalized. In fact, there are more kids in therapy today than ever before. 

On the surface, all of these parenting and educational developments seem positive. We are told that parents and educators today are more understanding, more accepting, more empathetic, and more compassionate than ever before—which, in turn, makes wonderful children.

But is that really the case? Are all of these changes—the cultural rethink, the advent of therapy culture, of gentle parenting, of teaching kids about social-emotional learning—actually making our kids better?

Best-selling author Abigail Shrier says no.

In her new book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up, Shrier argues that these changes are directly contributing to kids’ mental health decline. In other words: all of this shiny new stuff is actually making our kids worse. 

Today: What’s gone wrong with American youth? What really happens to kids who get therapy but don’t actually need it? In our attempt to keep kids safe, are we failing the next generation of adults? And, if yes, how do we reverse it before it’s too late?

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Abigail Shrier is inspiring. I heard that therapists get in trouble if they fail to identify trauma caused by “children born in the wrong body”. Yesterday I received a DoNoHarm email about adult patients who are told they suffer if not seen by a same-race medical provider. Yet, Oct 7 is not recognized as trauma. Crazy. The upside of a “traumatic event” is the unparalleled learning of one’s resilience and emergency skills. I was initially traumatized in 2019 when fighting DEI alone. But the trauma made me smarter, tougher and meaner. By meaner - a sharper pen, rather than sword.

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First of all as a Therapist, quit swinging an ax at my business model. The cultural norm of everyone going to therapy is working out quite well for me. In all honesty Liberals seek too much therapy and Republicans don’t do it enough. As with everything in 2024 there is a political divide.

A Boy Named Sue by Johnny Cash

And he said, "Son, this world is rough

And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough

And I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along

So I give you that name and I said goodbye

I knew you'd have to get tough or die

And it's that name that helped to make you strong"

A song where a dad gives his son a girls name before walking out on him and his mother.

This all used to be common knowledge until one day some people that went to college realized they knew better than everyone who ever lived throughout time. Naturally all the other college educated people followed suit.

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