I want to have time for a more thoughtful response because this is such a powerful articulation of what my husband and I talk about re: our teenagers and their peers. Our family mental health history feels like it might be similar to yours and what I have found to be a PROFOUNDLY wise form of therapy is CBT's harder cousin: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT.) In many ways it is Life Skills 301 (not 101 because I find it quite advanced!) and it has very specific practices organized around: Mindfulness, Distress tolerance, Interpersonal effectiveness and Emotion regulation. Within each skill area there are a suite of specific tools - many with helpful and fun acronyms - that if practiced regularly would make us all better humans! Here's a helpful website that includes the tools/techniques: https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/
I'll be curious what you think. In conversations with my daughter's therapist and school counselors I've bemoaned that DBT practices aren't part of a middle school/freshman year life skills course!
Thank you for sharing this site, Mary Kay! I am currently in DBT and I can attest to its advanced but very effective nature. I'm going to use this site in between sessions as I practice the skills!
Couldn’t agree more with everything you said here. I have kids 23, 21, 18 and 16. It’s hard to wrap my head around how much teens seem to have adopted this new approach to life in such a short period of time. The difference in attitude between my 23 year old/his peers and my 16 year old/his peers is staggering. In talking to a high school secretary recently, she lamented that showing up for school on time or even showing up at all seems optional to high schoolers this year. She can’t believe how many absences there are. And so few kids are reading assigned books!!! It’s heartbreaking to me.
It's really interesting, right? I see the same thing between my first year teaching (those kids are now roughly age 22-23) and my current students. I can't decide if this is a huge repercussion of Covid lockdowns or more or less our own Fall of Rome. Maybe a bit of both?
Everything you said, YES. In some ways I think that mental health can be split into two camps. The one that you are trying to convey in this letter and the one in which there is a real and true need for medication, therapy etc. (I have close family/friends who have fallen into this camp so I know it's real and would never want to diminish how excruciating mental illness can be at times). But to speak to the other... My husband and I have had this conversation many times, sometimes by always assigning hard, uncomfortable feelings to a lack of mental health, we are really making the problem worse. When I'm anxious, if I try to read about why I'm anxious and what I should do about it... in a lot of cases, it makes is worse for me. Sometimes what I find I need to do is move through it with tools like sleep and exercise and treating myself a little gentler. Its like with a young child you ask them "oh what's wrong buddy? Does your stomach hurt?" Well, low and behold their stomach does hurt! I know this is simplifying but it gets the point across.
I also think that by thinking about it this way, it allows for people to take a little bit of power back where and when they can. It seems by always calling struggle and discomfort a mental illness... we create this culture of victims. When we really need to be empowering young kids and adolescents.
There was a article in the opinion NYTimes this weekend "What if Kids are Sad and Stressed Because Their Parents are?". It calls into question some of the same ideas.
Keep going with this idea. I think its powerful and needed but to some is REALLY tough to hear, but I think its full of hope too. Thank you Thank you
Ooh, I'll have to go and find that NYT piece — sounds interesting. And yes to the idea of power. We're creating a culture where the most powerful are the most oppressed/victimized, so the more victim points you have, the more you rise to the top. It's so wild. And it actually does a disservice for those you really DO struggle with legit mental health issues.
Dayum, Tsh. Knocked it out of the park with this one! My husband and I have been discussing the most recent Haidt piece from The Free Press recently, and this all of course ties in perfectly, as it was an extension of his own substack pieces. (Also, I loved the Coddling of the American Mind.) Anyway, I appreciated the hopeful note and the practical helps at the end here. My husband and I are "old parents" of young kids, haha-- meaning we're nearing 40 and our oldest of 5 is 8 years old. He also works with college students and sees the things you discuss here every day. For these reasons we are hyper-cognizant of the culture we and our kids and everyone's kids are "swimming in" and we're doing what we can in our own little world to be a positive force against the tide, but it is always so encouraging to read your thoughts on these things! Thanks for for your work!
P.S. I feel like telling you that I just ordered a flip phone! (It has navigation, I'm not crazy :)) I am excited for this experiment and will probably write about it when I have the time. I am just excited to even further remove the feeling of the unnatural demands on my person that simply the presence of my already-pretty-dumbed-down smartphone places on me, despite all the stipulations I've given myself over the years! Just looking forward to seeing what it's like to be a person without the internet in my pocket again, as in days of yore :)
Way to go re: flip phone! I'm *thisclose* to doing the same... And we'll be talking about this idea more on the podcast next month, so be on the lookout. :)
And I went to look up Haidt's piece on TFP you've mentioned, and it looks like the same one I've linked to above. But here it is, if anyone is curious — and I'm also into the podcast from TFP he mentions, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling. https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-mental-health-of-liberal
All of this. You voiced the many scattered thoughts I've been meditating on the past six months here. I teach undergraduate students and have three kids (5, 8, 10), and everything you wrote resonates so deeply.
Oh Shawn! You've got to read it. It's so good (although his essays and articles online say a lot of what the book says, though more updated since he's responding to culture in real-time). I love how he thinks!
Yes! I’ve been thinking about this too. My fear is that these kids will never know their full potentials, what they are capable of, what life experiences that they could have had, and that’s just sad to think about. They won’t know how great it feels to conquer something really hard and to grow as people. Avoiding the hard stuff is holding them back. Thanks for the insightful words.
Yes, yes, yes. This is wonderful wisdom and insight for today. Thank you for the clarity.
You're welcome. I clarify my own thoughts by writing, so consider this just me untangling some of this stuff for myself.
I want to have time for a more thoughtful response because this is such a powerful articulation of what my husband and I talk about re: our teenagers and their peers. Our family mental health history feels like it might be similar to yours and what I have found to be a PROFOUNDLY wise form of therapy is CBT's harder cousin: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT.) In many ways it is Life Skills 301 (not 101 because I find it quite advanced!) and it has very specific practices organized around: Mindfulness, Distress tolerance, Interpersonal effectiveness and Emotion regulation. Within each skill area there are a suite of specific tools - many with helpful and fun acronyms - that if practiced regularly would make us all better humans! Here's a helpful website that includes the tools/techniques: https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/
Ooh, thank you! I'd love to learn more about this, so I appreciate the link + the info. Thanks for your response, Mary Kay!
I'll be curious what you think. In conversations with my daughter's therapist and school counselors I've bemoaned that DBT practices aren't part of a middle school/freshman year life skills course!
Thank you for sharing this site, Mary Kay! I am currently in DBT and I can attest to its advanced but very effective nature. I'm going to use this site in between sessions as I practice the skills!
The site is pretty good, but I feel like this workbook by DBT founder Marsha Linehan is the ultimate resource: https://a.co/d/d6Rmk5s
Couldn’t agree more with everything you said here. I have kids 23, 21, 18 and 16. It’s hard to wrap my head around how much teens seem to have adopted this new approach to life in such a short period of time. The difference in attitude between my 23 year old/his peers and my 16 year old/his peers is staggering. In talking to a high school secretary recently, she lamented that showing up for school on time or even showing up at all seems optional to high schoolers this year. She can’t believe how many absences there are. And so few kids are reading assigned books!!! It’s heartbreaking to me.
It's really interesting, right? I see the same thing between my first year teaching (those kids are now roughly age 22-23) and my current students. I can't decide if this is a huge repercussion of Covid lockdowns or more or less our own Fall of Rome. Maybe a bit of both?
Everything you said, YES. In some ways I think that mental health can be split into two camps. The one that you are trying to convey in this letter and the one in which there is a real and true need for medication, therapy etc. (I have close family/friends who have fallen into this camp so I know it's real and would never want to diminish how excruciating mental illness can be at times). But to speak to the other... My husband and I have had this conversation many times, sometimes by always assigning hard, uncomfortable feelings to a lack of mental health, we are really making the problem worse. When I'm anxious, if I try to read about why I'm anxious and what I should do about it... in a lot of cases, it makes is worse for me. Sometimes what I find I need to do is move through it with tools like sleep and exercise and treating myself a little gentler. Its like with a young child you ask them "oh what's wrong buddy? Does your stomach hurt?" Well, low and behold their stomach does hurt! I know this is simplifying but it gets the point across.
I also think that by thinking about it this way, it allows for people to take a little bit of power back where and when they can. It seems by always calling struggle and discomfort a mental illness... we create this culture of victims. When we really need to be empowering young kids and adolescents.
There was a article in the opinion NYTimes this weekend "What if Kids are Sad and Stressed Because Their Parents are?". It calls into question some of the same ideas.
Keep going with this idea. I think its powerful and needed but to some is REALLY tough to hear, but I think its full of hope too. Thank you Thank you
Ooh, I'll have to go and find that NYT piece — sounds interesting. And yes to the idea of power. We're creating a culture where the most powerful are the most oppressed/victimized, so the more victim points you have, the more you rise to the top. It's so wild. And it actually does a disservice for those you really DO struggle with legit mental health issues.
Here's that NYT piece, for anyone else who's curious: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/opinion/teen-adult-depression-anxiety.html
Dayum, Tsh. Knocked it out of the park with this one! My husband and I have been discussing the most recent Haidt piece from The Free Press recently, and this all of course ties in perfectly, as it was an extension of his own substack pieces. (Also, I loved the Coddling of the American Mind.) Anyway, I appreciated the hopeful note and the practical helps at the end here. My husband and I are "old parents" of young kids, haha-- meaning we're nearing 40 and our oldest of 5 is 8 years old. He also works with college students and sees the things you discuss here every day. For these reasons we are hyper-cognizant of the culture we and our kids and everyone's kids are "swimming in" and we're doing what we can in our own little world to be a positive force against the tide, but it is always so encouraging to read your thoughts on these things! Thanks for for your work!
P.S. I feel like telling you that I just ordered a flip phone! (It has navigation, I'm not crazy :)) I am excited for this experiment and will probably write about it when I have the time. I am just excited to even further remove the feeling of the unnatural demands on my person that simply the presence of my already-pretty-dumbed-down smartphone places on me, despite all the stipulations I've given myself over the years! Just looking forward to seeing what it's like to be a person without the internet in my pocket again, as in days of yore :)
Way to go re: flip phone! I'm *thisclose* to doing the same... And we'll be talking about this idea more on the podcast next month, so be on the lookout. :)
And I went to look up Haidt's piece on TFP you've mentioned, and it looks like the same one I've linked to above. But here it is, if anyone is curious — and I'm also into the podcast from TFP he mentions, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling. https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-mental-health-of-liberal
Oh right! I think I assumed the linked pieces throughout went to Haidt's website like the first link. Sorry about that!
Gosh, and what an expertly produced podcast.
Can't wait to hear you guys discuss flip phones! My husband made the switch a few months ago and loves it. I'm excited to give it a whirl.
All of this. You voiced the many scattered thoughts I've been meditating on the past six months here. I teach undergraduate students and have three kids (5, 8, 10), and everything you wrote resonates so deeply.
Thanks, April! It really is interesting how pervasive this is now.
I hadn't heard of this book before, but you're the second person in the last few days who I've heard mention The Coddling of the American mind...
Oh Shawn! You've got to read it. It's so good (although his essays and articles online say a lot of what the book says, though more updated since he's responding to culture in real-time). I love how he thinks!
Yes! I’ve been thinking about this too. My fear is that these kids will never know their full potentials, what they are capable of, what life experiences that they could have had, and that’s just sad to think about. They won’t know how great it feels to conquer something really hard and to grow as people. Avoiding the hard stuff is holding them back. Thanks for the insightful words.
Agreed! We humans literally need problems to solve — we innately long for hard stuff to figure out and overcome. It's part of what makes us human.