Record levels of Depression in American children…explained.. and you ain’t gonna like it…
Monday, November 6, 2023. This is for my new clients, S&S, and their 2 little ones…
Depression, anxiety and suicide are now, in late 2023, at record levels among American children… WTF?
Breaking research so profoundly respected, that the Journal of Pediatrics warned on its website that recent hyper-vigilant shifts in American culture over the past few decades have profoundly impaired the mental health of children. Wow…
But here’s the scary part. Some parents are creating this crisis because they are too often denying opportunities for their kids to learn to differentiate by learning to take personal responsibility, or play independently.
Nowadays kiddos have far fewer chances to roam free and play without their parents hovering and fretting…
Being raised by an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler, I had above average opportunities to roam feral and free. There were times when this comfort in solitude was useful.
For example, I remember living in Dorchester, walking about a quarter of a mile to get to a certain bus stop that would take me to my parochial school, our Lady of Czestochowa in South Boston.
On May 22, 1964, after school, I waited… and waited…but the buses, for some reason, had stopped running.
So I started walking in the direction of home, and I soon had the answer.
The immediate neighborhood over the bridge with the bust of General Pulaski, was on fire.
I was a 10 year old boy with a predicament. Having no option, in order to get home, I had to walk through a 5 alarm fire, the epic Bellflower Street Conflagration.
How many children walk or bike to school nowadays?
That was the spring of 1964. 5 years later, in the US, 48% of children walked or biked to school (1969) — that figure is now 13% (2023).
Parents mean exceedingly well. But fear of a “mean world” has persuaded some parents to pamper, remove obstacles, and otherwise fret, and dote over their children.
Researchers believe that this relatively recent cultural shift could be a major contributor to dramatic drops in the well-being of American kiddos.
Depression, anxiety and suicide are now at record levels among American children…
Here’s a longitudinal lens on the impact of this cultural shift.
By one measure, American children were 5 times more likely to meet the criteria for a depressive or anxiety disorder in the year 2007 than they were in the year 1938 (Twenge et al., 2009).
Professor David F. Bjorklund, study co-author, said:
“Parents today are regularly subject to messages about the dangers that might befall unsupervised children and the value of high achievement in school.
But they hear little of the countervailing messages that if children are to grow up well-adjusted, they need ever-increasing opportunities for independent activity, including self-directed play and meaningful contributions to family and community life, which are signs that they are trusted, responsible, and capable.
They need to feel they can deal effectively with the real world, not just the world of school.”
A fascination with risk aversion…
Over the past few generations, the opportunities for children to take personal responsibility and experience have been steadily encroached upon and eliminated.
Activities such as climbing trees, or exploring nature, unsupervised helps kids to acquire the confidence that they might need to deal with in an emergency… like walking through a fire.
Here’s another cultural expression of just how we are shackling our children. Kids today also have less time for unstructured play, as school days have lengthened, and homework assignments have ballooned.
In 60 years, up to 2010, the US school year increased by an average of 5 weeks, not to mention the rise of homework!
Researchers have found circumstances where even some kids in kindergarten are now assigned homework!
Professor Bjorklund lamented:
“A major category of independent activity, especially for young children, is play. Research, as well as everyday observation, indicates that play is a direct source of children’s happiness.”
You Can’t Fail! …Ever!
So not only did we strip away unstructured and unsupervised play, we’re now cranking up the academic pressure. This new cultural pressure to achieve in school, and the fear of comparative failure has adversely affected both the children’s mental health, and the parent’s mental health.
Professor Bjorklund describes this toxic careful culture creep:
“Unlike other crises, such as the COVID epidemic, this decline in independent activity, and hence, mental wellbeing in children has crept up on us gradually, over decades, so many have barely noticed it.
Moreover, unlike other health crises, this one is not the result of a highly contagious virus, but rather the result of good intentions carried too far — intentions to protect children and provide what many believed to be better (interpreted as more) schooling, both in and out of actual schools.”
Final Thoughts… and frankly, I don’t like it either…
In an unusually passionate plea, the editors at the Journal of Pediatrics posted this on their website:
The current issue features a commentary which is somewhat outside the box for The Journal of Pediatrics.
(Gray et al.) provides an impassioned plea for children to have more time for unstructured play.
They marshal impressive evidence that a decline in unstructured, unsupervised activity in children has been progressing for decades.
They hypothesize intriguingly that this may be one of the factors contributing to the marked decline in children's mental health we have all noted over the same interval.
I won’t try to say it any better, because I can’t. Let’s talk more about this, and the mean, mean world we’ve come to live in.
But I’d like to ask, if no one else does, do we see the shadow of another hand here? There is something about the the careful language that contradicts the felt onus of blame that I find troubling.
Undervalued in this discussion are the torrential impact of cultural and technological forces. Granted, parenting culture has shifted, but I don’t see American parents steering the culture, they’re reacting to changes beyond their control.
In other words, In defense of American parents, I’d appreciate less blame and more politeness, bless your heart…
Over the past few decades, other things happened as well that promoted non-play and curbed impulses to roam free… the internet.. social media…
I’m happily persuaded that we can do better, but before we burn mom and dad at the stake of logical fallacy, let’s lead with more research, instead of leaning on this singular research effort assessing what American parents are doing wrong.
Let’s not pretend that all the smartypants got in a room and thus, the complicated question about declines in childhood mental health have been asked and answered.
I have no quibble with the quality of the research. There is a long overdue long dark night of the soul with our kiddos and their mental health.
However, I think academic journals endorsing their content submissions so emphatically risks chilling discussion of alternate views and gives me pause. What do you think?
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire. Charles Bukowski
Be well, stay kind, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
Gray, Peter & Lancy, David & Bjorklund, David. (2023). Decline in Independent Activity as a Cause of Decline in Children’s Mental Wellbeing: Summary of the Evidence. The Journal of Pediatrics. 260. 10.1016/j.jpeds.2023.02.004.
Prevalence of Depression Among Adolescents in the U.S. From 2009 to 2019: Analysis of Trends by Sex, Race/Ethnicity, and Income. Crossref DOI link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.08.026 Published Print: 2022-03 Update policy: https://doi.org/10.1016/elsevier_cm_policy
