Health Matters

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Parents are almost as depressed and anxious as teens

By Lucas Wittmann

Editorial Director, TIME Ideas

American teens are in crisis, with 42% reporting feelings of chronic sadness and helplessness. Social media, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasing loneliness are all undoubtedly part of the problem. But looking closer to home, it's clear that parents themselves are suffering, too.

That's a problem, because households with depressed and anxious parents are likelier to have kids who face the same. As award-winning journalist Jenny Anderson writes in a new piece for TIME, "If we want to help teens, we need to help their parents, too."

The good news is that there are effective tools and approaches to helping families heal. One of the best is the "Family Talk" approach developed by William Beardless of Boston Children's Hospital, which provides a concrete way for parents and kids to address their mental health issues together. If America is serious about confronting the teen mental health crisis, it needs to start at home.

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ONE LAST READ

Summer camps are prioritizing kids' mental health

Amid a growing youth mental-health crisis, summer camp’s role as an escapist oasis is more important than ever.

Ellen Barry’s story in the New York Times gets up close and personal with the new support systems and procedures overnight camps are implementing to care for kids at every level.

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Today's newsletter was written by Lucas Wittmann and Haley Weiss, and edited by Angela Haupt.

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