Parents Are Almost as Depressed and Anxious as Teens

American teens are having a hard time. From 2008 to 2019, the rate of U.S. high school students reporting chronic feelings of sadness and hopelessness rose 65% from one in five to one in three, according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That was before the pandemic. By the fall of 2021, more than a year into the pandemic, the CDC reported that 42% of high school students, and almost 60% of girls, felt chronic sadness and hopelessness. A staggering quarter of teen girls had made a suicide plan.  [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Social media has been blamed, as well as sleep deprivation, spikes in loneliness, and increasing academic pressure. Not as much time has been spent focusing on one of the key ways we can bolster teens’ mental health and buffer vulnerable teens: healthy, attuned relationships with their parents.  The problem is, a lot of parents are in really bad shape, too.  According to two nationally representative surveys in the U.S., completed in December 2022, about 20% of mothers and 15% of fathers reported anxiety, compared to 18% of teens. About 15% of teens reported depression, alongside 16% of mothers and 10% of fathers. In total, about one-third of teens had a parent suffering from reported anxiety of depression. “Our data suggest that we would be just as right to sound the alarm about the state of parents’ mental health as about teens’ mental health,” ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized freelance Source Type: news