Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:32
Subject: Re:How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
Pull our kids out of private and put them in an economically diverse public? Move to the Midwest? Insist that our kids don't have to take the most rigorous classes available to them? Be okay with them going to UMD or a SLAC ranked below the Top 20 rather than an Ivy? Put them in therapy with an intense cycle of medications?
We live in "flyover" now. In a suburb. Our kids attend a public hs where 40% get free and reduced and my white kids are the minority. Last year my senior graduated with 6 or 7 APs. He is about to go to a good (top 50) private university 1600 miles away - probably with a number of DMV kids. He and his hs friends are happy and healthy and well-adjusted with SES across the spectrum. I am not aware of any friends of his with serious mental health issues, at least at his particular school. Boys or girls. We even stayed away from the local pressure-cooker high schools for this reason. The kids are all the same and then they go to college with kids who are all the same.
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:30
Subject: How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
Teach kindness in schools. Teach religion to your kids.
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:30
Subject: Re:How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
The schools do not help the situation at all.
I have a high schooler at a Big3 and he/she had something really difficult happen to him/her at school this school year. I'm being purposefully vague because I don't
want to out ourselves. We reached out to the school (for the first time EVER in our years at the school) and met with someone in leadership (not the HOS but a level below).
The response we got was (and I'm quoting this) was "this will probably cost him/her all his friends. He/she needs to learn to suck it up and get stronger".
We were floored. My husband (who is about the chillest person I know) was angry. He was downright mad.
Anyway, if this kid was not well on his/her way to graduating we would have pulled the kid. As it is, we did not apply our younger child.
These schools can just be toxic be in the name of "independence and ownership, etc".
I have a high schooler at a Big3 and he/she had something really difficult happen to him/her at school this school year. I'm being purposefully vague because I don't
want to out ourselves. We reached out to the school (for the first time EVER in our years at the school) and met with someone in leadership (not the HOS but a level below).
The response we got was (and I'm quoting this) was "this will probably cost him/her all his friends. He/she needs to learn to suck it up and get stronger".
We were floored. My husband (who is about the chillest person I know) was angry. He was downright mad.
Anyway, if this kid was not well on his/her way to graduating we would have pulled the kid. As it is, we did not apply our younger child.
These schools can just be toxic be in the name of "independence and ownership, etc".
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:28
Subject: How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
Anonymous wrote:I don’t think parental style or social factors alone are the cause. I suspect it’s something else, though I don’t know what. Because depression among teens is so endemic and crisis level and cuts across so many places, SES levels, and has become so bad so suddenly, I don’t think we can attribute it just to affluence or pressure, though those are tempting targets.
Parents play a HUGE part - they tell them what to major in for college, for example. Teens will never be good enough to those parents, and the teens know it.
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:24
Subject: How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
I don’t think parental style or social factors alone are the cause. I suspect it’s something else, though I don’t know what. Because depression among teens is so endemic and crisis level and cuts across so many places, SES levels, and has become so bad so suddenly, I don’t think we can attribute it just to affluence or pressure, though those are tempting targets.
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:24
Subject: How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
Anonymous wrote:I was reading this article in The Atlantic about the suicides at Palo Alto High School:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/
It seems like living in a pressure cooker full of wealthy, well-educated parents in a highly academic environment is a major factor in poor mental health among teenagers. I remember reading a sociological study showing that depression, anxiety, and drug abuse among teenagers plotted to their SES status was like a horseshoe -- most common among wealthy/UMC and poor teens (for very different reasons), but least common among the middle-middle class.
Anecdotally, from DD's private, it seems like almost half of the kids we know are on medications and see a therapist or psychiatrist on a regular basis. The stress and pressure just seem nuts to me, and the constant judgement and competition seem unhealthy for teenagers.
Are there any ways that we as parents can fix this? Pull our kids out of private and put them in an economically diverse public? Move to the Midwest? Insist that our kids don't have to take the most rigorous classes available to them? Be okay with them going to UMD or a SLAC ranked below the Top 20 rather than an Ivy? Put them in therapy with an intense cycle of medications?
This is just an article. The heroin and prescription drug issues are in the middle america sector white middle class families. You don't see much of that in wealthy areas.
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:23
Subject: How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
Anonymous wrote:I was reading this article in The Atlantic about the suicides at Palo Alto High School:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/
It seems like living in a pressure cooker full of wealthy, well-educated parents in a highly academic environment is a major factor in poor mental health among teenagers. I remember reading a sociological study showing that depression, anxiety, and drug abuse among teenagers plotted to their SES status was like a horseshoe -- most common among wealthy/UMC and poor teens (for very different reasons), but least common among the middle-middle class.
Anecdotally, from DD's private, it seems like almost half of the kids we know are on medications and see a therapist or psychiatrist on a regular basis. The stress and pressure just seem nuts to me, and the constant judgement and competition seem unhealthy for teenagers.
Are there any ways that we as parents can fix this? Pull our kids out of private and put them in an economically diverse public? Move to the Midwest? Insist that our kids don't have to take the most rigorous classes available to them? Be okay with them going to UMD or a SLAC ranked below the Top 20 rather than an Ivy? Put them in therapy with an intense cycle of medications?
This is satire, right?
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:23
Subject: Re:How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
Anonymous wrote:For one, you could stop trying to fix everything for your kids from a young age.
+1
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:23
Subject: How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
Anonymous wrote:I was reading this article in The Atlantic about the suicides at Palo Alto High School:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/
It seems like living in a pressure cooker full of wealthy, well-educated parents in a highly academic environment is a major factor in poor mental health among teenagers. I remember reading a sociological study showing that depression, anxiety, and drug abuse among teenagers plotted to their SES status was like a horseshoe -- most common among wealthy/UMC and poor teens (for very different reasons), but least common among the middle-middle class.
Anecdotally, from DD's private, it seems like almost half of the kids we know are on medications and see a therapist or psychiatrist on a regular basis. The stress and pressure just seem nuts to me, and the constant judgement and competition seem unhealthy for teenagers.
Are there any ways that we as parents can fix this? Pull our kids out of private and put them in an economically diverse public? Move to the Midwest? Insist that our kids don't have to take the most rigorous classes available to them? Be okay with them going to UMD or a SLAC ranked below the Top 20 rather than an Ivy? Put them in therapy with an intense cycle of medications?
Oh please the opioid and heroin addiction was right in middle america not wealthier areas.
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:22
Subject: Re:How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
For one, you could stop trying to fix everything for your kids from a young age.
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:22
Subject: How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
Anonymous wrote:I attended a "pressure-cooker" private school 35 years ago, but I wasn't aware of anything like the mental health issues that seem to exist nowadays (though of course drug use, and mental health problems existed). I wonder why things are worse?
FIRST, FIX THE PARENTS.
You would not believe some of the crap that the HS administration has to listen to.
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:21
Subject: How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
mAnonymous wrote:I attended a "pressure-cooker" private school 35 years ago, but I wasn't aware of anything like the mental health issues that seem to exist nowadays (though of course drug use, and mental health problems existed). I wonder why things are worse?
Because your a woman and you didn’t have the same pressure.
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:20
Subject: Re:How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
How do you fix the attitude with these parents that making $60K a year is okay.
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:19
Subject: How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
I attended a "pressure-cooker" private school 35 years ago, but I wasn't aware of anything like the mental health issues that seem to exist nowadays (though of course drug use, and mental health problems existed). I wonder why things are worse?
Anonymous
07/28/2022 15:14
Subject: How Do We Fix The Mental Health Crisis Among Affluent Teens?
I was reading this article in The Atlantic about the suicides at Palo Alto High School:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/
It seems like living in a pressure cooker full of wealthy, well-educated parents in a highly academic environment is a major factor in poor mental health among teenagers. I remember reading a sociological study showing that depression, anxiety, and drug abuse among teenagers plotted to their SES status was like a horseshoe -- most common among wealthy/UMC and poor teens (for very different reasons), but least common among the middle-middle class.
Anecdotally, from DD's private, it seems like almost half of the kids we know are on medications and see a therapist or psychiatrist on a regular basis. The stress and pressure just seem nuts to me, and the constant judgement and competition seem unhealthy for teenagers.
Are there any ways that we as parents can fix this? Pull our kids out of private and put them in an economically diverse public? Move to the Midwest? Insist that our kids don't have to take the most rigorous classes available to them? Be okay with them going to UMD or a SLAC ranked below the Top 20 rather than an Ivy? Put them in therapy with an intense cycle of medications?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/
It seems like living in a pressure cooker full of wealthy, well-educated parents in a highly academic environment is a major factor in poor mental health among teenagers. I remember reading a sociological study showing that depression, anxiety, and drug abuse among teenagers plotted to their SES status was like a horseshoe -- most common among wealthy/UMC and poor teens (for very different reasons), but least common among the middle-middle class.
Anecdotally, from DD's private, it seems like almost half of the kids we know are on medications and see a therapist or psychiatrist on a regular basis. The stress and pressure just seem nuts to me, and the constant judgement and competition seem unhealthy for teenagers.
Are there any ways that we as parents can fix this? Pull our kids out of private and put them in an economically diverse public? Move to the Midwest? Insist that our kids don't have to take the most rigorous classes available to them? Be okay with them going to UMD or a SLAC ranked below the Top 20 rather than an Ivy? Put them in therapy with an intense cycle of medications?