THE PLIGHT OF OUR YOUTH

 

We are suffering from a tsunami of teenage mental problems. This has been unexpected in light of all the attempts to raise their self-esteem, the reigning orthodoxy within our schools. Not only was the esteem of the students to be nurtured, but those things that might injure their self-esteem were to be eliminated wherever possible. Consequently, the definition of “corporal punishment” was enlarged to include anything that might harm their esteem. Consequently, a student could no longer be shamed regarding anti-social behavior.

I found this out the hard way. As a substitute-teacher, I had instructed a student to stand facing the wall. I was subsequently reprimanded and told that what I had ordered to student to do was no less than “corporal punishment.” At another school, I had called an administrator into my classroom and informed him, “This has been worst class I’ve had here.” However, right in front of the class, I was reprimanded by the administrator: “We don’t say things like this here.” Last time I was invited to teach at that school!

Certainly, with all of the affirmation that these students had been receiving, they would become more anxiety- and depression-free, right? Evidently not! The NYT just reported that:

·       Most American teenagers — across demographic groups — see depression and anxiety as major problems among their peers, a new survey by the Pew Research Center found. The survey found that 70 percent of teenagers saw mental health as a big issue. Fewer teenagers cited bullying, drug addiction or gangs as major problems; those from low-income households were more likely to do so. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/health/teenage-depression-statistics.html

Those from low-income households had been less thoroughly inoculated with self-esteem strategies and secularist thinking. Perhaps this might explain their lower preoccupation with anxiety and depression.

Cited also by the nytimes.com was another study, even more troubling:

·       The number of children and adolescents admitted to children’s hospitals for thoughts of suicide or self-harm more than doubled during the last decade, according to new research being presented at the 2017 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in San Francisco.

·       The study included administrative data from 32 children’s hospitals across the U.S. and identified all emergency department and inpatient encounters between 2008 and 2015 for children between 5 and 17 years old with a discharge diagnosis of suicidality or serious self-harm. The researchers found a total of 118,363 such encounters at the children’s hospitals during the period studied. Further analysis showed the annual percentage of all encounters identified as suicidality or self-harm more than doubled over the study period, increasing from 0.67% in 2008 to 1.79% in 2015. Slightly more than half the patients with suicidal thoughts or actions (totaling 59,631) were with 15- to 17-year-olds, while 36.9% (43,682) were with 12- to 14-year-olds. An additional 12.7% (15,050) of the encounters were with children between ages 5 and 11. http://www.aappublications.org/news/2017/05/04/PASSuicide050417

This exploding increase in suicidality and self-harm is nothing short of epidemic. With all of our attempts to nurture self-esteem, we should be left with the question, “Have we made a wrong turn somewhere?” However, self-esteem does not seem to be accompanied by realistic self-examination and the attempt to re-evaluate our strategies and secular assumptions.

Secularism has assumed that our children have to learn to believe in themselves. Therefore, they have been reassured that they have the resources to do whatever they want. Perhaps, instead, we have placed an additional burden upon their young shoulders, which they cannot bear.

Even in our universities, educators are noticing that their students are increasingly unable to endure the stresses and are increasingly seeking help from mental health services. Other educators complain that their students increasingly want to be pampered.  In a Psychology Today article, “Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges,” Peter Gray had written:

• ...emergency calls to Counseling had more than doubled over the past five years. Students are increasingly seeking help for, and apparently having emotional crises over, problems of everyday life. (September, 2015)

Gray quotes the head of counseling services at a major university:

• “Our students are no different from what is being reported across the country on the state of late adolescence/early adulthood. There has been an increase in diagnosable mental health problems, but there has also been a decrease in the ability of many young people to manage the everyday bumps in the road of life. Whether we want it or not, these students are bringing their struggles to their teachers and others on campus who deal with students on a day-to-day basis.”

What is afflicting our youth? While discussing the benefits of performing acts of kindness, one very empathetic and affirming young man asked this question of the group:

·       I have been financially supporting a group that does good things. However, I am no longer deriving a good feeling from my giving. Should I give to another group where I will get a greater feeling of self-satisfaction?

I think that his response is very revealing. As moral absolutes have given way to moral relativism, feelings have gained the upper-hand in this existential vacuum. What then happens when our feelings rebel against us in a rage of panic? Where can we go to find relief? To the psychotherapist, of course! However, can the psychotherapist give us the hope and reassurance of the One we have rejected?

For me, they couldn’t. After decades of depression and then panic attacks, my five highly recommended psychologists had left me more depressed than ever. It was only the reassurances of love and hope that came from Jesus that was eventually able to overcome my brokenness. I am convinced that this is what our youth lack.