As a youth mental health crisis persists in the US, a new report highlights a significant gap between the level of support that teenagers feel and the amount that parents think their children have, CNN’s Deidre McPhillips reported in July.
According to a new report published by the National Center for Health Statistics, only about a quarter of teens say they always get the social and emotional support they need, but parents were nearly three times more likely to think they did.
“This suggests a systematic bias where parents consistently report higher levels of social and emotional support compared with their teenager’s perception, and in doing so may underestimate their teenager’s perceived need for social and emotional support,” the study authors wrote.
“The findings are based on nationally representative surveys of nearly 1,200 children ages 12 to 17 and their parents, conducted in 2021 and 2022,” reported CNN. “Parents responded to survey questions from trained interviewers, while children responded to survey questions online after their parents gave approval.”
Teens often think about their feelings, along with their identity and place in the world, but they might not want to share that with their parents, Jeffrey Arnett, a developmental psychologist at Clark University told CNN. “This is sometimes something they discuss with their parents, but to a large extent, it’s an individual project,” he said. “They want to start developing an independent identity. They sometimes feel like they should be independent, so it can get more difficult to talk openly with their parents about how they’re feeling.”
As we reported in April, a study by Springtide Research Institute also indicated this disconnect. About half of the kids surveyed felt their parents didn’t take their mental health concerns seriously. At the same time, about 53 percent didn’t want their parents to know they were meeting with a school counselor or therapist.
Suppressing negative feelings can have serious consequences. Instead of talking with their parents or another trusted adult, teenagers may instead engage in substance misuse or other risky behaviors to deal with their emotional struggles.
Teenage substance misuse is strongly correlated with the mental health crisis among young people. Teenagers who use cannabis, alcohol, and nicotine are more likely to have underlying psychiatric symptoms, and worse symptoms than their peers who are not regularly using substances, new research confirmed in January.
RESTORING HOPE: HOW TURNING WINDS HELPS TEENS OVERCOME EMOTIONAL OR BEHAVIORAL CRISES
Turning Winds helps young people learn how to correctly perceive and purposefully engage with the world around them. The program’s holistic approach, relational focus, and emphasis on achieving authentic openness make Turning Winds especially effective at facilitating positive outcomes and long-term change. “The simple, singular focus of our treatment program is to help each student improve their self-image and their self-confidence and change the behaviors that have been hindering their growth by teaching them to create stable patterns of living through education, process groups, and individualized treatment planning,” says CEO Owen Baisden.
Achieving these stable patterns is a process, though—a journey of several months focused on your teen’s mental health and behavioral treatment. “The change process is not pretty, you can’t just flip a switch,” explains program director Enoch Stump. “It takes determination and it’s gritty.” But the rewards are worth it. “It all stems from this thing we’re trying to do here at Turning Winds and that is to create hope. The hope that things can be different and that life can be better.”
Our one-of-a-kind hybrid program blends the successful aspects of residential treatment centers, therapeutic boarding schools, and wilderness therapy into one life-changing experience. Over the past two decades, Turning Winds has been able to help many families overcome what seemed impossible odds.
Our mission is to rescue teens from crises, renew their belief in their potential, reunite them with their families, and put them on a sustainable path to success.
Contact us online for more information, or call us at 800-845-1380. If we miss your call, rest assured we will reconnect with you promptly to start planning your transformative experience.
