Kids and teens today are more diagnosed than ever, across the board, whether it’s a disorder like ADHD or a mental health condition like obsessive-compulsive disorder. Say you’re 15 and you’re worried about that upcoming algebra test? Anxiety. You’re 12 and you weren’t invited to that birthday party? Depression. Scared to ride your bike again after that little fall last summer? PTSD. And with these diagnoses come a menu of medications that purport to fix your child.
Today: What’s behind the rise in diagnoses—both for ADHD, mostly among young boys, and for anxiety and depression, mostly among teen girls? Are they really the most distracted, anxious, and depressed generation ever to exist? Or are we, perhaps, pathologizing what used to be considered normal feelings and behaviors—and as a result, diagnosing and overmedicating kids for. . . acting like kids? And what are the long-term effects of having millions of boys on speed and millions of girls on SSRIs?
Resources from this episode:
Abigail Shrier Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up (Bookshop)
Jennifer Wallace Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—and What We Can Do About It (Bookshop)
Sami Timimi Naughty Boys: Anti-Social Behaviour, ADHD and the Role of Culture (Bookshop)
Erica Komisar Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters (Bookshop)
If you liked what you heard in this episode, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today.
Om Podcasten
Poseidon is the god of the sea, Dionysus of wine and merrymaking, and Emily Oster? She’s the god of parenting.
An economics professor at Brown University, Oster has built a massive and loyal audience by providing overwhelmed parents with the information and data they need to make solid and sound parenting decisions in a very confusing world. Her first book, Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong—and What You Really Need to Know, sold over a million copies and was translated into 19 languages, unseating the classic What to Expect When You’re Expecting as a fixture on many pregnant mothers’ bedtime tables.
In this new series with The Free Press, Oster tackles the deep, difficult, existential, and often controversial questions facing parents today: Are we too soft on kids these days? How do I raise an independent child in an era of overprotection and helicopter parenting? Why are so many teen girls unhappy and anxious, and how can we make them happy again? Why are boys being left behind? Are kids overdiagnosed? What to do about the phones!? Is marriage important for raising kids? Should you even have kids at all?
These questions are more urgent than ever. That’s because, by many measures, kids are worse off today than 30 years ago. They are more anxious than ever. They’re more depressed. They have more diagnoses than ever before. They’re more medicated. More kids are being raised without two parents in the home today. Kids’ reading and math scores haven’t recovered since their decline during the Covid pandemic. Childhood obesity has risen to 19.7 percent. Kids spend on average 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day, and the average teen spends around 9 hours a day on their phone.
What’s going on with kids today? How worried should we be about our kids? And what should we be doing, as parents, to change course, before it’s too late? How do we raise good people—which starts with raising good, informed parents—in this strange, new world?
Over eight episodes, Oster speaks with over 50 of the world’s best parenting experts, journalists, doctors, psychologists, researchers, and more including: Dr. Becky, Jonathan Haidt, Pamela Druckerman, Richard Reeves, Hanna Rosin, Abigail Shrier, Bryan Caplan, Christine Emba, Johann Hari, Sami Timimi, Melissa Kearney, Ross Douthat, and many, many more. Oster brings her trusted voice—with its sobriety, wisdom, and humor—to the most challenging parenting questions of the day.
The best way to support this podcast is to become a Free Press subscriber today at TheFP.com/subscribe