The Teenagers are Not Alright: Is it the Lack of Freedom?

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. With May being Mental Health Awareness month, we've decided to dedicate a series to a particular group in the United States that's struggling at unprecedented levels, our youth. In March, a CDC report revealed that the mental health of children and teenagers has been on a decline over the last decade, as nearly every signifier of poor mental health and suicide ideation increased from 2011 to 2021. Notably, this trend is not equal among all demographics, with girls and LGBTQ youth being particularly affected. 57% of girls, 54% of LGBTQ+ youth reported poor mental health, 45% of LGBTQ+ youth have considered suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control report.

In 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children's Hospital Association, collectively called for child and adolescent mental health to be declared a national emergency by the Biden administration. Seeing this as the emergency that they believe it to be, we will try to get to the root of the youth mental health crisis in a number of segments on the show this week, and hopefully help to come up with some solutions, so we can all help the kids in our lives. We kick off this series with a theory that may not be the one you hear all the time.

The theory is increased supervision and decreased independence is at the root of a lot of youth depression and anxiety. What? It's not phones. No, this comes from a 2023 study, a new study titled Decline in Independent Activity as a Cause of Decline in Children's Mental Well-Being in the Journal of Pediatrics. With us now is one of the authors of that study, Peter Gray, PhD, research professor at Boston College and co-founder of the group Let Grow and author of books, including Free to Learn. Professor Gray, thanks for joining us on WNYC today. Hi, there.

Peter Gray: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Well, usually it's phones or social media that are top of mind as the root of rising mental health issues among children and teens, as I mentioned. I guess, in the last few years, we would also say the pandemic. Why do you think it's actually a lack of freedom that's hurting kids most significantly?

Peter Gray: Well, first, let me say that this is not just a phenomenon that began in 2011, or even began in the 21st century. This increase in mental disorder among young people has been going on for at least 40 years. If you go back to the 1950s and 1960s, the rates of depression, of anxiety as measured by standard clinical questionnaires given to normative groups was much lower than it was near the end of the 20th century. The rate of suicide among young people increased three and a half fold over that last decade, last 50 years of the 20th century.

It's not just something new. Phones, of course, are new, so everybody wants to blame it on phones. This increase began long before phones. There was a sharper increase during the 1980s than there had been previously. That increase has generally continued to accelerate. There was a little bit of levelling off of it at the very end of the 20th century, then it began to pick up again, as you indicated more recently. I really want to emphasize, this is not something new. This is something that began to change in our culture quite some time ago. That has caused a gradual but overall huge increase in depression, anxiety, and tragically even suicide among school-aged children.

Brian Lehrer: In your view or based on your research, what has caused multiple generations of parents to grant their children less and less freedom?

Peter Gray: If you go back to even the mid-20th century, and you look at magazines, advice columns for parents, the emphasis was children need independent activity. Your child should be walking to school by themselves at age five or six. Your child needs to go out and play with other children without you monitoring all the time. Your child should have a part-time job. The belief was, and in fact, this was the common belief and it's common sense and it fits with all the developmental psychology research we know. Children need independent activity.

Independent activity brings them immediate happiness, satisfaction and over the long run, it develops the kind of confidence, the kind of what clinical psychologists call internal locus of control that's necessary to meet the bumps in the road of life without falling apart psychologically. We, ever since really about 1970 or so, with every decade we are giving children less than less opportunity to experience life and to learn how to deal with life. We have gone overboard for what we believe to be good reasons, this is all good intentions. We've gone overboard with concern for children's safety. We think that it's unsafe to let children out of our sight even for a short periods of time, let alone to let them do things on their own.

We've also become over-concerned, and this is rarely talked about, with education, with a narrow view of education that education is only what occurs in school. Children are spending more time in school, much more time in school, more time at home work. Out of school, they're spending more time in adult-directed activities and they're spending ever less time doing things on their own. It's doing things on your own that leads you to develop the kind of psychological characteristics, the kind of strength of character that you need in order to deal with the stressors of life. Without that we have what we're seeing today, people falling apart because of stressors that in the past children would have been able to handle.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we invite you in on this. Parents, do your children have more or less freedom than you had as a child? 212-433-WNYC. Was granting your child more or less freedom a conscious decision that you made, or do you think you're just following norms and granting as much or as little as you do? 212-433-9692. What freedoms do you permit in your household and what do you withhold, especially with respect to your kids doing things outside the home? Do you have this conversation explicitly with your parent friends or anyone else, maybe with your own parents? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

Tell us your stories and we'll also take your questions for Peter Gray, PhD, research professor at Boston College, founder of the group Let Grow and author of the books including Free to Learn in part one here of our Teen Mental Health series here on the Brian Lehrer Show. Could you describe the mechanism, Dr. Gray, that you think is at work that leads from less freedom to do things independently to depression or anxiety or suicide? I think the conventional wisdom might be, by making people feel safe, they're less likely to be anxious, less likely to be depressed.

Peter Gray: Yes, the truth of the matter is the opposite of that. In order to develop the confidence, the understanding, the belief that I can handle the stressors of life, we need to experience the stressors of life. Now, traditionally, children have gradually increased as they grow older, they're allowed more and more independence and they're allowed to deal themselves with increasing levels of the kinds of stressors, the kinds of problems that come with that independence, so they grow in their strength of that. There's a phenomenon or a psychological characteristic that's called internal locus of control.

There is a lot of research extending way back that people of all ages who have what's called a low internal locus of control or sometimes it's called an external locus of control, meaning that they don't believe they can solve their own problems. They don't believe they can make their own decisions and do it well. They don't believe they can confront the problems of life and succeed at those problems. People who lack that ability, regardless of age, are far more susceptible to depression and anxiety than people who have that internal locus of control. How do you develop an internal locus of control?

You have it, you develop by experiencing control, by having the opportunity to take control of your own life with increasing amounts as you're growing older. The opportunity to solve your own problems without some adult always stepping in and solving your problems for you. Protecting people from minor stressors, leads people to believe they can't deal with minor stressors, leads them to lack the ability to deal with them. That's the fundamental problem.

I think there's no doubt whether this is true. Every bit of research shows that this is true. That's one way to think about it. There's another way to think about it, too. There's a realm of psychology that looks at what are the psychological needs that we all have, again regardless of age, in order to feel mentally well, in order to feel good about ourselves, in order to feel that we can deal with the world around us. What these researchers have come up with is that there are three fundamental psychological needs that we all have.

One is for autonomy, a sense of freedom, the sense 'I can make my own choices'. The second is competence. Not only can I make my own choices, but I'm competent to deal with the choices I make. I'm competent to do things. I can do things in the real world. The third is relationship. Not only do we need to feel that we have the freedom to do things, that we are capable of doing things, but we also need to feel that we have psychological support from peers. Especially peers, friends, colleagues who will help us along the way.

Help us in practical means, help us emotionally and so forth. These are three fundamental needs. Without these needs being met, regardless of age, we tend to feel depressed and anxious. How do children meet these needs? They meet them through independent activity, and especially independent play for young children. This is autonomy. Play is autonomy. It's doing what you want to do as opposed to what somebody else is telling you to do.

Play is how children develop competence at the things that they are interested in and that they want to do. Certainly for young children, children under 12, play is how you make friends. A friend almost by definition is somebody you play with. If we're depriving children of all of this, we are really depriving them of the means by which they fulfill these basic psychological needs, and it's no wonder that they're experiencing high rates of anxiety and depression.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We're talking to Dr. Peter Gray on the theory that a lot of anxiety, depression, even suicide among teenagers today is from a lack of independence. Now, let's invite some parents in on the conversation. Ruben in Norwalk, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ruben?

Ruben: Hey, Brian. How are you? I was just telling you screener that I grew up in New York City back in the '70s and '80s. We were 10, 11, 12 year olds, taking buses, trains all over the place. I grew up primarily in Queens, but I had buddies that grew up in the Bronx. Same kind of experience. We were just out all the time. We came home from school, dropped our books off, out the door we went.

On weekends, we were out all day. Summers, the entire day, maybe we came home for dinner or we even figured out a 75 cent pizza and Coke, whatever. We came up with our own games. I was telling you screener, if we had four kids, we might play stoop ball. If we had 12 kids, we'd play Ringolevio. If we had eight kids, we'd play four and four basketball.

We would just come up with games. We'd wander the neighborhood. We'd go to different parks, play handball. We would just come up with things. We would climb a tree. We just would come up with things. Then, when controversy occurred, we had to figure it out. Nobody was there supervising you. You had to resolve the situation if you wanted to continue playing and having fun.

Brian Lehrer: What are you seeing now? Are you raising kids in Norwalk?

Ruben: I'm sorry.

Brian Lehrer: I asked what are you seeing today? Are you raising kids there in Norwalk?

Ruben: Yes, so absolutely. Our older two are 27 now. They had a little bit of issues growing up, not as much as their friends who had lots of different issues. We were just dumbfounded by all the different kids that had all these mental issues that they just didn't seem like they could handle basic social interactions. They tended to-- everything was organized. We drove them to every soccer game, softball game, football game.

It just was a very different way of growing up. They wouldn't just go out and play. Everything had to be organized. It was just very, very different. My friends that are my age that we all grew up in the city. We're like the most happy-go-lucky, tranquil. If things happen, we're not perfect, but we kind of let most things roll off our shoulders. It seems like they really are hung up on things, can't get over stuff or really overanalyze something to the point of giving themselves anxiety.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Your experience seems to affirm the theory here. Ruben, thanks so much for checking in. We're going to go on to Lorraine in Queens. You're on WNYC. Hi, Lorraine.

Lorraine: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I'm an '80s baby first-generation. My parents are from Haiti. I wasn't given a lot of freedom growing up. They were pretty strict, but in many ways I did have a lot of independence. I was a latchkey kid. I had to find my way home from school. Warm up dinner. If my little brother was home early enough, I'd have to make sure that his homework was started.

I'm now raising a teen myself. In a lot of ways, I think that I give her more freedom than I had. She doesn't have the same level of independence that I had growing up. I'm always conflicted about whether or not I'm coddling her too much or giving her a little too much freedom. It's a fine line and it actually causes me anxiety, trying to decide whether or not I'm doing the right thing as a parent.

Brian Lehrer: Can you give an example of one where you thought, "On the one hand I should let her do this, on the other hand I shouldn't."? To make it concrete, you have anything top of mind?

Lorraine: Sleepovers were a big thing. For me growing up I was never allowed to have a sleepover. I was never allowed to go sleepover. Raising her, I also decided not to let her sleepover anyone's house, but I did allow children to sleepover. I just felt like I would have a little bit more control over the environment in that way. I don't know if she's missing out not having that experience.

Brian Lehrer: Lorraine, thank you very much. Professor Gray, you hear the internal tension that a parent has.

Peter Gray: Yes. I can understand the tension where they are overprotective. What I call overprotective parenting, has become the norm. It's very difficult to do something that runs contrary to the norm. In fact, the sad fact of the matter is that today, if you are the kind of parent that was normal parenting decades ago, you risk being arrested. If you allow your child out who's below a certain age and don't have some adult watching that child all the time, there's a chance you'll be arrested.

The organization Let Grow, which I'm part of and Lenore Skenazy is the president of and she lives in Queens, New York, is working to change some of those laws. That's one step to trying to change. More important, we really need to change the culture. We need to bring back what used to be common sense, that children need independence to grow up. The whole purpose of childhood is to become increasingly independent. That's why we have such a long childhood.

It takes a while to do so, but you need to have more and more independence as you grow in order to then become an adult where you have to make your own decisions, you have to run your own life in some sense. That doesn't mean that you're not connected to other people, but you ultimately in charge of your life. That has to occur gradually. Regarding the first speaker, I actually was in New York for college and graduate school in the '60s and '70s, and I know what he's talking about. I used to go out and play with the kids [laughs] as part of my recreation, pick up ball games, and so on and so forth. They'd be kids of all ages out there playing. I also worked with some youth groups. There would be kids five and six years old, not just teenagers who are out playing.

That's not just earlier in the 20th century in New York, or even in the United States. This is normal childhood throughout history. Children have always had lots of independent activity. They're expected to be independent in most cultures. I have said even in front of a conference of anthropologists that, except for times of childhood slavery, and intense child labor, children have never in history been less free than our children are today, less free to do things independently.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get one more caller in here, at least. Dawn in Rockland County, who's a teacher, you're on WNYC. Hi, Dawn.

Dawn: Hi, Brian. I'm a big fan. Thanks for having me. I just wanted to make a comment. I've been teaching the past 15 years high school seniors. I can make a comment on the amount of mental health issues that I've seen has grown exponentially over the past 15 years amongst my population of students, and I'm working with very high-level students. I can comment because I also grew up in New York City and had a lot of independence.

I see that the students don't have that same level of independence that my parents gave me. I, in turn, have eight-year-old twins, and I try to give them as much independence. They go next door, they play with their friends, I don't check on them. Maybe some people would think I was a horrible parent for not doing that, but I see how mature, responsible, and how they figure out their own way through little arguments or problems with their friends. They're much better off for that. I totally agree with your speaker about the independence, I think it's a huge factor.

Brian Lehrer: Dawn, let me ask you, and then Professor Gray, I'll ask you, where you think these other mental health challenges that we seem to talk about more in the media, at least, come in? The depression and anxiety that does come with the social media that we talk about all the time, or from the proliferation of school shootings over the 15 years that you've been teaching, Dawn.

Obviously, this is an era where there's a lot of anxiety in schools because people are doing active shooter drills and things like that and hear things in the news, and they don't know when somebody's going to walk into their school, or for that matter, the last three years of the pandemic, the social isolation, and then trying to return to life as normal with having been isolated and plus with whatever losses. I'm just saying there are obviously other factors here besides independence. I'm curious how you see them interacting.

Dawn: I can definitely say with the COVID pandemic, that was a major problem. We've seen academic loss and also social loss. That's been a major problem for our students. The maturity levels are definitely down again. I'm working with a high-level students, I teach a medical program, so these students are in real-life situations three days a week in a hospital. I can definitely say I saw a huge dip in the maturity levels. It's starting to come up a little bit.

Social media, I think, is a huge factor that I talk about with the students. I even have one student who's writing a research paper right now on social media, and body image disorder, and the depression that comes up. It's a major, major factor. Some of these students tell me they spend two to three hours a day on social media, and TikTok being one of the worst of them. I definitely think there's a huge connection. There's many pieces to the puzzle here that I see. I try to even limit my own children on social media.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think that there's an interplay between social media and the lack of independence that the segment is mostly about?

Dawn: Absolutely. Because they're spending so much time on social media, they're not interacting with other students and building those social skills, and those abilities to communicate. One thing I work on with these students, because they are in a real-life situation, is their interpersonal skills, being able to talk to people, negotiate. I think a lot of that has really taken away that from them where they're spending hours on these platforms. It's really, really interrupted their ability to socialize, communicate, and to have that kind of dependent interaction where they're growing and maturing.

Brian Lehrer: That'll lead to anxiety and depression as well.

Dawn: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: Dawn, thank you so much for contributing. Professor Gray, by your theory of letting kids be more independent, we hear the opposite with respect to screens, right? Parents should be enforcing limits on screens, how many hours a day, under what circumstances, things like that. If the screens are really contributing, and the social media content and experience are really contributing to the anxiety and depression, in cases of suicide, so how do you see these interacting? Would you say part of your prescription that parents let kids be more independent includes, "Yes, just let them stay on their phones all day if that's what they want to do on TikTok?"

Peter Gray: Yes. It's hard to present advice for every person. I think every family is different. Every child is different. The needs are different. I can't give blanket advice on that. I know many children who use social media who are perfectly healthy, [chuckles] but there are people who have other options also. For people who are so concerned about social media, there's a wonderful book that was written a few years ago by Danah Boyd called The Social Lives of Networked Teens. What she did is she interviewed teenagers across the country. This was initially for a doctoral dissertation and then she wrote it up as a book.

Asking them the question, "Why are they on social media so much?" The answer she got over and over and over is, "We would rather get together with our friends in person, but we can't do that. We're not allowed to do it. We would rather meet with our friends in person." Teenagers need to get away from adults. They need to interact with one another. This is part of teenage existence throughout history. If the only way they can do it is social media, that's how they're going to do it. I think sometimes we have cause and effect in this interaction backwards.

Brian Lehrer: That's so interesting.

Peter Gray: Are they avoiding meeting people and friends in reality because of social media or are they using social media so much because we are not allowing them to meet friends reality?

Brian Lehrer: That is so interesting. That's going to have to be the last word. Food for thought from Peter Gray, PhD research professor at Boston College, and co-founder of the group, Let Grow, and author of related books, including Free to Learn. Thank you so much for sharing all this with us, we really appreciate it.

Peter Gray: Thank you for having me on.

 

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