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Depression

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Teens Are Struggling Right Now. What Can Parents Do?

For over 25 years, the psychologist Lisa Damour has been helping teens and their families navigate adolescence in her clinical practice, in her research and in best-selling books like “Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood.”

This moment in time, she says, is like no other.

According to a report released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42 percent of U.S. high schoolers experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2021, while 22 percent seriously considered attempting suicide. Adolescent girls, as well as lesbian, gay and bisexual youth, are struggling the most, but boys and teens in every racial and ethnic group also reported worsening symptoms.

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America’s Teens Are Suffering: Inside the Adolescent Mental Health Crisis

Social media is one factor on a long list that may be contributing to a mental health crisis among teens. While rates of anxiety and depression in this age group continue to rise, New York Times reporter Matt Richtel has spent more than a year interviewing American adolescents and their families. Richtel talked to Michel Martin about his series, "The Inner Pandemic," and the latest installment just out this week which focuses on the impact of the crisis on teens of color.

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Why American Teens Are So Sad

The United States is experiencing an extreme teenage mental-health crisis. From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded.

The government survey of almost 8,000 high-school students, which was conducted in the first six months of 2021, found a great deal of variation in mental health among different groups. More than one in four girls reported that they had seriously contemplated attempting suicide during the pandemic, which was twice the rate of boys. Nearly half of LGBTQ teens said they had contemplated suicide during the pandemic, compared with 14 percent of their heterosexual peers. Sadness among white teens seems to be rising faster than among other groups.

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