Are Parents Too Focused on Kids' Feelings and Is Therapy to Blame?

It's complicated...

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Today’s parenting styles have names like Attachment, Gentle, Positive, and Mindful. We’ve shunned the aloofness of our own parents and their “stop overreacting and suck-it-up” approach. We swore when we had kids, we’d affirm their emotional lives so they knew to take their own feelings seriously. We’d offer them therapy if needed and get into our own therapy if it meant they could grow into healthy, well-adjusted adults more easily than we had.

And yet.

Young people seem to be in the midst of a mental health crisis. Just this week the World Happiness Report found that the usual trend of young people being happier than older adults has reversed in North America, Australia, and New Zealand, and in Western Europe the gap is narrowing. Misery among 15- to 24-year-olds is why the US can no longer count itself among the top 20 happiest countries, falling to 23rd place from 15th. 

What is going on?

According to the journalist Abigail Shrier, the culprit is therapy (and parents who are influenced by therapy). In her article in the Wall Street Journal, “Stop Constantly Asking Your Kids How They Feel” and in podcast interviews related to her new book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, Shrier argues that parents have a) made children helpless by over-validating every fear and anxiety, and putting them in therapy when they don’t need it and b) made happiness the ultimate goal. Let’s address the latter claim first.

Do we over-emphasize happiness?

I agree with Shrier that if we need our children to be happy— usually so we can feel good about our parenting or because we find it hard to tolerate the idea of our children in pain— it’s counterproductive. No one feels good all the time and if we convey they should, they’ll think ordinary suffering means something is wrong with them, or feel guilty for disappointing us. Learning how to cope with hard feelings and recognizing they don’t last forever is what makes us resilient. When everything has to be great, it sucks the joy right out of it. My daughter, for example, has never liked opening birthday gifts in front of others because of the social mandate to ooo and ahhh. She wants to appreciate them slowly, on her own terms. Or be disappointed without 20 pairs of eyes watching.

But the need for kids to be happy didn’t start with this generation. I remember it well from my own childhood. The difference seems to be that Gen X and Millenial parents don’t simply demand happiness from their kids, but actively work to pave a smoother path to it. It’s possible we’ve overcorrected. We’ve plowed hard stuff, including hard feelings, out of their way so they could (theoretically) move forward unencumbered. Our helicoptering, born from our obsession with safety (we came of age, after all, during stranger danger panic) and achievement has inhibited our kids’ ability to have free, unsupervised play, take risks and may explain why they’re less independent than expected.

Shrier ’s theory is that parents have drunk the therapy koolaid. But the goal of therapy isn’t to enhance entitlement to happiness or hedonism. It’s not even to soothe and comfort, or to teach gratitude and forgiveness, though those things are often a byproduct of therapy. As Freud famously declared, there’s much to be gained by transforming “neurotic misery into ordinary unhappiness.” We do that by making meaning of our past and present, striving for satisfaction (not happiness, per se) in love and work so that we no longer feel helpless in the face of the expectable struggle, disappointment, loss, and frustration that life brings.

Blaming kids’ fragility on “weak parenting” is enormously reductive. Has Shrier seen the culture today’s parents are up against? A capitalism that exploits and commodifies everything-- including happiness and well-being--and perpetuates a winner-loser dynamic so parents feel pressure to ensure their kids land in the “winner” category. What about the detrimental effects of social media?: less sleep, less in-person socializing, and disastrous news at their fingertips. Uncertainty about the future in the form of climate change and a growing economic inequality between the generations also looms large. Oh, and a pandemic, and loud, seemingly intractable, political polarization.

I bristle at Shrier’s absolutism and vitriol toward progressive parents. Still, I think it’s worth considering her other point about over-indulging kids’ feelings.

Does attending to kids’ feelings make things worse?

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

Not unlike Shrier, I’ve found myself asking whether we’ve taken normal childhood challenges and teenage angst, or even just the indignity of being alive, and confused it with mental illness? So many kids seem to be convinced that their painful feelings or social awkwardness mean they’re sick. By blaming therapy and attuned parenting for that, though, Shrier throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Therapists do believe it’s beneficial for parents to encourage their kids to recognize and express their feelings, but Shrier suggests that translates to dwelling on their feelings. Research shows it actually has the opposite effect: allowing your child to experience uncomfortable emotions is an important precursor to making sense of them so they have more control over what they do with those feelings.

Melinda Wenner Moyer

nails it in her piece, “Is It Bad to Ask Kids How they Feel?” when she says in response to Shrier’s claims,

Noticing, acknowledging and labeling feelings is a cornerstone of healthy emotional regulation and is not the same thing as rumination; not even close. This is the kind of exaggerated, unscientific, fear-mongering argument I have come to loathe, which only serves to confuse and shame parents into thinking they’re doing everything wrong.

So tuning into our kids’ feelings is important but what about therapy? I believe almost anyone can benefit from good therapy (even if they’re not “sick") but how we define therapy is crucial. I’ve been watching for decades as insurance companies dehumanize therapy for the sake of their bottom line, pharmaceutical companies medicalize human experience, and influencers slap diagnoses on normal human conditions. TikTok and Woebot are not therapy.

With all the focus on labels and categories, even contemporary therapies have moved away from emotional experience, and place more emphasis on cognitions and behaviors. The curiosity and meaning-making that imbue more relational therapies are sometimes traded for blanket affirmation and the relationship for worksheets. Sometimes, with kids especially, tools and strategies are useful, but for many, the way out of pain lies in understanding feelings and fears that feel shameful or have been concealed, maybe even from themselves. So it’s possible we are not focusing enough on feelings and instead our children are getting therapy that skips crucial elements of becoming emotionally intelligent. If therapy is causing problems, it’s not for the reasons Shrier claims.

In that vein, the comedian Des Bishop hilariously points out that when we were teenagers, we never needed mindfulness like today’s teens. Why? Because we didn’t have a choice but to be mindful half the day. We watched condensation drip while on the bus or just waited while we, well, waited because we didn’t have “cable service” in our pockets. His point: kids have no idea how to be with their feelings. That is the reason why social emotional programs (which Shrier rails against) have popped up in schools. And why parents are more desperate than ever to validate their children’s feelings.

Why then are our kids preoccupied with their mental health if parents are more attuned?

I think Shrier has underestimated the genuine chaos and hopelessness kids are experiencing and the impact of social media on their wish to make sense of their untenable feelings. Still though, if we wade through the black-and-white thinking, there may be a kernel of truth in what she says. It’s worth taking a beat when we hear our child is hurting, so we respond in a way they not only feel supported but also hopeful.

Respond with compassion and encouragement

I will never stop making room for my kids’ feelings, but I have increasingly included statements about their agency and ability to shape their own lives. That might look something like, “That IS hard. But you’ve managed even harder situations so I know you’re going to figure this out.” Or “It may not be what you want, but I’m confident you can adapt.” In response to anxiety about things going wrong: “It’s nerve-wracking, but I notice you don’t give yourself credit for being able to handle disappointment even though you’ve proven you can.” When they’re prone to stew in their negative feelings, we can empathize while gently reminding them they have a choice in whether or not they allow their upcoming plans to be ruined, and we can show pride when they manage to turn their day around. For older kids who are persistently depressed or anxious, it’s important to make them partners in their treatment, even if it takes years for them to appreciate the link between wellbeing and eating nutritious foods, exercising, less screen time, seeing a therapist, etc. Of course, some days our kids just need us to listen or lie with them, helping them to regulate their nervous systems.

Shrier mistakes acknowledging children’s feelings with promoting self-absorption. And she conflates the superficial emphasis on “happiness” and the over-pathologizing of feelings with real therapy. There is so much research available on both the benefits of parental responsiveness and therapy that reverting to emotional suppression, as she suggests, seems ludicrous. By offering space for all feelings, not just the good ones, we’re letting kids know that happiness is about far more than pleasure. It's about rebounding from disappointment and distinguishing between fun and satisfaction. It’s about work and purpose, generosity and freedom. It’s about relationships and people who care about your feelings. Feelings contain vital information. I wonder what Abigail Shrier’s therapist might say about her negative feelings about feelings?

---

If you’re interested in reading more about therapy, here are two I’ve written about treatment for adults:

Six common therapy misconceptions that may be keeping you away from needed treatment

Why Does Talk Therapy Take So Long?: The case for open-ended psychotherapy