We talk about youth mental health as if there’s an easy solution, and we talk about protecting vulnerable children as if it’s someone else’s problem, but this post makes one thing clear: we can all help.
Decades of research show that young people—even those exposed to adverse childhood experiences—do better when they have more trusted adults in their lives. And we’re not just referring to parents here: Children need a network of adults — teachers, mentors, coaches, and extended family members like an aunt or uncle. They need people who show up across contexts, consistently, and over time. Research shows that adolescents with several supportive non-parental adults have healthier mental health outcomes, higher self-esteem, and perform better academically.
What more can I say about this? There are clear connections between improved outcomes for kids who are surrounded by supportive adults, and then we created a society that makes it nearly impossible to create that kind of community. The article talks about small acts of cooperation and inclusion, building the network of trusted adults, but how many of us would even know where to start? How many of us don’t trust anyone? How many of us have friends or non-immediate family members around who our kids can trust?
How did we get here? That might be the larger question, followed by how do we change this?
But that’s a more difficult question to answer, so we don’t answer it, and the kids suffer for the lack of support.