Bad Therapy - Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up Book Review
“Parents are the keystone in any civilization. Having kids is the best, most worthy thing you could possibly do. Raise them well. You’re the only who can.”
Abigail Shrier
Back in June of 2023, U.S. News & World Report published an article titled “U.S. Teens’ Reading and Math Scores Feature Largest Declines Ever.” A shocker? An eye-opener? For me, it was disheartening and corroborated the theory that something is amiss in our schools. As for how others viewed the news, I’m not sure, but it should be an alarm going off for the future of Gen Zers as well as the generations coming behind. How could such scores exist, yet not have been foreseen? We are a reactive society, sadly. Then, I heard about and read Abigail Shrier’s enlightening great book, Bad Therapy - Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up. After reading this book, my concern for the youth of today and the future before them has become even more heightened.
Let me start off by saying there was nothing in the book that parents don’t need to know. Nothing. I have seventeen pages of notes from the book that I know don’t capture all that Shrier stated. It was merely writer’s cramp that kept me from more pages of notes. Shrier’s book is both insightful and an essential book to read, not just for today’s parents but for anyone who works with children whose objective is a solid prosperous future for them. If Shrier’s words don’t hit home with the reader, then such lack of foresight corroborates the delusional mess we have in our society today.
Here are several key points Shrier made:
In the first section, “Healers Can Harm,” she introduces the reader to the term “iatrogenesis” and is then used throughout the book. The Aspiring Medic defines “iatrogenesis” as “the causation of disease, harmful complications or other ill effects by any medical activity.” It is important to know this term so that you can understand the connection she makes through out the book with iatrogenesis and the struggles of today’s youth who are in therapy. It is not a term to take lightly. The Aspiring Medics goes on to say regarding iatrogenesis that it "includes diagnosis, intervention, error or negligence. Medical iatrogenesis is the 5th leading cause of death in the world: causing 5-8% of all deaths.”1
Shrier points out that “all interventions carry risk.” While this may, as a standalone comment, be a “hall pass” to wherever, it is certainly not when it comes to the health of our children. She point blank states to the reader a few pages later that “any intervention potent enough sure is also powerful enough to hurt.”
In chapter 2, “A Crisis in the Era of Therapy”, we read of the unnecessary interventions by the mental health “experts” as well as the negative impact of children having access to smartphones compounded by the isolation arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. More individuals, such as Shrier, need to point out that children do not need smartphones at school. What has been gained? What do we have as a result? We have a “fearful” generation, as Shrier puts it. The question to parents then is that what you want?
Chapter 3 delves into what Shrier calls “Bad Therapy.” If no other chapter registers with the reader, this one should. In this chapter, she discusses the ten steps of “bad therapy” that “a malevolent mastermind [would use] to induct a generation into a tyranny of feelings.” These ten steps of bad therapy are:
Teach kids to pay close attention to their feelings
Induce rumination
Make “happiness” a goal but reward emotional suffering
Affirm and accommodate kids’ worries
Monitor, monitor, monitor
Dispense diagnoses liberally
Drug ‘em
Encourage kids to share their “trauma”
Encourage young adults to break contact with “toxic” family
Create treatment dependency
As we wade into chapter 4, we get into a discussion about “social-emotional meddling.” Oh, the temperature gauge! This time the meddlers are “taking every kid’s emotional temperature.” Indirectly, yet in a bolstering manner, the warrant for my concerns for the demise in the reading and math scores of America’s fourth and eighth graders came in the fourth paragraph on page 83 in which Shrier points out that “a decent number of kids actually show up hoping to learn some geometry and not burn their limited instructional time on conversations about their mental health with the math teacher.” The first half of this sentence is encouraging, the second half not so much.
This brings to mind the many quotes out there regarding the raising of the bar for ourselves and our children. Recognized leader, Orrin Woodward, states that “average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.” Is this quote and others, like that from Candace Cameron who states that “I’m always inspired by people who raise the bar, whether in their field of work, parenthood, or giving back” integrated into the actual raising of children today? Shrier correctly points this out in the section titled “Kids from Troubled Backgrounds Have the Most to Lose from Accommodation,” located in chapter 5, “The Schools Are Filled with Shadows.” She begins the section by introducing the reader to psychologist and writer Rob Henderson who “spent much of his childhood in foster care.” It is always unfortunate and sad for any individual to endure hardships, but someone like Dr. Henderson gives knowledgeable and insightful information that needs to be heard - information that provides the stimulus or momentum to ensure that children are well served. Remember, we want (or should want) to see not only our children but those from other families to succeed in life.
Shrier discusses in chapter 6, “Trauma Kings,” the following issues: that hardships have been around forever, that “most American generations endured national hardships,” however, even more importantly, “we [have] surrendered our faith in the native human ability to surmount hardship - and told our kids that they could not possibly recover, let along emerge stronger.” If you need to, read that last point again!
What about those mental health surveys given to students - are they helpful or not? Read more about the negative impact these surveys provide in chapter 7, “Hunting, Fishing, Mining: Mental Health Survey Mischief.” I love the section in this chapter, titled “Hell Is Thinking About Yourself.” If we would stop thinking about ourselves in such an excessive way, instead focus on others, we might be able to lessen the anxiety we put ourselves through. Of course, my take on this (not Shrier’s) is that it mirrors the Golden Rule, which is sadly lacking today.
Chapter 8, “Full of Empathy and Mean as Hell,” is a different take on empathy from what Dr. Brene Brown states in her book, Dare to Lead. In Brown’s book (which, overall, has a good message), she mentions five components or elements that together “create empathy.”2 One of these components is “to see the world as others see it, or perspective taking.” However, in so doing, Shrier points out that “empathy invariably involves a choice of whose feelings to coronate and whose to disregard. I found Shrier’s point to be well taken as empathy cannot and must not be blanketed over all things. In fact, Shrier quotes Yale professor of psychology Paul Bloom regarding empathizing with everyone - “Indeed, you cannot empathize with more than one or two people at a time.”
Are parents to be stern or gentle? A good question that Shrier provides insight to in chapter 9, “The Road Paved by Gentle Parents.” As with all the chapters in the book, there is much truth stated and many high-fives I wish I could have given her. For instance, on page 167, she states regarding the belief that “gentler parenting could only produce thriving children,” that it “turns out, they grow best in dirt.” Or another high-five moment when she speaks of the phrase “shake it off”, stating that it “did a helluva job playing triage nurse to kids’ minor heartaches and injuries, proving to kids that the hurt or fear or possibility of failure need not overwhelm them.” This is such an important point - “that the hurt or fear or possibility of failure need not overwhelm them.” We learn from failures. Thus, children do not have to be devastated by such. Adam Grant, in his book Hidden Potential, says this about failure - those whom “berate themselves for making mistakes, make it harder to learn from them.” Instead of realizing this, parents resort to those “experts [who] have completely ignored good evidence about what actually works with kids.”
It’s a sad title for chapter 10, “Spare the Rod, Drug the Child.” Shrier quizzed Notre Dame psychology professor Scott Monroe regarding the use of antidepressants by children. His reply? “My personal opinion is, I would be very hesitant to do that.” Read that again. Or perhaps read his additional remark to Shrier when asked why: “Because they’re powerful drugs, and the brain systems haven’t solidified in adolescence.” Go down to the fourth paragraph on page 200 in which another psychology professor Shrier interviewed (this one from Vanderbilt University) states that antianxiety drugs are “about as effective as alcohol and only slightly more addictive.” My question, which I asked many times throughout the book, is what are we doing to our children or grandchildren? If one is skeptical, read the section in this chapter called “Melanie: The Doctor Put Our Eleven-Year-Old on Antidepressants (He Was Out of Ideas).”
The remaining chapters fall in Part III - Maybe There’s Nothing Wrong with Our Kids. The title of chapter 11 is to the point - “This Will Be Our Final Session.” In this chapter, Shrier continues to drive the message home about our children - “They Aren’t Weak - Unless We Make Them That Way.” “Stop telling them they’re weak.”
There is a great section in this chapter, “The Winners of the Great Depression.” Just another area of the book that needs to be read. Shrier asks the question “which kids fared best in the Great Depression?” The answer (not surprisingly) was a group of “middle-class kids who took jobs, wore hand-me-downs, took in piecework or picked up a paper route, saved their money, did extra chores.” Who had the greater work ethic? Those who “had to sacrifice during this period.” She went on to say that these kids ended up with “an accelerated entry into the adult world.”
“And yet my generation’s style of parenting has been characterized by the opposite: accommodation.”
Abigail Shrier
The title of Chapter 12, “Spoons Out” - two words - says it all. The chapter speaks of the out-of-control accommodations given to many kids today, keeping them inside without anyone. They don’t know what they are missing. How could they? But remember this point that Shrier makes in this chapter as well as throughout the book “The evidence that social media harms kids’ sense of well-being is all but incontrovertible.” Earlier generations survived without all the tech gadgets out today.
So let’s do the following:
BUY this book and embrace (hopefully) what Shrier and those she interviewed are saying. Consider Shrier’s many suggestions including this one: “Until you’ve subtracted environmental contaminants that may be hampering your kids - expert tech, monitoring, meddling, medicinal, or otherwise - you may not know how happy she is or could be.”
Sources:
1 “Medical Iatrogenesis.” The Aspiring Medics. https://www.theaspiringmedics.co.uk/post/current-affairs-medical-iatrogenesis. Date accessed: 22 April 2024.
2 Brown, Dr. Brene. Dare to Lead. Penguin Random House, 2018, p. 143.