Stop Pathologizing Childhood, Start Teaching Strength
Fire-Carrier Reading List Links and Excerpts
Hello Bar-setters!
Last time, I shared research revealing a hard truth about our brains: we find what we’re looking for—even when it’s barely there or not there at all.
Our perceptual systems don’t just observe reality.
They constantly shift the bar, redefining what counts as a “problem.”
Today, I want to highlight two powerful articles that show how this glitch in human perception is warping our approach to youth mental health—and how, in trying to fix the problem, we may actually be making it worse.
This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most. —Nassim Taleb, Antifragile
Taleb’s quote is especially apparent in the way we approach kids’ mental health.
We’ve built a culture that treats every feeling, every stumble, every normal bump in the road as a diagnosis to be managed. Parents, hospitals, and the school system—often with the best intentions—are piling on surveys, screenings, and lessons that rarely help and often harm.
Over the past weeks, I’ve read two powerful pieces on this subject. Together, they outline what we’re getting wrong—and how we could get back to helping kids grow strong instead of fragile.
Stop Asking Kids If They’re Depressed — Abigail Shrier
When we repeatedly ask children if they’re unwell, many will start to believe that they are. We often underestimate the power of suggestion and the social contagion effect. As the tag line for this article states:
Children are wildly suggestible. Ask repeatedly if she is mentally ill—and she might just decide that she is.
This article is a teaser to Shrier’s amazing book, Bad Therapy. The article focuses on how routine screenings and the therapeutic framing of normal adolescent emotions are fueling a crisis of over-diagnosis and dependency. Let’s hover a little longer on that phrase: normal adolescent emotions.
Many of the things we are pathologizing are normal human emotions—sadness, frustration, anger, anxious feelings, etc. Every human feels these emotions and they are even more common in those confusing adolescent years. Yet, we’re convincing young people that feeling them at all is problematic—indicative of a deeper pathology.
This tendency has produced a generation that often attaches their identity and even a mild sense of status to their pathology. Freya India explains how social media exacerbates this phenomenon in another great post.
Shrier argues for fixing the environment—strong family boundaries, reduced phone use, real-world responsibilities—before reflexively labeling kids.
Mental health lessons in schools don’t work — Dr. Lucy Foulkes
According to Dr. Foulkes, Academic Psychologist at the University of Oxford, universal “mental health lessons” and mindfulness sessions don’t improve outcomes—and can make things worse.
The article lays it bare: these interventions heighten symptom focus and anxiety, while the students who actually need targeted help often don’t get it. Instead of mass group therapy, schools should focus on their core mission: strong instruction, stable routines, and connecting struggling kids with individualized support.
But I appreciate that Dr. Foulkes provides nuance rather than being entirely dismissive of the idea that schools could help:
Importantly, this doesn’t mean there should be no mental-health support in schools. School is a logical, equitable place to provide help, and there is evidence that one-to-one and small-group support in schools, given to those who need or want it, can work well, at least in the short term. But when it comes to all-class lessons, we should listen to the evidence, and to young people themselves. We came up with a good idea, we spent a lot of time and money testing it, and we have our answer. Given the evidence, we should now stop doing those lessons.
Key Takeaways
There are a few key takeaways from these articles which connect well with my last post:
Resist utopian fixes. Struggle is not pathology. Kids need to learn to carry weight, not avoid it.
Change the inputs. Sleep, family culture, screen limits, and meaningful academics matter more than another “wellness” survey.
Target help, don’t broadcast worry. Create quiet, effective pathways for kids who truly need support—without telling every kid in the room that they’re broken.
More specifically:
Stop pathologizing childhood.
Focus on building structure, stability, and resilience.
Delay access to smartphones until high school at the earliest and double-down on smartphone and social media boundaries.
Follow the ladder to adulthood:
These two pieces are another reminder that good intentions don’t always equal good outcomes—and that the path to stronger, more grounded kids often starts with less intervention, not more.
Other related posts:
Thank you for reading and sharing!
Shane