Our Parent Advisory Committee (PAC) is excited to offer the opportunity to join other Raven Stream parents, guardians and staff to discuss the book Anxious Generation. As you may be aware, adolescents nationwide are in a mental health crisis. Major depressive episodes among American teens have more than doubled since 2010. Educational performance among teens across over 30 nations has also been in decline over the last decade. New research in the book "The Anxious Generation", suggests that the only available explanation for why this happened in many countries at the same time is that the ancient “play-based childhood” was replaced by the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. Specifically, children and adolescents began to spend much more time on smartphones, social media, video games, and much less time doing healthy activities such as face-to-face interactions with friends and family, sleep, exercise, and reading books.
In the book, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt makes very specific recommendations to help end the youth mental health crisis and improve academic performance and we feel compelled to share these with you as well. It will take collective action from parents, schools, and the community to help support our children as they move through an incredibly sensitive and important phase in their development.