Teen Mental Health Warning Signs Every Parent Should Know
A few years ago, a friend called me in tears. Her 16-year-old son had been struggling for months — pulling away from friends, sleeping most of the day, quitting the soccer team he’d played on since he was eight. She’d chalked it up to “teenage laziness.” By the time she realized something more serious was happening, he’d been in crisis for almost a year. “I just didn’t know what I was looking at,” she told me. “I kept thinking he’d snap out of it.” The Numbers Are Hard to Ignore Nearly 1 in 3 teenagers will experience an anxiety disorder during their teen years. Roughly 1 in 5 will experience a major depressive episode before adulthood. Suicide is currently the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10–34, according to the CDC. These aren’t fringe statistics. They’re happening in ordinary homes, to kids who seem fine on the surface — kids who go to school, have friends, and smile at the dinner table. The challenge for parents is that mental health st...