Links:
👉 How to physically restore hormonal balance naturally after burnout and depression.
👉 How to mentally regain independence, feel completely fulfilled, and energized.
Our kids between 13 and 18 years old are becoming more and more depressed. What’s the real cause, and what can we do as parents? Right now, 48.9% of kids (the blue line) say they can’t enjoy their lives. 44.2% (the green line) say their life has no meaning, and 49.5% of kids (the red line) feel like they can’t do anything right. Over the last few years, this depression has reached record levels, with almost 50% of kids—one in two—feeling this way.
Now that the numbers behind this growing problem are clear, how can we help as parents? I don’t want to suggest a superficial solution; that’s why I want to reveal the real cause, so we can help tackle all the symptoms of depression, from the root cause to each individual symptom, together as parents.
Depression literally means “pressing down” or feeling de-pressed or oppressed. It means that their feelings are being suppressed and flattened.
But how are our feelings being suppressed and flattened?
I want to highlight this from two perspectives: 1. suppression on an emotional level, and 2. suppression on a physical level.
- Emotional Suppression
How do you think kids are suppressing their emotions these days? In other words, how are our kids distracting themselves from emotions they don’t want to feel? What’s the biggest distraction that takes up most of their day? That’s right—their phone.
What exactly happens in the body when our kids distract themselves so often with their phones? When they get a like, a comment, or a notification on social media, dopamine is released—one of the “feel-good” hormones our bodies produce when we achieve a goal. Getting a like or reaching a streak also releases serotonin, which plays a role in feeling well and satisfied. Playing games releases endorphins, another happiness hormone, that reduces pain when you overcome certain digital challenges. Receiving a like also releases oxytocin, often called the “cuddle hormone,” which is released when you experience support or appreciation, contributing to a sense of connection.
You might say, “Isn’t it great that our kids are triggering all these feel-good hormones through their phones, especially during something like a lockdown?”
The problem is that this release of happiness hormones happens so quickly with each new like and beep that not only does their attention span get shorter and shorter, making them less willing to put in effort for the next “hit,” but also that their production of happiness hormones is literally getting flattened.
Through their phones, their sense of happiness is being numbed. They barely have the motivation to do anything other than wait for the next beep on their screen, and they’re no longer motivated to put in effort to achieve something or to really connect with someone in real life.
This numbing of happiness hormones or suppression of emotions, by replacing normal, intended triggers for happiness hormone production through real interactions or achieved goals with superficial, ever-faster digital stimuli, is the real reason around 50% of our kids can’t enjoy life, feel like life has no meaning, or think they can’t do anything right. Simply because they can no longer feel those things.
- Physical Suppression
Physical suppression also plays a role in the depression of our young people. Our bodies can’t keep up with the production of happiness hormones, which throws the whole process out of balance. The problem with hormones is that when one hormone—like the stress hormone cortisol, due to ongoing stress—gets out of balance, all our other hormones, including our happiness hormones, get even more out of balance, and vice versa.
The good news is, we as parents can help break this cycle.
The most important step, of course, is to set a good example ourselves. To be a parent instead of a pleasing friend.
- Limit your kids’ screen time and replace it with real contact and real activities. Our kids’ brains aren’t developed enough yet to make the connection between cause and effect by themselves. So it’s our job as parents to help them, even if it means dealing with their resistance, their boredom and difficult reactions when we literally help them kick this depression-creating addiction. In our family, for example, we have a rule that when the kids get home from school, all our phones go on the shared charger, and we connect by playing a board game, having a drink together at the table, and talking about our day, to make those happiness hormone triggers through real contact possible again.
- Help create a lifestyle where the body and hormones can naturally and healthily rebalance themselves. You can see how I myself, after dealing with depression and burnout, brought my physical body and hormones back into balance by watching the video linked here.
By tackling this depression epidemic from the root, both mentally and physically, we can give our kids back the deep, genuine happiness and real life they were born for.
It’s our moral obligation to help our children with this. It’s our moral obligation not to take the easy way out by letting them quietly sit behind a screen while we do our own thing. It’s our job to stand up as parents and make decisions for them where their brains aren’t yet developed enough, and to create a very clear and safe framework, even if it means dealing with their resistance and withdrawal reactions.
For example, I said, “If you don’t want to charge your phone for two hours after school and join in real contact, then I’ll take the phone away for a whole week.” That way, the fear of losing the phone for a week can help reverse the addiction.
Share this information with as many people as possible, or with your children’s school. I’m also willing to share how I naturally overcame my depression and burnout, mentally/emotionally, from the root to the symptoms. If you want to know the whole journey, click here and watch my four free videos on how to achieve complete, independent fulfillment.