Teenage Mental Health – An Analysis By An Experienced Headmaster

I have come that you may have life, and have it in all its fullness.”  

John 10:10

Dear Students, Parents and Carers

Recently I had the honour of providing the Keynote Address, indicated by the title of this week’s Shore Weekly Record, at a national conference attended by nearly 300 Heads and Chairs of schools. The address is a synthesis of some of the relevant literature and my observations over some decades. It would be very odd to offer these thoughts on the national stage but not share them with Shore parents and community. I have, therefore, crystallised a long address into something more pithy in the hope that these reflections might be of value to some (that will be for you to decide!). I want to stress that these are generalisations, not targeted at Shore or based on what I have observed here in just one year, but rather are a commentary on both my experience in many schools and on key voices across the Western world. A further disclaimer – I am not a psychologist, but a keen observer. 

To begin then with some strong assertions. This present Age is arguably the most challenging time in history to be a teenager, and for teachers, and parents, to shepherd young people through these turbulent years into sustainable, stable adulthood. There is an international epidemic amongst youth across the Western World of mental health disorders, and a visible loss of hope as society moves away from metanarratives, a credible telos or any redemptive story. Adolescents are increasingly trapped in an on-line, social media world which is often toxic, and in which a trillion-dollar international porn industry targets them, distorting reality and impeding relationships.

The leading Australian demographer and social commentator, McCrindle, as long ago as 2002 indicated that half of teens and 20-somethings in Australia said they are living with a long-term mental health condition such as depression or anxiety. The situation would appear to have considerably worsened in the last two decades.  Professor Ian Hickey, Psychiatrist and Co-Director of the Sydney University Brain and Mind Centre, says that the rise in anti-depressant medication for young people, particularly between 12 and 15 years of age, reflects a global trend in increasing levels of adolescent anxiety. Professor Patrick McGorry says this represents a 50% increase in mental illness in young people since 2007, such that mental health is now Australia’s main public health issue. Leading experts claim it is not a coincidence that 2007 was also the year when young people could first have a personal device with far-reaching access to the world wide web and social media in their pockets.

All of this leads to the basic and emphatic question: Why? I don’t claim any unique insights or comprehensive understanding, but the following seems apparent:

• Firstly, a change in parenting styles away from authoritative direction can leave teenagers rudderless, lacking direction and particularly lacking leadership. A deficit in moral guidance by some parents (who are confused themselves in the area of ethics) can lead to the absence of a values bedrock in young people, apart from a loose adherence to the sometimes vague principles of individual rights, anti-discrimination and inclusivity; worthy aims which sometimes lack clarity, definition or nuance.  
• Secondly, and critically, the advent of social media would appear to be a major cause in the decline of mental health of young people. Twenge (in a major American commentary) ascribes the mental health crisis mostly to the rapid advent of smartphones and the intrusion of social media into the lives of teenagers. Social media can be a cauldron of online bullying. Very few teenagers are not party at some time to these forms of behaviour on social media, whether as victims, perpetrators, or online observers. To many young people, their sense of self, their self-esteem, floats on how many ‘likes’ their postings receive. In fact, the social media world promotes the dominance of the ephemeral and superficial, a concern with the banal which is neither developmental nor satisfying. Indeed, it can control the consciousness of young people. Recent work by American J K (Jamie) Smith has indicated the way in which behaviour habituates people into certain modes of thinking and acting, such that we all become what we desire. Canadian Charles Taylor has expounded this concept in what he terms ‘social imaginary’. Certainly, the work of both would indicate those things to which teenagers give themselves will effectively determine their hearts and behaviour. 
• Thirdly, the eclipse of much of the social “glue”, the absence or decline of which has dissolved levels of community adhesion seems part of the scenario. Hugh Mackay, the well-known Australian social analyst and commentator, in his book The Good Life, sees rampant individualism in our current society as leading to an epidemic of loneliness and a fragmentation of community. Twenge and Campbell, in their seminal work The Narcissism Epidemic. Living in the Age of Entitlement, see individualism and its very deleterious mode, narcissism, as playing into this loneliness and rootlessness. Indeed, they diagnose a litany of hyper-individualism, narcissism, hedonism, consumerism, superficiality and a fixation with celebrity culture, as contributing to a lack of emotional strength and resilience amongst young people. This is a formidable list of dysfunction. 

Lukianoff and Haidt, in an important recent book, The Coddling of the American Mind, identify major causative factors as teenagers spending increasing amounts of time by themselves on screens, combined with “helicopter parenting” and increasing fears for children’s safety which infantilise young people and fail to equip them with the necessary inner resources to cope with engaging with the world. Virtual groups do not satisfy the belonging needs of young people

• Fourthly, recent social trends have seen the increasing sexualisation of young people, often exploited by those who seek to market products. Carl Trueman, in The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism and the Road to Sexual Revolution, argues that the dominant motif of modern Western culture is sexuality and sexual identity. Trueman claims that today’s self is constructed primarily psychologically. The purpose, therefore, of life is to gain happiness in terms of personal psychology. Sex and sexuality, he discerns, stand at the centre of this. Everything, he says, is now about sex and gender. Promiscuity is widespread without young people being prepared or ready for the emotional entanglements and other associated repercussions.
• Fifthly, some young people self-medicate, for instance with alcohol or marijuana, in order to seek an emotional high and gain relief from the pain of ordinary living. Research indicates that the architecture of the teenage brain, which is still under development, is adversely affected by the extensive use of such substances.
• Lastly, at least in this analysis, there appears to be a collapse of hope or purpose amongst teenagers. The loss of the Christian narrative, or indeed any overarching metanarrative which provides structure and an interpretative grid, has left young people all at sea. To a teenager, the following concerns predominate:
  • The existential threat of climate change, which runs the risk of extinguishing all of human life and which the adult world is not taking seriously.
  • The geo-political situation is an unbroken story of war, revolution, famine, pandemic, oppression and discrimination. The current concern is naturally with Ukraine, with appalling images on screens and on television in our lounge rooms every night. If there was availability of cameras to record, we could see the ongoing crisis in Sudan and South Sudan, Syria, the civil war that has raged in Yemen, the persecution of the Muslim minorities in Myanmar, open warfare in the Congo and a host of other flash points. The most able teenagers tend to be very aware of these issues. Closer to home are the current tensions with China, wherein during the last week the British Minister for Defence has predicted there may be war by 2030. This saps hope and makes teenagers, who tend to be idealistic, angry. 
  • We live on the brink of nuclear annihilation, and the posturing on the world stage of rogue nuclear powers such as North Korea, and emergent nuclear powers such as Iran.

After I have probably depressed readers with this analysis, the following should be said:  my sense of Shore students is that they are much less buffeted than teenagers I have seen elsewhere by these issues. This is partly because, in my view, parenting is far more comprehensively excellent here than in some communities. It is also because the School itself offers a sense of belonging, meaningful activity, a sense of fellowship and purpose and a vast range of activities which give young men outstanding outlets and development. However, this is not an argument for being complacent. Parents and School staff have the joint redemptive mission with young people to reclaim them from the world of potential social media degradation and a downward vortex into self-reinforcing negativity; rather, we want to cultivate the necessary optimism and hope required for solid grounding of personality, to be transformative agents. It is, of course, the School’s contention that this hope is best found in following Jesus in order to gain the capstone of building a life of significance, value and meaning. Indeed, Jesus said “I have come that you may have life, and have it in all its fullness” (John 10:10). All our students benefit, even unconsciously, from this pervasive ethos of Shore. 

Dr John Collier
Headmaster