We’re Abusing Our Kids and Telling Ourselves It’s for Their Benefit
Pushy Parents
A friend works as a mental health counselor at a primary school. She recently asked a group of 10 and 11 year-old girls to write anonymous notes to their parents. She encouraged them to say things they wished their parents knew.
Here is what some of them wrote:
I feel anxious all the time
Please stop shouting at me
I can never please you
I wish you’d listen
Afterwards, my friend shared these messages at a session with the girls’ parents.
“They must have been mortified hearing what their kids wrote,” I said.
“Not at all,” my friend replied. “They tell themselves they’re pushing their kids for their own good. It’s a competitive world. In reality, it’s emotional abuse.”
Rise in Suicide and Self-Harm
A new report says that in England and Wales, suicide among young women — including girls as young as 10 — is increasing at the fastest rate ever recorded.
Among UK teenagers, cases of anxiety, depression and self-harm are rising by worrying degrees. Anxiety, it turns out, has…
