50 pages • 1 hour read
Abigail ShrierBad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 11-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “Maybe There’s Nothing Wrong with Our Kids”
Part 3, Chapter 11 Summary: “This Will Be Our Final Session”
Mental health experts have insisted upon a false idea of perfectionism in the parent-child relationship, yet relationships are valuable for their own sake and not because they conform to a pattern. Spontaneous and unregulated interactions are healthy and shouldn’t be avoided. Most importantly, parents need to give their children space, allowing them independence, responsibility, and the risk of failure. Shrier recommends reducing what parents do for their children—including supplying technological equipment and arranging activities—by one-third. Children benefit from small failures and injuries. Parents should not feed worries in their children and should not praise them for mundane accomplishments. If a child has a problem, a parent should not immediately refer that child to a mental health expert.
Recounting her own experiences, Shrier notes that she stopped monitoring her children’s homework. When her nine-year-old daughter asked to walk to and from the bus stop by herself, she allowed it. Although it frightened Shrier, she knew that there is a “window of independence” when children want to take a risk on their own (218). If not granted, children stop asking for it. She had her sons do errands and noticed that they began to take note of their surroundings. Highly recommending a technology-free sleep-away camp, Shrier emphasizes the importance of parents simply getting out of their children’s way.
Japan and Israel are examples of two countries that foster independence in children. In one case, a three-year-old Japanese boy was sent on an errand by himself. Usually, this happens at five years old in a tradition known as a first errand, which is a task meant to teach young children independence. There are low rates of anxiety and depression in Japan, and perhaps that is tied to its commitment to giving children independence. In Israel, children attend parent-teacher conferences, and students put on school plays themselves. Allowed to err and fail, these children learn from mistakes.
Children who do not believe they can do anything for themselves tend to be unhappy and fearful. Risky and independent play contribute to long-term psychological resilience, while monitored play does not and is not play at all. In contrast to adolescents in Japan and Israel, American students are more likely to exhibit anxiety in the performance of normal activities. They are not used to having independence or making important decisions. Activities and friends are more likely chosen by parents. Social media is especially harmful because its risks are too high. It is helpful to cope with humiliation in front of a few friends but traumatizing to have that humiliation shared with millions. Ideally, parents would acclimate children to the adult world gradually, assigning chores, jobs, and granting independence. Instead, they attempt to change the adult world to accommodate the child.
During the Great Depression, middle-class children had to take jobs subsequently developed a strong work ethic and did well. Arguing that moderate deprivation, challenge, independence, and risk are good for children, Shrier chastises her generation for doing the opposite and attempting to create a pain-free environment for children. She complains about the response of a parent to a child screaming on an airplane. The parent, in speaking to the child, did not mention the impact of the child’s behavior on others. Since children do not know their connection to others, it is imperative that parents tell them. The relationships of adolescents and children tend to be unstable, as class composition changes each year and they are shuffled from one activity to another. Unfortunately, societies with high individualism and relational mobility, or “lots of turnover in the characters that inhabit your life,” have higher rates of depression (231).
Recollecting her father-in-law’s practice of allowing his grandchildren to drive a car in a remote area at the age of eleven or twelve, Shrier did not object. It is important to give children a tie to their ancestors and value what grandparents offer. Parents need to instruct children to be there for others, find humor in the ridiculous, and suppress irritation at minor inconveniences in life. To support her advice, she cites the “world’s longest-running and most comprehensive psychological review of adult well-being, the Harvard Grant Study” (235). The five traits most associated with higher life satisfaction, per that study, are altruism, humor, sublimating or finding alternatives to anger, anticipation of or a realistic attitude about challenges, and suppression.
Part 3, Chapter 12 Summary: “Spoons Out”
The typical teenager raised by Generation X parents has not experienced a private child’s world. Indeed, this typical person has spent one hour less with friends than the previous generation, heard less in-person laughter, and had fewer opportunities to make mistakes. Every day is packed with activities, and there is not enough time to sleep. Grandparents are likely to live far away. The teen has been exposed to lots of advertisements for suicide hotlines and might have a psychological diagnosis. If diagnosed with a disorder, this person likely feels damaged and might be on medication with side effects, such as weight gain. Reliant on a smartphone that caters to desires, this person hates waiting and is aware that friends have may have saved all informal conversations.
In contrast to this dystopian reality, the purpose of childhood is to allow children to take risks and practice skills needed in adult life while living with their parents. A childhood is happy if children experience the pains of adulthood in small doses and build stamina for future loss. If parents tell children to shake it off, those children detect their parents’ faith in them. Parents have the ability to transmit calm instead of worry and fear. Children are frightened when parents exhibit fear. Asserting rules consistent with their values and insisting on compliance with those rules, parents can set children up for success.
If mental health experts wanted to improve the psychological health of children, they would insist on the removal of smartphones during school, yet they do not. iPads and iPhones rob children of the joy in the world around them. Parents need to proceed by subtraction. They must remove some technological devices and refrain from taking their child to a therapist unless absolutely necessary. She cites an old joke in which a man complains to his physician that he gets a sharp pain in his eye when he drinks coffee, and the doctor tells him to remove the spoon. Similarly, Shrier instructs parents to remove their proverbial spoons, such as technology, monitoring, constant doubt, medications, and evaluations.
She says that therapists too often provide diagnoses without concern for the impact on the child’s conception of self. Physicians prescribe medications without giving much thought to the side effects or dangers. Children have been demeaned in this cycle, and parents need to take back control from these “interlopers.” Above all, they should avoid asking about current feelings, as that turns teenagers into toddlers. Preventative mental health is not only unnecessary but does damage, such as preventing maturation, creating dependency, and trapping youth in an endless loop of thinking about feelings.
Parents should make children aware that they are part of something larger than themselves and, in so doing, inculcate a desire for those children to someday have children of their own. Because parents have the deepest investment in the future and therefore need things to turn out well, they are the “keystone in any civilization” (249). They know more about their children than any mental health expert, most of whom, per Shrier, should be “fired on the spot” (250).
Part 3 Analysis
Offering advice to parents, Shrier instructs them to do much less. To raise independent, responsible, and happy adults, parents need to let children experiment, take risks, and fail at times. They must give children a sense of context, explaining that they are part of a larger community and have obligations to that community. Additionally, they should transmit calm feelings and provide children with a sense of security. Such advice is not controversial, as these goals are shared by most parents.
Controversy ensues over the definition of reasonable risks. Providing an example of a three-year-old sent on an errand by himself in Japan, Shrier chastises American parents for over protection. However, the risks in the US are considerably higher than in Japan given crime rates and the level of violence in society. She also diminishes the stigmatization of mental health services in Japan, which hinders people from reporting emotional issues, and dismisses the impact of parenting practices in different cultures. Shrier furthermore does not acknowledge the risks that children and adolescents face in the US. Interestingly, she never mentions school shootings when listing the causes of stress in children and adolescents. Although the statistical chances of a shooting at any given school is low, children are exposed to such stories repeatedly and made to practice active-shooter drills. In such a culture, it is inevitable that parents are going to disagree on what constitutes a reasonable risk, and some might choose safety over independence at a young age. While phones in school are not good for learning, as Shrier notes, one of the rationales for their allowance is the possibility of an emergency, such as a shooting.
Shrier recommends losing the proverbial spoons, or technology, monitoring, doubt, medication, and evaluations. Social media is bad for the psychological health of adolescents. Shrier thus highlights an important topic, but only suggests less access to social media. Other reforms, such as restructured forums and rules, are important to consider. The call for less monitoring speaks to a significant need in a world where children are over-scheduled. However, her claim that many parents are providing their children with a pain-free life overlooks the reality of life for all but the most economically privileged. In other socio-economic classes, adolescents often assume responsibility for household chores and are frequently employed outside the home. Data in 2024 showed that members of Generation Z are reversing a “decades-long decline that began in the early 2000s” via their participation in the work force as teenagers; in May 2024, 38 percent of 16-to-19-year-olds had a job or were looking for one (Nawaz, Amna. “After a Decades-Long Decline in Teen Employment, Gen Z Is Reversing the Trend.” PBS News, 7 June 2024). Even in the upper classes, Shrier does not support her claim with quantitative data.
In seeking the removal of the other spoons, or medication and evaluations, Shrier is emphasizing her Critique of Modern Psychotherapeutic Methods. Again, there is no advice about who needs these treatments and who does not. In fact, she makes a sweeping claim that most mental health professionals should be fired. She exposes the potential problems of mental health awareness programs and treatments but does not weigh those potentially negative effects against the benefits.
