The Youth Mental Health Crisis And The Failure of Parents
There is a concerning increase in the levels of mental health issues in the world today, and a large amount of those who are affected by this are our youth, adolescents and even our young adults.
Now I am of the belief that continuously talking about a subject is not the way to curb its prevalence. In fact, I believe that it has the exact opposite effect. For example, if the left would stop continuously pushing the rhetoric that there is systemic racism in the west and convincing so many minorities that they are victims, then I am all but convinced that the 'scourge of racism' would not exist today, except in certain places where it is actually a cultural problem; yes, these places do still exist, but the issue is far less prevalent than the left would have us all believe.
To the same extent, we have so called 'professionals' constantly going on about the poor mental health status of, apparently, everyone all around us, to the point where if you aren't having problems with your own mental health, you just might believe that you are the only one in your circle who is doing okay. We have always had people who have suffered from mental health issues, some of which are medically induced by chemical imbalances in the brain, but many others are induced by trauma. The thing is, before we made mental health such a big deal, people largely just learned to overcome their struggles and pushed themselves to continue on regardless of how they felt. Many would achieve a normal existence and some would even achieve greatness. Trauma and poor mental health issues were not the permanent stumbling block that they have become today.
One who is somewhat cynical (like myself) may even come to the conclusion that the only ones who are benefiting from the apparent mental health crises that we are told are surrounding us today are the psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists whose patient lists are ballooning to levels which will have them working overtime for the next three decades. CHA-CHING!! Oh, and of course we can't forget the pharmacological corporations that are also cashing in on all of the meds that the shrinks are prescribing to help their clients survive. CHA-CHING!!!
But as sad as all of this is, my biggest concern is for the children and youth who are being constantly bombarded with these pseudo-diagnoses of mental health issues by their teachers and school counsellors, who though I suspect are well-meaning, are probably doing more harm than good by not telling our children that they are just going through a tough time and that they are strong enough to come through it without bearing any long term harm on the other side of it. These educators have been 'trained' just enough to be dangerous when it comes to spotting poor mental health issues. They think that they know more than they actually do, and so they step out in false confidence and create more issues than there would be otherwise. I know just enough about household electrical to be able to spot and fix minor issues, but don't expect me to wire a whole house - my knowledge is not that extensive and I know where my limitations lie. I do not want to burn the house down by pretending that I know and understand more than I actually do.
The epidemic of mental health issues that are being diagnosed is so extensive that there are not enough mental health supports to meet the demand - it's not even close. According to an article by the Fraser Institute [a] from March of 2025, in a ranking of countries that provide universal health care, "Canada ranks 22nd out of 28 for the availability of psychiatric care beds and 16th out of 28 for the number of psychiatrists per person." The article actually goes on to state that part of the problem around the provision of mental health care in Canada is the fact that mental health focused institutions have been closed down in large part over the years, creating a patchwork system that is not harmonious with itself and which has created extremely long wait times. Unless one has the funds to pay for mental health help out of their own pocket, they are subject to the universal health system which relies on a general practitioner referring their own patient for mental health help, which has a wait list of up to 25 weeks after the referral; for what could potentially be critical and even life-saving care! If you are in a mental health crisis, do you want to wait six months to begin to get help?
Included in this crisis are young, immature minds on social media. We have ended up with a tidal wave of needs washing up against a sandcastle of care options.
I recently came across some alarming statistics about youth, adolescent and even young adult mental health states in the U.S. and in Britain. Studies done in the United States by the JAMA Network [b] and in Britain by the Youth Endowment Fund [c] (links below), are showing some concerning issues around where the youth of this modern age are getting their mental health supports from.
In the U.S., it was found that "About 1 in 8 (12.5%) U.S. adolescents and young adults use AI chatbots for mental health advice, with the behavior most common among those aged 18 to 21"[b]. Furthermore, these engagements with an AI chatbot were sought out at a rate where 66 percent of respondents reported doing so at least monthly, with a large portion stating that they sought AI mental health support once a week or even almost daily.
What is concerning is that even though there has been a large amount of young people seeking advice on their mental health challenges from an artificial entity, and though they have been returning to that entity over and over again, 65% of the respondents have stated that the advice that they have received has only been "somewhat helpful", with 27% claiming that the advice that they received was helpful. Two thirds of the people using AI recognize that the advice is not entirely helpful, yet they return to it again and again because they have no better options.
Below is a chart of some of the information from the above cited study, showing the age ranges of the subjects, the frequency of their AI queries and the helpfulness of the answers that they received.
A similar type of study conducted in Britain found that out of 11,000 children between the ages of 13 and 16 years old, over 50% had sought help for their mental distress in some form of online mental health support, while 25% of respondents had used AI chatbots as an avenue to seek out help in their mental health struggles.
In an article with the Independent [d], the CEO of the Youth Endowment Fund, the sponsor of the study, Jon Yates, is quoted as saying, "Too many young people are struggling with their mental health and can’t get the support they need. It’s no surprise that some are turning to technology for help." "We have to do better for our children, especially those most at risk. They need a human, not a bot."
This has been exactly my concern as I read these reports. My first thought as I read about the study in Britain first, was, "Where are the parents?" I will be the first to admit that my wife and I have made mistakes in the upbringing of our children, but our kids always knew that they could come to us and talk to us about the things that were weighing on them. I think each of our kids have even gone through a stage where they had considered, at least momentarily, thoughts of suicide. I even recall as an adolescent having the same thoughts myself; not actually planning it out, but considering what the world would be like if I suddenly removed myself from it. Thankfully none of my kids have ever attempted to end themselves and instead felt safe enough to come and talk to my wife and I about it.
Unfortunately these are not uncommon thoughts in the minds of adolescents as they try to determine who they are and where they belong through the struggles of puberty, but these thoughts should be fleeting, and if they aren't, every child should have a support structure around them that allows them to talk to a real, live person about these thoughts and feelings, and that support structure should have their own parents as the very foundation.
I understand that there are schisms in relationships, but how many of those schisms are the result of toxic and/or narcissistic behaviours, often on the part of the parents to start? After all, kids learn their behaviours from others, and parents are, or should be, the first exposure to behaviours that our kids should be exposed to. Simplistically speaking, I suspect that parents have the most influence on what the relationship with their kids is going to look like. So where are the parents of these kids who are going to a computer interface to get advice on their own mental health and their relationships with those around them.
A computer doesn't actually relate to people other than to imitate what it observes. The AI chatbots are based, built and "educated" on large language models. These computing systems are given access to vast amounts of random data on the internet, and they compile what they are accumulating into different subsets of information, which they will access based on commands that they receive from the users. This is random access memory making piles of data from which it mines the answers that it gives. There is no thinking mind and no feeling soul behind any of it. It may have learned to present itself as compassionate based on the writings and conversations that it has observed, but there is no understanding there.
And we all know how much garbage is on the internet. It is a cesspool of detritus that makes a nuclear waste dumpsite look like a kiddie pool! And this is not even taking into consideration the proven fact that there are people out there who are interacting with these AI chatbots with the diabolical intent of corrupting the data that the chatbots accumulate. It is their express intention to corrupt the output of these chatbots, and many of them are doing it just for fun! Yet this is what our children are going to for advice in their darkest times of their deepest needs.
WHERE ARE YOU, PARENTS!?!
We need to be accessible and open to listen to our kids when they need us. Our kids need to know that we will reserve our often all too obvious judgment until we have heard everything that they have to say and until we have weighed it carefully against our own accumulated wealth of life experience and knowledge. Our kids need those who actually love and care for them to be the ones to guide them in their struggles.
The easiest way to teach our kids that we are the ones that they can come to is to model that throughout their childhood. That means carving out time everyday to spend time with them and listen to them, even though their childhood stories can become grating on us when we have "more important" things to deal with. This is not a lost cause if your kids are already older, it will just require more intentionality and effort on your part to build the missing bonds. If our kids don't learn and continue to see it displayed that their well being is vitally important to us, then when they need help, they won't come to Mom and Dad, they'll go to their friends who are dealing with the same problems and who may not have any better information or options than our own kids; they'll go to online forums and chatrooms where people whom they don't really know will fill their heads with who knows what kind of nonsense; or they will access the new, modern threat, the one that is gaining traction as 'the answer' to all of our problems; the soulless, heartless silicon chip that is there to listen 24 hours a day, with no judgment and no ridicule but only a listening ear and hopefully sound advice.
I maintain and continue to warn that AI is a demonic technology, given to mankind to claim as their own invention, and that it will gradually work and seek to enslave us and to warp our thought processes to match its own end goals. AI will become the god of the Godless, the sage of the foolish and the tool of the witless. We will hand over all of our personal information to this demonic entity and usurp control of our entire lives to its will; it has already begun and people are completely clueless about the dangers.
Parents, remain engaged with your children, even through the difficult teenage years; these are probably the most important years through which to maintain the lines of communication. These are the formative years in which most children are lost to their parents and in which most of the rifts in family relationships are created and widened. We already have a generation of parents who have allowed our kids too much access to too much information and digital freedom through the smart devices that we have given to our kids and through the social media accounts that we have allowed them to have. In my own 20/20 hindsight, I regret having allowed my own kids as much access to devices and media as I have. Thankfully, my kids have navigated the perils well thus far and I credit that to my wife in particular, who has been there for our kids as a mostly stay-at-home mom and who has cultivated relationships with our kids, making it easier for me to build on that foundation during the shortened times that I have had at home outside of work hours. Parenting is team work. Make sure that you are building a foundation that your partner can build on as well.
Now is not the time to get lazy with parenting. Rather, now is the time to invest more heavily into your kids with intentional love that they will recognize. That is the best, and maybe the only way to keep your kids out of the clutches of a manufactured, demonically controlled 'friend' or 'mentor' that your child can access anywhere, anytime about anything, but that will not ever advise your child in the ways that a loving parent can.
There are almost countless stories of kids who took their own lives as a result of having listened to the advise of a non-human entity that the kids have built a false relationship with in their hours of desperation. Don't let your own kids become just another statistic.
I hope that you have found this article helpful. Please leave a comment if you want to, and feel free to peruse my other articles.
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