YouSaid · the spoken record

Abigail Shrier

lines on the record: 83
first: 2024-05-21
most recent: 2024-05-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“People to want those things. We want people to want to be someone others can rely on in a permanent and serious way. No, he's been worked with me. He's been my partner in this job for 20 years. We want kids to feel like they can do that. And if they have raised a citizen who can do that, who does that, who is relied upon, gosh, that parent's done a great job. And those are the people. Those are in my book. Those are the only parenting experts, the ones who've actually done a good job of it.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A successful parent is someone who's raised a good child to adulthood, to good adulthood, someone who has raised a productive citizen who, by the way, has your values, passing on your values to your kid. If they are a strong person with your values, you've done a great job, which basically means do they value work? Are they reliable? Do they show up for others? Do they want to, and I think they should want to, form a family or society depends on it and we should inculcate that in kids. So all these things, whether they want to be there for others, be strong for others, and be reliable to others, build community, build family, build all those things that our society is depending on. No, that doesn't mean that every single person needs to get married. They may choose not to, and that's fine. But in the main, we want.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On the next generation, the mantle of all the responsibility for all the hard work in front of us as a society. We're counting on them. And we are. We're depending on them, whether we like it or not. So we really should tell them, hey, we got a lot of challenges. Let's get to work. Let's see what we can do, what you'll be able to do to help us going forward as a civilization, as a society, as a community.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Preventing them from becoming adults. It's worse, and here's why. Because a child who believes they're unwell and incapable will not feel up to supporting others, and supporting others being there for others is what adulthood is. It's saying that to the world I'm strong, you can depend on me to hold down a job. I'm strong, I can raise a family, I can be responsible for others in this society. That's what adulthood is. And what we're doing is we're treating kids like mental patients. And because they feel infirm, right? They don't feel up to adulthood. So they don't want to get their driver's license. Driving is scary. They don't want to take the risks that a robust teenager would take. They're afraid of them. And we need to go back. We need to undo this. And we need to show them they can. We have high expectations for them and they should. They should absolutely take.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sorry, that's what they sometimes call them. It's a mental health pass that allows you to take a walk around the school when you're feeling too much stress. And surprisingly, unsurprisingly, the kids abuse them, right? And as anyone would. But the mental health staffs will very often insist upon them. So you see that the teachers are intimidated for good reason good school counselors who think this is not what they signed on for are upset.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What kind of test a teacher can assign and to what child, they're effectively running the show. They've been put in charge of the schools, just like DEI, the DEI groups have been put in charge of corporations. They're effectively running and intimidating everyone. That's exactly what the Stike staffs are doing. The teachers who are there to teach are miserable. They do not like these Syke staffs telling them what they can assign and when or when a child needs an anytime pass because his mental health requires him to be able to walk around the school in the middle of class. Guess what? Counselors will tell you that these kids use those passes in the middle of their least favorite class.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are helpless. Here's why, because the psych staffs are like the DEI staffs of a corporation. That's what the psych staff now is at a school. They effectively run the schools. They pass judgment on everything. They control what a teacher can assign.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Crazy, isn't it? I have to tell you it shocked me. The response to the book has been overwhelmingly positive. And I was expecting tremendous backlash, but my inbox is filled with mental health professionals who say I have been seeing this for, you know, decades now. I was hoping someone would write this book. And look, that's what journalists exist for, right? Because nobody wants to criticize their colleagues or what their whole profession is doing. They don't generally want to do that, but a journalist can interview researchers and put the story together, and they're just judged based on their journalism. They're not then treated badly by their colleagues. So, yeah, the response to the book has been surprisingly an overwhelmingly positive, even by mental health professionals, I'm happy to say.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Literally anything you could be doing would be better for your mental health than sitting around and doing these exercises. Also, I have to tell my kids, mental health is not something you work on. It's something that happens while you're living a good life. So we don't talk about mental health. Okay, we talk about what good you could be doing in the world, what you want to get out there and try. You know? What friend do you want to make? What activity we should do? We don't sit around talking about mental health. That's what happens when you're leading a good life.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She was telling her kid that's not good for you, and I know what's best. And I think parents have every right to say that to their kids, and in some cases, given how much they've been undermined by the schools. Know with the gender, the transgender identification thing and the actively deceiving parents, the amount they've been undermined, I tell my kids, you know what? It makes normal people sad to sit around and think about their feelings. Don't pay attention in SEL. If you have to sit through it, be respectful, be polite, but I just want you to know I regard it as a lot of nonsense.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. So parents ask me that all the time. They always say, I don't want to undercut the school. The school is doing this project and I feel uncomfortable criticizing it to the school. I've interviewed a lot of teachers. You know what they've never said to me? I really don't want to undercut the messages at home. So, what I would say to parents is feel free to tell kids what you think about everything. including I had one mom tell me after she read my book she was gonna have her kids fill out the mental health survey and just fill it out at random don't read it Why? Because she doesn't want her kids sitting there hearing about the, you know, cutting, choking, all that it burning, all the methods you might choose to self-harm.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know what there's a party, and she didn't, my friend didn't want to go to it. She was in high school and she was afraid to go to the party. And her mother said to her, you need to go to that party and you need to wear red. And I just kind of thought that encapsulated a great message for kids. Like that is the message that we should be giving them. You're going to be fine. You don't need to cower. You're going to show up at that party and you're not going to be embarrassed. And at the end of the night, we'll have a laugh about how it all went. You're not going to sit at home, and we're not going to rush you off to a therapist because girls made you feel left out because they're going to keep doing it. They're going to do it at the workplace. You got to be able to deal with this.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, the actual big problems that they can't resolve on their own from the ones that they're like, hey, I can. I am fine. And we need to at least give them a shot at realizing that a certain amount of teasing is something they can overcome. I remember, I don't know if she'd be mad at me for sharing the story, but my best friend went through a hard time in high school, and I remember her mom, like her friend group, totally cut her. And I remember this, God, we all remember that I remember being cut by friends in high school. And it was so upsetting. You know, your best friend all of a sudden, she's mad at you and won't speak to you and it's devastating in high school. It's really, it hurts. And I remember that a bunch of girls had decided they were mad at her and her mother, who was an immigrant to this country, said,”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, all that stuff's really good, but we also need to have frank conversations. You know what? Sitting around and talking about your feelings all the time, don't worry about your feelings all the time. If you have a problem, if you're really sad, like when your son called you, that's different. His feelings had been hurt. He didn't know what to do. And you gave him great advice. But constantly checking on their feelings when they don't, when their feelings, there's no indication that there's been any problem, which is what we're doing now preventatively. That's a disease. And you know what? Telling a kid, you're fine, shake it off, or you'll live or you'll be fine. What that does triage.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think they need to, first of all, give their kids chores. They need to give their kids more independence and more chores and more things to do so that they feel that they matter in the world, that the family, they are benefiting the family we expect you to. And we're happy when you do, and we're proud of you. Look what you just did for the family, for someone besides you. And by the way, it makes kids feel good. But that also means we need to control our own anxiety. Let them do things that are a little bit risky, like sharp knives or cooking dinner or whatever it is get them involved get them going around the neighborhood get them doing things where they have to figure themselves out a little bit and navigate other people like strangers”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know like efficacy, feeling capable again in the world, not feeling like they need to run to an adult to handle every problem. So I think this is a very, very fixable and I certainly hope it doesn't take any money. It just requires subtraction. So I really hope we get on this.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I don't know. I hope some people, well, I hope that I think that, you know, it depends how many people are aware that overtreating kids with therapy and feelings focus and rumination is all very negative and that therapists have really bad incentives here when they're treating the well. It's not their fault. Most of them are well-meaning, but they set themselves up as the overseers of a child's life. And the very fact of their existence in the child's life introduces risk. So unless they're necessary, we got to get them out of kids' lives. We need to go back to focusing kids outward on things they're doing in the world, things that make you feel good actually like community.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Liability the trust people have in them. And I think that's in many ways a good thing. They don't deserve people's trust for all the things they didn't report or covered up or whatever. Now, that said, we're seeing a lot of conspiracy theory, and that's bad. And I think that when you can't trust the mainstream media to report on stories actively, accurately, rather, you end up with a lot of conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory is very bad development. Leads people into all kinds of bad places, including scapegoating. And so I wish that they would get back to the project of reporting news and reporting things accurately wherever the chips may fall. I don't see that happening for most of the mainstream media.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think there's a lot of really good developments in media. There's a lot of people who are acting outside of the prestige media. I mean, I think, look, the prestige media in America certainly is falling apart in a lot of ways. You know, some of the media outlets are still very well funded and they seem to be doing fine in a certain sense. But it's weird. It's like, you know, they have this sort of Potemkin village they've set up that doesn't actually reflect what's going on in the country because they decided that their mission wasn't going to be about truth. It was going to be about something else. You know, so I think in general a lot of them have become sort of a PR project rather than a truth organ. And that's dangerous. And I think that they're, you know, I think that their prestige has been damaged by it. And certainly they're reliable.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every word of it is true. So, you know, I feel good about it at the end of the day. And look, exactly what you said to your son there. I mean, my kids know that. I mean, I've been called every possible name, right? And I hope that they know that, you know, look, they've been called names at school, you know, and just like every kid is. I just hope they know that we survive these things. We get past them. And you just keep going. That's the answer. Just keep going.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know that usually people treat you coldly when you're a bad person, but that's not the case here. I didn't do anything wrong. So explaining that to my kids was hard because some people took some things out on my kids. That was the hardest part. And look, I can't say I'm like a favorite of the prestige media because they'll never sort of never forgive me, even though they now run articles saying exactly what I said. Somehow they'll never forgive me for having pointed it out without their permission or auspices or whatever. But that's just stuff I have to deal with, meaning like I made a decision. I made a choice freely. I was going to write this book. I knew there would be blowback or there could be blowback. And those are the stakes. I think, you know, I'm proud of what I did. I feel like it was the right thing to do. I stand by everything in the book. None of it's been.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, yeah, I mean, look, a few things. So was it fun? No, but I was right. I wrote a book about a transgender, you know, a sudden spike in transgender identification among teen girls. I thought it was a socially driven phenomenon. I thought these kids were going through reckless medical protocols that really shouldn't be allowed because or should have given had more supervision, more oversight, you know, and the risks weren't being explained to parents and all that was right. So am I always on some people's blacklist? Yeah, I'm on literal blacklist. But what was the hardest? The hardest part was explaining it to my kids and anything that affected our family. That's always going to be the hardest part is like trying to explain to them, I know that this person treated us badly, but I didn't do anything wrong.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“By our group, by our class, by whatever. But I don't think we evolved to be humiliated in front of a million people on social media. So I don't think social media is a way to toughen kids up. Is it an effective or normal way to toughen kids up? If you get dumped, if you get cut from the basketball team and you have to go through that humiliation in front of your classmates, you will learn something. You will learn something. You will say, I survived it. I'm fine. I went on and did this other thing. I met someone who I liked more or whatever it is. But humiliation on social media at that scale, that impersonal context, I don't think it builds the same natural resources for resilience.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we used to say this. We used to say sticks in stones may break my bones. No one's heard of that in a generation, right? You never hear sticks and stones. Instead, the mom or dad calls the school or calls the other parent and says your child was bullying my child. Well, God, you're setting them up for a bad life because let me tell you, as you just said, boy, are we criticized a lot in life as adults by a boss, by whatever. And one of the things that bosses say is, I can't give any constructive feedback to the rising generation. I can't stand them as employees because I try to give them constructive feedback and they won't accept it. They go to pieces. They think it's inappropriate. And I'm trying to help them be better workers and more successful. It's the opposite of what kids need. They need to be told so what? Now, I'll just add one caveat. We were absolutely, we evolved to handle being made fun of.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The most normal experience in human life, and by the way, kids who are told that's a big deal, boy, are they in for disappointment? Because the number of times you are going to get insulted or have your feelings hard in life, wow, a lot. If you lead a good life, you're going to be criticized. You're going to have your feelings hurt over and over and over. You have to be able to handle it. You have to if you're going to be as strong and productive adult.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, now let me just say again if an adult wants to do that and get something out of it by all means they should right an adult can do any number of things that they decide are good for their what makes them happy or feeling in control or whatever else they want the problem is with a kid you're really messing with a lot when you stick them in therapy or you treat him as unwell because he's likely to believe it He's likely to believe that he has PTSD because he was treated because he was bullied or teased a little bit in middle school not even really bullied teased made fun of”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we can change this because it's very bad, and the results of all of their work, all the mindfulness techniques for kids, regulation is a disaster. They failed. So I think we can really easily, you know what the mental health professionals should be doing when it comes to kids or young people dealing with the sick. We have so many kids in desperate need of help. We have schizophrenics all over our streets. The need is enormous, said But they would rather treat the well because it's easier. And come up with these techniques with no proven efficacy for just bolstering your sense of well-being.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And look, if a child developed some severe problem, then they may need that solution. But in general, do I think they can be trusted? No, not as the solution to a problem that was obvious and foreseeable that they said nothing about. The school in America, I can tell you the school counselors association, school psychologists association, none of these organizations had anything to say about their foreseeable damage that was going to happen to kids. Now, maybe they just didn't know. Maybe they were afraid to speak up. But in any case, the idea that they're now the solution to the struggles we're seeing, I don't think in general they're the solution.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The lockdowns were very hard on kids, as parents knew they would be. Parents protested to keep the schools open. You know who didn't protest? The mental health organizations. They had nothing to say as the schools headed into a second year of lockdowns. Parents knew this was going to be bad, and it was. It was very bad that we had kids in isolation because they need those connections. And now mental health experts present themselves as the solution.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Counselor knows all of a child's friends, all of their teachers, and what do they do the second the kid is struggling, they go in and they use the one tool they have, accommodation. And they get the kid excused from hard things. So just as you said, they'll never learn to sit through an exam in normal time because that's the only tool the school counselor has. This is a terrible conflict of interest. Really, it shouldn't be allowed. And I'm not suggesting anything about the motives of school counselors. They can be wonderful, but the conflict of interest is bad.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the surveys themselves are distressing. They're asking kids all kinds of questions about suicide and neglect and things that might be going on. And then they're using these surveys to justify getting more resources. This should never, ever have been allowed. By the way, a school counselor who engages in therapy with a kid and they're allowed to do it. They're giving counseling sessions to the kids right now. That shouldn't be allowed. Why? Because there's a dual relationship. Because of the potential for abuse,”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a huge problem. There is a major conflict of interest with schools getting involved in mental health. Huge conflict of interest should never have been allowed, really, except in the cases where you have a kid who's so struggling they need someone to go to and talk to. And that may be, that's not what we've got. It's a huge conflict of interest. They are incentivized to keep the kids bolted to their seats. That's their incentive. And any kid who's bored, maybe because the teacher isn't good, or maybe because they're not, you know, they're not good at controlling the class or whatever. That's the person referring you for a pill that should never have been allowed. Only because the conflict of interest, they can be as wonderful as you want. But there's a built-in conflict of interest. Just as you said, schools want more mental health resources. They want more resources. They are implementing these surveys to show how bad kids are.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One in six American kids in 2016 were not on social media. They're not on social media today between the ages of two and eight, but they definitely weren't back in 2016. It's not just about the phones. And I think the phones are bad. But it's not just about the phones. It's about the lives we're giving them and the constant, constant therapy and the culture, the constant sense that their feelings are all important. They are tyrannized by their own feelings and they're tyrannizing each other. When they should be learning to put their feelings to one side and get on with life, and you know what turns out their feelings will get better. You know, they will be more manageable. If you hold their conduct to high expectations, if you tell them, so what? You were cut from the basketball team. Let's work harder next time. Or try a different sport. You let them fail.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, so I think that social media is absolutely played a big role. It's been an accelerant for all kinds of deteriorating mental health. It's encouraged people in the idea that they have a diagnosis. It spread social contagions, mental health, diagnoses. So things like gender dysphoria I wrote my last book about. Social media absolutely played a big role. But I don't think it's the whole story. Reason I don't think it's the whole story is a few reasons. But for instance, just to give you one statistic, in 2016, the CDC came out with a report that one in six American children between the ages of two and eight had a mental health or behavioral diagnosis.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because guess what? Teenagers have a lot of bad feelings. Do newsflash. If you're going to sit around once a week and say, Come talk to me about your feelings, wow, they're going to fill up that session. And they're going to leave with, wow, I do have a lot of bad things to feel sad about Don't do that unless a kid needs it, absolutely requires it. There is too much treatment of the population.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, sitting around with a child once a week talking about their pains, talking about their struggles is an unhelpful intervention. If a child doesn't need it, and I don't care how well-intentioned the therapist is, you know that you are not doing them a good service. You ought to know that. And the reason is, is they've measured things. You know what better for mood, for mild to moderate depression than psychotherapy or antidepressants? Dancing. Yeah, exercise dancing. Anything. You could literally, instead of asking kids in school constantly how they're feeling, you could do anything with them. Have them paint the gym. Have them pick up trash. Have them build a structure together. You could literally have them dance. They could do almost anything and it would be better than sitting around talking about their feelings.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, yes, things have gotten a lot more politicized, a lot more woke in the world of therapy. There's no question, but I think there's a bigger problem. And the bigger problem is we're overtreating the population with therapy. Not talking about bad therapists. I'm talking about too much therapy.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But if you tell them they have a brain problem, no, you have ADHD. We're going to change all of your requirements now, what you're saying is you can't”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Expectations are one of the greatest things you can give kids because it's a way of saying, I have faith in you. You can do great things. Once you introduce the diagnosis and the pill, what you're saying is, okay, you can't totally do it on your own. You need intervention. You have a brain problem. And that will lead a kid to feel like I can't do it on my own. Now, again, if a child absolutely requires it, then they require it. They need it. They need the extra help. But if they don't, you don't want to introduce that message with a kid. Okay. Being told, listen, you were lazy last night. You didn't do your homework. You were irresponsible. You didn't do what you were supposed to do. A kid can make a decision. I'm not going to do that anymore.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're making them fragile. Listen, a kid who gets a zero because they didn't feel like doing their homework. You know what the kid learns? It could be embarrassing. It shames the kid's behavior. But you know what else the kids learns? I matter. When I don't do what I'm supposed to do, someone notices. I'm part of this community. I'm part of this class. And my teacher, he may be upset, disappointed that I didn't do the work, but he cares. He notices. It matters to him. I have a role to play. And when I do my homework tonight, he's going to notice that too. Or she's going to notice that too. So yes, holding kids to high standards, high expectations gives them a sense. It honors them with the sense that they have capacity, they have capability. Obviously, if you disappoint, if you're giving a kid a zero, what you're saying is you could have done this homework. I know.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Give them a good life, but sitting around and talking about their feelings with a therapist weekly, I'm not sure is the way to get there.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The number of things we can do in our life to set ourselves up for a good life. Now, is that preventive mental health care? No, it's called good living. And it doesn't require a therapeutic expert who's going to undermine the parents' authority with their kids and make the kids because it makes a kid feel like, oh, my problems are too big for my parents to handle. So they needed to call in this other person who's sort of more expert than they are. That's not nothing to introduce. That's a risk. It's messing with the parent-child relationship. It's messing with the child's confidence that the parents know what they're doing, right? So if you have to introduce that fine by all means. The child suffering, bring in the therapist. Then it's just a question of what kind of therapy and who you should trust. But a child who doesn't need it, there's a lot of things you can do to make it.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you know who won't give that to you mental health experts? Because then there's nothing to come back for. You can join a church group and get that. You can join a bowling league and all of a sudden you're happier or a dance class, right? You can start to regulate exercise and you will see mood improve. Now, I'm not talking about people suffering with major depressive disorder. I want to say that again. There are people who absolutely need an intervention and they should get it. But I'm talking about the average bummed out person and certainly the bummed out kid.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lot, right? I mean, I know so many adults in that situation. And they often say, I wish I had gotten a diagnosis and medication, but they turned out pretty great, left to their own devices. Now, of course, I'm not saying that that's true of every child. There may be kids who need the stimulant. But stimulants are profound and they are given out way, way too readily without first seeing if we can make adjustments in the child's environment to help them, you know, handle their distractability”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, of course an adult can say, listen, I've been on this antidepressant for three years. I have no sex drive. I hate it. I'm ready to taper off it. Can you help me taper? Can't say that they might not even know what they're missing when it comes to sex drive. You put a kid early enough on antidepressants. They don't know what a sex drive is for or why they might miss one, right? So you get in and start deleting their natural resources for coping with things. You alter them in some giant way while they're just trying to adjust to life. I mean, how many adults do you know say, yeah, I probably had ADHD as a kid, but you know, nobody diagnosed me and now I am this incredibly successful adult.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not even clear very often what the goal is make you less sad. You know what'll make you less sad, community, getting involved in projects with others? Yeah, sometimes not thinking about why you're sad. Building new relationships, real and personal relations, in person relationships, not online, spending time with extended family. So I think the project of sticking kids who don't have a real problem in therapy, it's got a lot of risk.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's the most natural thing in the world. I don't want to share with my stranger about my home breaking up. I want to talk to my parents or someone who really loves me. And yet today kids are made to feel terrible, right? That's so unsophisticated. And so it puts a therapist in the situation now they've got a kid who doesn't really want to be there, so now they pander to the kid. How do you pander to the kid by affirming or agreeing with everything the child comes up with? The kid's not ready to do the hard work of therapy most of the time unless they're dealing with a serious problem like anorexia or severo CDs interfering with our life and now they need the help, right? Because they can't get on with our life. They're afraid to leave their house or they have some severe phobia or whatever. But sitting around talking about why I'm sad.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wasn't sure I was going to agree with your book, but when my parents divorced, they stuck me in therapy just automatically. And I didn't want to talk to this stranger about how I was feeling. I was really sad. And this person was a stranger. I wanted my mom. Like I was angry, but I didn't want to talk to the stranger. And I just thought, but she's like, but they made me. And I had to go once a week and it was awful. And I just thought, wow, what a healthy normal reaction. I'm sure she was shamed. It sounds like she was shamed. No, of course you have to talk to a therapy. Why don't you want to talk to her?”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do. I think that we have believed that that is the protocol. You always stick your kid in therapy. There is such thing as preventive mental health. By the way, there isn't, right? We can deal with actual problems, but preventatively we've never been good. There's no good study showing preventive mental health works unless you're talking about things like a good life, like connection, you know, doing things for others, getting involved in community, dancing, exercising, eating right. Those are great, right? Having relationships in-person relationships, we know all that's good for you, right? But preventive mental health, sitting with a therapist and talking through your parents divorce, I don't think there is good studies showing that that is necessarily good for kids. And there are a lot of risks. And I'll give you an example, an adult said to me recently.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because their parents divorced, there was no need. There was nothing wrong with the child except that the parents divorced. So they figured, oh, well, then I have to stick my kid into therapy. This one young woman I profile in the book was now 17, and I asked her what she was working on. She had been in therapy since she was six. I called her Becca in the book. And I said, what are you working with? Your therapist on now? She said, well, I'm leaving for college in the fall. And right now we're working on getting me ready to make friends in college. That is a classic side effect of therapy. It's called treatment dependency where you don't feel like you can make a move as an adult things we all learned how to do without checking in with another adult or expert or your therapist. So we're really undermining kids agency by sticking them in a kind of therapy or a kind of emotions check-in situation for their whole lives.”
2024-05-21 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Abigail Shrier: Why the Kids Aren’t Alright · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT