Bad Therapy: Why Aren't Children Growing Up?"

This is one of the most enlightening books I've read so far.
A must-read for every parent, teacher, and school administrator. The book tries to understand why children are experiencing so many mental health issues when there are so many resources dedicated to improving mental health outcomes.
Anxiety, depression, suicide, etc., are at an all-time high among children, even though their lives have never been better. This doesn't make any sense.
➡️ Some important takeaways from the book:
Continuously focusing on how children "feel" or "think" leads to negative outcomes.
Constantly dwelling on your emotions and how you feel negatively affects your mental health. If all you do is focus on your feelings, you're doomed to be anxious or depressed.
We constantly ask children how they feel, whether they're happy, how their mental health is, etc., and this creates children who think they're fragile rather than resilient.
Trying to solve every problem for children has led to a generation that can't do anything for themselves.
We (Generation X) were constantly told to "suck it up." Many of us concluded that neglecting our emotions was "bad parenting" and vowed not to do it to our own children.
As a result, children immediately dramatize everything that happens to them, make mountains out of molehills, and think the world revolves around their own feelings and emotions.
You develop confidence and strong mental health not by thinking or through therapy, but by doing things.
You can't find a way to get rid of anxiety by thinking about it. You can't gain confidence by analyzing your thoughts or mental health issues.
You gain confidence by tackling increasingly difficult tasks, succeeding in those tasks, and realizing you're a competent, capable individual, thereby eliminating anxiety.
Therapy's continuous focus on these small, common emotions we all feel takes away from their seriousness (I'm not talking about real disorders here, just normal concerns that millions of people go to therapy to avoid).
One of the best ways to reduce your happiness is to chase it.
Our society constantly tells children they should be "happy" and asks them if they are happy or not. Happiness is not something you have to be 24/7. This is unrealistic. Joy and happiness are not permanent states - they are temporary.
Contentment, tranquility, and balance are much better goals to aim for mentally.
The happiest, most well-adjusted children come from families with strict rules and loving parents.
This really triggered my confirmation bias... I feel really lucky because I have two middle school children who are very successful, respectful, and polite, and we've hardly done any parenting for them.
But we were very strict with them for years. Bedtimes, family rules, how we did things, etc. Our in-laws and many of our friends thought we were totalitarian.
In reality, we just had high standards.
And now we're really reaping the rewards. I found it really interesting that strict rules equate to happy children. It makes sense, because children need to know what their boundaries are.
Constantly surveying school-age children about their mental health creates more problems than it solves.
Mental health resources are big business. Regions need to justify all the resources allocated to mental health, and they usually do this through surveys.
Continuously asking children questions like:

• Have you ever thought about hurting yourself?
• Have you ever thought about suicide?
• Have you ever been too anxious to get out of bed?

and similar questions, instills in their minds the idea that they or their peers are mostly broken and unable to function properly in the real world.
It normalizes incredibly rare situations that would be incredibly rare in any other period of history.
There are many other insights, but I'll stop here.
This is a great book. Go buy it and read it. This isn't an affiliate link or promotion. I just really enjoyed it and it will shape my future parenting.