Keeping the Kids’ Faith
Studies Suggest Religion Provides a Ballast Against Depression and Other Adolescent Mental Health Struggles
The school year is under way and the kids, we are told, are not all right.
America’s families are suffering through what a recent front-page story in the New York Times called a “Mental Health Crisis Among U.S. Teens.” Rates of depression, anxiety, emergency room visits, and suicide rose by double-digit percentages in the past decade and worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a special adolescent mental health advisory issued late last year, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned of a “devastating” decline in youth mental health caused by an “unprecedented” …