To Reverse the Adolescent Mental Health Crisis, Parental Authority Must Be Restored

It’s not only adolescents who are struggling with identity today. Parents are struggling, too. There has been a troubling shift in parenting, with moms and dads losing confidence and relinquishing their authority as values-based leaders of their families. I believe this decline in parental authority is deeply intertwined with the mental health crisis affecting both children and adults.

A parent with a strong sense of self provides children with what they need—structure, guidance, and boundaries—while still offering love, understanding, and attention. Children need their parents to be parents. However, the growing trend of parental fragility has made parents more susceptible to societal pressures that undermine their role. Parents were once respected as pillars of their families and valued in society, but that respect has been replaced with suspicion, distrust, and even disdain. As Dr. Dana Suskind brilliantly put it, “Parents don’t just contribute to society. They create it.” Yet society fails to provide parents with the support and respect they need. This has helped foster a culture that devalues the beauty and significance of parenting.

In schools, parents are often the last to know when their children are struggling with identity issues—whether related to gender, sexuality, or mental health. Most parents are worried about their children's online presence, but social media allows children to operate in digital spaces without parents being able to monitor or guide their experiences. By allowing parenting to be divided in this way, society has diminished parental confidence, making it harder for them to serve as the primary figures of authority in their children’s lives. As a result, many parents no longer understand what their role should be or how they should behave.

Parents who are stripped of their authority feel powerless, fragile, anxious, and increasingly uncomfortable with their children’s discomfort and anger. Their lack of confidence has shifted the power dynamics in the parent-child relationship. This shift away from a leadership role toward a more permissive, equal footing relationship is detrimental to children. The parent-child relationship is unique and cannot be confused with friendship, coaching, or teaching. Parents are the moral and values-based guides for their children. Yet, many parents have grown fearful of making their children uncomfortable or angry, misunderstanding empathy and sensitivity as passivity and compliance. 

Yes, parents today must distinguish themselves from past generations who may not have understood the importance of listening and validating a child’s perspective. However, compassion does not mean becoming complicit in a child’s every desire.

Yes, parents today must distinguish themselves from past generations who may not have understood the importance of listening and validating a child’s perspective. However, compassion does not mean becoming complicit in a child’s every desire. Neuroscience confirms what most parents have always observed: children require adult supervision and guidance well into young adulthood. The brain’s executive functioning—responsible for judgment, impulse control, and decision-making—is not fully developed until the mid-twenties. They can be all gas and no brakes. But parents serve as those brakes, helping children navigate their impulses and foresee the consequences of their actions. They are the lenses that help children see just far enough into the future to understand the impact of their choices. They are the moral shelter children need to grow into emotionally and ethically-grounded adults. Yet, in today’s climate, parents hesitate to assert their authority, fearing their children’s rejection or disapproval. Saying "no" is difficult, but it is an essential part of parenting. Children need boundaries, and they need parents who can withstand their frustration and disappointment without relinquishing control.

While much is said about the stress of parenting, the reality is that it has always been challenging. It has always required sacrifice, sleepless nights, and the delicate balance of a parent’s needs with those of their children. The difference today is that many parents feel unequipped to handle these demands. Of course, some parents struggle with their mental health—many are fragile, anxious, or have endured traumas that have left them emotionally unprepared to lead. In my practice, I see multi-generational fragility—parents who were raised by caregivers who themselves struggled with the responsibilities of parenting. These parents, now raising children of their own, are more emotionally vulnerable, less resilient, and more easily overwhelmed by the trials of parenthood. When parents lose their way, they abdicate their leadership role, allowing children to take the reins. Some parents try to be their children’s peers—drinking and smoking with them, or by giving in to demands for smartphones at an early age out of fear of conflict. But this continues a cycle of children who have lost their way because parents have lost theirs.

Reversing the mental health crisis among children must begin with restoring parental authority. Parents must reclaim their authority, not by becoming authoritarian, but by providing the firm, loving structure children require for healthy development, and society must stop undermining their influence. Instead, we must support parents in their fundamental role as the primary caretakers and moral guides of their children. This means ending the outsourcing of parenting to schools, therapists, and social media influencers. It means recognizing that, while parenting is challenging, it is also one of the most meaningful and necessary roles in society. Only then can we raise a generation that is mentally strong, emotionally stable, and prepared to face the world with confidence.

Erica Komisar, LCSW is a psychoanalyst and author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters and Chicken Little The Sky Isn’t Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety.