Teen Girls in Crisis

Photo by Anthony Tran (Unsplash)

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently released its Youth Risk Behavior Data Summary and Trends Report: 2011-2021. If there was one headline above all others it would be this: “Teen Girls Are in Crisis.”

As the Washington Post reported, stark findings “on the pervasive sadness, suicidal thoughts and sexual violence endured by teen girls have jolted parents and the wider public.” 

And jolted they should be.

Nearly one in three high school girls have considered suicide, reflecting a 60% rise in the past decade. Nearly 15% have been forced to have sex. About six in 10 girls were so consistently sad or hopeless they stepped away from regular activities. It truly is, as the Washington Post reported, “uncharted territory for the health advocates, teachers, counselors and parents who are trying to help them.”

This while, among teens, reports of smoking are down. Drug use is down. Drinking is down.

So, what is causing this? 

There is no shortage of finger-pointing: “Growing up in a social-media culture, with impossible beauty standards, online hate, academic pressure, economic difficulties, self-doubt and sexual violence. The isolation and upheaval of covid made it tougher still.”

One could argue that this is not dissimilar to what teenage boys face. So, again, why girls?

Harvard psychologist Richard Weissbourd points out that “girls are more likely to respond to pain in the world by internalizing conflict and stress and fear, and boys are more likely to translate those feelings into anger and aggression,” thus masking their depression. 

Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, notes that part of the problem is that digital media has displaced the face-to-face time teens once had with friends, and that teens often don’t get enough sleep. In addition to those influences are the hours teens spend scrolling through social media. For girls, she said, this often means “comparing your body and your life to others and feeling that you come up wanting.” While noting that not everything people do on smartphones is problematic, Twenge says that “social media in general and Internet use show the strongest correlations with depression.”

What may be most alarming among the data collected by the CDC was the rise of suicidal thoughts among teen girls—24% of teen girls have planned a suicide while 13% have attempted. That is almost twice the rate for boys.

It has been pointed out by more than a few that the CDC data was collected in the fall of 2021, “a time when many teens were anxious about returning to in-person school and wearing masks.” What the next wave of data will reveal is anyone’s guess.

So what can be done?

Most teens would say that adults should listen to them more and believe what they say more, instead of dismissing their concerns as mere “drama.” In short, take what they are going through seriously.

The CDC report steered its attention to the nation’s schools, recommending improved access to mental health services, more classroom management training for teachers, high-quality health education and enforcement of anti-harassment policies.

Those would all be helpful steps.

But I would add another that would be the most important of all: Introduce your child to a vibrant faith in the living God. In a previous blog, I noted how today’s parents place a ridiculously low priority on their children embracing their faith. Which, of course, speaks volumes about the priority those parents place on their faith.

When a teenage girl faces this complex world divorced from the anchor of faith, she will be tossed mercilessly by the waves of the cultural and social sea. Does it even enter her mind to pray? To seek out Christian support? Does she even have a Christian community of peers? Does she know to rely on the power and presence of the Holy Spirit coursing through her spiritual veins to gain peace beyond all understanding in the face of the world’s torments? Is her self-esteem grounded in how God views her?

I believe that parents are increasingly learning that, in attempting to provide their children everything the world has to offer, they have neglected to provide their child with the most important thing of all, which is what the world does not have.

But God does.

James Emery White

Sources

“Youth Risk Behavior Survey: Data Summary & Trends Report 2011 - 2021,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, read online.

Donna St. George, “Teen Girls ‘Engulfed’ in Violence and Trauma, CDC Finds,” The Washington Post, February 13, 2023, read online.

Donna St. George, Katherine Reynolds Lewis and Lindsey Bever, “The crisis in American girlhood,” The Washington Post, February 17, 2023, read online.

Derek Thompson, “America’s Teenage Girls Are Not Okay,” The Atlantic, February 16, 2023, read online.