I recently had a chance to chat with U.K-based psychotherapist Louis Weinstock, who has written a new book about helping children deal with the anxiety, depression, fear, and stress that seem to plague our 21st-century lives. The book, How the World Is Making Our Children Mad and What to Do About It (Penguin, 2022), is full of real-world examples from Weinstock’s 20-year career as a therapist, and he offers practical exercises in every chapter.

Weinstock approaches the questions parents and kids face with compassion, humor, and a sense of deep connection to history, myth, and spiritual practices from a variety of cultures. The book is structured around seven patterns that can be seen all over the world and that “shape our lives in unconscious ways.” The patterns include victimhood, virtual reality (a desire to escape our bodies and live only in our minds), narcissism, scarcity, anesthesia, chaos, and hopelessness. In each case, Weinstock examines the negative “roots” of the pattern and the more positive “fruits” that can turn the pattern into something beautiful and nourishing. So, for example, the root of victimhood is a feeling of helplessness, which can, in the right environments, turn into empowerment and strength. The root of virtual reality is the desire to escape the confines of our bodies, which can, in the right environments, turn into a feeling of being at home in our bodies and in nature.

Weinstock explains that the problematic roots of each pattern always connect to an unloved, uncared-for part of each of us. As he says in the conclusion of How the World Is Making Our Children Mad, “The world is making our children mad because it is short-circuiting our capacity for love. And so the way to help our children is by reclaiming love.”

Here is a short excerpt from my chat with Louis, which has been lightly edited. I asked a few questions inspired by topics that come up often in connection with alternative education models.

Q: Can you tell me a little about your perspective on the movement to encourage “resilience” or “grit” in kids as part of school curricula? In your book you seem to question the value of those approaches.

A: I started questioning the ideas of resilience and grit because I saw the kids who weren’t adapting easily to the dominant systems of education were the ones deemed “unresilient.” These children were being sent to me as a therapist or came to me when I was teaching mindfulness. Essentially, it seemed that the goal of making the kids more resilient was to allow them to keep going through the system . . . and to make sure the schools were doing well in the league tables [evaluations].

I think the concepts of resilience and grit are problematic because they just look at the individual child but completely ignore what’s going on in the environment around the child. I’m not throwing out the idea that we need to help our children be “tough” and expose them to some reasonable risks so they can grow and develop. But from my perspective, if a child is not adapting to a mainstream school, maybe their behaviors and symptoms are actually showing us adults something important that we need to listen to. Rather than trying to put them back in a box they’re uncomfortable in, we need to try to listen to those symptoms and see the intelligence in them. Maybe the children are showing us that something isn’t working in their environment, not that something isn’t working within them.

Q: You talk a lot about making sure children are sensing what’s happening in their bodies when they feel anxious, afraid, depressed. And I know that you believe that putting our bodies back in connection with nature is one key to feeling better and learning better. Tell me a little more about that.

A: Forest schools are quite popular in the UK, just as they are in the United States and Europe, but they are still alternative options, not mainstream. What is surprising to me is how much people still underestimate the impact nature has on our kids’ mental health. I ask parents how often their kids go out into nature, and often they say they do not go outside at all. So, I frequently make that part of a care plan. Research is showing that even 20 minutes a day is all that’s needed to make that connection, and it can be in a city park—there’s no need to seek out a wild forest. Often, time in nature is more effective than ADHD medication.

I think the reason time spent in nature is so good for us is simply because we are part of nature, and a lot of our modern way of living cuts us off from that part of ourselves. I used to have a practice on a houseboat in London and there was nature all around and I could use that during my meetings with clients. Since COVID, I see clients online, but I often give kids and parents a “prescription” to get out in nature and connect.

Q: Is there any particular change you see happening in schools today that you find especially good for kids’ emotional and psychological health and happiness?

I was just thinking and writing about this recently and considering how much things have changed since I was a child. When I was at school, if you were emotionally dysregulated you were sent to the naughty corner or given the slipper. The shoe of one of my classmates was used to smack people right at the front of the classroom. It could not have been more about shaming children, and it was the norm.

But now, my young daughter is learning about “zones of regulation,” a concept that is now a model used in schools around the world. The model uses colors to help children understand and describe the emotional state they are in. For example, yellow means they are feeling silly and funny. Green means they are feeling good and ready to learn. Red, of course, means they are angry, and blue means they are sad. This is such a non-shaming way of talking about feelings, and I think it’s quite positive.

I’d like to thank Louis for the conversation. You can order his book from any bookstore and read his blog here. He is currently working on a new charitable project called Apart of Me, that uses a mobile app and games to help children learn to deal with grief and loss. The most recent addition to that project is an app called Nadiya, specifically for Ukrainian children who have faced the trauma of war.

“At Apart of Me, we use technology only to enhance real-world connection and relationships,” said Louis. “We don’t want the future of kids’ mental health to be them looking at a screen alone in a dark room.”

Shelley Sperry | Sperry Editorial

For part 2 of our series for Mental Health Awareness Month, Shelley Sperry interviewed local psychologist Dr. Mike Brooks, who shared his insights and practical advice for reducing or preventing the stresses and anxieties so many teens are experiencing today.

Dr. Mike Brooks, a licensed psychologist and director of the Austin Psychology & Assessment Center (ApaCenter), says that there is some alarmism around the issue of rising anxiety disorders among teens. “We haven’t dropped off a cliff,” he says, but in many schools in Austin and across the nation the academic and social pressure is intense. “A lot of pressures come to a head in high school, and kids feel the weight and react in a variety of ways.”

Teachers, school administrators, coaches, parents, and peers all have high expectations in terms of grades and extracurricular activities. “I work a lot with stressed teens who think if you have one bad semester you won’t be able to get into your top school, or if you don’t take at least 5 AP classes, you’re falling behind,” explains Dr. Brooks. “These stresses can lead to anxiety and depression.”

But, Brooks says, most kids can find new ways to deal with stress and significant relief through some common-sense behavioral changes. Others will need counseling, often in the form of more formal cognitive behavorial therapy, and a few will need the assistance of drugs along with therapy to balance brain chemistry.

Dr. Brooks believes that the most basic solutions often work well, if kids are really motivated to make some changes. Exercise, sleep, and putting some limits on technology can work wonders to destress teens’ everyday lives.

Exercise. “We are meant to be active,” Brooks explains, “so if we don’t move enough, stress sets in.” Exercise breaks are essential for teens who study long hours, because exercise improves alertness and focus. “We get all that exercise time back later in higher productivity.”

Sleep. The same thing goes for sleep. Here, the science is clear: According to the UCLA Sleep Center, teens need more sleep than adults—an average of nine hours per night. But as a result of busy schedules at home and school, social expectations, or difficulty falling and staying asleep as their bodies adjust to puberty, most teenagers don’t get enough. Lack of sleep can be both a contributor to and a symptom of mental health problems. According to Harvard Medical School’s Mental Health Letter:

The brain basis of a mutual relationship between sleep and mental health is not yet completely understood. But neuroimaging and neurochemistry studies suggest that a good night’s sleep helps foster both mental and emotional resilience, while chronic sleep disruptions set the stage for negative thinking and emotional vulnerability.

Unplugging and single-tasking. Dr. Brooks specializes in helping parents and kids navigate technology, which often increases stress levels in teens. He has one word for those who spend their study time multitasking: Don’t. Most high school students today are instant-messaging, snapchatting, texting, checking Instagram, and watching YouTube—or some combination of these distractions—while doing homework or reading. The science is still in early stages, but multiple studies show that multitasking decreases the quality of work, can actually inhibit one’s ability to filter out irrelevant information, and can diminish working memory.

As a result of the time and attention lost to multitasking, stress levels and anxiety can increase. So encourage unplugging for part of every day—taking technology breaks—so students can focus on one important task at a time.

When asked what role schools have in lowering students’ anxiety, Dr. Brooks said, “I’d like to see schools be more aware of students’ emotional state. Allow them to step back and observe, and practice mindfulness. Encourage them to check in with themselves to figure out what they want and need.”

Many schools in the Austin area are developing programs that focus on mindfulness and allow students to monitor their own anxieties and feelings of stress. We’ll take a look at some of those solutions in the next installment.

Many thanks to Dr. Mike Brooks for taking the time to discuss his work for this post. Dr. Brooks is a licensed psychologist and the director of the Austin Psychology & Assessment Center. The ApaCenter is a group of psychologists and other practitioners who provide psychological and neuropsychological assessments, therapy, consultation, and coaching to individuals, couples, and families of all ages. Dr. Brooks works with a variety of patients but specializes in helping parents raise balanced kids in a technological world. He is writing a book on this topic and can be found online at DrMikeBrooks.com.