What 10-Year-Olds Know About Mental Health That the Rest of Us Forgot | Dr. Niobe Way
About this episode
Dr. Niobe Way discusses the misconceptions surrounding mental health and loneliness among teenagers and the importance of social health.
We've been calling it a loneliness epidemic and treating it like a mental health problem. NYU developmental psychologist Niobe Way says that's the wrong diagnosis, and she has almost 40 years of data on teenage boys to make her case. Niobe Way has spent nearly four decades running longitudinal studies with teenagers, tracking the same kids from middle school into adulthood. Her research on boys, friendship, and masculinity has made her one of the go-to voices on loneliness, connection, and what's actually driving rising rates of depression, anxiety, and violence among young men, along with similar struggles with girls. And, these all tend to follow us well into adulthood. Her latest book is Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture . In this conversation, you'll explore: Why mental health is a symptom, not the root problem, and what Way calls "social health" instead The moment, around age 15, when boys start hiding their feelings in public Why boys learn to sacrifice the relationship to protect themselves, and girls learn to sacrifice themselves to protect the relationship The dinner-table questions that build real closeness instead of shutting kids down A…
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