We Are Failing Our Children

From the time we are born, most of our parents hope that we will be able to navigate life with a minimum of stress and setbacks. It seems, however, that their ability to help children manage their lives has become more difficult than ever. In almost every category—education, relational, social media, physical and mental health—children are suffering in one way or another. And the future looks dire.

Education is an area where, year after year, our children are failing. Idaho is one example:

Here in Idaho, we have continued to increase school funding, hoping to see improvement in student performance, but it has not occurred. Over half of Idaho students are not scoring at grade level in math, only 73% of third graders are reading at grade level, 20% of our students drop out of high school prior to graduation and only 42% of our students achieve a post-secondary degree. Basically, almost 60% of our young people will reach adulthood ill-prepared to successfully participate in our 21st Century economy.

Much of the country is just as disappointing, and no matter what we’ve tried - from innovative programs to throwing more money at the situation - the problems in education persist. And the realization that propaganda dominates the curriculum is daunting.

The health of our children is not improving:

• Infant mortality is rising: For the first time in decades, according to CDC data, infant deaths are climbing. This is not just a public health disaster; it’s a moral failure.
• Child mortality is rising: This problem is being driven by gun violence, rising suicide rates, and a mental health crisis that has gone unaddressed.

Although some sources claim that problems are driven by our healthcare system, I’m suspicious of those conclusions. Instead, we might turn to the mindset of new parents to better understand the natal and early care of their children. Questions could be raised about guns as a source of child mortality, but studies have shown that suicide rates and depression have escalated in the childhood population.

The erosion of family relationships is also a serious problem:

In the age of gadgets, fast-paced careers, and social media, we seem to be silently failing our children. Family, once the cornerstone of a child’s upbringing, is slowly fading into the background, replaced by screens, societal pressures, and fragmented connections. This isn’t just a passing observation; it’s a crisis that threatens the fabric of relationships, marriages, and the emotional well-being of the next generation. Kids are being deprived of the concept of family far too early in their lives, and the ripple effects are showing up in every facet of adulthood.

Especially noteworthy are the foolish efforts to establish an idealized life in a world filled with flaws, disappointments and heartache. Families set themselves up with impossible goals, and the expectations for parents and children are doomed to failure:

What we have failed to understand is that building strong families takes patience, compromise, and most importantly, presence. How can a child who has been raised with house help, gadgets, and absentee parents know how to navigate the emotional terrain of a family? When life with family means cereal bowls in the sink, loud mornings, moody days, and imperfect routines, they balk at the messiness of it all. They don’t realize that true love is accepting the imperfections in others. You realize that with people, it boils down to the basics. The details don’t really matter. Love, in its truest form, covers a multitude of sins.

Finally, in Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation, he dispels some of the myths surrounding the raising of children. On the one hand, he explains that parents should spend less time with their kids, so that the children learn how to spend “alone time” and entertain themselves. On the other hand, Haidt raises the alarm about the coming dominance of AI:

Haidt feels certain that 2025 is the year regulators and parents and anyone else with an interest in protecting kids from screens need to ‘move quickly,’ he explained. ‘This is really our last year before A.I. really has a big impact on life.’ That’s because society is moving ‘from the idea that AI enables you to know everything’ to the idea that ‘AI allows you to do everything.’ Now AI agents ‘are going to give us omnipotence,’ he warned. ‘And that would be horrible for children.’ That includes the ability to create friends to your specific likings.

The most remarkable conclusion I discovered is that rather than blaming only schools, the healthcare system, social media, politicians, teachers’ unions and counselors, the current situation demands that parents get much more involved with their children’s lives, with the right balance of interaction with the children, school involvement and appropriate parenting.

If they don’t, we will continue to lose our children.