We often say “kids are resilient.” And many are - more than we sometimes deserve. But resilience, like growth, doesn't happen in isolation. It’s shaped by context. And right now, the context that young people live in is turbulent - even more so than the highly turbulent context we’re all living in.
We are witnessing a shift in what it means to come of age. Today’s teens and early adults are navigating layered crises: rising housing insecurity, fractured school experiences, social media-fueled pressure, racialized violence, economic precarity, and accelerating climate anxiety. This isn’t a “post-pandemic” world, some situational blip that will eventually settle back to the old normal. It’s a world that has been fundamentally reshaped by disruption, and young people are moving through it with fewer landmarks and less certainty than ever.
And while mental health has (finally!) entered public conversation, what’s often missing is the deeper acknowledgment of how disconnection — from stable communities, consistent adults, safe and affirming spaces — is not just a side effect, but a root cause of the mental health crisis...
