@drwilloughjenkins: Here are a few things I see in my office every week that most parents have absolutely no idea are happening. Kids forming their most important relationships online, sometimes with people they’ve never met in person, and not telling their parents because they assume it won’t be taken seriously. Group chat drama that runs the whole school day. Who got added, who got removed, who screenshotted what. It’s exhausting and it never turns off. A quiet pressure to already have life figured out. College, career, identity, all of it, before they’ve even finished high school. Questions about gender and sexuality they’re sitting with alone because they’re scared of how it will land at home. Pressure to be available to a friend or a romantic interest 24/7. A slow reply can feel like a crisis. Where their ideas about how to look, talk, and act actually come from. We used to assume it was a show or a movie, something clearly not real. Now it’s more likely an influencer, a real person, which makes it harder for them to tell the difference between entertainment and a standard they’re supposed to live up to. A much better grasp of world events than most parents assume. They’re seeing the news in real time, often without any context for it. Real anger and frustration at our generation for not fixing the bigger problems, climate, the economy, the state of the world, and a sense that it’s now on them to clean it up. Political beliefs taking shape alongside real existential questions, what’s the point, does any of this matter, especially in older teens. Body image struggles and disordered eating patterns that started small and got normalized. Fear of disappointing their parents, which keeps them from saying anything is wrong at all. None of this means you’re failing as a parent. It means the world your kid is growing up in is different from the one you did, and the gap is where all of this lives. The fix isn’t perfect parenting. It’s staying curious and staying close enough that they’ll actually tell you. #parentingtips #parentinghacks #parenting101 #parentingadvice #parenting

Dr Willough Psychiatrist

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Thursday 13 August 2026 00:55:00 GMT