Candice Odgers

My 12-year-old is embracing independence like she's leaving for college next week.

But the good news is that the real story about teens today is far more positive and far less frightening than the stories we all read.

They have made remarkable progress on metrics that really matter, and we know a lot about how to keep them happy, safe and well.

OK, the bad news.

The bad news is we are in the middle of an adult mental health crisis.

And caregiver mental health is the most important predictor of teen mental health by far.

So if we are concerned about teens today, we need to invest in real and meaningful ways in the adults around them.

Many of them are simply not OK.

So I'll come back to that, but first I want to share with you a few science-based facts about kids today, and I'm going to focus on American teens because that's where a lot of the stories that you and I are hearing come from.

So in the past 20 years, we've had some major wins.

Rates of teen violence, alcohol use, pregnancy have plummeted to historic lows.

You are looking at the most educated generation ever in terms of high school graduation.

Young people are inventors, they're activists, they're leaders, they're amazing singers, they are Olympians.

They're amazing.

But they're also telling us that they're sadder and they're more worried about the world that they're growing up in.

So they report increased concerns about safety at school, climate change, racism, their future.

In our studies, what we find is the most frequently reported stressors are conflict in their home and pressure to do well at school.

And those are also the things that predict their mental health day to day.

Now,

Since 2008, we've seen an uptick in youth suicide risk.