Heidi Stevens: We've painted a pretty bleak future for young people. Thankfully, they've learned when to tune us out

I sat in the parking lot of my son's school the other night, waiting for his team to finish their second hour of lacrosse practice at the end of a weekday that also included AP exams and finals prep and end-of-year presentations and all the other markers of an American May.

I marveled at their energy. I delighted in their commitment. I wondered, to be honest, what makes them keep showing up.

They're looking around, surely. They're seeing what a mess we've made of the world, surely. They're aware, surely, that rules and norms have been rendered optional, if not obsolete, by our president and his sycophants. AI is coming for their future jobs. The Earth just keeps getting hotter.

And yet. We tell them to run laps and … they run them! It's baffling!

"We're modeling the worst kind of adult behavior for these kids," psychologist John Duffy said to me. "And still, they often bring us their best."

Stunning.

I called Duffy, author of "Parenting the New Teen in the Age of Anxiety" and my former podcast partner, a couple days after my parking lot marvel. He works with teenagers daily in his therapy practice. Has for decades.

I wondered if he had a theory on what keeps them hopeful and dedicated and engaged. And, more important, how we can feed that tender, beautiful mix.

"Certainly not every kid musters it," Duffy said. "There's depression. There's anxiety. We sometimes lay too much on them. But for the vast majority of kids, they follow the drill. They get up and go to school. They do their homework. They find something they're passionate about and they pour their whole selves into it."

He marvels at it too.

"Where does that spirit come from?" he said. "Because if you ask teenagers, they know we're handing them a mess. And that makes it even more remarkable."

Some of it, Duffy said, is built into human development.

"The youthful mind has this kind of organic buoyancy," he said. "There's been a pandemic and school shootings and all this crap these kids have endured and still, they keep coming to the table."

But recently, he's noticed something else.

"This generation of kids has a kind of underlying wisdom," he said. "A recognition of, ‘I'm on my own here. I'm going to have to regulate this thing on my own. I'm going to have to control what I can control. I'm going to need to show myself the cool things about me.'"

Why that last part, I wondered?

"Because that natural buoyancy?" he said. "Adults are really good at tamping that out."

He'll talk to teenagers who are perfectly happy with how they're performing - at school, on stage, on a field, in life. And should be, as far as Duffy is concerned, based on their grades and lists of pursuits. And then some voice will deflate them.

Whose voice, I asked. Their friends? Influencers? People on Instagram with boats?

"Always adults," he said. "Parents, deans, teachers, other therapists they've had. So now they're showing up and managing everything we're asking them to do. And they're also managing every expectation that's laid on them."

Reasonable or not. Realistic or not.

"We accuse our kids of just looking for Instagram moments, but most of the ego in the household is ours," Duffy said. "We're looking for the bumper sticker that says Yale. We're looking for the bumper sticker that says honor roll. Left to their own devices, kids are pretty ego-free."

But a lot of adults read that as a lack of motivation, Duffy said. Failure to prepare for their future. Laziness.

"So they come up with their own system," he said. "They play by the rules, but they also come up with their own ways to cope. There's this tenacity of spirit they have."

That simultaneously breaks and fills my heart. I love that they've developed bubbles of buoyancy and wisdom. I hate that some of us are walking around with needles, looking to burst them.

If you were talking to an auditorium full of parents right now, I asked Duffy, what would you tell us?

"Part of the parenting challenge," Duffy said, "is don't do anything. We think they need really specific guidance, but they don't. They need pillars: Be a good person. Treat people well. Do your best. They don't need ‘You better be a starting forward.' Honestly, that's none of our business."

Duffy said he recently started working with a new client whose parents wanted him to start therapy after he got a 3 on an AP exam. (Five is perfect. Three is passing.)

"The parents are like, ‘We have a crisis,'" Duffy said. "The kid is like, 'I don't know, man. I have a friend in the hospital with fentanyl poisoning. We're at war with Iran. I don't think my 3 is that big of a deal.'"

Give them some guardrails, Duffy would tell the auditorium. Model a purposeful life. Believe in them. And then get out of the way.

"When we take away their ability to follow their instincts and we press something on them because we think it makes us look better, that's often where stress and anxiety and depression start setting in," Duffy said. "That's often where smoking weed starts setting in. They start to feel like they need to be in an altered state so they can breathe."

It's their story, Duffy would tell the auditorium. Let them have a hand, at least, in writing it.

"It might not be the story you pictured," he said. "But it will still be a good one."

They're working so hard to keep the world from breaking them. It's beautiful how hard they're working. It's inspiring. I hope we work just as hard at not squandering their hope and doubling down on their belief. They deserve it.

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This story was originally published May 26, 2026 at 8:24 PM.