{"id":161403,"date":"2026-07-24T18:43:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T01:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/?p=161403"},"modified":"2026-08-21T13:45:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T20:45:25","slug":"americas-callousness-toward-children-and-teenagers-worsens-as-authorities-shrug-off-widespread-household-abuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/?p=161403","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s callousness toward children and teenagers worsens as authorities shrug off widespread household abuses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| July 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adulthood is deteriorating from tolerating to celebrating and rewarding violent, abusive grownups and officials who ignore real predators because they\u2019d rather grandstand over social media.<\/h6>\n

Again, I suggest watching psychologist and social media scholar Candice Odgers\u2019\u00a0TED talk<\/a>\u00a0and new\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0by tech journalist\u00a0Taylor Lorenz<\/a>, the latest featuring a powerful scientific reality that \u201cban teens from social media\u201d crusaders simply refuse to talk about.<\/p>\n

Odgers\u2019 and colleagues\u2019 recent\u00a0study of United Kingdom youth<\/a>\u00a0published in\u00a0The Lancet<\/a><\/em>\u00a0found that \u201c419 (20.3%) of 2,063 young people reported being moderately or severely cybervictimised between ages 12 years and 18 years.\u201d Further, \u201ccybervictimised adolescents were more likely to report generalised anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, self-harm or suicide attempt, post-traumatic stress disorder, conduct disorder, and psychotic experiences compared with those not cybervictimised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Odgers et als\u2019 study parallels United States\u00a0Centers for Disease Control surveys<\/a>\u00a0showing around 16% of teens report being cyberbullied. Compared to non-cyberbullied teens, teens bullied online were 1.9 times more likely to report frequently poor mental health, 3.6 times more likely to report attempting suicide, and 5.5 times more likely to report self-harming.<\/p>\n

So, online life is indeed dangerous to teens\u2019 mental health, right? \u201cSocial media provides an endless way for other kids to be cruel,\u201d declares psychologist\u00a0Jean Twenge<\/a>, who argues for banning teens from social media.<\/p>\n

Just one complication, Odgers points out: \u201cThere\u2019s this huge overlap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just 2% of the 419 cyberbullied teens in her and colleagues\u2019 UK study reported \u201conline abuse\u00a0without having experienced offline victimization<\/em>\u201d\u00a0as well<\/em>\u00a0(emphasis mine). \u201cMost of the overlap was in-the-home victimization,\u201d and it was offline bullying by \u201cpeople who knew them very well\u201d, not cyberbullying, that \u201cpredicted mental health problems\u201d among teens.<\/p>\n

Likewise, U.S.\u00a0statistics<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0CDC surveys<\/a>\u00a0show teens report violent abuses inflicted by parents and household grownups are twice as common, and emotional abuses by these adults are nearly 4 times more common, than being cyberbullied. Similar to the finding by Odgers et al\u2019s UK study,\u00a083% of U.S. teens who report cyberbullying<\/em>\u00a0ALSO<\/strong>\u00a0report being<\/em>\u00a0violently and psychologically bullied at home by adults.<\/em><\/p>\n

The crucial reality teenagers face that cyberbullying online nearly always accompanies violence and bullying by adults at home must be too rough for Twenge and other ban-teens-from-social-media crusaders to handle. The never mention it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of young people who are harmed are harmed offline by people they know in places where they should be safe,\u201d Odgers concludes. \u201cAny place where adults are, there will be harm to children\u2026 churches, schools, homes; homes is the big one.\u201d<\/p>\n

However vital confronting home and grownup abuses are to good-faith efforts to prevent bullying and prioritize youths\u2019 well-being \u2013 as opposed to authorities\u2019 derelictions and prioritizing grownups feeling good about ourselves \u2013 the UK and U.S. political debates decree that mentioning domestic abuses victimizing teens is not permitted; only cyberbullying may be discussed.<\/p>\n

This official dereliction endangers vastly more children and teens. To truly protect children, Odgers concludes, \u201cwe would invest in the resources to track online and offline predators. But that is not what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

We still care about child abuse\u2026 sort of<\/strong><\/p>\n

Underfunded, understaffed, unpublicized U.S. agencies still investigate abuse cases,\u00a0substantiating<\/a>\u00a0some 65,000 violent, 40,000 sexual, 22,000 psychological, and 65,000 multiple maltreatments (including 1,800 murders) of children and teens by their parents and caretakers in 2024.<\/p>\n

Similarly, UK government reports clearly show\u00a0skyrocketing grownup drug abuse<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0soaring domestic violence victimizing children<\/a>, including\u00a0dozens of parent-inflicted murders of children<\/a>. For\u00a0murder victims under age 16<\/a>, the UK\u00a0Office of National Statistics<\/a>\u00a0(ONS) reports, \u201cthe most common suspect, where recorded, was a parent or step-parent\u201d. (Funny, the wildly acclaimed, incessantly cited Netflix hit series\u00a0Adolescence<\/em>\u00a0gave exactly the opposite impression.)<\/p>\n

As a former mandated child abuse reporter and member\/president of a state\u00a0Children\u2019s Trust Fund<\/a>\u00a0board, I can affirm substantiated cases are just a\u00a0tiny fraction of what actually occurs<\/a>. True, a trailer-park stepdad who beats or rapes kids might still get investigated and punished, albeit haphazardly. And \u201cthird party\u201d perpetrators (that is, non-family abusers like a coach, teacher, scoutmaster, online predator, etc.) against whom parents demand action, along with enemies of powerful political entities, may get caught, often after long delays.<\/p>\n

But authorities acting merely to protect a child or teen without advancing some larger adult goal? These cases, sporadically investigated to begin with, are meeting a troubling new hostility that dismisses them as unimportant, unwanted challenges that threaten authorities\u2019 crusade against teens using social media.<\/p>\n

The silence, and worse<\/strong><\/p>\n

Psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Twenge, whose\u00a0books<\/a>\u00a0spanning over 1,000 pages deploring the \u201cteenage mental health crisis\u201d have popularized them as leading \u201cexperts,\u201d incessantly interviewed and afforded august forums. They never mention the\u00a0leading cause of that \u201ccrisis\u201d<\/a>\u00a0by far<\/em>, parental and household abuses and adversities.<\/p>\n

In fact, Haidt, Twenge, colleague Zach Rausch, and other luminaries remain popular\u00a0because<\/em>\u00a0they ignore disturbing CDC\u00a0surveys<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0analyses<\/a>\u00a0showing widespread abuses at home devastate teens\u2019 mental health far worse than the\u00a0trivial-to-zero effects of social media<\/a>\u00a0Haidt et al obsess over.<\/p>\n

In unanimous sycophancy, professionals, political leaders, and media reporters quail from raising unpleasant adult abuse issues while flattering themselves as heroes rescuing \u201cchildren\u201d from \u201caddictive\u201d social media.<\/p>\n

In a particularly\u00a0disgusting non-sequitur<\/a>\u00a0concerning last year\u2019s Los Angeles\u2019s social media \u201caddiction\u201d trial, psychologist\u00a0David Stein<\/a>\u00a0dismissed as \u201cunethical,\u201d \u201ccowardly,\u201d and \u201cdisinformation\u201d\u00a0any mention\u00a0<\/em>of the plaintiff mother\u2019s and now-absent father\u2019s\u00a0violent, relentlessly brutal abuses<\/a>\u00a0and abandonments that drove one of their teenage daughters to suicide and the other to lifelong mental distress (see below). The only issue Stein and other commentators cared about was social media.<\/p>\n

Major interests don\u2019t frame it that baldly, but they clearly agree. The results of social media \u201caddiction\u201d trials, disastrous for children and teens, delight culture-war escapists. They find it perfectly acceptable that a violently abusive parent and an attorney general who ignored real-life pedophiles menacing children were awarded millions of dollars and widespread acclamation for grandstanding against teens going online.<\/p>\n

The details reveal today\u2019s youth-hating<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s briefly review these two shocking cases. New Mexico Attorney General Ra\u00fal Torrez posted pictures of REAL CHILDREN in his sham\u00a0sting operation<\/a>\u00a0that drew \u201cinappropriate\u201d solicitations from \u201cnumerous\u201d pedophiles seeking 13-year-olds.<\/p>\n

So, did the state\u2019s chief law enforcement officer vigorously pursue identifying, referring, and prosecuting these \u201cnumerous\u201d real-life predators menacing children?<\/p>\n

He does not mention even trying. Instead, in a dereliction of duty that would bring immediate impeachment in a state that actually cared about young people, Torrez filed a splashy, headline-grabbing civil suit against Meta and Instagram for \u201caddicting\u201d teens to sites where predators might lurk. The state court awarded his office $375 million. Political and interest groups led by ban-teens-from-social-media crusaders cheered lustily.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles \u201csocial media addiction\u201d civil lawsuit last year against Meta was even more appalling. A mother with years of\u00a0violent, psychological, body-shaming abuses<\/a>\u00a0and abandonments that destroyed her daughters miraculously resurfaced when the opportunity to grab some bucks suing social media arose. She deserved shaming and criminal prosecution, not a $6 million court award as if she were a \u201cvictim\u201d along with utterly disgraceful accolades from politicians and interests, led of course by ban-teens-from-social-media crusaders.<\/p>\n

Even the few social-media-blamers like\u00a0Stein<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Twenge<\/a>\u00a0who fleetingly respond to claims that parents\u2019 and nearby adults\u2019\u00a0skyrocketing drug\/alcohol problems<\/a>\u00a0might possibly, just possibly affect kids\u2019 mental health do so in order to concoct silly dismissals. There aren\u2019t enough addicted parents to cause teens any significant problems, both shrug.<\/p>\n

Are they joking? They nowhere even try to engage the\u00a0CDC\u2019s disturbing survey results<\/a>\u00a0showing 30% of teens report growing up with drug\/alcohol-abusing parents, and these teens are 4 times more likely to report frequently poor mental health, 10 times more likely to attempt suicide, and 13 times more likely to self-harm than teens from non-abusive, non-addicted families.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re regressing to medieval brutality<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 2020s are tacitly (few authorities or advocates say this out loud) resurrecting the atavism that children and teenagers are not independent human beings deserving of rights and protection, but mere property at grownups\u2019 (especially their parents\u2019) disposal.<\/p>\n

If kids are victimized by outside abusers, this atavism goes, their parents are the real victims. That\u2019s why you see endless outrage again and\u00a0again<\/em>\u00a0deploring the vanishingly few cases in which a child or teen death can be blamed on social media contacts.<\/p>\n

However, when parents or other family or household adults abuse their kids and even murder them, the tragedies are ignored and\/or quickly disappear from news squibs never to be mentioned again. Child and teen victims are unimportant unless they affect grownups\u2019 property rights or powerful advocates agendas. Here\u2019s a simple test:<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0Readers no doubt have seen literally hundreds of media stories and high-level comments lamenting parents \u201cconcerned\u201d over their teens\u2019 social media use, as well as parents\u2019 grieving over the small number of teens who committed suicide, suffered a drug overdose, or became Nazis or face-smashing groypers\u2026 etc.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0Now: how many media stories and\/or politician\/professional commentaries can you find of teens suffering the\u00a0far, far more common<\/em>, also devastating tragedy of their parents and nearby grownups committing suicide, overdosing, or indulging far-Right politics, religious fundamentalisms, and related lunacies?<\/p>\n

If you find a case of the latter, please send me the link. I\u2019ll gladly cite it. While both of these types of cases are tragedies whose survivors deserve sympathy and justice, we only care about the first type; the second is not just ignored but increasingly resented.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worse than a double standard<\/strong><\/p>\n

The evidence for the \u201cchildren-are-parents\u2019-property\u201d backlash goes beyond Haidt, Twenge, et al. Political leaders and teen mental health \u201cexperts\u201d \u2013 the ones who profess loud anguish over the teenage \u201cmental health crisis,\u201d suicide, and drug abuse \u2013 register complete silence on the crucial parental\/household abuses and adversities\u00a0CDC analyses<\/a>\u00a0associate with two-thirds of teens\u2019 mental health problems, five-sixths of teens\u2019 opiate abuse, and nearly 90% of teens suicide attempts.<\/p>\n

There are exceptions, sort of. In addition to the above 2024 CDC analysis, the Surgeon General\u2019s largely ignored 2024 \u201cParents Under Pressure<\/a>\u201d advisory does cite grownups\u2019 widespread mental health and abuse issues but nonetheless backs off from urgently citing them as causes in afflicted teens\u2019 poor mental health.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the U.S. Department of Justice is\u00a0investigating state laws<\/a>\u00a0requiring priests and clergy to report to authorities child abuses revealed in confessions and consultations. Even after decades of tens of thousands of documented abuses and cover-ups by church personnel and leaders, authorities are degenerating into prioritizing abuse-excusing grownups\u2019 \u201cfreedom of religion.\u201d Political and professional leaders stand largely silent at\u00a0severe cuts<\/a>\u00a0to child and family abuse investigations and programs.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0research piles up<\/a>\u00a0showing popular repressions like\u00a0Australia\u2019s under-16 social media ban<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0school cellphone bans<\/a>\u00a0are ineffective, do not promote teen mental health or other goals, and\u00a0may be harmful<\/a>\u00a0especially to\u00a0marginalized youth<\/a>, advocates\u2019 and legislators\u2019 motives become clear: the well-being of teens was\u00a0never their goal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In fact, governments worldwide and Big Tech are gleefully exploiting the failures of the existing bans they pushed as excuses to push even more intrusive\u00a0attacks on youths\u2019 and, inevitably, adults\u2019 online user privacy and rights<\/a>. If it doesn\u2019t work and harms younger generations today\u2019s elders seem increasingly to dislike, do more of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are better than us.\u201d Odgers says of Generation Z, citing a roster of social statistics that were improving dramatically long before current social-media controversies erupted \u201cGiven the suffering of the adults around them, they\u2019re a resilient generation.\u201d We could see Gen Z\u2019s resilience as an incentive for positive, future-facing investment. Instead, that may be what we most resent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| July 2026 Adulthood is deteriorating from tolerating to celebrating and rewarding violent, abusive grownups and officials who ignore real predators because they\u2019d rather grandstand over social media. Again, I suggest watching psychologist and social media scholar Candice Odgers\u2019\u00a0TED talk\u00a0and new\u00a0interview\u00a0by tech journalist\u00a0Taylor Lorenz, the latest featuring a powerful scientific reality<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161404,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161403\/revisions\/161404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}