Kerby Anderson

Dr. Leonard Sax holds a PhD in psychology and has been a family doctor for nearly 34 years. He said he never saw a connection between politics and parenting, until now. “Left-of-center parents were no better and no worse parents, on average, than right-of-center parents.” He has now documented that children of politically liberal parents are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety and a lack of sense of life meaning and have substance abuse issues.

He has noted that over the past decade there has been an increase of what he calls “permissive parents.” They have been persuaded to carry out more “gentle parenting” because they don’t want to be controlling to their children. In most cases, the children become the authority while parents try to be “patient, calm and punishment free.”

His story from an article in the Institute for Family Studies illustrates this so well. A mom brought her 6-year-old daughter into his office with a fever and sore throat. He asked the girl to open her mouth and say ‘Ah.’ She shook her head and clenched her mouth. He asked the mom for help. Instead, the mother merely replied, “Her body, her choice.”

NYU professor Jonathan Haight has been on my radio program to talk about his book, The Coddling of the American Mind. He believes “that the real reason that left-of-center kids are more likely to be depressed compared to right-of-center kids is that left-of-center kids have been taught to catastrophize events, to assume the worst, while right-of-center kids have been taught to be more optimistic.”

What is taught at home and what is consumed on social media is having a negative impact on the minds and mental states of children and adolescents. Political views and mental health seem to be correlated more than ever.