Most parents and teenagers want government officials to prioritize policies they believe would benefit young people, but feel their voices are not being heard about what they think would work best, a new survey finds.
That was one of the big takeaways from Common Sense Media’s annual State of Kids and Families in America report, which is based on surveys of parents, and students who are 12 to 18 years old. Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization that researches and advocates for healthier tech and media use among youth.
Nearly 7 in 10 kids surveyed say that their voices do not matter in decisions made by local governments and the federal government, while a little more than half of parents say the same.
This feeling can be especially acute for young people, said Supreet Mann, the director of research at Common Sense Media.
“We hear this from youth all the time. That they’re under 18, they don’t have a vote, and they feel very disenfranchised in many ways,” she said. “They don’t feel like their voice is heard, they don’t feel like they’re part of the system.”
But schools are positioned well to give students some say and agency in issues that are important to them, Mann said. For example, schools can enlist students’ help in developing school policies. As many schools are adopting policies to address student and staff AI use, this provides a prime opportunity to tap students’ knowledge and experience at this moment in time, Mann said.
“Kids have a great pulse on what these policies can and should look like in terms of how they’re actually using [AI] and what they want to use it for,” she said. “If we can bring them into these conversations, I think that strengthens this for everybody and makes the policies much more actionable as well.”
Mann pointed out that parents and kids want action from their governments in key areas.
More than half of parents say that better public schools (58%), better access to mental healthcare (55%), and free preschool for young children (53%) would greatly improve the lives of American children.
Parents put healthcare coverage, feeding hungry children, and affordable housing at the top of the list of challenges the federal government should prioritize. Nearly a quarter of parents want investing in public education to be a top priority for the federal government, and 13 percent said the same for protecting children from the potential harms of AI.
“What parents want, what children want, is support systems in place,” said Mann. “And that can happen through free, earlier childcare, better investment in our public school system, and certainly in mental health supports.”
Families report struggles on multiple fronts
The survey findings show many areas where kids and parents are struggling.
Financial concerns, for instance, weigh heavily on parents. Half of parents with children under 18 say their ability to afford the products and services they need to buy for their children is getting worse compared with last year. And nearly 8 in 10 say they are worried about their children’s future economic opportunities.
Nearly two thirds of parents said that kids growing up today will not be able to afford a house, postsecondary education, or their own children one day. (The 12- to 18-year-old survey respondents are much more confident, with majorities believing they will be able to afford all three of those things.)
Parents, on the other hand, are a bit more positive when it comes to youth mental health, with 43% rating the mental health of children in their community as “just fair” or “poor,” compared with 54% of youth.
Girls are more pessimistic than boys, with 60% rating the mental health of kids in their communities as “just fair” or “poor,” while 48% of boys say the same.
Similarly, fewer girls (38%) think things are going well for adolescents today compared with boys (47%).
“Boys and girls can be impacted in different ways when it comes to media, mental health, [and] the overall climate right now in this country,” said Mann. “It’s really important for us to focus not just on kids holistically, but on specific groups of kiddos that might be impacted in different ways.”
Educators aren’t the only ones sounding alarm bells about social media and cellphones
Nearly one third of parents and 12- to 18-year-olds cite social media, technology, and screen time as the root cause of today’s mental health crisis among young people—more than any other potential cause.
Eighty-two percent of parents believe that the lives of schoolchildren would be better if they used smartphones and social media less. (Teens, on the other hand, view social media’s influence on their generation as mostly positive.)
However, technology wasn’t the only issue in the eyes of youth and parents. Seventeen percent of students and 15% of parents place the blame for the state of young people’s mental health on a lack of parental involvement and support.
But the groups diverge significantly on how much bullying is to blame for kids’ mental health challenges. One in 5 kids and teens say bullying is to blame—the second most cited cause of the mental health crisis. In comparison, 1 in 10 parents blame bullying, the fifth most cited causes among parents.
“We live in a world with a lot of uncertainty,” said Mann. “For young people, having the ability to talk to folks about how they’re feeling is so obvious, but it can be so difficult for them to find, too.”
