Something is wrong. If you’re a parent or teacher, you can feel it. Our teens are struggling. School attendance is plummeting, mental health issues are skyrocketing, and young people are reporting record levels of unhappiness. The signs are flashing in red- but are we paying attention?

The numbers are chilling:

• Nearly 50% of parents worry about their child’s well-being (Deloitte, 2024).
• Teen self-harm has doubled since 2010 (Cybulski et al., 2021).
• 20% of secondary students don’t attend school regularly (DfE, 2025).

Too often, blame lands on parents or schools. But what if the real problem is bigger than that? What if this crisis isn’t about bad parenting or failing education, but about the way modern childhood itself has changed? The uncomfortable truth is that three major forces are driving this crisis:

• Screen time: Young people are spending more time online than ever before, often at the expense of real-world experiences.
• Social media: Platforms designed to capture attention also warp self-image, fuel anxiety, and replace genuine connection with superficial validation. And let’s be clear: negative comparison isn’t an accident—it’s a feature. Social media companies make billions by keeping teens scrolling, and the easiest way to do that is by making them feel like they’re not enough. If you’ve noticed more shopping stalls creeping into their feeds lately, you’re not imagining things—our kids’ insecurities are being turned into profit.
• Lack of face-to-face social interaction: The natural ways teens once built confidence and resilience—through friendships, play, and problem-solving—are being replaced by solitary scrolling.

The evidence is clear

In 2018, teachers and mental health professionals started noticing something alarming: a surge in mental health referrals, with waiting lists where there had never been any before. When COVID hit, we assumed lockdowns were the cause. But here’s the kicker—across the Western world, regardless of how strict or long the lockdowns were, teens didn’t return to school in the same way they had before. The crisis was already brewing; the pandemic just accelerated it.

This isn’t a phase. It’s a downward spiral, and if we don’t change course, what happens next? A workforce that lacks confidence? A generation afraid to face the world?

The good news: there are solutions

The situation is serious, but it’s not hopeless. The good news is that simple, immediate changes can help- and we have the proof.

At Bath Rugby Foundation’s Alternative Learning Hub, we tackled this problem head-on. We introduced one small change: phone lockboxes at the door. The results were staggering. Almost overnight, phone-related issues disappeared. Students re-engaged with learning. Laughter returned. Attendance improved. And, perhaps most surprisingly, students didn’t resist—they welcomed the break from their screens.

The same principles are at the heart of my Making Childhood Safer seminar for parents. The session provides real, actionable steps for tackling this crisis at home and in schools. Parents are desperate for solutions. The good news is, they exist.

What You Can Do Today

In these in person seminars, I have been helping parents understand these issues and create practical solutions that are already making a difference. Here are just a few they came up with:

• Create a family agreement about screen time: And stick to it. When adults model healthy habits, teens are more likely to follow.
• Engage in more family meal times at a table without screens: This simple change sparks real conversations and deeper connections.
• Encourage in-person social time with 'teen play groups': Invite their friends over, not just to sit on their phones together, but to actually interact.
• Give them more responsibilities within the family: Chores and problem-solving tasks build resilience, independence, and real-life social skills.

These steps aren’t about punishing teens or taking away everything they enjoy. They’re about helping them rediscover what it means to be a teenager—building friendships, making mistakes, and figuring out who they are without a screen between them and the world.

We didn’t set out to create a crisis of isolation, but it happened on our watch. Now, we have a choice: keep blaming parents and schools, or start making changes that will actually help our teens. The solutions are here. The question is, are we ready to listen?

Jonno Wood is an educator specialising in re-engaged students who have stopped turning up to lessons or school. He manages Bath Rugby Foundation Alternative Learning Hub and founded Same Boat Parents.

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