Teens feel less emotional support than their parents think they do, new report shows

As a youth mental health crisis persists in the US, a new report highlights a significant gap between the level of support that teenagers feel and the amount that parents think their children have. Only about a quarter of teens said they always get the social and emotional support they need, but parents were nearly three times more likely to think they did, according to the report. The study authors note that the presence of an interviewer may have biased parents to respond more favorably, but significant discrepancies between perceptions of parents and children were found across demographic groups. This suggests a systematic bias where parents consistently report higher levels of social and emotional support compared with their teenager’s perception, and in doing so may underestimate their teenager’s perceived need for social and emotional support, the study authors wrote.