we’re coddling our kids into rage

Last week’s school shooting that killed two children in Minneapolis was every parent’s nightmare.

And the killer’s writings point to a national crisis that’s hiding in plain sight.

America’s young people are being coddled into weakness and hopelessness — and sometimes, those feelings can curdle into rage.

I see it every week in my practice. 

One recent college graduate told me her therapist had urged her to quit a promising new job because it was “triggering.”

Another patient had been advised to cut off her entire family in the name of “healthy boundaries,” even though her conflicts with them were ordinary and fixable.

A teenager said her school counselor excused her from class whenever she felt anxious, teaching her that escape is the answer to stress.

Adolescence, which should be a training ground for resilience, has instead become an echo chamber of fragility.

Therapists, teachers and even parents have too often embraced a culture of endless validation, and America’s young people are paying the price.

Instead of helping people cope with life’s inevitable challenges, many therapists label simple discomfort as “trauma.”

The message is drilled in again and again: The problem is never yours, but belongs to your boss, your teacher, your parents or the world itself.

You are fragile.

You cannot change.

You are not responsible.

Repeatedly, the lesson is the same: The world must adjust to you, not the other way around.

The result is a generation unprepared for adulthood.

The costs are real: A patient of mine froze at the thought of presenting in class because she had been told that anxiety was something she should avoid, not prepare for; another walked away from a promising relationship after a minor argument, convinced that conflict was proof of “toxicity.”

I see patients who panic at the thought of applying for internships because they believe rejection would be unbearable.

They avoid risks, convinced that failure is not a step toward growth but proof that they are broken.

Fragility hasn’t just crept into our culture — it’s fashionable: On social media, trends like “bed rotting” glorify retreat under the guise of self-care, and endless scrolling takes the place of engagement with the real world.

Helplessness mutates into grievance. Victims need villains, and blame always falls on someone else.

Accountability is recast as aggression.

Debate on campus is framed as harm.

Even petty crimes are excused as “resistance.”

A culture that prizes grievance over grit does not only weaken individuals.

It corrodes society.

It does not have to be this way.

We know what works because we have seen it before.

For decades, therapy helped people build strength by facing discomfort head-on.

That’s what we need to recover now.

Therapists must stop reflexively validating their patients and start challenging them, helping them learn to tolerate and learn from discomfort rather than flee from it.

An anxious student should be urged to prepare for the big presentation, not avoid it.

A young professional should be taught skills to manage stress at work, not told to quit on Day 3.

A patient struggling with family conflict should be guided to repair it, not to sever ties over disagreements.

This is not about being harsh, but about giving patients the tools to face the real world rather than fruitlessly shielding them from it.

Schools must also do their part and teach grit alongside empathy.

That means holding students accountable to deadlines instead of granting endless extensions, along with resilience-building exercises, structured team challenges and public-speaking assignments that push young people out of their comfort zone.

When students learn that setbacks are part of the process, they stop treating every obstacle as catastrophe.

Grit is not taught in a lecture, but by doing hard things, failing — and trying again.

Parents must model perseverance and show that effort matters more than feelings.

That means praising hard work rather than moods, and resisting the urge to step in at the first sign of struggle.

A young person who sees a father stay calm after losing a job, or a mother keep going after disappointment, learns that setbacks are survivable.

That’s a lesson worth more than any half-hearted affirmation.

America’s young people do not need more reasons to give up.

They need reasons to try, to risk, to grow.

Strength is not inherited.

It is built.

Stop building it, and the next generation will inherit a future they cannot survive.

Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist practicing in New York City and Washington, DC, is author of the forthcoming book “Therapy Nation.” X: @Jonathan Alpert