When Carla Hoskins asks her teenage sons to do chores or schoolwork, she is sometimes met with the declaration, “You’re triggering me!”, according to bbc.com.
Parents in the UK and US are struggling to understand why their teenagers frequently use therapy terms like gaslighting and boundaries.
Carla Hoskins, a 39-year-old mother of six from Hertfordshire, said she had never heard terms like triggering or gaslighting before her eldest sons, aged 15 and 18, started using them during disagreements about homework or friends. Over in the US, Shannon Salvatoriello reported feeling very confused when her 14 and 17-year-old sons used similar mental health language to push back against everyday parental requests.
Dr Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell, a New York psychiatrist, observed that teenagers often look to social media to make sense of the world, which spreads clinical vocabulary into daily chats. “They would say, 'I'm not getting along with my mum'… 'School has gotten really challenging and I'm feeling kind of bad about myself', and then suddenly it was, 'I have attachment issues, ADHD, and depression',” observed New York psychiatrist Dr Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell.
Garfinkle-Crowell explained that teenagers, particularly girls, often feel unheard by society and therefore reach for elevated medical language to ensure adults take them seriously. Prof Peter Fonagy, head of an independent review into youth mental health, stated in September that it is harder to be young now due to rising mental distress driven by economic and employment uncertainty.
Julia Samuel, a London-based psychotherapist, warned that young people using medical terms to describe normal distress can form patterns of behavior that eventually cause disorders. “It can give them the very thing they don’t want,” Samuel told bbc.com, adding that the lack of knowledge and overuse of clinical terms can cause actual harm.
Samuel suggested that listening remains the biggest tool for parents to bridge the divide, recommending the use of ordinary emotional language to reflect back what a teenager expresses. Garfinkle-Crowell agreed, advising parents to offer observations like, “That sounds like it could be really lonely for you. Is that part of it?” while avoiding overreactions.
Shannon Salvatoriello spent years learning that demanding answers with an authoritarian approach did not work with her teenagers. Instead of direct questioning, Samuel recommended that parents talk about themselves in a similar past situation so the conversation does not feel like pointing a finger at the teenager.
Hoskins remains glad she keeps an open dialogue with her sons even when the terminology trips her up. “We are close and I think that’s why sometimes they think that they can use these words, as if they’re talking to a friend,” Hoskins told bbc.com.
Mental health experts state that teenagers pick up clinical vocabulary from social media and use elevated medical language because they feel adults do not take them seriously.
Psychotherapists advise parents to listen closely, avoid arguing over the terminology, and reflect back what the teenager is feeling using ordinary emotional language.
London psychotherapist Julia Samuel warned that applying disorder labels to normal daily distress can create behavior patterns that eventually result in actual mental health disorders.