Dear Reader

So many voices today are sounding the alarm: our children are suffering from a mental health crisis. Anxiety and depression rates are soaring. Suicide attempts—and tragically, suicides themselves—are at an all-time high. Kids are lonelier than ever, struggling with motivation, and increasingly failing to launch into adulthood—staying in their parents’ homes, avoiding responsibility, and searching for identity in places that often leave them more lost.

But what if we’re naming the wrong crisis?

I believe what we’re truly facing is not just a mental health crisis—but a meaning crisis and an identity crisis.

When children lack purpose, connection, and direction, they suffer deeply. And if that’s the root of what they’re going through, then the solution isn’t just better coping strategies or more therapy—it’s helping them build lives of meaning.

In this week’s episode of The Parenting Wisdom Podcast, I share 5 powerful ways to bring meaning back into our kids’ lives—practices that go deeper than screen limits or behavioral tools and speak to the heart of what it means to grow up well:

1. Create a sense of belonging by grounding children in something bigger than themselves—starting with simple, meaningful family rituals.
2. Offer real-life participation, not just passive entertainment—giving them time to connect, play, and experience flow states beyond the screen.
3. Encourage the pursuit of meaning, not just comfort—helping them grow through what’s challenging, not just escape into what’s easy.
4. Believe in their resilience—seeing kids as anti-fragile beings who grow through hardship, not as fragile ones we must protect from every bump.
5. Lead with grounded authority—stepping into our role as mentors who call our children upward toward their potential and purpose.

This is how we help our children find the meaning they crave—and the resilience they need to thrive.

​

With warmth and encouragement,

Efrat

The Parenting Wisdom Podcast