Many parents, educators, and Christians are waking up to a difficult truth: despite the explosion of mental health awareness, therapy initiatives, and emotional support programs for kids, today’s young people increasingly seem less resilient, more anxious, and unprepared for life’s adult challenges. This growing concern is at the heart of the debate around “bad therapy”—the idea that well-meaning efforts to help our children may actually be holding them back. From an evangelical Christian perspective, this crisis points to both cultural missteps and spiritual truths we can’t ignore.

The Rise of Therapeutic Culture

The past decade has seen the rapid expansion of school-based counseling, social-emotional learning, “gentle parenting,” and trauma-informed programs. Children are encouraged to monitor their feelings closely, label every discomfort, and see adults as first responders for all distress. The hope is to help kids feel heard, safe, and emotionally equipped. But instead, rates of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and self-doubt have hit record highs. So, what’s going on?

Therapeutic culture often teaches kids to dwell on their emotional state, sometimes encouraging rumination over resilience. The constant inward focus, while well-intended, can increase emotional turbulence and make happiness seem elusive or conditional. By validating and accommodating every struggle, adults may—without meaning to—communicate that kids are fragile and not capable of handling difficulty on their own. Over time, this can foster a dependence on external intervention for everyday problems, a trend that concerns many Christian counselors and parents alike.​

Diagnoses, Labels, and Lost Agency

In American culture, there is a proliferation of diagnoses for normal childhood struggles. Kids who once might have faced discipline and encouragement now often receive formal labels for entirely ordinary experiences—sadness, worry, shyness, or restlessness. Gentle parenting and hypervigilant monitoring reinforce a sense of weakness and anxiety, especially when kids sense that adults expect and fear the worst.

From a Christian worldview, compassion is non-negotiable. But so is the conviction that every person—by God’s grace—can learn to exercise agency, endure trials, and grow in maturity. Scripture doesn’t teach us to rescue kids from every challenge; instead, it frames trials as vital opportunities for growth in character and faith. Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength”—meaning our ultimate confidence is in God’s sustaining presence, not in a life without adversity.

Overprotection and the Fragility Trap

Across homes and schools, many adults now strive to protect children from distress. Trauma-informed programs and emotional wellness initiatives multiply in hopes of safeguarding kids’ hearts. The risk, however, is that we treat suffering as something to be avoided at all costs. But Jesus warned His followers not that life would be painless, but that He would be with them through every storm.

This protective mindset can unintentionally send children the message that negative feelings and hardship are intolerable. But biblically, adversity is not a sign of failure or abandonment—it’s a training ground for perseverance. As Romans 5:3-4 reminds us, “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” The Christian story is one of refining faith, sometimes through fire.

The Impact of Therapy Gone Wrong

When every emotional or social challenge becomes a “crisis” in need of professional intervention, children may miss out on the foundational experience of working through problems, taking healthy risks, and forming meaningful responsibilities. Research quoted by critics of “bad therapy” reveals that talk therapy can sometimes increase anxiety and depression in children who are encouraged to focus excessively on their emotions.​

Similarly, the language of trauma, self-diagnosis, and emotional hypersensitivity can make kids view their identity through the lens of suffering rather than resilience. Worse, some well-meaning adults, eager to rescue, inadvertently sabotage children’s confidence to cope, sending the subtle message: “You can’t handle this without help.”

Biblical Resilience Over Cultural Fragility

So, what does true resilience look like from a biblical, evangelical perspective? It is less about “fixing” every emotional distress and more about “forming” children through intentional challenges, healthy boundaries, and a nurturing community rooted in truth and love. The family and church—rather than therapy offices—remain the best places for building character, faith, and perseverance.

Instead of viewing suffering as a crisis, Christians can reclaim God’s redemptive purposes: “Count it all joy…when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-3). Supporting children doesn’t mean shielding them from every bump in the road; it means walking beside them, pointing to Christ, and teaching them that real strength is found in Him.

Practical Steps for Parents and Churches

  • Encourage Thoughtful Risk-Taking: Let children try, fail, and try again—whether it’s learning a skill, making a friend, or working through a challenge.

  • Limit Clinical Labels: Address patterns that call for professional help, but be cautious about assigning diagnoses to everyday struggles.

  • Model Emotional Self-Control: Teach children that feelings are real but not ultimate. Prayer, scripture, and worship can help reframe distress.

  • Prioritize Character Formation: Value perseverance, honesty, and kindness over self-esteem alone.

  • Create Genuine Community: Let the church be a place where children are known, challenged, loved, and expected to grow up.

  • Recognize When Therapy Is Needed: Professional therapy can help in cases of true trauma or mental illness, but it should not replace personal discipleship and family support.

Reclaiming Growing Up

Ultimately, many kids today are struggling not because they are inherently fragile but because the adults around them—intending to protect—have made it harder for them to develop strength. The solution isn’t to reject all mental health support or sympathy, but to wisely discern the difference between caring for genuine wounds and fostering unnecessary dependence. Emotional pain is not the enemy; unchecked emotional focus, fear-driven parenting, and relentless pathologizing of life’s normal hardships create a generation less prepared for real adulthood.

Children deserve the chance to see themselves as overcomers—capable, beloved, and equipped by God’s grace to handle what life brings their way. Let’s raise up young men and women who are not just safe, but truly free: free to take risks, learn from mistakes, and grow into the resilient adults our world so desperately needs. And let’s do it by rediscovering the timeless wisdom found in scripture, community, and Christ-centered love.

In our homes, schools, and churches, it’s time to choose faith over fear, growth over comfort, and resilience over fragility. In doing so, we honor both the hearts of our children and the God who holds them in His hands.​