The Kids Are Not All Right. Should We Be Looking At Their School Day? A Conversation w NYT writer Jia Lynn Yang

**This will be our last episode in 2025! We will be back in early January 2026! Have a happy holiday season and a huge thank you for listening!!**

Are our schools making our kids sick? Not because of moldy buildings or bad cafeteria food, but because of what the modern school day has become.

From increased screens in the class and shrinking free time to teachers and administrators forced to focus more and more time on prep for standardized testing, schools today would be nearly unrecognizable to many parents. So, too, are the soaring rates of ADHD, anxiety, and depression among children.

In this episode, we’re joined by New York Times reporter Jia Lynn Yang to discuss her provocative piece, “America’s Children Are Unwell. Are Schools Part of the Problem?” We examine what impact a school day increasingly organized around screens, metrics, and test prep is having on children’s mental health and even childhood itself. At a moment when a great deal of attention is focused on how social media and phones are impacting teen mental health, Yang argues it’s time to scrutinize the place where kids spend most of their week: school.

Could this be a rare area where MAHA and public health actually agree?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guest:

Jia Lynn Yang, Senior Ideas Writer, The New York Times, author of the recent article, "America's Children Are Unwell. Are Schools Part of the Problem?"

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/magazine/youth-mental-health-crisis-schools.html

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