You probably give your child more love, encouragement, and intentional awareness than you yourself ever received growing up. You read the parenting books and listened to the podcasts. You watch the TED Talks and have talked to your therapist about all the ways you want to do things different with your kid. You try to be conscious about how you speak to your kids in ways your parents never did. By all accounts, you are providing more love, stability, and emotional support than your parents generation ever did.
And yet you, like many parents around the western world feel discouraged when their teenager still struggles with insecurity, anxiety, or low self-esteem. You may find yourself asking: Why does my teen feel so inadequate when they’ve been raised with more love than I ever had?
It feels unfair and confusing. But there’s an answer and it lies in how human beings are wired to seek attention, and how social media has completely distorted that process.
The Cup of Attention
Author and psychologist Tara Brach puts it quite simply: “Attention is the most basic form of love.” It is the initial prerequisite and foundation by which all other forms of love need in order to express themselves.
Every person needs attention in order to thrive. I always chuckle whenever parents roll their eyes at their kids’ behavior and dismiss it with the notion, “They’re just doing that for attention.” Yeah, they are. Just like we do things for attention all the time. Adults are no different, we just dress it up in subtler ways. How many romantic partners drop the laundry basket just a little louder so their spouse notices? How many of us carefully word a social media post to see who “likes” it? How many times do we sigh a little louder when stressed, hoping someone will ask what’s wrong? Attention is baked into how we live. We angle for it in meetings by repeating a clever point, we pause just long enough in conv
ersation for someone to ask us more, we even choose clothes or haircuts with the hope that somebody will notice. Attention is the most basic form of nurturance, and it can take many forms: love, admiration, affirmation, encouragement. With a healthy amount of it, people develop a sense of secure identity and are able to form healthy relationships with themselves and others. Without attention, people often struggle with insecurity and relationships. In fact, researchers have speculated that neglect is worse for the development of children than physical or even sexual abuse.
Think of our healthy, God given need for attention as a cup. The care and affirmation we receive fills it. In an ideal world, kids’ cups would be full, and that security would allow them to pour encouragement into their friendships, families, and communities.
But many kids grow up without enough in their cups, whether through tragedy, neglect, or misfortune. That’s why society invests in parenting education, child protection, and other safeguards.
A New Threat Parents Can’t Love Away
Today’s parents face a challenge that previous generations didn’t: the collision between our natural drive to compare ourselves and the power of modern technology.
Humans are wired to measure themselves against others. In evolutionary terms, it helped us survive. But when comparison shifts from survival to status, the sense of “enough” disappears.
Researchers in 2023 illustrated this with a simple study. Participants were asked to imagine two stressful scenarios. In one, they had to navigate a rigid social hierarchy, striving for high status. In the other, they simply lost their keys before an important meeting. Afterward, they were asked about marriage and children.
The results were striking. Those who imagined the status scenario consistently said they wanted to postpone marriage and children longer than those who imagined the lost keys. The takeaway: social comparison creates a sense of scarcity. When people feel they don’t “have enough,” they hesitate to commit to long-term goals.
This has major implications for parenting. Teens immersed in constant comparison are more likely to feel that they aren’t enough—no matter how much love, attention, or affirmation they actually receive at home.
How Social Media Expands the Cup
Social media adds rocket fuel to this problem. It gives teenagers the illusion that they are competing for love, attention, and status with people all over the world—when in reality, they are not competing with them at all.
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Instagram parades carefully curated perfection.
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YouTube rewards quick-witted personalities with millions of followers and sponsorships.
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TikTok feeds them strangers doing adventurous things in exotic places.
None of these people are your child’s actual rivals. Yet their brain interprets them as if they are.
The truth is, kids today live in extraordinary comfort compared to almost any generation in history. They have food security, health care, education, transportation, and conveniences their great-grandparents couldn’t imagine. But their brains don’t measure against history. They measure against whoever appears on their screens.
And every time your teen sees someone else getting more likes, views, or followers, their own “cup” of attention expands. They start to believe they need that much attention in order to feel adequate.
When Love Doesn’t Feel Like Enough
This explains why so many parents feel confused and discouraged. You gave your child more love than you ever received, more conscious encouragement than your parents ever managed, and yet your teen still feels lacking.
It’s not because your love isn’t real. It’s because the attention economy tell.
I’ve seen teenagers from supportive, intact families with parents who provide time, encouragement, and stability still feel empty. Not because their parents failed, but because social media and peer comparison distorted their sense of self-worth.
In the worst cases, when teens realize they cannot compete with glamorous online lives or large follower counts, they discover another route to attention: struggle. Depression, self-harm, suicidal talk, these behaviors reliably summon attention from parents, peers, teachers, and therapists. The suffering is real, and so is the attention it draws.
What Parents Can Do
This is why boundaries around screens matter so much. It’s not just about how much time kids spend online. It’s about protecting them from a warped sense of what it takes to feel “enough.”
So let me say this plainly:
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Do not let children get a phone before they are 14.
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Do not let children get social media before they are 16.
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Do not allow hours of unchecked scrolling.
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Do not let tablets, video games, or smartphones live in their bedrooms.
These are not small details. They protect kids from a false sense of competition with people they have never met—a competition they cannot possibly win.
If your child already has a phone or social media, the shift will be difficult, but it is still necessary. It may involve conflict and pushback. But the alternative is allowing an endless stream of false comparisons to define your teenager’s sense of self. If you’re wanting help navigating this massive shift, you can reach out to our San Diego Therapy team here.
Final Word: Your Love Matters
If you feel discouraged because your teenager doesn’t feel secure despite your love, remember this: the problem is not that your parenting failed. The problem is that your child is growing up in an environment that makes even real love feel insufficient.
At Sonder Therapy Group, we help kids, teens, and families build resilience against these false comparisons. If you want support in setting healthy boundaries around social media and helping your child rediscover their worth beyond likes, followers, or views, give us a call.