The efficacy of single-sex education for boys has been a focus of scholarly inquiry for decades. The consensus has been that the all-boys format does not boost academic achievement for boys, on average. In this article, I suggest that the scholarly consensus may be mistaken or at least misleading. I argue that while some boys’ [...]
Dr. Sax was a guest on Fox Friends to give a quick overview of the mechanisms whereby permissive parenting leads to more kids becoming anxious and/or depressed. He explores this topic at much greater length in his book The Collapse of Parenting. You can watch this segment on Fox at this link.
Dr. Sax returned to The Megyn Kelly Show on December 11 2024. You can watch the entire interview (90 minutes!) or choose short snippets prepared by Megyn s team, at this YouTube link.
Dr. Sax was on The Megyn Kelly Show for an extended discussion of issues facing girls, boys, and their parents, on January 18 2023. You can watch the entire interview (90 minutes!) or choose short snippets prepared by Megyn s team, at this YouTube link.
Since 2018, Dr. Sax has been a regular contributor to the Institute for Family Studies, publishing essays on a wide variety of topics including the growing gender gap in academic achievement; the toxicity of some aspects of American popular culture; and the unique risks associated with TikTok. A full list of his contributions is posted [...]
Friedrich Nietzsche was among the first philosophers to wrestle seriously with the implications of Charles Darwin’s theories. In Daybreak (1881), Nietzsche considered the metaphysical consequences of Darwinian evolution: Formerly one sought the feeling of the grandeur of man by pointing to his divine origin: this has now become a forbidden way, for at its portal stands the ape, together [...]
Kyle Giersdorf earned $3 million when he won the Fortnite World Cup. He was 16 years old. Suppose it s after midnight and your son is playing video games. You tell him to turn off the game and go to bed. What are you supposed to say, when your son answers But video games are my [...]
Eric Metaxas, author of bestselling biographies of Martin Luther and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, interviews Dr. Sax about Dr. Sax s scholarly paper Aus den Gemeinden von Burgenland , in which Dr. Sax provides evidence that Adolf Hitler s paternal grandfather was a Jew and that Adolf Hitler most likely knew it. Eric and Leonard then explore the implications of [...]
Hans Frank was Adolf Hitler’s personal attorney. In Frank’s memoir, published seven years after his execution in 1946 at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Frank claimed to have uncovered evidence in 1930 that Hitler’s paternal grandfather was a Jewish man living in Graz, Austria, in the household where Hitler’s grandmother was employed. Contemporary historians [...]
Stuart Varney interviews Dr. Sax about The Collapse of Parenting . This interview is fun! Click here to watch this video.
A couple, returning from vacation, turns on the air-conditioning. The wife is overwhelmed by a terrible stench coming from the ductwork and is convinced that an animal must have died in the house. She tells her husband that they need to hire somebody to get rid of it. His response? “I don’t smell anything.” Both [...]
The Science Talent Search is the leading science competition for American high school students. It’s often referred to as “The Junior Nobel Prize.” According to a recent study, 83 percent of the forty finalists in 2016 were the children of immigrants. Fourteen had parents from India; eleven had parents from China. So twenty-five of the forty [...]
Kyle was absorbed in a videogame on his cellphone, so I asked his mom, “How long has Kyle had a stomach ache?” Mom said, “I’m thinking it’s been about two days.” Then Kyle replied, “Shut up, mom. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” And he gave a snorty laugh, without looking up from his [...]
Compared with a teenager in Germany, a teenager in the United States is about how likely to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder? About forty times as likely See Martin Holtmann and colleagues, “Bipolar disorder in children and adolescents in Germany: national trends in the rates of inpatients, 2000 – 2007,” Bipolar Disorders, volume 12, pp. [...]
In 1987, 34% of students who took the AP Computer Science exam were girls. What proportion of students who took the AP Computer Science exam in 2025 were girls? 26% In 2025, a total of 92,543 students took the AP Computer Science A exam: of those, 24,331 (26.3%) were female; 68,212 (73.7%) were male. See [...]
What proportion of American kids 12 to 15 years of age meet minimum standards for physical fitness, based on their ability to walk and run? 42% Over the past decade, rates of obesity have been pretty stable for American kids 6 to 18 years of age. But over the same decade, the fitness of American [...]
In 1970, 4.6% of American adolescents were obese. Today, what proportion of American adolescents are obese? 22.2% For the 1970 data, see Cheryl Fryar and colleagues, “Prevalence of obesity among children and adolescents: United States, trends 1963-1965 through 2009-2010,” published September 13 2012 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, full text online at [...]
Compared with a teenager in the United Kingdom, a teenager in the United States is about how likely to be diagnosed with ADHD? About 14 times as likely The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has released figures on the proportion of American children who have been diagnosed with ADHD. Looking across the entire United States, [...]
In 2025, what was the approximate female-to-male ratio among students who took the AP exam in Spanish Literature? 16 girls for every 10 boys To be precise: 16,774 girls took the AP exam in Spanish Literature and Culture, and 10,304 boys, which works out to 16 girls for every 10 boys. For these and other [...]
Compared with children in Italy, children in the United States are about how likely to be on prescription antipsychotic medications such as Risperdal and Seroquel? About 90 times as likely To be precise, about 93 times as likely. The most popular medications now used to control temper tantrums and other acting-out misbehaviors in American kids [...]
Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb interview Dr. Sax and Dr. Meg Meeker on The TODAY Show. This video is no longer available. A transcript is available here.
If mom and dad installed monitoring software on their middle-schoolers phones, it would make a big difference. (Read article on The Wall Street Journal website) Earlier this year I visited a school in turmoil. It began with two students: a sixth-grade girl who I ll call Emily, and her 14-year-old boyfriend, who I ll call Justin. Justin begged [...]
Grow Up: Parenting Wars with John Stossel
Psychiatry s diagnostic bible has broadened the definition of mental illness to absurdity. (Read article on The Wall Street Journal website) The American Psychiatric Association released a revision of its diagnostic bible in May, the first major rewrite in two decades. The Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, is [...]
(Read this article on The New York Times website) A teenager complains of difficulty concentrating. The doctor is consulted. The teenager does not meet formal criteria for A.D.H.D., but the doctor says, “Why not try Adderall? Let’s try it and see whether it helps.” A prescription is dispensed. The student reports more energy, improved ability [...]