In the 1960s, child and teen mental health and behavior problems began an alarming rise that has continued to the present. In 1970, one of my grad school professors proposed that this trend could be explained with the flight-or-fight principle (i.e. in response to perceived threat, a person is inclined to either flee or stand and fight). He theorized that when parents fail to provide sufficient authority, they also fail to convince their children that they are capable, unequivocally, of guaranteeing their safety and security.