Article Critique: Luthar, Suniya. The Problem with Rich Kids. Psychology Today

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Luthar, Suniya. The Problem with Rich Kids. Psychology Today. 2013. Web.
The article’s author, Luthar (1) states that in a surprising switch, the children from wealthy families are more distressed relative to other youth. These children exhibit alarmingly high rates of eating disorder, stealing, cheating, substance use, anxiety, as well as depression. It offers a completely new meaning to having it all. Luthar (1) states that more and more, significant problems are happening amongst youth from communities dominated by well-educated, white collar parents. They go to schools well-known by rich academic curricula, varied extracurricular opportunities, and the yearly income of their parents at $150,000 and over is more than double the national average. Despite this, these young people exhibit serious levels of maladjustment as teenagers and show problems that are inclined to worsen as they approach college (Luthar 1).
The author recruited young people in an affluent suburban community in the Northeast and compared the sample with inner-city teenagers. The author reported that rich teenagers fair considerably more poorly compared to their counterparts of low social and economic status on every indicator of substance use including hard drugs. She adds that there is also high alcohol use, marijuana use and binge-drinking amongst children of high-income, white, well-educated, 2-parent families (Luthar 1). I agree with this article that there is high rate of drug use among affluent teens, as well as high alcohol use and marijuana use. In essence, youth from affluent families have a higher chance of using alcohol relative to children who come from poor families. The reasons as to why many affluent children turn alcohol and drugs include: desire to be perfect, disposable income and pressure to succeed (Samuels 3).
The article also reports that rich children also have serious internalizing problems. Studies co...