I also have a tween, but slightly different challenges. We are both navigating the hard parts of ADHD (there are easy parts, too - the creativity is a literal gift), and with that comes two saddening but useful ideas in the form of Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria:

When the world tells you, from the earliest stages of infancy, that you are "wrong", most people have one of two responses:

1. I am not enough. I must do whatever it takes not to be rejected.

2. I can't do anything right, so why should I bother?

The people with the latter view might be called Oppositional-Defiant, with anger issues, and the former have RSD, and are anxious people-pleasers.

That knowledge in itself doesn't solve the problem, but understanding it helps. It's about framing it accurately.

I know, for example, that humans evolved with different sleep cycles depending on their age. It is natural and appropriate for a teenager to sleep late. It is natural and appropriate for an older person to wake early.

It also helps to know that the world is getting better, not worse. Historically, governments spent 50% of GDP on defence; now it's more like 3%. There have never been fewer international wars. There has never been less absolute poverty.

If you travel from one part of the country to another, we can expect to arrive unharmed, which isn't something our ancestors could say. We have better health, live longer lives, have more freedom and opportunity than at almost any point in history. If someone could see us 300 years ago, in our forties with our glossy hair, own teeth, and unlined faces, sipping a glass of mulled wine with all those spices, they'd think we lived in heaven itself.

Yes, there is work to do, and we must roll up our sleeves, but we can do so with hope and confidence.

The kids will be alright.