In the past two years every major organization dedicated to adolescent health and development has sounded the alarm on mental health. The latest CDC data describes the crisis in detail. In 2021, more than four in ten students felt persistently sad or hopeless and nearly one-third experienced poor mental health. In the wake of this… Read More →
“There is nothing to do,” my youngest kid wailed again. In case we hadn’t heard he increased his volume when he repeated the word nothing. Then he scanned our home as if it were a barren wasteland. I glanced at him and within seconds could pick out any number of enjoyable activities he could try… Read More →
“It’s so clear that so much of it is fake. I mean I know that. But it’s like, when I am scrolling, I still don’t know that,” a teenager recently told me after a workshop at her school this past fall. She was eager to follow up on our conversation about the curated nature of… Read More →
“My seventh grader is begging for a phone. I keep going back and forth about whether I think she’s old enough,” a parent recently shared. “Honestly,” he went on, “I’m not sure I’m ready.” “I love that you are thinking about that second part,” I responded. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Well, we tend… Read More →
“Wow, this is stunning,” my oldest said facetiously, staring into a wall of dense gray clouds. After a couple of hours of hiking in the dense forest, we had finally made it to the big, dramatic view. Except that instead of a sweeping green vista, there were clouds. And we were inside them. “Isn’t it… Read More →
“When do you think kids should have access to social media?” a parent recently asked during a workshop. Before she could help herself, another parent nearby responded quietly, “When they are twenty-five.” Another parent chimed in more confidently, “Never.” This sparked knowing laughter from the entire crowd. It turns out that both of these parents’… Read More →
Last week I was scrolling through TikTok after a friend sent me a video of a hedgehog taking a bath (a video experience I highly recommend). Just as I was working to pull away from the algorithm-induced vortex, another video caught my attention. A young man facing the camera was pointing to a list of… Read More →
“When did you start talking to your kids about online porn?” a friend recently asked me, wincing a bit at the prospect of embarking on the conversations herself someday. My face likely mirrored a similar set of tortured emotions as I responded, “Much earlier than I would have liked to. But when you look at… Read More →
1. Why Forecasting Emotions Can Help Kids Handle Them When we hit a rocky spot, it is certainly tempting as parents to hope that tomorrow will be a better day. Thankfully, we are often right! Sometimes all it takes is a good night’s sleep to increase our kids’ capacity to handle what comes their way.… Read More →
“Hm hmmm?” I said, vaguely attending to my youngest child’s in-depth description of what features he would add to a Minecraft realm if given full coding control. My attention was split between his description (which could go on without end) and scrolling through a headline a friend had texted me. Actually I hadn’t made a… Read More →
