Why?

A new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores and explains how smartphones and social media rewired society since 2010.

Haidt explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

The book is split into four parts: 

1. The Tidal Wave: In this section, it shows the basic statistics on the mental health of young people.
2. The Decline of the Play-Based Childhood: In this section, it discusses the nature of childhood and how we messed it up by depriving children of play and role-models, damaging attachment systems, and erasing any clear path from childhood to adulthood. 
3. The Rise of the Phone-Based Childhood: In this section, it discusses the harms that result from the new phone-based childhood, with a chapter devoted to harms to girls, a chapter on harm to boys, and a chapter on the “spiritual degradation” that is happening to all of us––including adults––from our new phone-based lives. 
4. Collective Actions for Better Childhood: In this final section, it explains what we must do to reverse the damage. I explain how parents, school, governments, tech companies, and young people are trapped in “collective action problems” and how these can be resolved when individuals organize and act together. 

Jonathan Haidt’s suggestions include:

• Give children far more time playing with other children. This play should ideally be outdoors, in mixed age groups, with little or no adult supervision (which is the way most parents grew up, at least until the 1980s).
• Look for more ways to embed children in stable real-world communities.  Online networks are not nearly as binding or satisfying.
• Don’t give a smartphone as the first phone. Give a phone or watch that is specialized for communication, not for internet-based apps.
• Don’t give a smartphone until high school.  This is easy to do, if many of your child’s friends’ parents are doing the same thing.
• Delay the opening of accounts on nearly all social media platforms until the beginning of high school (at least). This will become easier to do if we can support legislators who are trying to raise the age of “internet adulthood” from today’s 13 (with no verification) to 16 (with mandatory age verification).

In The Anxious Generation, it explains the major causes of the international epidemic of mental illness that hit adolescents in the early 2010s, and Haidt offers a path forward for parents, teachers, friends, and relatives who want to help improve the mental health of children and teens.

Order on Amazon today. An absolute must read for all parents today.

Also read:

Teens and Mental Health Concerns

How Cell Phones Effect Mental Health

The post The Anxious Generation: The Epidemic of Teenage Mental Illness first appeared on Help Your Teens.

“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Mom.”
“Go away!”

Not exactly the response we want, is it? I literally wrote the book on How to Talk to Kids about Anything and yet, that doesn’t give me the magic button to make it all easy with a 14-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son. And yet, we must get talking.

The science tells us these 3 truths whether we are referring to discussions about sex, suicide, money, friendship and more.

• Kids want to talk to parents about important, awkward, hard subjects.
• When kids talk to their parents about tough topics, they are less likely to engage in risky behaviors. 
• When kids don’t talk to their parents about tough topics, they are more likely to engage in risky behaviors.

So how do we open the door when teens are often closing them on their paths to individuate, gain privacy and spend more time with friends?

1) Take the chance: Get awkward. If you haven’t talked to your kids about tough topics, the ones people usually put a big THE in front of—THE sex talk, THE tech talk, THE drug talk….”start. You may not get it all right (you probably won’t, who does?) but when you start, you crack the door open. You are saying, “I want to talk. I’m willing to talk. I’m able to listen. I’m here.” You may be surprised by their response and what they take in. There have been times when I thought my kid was barely listening and then, a few weeks later, I hear them relaying my exact words to a friend. Our words penetrate.

2) Look for the lobs: Perhaps your kids, like mine, sometimes lob up an opportunity to talk about difficult topics. It happens in a moment—and can easily be missed if we aren’t fully plugged in. For example, a few weeks ago, I was sitting in my car with my daughter when she said to me, “If I went to a party when I was like, 16, and there was drinking there—and I drank- would you just be so furious with me? Would I get in so much trouble?” It was a test. You see, it’s in these moments that we can either show yourself as their safe person or as their warden. What do you really want them to know? Here’s what I said, “While you know how I feel about underage drinking, the one thing I would absolutely want you to know is no matter where you are or what time it is—it could be 3am 3 towns away- that you can call me to come and get you no questions asked. You will never get in trouble for asking for help to stay safe and away from harm.”

3) Move from lecturer to listener: It’s so easy to go into a tough talk with an agenda—wanting to hit on several points so that your child knows what they need to know to make the safest, most fair, or what you view as the “best choice.” However, your child may be coming from a different perspective or with different information that sways their interpretation of what the “best choice” is. Instead, listen. Ask powerful questions. “What do you think?” “What do you know about this topic already?” “What would you say or do?” or even “What am I missing in the way I’m viewing this topic these days?” Your children will appreciate your desire to learn from them rather than always be in the position of “safe,” and you’ll likely get a lot further with the conversation.

4) Ask for advice: Along the same lines, your child may have the perfect guidance for a friend’s kid, if you ask them their opinion. Giving this “once-removed” scenario takes the pressure off of them and allows them the gift of perspective. “Nicole’s 4^th grader, Riley, is having a lot of problems with her friend group…she’s being left out because of XYZ. Her parents don’t know how to help her, and Riley is miserable.” Allow your children to respond and use their unique position as someone who may have recently gone through a similar situation to provide insight and suggestions. Young people love to be asked for their outlook and appreciate being valued for what they can offer.

5) Start where they are—and with who they are: Some kids are more scientific while others are more visual or auditory. What works best to open-up conversation with your kid? Some might respond best with a story. “Did you know that Oprah was fired from her first job for being ‘unfit for TV news’ before making it big with her own show? Often it takes several tries before people see and appreciate your unique gifts.” Others might open up when you start with a statistic. “I read a study that said that the majority of kids but age 11 have seen porn. Is that surprising to you?” Still others might do best reading a note or going back and forth with a parent-child journal, watching and responding to a video or viewing a movie with you and discussing it afterwards. When we start with our children’s communication style in mind, we can find the conversation flowing better.

Our kids want this information, and they want it from a trusted source—us. Many young people don’t feel that they have at least 3 people to turn to in a time of need or challenge. Let’s be one of the 3—and know that to be in that coveted position, we need to get awkward, be creative, listen and keep trying.

When kids know that we want to talk about the tough stuff, even when we don’t have all the answers, they realize we are all in it together. And above all, know that a closed door doesn’t always mean we are shut out but rather, we need to keep on knocking and showing up.

Learn more about Dr. Robyn:

Known as the “Conversation Doc,” Dr. Robyn Silverman is a child and teen development specialist and author of the [forthcoming] book, How to Talk to Kids About Anything, as well as the host of the popular podcast of the same name. She is a cofounder of the Powerful Words Character System, which gives educators the talking points they need to help children become kind, responsible citizens of the world. 

Dr. Robyn has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Early Show and Nightline and has been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, CNN.com, and many other publications. She lives with her husband, two kids and fuzzy rescue dog who loves sunning himself on their front steps, even in the summer heat of North Carolina.

Find out all about the book at DrRobynSilverman.com.

The post 5 Ways to Start Tough Talks with Closed-Door Teens first appeared on Help Your Teens.

Every child (teen) messes up, sometimes in ways that seem sure to wreck their futures: a bad report card, poor sportsmanship, underaged drinking. These are tough moments for parent and child alike, often complicated by the fear that the misstep is also an indictment of our parenting. But what each of these “fails” has in common for our kids is the precious silver lining of a chance for character building and developing more grit—if we help them process their mistake well.

An invaluable playbook for anxious parents everywhere, Eight Setbacks That Can Make a Child a Success offers specific and unexpected advice about what to say, what not to say, and what to do to help children in eight categories of tense situations. Distilled from Michelle Icard’s decades of experience working with tweens, teenagers, and families, it also introduces her signature three-step approach to any kind of failure:

• Contain: Affirm your child, gather the facts, and control the narrative.
• Resolve: Explain what went wrong, define clear consequences, teach them to apologize well, and develop a plan to rebuild trust. 
• Evolve: Reaffirm and re-expand their rights, and establish rewards for good behaviors. 

With empathy, insight, and optimism, Michelle Icard’s advice ensures that a child’s mistake or rebellion doesn’t become the headline of their childhood, but instead becomes a launch pad to a better future.

Also read Michelle’s previous book: Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen.

The post 8 Setbacks That Can Help Make a Child a Success first appeared on Help Your Teens.

Imagine being a fly on the wall in your daughter’s elementary school class. The teacher introduces a new boy who has just moved into town and then asks the kids to welcome him to the class. It’s obvious that he’s uncomfortable. After all, he misses his old friends and doesn’t know anyone. To make matters worse, he’s shy. You’d think the kids would go out of their way to make him feel comfortable, but the opposite occurs. In fact, his classmates are flat-out mean.

You see, he doesn’t dress like the other boys in town — he’s from another part of the country where customs are different. And the kids laugh at him because he talks funny. 

But what happens next can actually take your breath away.

The kids go from snickering behind his back to being outright cruel to the new student. As the days go by, things go from bad to worse. The kids write nasty notes on his locker and on social media and laugh at him because he sits alone at lunch. Plus, when everyone changes classes, the kids go out of their way to bump into him in the hallway. 

Of course, you might think maybe one kid would do this because he’s outright mean — or he didn’t have a proper upbringing. But you’d expect more from the others, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, more and more kids harass this poor boy because they want to win acceptance from the in-crowd. 

You’d think one kind soul would stand up for him. But unfortunately, no one does.

In fact, even though the grown-ups see what’s happening, no one speaks up or stands up for him. Instead, they pretend it’s not happening or they look the other way. 

Although this hasn’t come down to fist-fighting yet, you know it’s just a matter of time. 

You have to ask yourself, what did this kid do wrong to deserve such ill treatment? He was popular back home, but then again, everyone there talked and dressed like him. 

On a different note, where did these kids learn to be so mean? 

That answer is simple. 

It doesn’t take much these days to find grown-ups who:

• Call people nasty names.
• Judge people they don’t know.
• Shout people down for voicing an opinion.
• Pounce on people for disagreeing with them.
• Bully or make fun of people who look or act differently.
• Shut down debate to drown out dissenting viewpoints.
• Boycott groups that adhere to different values.
• Condemn people for committing acts — even though the facts aren’t completely known. 
• Denounce entire groups of people due to the act of one individual.
• Rant against people in order to appease the in-crowd.

Disgusting, isn’t it?

And all the while, just as happened in the school, people look the other way or remain silent.

How can we be surprised when kids act this way when all they’re doing is copying the behavior they see around them?

Would you want your kids to mimic your behavior?

Excerpted from The Path to a Meaningful Life by Frank Sonnenberg.

# # #

Frank Sonnenberg is an award-winning author and a well-known advocate for moral character, personal values, and personal responsibility. He has written nine books and has been named one of “America’s Top 100 Thought Leaders” and one of “America’s Most Influential Small Business Experts.” Frank has served on several boards and has consulted to some of the largest and most respected companies in the world. Frank’s newest book, The Path to a Meaningful Life, was released June 14, 2022.

Additionally, his blog — FrankSonnenbergOnline — has attracted millions of readers on the Internet. It was recently named one of the “Top Self-Improvement and Personal Development Blogs” in the world, and it continues to be named among the “Best 21st Century Leadership Blogs,” the “Top 100 Socially-Shared Leadership Blogs,” and the “Best Inspirational Blogs On the Planet.” 

The post Where Do Bullies Learn to Be So Mean? first appeared on Help Your Teens.

Sexting, cyberbullying, revenge porn, online predators… all of these potential threats can tempt parents to snatch the smartphone or tablet right out of their children’s hands. While avoidance might eliminate the dangers, that approach also means your child misses out on technology’s many benefits and opportunities.

Raising Humans in a Digital World (Harper Collins 2019) is a must read for all parents of connected tweens and teens.

Cybercivics teacher and author, Diana Graber, brilliantly shares with her readers how digital kids (tweens and teens) must learn to navigate through today’s online environment:

• developing social-emotional skills
• balancing virtual and real life
• building safe and healthy relationships
• avoiding cyberbullies and online predators
• protecting personal information
• identifying and avoiding fake news and questionable content
• becoming positive role models and leaders.

This book is packed with at-home discussion topics and enjoyable activities that any busy family can slip into their daily routine.

Full of practical tips grounded in academic research and hands-on experience, today’s parents finally have what they’ve been waiting for—a guide to raising digital kids and teens who will become the positive and successful leaders our world desperately needs.

Sign-up for Cyberwise free podcasts!

Order your copy today.

Read: How Much Is Too Much Screen Time.

Diana Graber on the Today Show.

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If you are struggling with your teenager’s internet addiction and have exhausted your local resources, learn more about how residential treatment can help your troubled teen through developing a healthy relationship with technology. Contact us today for a free consultation.

The post Raising Humans In A Digital World first appeared on Help Your Teens.

Life is full of tough stuff — from bullying to body image issues, friendship stress to family struggles, panic attacks to pandemics.

This book tackles a lot of hard to discuss topics including:

 

anxiety and depression (including cutting and suicidal ideation)

how to help a friend in need

perfectionism and pressure

eating disorders

caring for yourself

bullying and cyberbullying

too much social media

gender identity and sexual orientation

saying no to vape and alcohol

racism and discrimination

sexual harassment

building a positive mindset

being an upstander

grief, loss, divorce…

This book shows girls how to get through tricky times and come out on the other side even stronger. It provides tons of tips on how to bounce back and find enough resilience — a real-life skill that can be learned — to withstand the toughest challenges. In these pages, girls will find ideas on dealing with specific challenges and can read quotes from girls who’ve been there. Resilient girls face their hardest days head-on, look for the positives, and recover from disappointments. This book shows the way!

Order on Amazon today!

The post Smart Girls Guide: Tough Stuff first appeared on Help Your Teens.

If you have a teen in treatment or about to graduate from their program, Not By Chance is the most recommended book for parents of teens and young adults in residential therapy.

By Dr. Tim Thayne

Your struggling teenager is going to a residential or wilderness treatment program. Their addictions, learning disabilities, or emotional/behavioral issues have brought you to a moment of decision. Heartsick, anxious, and exhausted, questions bounce endlessly around your mind, “Will this work?  Was this really necessary? Will she ever forgive me?  Can we handle him at home when the time comes?”

Dr. Tim Thayne delivers the answers in his groundbreaking book Not by Chance. As an owner/therapist of wilderness and residential programs, Thayne was frustrated when young people made monumental progress, only to return home where things quickly unraveled. His mission became to vastly improve long-term success by crafting and proving a model to coach parents on their power to lead out through full engagement during treatment and management of the transition home.

Not by Chance engages readers through solid research, simple exercises, and captivating stories taken from Thayne’s own life and the living rooms of hundreds of American homes. This book serves up concrete tools, hope, confidence, and stamina for families, professionals and mentors.

Topics include:

• Why good programs work
• How to boost—not undermine—treatment
• Nine dangers waiting after discharge
• How to identify natural mentors for your teen
• What to do when the testing begins
• When and how to grant back privileges and freedoms
• How to ease your young adult’s transition from treatment to independent living
• When you know you’ve succeeded

If you are even considering out-of-home treatment for your teen, do not gamble with the outcomes. Not by Chance should claim its rightful place on your nightstand.

Visit www.notbychance.com for more information on their Homeward Bound courses.

Read: 5 Benefits of Therapeutic Boarding Schools.

Read: Where to Send Your Troubled Teens.

Read: What Causes Teen Mental Health Issues.

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Are you considering residential therapy for your troubled teen? Confused by the internet or the choices of the teen help industry? Visit our tips for researching quality schools and programs and contact us today for a free consultation.

The post Not By Chance first appeared on Help Your Teens.

In just one day, a 17-year-old goes from being a kid whose ignorance about grown-up topics may be excused to an adult who should have known better. It is a dynamic that plays out across the country every day as young people reach their 18th birthday. So where exactly are newly minted adults supposed to get the knowledge expected to accompany their recently gained status? 

Parents may seem like the obvious choice to teach their children about adulthood, but with so many competing priorities the topic may not get much attention in homes. Even for parents who make the time to discuss grown-up stuff, the subjects can be so boring and seemingly irrelevant to teens that the conversations may sometimes be met with complete disinterest.

Schools, friends, and society in general may be able to teach our youth about adulthood, but those options are not without their own challenges and shortcomings. In other words, young people tend to enter adulthood without much of the information they’ll need to succeed in their journey. Many waste much of their twenties and even early thirties trying to figure things out on the fly.

I was one of those 18-year-olds who was completely oblivious about most of the details that make adulthood work. I knew virtually nothing about lease agreements, at-will employment, a W-2, credit reports, bank accounts, or any type of insurance. It wasn’t that things were difficult to learn, but rather the fact that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. How are you supposed to ask questions about stuff you are not aware is relevant to you?

In an effort to help my own teenager avoid having to learn about adulthood through trial and error, I ended up writing a teen-friendly book on the topic. Grown-Up Stuff Explained: 75 Topics 18-Year-Olds Should Know grew out of the need to present the information in a way that was concise, efficient, and at least mildly entertaining. 

The book is designed to answer three main questions about each of the items it covers: 

• When is it relevant? 
• What is it?
• Why it matters? 

In order to keep readers engaged, the book gets to each point quickly and succinctly. Every subject is limited to one page and is accompanied by a cartoon that summarizes the main idea. 

The purpose of the book is simply to make young people aware of topics that they may want to further explore on their own. It covers important details related to civic responsibilities, employment, living arrangements, paying off debt, owning a car, saving and investing, traveling, and others.

Parents can use the book as a catalyst to initiate their own adulthood related discussions with their older teens or young adults. Similarly, young people can use the book as a resource to reference when needed. In either scenario, it is my hope that the book can be a useful tool in getting soon-to-be and new adults to understand grown-up stuff. There is certainly much of it to learn, so we can all use a little help.

By Witty Ryter

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Read: Help For Your Struggling Young Adult.

The post Grown-Up Stuff Explained first appeared on Help Your Teens.

The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence

Author Jessica Lahey

This is one of the most timely and important books for parents today, especially those raising tweens and teenagers. So many are concerned about their child’s future as it pertains to substance use – here is how you can become a proactive parent starting now.

In this supportive, life-saving resource, the New York Times bestselling author of The Gift of Failure helps parents and educators understand the roots of substance abuse and identify who is most at risk for addiction, and offers practical steps for prevention.

Jessica Lahey was born into a family with a long history of alcoholism and drug abuse. Despite her desire to thwart her genetic legacy, she became an alcoholic and didn’t find her way out until her early forties. Jessica has worked as a teacher in substance abuse programs for teens, and was determined to inoculate her two adolescent sons against their most dangerous inheritance. All children, regardless of their genetics, are at some risk for substance abuse.

According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, teen drug addiction is the nation’s largest preventable and costly health problem. Despite the existence of proven preventive strategies, nine out of ten adults with substance use disorder report they began drinking and taking drugs before age eighteen.

The Addiction Inoculation is a comprehensive resource parents and educators can use to prevent substance abuse in children. Based on research in child welfare, psychology, substance abuse, and developmental neuroscience, this essential guide provides evidence-based strategies and practical tools adults need to understand, support, and educate resilient, addiction-resistant children.

The guidelines are age-appropriate and actionable—from navigating a child’s risk for addiction, to interpreting signs of early abuse, to advice for broaching difficult conversations with children.

The Addiction Inoculation is an empathetic, accessible resource for anyone who plays a vital role in children’s lives—parents, teachers, coaches, or pediatricians—to help them raise kids who will grow up healthy, happy, and addiction-free.

Also check out: Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen (Must read!)

Read: 5 Benefits of Therapeutic Boarding Schools.

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Contact us if you have exhausted your local resources with your troubled teen. We help you make smart decisions for teen help programs, therapeutic boarding schools and other options for struggling teens.

The post The Addiction Inoculation first appeared on Help Your Teens.

By Randy Kulman, PhD.

Do you spend hours on end playing video games? Do marathon gaming sessions cause you to lose much-needed sleep? Have your grades suffered as a result of neglecting schoolwork in favor of more game time? Has your physical health declined due to extended periods of inactivity? Have you tried unsuccessfully to limit the time you spend playing?

Gaming can be a fun, challenging, and rewarding activity, but when it begins to interfere with other essential aspects of life, it might be time to set some limits.

The Gaming Overload Workbook will help you explore your use of video games in a thoughtful, nonjudgmental way. This isn’t a workbook for giving up on gaming. This is a guide to help you set your own limits on screen time, and apply your interest and enthusiasm for gaming to a wider variety of activities, like connecting with friends and family, excelling in school or sports, and just spending more time outdoors.

If you’re ready for some healthy balance between gaming, school, family, physical activity, and social relationships, this book will provide the key to winning at the game of life!

Order your copy today on Amazon.

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If you are struggling with your teen’s gaming addiction and have exhausted your local resources, learn more about how residential treatment can help your teen develop a healthy relationship with technology. Contact us today for  a free consultation.

The post The Gaming Overload Workbook first appeared on Help Your Teens.