June 30, 2016
Q: I am working on a project about adolescents in this century. I am curious why there are so many more cases of anxiety and depression within teenage groups these days. Do media play a role in this? Have antidepressants and anxiety medications helped or hurt youth? ~ Stressed Or Saddened, USA A: Dear SOS, Depression […]
April 12, 2016
Q: I am a clinician who teaches psychiatry at a major medical school, where I lead a class on assessment and diagnosis of mental health and behavioral disorders. Recently my students asked me what kind of diagnosis one should give to designate Internet Addiction. What is the current understanding and clinical best practice? ~ Befuddled […]
February 18, 2016
Q: On several occasions, I’ve caught my 8-year-old son going on YouTube and searching for “black butts that are twerking” as well as “Chinese characters with big breasts”. How do I handle this? I’ve taken away his devices that can go on the internet, should I punish him too? ~ Twerk Trouble, USA A: Dear […]
December 28, 2015
Q: I just caught my daughter watching porn. She is 11 years old and told me that she masturbates while watching. Will having orgasms at 11 affect her future? ~ The Big Uneasy, USA A: Dear Big, While I am sure this was a worrying experience for you, remember that your daughter, like all healthy […]
October 12, 2015
Q: My ten-year-old daughter’s school has a new program where each student is paired with another to share a tablet. They switch off bringing the tablet home, but work on assignments in school together. I’m concerned that my daughter or her partner are using the tablet to search inappropriate topics online and even download (and […]
August 21, 2015
Q: What advice do you have for when kids (ages 10, 13 and 13) return home from sleepaway camp where they’ve had no devices for weeks (or months)? This seems like a great opportunity to reset the house rules for media use, as I cringe at the idea of falling back into old habits of […]
June 29, 2015
Q: My 10-year-old daughter recently confessed to watching female bondage videos regularly on YouTube for at least the past year. My question is, do other parents experience this? I understand why she might be curious, but don’t understand why she watches them again and again. She has had a lot of stress-related symptoms, but I […]
June 16, 2015
Q: My 14-year-old son is an aspiring musician and has recently been using YouNow to broadcast himself and his band’s “jam sessions.” I wasn’t too concerned until I realized that it is a live stream (I thought it was another version of YouTube) and that he also leaves it running after the band leaves and […]
June 1, 2015
Q: Our family moved recently from the U.S. to Mexico for my husband’s job, and while most things have been transitioning smoothly, I am concerned that my 14-year-old son is spending too much time with screens and not enough time making friends. Since moving, he spends a lot of time Skyping or playing video games […]
May 15, 2015
Q: We would like to get devices (smartphones, laptops, kindles, tablets) out of our kids’ bedrooms, but we don’t know how to do this. They use their laptops for homework and smartphones for music and as alarm clocks. Do you have any good suggestions on how to implement this change? Our oldest is now 18 and […]
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