While you could feel fine with a few days of irregular sleep, you might be unintentionally harming yourself in the long term. Scientists all over the world are almost unanimously in agreement that sleep is crucial for your health. Underestimating that could lead to serious consequences in both physiological and psychological aspects of your life.

It’s a significant problem that major technology companies are taking notice of. Many companies release wearable technologies and apps that claim to help with sleep patterns.

So, keep on reading, because the next section will explain in detail how technology can help improve your sleep.

Understanding wearable tech for health and rest

To understand how wearable technologies can help with your sleep health, you must first understand two important facts about sleep for your health. 

Number one is to sleep adequately: Sleeping too much is just as much of a problem as sleeping too little. A general healthy sleep window is approximately 7-9 hours a day; more than that can cause an inverse effect on your health.

A national cohort study of adults in China found that short sleep duration (>6 hours) over time is associated with a 17% increased risk of cognitive decline, while sleeping more than 8 hours is associated with an even higher risk, at 57%. 

Number two is consistent sleeping, also known as sleep regularity. Regular sleep is just as important as simply getting enough sleep. A longitudinal study involving over 500,000 participants from the UK found that going to sleep and waking up at roughly the same time can lower the risk of all-cause mortality by 20-48%.

Sleeping adequately and consistently are two sides of the same coin; both are essential for maintaining your sleep health. Wearable technologies can help improve your sleep health by tracking your sleep patterns.

How wearable technology tracks rest and sleep patterns

You can track your sleep in two ways: self-tracking your sleep and wake times, or using wearable technology to summarize them for you. Despite its benefits and ease, according to the 2025 ResMed global sleep report, nearly 45% of people never track their sleep, and even more puzzling, 22% have resigned themselves to living with sleep deprivation.

Wearable sleep trackers are sensor-equipped devices that aim to improve sleep by collecting data on users’ behavior. These sleep trackers can be in the form of headbands, rings, and wrist-worn smartwatches. The tools are equipped with a special accelerometer.

Simply, the accelerometer detects your pulse when you’re awake and classifies that as waking, while when your pulse is slower (normal during sleeping), it classifies your activity as sleeping. Then provides you with a summary of your sleep-wake patterns.

This method of combining detection and sleep summaries, often referred to as actigraphy, enables wearables to classify how users move between sleep-wake stages at 30-second to 1-minute intervals. These moves between stages are often scientifically referred to as sleep epochs. 

Using actigraphy, scientists found that wearable technology is nearly as effective as polysomnography (a more complex test used to diagnose sleep disorders) for detecting sleep patterns. A study comparing six wearable devices with polysomnography in 53 healthy adults found more than 90% of sleep epochs were comparable, indicating nearly identical accuracy. 

Wearable tech in healthcare and preventive medicine

By using an accelerometer, wearable technology can infer sleep from inactivity and provide a summary. Some wearable devices are often equipped with infrared sensors that infer heart rate variability, pulse oximetry, and even breathing rate. 

A systematic review of twenty randomized controlled trials involving 1608 participants from 9 countries finds that the use of wearable devices contributes a small but significant improvement in breathing-related sleep outcomes. The experimental group experiences improvement in this area:  

• Oxygen levels during sleep. Wearing wearable devices is associated with an average of 2 fewer incidents per hour of oxygen saturation dropping during sleep. Low oxygen levels during sleep can cause your breathing to become shallow and even stop temporarily, reducing blood flow to your brain. 
• Lower respiratory distress. With oxygen levels more tightly controlled, participants in the experimental group also experience an average of 3 fewer respiratory disturbance incidents per hour during sleep. 

Poor breathing during sleep is largely unintentional, but can increase the risk of mortality. More recent wearable technology can record and provide insights into your sleep cycles and compare them with normal sleep cycles. 

This could help you identify disruptions in your sleep cycles. Information and insights can help provide context on where you can improve your sleep. 

How wearable tech improves your rest

Only around 35% of Americans have used wearable sleep trackers in 2023.

Clinical studies have found that wrist-worn wearables (e.g., smartwatches) lead to a meaningful reduction in sleep disturbance by 1.69 points among 32 healthy participants within 7 days of use. This highlights that while it’s not an instant fix, wearable technology could help individuals improve their sleep habits. 

The next few sections will explain in more detail how wearable tech can benefit your sleep health and why you should consider it. 

Turning sleep into measurable, trackable goals

The key to initiating change is knowing where to start. Wearable technology could help you gather knowledge about sleep problems. Face it, it’s impossible to change your sleep pattern overnight – but knowing where to start is the first realistic step. 

A 2025 study involving 1,200 Canadian adults finds that only 19,3% have ever used a sleep tracker device. However, among those who use it, nearly 45% report a positive effect on their sleep, and 43,6% report a positive effect on their stress levels.

This number may seem low. It’s because wearable tech is not an instant fix — you still need to make a change within yourself.

Personalized health insights for better sleep habits

Wearable tech’s function is to track. Another feature that is often integrated into wearable tech sleep trackers is a feedback loop system. This enables your tech to provide feedback based on scientific findings about where you can improve and what could be disturbing your sleep. 

Receiving feedback has been proven to help even insomniacs improve their sleep. This research highlights that while daily insights from wearable tech provide a functional baseline, the results depend on how you use them.

Motivation, rewards, and habit formation

Do you have games on your phone? Have you noticed that sometimes there is a daily quest that you can complete to get in-game rewards? This is a concept called gamification.

When you complete your task, you receive a point; if you don’t complete it, you receive demerits. Gamification encourages behavioral change through small rewards and discourages negative behavior through negative feedback. 

It’s a highly effective way to break your sleep targets into attainable goals and make them fun. A 40-day-long study with 132 participants tested whether a chatbot that gives points can help build a water-drinking habit compared with an inactive points chatbot. Users with an active points chatbot display water-drinking habits 3 times better than the group without a points chatbot. 

Based on this research, gamification can help motivate individuals to change while still making it fun. The points acted as rewards for every change that you can make, even the small ones.

Gamification techniques in wearable tech

From the previous section, you learned that the gamification method can be useful in encouraging users to maintain good habits. Wearable tech also implemented a few in-product services to help you track and reward your progress. And no change is too small or too late. 

Similar to the water-drinking study, a 2024 study of 1062 patients with a very high risk of cardiovascular events had an average age of 67 years old. After 12 months, participants who received both gamification and financial incentives walked 868 more daily steps, while participants who received gamification walked 538 more daily steps. 

An incentive program, such as gamification, can be a strong motivator for individuals to start making a change. And more often than not, gamification modes are also implemented with ranking or community systems in which individuals share their progress. 

Social and competitive elements in smart technologies

Many people underestimate the power of support from a community that shares a common goal. Even support from strangers who share similar goals can help an individual feel supported in their journey. 

A study including nearly 12,000 subscribers from a notable wrist-worn tech wearables company. Over 12 weeks, all user data were tracked, and the study found that users who wore the tech every day slept 0.334 hours longer and had higher sleep consistency than those who wore it fewer than 5 days a week. 

Sleep improvement is explained by increased activity levels; the study also finds that frequent users had an average 1,214 ms higher heart rate variability. Therefore, the differences in sleep duration during the research period can be attributed to users becoming more active while using the product, therefore becoming more consistent in their sleeping goals. 

Having a community to share with and competing to reach your goals can help you maintain a healthy habit without feeling alone on your journey. 

How to use wearable tech to improve your rest

In theory and scientific research, wearable tech helps maintain healthy habits by providing data-driven, personalized insights based on users’ daily patterns. But daily insights can only get you so far; it’s still important that you take charge and turn those insights into real change.

Here are some tips:

Set clear sleep goals using wearable data

Depends on how you can utilize various features on your wearable tech — you can set a realistic set of goals that you can handle. Usually, wearables are equipped with features that account for your target duration. Therefore, you can try this for the first few days to get to know your sleep pattern: 

• Read the instructions and record. Get to know your tech first, from what its intended purpose is and how to maximize the tracking function. Wear your tech and let it function as intended to track your sleeping patterns for a few days to a week. Always ensure your data is recorded daily. 
• Review your sleep pattern after a few days. After a few days of recording your sleep, your tech can provide you with statistical insights and knowledge about your sleep. 
• Set an attainable goal. Wearable tech is not an instant fix to your sleeping problems. But technology can help you stay consistent. Set an attainable goal. For example: To sleep at 10 PM every night. 

Setting a goal can help you track your progress, without pressuring yourself for an instant noticeable change. Remember, real change is not instant; it’s a constant work in progress. In the case of sleep problems, prioritize consistent sleep hours first. Regular sleep hours can reduce all-cause mortality risk up to 48%. 

Read more: From Zzz to Zen: Crafting a Balanced Life Through Better Sleep Habits 

Use gamification features to build sustainable sleep habits

Because change is not an instant fix, it’s highly beneficial for you to make it fun. Gamification works because it reduces your cognitive load and builds a small and enjoyable routine for you to start. The main goals of gamification are to keep you consistent with your goals. 

One of the things you can do: Activate the scoreboard and join the community. 

A gamification feature often has “Scoreboards” or “Leaderboards” — a feature that summarizes your results and compares them with others by using a ranking system. This can boost your little “competitive spirit” to keep going. Research shows that the ranking system is highly effective for beginners. 

Research among 516 young adult wearable tech users finds that leaderboard activation leads to a 3,5% increase in daily steps. But for previously sedentary users, leaderboard activation resulted in a 15% increase in daily steps.

Similarly, for your sleep goals, starting small can be intimidating. But every goal and achievement is a ‘win’ for you. 

Adjust daily behaviors based on personalized insights 

Wearable tech also provides daily activity data, and yes — that’s including your screen time, caffeine intake, stress level, and exercise levels. All of which can disturb your sleep at night. 

For example, a wearable tech company tracks its members’ caffeine consumption using heart rate and other member data and finds that caffeine consumption reduces members’ total sleep by 49 minutes on the same night. This is one of the personalized insights a wearable tech can offer you. Allowing you to see any invisible damage from your daytime choices that is secretly hindering your sleep goals.

With these personalized insights, you can start by building a new habit that supports your sleep health journey. Here are a few ways you can do so:

• Start small. You don’t have to give up everything completely. Start with small and attainable goals, such as only one glass of coffee in the morning, or no screen time after 9 PM. Setting small goals is important to prevent burnout. 
• Prioritize a consistent sleep routine first. It’s much easier to set a wind-down time for you to relax and prepare for bed. Build a small routine that can help you to relax and fall asleep around the same time every day. 
• Try small daily changes. Wearables can detect your sleep patterns, but they can’t pinpoint what makes you sleep better — that’s for you to figure out. Try introducing one small change at a time to your sleep routine and environment, then see how it affects your sleep: whether that’s meditation, breathing exercises, dimmer lights, or lower room temperature. 

Read more: How to Optimize Indoor Air Quality at Home

In conclusion

Unmanaged and irregular sleep habits are a silent killer. Not only to your health, but also to your mental health, leading to irreversible damage such as a higher risk of mortality and faster cognitive decline. Managing your sleep and maintaining a consistent sleep schedule can seem easy, but it’s harder to sustain because of many small, unnoticed factors you may miss throughout the day. 

Wearable devices are a technological advancement that allow you to track subtle, unnoticed details about your health, including your sleep. This technology device tracks and summarizes your sleep progress while making it fun.

While it’s not an instant fix, wearable technology can help you reach your sleep goals with many benefits that make your journey more fun and less lonely.

If you want to see more resources on rest, check out the Wellbeing Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Wellbeing Science Labs today.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Freepik

The post Life by the Numbers: How Wearable Tech for Health Improves Your Rest Through Gamification appeared first on Insights.

Numbers like this might seem small at first, but they represent a rapidly growing trend that affects children across nearly every age group, including infants and toddlers. It shows how easy it is for a piece of electronic screen to become a significant part of your children’s early childhood, when the foundations of their lives start to take shape. And this can have dire consequences.

This article will discuss the hard-crunching topic of why you should be more worried about your children’s screen usage and how something so simple could permanently affect your children’s developmental milestones for years to come. 

Slight warning before continuing: This article contains a real call-out to all parents of young children about the hidden, long-term damage of screen time for their development. Read more to learn how you can prevent your children’s early screen-time addictions. 

What science says about excessive screen time and child development

What is considered excessive screen time usage in childhood? It all depends on your children’s age. According to the World Health Organization, screen time is not recommended for children under the age of 1 year old, and only less than an hour for children aged 1-2 years old. But in reality, children spend way more time on screen-based media than recommended. 

A 2023 study of Australian infants found that at six months, infants were already exposed to an average of 1 hour and 16 minutes of screen time, with only 11.3% children meeting the recommendation of no screen time. 

With the growing number of hours children spend on screens, scientists around the world are continually seeking to discover the positive or detrimental effects of this phenomenon on children’s developmental outcomes, which are further divided into cognitive, behavioral, and physical categories.

The following sections discuss the existing evidence. 

Cognitive and neurological effects

Excessive screen time in early childhood can affect children’s cognitive development across many domains, including intelligence and language.

A 2022 global narrative study finds that going over the recommended hours by the World Health Organization, which is over 2 hours of screen time for children between the ages of 15 and 48 months, had a 4 times higher chance of experiencing language development delay. 

And not just that; intelligence development could also be stunted by excessive screen time. Singapore’s national study finds that longer screen time for 12-month-old infants could result in a 1.55 lower IQ score and be 6.2 times more likely to have an IQ score below 70. 

But what is the actual reason why excessive screen time could harm cognitive and language development? The main reason lies inside the brain, specifically in the integrity of the white matter that supports language development. 

In particular, studies regarding brain white matter are usually conducted using a MRI technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which quantifies the microstructure of the white matter using parameters called fractional anisotropy (FA), radial diffusivity (RD), axial diffusivity (AD), and mean diffusivity (MD). In particular, higher FA is associated with better performance in language processing, including grammar, phonological awareness, and semantics. 

A scan study with 47 healthy toddlers using the diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) method found that higher reported screen time is correlated with 16% lower FA. This paints a clearer picture that higher screen time leads to lower activity inside the brain, potentially contributing to language development delay, which is supposed to thrive in children’s first years of life. 

Behavioral and emotional consequences

Excessive screen time has significant downstream effects on a range of behavioral and emotional problems.

Behavioral scientists often use the term ‘behavioral problems’ to describe specific shortcomings in children’s behavior, such as inattention, impulsivity, and difficulty following through with routines. While ’emotional problems’ are shortcomings more closely related to how a child experiences and reacts to daily situations, such as feeling anxious, being easily irritable, and struggling to express emotions.

Multiple extensive studies have found that excessive screen time is one of the few consistent factors that appear in studies for children with behavioral and emotional problems. One of them is a global study of toddlers aged 15 – 41 months across 14 countries, which shows that for every 1-point increase in time spent watching television, toddlers score 0.16 points higher on emotional reactivity tests and 0.27 points higher on attentional problem tests. 

Additionally, children with more than one hour of daily screen time were 60% more likely to show lower social competence and 29% more likely to be less emotionally mature. 

In the longer term, a longitudinal study across Canada of 3,455 toddlers finds that use of more than 2 hours of screen time is 5 times more likely to exhibit externalizing behavior and 5.9 times more likely to experience problems with focusing than children with less than 30 minutes of daily screen time. 

Across scientific studies, excessive screen time has been connected with various adverse outcomes for children’s behavior and emotional development. Less than 1 hour is generally the recommended time allowed for children using screen-based technology and content.

Physical health and lifestyle patterns

Excessive screen time could unintentionally contribute to children’s physical and lifestyle health. 

Global study across 33 countries finds that only 14.3% of children aged between 3 and 4 years old met the WHO guidelines for physical activity, screen time, and sleep duration. WHO recommends that children engage in 180 minutes of physical activity daily, limit daily screen time to less than 1 hour, and sleep 10-13 hours per day. This implies that across the world, 85.7% of children do not meet one of the requirements.

Moreover, the CDC survey finds that only 61.1% children aged 12-17 years old spend 60 minutes/day being active. Crucially, this study highlights that screen time is one of the culprits, with only 54.4% of participants in the high-screen time group meeting that criterion.

Less time spent on physical activity could lead to serious health issues, one of which is obesity. A longitudinal study following pre-term children until 3 years of age has found that there is a 41% higher risk of being obese in the higher screen-time group (more than 1 hour/day). 

Furthermore, screen time could disrupt children’s sleep patterns. A concerning 20% of American parents reported that their children use screens to fall asleep every night. The irony is that research from The Journal of Pediatrics finds that each hour of screen time is associated with 8 minutes less sleep each night, while children with limited screen time reported sleeping 26 minutes more. 

These findings highlight a concern that screen time is unintentionally undermining children’s physical and sleep health.

Screen time can certainly harm, but it doesn’t always have to. The following section will discuss screen-time guidelines available for every age group. 

AAP and global screen time guidelines

There are usually two main guidelines on children’s screen time: one is published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the other, more commonly used, is published by the World Health Organization (WHO). Both emphasize the appropriate age and the total duration for which children can be allowed to interact with screen-based media. 

According to AAP, the content and quality of screen time are as important as the total duration spent on it. This guideline emphasizes that parents utilize screen time by providing high-quality and educational content instead of as a distraction.

Below are the screen time recommendations by age category published by AAP:  

While the World Health Organization version focuses more on mapping out all the general criteria to promote children’s health development, including limiting screen time. Below are the guidelines published by WHO (in a 24-hour day) for young children and teenagers: 

Overall, these two guidelines emphasized that limiting the duration of screen time is the way to go. Young children should consume screen time that is appropriate and mindful for their age cohort. Combining both guidelines could serve as a way for parents to address the confusion between screen time guidelines, as both have the same function and can be implemented side-by-side. 

How much time screen time kids actually get

Despite the recommendation to limit children’s screen time to less than 1 hour/day. Reality speaks for itself: Common Sense Media surveyed 1,578 American parents and found that children under 2 years old spent an average of 1 hour and 3 minutes. In contrast, children between the ages of 5 and 8 years old reported 3 and a half hours of screen time daily in 2024. 

Another study among 1,500 children aged 8 to 18 years old in the United States finds that the average time spent on screens is around 7.5 hours a day. At the same time, recent data about teens is from the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2021 to 2023, which finds that 50.4% teenagers aged between 12 and 17 years spend more than 4 hours daily on screen time. 

While you may think that screen-based media and gadgets can be a lifesaver to entertain your children while you run errands, it is important to remember that “only this time” or “only for 1 or 2 hours” can turn into a bad habit that can stretch out longer than it should because the screen is addictive, especially as children get older. 

But you can put a stop to it before it becomes too late. Because if there are a few things you can control regarding your children’s screen time consumption, it is their content and the rules around it.

Comparing educational vs. entertainment screen use

Based on screen-time reports and research, it is clear that total screen time rises steadily as children grow older.

While the total duration of screen time is important to manage, it’s not the end of the story. Screen time can be valuable, too. Introducing educational content that is suitable and appropriate for young children could help children interact and learn with the help of screen time, instead of just passively watching it. 

Now this is where you come in: be more aware and selective about the types of content you allow your children to watch and hear. The benefits of young children watching higher-quality, age-appropriate programs are highlighted in a meta-analysis of 18,905 global participants, which finds that this type of content is associated with stronger children’s language skills.

Additionally, the later introduction of screen time also helps children to develop stronger language skills. 

But remember one thing: being selective about the content your children can consume doesn’t mean it can replace real-time interaction with you. Using screen time can be beneficial as a complement to your parenting strategies, especially when you use it to its full potential rather than relying on it. 

Evidence-based strategies for mindful screen use

It’s easy to let yourself have a quiet time by relying on screen time to distract your children. It gives you a few minutes to run your day’s errands without having to attend to your children constantly, or even some much-needed R&R. But what starts as just a few minutes can quickly turn into a bad habit if you let it. 

You can prevent bad habits if you recognize that screen time is a learning tool for your children, not a replacement for them. By remembering that, you can use it to its full potential rather than relying on it entirely.

Here are a few practices you can implement in approaching screen time for your children: 

Set data-informed boundaries

Based on the WHO and AAP guidelines, you now know the maximum screen time appropriate for your children, based on their age. But now you have to worry about how to implement those guidelines without resorting to power struggles with your children. This all could start early, with setting tight boundaries regarding the use of screen time in your children’s lives.

Here are some evidence-based strategies that parents can use to implement boundaries regarding screen time:

• Keep a steady no-device routine. Keeping a consistent schedule for screen time can prevent your children from being glued to their devices, as one study in Canada found that greater instability in parent-implemented routines can lead to an average of 5.2 additional minutes of screen time. For example, you could implement a rule for no screens during family meals or game nights. 
• Set and enforce firm limits on screen time. Start implementing firm rules about screen time early in children’s lives. According to a Pew Research Center study, most parents reported rules about screen time duration, but only 20% can always stick to them. Similar to routine, consistency matters for young children because limits teach them structure and help them develop healthy screen time habits.
• Use it as a bonding and learning experience. Turn screen time into an interactive bonding with your children by enjoying them together. Watching together, or co-viewing, provides parents with opportunities to ask their children open-ended questions about the content, promoting children’s healthy learning and development.

Read more: How to Help Children Develop Healthy Screen Time

Replace screen time with enriching alternatives

While limiting screen time is no doubt beneficial for children’s development, so is promoting other activities that can boost their healthy development.

Other activities without screen time, such as encouraging outdoor physical activity, exploration, and reading, can help foster children’s healthy development. Here is some activity you can do with your children in place of screen time: 

• Physical activity or outdoor exploration. In a youth study across the United States, it was found that just substituting 30 minutes of socializing, streaming, or gaming with physical activity is associated with a significant reduction in body-mass index score, effectively preventing youth obesity risk. 
• Reading together. Reading together can be a chance to bond with your children, while also helping them sleep better. For example, you can read a book together with your children before bedtime.

Read more: Too Little Activity, Too Much Weight: Sedentary Lifestyle and Obesity in Children

Model behavior backed by science

All the limitations and routines regarding screen time would be for nothing if you do not uphold the same standard. Young children are observant and quickly learn from their parents’ behavior. Therefore, merely implementing rules without following them yourself would send the message that the rules are meaningless.

In a representative survey of American parents, 65% admitted to spending too much time on their smartphones. While this number might seem harmless, young children notice whenever their parents choose to pay attention to their smartphones. As shown in a study in the Philippines, children are 4.19 times more likely to use screen time excessively if their parents do too, and nearly 9 times more likely if they are left alone. 

The findings above show that parents should uphold the same rules and limitations they impose on their children. By modelling a healthy approach to screen time usage, children learn way more effectively without the power struggle. 

Read more: Digital Boundaries: Creating a Screen-Free Home for Better Focus and Family Time

In conclusion

Behavioral and cognitive scientists have concluded that excessive screen time can definitely harm your children’s development. But it doesn’t always have to be that way. If managed and appropriately regulated, screen time could be your partner in parenting your children through the various educational and bonding moments available for each age cohort.

Instead of outright banning screen-based media for your children, which is often not feasible, you can instead be actively in charge of it. Start by being more aware of its possible consequences, when it is too much, and how to effectively manage it without relying on it.  Awareness about all these makes a huge difference.

Incorporating small changes that can help your children form early healthy habits with screen time, instead of being addicted to it.

If you want to see more resources on screen time, check out the Parenting Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and tools. Visit the Parenting Science Labs today.

Photo by Freepik

The post Life by the Numbers: Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Growth and Behavior appeared first on Insights.

Romantic relationships and breakups are relatively common among teenagers. A 2015 Pew Research Center survey estimated that around 35% of teenagers aged 13-17 years experience some kind of romantic relationship. Even in regular adult relationships, a breakup is fairly common. But it doesn’t make it hurt less.

Breakups affect everyone differently, especially teenagers. Big factors play into how they perceive and move on from breakups. For them, first breakups are a significant emotional experience that can affect their mental health if not addressed properly.

It’s a heartbreaking experience to see your children’s first love ruined. You may have had your fair share of break-up experiences and know it will improve. But your teenager won’t know that just yet. So, how can parents help in this situation? This article will delve into how to help a teenager through a breakup.

Understanding the emotional impact of a breakup on teenagers

Even though it’s common to get together and break up during adolescence, feelings do get hurt for some more than others. Romantic breakups are one of the most common challenges for teenagers who seek out counseling sessions across all ages and genders. Break-ups take a huge emotional toll.

If it hurts, the parent should always be able to sense it first, right? Turns out you don’t always know everything about your children. 

A breakthrough study explores suicidal thoughts, and whether parents know that their children have them.

An astounding 50% of parents are unaware that their children once thought about suicide. The study concluded that there are important things parents don’t know about their children’s struggles. This revealed that parents should be more attuned to their children instead of just assuming everything is alright.

But before you can help them, it’s important to know why teen break-ups are different from adult breakups.

On another note, you should also understand why romantic relationships, even though they can hurt, are very important for your teen’s development.

The intensity of teenage emotions

Break-ups are hard, but they might be harder for your teen than you think. The period of adolescence is sometimes referred to by experts as ‘storm and stress’ or ‘storm and strife.’ 

This is where your teen feels more stressed out, sometimes to the point of lashing out. Teenagers experience more volatile emotional experiences compared to adults.

This is because there are various significant changes your teen experiences during this period, such as:

• Entering a new school
• Meeting new peers
• Starting to desire more independence, etc.

All of it comes with certain struggles to adapt.

Simultaneously, while all of those are happening, your teen’s brain experiences heightened emotionality. They are more sensitive to many things happening around them, including break-ups.

The development in this part of the brain precedes the development of emotional regulation, essentially making them experience strong emotions that they aren’t yet able to control. 

This is proven by neuroimaging studies that prove that teenagers exhibit increased neural activity in the amygdala while reduced neural activity in the prefrontal cortex, or PFC — the one responsible for emotion regulation.

The role of romantic relationships in adolescence

During this phase, your teen goes through the identity formation stage, where they explore many possibilities to discover their ultimate identity.

This stage is often where you notice your children pulling away from you just a little. This is natural since they want to explore who they are through interactions with their peers, including romantic relationships.

This is not to say that parents don’t influence the children’s identity formation stage. Parents lay the foundation for children’s identity.

Then, during adolescence, they go through multiple stages of trial and error in figuring out who they are. Getting into a romantic relationship and breaking up is part of that trial and error your children eventually embrace.

Read more: The Blueprint Within: Parental Influence on Adolescent Identity Development

Research shows that teenagers who date moderately reported higher life satisfaction and experience less loneliness in early adulthood compared to their peers who have never been in a relationship.

So, even if it hurts now, do not deter your adolescents from being in romantic relationships because they are still meaningful.

This is not to say that teens who rarely date will be living a less-fulfilled life. On the contrary, the research found teenagers who had little minimal dating life are less likely to be depressed than their peers who dated.

These findings implied that there are more dependencies than straightforward answers about the benefits of dating during this age.  

The verdict: let your children date. If they haven’t found someone, let it happen naturally. If they already do and broke up, be there to comfort them. Because being a supportive parent is the best thing you can offer to your children in the moment of heartbreak. 

Practices for helping your teenager through a breakup

You might know that usually, teen love doesn’t last very long. Parents need to be careful when approaching these subjects with teens as they could feel very vulnerable. It’s essential for a healthy parent-child relationship that you know how to handle these low points in their lives. 

Below is a list of how to help a teenager through their first breakup without antagonizing them.

Teach open communication and active listening

This is the foundation of every positive relationship, including the parent-child relationship. This requires you to be there, actively listen, and be judgment-free. Here is how to implement this:

• Ask open-ended questions. This helps your children arrange their thoughts about the break-up. A few examples of questions are: “Hey, I heard about what happened, and I am so sorry to hear that, do you mind telling me what led to this?” or “If you feel like it, do you want to talk about what happened?”
• Don’t interrupt. Refrain from interrupting your children with something like “I told you he/she is bad news,” etc. Let them finish telling their story.
• Validate their emotions. When your children want to talk about what happened, listen to them and validate their emotions. You don’t have to always agree, but they need to know that you understand what happened from their perspective. 

Read more: Communication in Relationships and Their Impact on Mental Health

Offer comfort without minimizing their feelings

Your teenager is suffering; they feel sad and dejected. Offer them comfort. They do not need the judgment, especially if they know that you disapprove of their relationship beforehand. Forget about all that and just be there for them. Here are a few ways you can do that:

• Avoid saying anything that dismisses their feelings. “It’s just puppy love, you get over it,” “You’re better off without him/her anyway, stop crying.” This sends a message that you don’t want to hear them, and they would be more reluctant to share.
• Be close, but don’t be intrusive. Let them know you are always there whenever they are ready to talk. Avoid badgering for answers. Let your teen arrange their thoughts.
• Opt for non-verbal gestures. If they are not yet ready to talk, just give them a hug or pat on the back that signals all will be okay. 

Teach coping mechanisms

Breakups are a stressful experience. You can help your children alleviate that feeling by teaching them activities that fit them. 

This is referred to as a coping strategy. They are a set of activities that manage, tolerate, and reduce stress. Below are some coping activities you can try to recommend to your teens:

• Journaling. Writing and reminiscing about the positive aspects of the break-up might feel hard to do, but it’s proven to increase positive emotions.  Start small by just writing about the good memories, and then what they learned from this relationship.
• Self-care. If you see your teen start to waste away after the breakup, encourage and accompany them on a self-care journey. For example, slow nature walks, exercising, doing skincare, or watching TV together.
• Positive self-talk. Don’t let your teen wallow in misery; encourage them to give themselves compassion. Examples: “This break-up happened for the best, and I am grateful for all the good memories.” or “It’s gonna get better, give it time, you can do this.”

Encourage social support and peer connections

Your teen’s inner social circle or friends are also important social support in times of hardship. In fact, high-quality friendships between teens can enhance their happiness, self-esteem, and subjective well-being. 

Encourage your teens to go out or have a sleepover with friends to mend their broken hearts. Also, encourage them not to wallow alone and continue their regular routine with family and friends.

Foster resilience and perspective

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from stressful or negative emotional experiences by adapting. Even though it’s hard right now, convince your children to understand that in every situation, there is a lesson to be learned and reflected. This could help your teen to embrace any challenges ahead of them.  

Understand that it’s hard for them to bounce back quickly, so do not set high expectations for them to get over their breakups right away.

Instead, follow these steps on how to build your teen’s resilience after a breakup:

• Help them identify their emotions. Identifying emotions can help teens process and cope with the negative experience of break-ups and come to terms with their feelings. You can do this by helping them map out their feelings about the breakup and their ex.
• Encourage reflection. Unless your children are in a toxic and violent relationship, encourage them to take time to reflect on the good times and the bad times. After that, help them identify anything that went sour in the relationship, and this will lead to the road of forgiveness and acceptance.  
• Encourage them to accept the uncertainty ahead. While it might be scary for your teen to think about what is next in their life, ultimately, it’s not the end. Encourage them always to acknowledge any uncertainties ahead and focus on things they can control. Keep them moving forward.

In conclusion 

Breakups are always a very hurtful experience, especially for a teenager experiencing their first heartbreak. Even though this is a very normal part of adolescence, not all teenagers are equipped with the capacity to process and regulate their negative emotions. Therefore, parents must understand it’s not gonna be easy for their teens to get over their break-up on their own. 

Despite teens usually putting more emphasis on peer relationships than parents, your role as parents is still very much needed. A few strategies you could try are implementing open communication and active listening, offering them non-judgmental comfort, teaching them coping mechanisms, encouraging social support, and helping them foster resilience. 

Watching your teenager go through a breakup is very disheartening. You might feel like you cannot do much besides support them. They might be embarrassed or too sad to come to you for help.

But ultimately, it is your job to help them stand up again and move forward. Following the practices above is a good start.

If you are looking for more resources on adolescence development, check out the Parenting Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Parenting Science Labs today.

Photo by Freepik

The post Best Tips for Helping Your Teenager Through a Breakup appeared first on Insights.

It’s odd to see it since we believe that we should all be helping one another. Then why did no one bother to help? 

This is the embodiment of a phenomenon called the ‘Bystander Effect,’ which explains why some people just watch bullying happen instead of stepping up. The bystander effect occurs when individuals are less likely to help in a dire situation if another person is nearby. 

Sounds like cowardice, doesn’t it? Don’t assume that just yet. This article will delve deeper into the bystander effect and its manifestations in school bullying situations. And how you can help your children be a little less of a ‘bystander’ and more of a  ‘hero’.

Dispelling the myth of cowardice: Understanding the bystander effect

The Bystander Effect is a term coined by John M. Darley & Bibb Latané in 1968. In this pivotal research, they concluded that there are three main reasons behind this phenomenon: 

• Diffusion of responsibility, 
• Evaluation apprehension, and 
• Pluralistic ignorance.

To paint you a picture. Imagine you saw a couple of your classmates throw paper balls at somebody. You wonder whether you should report it. You gaze around the classroom. There are around 20 other students, and they all see it happening.

There are three ways you decide whether to help or not.

First, you might think, ‘Well, there are many others around; one of them probably already did something.’ This thought process is called diffusion of responsibility, where you think maybe somebody else already notified somebody about the situation. Thus, your help is unnecessary.

Second, you could think, ‘What if I read the situation wrong?’ When you read the situation wrong, you fear that you will ridicule yourself and prefer to observe. This thought process is called evaluation apprehension. This is when you fear that you made the wrong judgment and think that stepping in will make you look stupid.

Third, you look around at the 20 classmates who seem to pay no mind to the situation. You start to think, ‘That looks like harassment, but everyone else is doing nothing — could this be the usual, and I’m the only fool here?’ This thought process is called pluralistic ignorance, where you perceive everyone’s ignorance as a sign that the event wasn’t important after all.

Helping is a complex process

So yes, deciding to help is a very complex process. When your children are identified as bystanders, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s a sign of cowardice. 

This is also the result of Darley Latané’s original study. In it, they put college students in a room with an individual who will later suddenly experience a seizure. Students who didn’t report immediately displayed signs of nervousness more than those who reported it right away. 

Similar to those subjects, your child could be experiencing conflict within themselves. This is further proven by a study on adolescents that found a major reason for one being a bystander is that they  didn’t know what to do. 

Then why is it that some people are quicker to act? A few factors could affect this process.

Psychological and social factors

Because bystander behavior varies between individuals, your children’s decision could depend on various factors. Understanding each factor is important because it helps put perspective and context on why some people decide to help and some do not.  A few common factors are:

Biological factors

Behavior researchers usually want to explore gender differences in certain situations. They also do that in bullying research.

For example, a study concluded that in school physical bullying, boys are more likely to intervene directly. However, girls are more likely to intervene by calling another authority figure to stop the fight without attracting attention to themselves. 

These findings highlight the different ways in which boys and girls help a bullying victim. Both genders have different perceptions of the risk of meddling. They differ in ways of weighing the best course of action. 

Boys often use physical tactics to intimidate the bully (especially if they are bigger than the bully). Girls are often physically smaller than boys, so their choice of helping is to create a distraction to avoid being found out and targeted. 

Psychological factors

Research on bystander effects finds that a few psychological factors consistently predict bystanders to defend victims.

• Moral disengagement. This occurs when people think, ‘But they kinda deserve it.’ This belief is based on certain standards that justify wrong behaviors. It’s learned from everyday interactions and allows some people to stand without feeling remorse or guilt at the sight of bullying.
• Self-efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s beliefs about their ability to be helpful in certain situations. For example, if a student believes that they can stop the bullying (i.e., they are stronger or have more influence than the bully), they are more inclined to intervene.

Social factors

Perceived group norms impact how individuals hesitate to step in. For example, research found that when a student believes that everyone can work together to stop bullying in schools, Almost all students are more inclined to defend the victims as they share a common belief that bullying is bad and should be stopped.  

Manifestation in bullying situations

Bystanders play a crucial role in bullying. As discussed in the previous sections, the prevalence of bullying is related to bystander behavior.

Read more: Mapping the Roles in Bullying and Untangling the Threads of Peer Pressure 

For example, bullying is more prevalent in the classroom, where bystanders choose to assist the bully. However, when bystanders take a more active role, bullying incidents decrease. Interventions by bystanders are enough to stop the bullies.

Now, the problem arises when your children choose to ignore the situation. According to a school study in Ethiopia, there are two reasons why bystanders might ignore school bullying:

• Fear of being targeted. This fear is especially prevalent in bystanders with low self-efficacy in stopping the bully, especially if the bully is stronger.
• Not familiar with the victim. Bystanders are more likely to defend the victim when there is some familiarity between them (i.e., family relative, close friends, or neutral peer).

Those two reasons might seem heartless, but this is where you can help your child. Help your child realize that the situation they fear might not be so scary after all.

Read more: Stop the cycle: Understanding bullying in kids and how to prevent it. 

How to minimize the bystander effect in children

Because bystanders play a role in school bullying, it’s important to help your children understand that they can make a difference. They must be taught that it is better to step up. Here are a few ways you can instill this belief in your children. 

Building empathy in children

Empathy is an individual understanding of others’ emotions or situations. 

When you help your children be more empathetic, they easily recognize the signs of bullying, thus react faster and are less likely to choose to become bystanders. Here are things you can do to help your children to become more empathetic:

• Start small. Make a habit of reading stories interactively with your children. Engage your children by incorporating voices for the characters and inquiring about their feelings. Learning about others’ perspectives could help them become more empathetic.
• Listen attentively. Instead of being angry about them not intervening,  ask them about their reason. This could help them sort out their thoughts and take the best action.
• Have a hypothetical discussion. If your children dislike the direct approach, try this instead. Pick a topic (e.g., TV shows or recent news). Discuss with your child. Ask them their thoughts. Then, you can provide your thoughts without directly touching the subject. 

Teaching assertiveness and confidence

Assertive people are found to show less passive bystander behavior. Here are a few ways you can encourage your children to be more assertive:

• Train your children to be more assertive. Start simple by encouraging them to have boundaries and respect them. This will give your children a sense of understanding that they can decide what to do for people who cross their boundaries.
• Encourage your children to remain assertive with positive self-talk. Positive self-talk can squash your child’s doubt whenever they second-guess their boundaries. One example of positive self-talk is, “I am proud of myself for defending my friend.”
• Put your children in charge sometimes. Your children could practice assertiveness by taking responsibility for their choices. One example is house chores. Let your children pick chores they think they can handle and expect them to take responsibility for them.  

Establishing safe ways to intervene

Standing up to a bully has real repercussions for your children if it is done recklessly, such as your children becoming the next target. Hence, it’s important to instill a list of safety alternatives they can do. For example:

• Take a deep breath and think. Think about the situation and ask yourself this question. “Can I handle those bullies?” Ponder that for a bit before taking any drastic measures
• Use a distraction technique. For example, your children could step loudly to startle the bullies without showing their identity.
• Alert the teacher. Your child could run to the nearest teacher or adult figures like other parents available to stop the bullying.  

Creating a supportive environment

Research shows that adolescents who experience lots of parental warmth at home tend to openly oppose cyberbullying instead of letting it happen. Being warm to your children doesn’t mean spoiling them. Instead, you’re nurturing empathetic children who are more likely to defend their friends.

Here is how you can do it:

• Be involved. This is not actively interfering with their lives. However, it means letting your children know that you are always there for them. Assure your children that you are open to hearing their dilemma. 
• Respect their boundaries. If your children aren’t willing to share what’s bothering them, don’t force them to.  
• Inquire about peer-support groups. Ask the school about any peer-support groups they have, and offer them for your children. Let your children know they are supported and there is no judgment for them. 

Understanding the role of adults and educators

Bullying predominantly happens in school, so teacher roles are important. Teachers can help in the following ways:

• Raise awareness. Provide education about anti-bullying programs that are available at school. Knowledge and understanding can raise awareness that certain behaviors are unacceptable. 
• Take every report seriously. Take a serious stance whenever someone reports bullying. Serious responses and actions can help children understand their help is appreciated and needed. 
• Promote peace in the classroom.  Promote a harmonious classroom environment where no bullying, even name-calling, is tolerated. Every little bullying could escalate into a bigger one if you let it. 

In conclusion 

The majority of bullying cases happen at school. Your children might not be the bully or the victim, but they’re not completely innocent either. Being a bystander to a bullying situation means they must think carefully about what to do. This often leads them to do nothing despite not meaning to. This phenomenon is referred to as the Bystander Effect. 

Being a bystander doesn’t equate to being a coward. Your children experience a great inner conflict about which action is best.

Your children need to overcome their fear of bullies since it has been proven that disruptions from bystanders could stop the bullying incident. All they need is a little bravery with a safety plan in mind. You could teach your children to let go of their ‘bystander’ role by building their empathy and assertiveness so that they could stand up for what’s right.

Lend your child a hand to guide them to become heroes for their friends in need.

If you would like to see more resources on children’s moral character, check out the Parenting Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science Labs to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Parenting Science Labs today.

Photo by Freepik

The post Is My Child a Coward? Reviewing the Research on Bystander Effect on Children Peer-Bullying appeared first on Insights.

Preference for pop music is relatively common among pre-adolescents and adolescents alike. Now, there’s a difference between music preference and being a fan. Being a fan is more than just listening to your favorite singer. Nowadays, it also includes doing extra projects such as non-stop streaming, buying various merchandise, and constantly checking the latest news online. With this new height of fan efforts, there’s a changing trend in fan culture as well. 

Fan culture is very normal. But these days, it’s crossing more boundaries than ever before. With various celebrities using and connecting on social media, many fans develop a parasocial relationship with their favorite celebrities. This one-sided relationship can further manifest into negative behaviors if not addressed properly. 

Therefore, it’s important to actively understand the telltale signs of excessive fan behavior so that you can differentiate when to support or address your concern. 

This article aims to serve as your parenting guide to K-pop in balancing your concerns and support for your little K-pop fan. But before that, you need to understand what being a K-pop fan means. 

Understanding K-pop and its appeal

Korean pop music, more commonly known as K-pop, is a form of pop music that originated in South Korea. The music style is influenced by many genres of music from around the world, creating its unique sound. 

This subgenre of pop music started to become popular in South Korea during the 1990s with famous local bands such as Seo Taiji and the Boys, Sechs Kies, SES, Shinhwa, and many more. These bands are often cited as the early figures in the K-pop music industry. 

K-pop became a worldwide phenomenon in 2012, with the popularity of PSY’s Gangnam Style. After that, K-pop acts only became more popular with its many generations of artists.

Key elements of K-pop culture

The unique sound of K-pop music is not the sole reason for its popularity. If you want to help, you must first learn what makes up K-pop music culture. 

Idol culture

Inspired by the idol culture in Japan, K-pop undergoes a rigorous selection process and years of training before debuting. This process also creates an image of a hardworking dreamer that many fans can identify with. 

Inspired by their idol’s hardships in reaching their dream, fans become more motivated to strive for personal growth.  

Diversity in music sounds and style

K-pop music tends to draw inspiration from various subgenres of music, such as the combination of pop, hip-hop, rock, and others, creating its unique sounds. 

This also means that K-pop groups experiment in more genres outside of their usual pop signature sounds.

Polished and trendy dance moves

Another thing that sets K-pop singers apart from regular singers is dances. The steps range from easy-to-follow to professional-level performance. 

Lately, it’s also becoming a trend for K-pop singers to make their dance challenges available for fans and even non-fans to join in on TikTok (Example: Zico ‘Any Song’). Many teens on TikTok participate in fun challenges to be affirmed by others. It’s even proven to improve their confidence. 

Conceptual themes and storytelling in their music

There is often a hidden lore or storyline in a K-pop artist’s music videos. This kind of lore is often easy to miss for somebody who wasn’t part of their regular fanbase. 

Themes and storytelling in music videos aren’t necessarily something new, but the continuous plot keeps fans guessing. This offers fans a chance to decode their music videos with discussion among fans alike, resulting in a heightened sense of belonging.

Fan engagements

Last but not least, K-pop singers are generous with fan engagement, whether through social media or face-to-face meetings. 

They often host live sessions online, open for everyone to join to ask questions and generally just have a good time with their fans. This activity provides a level of engagement with fans without common barriers such as money or distance.

Benefits of being in a K-pop fandom

Being a K-pop fan is almost the same as being a fan of Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, etc. 

However, there are main differences that make being a K-pop fan unique from other celebrities’ fandom. Various research on K-pop fans has conjured up interesting benefits of being a K-pop fan, such as the following.

Increased psychosocial outcomes

According to a study, K-pop fanship is associated with positive psychosocial outcomes, such as increased happiness, self-esteem, and social connectedness. Being a part of K-pop fandom allows your children to be a part of a group that shares the same interests, giving them a sense of belonging. 

Enhanced self-expression and personal growth

A study conducted in Malaysia reveals that K-pop fans believe their hobby helped them discover their talents, which include creativity, artistic talents, and organizational skills.

So, besides improving one’s sense of belonging and happiness, being a K-pop fan also increases one’s creativity and life skills, which will benefit them in the future. Unfortunately, there are also potential disadvantages to becoming a K-pop fan.

Potential disadvantages of being in a K-pop fandom

Being a fan of a celebrity is normal. But when taken to the extreme, it could cause many disadvantages. That is when a fan’s attachment to their idols goes beyond boundaries, and individuals start to worship their idols. This phenomenon is referred to as ‘celebrity worship’, and its strongest phase is during early adolescence.

What risks does celebrity worship bring for your children? Here are a few ways that a fan’s supportive behavior could manifest into celebrity worship behaviors. 

High spending

K-pop fans often invest a significant amount of their money to buy K-pop merchandise, albums, and concert tickets. 

Some K-pop companies also organize an event that awards a lucky album buyer to a fan-meet session. This, in turn, influences many K-pop fans to buy bulks of the same albums to increase their chances of winning. This kind of behavior sets your children to be wasteful and impulsive. 

Poor mental health

A study discovered that adolescents who practice excessive celebrity obsession reported experiencing increased levels of anxiety and depression, with lower self-esteem. 

The possible explanation is that individuals with lower self-esteem often use celebrity worship to seek gratification to fill something they felt was lacking in themselves. 

Body dissatisfaction

A study finds that individuals who maintain a parasocial relationship with their favorite celebrity are more likely to endorse plastic surgery. 

Another research found that higher celebrity idolization is related to a higher rate of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating behavior in both adolescents. This could be due to the desire to be like one’s favorite celebrity. 

Navigating the K-pop fandom

Now that you know some of the benefits and disadvantages of being a K-pop fan, you have more knowledge about your children’s hobbies. Below, you’ll find tips on how to balance your support and concerns.

Addressing celebrity worship

Being a fan of a celebrity is a normal phase for all ages, but not when it’s done excessively. Here are a few ways you can help your children encounter the risks of celebrity worship. 

• Try to find out what your children think of their favorite celebrities.  Whether your children think of them as role models, simple admiration, or something more similar to celebrity worship.
• Keep watch on your children’s behavior.  Try to always look out for any drastic changes to your children’s behavior. Children who have higher celebrity worship focus all of their energy on looking up their favorite celebrity instead of their friend group.
• Address the issue without berating them. If you find your children starting to display some changes in their behavior, you can ask them about it. And remember, don’t berate them; instead, listen and try to give your perspective on it. 

Read more: Recognizing and Addressing Mental Health Issues in Family Members 

Preventing isolation from non-fans

It can be easy to lose oneself in following up with the updates of one’s favorite people, but this shouldn’t prevent them from interacting with friends who don’t share the same interests. As a parent, here are a few things you can encourage your children to avoid losing themselves in idol worship: 

• Encourage them to join school activities they enjoy. For example, if your children like dancing, encourage them to join a school or local dance group. This could help to grow their confidence.
• Get to know your children’s idols with them. Ask your children directly about their idols and what songs or dances they like. This could improve your bond with your children. 
• Set rules about phone usage. This might seem simple, but setting rules about phone usage in some situations that require it could help your child avoid becoming addicted to social media, especially if it’s related to their favorite K-pop idol.

Encouraging critical assumption

Celebrity worship is often also associated with problematic internet use, where it’s not just the amount of time your children spend on social media but also their inability to control their usage, which later on manifests into psychological distress. 

If your children are K-pop fans, you can help them by asking them to think critically about all the information on the internet. For example, you could teach your children that there is a difference between a celebrity’s personal life and what their company or agency tried to portray them as.

With this knowledge, your children are less likely to worship their idols excessively as they know to think more critically whenever there is a scandal or news about their idols.

Supporting safe online engagement

With K-pop artists relying heavily on social media presence, this requires you to educate your children about online safety. You could teach them to use social media more wisely, such as knowing when to stop and always being thoughtful about their privacy, especially regarding their private information. 

Addressing peer influence and peer pressure

With many K-pop fan communities often supporting their favorite idols by buying multiple versions of albums and merchandise, it could be easy for your children to be influenced and buy excessively as a show of support. As a parent, you can teach your children about the difference between ordinary support and excessive support.

Starting from you, educate your children about the value of money and teach them how to save up if they want something to support their favorite idols. Instead of limiting or banning them, educate them instead about financial responsibility and healthier spending habits. 

Read more: The High Cost of Celebrity Worship and Mindful Strategies for Better Spending Habits 

In conclusion 

Similar to many of its predecessors, K-pop music fan culture promotes a large community. From being a niche to one of the most popular music genres right now, K-pop is only getting bigger each year. 

Being a K-pop fan has proven to have some beneficial outcomes. But it also comes with its downsides if done excessively. This behavior could set your children to be overly dependent on their favorite K-pop idol and even disrupt their mental health. 

As a parent, you ought to be concerned with your children’s media consumption. But your concern should also be balanced. Have a good understanding of what your children like about K-pop music so you can still be their safe space. Balancing your understanding and concern ensures that being a K-pop fan will be a positive experience in their lives.

If you would like to see more resources on celebrity worship, check out the Parenting Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Parenting Science Labs today.

Photo by Freepik

The post Your Parenting Guide to K-Pop: How to Balance Support and Concern for Your Children’s Hobbies appeared first on Insights.

And usually, that silences your child immediately. That ends the discussion and the endless questions of why. But what do your children feel in this situation? Do they understand that you were trying to teach them something? Or do they understand the value that you are trying to teach them?

An interesting take on this question is answered in the research titled “Parenting Styles, Internalization of Values and Self-Esteem: A Cross-Cultural Study in Spain, Portugal and Brazil,” published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health on the interconnectedness of parenting styles and adolescent internalization of values. The researchers concluded that children raised by parents who provide more parental warmth tend to internalize values better. 

So, to build your children’s character, you need to do more than discipline. Raising moral children is challenging, and parents need a balance between warmth and discipline for their children. Find out how to balance discipline and warmth in your parenting without resorting to ‘Because I Said So’s. 

Understanding moral development in children

“Billy, stop pulling your sister’s hair!”

“But, mom!”

“Stop that right now, no buts!”

“Why?, she -” 

“Why? Because I said so!”

You might wonder why your children couldn’t understand that they did something obviously wrong, and in the moment of your frustration, you yell at them. You expect them to understand that their behavior makes you upset, but you forget one thing — children also need to know why their behavior is wrong. 

Children need to learn why their behavior is wrong and why it could hurt others. Moral parenting is more than disciplining and stopping children’s behavior; it’s about helping them develop moral sense. Children have the potential to tell right from wrong since birth, but they need your help to nurture it. 

Generally, researchers in the developmental field are divided into two approaches to how children develop morality. These two approaches are the following: 

Innatism

The innatism approach asserts that children’s sense of morality is already present since birth and develops independently as they age. This conclusion arises from experiments that found infants as young as six months old showed a preference for puppets that showed helping behavior over puppets that showed hindering behaviors. 

The experiment implies that very young children are capable of evaluating individuals based on said individuals’ behaviors towards others, and there’s a possibility that this capability served as the infant’s moral thought and understanding.

Socio-constructivism 

Socio-constructivism views children’s moral development as a process of learning; it identifies and distinguishes between right and wrong based on their evaluation and interpretation of general norms and values around them. This conclusion arises from research that concluded that positive parenting behavior, whether maternal and/or paternal, predicts children’s prosocial behavior toward others.

Positive parenting behaviors are characterized by more parental warmth, positive control, and less harsh behavior with children. The research indicates that parental behaviors also affect children’s moral development. 

Recent literature on children’s moral development

Recent literature on moral development in children concluded that while moral sense may be innate, it is developed and strengthened through the socialization process with the children’s environment, such as family, peers, and even community. Children are already equipped with moral senses at birth, but the process develops through social relationships.

Parents, in particular, played an early role as socialization agents for transmitting cultural and personal values. In turn, children internalized said values by modeling their parents’ behavior toward others. Parents who express positive qualities such as warmth and involvement foster children’s emotional regulation and sensitivity toward others.

Raising moral children is never an easy task. You probably received a lot of advice over the years on how to raise your children to be caring and empathetic people. Before taking any advice, find out if it was right or if it was a misconception. 

Common misconceptions about moral development in children

Raising moral children is a goal shared by many parents, yet the journey is often clouded by various advice from everyone around you. All mean well, but there could be some misconceptions along the way; below are some of the most common misconceptions about raising moral children. 

Morality is innate rather than learned

Morality is neither purely innate nor just a learned behavior. Children as young as infants are capable of moral behavior, and parents play a pivotal role in shaping children’s moral development trajectories. Because morality is developed by children throughout their lives, parents have an important role as socialization agents in promoting the right form of moral behavior for their children.

Educating children must be authoritarian

One of the misconceptions is that in educating children to behave well for others, parents need to be more assertive in helping children to better internalize the cultural values around them. One of the ways to do that is to spank your children for them to learn about the consequences of their behavior.

However, this is not true; research has found that spanking leads to undesirable outcomes for children, such as lower moral internalization, lower cognitive ability, and lower self-esteem. Some form of discipline is needed for children to understand and internalize moral values, but with consistency and reason why their behavior is wrong.

For example, “Because I said so” is the epitome of authoritarian parenting — where parents hold all the power to control and evaluate their children’s behaviors based on their standards. This is the message you send to your children: their opinions and thoughts about some things that don’t matter as much as yours. When instead, parents are supposed to help children understand the reason for said values or norms and let children internalize them on their own through inductive reasoning.

Inductive reasoning involves an open dialogue between parents and children, where parents highlight to children the potential consequences of their behavior toward themselves or even others. Inductive reasoning also involves helping your children reflect on their actions and why their behavior could be inappropriate. This kind of discipline is found to predict further children’s social competence. 

Children’s peers influenced their morals more than parents

When your children are older, you might realize they spend a lot of time around their peers. Naturally, your children could mimic their peers’ behavior, but did you know that your role as parents could buffer any bad influences on your children?

Research showed that despite the heavy influence of peer factors on adolescent moral development, the family still has a very important influence, especially when supported by a closer family bond and open communication. 

Because family, especially parents, are the first socialization agents in children’s lives, your way of disciplining your children will always influence their moral development, no matter how old they are. Whenever your children make a mistake, try implementing strategies that nurture them instead of cornering them. 

Strategies for friction-free moral development

Expressing your frustration with your children could be tricky, especially in a stressful environment such as repeated questions, crowded areas, etc. But yelling is only a temporary fix. Instead, you can choose to build a more conducive room for discussion with your child. 

Instead of yelling and threatening your child with disciplinary actions, you can try the steps below. 

Creating an open communication environment

Open communication is essential for your children to develop their moral reasoning. You can try so by building an environment where discussing said specific topics is welcome, without belittlement or scolding. Here are a few tips to do so:

• Establish trust between you and your children. Ensure your children can come to you about any issues they’re facing. When your children trust you, they are more willing to be open-minded to your perspective and open to reflecting on your advice.
• Encourage active listening. Listen to your children’s perspective on their behavior, whether it was reason or their feelings. Listen to it until they’re done to get the full picture of what happened. Your children would also feel heard and be more open to hearing others’ opinions.
• Do it yourself. Children always model who they are around them, so you can also start by modeling open communication starting at home. When you feel frustrated, try to keep a calm mind and talk about it openly. Talk about what’s bothering you and what you would like to be done instead. 

Teaching through guidance, not authority

Other than verbal yelling, parents sometimes used ‘time outs’ for misbehaving children. This is also proven to be ineffective since most children don’t understand why they are put in ‘time out’ situations in the first place. 

Therefore, the right method is for you to guide your children in reflecting on their actions. You can also help by telling your children about your perspective so that they can understand how their behavior affects you and/or others. Children who understand the rationale behind your rules tend to internalize it better.

You can try these methods to get your point across:

• Keep a calm mind. Don’t let your anger cloud your judgment, and act out love for your children instead of anger.
• Try not to scold your child in public. Adding the pain of humiliation to your child’s punishment will never result in anything good.
• Avoid yelling at your children. Don’t resort to physical punishment to get your point across. Try to tell your children why their behavior is wrong with a calm emotion rather than a frustrated one. This is one way of positive discipline.

Read more: Positive Discipline: How To Regulate A Child’s Behavior Without Violence 

Encouraging empathy and perspective-taking

Encouraging children to take perspective further enhances their ability to apply moral reasoning to their lives. Besides talking, you can also help your children understand others by asking them to empathize with them.

Empathizing doesn’t mean your children have to receive the same treatment. You can simply sit them down and tell them about what just happened and how you feel about it, and later ask them, “What would you feel if you had been in that situation?”.

You can also help your children learn about perspective-taking through storytelling. When you read the story, occasionally ask your children open-ended questions such as “What do you think this character feels?” and “Why so?”. This helps children further understand others’ perspectives and, in turn, become more prosocial.

Read more: How to Promote Prosocial Behavior in Early Childhood 

In conclusion

Children are born with a moral sense, and your job as parents is to nurture them. But sometimes, you could feel frustrated and yell at your children to get them to behave. 

But this isn’t the right solution because children understand better when you explain what went wrong instead of instilling fear through punishment or other methods. With guidance, your children can understand and develop their moral reasoning. 

A few ways to do this are to create an open communication environment for you and your child, guide instead of yelling, and encourage empathy and perspective-taking in your children’s daily lives. Implementing these strategies is never too late; the key is always to be patient and consistent with your child. After all, they are learning, and the best teacher is you.

If you would like to see more resources on moral character, check out the Parenting Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Insititute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Parenting Science Labs today.

Photo by Freepik

The post Beyond ‘Because I Said So’: Raising Moral Children Without the Power Struggles appeared first on Insights.

Then comes the teenage stage, when you think you finally understand your child, then find out you don’t know them again. Parenting rebellious teens seems like an impossible mission. Fortunately, it isn’t.

To some extent, rebellion is a natural part of growing up. Your teen tries to find their own identity outside of your influence. It’s your responsibility as parents to provide them this space to find their own identity, of course with guidance. 

But when your teen’s ‘soul-searching’ becomes more and more risky each day, what can you do? This article will delve into teenage brain development and how to deal with a rebellious teenager. First, let’s learn about the teenage brain and how it affects their behavior.

Understanding the teenage brain and behavior

It seems like today, your teen can say one thing, and the next day, they change their mind. One day, they are well-behaved, and the next day, you get a call from school because your teen skipped class. Why are they doing this?

The answer you are looking for is the imbalance of your teen’s brain maturation. There’s a reason why teens are often labeled as rebels.

Adolescence is a time when teenagers rely more on the emotional region of their brains when making decisions. This region of the brain is called the limbic system, and it is responsible for the expression of emotions and motivations, including fear, anger, and the flight or fight response. 

The imbalance of emotional and rational decision-making

During adolescence, the brain develops, and the limbic system, with its bottom-up approach, matures. Meanwhile, some other part of the brain responsible for estimating future consequences called the prefrontal cortex, which has a top-down approach, hasn’t reached the same level of maturity.

The last region to mature is the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for judgment-based decision-making. 

The prefrontal cortex consists of three major regions: the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). OFC is critical for reward-based decision-making. Meanwhile, ACC and DLPFC are critical to effortful decision-making that is dependent on working memory and reasoning.

Due to teens’ prefrontal cortex not yet reaching its maturity, they are more likely to be attracted to the positive rewards (looking cool, getting out of boredom, etc) than the possible consequences.

Teens are more likely guided by their ‘gut’ feelings instead of their rational judgment. For your teen, skipping school to hang out with the cool kids sounds more fun than attending extra lessons that you paid for.

Peer factor on teenage risk-taking

It’s an overstatement to say that teens do not sense any danger. Instead, they often overlook it due to their cognitive biases regarding social cues such as acceptance, rejection, or isolation from their peers. Teens are assigned the greatest priority to peer-related norms, hence the seemingly immature and reckless behavior. 

In short, it’s not unusual for teens to become rebellious because they do not fully comprehend the potential consequences ahead. Other factors, including high social media usage and peer/neighborhood exposure, can exacerbate teenage risk-taking.

Now that you know how your “rebel” thinks and the relationship between teens and risk-taking, how can you help them if even their physiology is going against you?

Believe it or not, the solution is closer than you think. The changes have to start with yourself first before confronting your teenager.

The best way to approach your rebellious teens

Often, parents and teens are not on the same page regarding the risk of certain behaviors. Sometimes, parents worry too much, and other times, teens are too reckless. Conflict between parent and teen stimulates the emotional circuits in teens’ brains and results in more risk-taking behavior. 

Dealing with a rebellious teenager will have to start with how you approach them. Here’s where to start:

Open communication and active listening

It might seem like a cliché solution, but it’s proven time and time again that communication between parent and child is important. Parent-child communication has to be a two-way relationship, where teens could feel comfortable sharing about what goes on with their lives without feeling like they are judged or berated. Here are a few tips on building communication with trust: 

• Open a discussion with your teen. Often, it’s not that your teen doesn’t trust you, but they are unsure how to communicate certain issues with you. Opening conversation on various topics, especially about common risky behaviors such as smoking, alcohol, parties, etc., will give your child a picture of your stance on them. 
• Provide an ear for your children. Sometimes, it’s easy to just talk your teen’s ear off about some bad things they could have been involved in instead of hearing their perspective on it. Lending your ear to your teens doesn’t mean you have to always agree with them, but showing understanding will also really help them feel supported.
• Be open to learning more about their world. One way to engage your teen is to ask them to teach you how to use social media. Engaging them this way without being intrusive to their own social media lives is a sign of trust from you as a parent to them

Read more: Parental Influence on Adolescent Identity Development 

Setting clear expectations and boundaries 

Do you ever say the phrase “My roof, my rules”? It is so easy to fall into the pattern of harsh discipline on your children. 

However, when you utter this sentence to your teen, all they hear is, “I don’t care what you think.” Most of the time, teens refuse to go to their parents for their issues due to fear of punishment. Meanwhile, teens who perceive their parents as supportive and comforting often disclose their activities to their parents.

So, being supportive and not controlling will give you a chance to monitor your child without being intrusive. 

Being supportive doesn’t always mean unconditional compliance. Rather, it’s about being supportive and setting reasonable expectations and boundaries.

Some ways you can do so are to talk with your teen about their stance on certain behaviors and then share your fear about those behaviors. When they have a sense of your fear, they consider your perspective, and then both of you could come to negotiable expectations and boundaries. 

This way, your teen will feel heard and considered in the rule-making process. 

Finding common ground and shared activities

Spending quality time with your teen could be a protective factor against teen risk-taking behavior. Even something as simple as family mealtime is effective. Interesting research showed that regular family mealtime is associated with reduced likelihood of all risk behaviors and better mental health. 

Read more: Why Family Meal Times Matter 

The possible reason was that family mealtimes impact communication among family members. Any shared activities between families could also reap the same benefits. Shared activities also allow an opportunity to get to know your teen about their lives or their friends. 

Sometimes, disagreements could happen between you and your teen. Disagreements, to some extent, will arise whenever you try to implement some kind of control over your teen, but this is where you allow them to negotiate and find common ground. 

The negotiation provides more room for understanding and ultimately leads to a more secure attachment between parent and teen.

Seeking professional guidance if needed. 

Whenever you feel like your teen could be dealing with something potentially risky for their health, or if you notice your child becoming more and more reckless in their behavior. Always try to be mindful of your teen’s problems and refrain from berating or judging them early on. Instead, you can try to get a bigger picture of your children’s behavior. 

Try to get a second opinion about your child’s behavior, which could be from your teen’s school guidance counselor or professional licensed therapist. Professional guidance can serve as a mediator, bridging the gap between you and your teens. 

Research has shown that establishing an early therapist-child bond in therapy benefits the ongoing treatment process. 

Depressed teens who felt a bond and alliance with their therapist displayed reductions in depressive symptoms over time. This finding implied the importance of getting the help your teen might need and also considering their feelings regarding the treatment instead of coercing them into it. 

In conclusion

Parenting a rebellious teenager is challenging for both parents and teens. Research on teenagers’ brains shows that teens’ brains are highly sensitive to the perception of rewards but tend to ignore the negative consequences of their rebellious behavior.

Navigating your way through this stage could be challenging as your attempt to protect them becomes another conflict that could lead to more risky behavior. So, your approach needs to require more understanding and trust. 

Acknowledging that your teen seeks to be more independent, you can establish more open communication and active listening to your teen’s troubles without judgment. Set clear expectations and boundaries based on negotiation and find common ground to negotiate. Lastly, consult professional guidance when needed. 

It’s important to recognize that understanding is distinct from compliance. By equipping your teenager with ample information and fostering trust, you empower them to navigate the challenges of adolescence more effectively.

If you would like to see more resources on adolescent risk-taking behavior, check out the Parenting Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Parenting Science Labs today.

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The post Parenting Rebellious Teens: Navigating Unique Dynamics with Understanding appeared first on Insights.

Spending time on social media to connect with more people is generally not a problem for most people. But parents need to remember that today’s adolescents grew up with smartphones and tablets — hence, they are called digital natives. The current generation of teens lives in a media-saturated world, where social media is not only for entertainment but also for almost their entire social life. 

Some examples of these social activities are challenges. These are popular social media activities meant to gather people with the same interests; generally, social media does that. Trends usually involve harmless actions such as dancing, singing, arts, and innocuous pranks. But sometimes, it crosses the line into dangerous territory.

This article will delve into various cases of social media trends taken too far by teens, and provide insights about the teen brain on social media. Is it too late for parents to equip their teens with the skills to combat the negative trends on social media? Find out the answer below.

Examining negative risk-taking behaviors on teenage social media

When you think of teenage risk-taking behavior, the first thing that comes to mind is alcohol, drugs, fake IDs, and unprotected sex. After all, that was what the ‘cool’ kids did back then. With the advancement of technology, teenage risk-taking has become a more complex situation. 

An article by APA stated that the rates of usual teenage risk factors such as substance abuse, unprotected sex, hazardous driving, and even juvenile crime rates have been declining from the early 1990s to 2015. Do teenagers know better now? Or has the trend just moved on to another platform instead of declining?

A 2023 report on teenager social media usage showed that 1 in 5 teens reported using social media ‘almost constantly’ — with TikTok accessed by 63% of teen users. This is causing problems.

Spending a long time on social media is associated with high-risk behavior, such as non-suicidal self-injury. An example of said self-injurious behavior on TikTok is the 2022 “Angel of Death” challenge in Indonesia, where teenagers dared one another to jump in front of moving trucks, hoping that the driver would stop or swerve around them. At least two teens have died in this ‘challenge.’ 

Social media has become the main focus of scrutiny for these death-defying challenges, and a few of them have come and gone. The Tide-Pod challenge — where teens dare each other to eat detergent — has taken the lives of at least 10 teens.

So, why do teens partake in such potentially harmful behavior? Research showed that the teen’s brain areas that control self-control aren’t fully mature yet. So, most of the time, they don’t consider the long-term risks or repercussions. Especially when presented with potential positive cues in peer groups. 

This, in particular, is in line with less life-threatening trends, with research finding that frequent social media use is associated with increased alcohol consumption, drug use, smoking, sexual risk behaviors, and even gambling.

Positive effects of social media trends

Not all social media challenges or trends are negative. There are a few positive effects of social media on youth. One example is raising awareness about diseases, like the Ice Bucket Challenge. This challenge is harmless: People pour water filled with ice near their heads. Pouring cold water on yourself even makes you more resistant to sickness.

This shows that when done right and responsibly, social media trends could positively impact millions of people. 

But how can you differentiate between a potentially dangerous trend from a fun and harmless one? As a parent, you can’t exactly hack your teens’ socials, as it intrudes on their privacy. What you can do, though, is provide insights about how to pick and choose trends to follow.

Good behavior doesn’t happen overnight; there’s a need for mutual respect for your teen’s autonomy and decision-making skills from your end, too. Before that, let’s understand one fact about peer sensitivity during adolescence.

Teens are at the height of their peer sensitivity, where a single ‘Like’ could mean peer approval. An interesting study portrays this phenomenon, where they showed the teen participants two innocuous photos.

Each picture is attached to its Likes count. The researcher asked teens to simply like the picture or swipe through it. The researcher concluded that the more popular photo (showing more likes) received more likes from the participants than the other photos. These findings imply that social media likes impact teens’ brains and behavior

Understanding and managing teen social media behavior

Children and teenagers are the best sponges for learning; they absorb what they see and do it. So teach your children how to manage social media by modeling responsible social media behavior even at home. Here are some tips.

Ensuring open communication with teens

Research in China observed that parent-child conflicts are associated with more risk-taking behaviors. This is caused by heightened emotional circuits in the brain, which cause anger, resulting in teens being more involved in risk-taking behavior impulsively. 

So, not involving your children in the discussion is a no-go, because it will make them feel unseen and unheard, and that is the last thing you want to do to them. 

Read more: Parental Influence on Adolescent Identity Development 

Clear communication between parents and teens is proven to be a protective factor against risk-taking behavior. With parents being more supportive of their teens’ growing autonomy, teens, in return, are more willing to listen to the advice and more open to their parents. Here are a few tips to get to them emotionally:

• Hold their attention. Engage them with talks about their day; do not barrage them with questions about their life just yet. Try to approach the situation calmly, ask about their day, and engage them. Asking and shouting questions or being critical of them early on will just drive them away and more likely result in more defiance.
  
• Listen intently. Instead of being critical or cutting them off mid-story, listen to what they have to say first. Listening provides a clear understanding and context regarding your teen’s troubles. Once they are finished, you can ask them if they want your advice on this topic.
  
• Respect your teen’s privacy. It’s very tempting to just confiscate their phone and go through all their social media, but in doing so, you are sacrificing your teens’ trust for you. Instead of that, give your teen some trust and opt for a lecture on safety on the internet.

Setting healthy boundaries

Your teen began to care more about their peers’ perception of them rather than what you think. This includes their interaction on social media; being accepted is an impactful experience for teens. This could range from various domains, such as not getting into the latest trends or even just not being cool enough on social media. And your teens feel that they have to adhere to these so-called norms to be one of the ‘cool kids.’

When the parents directly said no without explaining, teens took it up by themselves to defy their parents. Our role as parents is to help our teens set healthy boundaries amid social media trends. Here’s a few tips you can follow:

• Share and discuss your fears with your teen. Sit down with your teens and discuss both perspectives on social media trends and usage overall. Allow you and your teen to speak about each other’s thoughts without being defensive
• Compromise. When you and your teen don’t meet eye-to-eye on boundaries with social media, negotiate with your teen. Try to find a middle ground; with that, you also help encourage teen autonomy and help them to make their own decisions. 
• Let your teen make their own decisions. Teenagers are not children — not yet adults, true — but they want to be treated as such. Let them have their autonomy, let them make their decisions about certain boundaries. Sit down with your teen and discuss some rules and boundaries, always explaining why before outright banning them.
• Leverage the power of saying “no”. Lastly, equip your teen with the best skill to prevent peer pressure — saying “no.” Teach your teen to stand up for themselves. Help your teen understand that their stance on the matter is as important as their peers – so don’t be afraid to say no to things or behavior you both don’t agree on

Encouraging positive online engagement

In hindsight, social media seems like a very dangerous place for your teens. But when used responsibly and mindfully, social media also has its positive side.

A few examples of the positive effects of social media on youth are the improvement of students’ academic achievement. Social media could also be a source of positive emotions, such as a sense of closeness with old and new friends.

Especially during post-COVID, social media is almost a must for everyone. Therefore, instead of banning social media, promote healthy and mindful use of social media to your teens. Here are a few tips you can practice in promoting online engagement to your teens:

• Be a role model for your teen. Sometimes, it’s easy to overlook our own habits with social media, not realizing that our teen picked up those habits from us
• Set rules and limits as needed. For example, try to implement some rules, such as no phone during dinner, so you and your teen can get a break from social media and be involved in face-to-face talk. Before implementing said rules, always negotiate with your teens so they also feel involved in the decision-making process.
• Monitor your teen’s account. Consider following your teens’ social media; as they age, you can monitor it less than before, depending on your teen’s maturity level or online environment. Remember, do not be disruptive and intrusive to your teen’s social media (better to keep a low profile).
• Explain what’s appropriate and what’s not. No matter how much you want to trust your teen’s judgment, remember to always explain some social media acts that could potentially put your teen in danger. When your teens have an understanding of your fears, they understand that you just want to protect them. 

In conclusion

During this time, it’s unavoidable to have teens using and being influenced by social media. 

As a parent, it could be concerning to see so many news reports about teens acting out risky challenges on social media. After all, research shows that teens’ brains are highly sensitive to positive cues from their environment— hence their need for peer approval through these types of social media interactions.

What parents can do is educate and involve teens in the risks or benefits of using social media. One of the best protective factors against problematic behavior in teens is clear communication between parents and teens. Guide your teen in using social media mindfully, and do not be intrusive to your teen’s socials. Recognize your teen’s autonomy, help them set their boundaries, and be a positive role model. These will help your teen to be more cautious about the negative side of social media.

If you would like to see more resources on adolescent risk-taking behavior, check out the Parenting Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Parenting Science Labs today.

Photo by Freepik

The post Everyone Doing It for The Likes: Examining Problematic Risk-Taking Behavior on Teenage Social Media appeared first on Insights.

It’s rare for children to be diagnosed with depression. As a parent, you always want the best for your young ones, but how can you provide that if you don’t know anything about their condition? Thus, this article will be your practical guide to communicating and attending to your depressed children, helping you answer the question, “How to help my child with depression?”

Understanding childhood depression

Cases of depression in children aren’t as common as it is in adults, so much so that there’s a misconception that this condition is exclusively an adult disorder. Thus, spotting signs of depression in children is different than in adults.

What exactly is depression?

Survivors usually describe depression as something that descended seemingly out of the blue. It produces persistent sadness, emptiness, helplessness, and sometimes even hopelessness. 

The American Psychological Association provides a more practical definition of depression: an extreme feeling of sadness or despair that lasts more than days. Everyone could feel sad many times throughout their life (including children), but what sets depression apart is that the feelings of sadness persist over time and seem never to leave.

It’s rare for children to be diagnosed with depression. According to a Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) survey, 4,4% or approximately 2.7 million children aged 3-17 years old in the USA are diagnosed with depression. However, depression in children has shown a surge in numbers after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another survey from the CDC also found that the leading cause of death in youth aged 10-24 years is suicide. This number showed that children’s mental health is at an all-time low post-pandemic, and neglecting it will lead to worsening symptoms into adolescence and young adulthood.

Signs and symptoms

Everyone experiences sadness sometimes. Typically, this is a body response to unmet goals or dashed expectations. But such reactions tend to be short-lived. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorder, 5th edition, when one is depressed, feelings of sadness and emptiness (which are major telltales of depression disorder) are unrelenting and persist for more than two weeks. 

Some common symptoms of depression in children include:

• Children feel the following emotions more than usual: crankiness, irritability, anger, sadness, and anxiousness.
• Behave in unusual ways, such as:
  • Not wanting to do things they usually enjoy or avoiding participation in activities with friends
  • Being angry and more impulsive
  • Experience a drop in school performance or not doing as well as they usually do
  • Losing appetite or suddenly binging food
  • Having a hard time concentrating
  • Experience physical pains without prior health-hazard issues: stomach ache, headache, muscle pains, and tiredness
  • Changes in sleeping habits

If your children exhibit some of the symptoms above for more than 2 weeks, or if the symptoms above lead to disruption in your child’s usual home or school life, then it’s best to take up the issue with your child’s doctor.

However, keep in mind that this article only refers to what depression could look like and provides a practical guide to communicating with children in such a diagnosis. Only mental health care professionals and doctors can give a proper diagnosis for depression. 

Differentiating between typical behavior and depression 

Due to its common misconception, depression in children often goes untreated and persists into adulthood. The telltale signs of persistent anger and irritability are more common in children and teens. Furthermore, younger children have trouble describing their feelings, while teens usually opt to hide their emotional pain, fearing judgment from others.

All children feel low or sad sometimes, it’s a natural part of growing up. However, these are a few signs you need to watch out for in case your child’s sadness becomes maladaptive:

• Your family just lost a member or relative.
• Your family just experienced a traumatic experience.
• Your children showed a drastic change in behavior and school performance.
• Your family experienced a turbulent change financially.
• You just recently moved to a new neighborhood.
• Your children often report unexplainable physical pain, such as headaches, stomachaches, etc.
• Your children might spend time in their bedroom more often rather than playing with friends they like.

Read more: Weathering the Storm: Navigating the Impact of Disasters on Families and Building Family Resilience 

Communicating with a depressed child

Verbalizing their emotions does not come easy for everyone — especially for children who are still learning to regulate their emotions.  Some children find it difficult to convey what it is exactly that has been bothering them. Hence parents need to take the first initiative.

Tips for nurturing trust and understanding

Younger children tend to be open to communicating about their feelings, but your children tend to be more closed off. Try this approach to them:

Gently find out what’s happening

Try not to be too pushy, or children will back away from expressing their feelings. Instead, wait for your children to be open to you and ask them about which situation they often feel sad.

Listen carefully to what they’re saying

Listen to your children until they finish, then you can ask more questions. Do not interrupt or try advising unless they ask for it. 

Ask people you trust or are often around your child

This could be a favorite teacher, nanny, or close friend. Ask if they’ve noticed anything that might be worrying or different than usual about your child.

Practical strategies for parental support

Depression is a condition caused by many factors and could present in various ways. With it being categorized as a mood disorder in DSM-5, one of depression’s main characteristics is persistent feelings of downward sadness or emptiness.

Depression is not an attitude or just a phase where one can “control” or “get up” from. The person who experienced it needs a little bit more compassion and effective treatment, which is why it’s important to build a supportive support system starting at home. 

Creating a supportive home environment

Talking to someone with depression could feel like you are always walking on eggshells to protect them.  Here are some tips on what can you say to your little ones who might be depressed:

• Encourage open and positive communication: Try to listen and pay attention to their gestures (in case they’re overwhelmed). Be patient and do not interrupt or cut them off.
• Children need validation for their problems: Many survivors of depression often feel scared to ask for help because they’re afraid of being judged or dismissed. Always try to be compassionate when talking with your children and validate their feelings of frustration, sadness, or even anger. 

Encouraging health habits and activities

A healthy body is a healthy mind, so the saying goes. While not a cure-all, encouraging healthy habits in your children can boost their physical and mental health. Here are a few tips.

• Encourage healthy sleep: Sleep disturbance is one of the risk factors for developing depression in children. Especially for children, sleep plays a pivotal role in shaping children’s emotional well-being and their coping mechanism.
• Encourage physical activities: Other than sleeping habits, researchers also find that physical exercise could alleviate some symptoms of depression in children and adolescents. Make physical exercise an activity to spend together with your child.
• Manage medication (if there’s any): Sometimes, children need medication for more severe depression. Always consult with your children’s doctor and mental health care professional regarding the usage of medication and its side effects before giving it to your children. 
• Cook healthy and nutritious meals: A poor-quality diet lacking in folate, zinc, and magnesium is associated with depressive disorders. Providing food with enough nutrition could help children manage their treatment process and promote a healthier lifestyle. 

Read more: Unlocking the Power of Sleep: Addressing Irregular Bedtimes for Healthy Child Development 

Fostering a healthy coping mechanism

Unfortunately, you can’t always protect your children from stress forever. Therefore, what you can do is to be role models for them on how you face your stress.

This has been proven by a cognitive theory of depression that suggests the development of children’s negative coping and thinking patterns when faced with stressful situations are learned from early interactions with caregivers. Thus, changes have to start from the roots — you could start from little habits. 

• Model positive behavior: When faced with a stressful situation, try to be patient and do not instantly lash out or freak out. 
• Teach emotional and coping management: Teach your children how to solve problems and manage their emotions healthily.
• Engage your children in activities: Start a talk or activity during or after dinner to engage your children in communication within the family. Don’t let your children ever feel left out of the family.
• Involve your children in building a routine: Start a routine, stick to it, and ask your children to participate. Encourage open discussion about activities that your children enjoy and get to know them together with your children. 

Collaboration with schools and professionals

As a parent, you can’t always keep a watch on your children. Some early symptoms of depression could be traced back to your children’s school performance – their interaction with teachers and peers. Tracking your children’s progress in school by communicating with their teacher can give you more context into your children’s situation in school.

Besides keeping an update from your child’s teacher, you can also seek advice from your child’s doctor regarding some concerning behavior or signs.

Involving teachers and school staff

Parents could work together with teachers and school staff to promote more connectedness towards school for children. This sense of belongingness promotes mental health and also prevents them from engaging in risky behavior. As a parent, here are a few things you can do:

• Get to know your children’s teacher as early as possible – foster open communication about your children’s well-being and progress in class.
• Closely monitor your children’s grades for drop and improvement

Seeking professional help when necessary

Getting your child into professional treatment is very challenging — but it could help even if it’s just a parent’s hunch. By seeking early effective intervention or treatment, you are preventing your children from falling deeper into their depression.

Seek help and consultation from your children’s school guidance counselor, your children’s doctor, and mental health care professionals. Remember, only a mental health care professional can diagnose depression.

In conclusion

Depression is an emotional roller-coaster for its survivors and their families. Seeking knowledge about depression is one of the best ways to start your children’s journey to healing.

The main keys to tending to your children’s depression are communication and looking out for them without being intrusive in their lives. Not every parent’s experience with their children’s depression will be the same, so pick and choose your strategies for providing a loving and supportive home. Allow your little one to feel safe to come to you for their troubles. 

Besides a loving and supportive home, you can also involve the school with the healing progress with your child’s consent. Consult a mental health professional for treatment when it’s necessary. Providing food and a roof is not enough; be there emotionally.

Be the home that your children need. Whether your child is depressed or even if they’re just in a phase, it is imperative to ask for help to discover what intervention may be best for them.

If you would like to see more resources on depression, check out the Parenting Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Parenting Science Labs today.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is intended for general informational purposes only and should not be considered professional medical advice or a substitute for consultation with a qualified healthcare professional. The content of this article is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or medical condition.

Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have read in this article.

The authors, publishers, and any associated parties do not endorse any specific treatments, procedures, products, or opinions mentioned in this article. Reliance on any information provided in this article is solely at your own risk.

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