Author: corinnemasur2331

On July 3rd, my new book called How Children Grieve will come out – and in honor of the occasion, I am starting a 4 part series on loss.

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https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/738355/how-children-grieve-by-corinne-masur

Part 1

The Losses of Everyday Life

Everywhere you look, someone is either writing or podcasting about how you should be raising your children. You should be more gentle; you should be less gentle. Your children need to develop an understanding of feelings; your children are overprotected and unprepared. Whether you are reading Sarah Ockwell-Smith or Johthan Haidt, you will find that you are doing it all wrong.

What’s a parent to do?

Well, if you ask me, it’s not one or the other. Sometimes children need limits and sometimes they need help understanding their own feelings and the feelings of others.

We don’t want to over protect our children so they are unprepared for what life is really like nor do we want to overexpose them to disappointment and difficulty.

So, again, what’s a parent to do?

Well, I would like to start with just one subject. And that is the subject of loss. 

Children – all children – experience losses and disappointments in their lives and we do not need to protect them from these or from the feelings that result from these. 

But we do need to prepare them and to help them when these losses happen.

We need to prepare them for both the little losses and the big losses so that as they mature, they will be able to handle what comes their way.

We don’t like to think about it, but children suffer losses all the time. And they need to be able to manage when these losses occur.

A friend doesn’t show up at school because she’s sick. Another friend moves away over the summer. A beloved stuffed animal is left behind on a trip. A promised adventure to the amusement park is cancelled due to rain.

These are small losses, but losses all the same.

So, do we go out and buy a new stuffed animal right away? Do we call the teacher and tell her how sad our child is that her friend is out sick? Do we try to introduce our sad child to other kids as soon as we find out her friend is moving? Do we substitute a trip to an indoor trampoline park instead of the amusement park?

You might be tempted to do one of these things.

But how about holding off?

Our job, as parents, is not to protect our children from experiencing loss, nor from the feelings accompanying loss.

What we need to do is to help our children with their losses, whether big or small, and we need to start early.

We need to convey that yes, it is sad to lose a stuffed animal or to miss a friend or to lose a much hoped for day at the amusement park – but we also need to convey that these losses can be survived.

Little losses are the best place to begin – because they lay the groundwork for dealing with bigger losses which will certainly come along at some point.

We should try to avoid giving our children the impression that life is always good.

Because it isn’t.

And we want our children to be able to feel what they feel when life isn’t good, and to be able to talk about it (if they want), and eventually to be able to move on.

The problem is that often these small losses are not spoken about. 

For the obvious ones like the loss of the stuffed animal, parents are often tempted to make the sadness go away by replacing the lost toy.

But why not let your child feel sad for a while?

Part of the problem with this is that for parents, it can be hard to tolerate a child’s sad feelings. It is painful for us.

But try to take a moment.  This is our job – we just have to try to allow the sadness and to show that WE can survive it ourselves. 

If we can tolerate our child’s sadness, this will help them to tolerate their own sadness.

And a missed friend or a missed day of fun?

Let’s also let them be sad.  Let’s try not to “make it all better”. Let’s talk about how sad and hard these things are. Let’s share times when we suffered in the same way. And let’s tolerate our children’s sadness and disappointment – and let them know that these things will happen from time to time in their lives.

And what about less obvious losses? The ones that we might not notice but which children are suffering with? 

They are what Pauline Boss calls “ambiguous losses” and I will talk about these in Part 2 of this series.

Another in a long series about electronic media and your children!

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Dr. Corinne Masur

The other day one of the mothers I work with told me that while she was playing with her son, she picked up her phone to look at a text. He told her to put her phone down. He knew that her attention to the text was taking her away from him.

And how old is he?

Two.

This little boy is two years old and he already feels like he has to compete with Mommy’s phone for her attention.

Imagine what a five year old feels. Or a ten year old.

No wonder kids want their own phones. And no wonder they’re wanting them earlier and earlier.

It’s hard to buck this trend. 

Kids are asking for phones early in their lives. But if you want to be able to put off their phone ownership, or, if once they own one, you want to be able to limit their usage, the first thing you really need to do is to be more aware of your own phone usage – especially in the presence of your children.

One thing that I find particularly worrisome is the way that some parents use their phones when feeding their babies. Parents may think it doesn’t matter. What does a newborn notice? If you use your phone while nursing or, while bottle feeding, perhaps you feel like it doesn’t matter.

But, like with the two year old I mentioned, and like with the five year old or the ten year old, it’s more about what you aren’t doing than what you are doing.

With a newborn, what you aren’t doing is looking into their eyes, being present with them, feeling their soft skin, smoothing their little bits of hair. 

And what you aren’t doing is necessary for building connection and attachment – theirs and yours.

So, will they remember that you were on your phone while feeding them? No. But will it affect them that you weren’t as present as you might have been, that they missed that face to face, direct eye contact that can sometimes occur with feeding? Yes, I think it will.

And I do not say this to induce your guilt. I just say this to encourage all parents – including the parents of newborns and young babies – to limit your phone time to times when your baby or child or teen is not with you – or when they are napping or sleeping or when you absolutely have to take a call or a text.  

And if you do absolutely have to do one of these things in the presence of your toddler or your older child, explain why you are doing it.

This will make it much easier later when and if you decide to put limits on your child’s screen usage – and it will also be better for your relationship with you child – and theirs with you.

SCREEN TIME – AGAIN!!!

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Dr. Corinne Masur (Be sure to leave a comment below if you have something to say about screen time!)

In our parenting group on Friday one mother said, “at our house it’s always a battle about electronics”.

I think she speaks for 98% of all parents in the US. 

Once kids get on Youtube or once they are playing a game, they don’t want to stop. And in fact, it’s really hard to stop. 

So there’s either a battle – or there are frustrated parents shying away from a battle.

Parents are genuinely afraid to say no. Parents want to avoid a meltdown.

And this is doubly true in public. In our group, parents admitted to being afraid that if they say no when they are outside of the house, there will be a scene, a tantrum, yelling and screaming – and everyone will see it.

And then they will feel ashamed. 

The parents talked all about this. They admitted that sometimes they don’t set limits because they are afraid the ensuing battle will take away everyone else’s good time.

What if they are at a restaurant? Out with friends? Or on a trip with other families?

No one wants to be the parent who caused the meltdown that makes everyone else uncomfortable.

One mom said “I don’t think it’s healthy but that’s the way it is”.

Another parent said, “but if you let things go, it’s hard to make a change.”

This IS hard. 

If you don’t set limits early and often, kids are used to getting 10 more minutes…or an extra half hour. They persist at asking for more because they know sometimes they get it.

Parents are confused about what to do. Set a limit? Don’t set a limit? Give in to your child’s desire to stay on screen and give yourself another half an hour to look at your own phone? Or do the laundry? 

This is a conflict. Parents want and need more time for themselves. At the same time they want their kids to listen when they say, “It’s time to get off your screen”. 

Is it better to make a few rules? Ones that are just for your family – which don’t have to be like anyone else’s rules?

Or is it better to keep the peace?

Giving in sometimes and having established rules are not necessarily compatible. As we all learned in Intro to Psychology, the most reinforcing thing in the world is intermittent reinforcement. It’s better than all positive reinforcement and it’s better than all negative reinforcement – that is, if you want that behavior to persist, whatever that behavior is, rewarding it SOME of the time is the thing that will make it persist. In other words, if you give in sometimes, your child is even more likely to ask for more time on screen than if you say yes every time. Hard to believe – but true.

So what is a parent to do? You have a rule: 2 hours of screen time on Saturdays. But this particular Saturday you are sick and need a nap or you’ve been busy and you need time to catch up on work.  

It’s easier to give some extra screen time than to insist that your child find other things to do; it’s easier to give some extra screen time than to set up a playdate; it’s easier to give extra screen time than doing almost anything else!

We discussed all this in the group and in the end, the consensus seemed to be that it was important – to these particular parents – to figure out what worked for each of their own families. And then to try to be consistent. Some of them wanted to have no screens at meals at all. One mother wanted her kids to have no phones at all until age 13. But she was willing to let her 9 year old have an iwatch that couldn’t make calls. Two parents said phones at meals were OK as long as the kids ate their food before looking at the phone.

They all said they struggle with these questions – but they all also want more of a feeling of control in their homes.

Of course, you can’t entirely control your children. They are going to do some things and spend their time in some ways that aren’t your preference. But for their sake, and for your own, do you want to decide whether you WANT phones at meals or how many hours a day YOU want your children on devices?

You might find it worthwhile.

And you might want to stick by what you decide.

It’s hard to set limits, it’s hard to make rules and stick to them, it’s hard to say no and suffer the resulting melt downs – especially in public. But it is also important to think about whether it’s worth it. For you. And especially, in the long term, for your children.

All children have meltdowns sometimes. If you can tolerate your child’s meltdowns, and if you can allow them to happen because you’ve said no – you might actually find out that there will be fewer of them – and your child might – just might – get off her screen when it’s time. It’s not a guarantee. But there’s a chance.

Teens and Social Media – AGAIN!

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This post is by Ana Hagstrand

Ana is a psychologist in private practice in Philadelphia. She is the mother of three children and she enjoys outdoor adventures.

At what age should we let kids use social media?

As a clinical psychologist and mother of three, I’ve been grappling with this question. My oldest child is 13 and he claims that everyone has Snapchat except him. 

Looking at the scientific research, the wider mental health trends, and what I know about adolescent development, I’ve decided he will have to wait until he’s at least 15.

Here’s why: 

First, there are concerning trends in adolescent mental health. The rates of teen anxiety, depression, and suicide have risen significantly over the last decade. Numerous studies show that teens report persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness at significantly higher rates and that mental health professionals are diagnosing higher rates of depression. Most alarming is that the suicide rate for 10-14 year olds increased 139% for girls and 70% for boys over the last decade. And what does this have to do with social media?

Adolescent mental health started to decline sharply in 2012, which is the year that we started using the word “selfie” and the year that Facebook acquired Instagram. 

Is there evidence that social media has played a role in these worrisome mental health trends?

Yes. 

You may recall that Facebook was initially only for college students and was rolled out at different colleges at different times over the course of two years before opening up to the general public. One study found that the rates of anxiety increased by 20% and the rates of depression increased by 7% at each college in the year following the introduction of FB. 

Several recent studies actually demonstrate causation, not just correlation between social media use and decreased mental health, and the apparent pathway is social comparison. In other words, use of social media causes people to engage in more social comparisons and fear of missing out (FOMO) and this in turn increases depressive symptoms and decreases self-esteem, body image, and self-perceived social acceptance. 

And it has been found that the harmful effects of social media are stronger (worse) for girls.

Some of the studies I just referenced were done on young adults, and it’s important to consider that there are several reasons why social media may affect adolescents even more than it affects adults. During adolescence, the brain regions associated with attention, feedback, and reinforcement from peers become more sensitive as teens navigate identity formation, acceptance, and social status. This is a normal part of adolescent development, but with so many peer interactions occurring online for all to see and possibly even enshrined forever on people’s social media feeds, the stakes seem higher than they were pre-social media. If adults feel pressure to curate a certain image on social media, of course it’s even more fraught for teens.

Teens have always had a tendency to think they have an audience that notices their every blemish, and we used to try to quell their anxieties by telling them that no one is paying nearly as much attention to them as they think. Now that argument doesn’t work. 

Social media, which started out as a vehicle for social connection seems to have turned into a way of quantifying social status.

So why do I recommend waiting until age 15? 

One large study in the U.K. found developmental windows of increased sensitivity to the harmful impact of social media. Apparently, the onset of puberty and the onset of adulthood are especially vulnerable times: age 11-13 for girls, age 14-15 for boys, and age 19 for all genders.

I’m under no illusion that we can control our children’s online activity at age 19, but let’s try and hold out until at least age 15. When many teens in a community are on social media, it impacts everyone negatively, even those who don’t use it, so I think it’s worth thinking through this together as a community of parents. Most of us have felt the dopamine-fueled pull of social media on our adult brains, and I doubt we will regret holding out a little longer before unleashing it onto our kids. 

Adolescence, with all its developmental tasks and hormones is certainly hard enough.

References:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29296-3(Developmental windows)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27940701

(national trends depression)

https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/data.html

(national trends anxiety)

https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/101761

(national trends suicide)

Makarin, Alexey. American Economic Review, Volume 112, No. 11, 2022

(Facebook rollout study)

Kleemans, Daalmans, Carbaat, & Anschütz (2018). Picture Perfect: The Direct Effect of Manipulated Instagram Photos on Body Image in Adolescent Girls. Media Psychology. 

(manipulated photos on IG lead to worse body image in girls)

González-Nuevo, C., Cuesta, M., Postigo, Á., Menéndez-Aller, Á., & Muñiz, J. (2021). Problematic Social Network Use: Structure and Assessment. International journal of mental health and addiction.

(social comparisons on SM and depression)

Samra, A., Warburton, W. A., & Collins, A. M. (2022). Social comparisons: A potential mechanism linking problematic social media use with depression. Journal of Behavioral Addictions.

(social comparisons on SM and self-esteem)

Lee (2022). The effects of social comparison orientation on psychological well-being in social networking sites: Serial mediation of perceived social support and self-esteem. Current Psychology. 

(social comparisons on SM and mental health)

Burnell, George, Vollet, Ehrenreich, & Underwood (2019). Passive social networking site use and well-being: The mediating roles of social comparison and the fear of missing out. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace.

(causal pathway: passively using SM🡪social comparisons and FOMO🡺worse mental health)

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00296-x

(social media in a community hurts everyone)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w-HOfseF2wF9YIpXwUUtP65-olnkPyWcgF5BiAtBEy0/edit

(causation, girls)