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Parents

Parents

Parents

Parents

Teen Technology Use During COVID-19

Just when you thought your teen couldn’t spend more time online, COVID-19 struck. Researchers were already documenting unprecedented levels of teen screen time prior to the pandemic. Early data suggests those rates have increased significantly. In a report from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, sixty-three percent of parents reported their teens are using social media more often during the pandemic. Eighty percent said they’ve relaxed the

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October 26, 2020

Is My Teen Addicted to Shopping?

It seems like your teen is always shopping. At the mall or the outlets, alone or with friends, whether there’s a big sale going on or not. They come home with myriad purchases that seem unnecessary and trivial. Worst of all, they never use the things they buy or get any satisfaction out of them, and the shopping never stops. Simply put, you think your teen is addicted to retail

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October 21, 2020

My Teen Lies A Lot: Is it Pathological, Compulsive, or Typical Teen Behavior?

It seems like you’re always catching your teen in a fib. Whether it’s the lie they tell when you ask them what happened after school, or the fake excuses they make to explain why they didn’t do something, you might wonder whether this kind of lying is common in teens, or the sign of an emotional or psychological problem. One simple difference between common lying and pathological lying is the

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October 19, 2020

Rates of Mental Health Symptoms and Substance Use in Santa Barbara High Schools

Teens in the Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) took a survey last year to gauge their rates of substance use and mental health issues. This survey, called the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), asked public school students statewide about a number of different issues in their lives: family connectedness, safety and crime at school, bullying, academics, mental health, substance use, and more. Officials administered this anonymous, confidential survey to

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October 18, 2020

Digital Self-Harm: What It Is and Why Teens Do It

Hannah Smith, fourteen years old, received waves of horrible, abusive messages on ASKfm, a social media site popular with teens. On August 6, 2013, she committed suicide. Her parents immediately blamed cyberbullies, until an investigation proved that the aggressive posts hadn’t come from peers: She wrote them herself. Self-Bullying Hannah is not the only one. A similar story happened in Texas to someone named Natalie. But it wasn’t on ASKfm.

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October 17, 2020

LGBTQ History Month: Looking Back, Moving Forward

by Toby LaPlant October is LGBTQ History Month in the United States. While one month isn’t nearly enough time to learn the names of every person who marched, spoke, took action, wrote, organized, and dreamed of a better life for themselves, their friends, or their family, it’s a great chance to get to know some of the key figures who worked for progress and how much they’ve achieved. LGBTQ history

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October 13, 2020

Palo Alto, CA: Mental Health and Suicide Statistics for Teens

Palo Alto has received considerable attention in recent years from media and mental health professionals concerned about its alarming rates of teen suicide. In this affluent Bay Area town, seven adolescents ended their own lives in the span of just ten years. And, over the past decade, there has been an unusual amount of teen suicide clusters. The first suicide cluster in Palo Alto was in 2009-2010, when six students

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October 12, 2020

National Coming Out Day: What to Say When Someone Comes Out to You

October 11 is National Coming Out Day in the United States. For people who have realized their gender identity or sexual orientation is not what others have assumed it to be, Coming Out Day can be a time to stand up with other brave people and share who they are. When someone comes out to you – even on a day dedicated to just that – it can still come

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October 9, 2020

On Social Media, Delete Does Not Really Exist

Teens, we get it. Social media is an essential part of your life. Especially during this pandemic, when a virtual connection is the only way you can stay in touch with friends. “Okay,” you’re thinking, “Where’s the ‘but’?” We’re not here to argue against unlimited screen time – your parents have that covered. We’re also not here to warn you about talking to strangers online, which we’ve already discussed. And

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October 8, 2020

Is My Teen Vomiting From Smoking Marijuana?

Marijuana is popular among teens. According to the most recent Monitoring the Future Survey, 45 percent of high school seniors said they’d tried marijuana at least once, and around six percent of them use marijuana every day. That’s about one in every 16 students. The advent of new e-cigarettes, such as the Juul, which looks like a flash drive, contributes to the problem. In 2018, 60 percent more teens started

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October 7, 2020