September is National Suicide Prevention Month in the U.S. In honor of this month, we’ll share resources and highlight ways that everyone can make a difference in the life of a suicidal teen or adult. In this post, we’ll offer five practical steps you can take if you know someone is contemplating suicide. Please read our first article in the series, Suicide Prevention Month: When It Comes to Suicide, We
You may have heard of Snapchat. It’s a popular messaging app whose unique feature is that it self-destructs photos and videos (snaps) after sending them. Users can only view their snaps once before they disappear. Millions of teens use Snapchat every day. In fact, along with Instagram, it is one of the leading social media platforms among adolescents, according to a national survey from the University of Chicago. The study
September is National Suicide Prevention Month in the U.S. In honor of this month, we’ll share resources and highlight ways that everyone can make a difference in the life of a suicidal teen or adult. If you have a family member or friend who is struggling with depression or another mental health issue, they might be suicidal. But there’s often no way to really know for sure unless they tell
Sports have a host of benefits for teens. From social advantages to academic enrichment to physical health, it seems like there’s nothing better than playing on your high school team. At the same time, there’s a dark underbelly in the world of teen athletics. Research looking at thousands of teen athletes around America has produced some slightly unsettling correlations. This data shows that while high school athletes are at higher
In previous articles, we discussed the link between sports and aggression. We presented studies indicating that athletes in high-contact sports (like football or wrestling, for example) are more likely to be aggressive even off the playing field. However, we concluded by reminding parents that there could be several factors at play (no pun intended!) in this relationship. Correlation doesn’t always prove causation. For example, teens with naturally aggressive temperaments might
Public schools in the U.S. face a monumental task: educating an incredibly large and diverse population of students. A report from The National Center for Education Statistics shows that just over 50 million students enrolled in public schools in the fall of 2018. Of those students, 24 million were Caucasian, 7.8 million were African-American, 14 million were Hispanic, 2.6 million were Asian, 1.6 million were of two or more races,
If you’ve ever been to a teen sports game, you’ve probably witnessed a fight at least once. It starts out, sometimes, with some muttering behind the coach or referee’s back. The parents raise their voices. There’s yelling, maybe even cursing. And then a fight breaks out. Tensions run high at sports games. Especially youth games. Almost 70% of parents say they’ve gotten angry at their child’s sports game before. And
According to a national survey of American teenagers conducted by the University of Chicago, around three-quarters of adolescents aged 13-17 use Snapchat regularly. Snapchat’s main draw is that it erases photos and videos just seconds after receipt. Most teens use the app to share lighthearted, spontaneous moments. The app’s design is playful and fun. You can add stickers, doodles, or fun filters to a photo, turn yourself into an animated
Note: this is just one part of our series on Sports: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, where we discuss all the ways athletic participation can influence teens. Read our previous articles here and here. The most aggressive sports player in history might arguably be Jack Tatum. Tatum was a football player with the Oakland Raiders. He was so violent that his nickname was “Assassin.” In 1978, Tatum collided
ASKfm is a social media platform, based in Europe, with more than 200 million users around the world. It’s particularly popular with teens. In fact, more than 40% of its users are adolescents ages 13 – 18. On the site, users ask and answer questions to each other—directly or anonymously. Such questions can range from the innocent (“What’s your favorite show?”) to, as you might imagine, the more personal. Which
