by Ellen Grant
The teen years can be a very challenging time for some youth. I’m emphasizing “some youth.”
ELLEN GRANT, PhD LCSW-R
Most of the youth may have no issues of behavior such as being argumentative with their parents, siblings, and classmates. While other adolescents— “some youth” may have days of moodiness, sadness, rage at those they live with, their classmates, inappropriate language, disruption at school, sleeping too long or too little. Some youth may overeat, undereat, engage in harmful self-behavior- using drugs, self-cutting, running away etc.
What is true in our communities today is that so many of our teens are struggling with issues that most of us adults never had to encounter.
In 2023, more than 5.3 million adolescents aged 12-17 years (20.3% of adolescents) had a current, diagnosed mental or behavioral health condition (anxiety, depression, or behavior/ conduct problems). Anxiety was the most common condition (16.1%), followed by depression (8.4%) and behavior/conduct problems (6.3%). There is concern that many students in need of care, may not be receiving the needed assistance.
Social media, I believe is a double-edged sword, which can have good and bad effects. For many people it serves to impart endless knowledge and entertainment, while it can inspire ways to inflict self-harm and harm to others. We know that opportunities to purchase, build materials for harming others with bomb making, gun purchasing, how to make chemical formulas, etc. can all be found on social media and or the internet.
As we look further at issues with the use of the internet in this “digital age,” we’re seeing an increase in cyber-bullying amongst our youth. Intimidating, embarrassing others of their peers with negative talk aimed to embarrass, harass or make them do harmful or hurtful things against their will or even sometimes their knowledge are some examples.
So many of our youth in their vulnerability and lack of self-confidence use the internet—tik toc, other media sources to see how they compare. They may fear they don’t measure up or want to “be like” the media star and or try to mirror their idealized life. We also know that Artificial Intelligence-AI is still developing and being seen as something that can be an agent of change and education or one of destruction.
We’ve read of instances where AI has taken our vulnerable youth and made a “fake friend” to the point of encouraging the youth to commit suicide. Hence the recent legislation in other countries to sue the media giants for misleading, harming the youth living in these countries. Though we don’t want to get to the point of having to “spy” on every move of our youth, we as parents, caretakers and adults must be watchful.
As a therapist, I often counsel my patients re the use of their cell phone with endless scrolling, etc., then trying to get enough sleep. Some research including the Journal of American Medicine has shown that the screen light does impact brain melatonin which is necessary for good rest and sleep. Though there are too many solutions to list in this briefing, I do applaud the Buffalo Public Schools (BPS) for their Parent Resource Directory on the BPS website.
I would also recommend having more mental health staff-social workers and related to provide the services needed in the schools. Please also remember the 988 Emergency Crisis Phone Number.