The past few years have been rough on a lot of us when it comes to our mental health and coping with anxiety and depression. Teens are among the hardest hit age groups during the pandemic when it comes to mental well-being. As a parent of two teens, and a practicing pediatrician, I talk to families daily about what they can do to help their kids stay mentally "fit". Much of the advice is "old school" but in today's world, many families have lost sight of these strategies, and a reminder can help treat your child's mental health problem, or if they do not have a problem, protect them from developing one!
1) Focus on quality family time, starting with eating dinner together - devices off! It has been shown that families that eat together have children that are less likely to be depressed, feel isolated, and use less drugs/tobacco/alcohol.
2) Plan a recurring family night and put it on the "family calendar" like any other activity!! If we can put sports or clubs on our calendars as obligations, there is no reason we can't put Family Game Night or Family Hike on our calendars at a regular interval. The trick is to not ask your kids, "Would you like to play a game tonight?" You already know the answer - they would like to be on their devices alone in their rooms. Instead tell them, "Hey kids, we just put Family Game Night on the calendar for the first and third Tuesdays of every month." It isn't a punishment, but it can lead to a better mindset for your adolescent.
3) Practice good sleep hygiene! - Have your teen check in their devices before bed and charge them out of their rooms. Did you know studies show that sleeping with your phone close to you leads to poorer sleep quality, even if you sleep the same amount of time? Similar studies show that college students taking IQ tests do better the farther their cell phone is away from them when they take the test. How can this be true? It is likely that part of our brains are constantly "on", worried about missing a notification or struggling with the addictive temptation of checking things on our phones, even when we are asleep or focused on something else. Your teen does not need a phone for an alarm clock!! They have been selling alarm clocks for decades, and they still work just as well.
4) Practice good sleep hygiene! Part 2 - Teens stay up too late during the week, and are forced to wake up early for school. This leads to sleep "debt" and they naturally try to sleep more on the weekend to catch up. To do this they sleep until noon or 1 pm on Saturday and Sunday morning. This sets up a very bad cycle. How? Because when they sleep until noon on Sunday and you tell them to go to sleep at 10 on Sunday night because they have school, they are legitimately not tired because they have not been up long enough. So what happens? They fall asleep very late, wake up "early," and the whole cycle repeats itself, constantly trying to catch up on sleep. A healthier approach is to have them wake up roughly the same time every morning, with maybe just an hour longer on the weekends. This will help them fall asleep at a more appropriate time on Sunday night!!
5) Stop social media! Studies show time spent on social media and the number of "like" clicks a person does is associated with how likely they are to be depressed. This association is strongest in teenage women. Social media in general only shows the extremes. When your teen is having a mediocre Tuesday and they look at their frenemies Hawaiian vacation, how does that make them feel? Likewise, when they go online and find out about a terrible personal tragedy of someone they barely know, how does that make them feel? In almost no circumstance is the outcome good for their mental status.
6) Exercise daily!! You don't have to be on a sports team 11 ½ months a year to benefit from exercise. Any type of physical activity that increases your heart rate, makes you tired, and sweat has been shown to help mood and sleep. Unfortunately, so many of our kids get almost none. In the office I ask the question at every well visit, and often I hear "I walk around my school, it is really big". Nope, not exercise, that is just being alive! They need some sort of activity for 30-60 minutes every day for a healthier body and mind! Often in my practice people will ask me for medications so their child can sleep better at night. Medication is almost never the answer, exercise is. As a Scout leader I accompany 20-40 teenagers on weekend campouts every other month. Friday night they are loud, crazy, running around and making noise late into the night. Saturday - crickets. They are out like a light almost as soon as it gets dark. The difference is exercise (and staying away from screens!).
Hopefully this helps bring things back to basics for your family. Until next time, good luck parenting,
William J. Fisher, MD
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