Shared Links (weekly) Mar. 30, 2025
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Sharing – For teens’ mental health, strong friendships matter more than social media use, study finds
Social media may be a problem for some teens, but online interaction that leads to friendships would be remarkably good for them. Simple bans aren’t going to have much of an impact, but giving kids opportunities to bond and make friends will. How do we do more of that?
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Sharing – Improving teen mental health with Lisa Damour
I needed the ability to go places on my own because I didn’t have the internet. Teens today have much less freedom to go places independently, so we should consider how to keep them connected to society if it’s not online.
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Sharing – Online grooming: What it is, how it happens, and how to defend children
I’m sharing this resource from Thorn because parents need it. It can be difficult to tell the difference between someone grooming a teenager and someone just trying to be friends with a teen, and we can’t expect anyone always to know the difference.
However, we can communicate openly with teens about what they are doing online. We can also stay involved with kids and their online experiences so that there are more eyes on what is happening and a safe place to turn if something seems off about what someone is asking them to do.
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Sharing – Are We or Are We Not in a Youth Mental Health Crisis?
Is it a crisis that has teens struggling with mental health more recently, or is it some combination of cultural factors and more willingness to talk about mental health?
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Sharing – Teens feel less emotional support than their parents think they do, new report shows
I can’t help but wonder how many of those teens who feel like they have no one to talk to about their emotions have parents who don’t think their teen has emotional struggles because, surely, they would talk to their “supportive” parents.
Don’t assume your kids are fine because they haven’t talked to you about struggling. They may be in that gap.
