Compass Health Center Provides Behavioral Health Care to 1,000 Patients a Day in Crisis
“The rates of depression, anxiety and suicide have really skyrocketed over the last 20 years,” said Dr. Claudia Welke, psychiatrist and chief medical officer at Compass Health Center.
While it’s unclear to what extent, Welke said it’s clear that what kids watch online plays a role.
“Research now shows that social media and children who use it for three hours a day have more mental health problems,” she said.
Welke shared six tips parents should consider when it comes to navigating social media:
- Take a look at your own usage “Make sure you model healthy behaviors when it comes to social media use,” Welke said.
- Delay access to social media for as long as possible “The health director recommends waiting until high school. That may not work for every family. But it’s a good rule of thumb to wait as long as possible,” Welke said.
- Setting boundaries – For children and teens already on social media, cutting them off may not work, but experts say boundaries and guidelines should be established.
- Make sleep a priority – This may seem unrelated, but sleep is essential. So it’s critical to keep cell phones, tablets, and even computers out of the bedroom at bedtime. “We know that children need eight to nine hours of sleep for healthy brain development, so it’s really important to do everything we can to limit social media use at bedtime,” Welke said.
- Set schedules without technology – Especially at bedtime, during meals and while doing homework, experts recommend keeping devices out of reach of children.
- Talk to your children on the reasons why the rules and risks associated with social media
“For parents, it’s really about communicating what the risks are and letting them know that they (kids) can share, share what they’re seeing and know they have a safe place at home,” said Yaron Litwin, chief marketing officer of Canopy, a monthly subscription that uses artificial intelligence to help manage and monitor your child’s screen time.
“When a child comes across an inappropriate image, it will be filtered out. If a parent sets settings that require them to turn off their phone at around 6 p.m., the child will receive an alert that the time limit has passed,” Litwin said.
Parents using Canopy have a dashboard that helps them create personalized settings for each device.
“Canopy is there to enforce that rule, and it’s not a parent-child thing. There’s actually a third party, an app that provides some of those guardrails,” Litwin said.
Welke said parents should consider using apps, like Canopy and others, to help set limits and monitor children’s online behavior.
“We can kind of look at apps and things that help set parameters in terms of how much time kids spend on social media, as well as what platforms they’re using,” Welke said.
