Thank you to our amazing panel at Screenagers: Next Chapter at TPH last night! We can’t believe it’s been 5 years since the first film, and there is so much good information packed into this second documentary. Loaded with youth voice and practical suggestions from experts for how to help our young people build coping skills and resiliency with respect to managing screens and social media.

The film is focused on teens’ experiences with stress, anxiety, and depression and the connection to screens and social media, which Pelham teens helped bring to life for the audience in the conversation that followed. Conor Bryan, Manu Naik, Julia Findikyan (all sophomores), and Kate Powers (junior) pulled out the parts of the film that resonated with them—citing the distraction and stress that comes with checking phones all the time and recognition of the impact of comparisons on social media. Their take-away for other young people was to encourage their peers to reach out whenever they need help, to not assume they are alone. Their advice to the supportive adults in their lives—validate, but don’t try to fix everything. Mr Luis Barcelo, PMHS school counselor, commented on how he sees kids trying to balance the positives and the negatives of screens and how important it is that adults understand that it has real value to their teens. He also suggested that directly teaching face-to-face communication skills is so important, since the use of screens has eliminated the need for it in so many instances. Dr. Pavithra Mandappa, clinical psychologist and Pelham mom of two middle school children, provided insight into the broader context of youth mental health, emphasizing the importance of validation and suggesting that there are real solutions to help build resiliency, that not every moment of struggle is a crisis. The more we continue to normalize the conversation about mental health, the more we reduce the barriers that exist to ask for help. Thank you so to all our panelists!

There are so many great resources for how to talk to your kids about screens, including validating how they feel in the moment and how to set boundaries. See below for a list of a few that we think are really useful. If you have found any you think should be added here, please email them to: emiller@pelhamtogether.org

This screening was a result of a partnership with PMHS PTA, PTA Council, and PUFSD for Digital Citizenship Month.

RESOURCES:

Tech Talk Tuesdays:  Subscribe to the weekly blog, brought to us by screenagersmovie.com On this site you can also find a tab that links to a very interesting podcast. Delaney Ruston, MD, the filmmaker of Screenagers movies, interviews different professionals, and parents, about their experiences around screens - what worked, what didn’t, what’s new. . .

Wellesley Centers for Women - Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab: An excellent source of research on issues related to youth, the media they use, and how media impacts wellbeing.

thesmarttalk.org: A PTA-sponsored website with help setting tech boundaries for your family