Ask the Mediatrician

My daughter is upset by Justin Bieber’s behavior, how can I help her cope?

Q: My 12-year-old daughter is devastated by what has been happening with Justin Bieber. She has been a fan of the pop star “forever” and she and her friends fervently follow his career and personal life. I originally supported my daughter’s obsession (allowing her to buy his music, hang posters in her bedroom, attend a concert, etc.), because I thought he was a good role model. But now I am at a loss. My daughter cried over his break up with Selena and was confused, disbelieving and hurt by his recent assault and battery charges, seemingly poor choice of friends, and insensitive statements about Anne Frank.  I’m afraid Bieber is going to become the next Brittany Spears and that his breakdown may adversely affect my daughter—any help you can offer will be appreciated!

~ Bemoaning Bieber, Boston, MA

A: Dear Bemoaning,

We have to remember that the word fan was derived from fanatic. Many tweens fall hard for celebrities because these fantasy relationships are rehearsals for romantic and friend relationships that they aspire toward having in real life. For your daughter, Justin Bieber may have become kind of a surrogate boyfriend— idealized as “perfect in every way,” talented, romantic, kind, and completely focused on her.

Bieber’s recent behavior challenges your daughter’s fantasy, because it is clear that he is not perfect. And although that may seem silly to adults, the disappointment is very real for her. But this disappointment, like the infatuation, can be an experience that teaches her about human relationships – to realize that no one is perfect and to recognize both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ qualities in potential partners.

There are several ways you can help your daughter cope and grow from this experience:

1) Acknowledge her feelings, and let her know that it’s okay to feel them. Her ideal of Justin Beiber was really important to her--her loss of it is real, and her sadness is valid.

2) Talk with her about differences between how media portray a person and who that person really is. Ask her to think of times when she’s seen a picture or heard a story about someone she knows that she thinks doesn’t match what she knows of them. Then explore with her the images, videos, and stories of Bieber not as accurate representations of a 19-year-old boy, but as products manufactured by producers and publicists to be sold to her and to people like her.

3) Talk about the price of celebrity. Justin Bieber is still a teenager, but as a public figure and the center of a multi-million dollar enterprise, he is under an enormous amount of scrutiny and pressure. Rather than condemning his poor behavior and bad break-up, talk about these incidents with your daughter in light of the amount of responsibility he has. Everybody makes mistakes; instead of focusing on his wrongdoings, talk about how he can recover from them.

4) Help her think about how this lesson can be applied to other real-world experiences. Tweens and teens often spend hours honing their profiles, pictures, and messages to present themselves in the most attractive ways possible. Your daughter’s ability to see through the “positioning”, photoshopping, and editing of Bieber can help her look beyond the carefully created photos and profiles of her peers, making it possible to get to know who they really are.

Above all, you can help this situation be a positive learning experience for your daughter. Leave her space to grieve her idea of who he is (acknowledging that she never did and still doesn’t really know), and help her gain a more nuanced and realistic understanding of how real human beings behave and what healthy, human relationships are like.

For additional insight see:

• Why do adolescent girls idolize male celebrities?
• The role of media figures in adolescent development
• Attribution style, self-esteem, and celebrity worship

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®

CMCH Monthly Meet for March: Meet Isabel Lopes

Dear Reader,

Continuing on with 10^th year celebration of the Center on Media and Child Health, we hope you enjoy March's Monthly Meet!

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®

Center on Media and Child Health Monthly Meet

Meet: Isabel Lopes

How long have you been at the Center: I have been at the Center since March 2008.

What do you do at the Center: I am a Librarian with CMCH. I help support the Center's reference needs (like finding links to resources and research for Ask the Mediatrician posts!) and manage all aspects of developing the CMCH Database of Research.

What is one of your current CMCH projects? My main project is supporting the development of the CMCH Database of Research by populating it with current research on children, media, and health. I am also working on developing sponsor webpage for our website.

What is one way you like to use media creatively: My son is extremely interested in all sorts of technology, and I am always looking for ways to be creative with technology, particularly with apps. We love to make short movies and stories and it can be just about anything and anywhere. We have great movies of our son reading in Portuguese, playing games, exploring water, and pretending to be a rock star. Our favorite apps are: Audioboo, My story, and Educreations.

What is one of your favorite movies: I love to watch movies! My local library is a gold mine and has amazing and unique foreign movies. I like movies that tell great retrospective stories, and my favorite movies are either independent or foreign movies, including Mississipi Masala, Cinema Paradiso and Burnt by the Sun.

CMCH Monthly Meet for February: Meet Julie Polvinen

Dear Reader,

Continuing on with 10^th year celebration of the Center on Media and Child Health, we hope you enjoy February’s Monthly Meet!

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®

Center on Media and Child Health Monthly Meet

Meet: Julie Polvinen

How long have you been at the Center: I have worked at the Center for 10 years.

What do you do at the Center: For 9 years, my main focus was as a researcher in the field working with kids with chronic illness, collecting video data for our study called Video Intervention/Prevention Assessment (VIA). Currently, I support and promote the Center in many ways. I am an educator, graphic designer, videographer, and editor. I innovate, create, and implement ideas for social media, education, and outreach, and I assist with grant writing.

What is one of your current CMCH projects? One current project I am working on is getting a major innovation in healthcare that we have developed from the beta stage into the pilot stage.

What is one way you like to use media creatively: How long do you have? My background is in art and psychology, so I often create media rather than consume it. In my personal life and in the work I do, I use media of every kind for self-expression, education, and to empower and emotionally move others. My favorite thing to do is to create media for my personal websites that bring joy while promoting the welfare of animals.

What is one of your favorite movies:  One of my favorite movies is On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.  It is a funny old movie from the 70’s with Barbra Streisand in her prime. I love the music, costumes, concept, and script. It brings me back to my childhood and makes me feel good!

Happy Birthday, CMCH! Introducing the CMCH Monthly Meet

Dear Reader,

In honor of the Center on Media and Child Health’s 10^th year, we would like to introduce you to some of the people who make Center’s work possible. Each month in 2013, we’ll profile a different member of the CMCH team so that you can learn a little more about us, the work that we do, and our ongoing projects. We hope you enjoy learning about us as much as we enjoy learning about you and your media experiences. Thank you for your continued support!

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®

Center on Media and Child Health Monthly Meet

Meet: Dr. Michael Rich, aka ‘The Mediatrician’

How long have you been at the Center? I have been at the Center since the very beginning, about 10 years.

What is your title at the Center? The Mediatrician. Also, I am the Director and Founder of CMCH.

What do you do at the Center? I see my role at the Center as bringing together the worlds of science, clinical care, and parenting in a way that helps us guide children to be healthy, happy, and successful. I am only able to do this with the help and support of my talented team, who are equally dedicated to the Center’s mission.

What is one way you like to use media creatively? I love creating communal stories with my two youngest sons. I will often create the initial basis for a story and then pass it on to one my kids for the next paragraph, who will pass it to his brother for the next paragraph. We’ll keep passing the story until someone comes up with an ending—it’s a great way to create fun and silly stories that highlight the style and imagination of everyone involved.

What is one of your favorite movies and why? One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s a story where someone who is punished for being different is able to overcome with his creativity and strength of spirit. I think it reminds us to look at people beyond labels and outward appearances to really see their true potential. 

How can I ensure social media safety for students with special needs?

Q: At the therapeutic day school where I work, we’ve been encountering a number of internet and social media issues with our students (all kids with emotional/behavioral special needs). I would love to get your thoughts and ideas on how to best educate our kids and their parents on how to understand and appropriately use media.In particular, we’re struggling to balance the kids’ appropriate desires to connect and be curious with their clinical needs and vulnerabilities. Taking a “just say no” approach doesn’t seem sufficient.

- Seeking social media stability for students, in Boston, MA

 A: Dear Seeking,

Think of social media as tools that amplify social interactions. They are fast and “sticky”—that is, information spreads quickly and never really goes away. That can create real challenges, especially for students who have trouble with checking their impulses or managing their emotions.

For those reasons, teach your students, teachers, and parents to treat online interactions as seriously as in-person ones—and to manage them in similar ways:

• Keep your messages simple. One parent I know helps her son remember who it’s okay to connect with on Facebook by remembering “the 2 F’s for Facebook”: friends and family.  This is the kind of message that is easy to repeat and remember. Another effective one is the grandma test—asking kids, “Would you be okay with your grandma seeing what you want to post? If not, then don’t post it!”
• Focus on ways of managing their emotions before they go online. If you teach them to take 10 deep breaths before saying anything when they’re upset, teach them to take 10 deep breaths before they post anything online—and then to walk away from the computer until they're calm and thinking clearly. To help them build empathy, ask them to look at anything they're about to post as if they were on the receiving end of it, and then make a decision about whether to actually post it. 
• Supervise students as they go online until they show that they can manage themselves well there. A child who wouldn’t be left unsupervised in person shouldn’t be left unsupervised online. Make sure that when she goes online, there is an adult present with her. As she learns to use positive strategies for deciding when and what to post, you can gradually allow her to have more freedom.

It may be helpful to communicate about internet safety concerns with parents as well. Consider hosting an afterschool lecture or workshop about how to support students in using the internet and social media in positive ways.

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®

Should I let my 14-year-old use the ‘Snap Chat’ application?

Q: My 14-year-old daughter has been begging to get ‘Snap Chat’ on her iPod Touch. I searched for information on it and found this and I wasn’t initially impressed… http://www.hercampus.com/school/pitt/snap-chat-sexting-or-friendly-fun. I am tech savvy and know screen shots can easily be saved, but also, if she loses her device and someone else sends something, she could be held responsible. I don’t like the idea of Snap Chat and am weary of my daughter’s “everyone has it” plea. What do you think? What have you heard about it—risks etc.? 

 Suspicious of Snap Chat, Boston, MA

A: Dear Suspicious,

Snap Chat allows you to send and receive photos that are deleted within seconds (along with any digital trace of them, Snap Chat claims). You have done the right thing by looking into your daughter’s request and by researching the Snap Chat application yourself. Your concerns are certainly valid; images can be quickly and easily saved in other ways as well as distributed.

Many adolescents share devices and passwords as a way of showing how close they are, so even if she doesn’t ‘lose’ her iPod Touch, a friend or classmate could easily ‘borrow’ and send pictures from it. And remember that, unless you turn the location function off, most phones attach location and time/date data to every image, so even a silly picture of her cat on her bed can tell strangers where she is at what time.

In addition to doing your own research and trusting your instinct about any app she may want, there are a few questions you should ask your daughter before deciding whether to get it:

• What does this tool do? What is the purpose of this app/device, and what function will it serve in her life?
• How is she going to use it? Is she only going to use it for silly photo sharing with friends outside of school and other activities? Or is this an app that is used in school and can be a potential distraction for class? Also, how will she control images she receives from others?

When you ask your daughter these questions, make it clear that the ‘everybody else has one’ isn’t a good reason for getting this app or any media tool. If she really only wants to use it for making silly faces at her friends, discuss possible alternatives (making silly faces in person...) as well as the possible disadvantages (e.g., the fact that the deletion isn't foolproof and the pic could get distributed anyway, and the fact that immediate deletion could be a problem in the case of bullying--it could remove the evidence). You may also want to invoke the ‘grandmother rule’—that is, ask her if the pictures she’d be sending and receiving are images that she’d be comfortable having her grandmother see. This emphasizes the risk of unintended distribution that comes with sharing digital images.

Remember that you as her parent have the final say in whether or not she gets the app. After speaking with your daughter, come to a conclusion that will best suit her developmental needs, not necessarily her wants.

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®

My teen loves a role-playing game involving torture, what should I do?

Q: My 16-year-old son loves playing role-play games on the Internet. We recently became concerned, though, when we found out that the plots often involve torture. We are wondering why he is attracted to this kind of play and if there are any long or short term risks we should know about. We wonder if we should totally restrict his Internet access, but realize that this is not truly a realistic option. We do our best to keep the lines of communication open, but we need some guidance as to how to talk about our concerns with him.
-Tongue-tied, in Beverly, MA

A: Dear Tongue-tied,

Seeing your child engaged in this kind of play can certainly be alarming, and your impulse to talk to him about it is right on—but your discussion needs to be driven by reason rather than emotion, or it can backfire. Understanding what might be going on can help.

Kids are often drawn to media violence because it scares, upsets, or alarms them—they are attempting to master the troubling experience. But children who repeatedly engage with it until it doesn’t bother them can become desensitized to not only virtual violence but to real violence as well. This is a big part of the problem with exposure to media violence; it makes violence seem more common than it actually is and changes our beliefs about what’s normal.  

Another contributing factor may be your teen's “big” feelings, which may include a good deal of anger. His interest in these games may be driven partly by a need to explore those feelings. However, engaging in simulated torture is not a therapeutic way to do that. Short-term effects could include signs that he is more on edge, such as increased anxiety, sleep disturbances, and irritability. In the long term, he may see violence as a more acceptable way of addressing conflict.

It sounds like you’ve already set the groundwork for open communication about media messages, and talking about the issue of torture need not be very different. Still, there are some particular approaches that may be helpful in addressing this issue:

• Help him find a way to explore the “big” feelings. Restricting internet access won't make the feelings go away. That's why it can be helpful to have him work with a therapist to find a different, more therapeutic outlet for them, like sports or martial arts.
• Keep computer in public space, like the dining room table. That way he can play in areas where you can see what he’s doing and discuss it with him.
• Open a conversation about this game by playing with him, or sitting beside him while he plays. Ask him to teach you about the game and to explain what’s going on in it, how he feels playing it, and what he finds enjoyable about it. Listening to him can help you learn what needs this game is filling, and can open the door to brainstorming other ways to meet those needs.
• Set limits on content. It may be difficult to be reasonable rather than emotional at this point, but try saying something like, “As your parent, just like I can’t feed you junk food, I can’t let you practice hurting others. I see that you find it exciting, and I know that your rational mind understands it’s only make-believe, but getting used to even simulated torture changes you. I don’t want you to change that way.” Then work with him to find games that excite him but don’t include torture.

Remember that his media interests can offer a window into what he's processing internally, so a combination of setting limits on the content and helping him find another way to explore and process the feelings should serve the whole family well.

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®

How can parents make the internet a safe place to play?

Q: With kids of all ages using the internet for everything from socializing to finding information to playing games, how can we keep them as safe as they can be in that world?

-Net Nervous

A: Dear Net Nervous,

You're right--just like the school playground, the internet is a place where children play, learn, and connect with others. But unlike slides and tire swings, the online world changes with each passing day. How can busy parents keep their children safe?

Fortunately, you don’t need to know all the ins and outs of the internet in order to parent well there. You can simply bring your offline parenting techniques to the online world, and we have a new Internet Safety Toolkit that can help you do that. Based on research and full of practical tips, these four tools offer age-specific guidance to help you parent in an ever-changing online world:

• Tool #1: The Basics
• Tool #2: For Content They See
• Tool #3: For Content They Make
• Tool #4: For How They Interact

You can also find these tools here. 

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®

How can I encourage parents to be involved in their kids’ online lives?

Q: My 16-year-old goddaughter’s parents are not Facebook friends with her, so when someone stole her phone and posted some degrading things to her account, they didn’t know until I told them. Another friend asked me to look at all her 19-year-old daughter’s pictures and let her know if I saw anything inappropriate. How can I encourage parents to become involved in this important space so they can do the sorts of parenting they’re asking me to do?
-Pixed Up, in Memphis, TN

A: Dear Pixed,

Suggest to your friends that they think of social media like they think of driving a car: Teens may be legally able to do it, but they still need support from someone with more life experience and a fully formed brain to learn to use it responsibly.

The idea of getting involved in teens’ online lives may seem daunting, though. Teens are digital natives, and technologies change so rapidly that it’s hard for their digital immigrant parents to keep up. Unfortunately, many parents feel so uncomfortable or clueless that they don’t even try to parent or protect their children in the digital realm—and both kids and their parents assume that this is private space.

In reality, though, the online world is part of their real world: U.S. 8- to 18-year-olds use media for about half of their waking hours, and for more time than they spend with parents or in school. It has become an important environment for many key developmental tasks of adolescence, like seeking out experience, building identity, and practicing social interaction.

Because such processes can be as confusing and difficult to manage online as offline, your friends have a lot to offer by “friending” their teens and opening conversations about what’s happening online. And this is where their status as digital immigrants can really help—they can ask their teens to teach them about their world. Remaining open and non-judgmental about whatever is shared can make teens respected and valued, which will allow the parents to start a supportive dialogue about life online. For ideas on where to go from there, see this CMCH resource on “The Internet Talk.”

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®

When is it time for my daughter to get an email account?

Q: At what age do you think it is appropriate for a child to have a personal e-mail address? I have a 10 year old who wants one, but I don’t feel she is old enough. I think she can be trusted and has proved to be responsible, but it’s the world out there I worry about. How would we block inappropriate e-mails?
-eQuestioning in Mansfield, MA

A: Dear eQuestioning,

Treat personal email like any other tool: When it’s the right tool for the job at hand—whether that job to communicate with loved ones or to send homework to a teacher—that’s the time to introduce it to your child.

But that doesn’t mean her email needs to be private. In fact, as your child starts using this tool on her own, your supervision and guidance can help her learn to navigate that world safely and successfully. Start with an email service that allows you to access her account, set controls, and review emails yourself before she sees or sends them.

As you and she gain confidence in her email skills, give her more independence and freedom bit by bit—perhaps by checking less often and starting to let her monitor her own email, with the clear and explicit understanding that you are passing to her the responsibility to keep her email healthy and safe.

And no matter how much freedom she has with email (and with texting, which has already eclipsed email for peer-to-peer communication), check in with her continuously, and make sure she feels safe, supported, and able to reach out for your help. For more information, see these other answers:

• How can I protect my child when she's learning to use email?
• How should I get my kids set up with their first email account? 

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®