Parenting a teenager in the digital age can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. In this insightful and empowering episode, Dr. Hina Talib, a renowned pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist, shares her wisdom on how parents can navigate the challenges of adolescence—from social media and mental health to preparing teens for adulthood.
Here’s why you should tune in:
- Practical Parenting Strategies: Learn how to communicate effectively with your teen, set boundaries, and use parental controls to foster a healthy digital relationship.
- Insights on Mental Health: Discover how to support your teen’s mental well-being and understand the nuanced role social media plays—both as a challenge and a resource.
- Guidance on Life Transitions: Get actionable advice on preparing teens for the leap into adulthood, focusing on skills like independence, decision-making, and health management.
- A Positive Approach to Risk and Growth: Find out how to balance safety and risk-taking, encouraging your teen to embrace opportunities and learn from mistakes.
Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or someone invested in the well-being of young people, this episode is packed with relatable stories, evidence-based advice, and a dose of hope. Dr. Talib’s expertise, combined with a thoughtful and compassionate approach, will leave you feeling equipped and inspired.
🎧 Listen now to gain fresh perspectives on parenting in a connected world and learn how to be the steady guide your teen needs to thrive!
Transcript
Transcript is subject to errors
Larry Magid
I’m really excited to be talking to Doctor Hina Halib, a pediatrician and board certified adolescent specialist. A popular Instagram celebrity who, among other things, advises parents and teens about the healthy use of social media. She cares for teens and families at her practice at the Atri Institute. And is also a media spokesperson for the American Academy of. She’s written for the New York Times and U.S. news and World Report. Frequently featured in media interviews, including this episode of are We doing tech? Right, Hina, let’s just start with the basics. What is your primary advice to parents of teens that are using services like Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok?
Dr. Hina Talib
The most important thing for parents to remember is to communicate and to approach these conversations with your teens, whether they’re on Instagram thinking about joining Instagram or have been on it for a very long time. Approach those conversations with open mindedness and curiosity. It’ll be so illuminating to you to just say, hey, would you show me your Instagram, or would you show me what apps you have on your phone? I think this is the. Place to start.
Larry
There’s a lot of if you think about Instagram, it’s got these parental management tools. Some call them parental controls. Talk about how you’re feeling about the idea of using external controls, whether it’s Instagram or some are much more stringent than instant than the ones that Instagram has done. What role do these kinds of tools play or not play? Your perspective.
Hina
You know, I think these tools that certain tech platforms and other online areas have shared with parents are really important actually, because they hurt us. Kind of Orient us as parents. As to you know, it makes you ask the question well, why do we have these tools in the 1st place and also when do we need to use them? And I think what the way I approach this age group and being a pediatrician is to think developmentally and. As you have younger adolescents, they are. More in need and more deserving. Of our. And that means that we talk to them about boundaries, about limits, and we have clear consequences. Kind of hard to do. I’ve heard from many parents that they understand that this is the task ahead of them, but when you’re in the thick of it. Negotiating with your young person. These are very hard things to do, so tools, limits, technology that can actually help you set those limits can be a friend to us. And so I applaud. When we do have these tools available to us and what I really like and what I’m really interested in is when these tools are dynamic. So when you can actually change or graduate or scaffold differently and develop that overtime. Until there’s an agreed upon time between you and your young person that you can pull back layer by layer in a skills based way, I think that’s actually the the right approach because that’s the same approach we would take with an adolescent when we’re talking about any new. Even in person.
Larry
Let’s talk about the transition from being an adolescent being. Adult, I mean. Nothing magic happens on your 18th birthday, but legally and culturally, some things do happen that are very important, IE. Parents are no longer in control of your life. How do you make that transition so that the things that they learn while they’re at a lessons actually benefit them? As they go into adulthood.
Hina
The way we approach transitions in Pediatrics is we start much earlier than people might think. Yes, it’s at age 18. An adolescent is no longer considered a. They are now an adult and they are afforded all the protections of privacy that you would afford any other adult with their health information and health decisions. However, you’re. Nothing magically happens from. 17 and 364 days and onwards. And So what we really do is starting at age 11 or 12, we start planting the seeds of. This is at some point you will be transitioned to the care of an adult provider. You’ll be transitioned out into the. World outside of a relationship with your pediatrician and the way we focus on it from 11/12/13 is skills we say, OK, I want the 11 year old to come into the office and be able to ask their own question of me in front of their parents. And then maybe at 13, for example, I want to make sure I have private alone time for. Of the visit, but not all of. Visit and as the teens continue to get older, I would love them to learn how to refill a prescription and perhaps get a prescription from a pharmacist and perhaps ask a pharmacist a question. So I’m approaching this in a very skills based way. I would really like a 17 year old to know their family health history. I would like them to be able to answer the question of what. Cardiac or mental health conditions are run in the family. You’d be surprised people don’t know these things, and so when you all of a sudden approach transition from many more years ahead of time than you would think in a skills based way. I think we set our young. Up for the most success when it comes to. Being 18 and beyond. And then lastly I would say we don’t do a parenthety for example between 18 and 21 years. They are afforded all of the protections of health privacy. But parents are still very important in that age range, and pediatricians and those who support kids high school teachers. We all know that in college. That parents are important and so we always take the young person’s permission. And perhaps encourage them to include their parents in parts of the conversation that they feel comfortable, especially when it may pertain to follow up appointments or help getting to other appointments or getting access to medications that they might need. In all phases of life, transition is sort of always in the back of our mind. Even when you think they’ve already been transitioned, we still. The buffer that’s there for.
Larry
You mentioned mental health and I don’t have any independent way to verify it, but I keep reading about a mental health crisis among teens in this country. Like you to comment on whether that in fact is true and what really that means in terms of. I certainly know teens where there’s no evidence of any mental health issues, and obviously there’s some that have and then everybody has their. Theory as to what the cause is and some people like to assign a single cause and therefore a. Bullet obviously out because of this. I want you to talk about the role of technology, social media, etcetera in terms of the mental health issue. But interestingly enough, where I come from in in Silicon Valley, there are those that think it’s academic pressure. Causing mental health. And teen suicides and other. So yet another single cause and silver bullet talked to me a little bit about the reported mental health crisis and also the role of social media, both in terms of contributing to the problem. And also potentially contributing to the solution.
Hina
Those are great. I think that fear and hype are rampant when it comes to headlines and books, and they have a story to share, and those stories are important and those angles are important. But when we look at the evidence, it’s not so. Crystal clear that there is a blanket youth mental health crisis rates are increasing in certain conditions in certain populations, but at a population hole level I sometimes do cringe when I hear. That take because it doesn’t always reflect what clinicians like myself. Who are spending day in and day out for decades with youth. What we are seeing on the ground, it also sets a very specific message to youth because they hear it too. So I think it’s a disservice and I think. We ought to do better by being a little bit more evidence based when we are making big claims, but also by remembering that these messages get heard and may be seated deep in the brains of developing brains of young people who are hearing them. And so it is important to say everybody has mental health. Mental health is part of all of. There are times in our life where we may our mental health may be stronger and there are times in our life where our mental health may need a little bit more support. I’ve seen this with my Gen. Z patients. We misuse the words anxiety and depression. Schizophrenia mania and bipolar PTSD. They are often misused and so I think that we really do, as pediatricians and parents have an important role to play in level setting. In sharing what the evidence base is, and also most importantly, taking care of the patient in front of you, because rather than reacting to the whole when you are actually trying to help a student or a patient or a teen in your community, or a nephew or N. Your family. Look at the kid in front of you and take care of them and make sure to emphasize. Normalcy and make sure to emphasize that even if their mental health is being challenged, there is support. There is evidence based, proven treatments, and they work in adolescence, and we can all do better to help to get them those.
Larry
There’s probably not a human alive who haven’t had some kind of illness. Cold a broken arm. Something, but we don’t define that, and there’s a difference between having an illness and having a chronic condition which effects you through your entire life. I’m going to talk about that. The idea that we all have. Issues I can think. Moments when I’ve had anxiety and depression, but I don’t think of myself as having a chronic, serious mental health condition. I really never thought of it in those terms as the notion that we we go through these temporary mental health issues that we are. Good morning.
Hina
So these are also real conditions, certainly. And so you can be diagnosed with anxiety disorder or major depression disorder. But these things do can be time limited and with treatment that time limitedness can be faster. And so I think it’s important to understand that young teens and sort of like middle. Teens, maybe all. I would say they’re searching for identity and they’re developing their identity and the more they, the older they get, the more they’re looking for their identity development kind of touch points outside of the home. So you want to be as helpful and as positive in that framing so that they don’t internalize. Characteristics like anxiety or depression as something that is just a broken part of them that will be there forever. We are all anxious at times. We all have low mood at times. We also get handed hard situations at. And it is normal to struggle when you have a hard situation in life. Hard situation might be junior year. High school. That is hard for. For a lot of people, it might be something related to your family’s finances or related to politics. So I think that we need to again speak positively to youth. I understand that this is a hard. How are you managing this? Or I see that this has been a challenge or a struggle. What can I do to help or what would your idea be to make this a little bit better? How can I help? And so I think there are ways to. At it with out. Saying, Oh my gosh, you are a teenager growing up right now in this time and I am just gonna be on pins and needles because I think you’re going to collapse from this mental health crisis.
Larry
And just notice, spend too much time on mental health. Maybe one follow up. So again, you observing something in your child and your cane, and you’re worried about them. And you look at their behavior, their habits, and you see. They’re on social media. If you implied there’s so many other things going on in life, there’s politics, there’s economics, there’s death in the family, there’s friends that are having problems. How do you put social media? As a potential cause, but not necessarily the only cause. And how do you kind of triage that? Not so much from the standpoint of view of the professional, but the parent when they’re dealing with whether or not they need to pull the plug on social media or something else because they think that that’s going to somehow. Turn the tide in whatever it is that’s bothering their child.
Hina
Thing I want to. That in certain adolescents or groups of adolescents, we do have evidence that say if they are suffering from anxiety disorder, if they’re suffering from major depression and they are spending a lot of time on social media, social media might amplify some of those feelings. If the teen in front of you is having those struggles. Sharing that as a study or as a finding or as a learning that your that you have learned one may help them understand why. For them, in that moment, part of the treatment plan or part of the steps towards feeling better might be to decrease or walk back their social media use so that I just want to say that for sure. But when I talk to families holistically about a teen if. Struggling with mental health or struggling with some other. Balance issue with their life, whether it’s interpersonal. Job. Performance related, like if there is a functional issue that’s going on in their life and we’re trying to walk back and dissect and see how can we help. Yes, I will say very often people will say oh, it’s the phone use like that. That’s the thing that is. Connected to these other things and it may or may not be, but I will always start with. Things like and. This is true for mental health disorders, but it’s again true for the needs of a growing adolescent. I will start with sleep movement. The food that they’re eating the the cadence of the day that they are nourishing themselves with that food, the friendships that they have, do they have one or two good friends that are there for them? And if not, let’s help find a place where that can happen for them. Do they feel safe in their friendships and? And then how is the relationship between you and your child? The hardest part because. Feels like it’s on us as parents, but I would be remiss to say that that is not probably the most important part of helping a kid is for them to know that their parent is a safe, nurturing adult that they can go to. And if that’s not the. Then let’s find them an adult in their life that. Is the case to help them have that person in their? It’s about treating all of these things because there are steps to take in all of these lifestyle Wellness pillars that can help the first or second or third step in towards an adolescent feeling better. And yes, social media might be that. Social media, if we are on it too much or on the phones too much if it. Too much physical time during the. Where is there time for these other things? And so that’s a sort of balance or juggling? Or like taking an excel sheet and figuring out all right, where does my time go and how do I manage my time and in my experience having done this a lot with young people, the young people bring me the answers more than me. Bringing the answers to them. They are able to say OK, I have practiced these days. Have tutoring this day I have to babysit like I. Little cousins on this day for this number of hours they are able to look at their weeks and tell me when their. Time online might be not crowding out other important activities of life and providing them something. So social media, we have been talking about how it can amplify and how it has inherent risk in. For. But let’s not also forget that young people share with me and with others. All of these positive use cases that they have with social media to be creative, to connect with people, to find identity, to find people who look like them, that they might not have role models around them, to feel safe. They’re not safe. And I want them to be able to get information and contacts and chat lines and things like that for safety, for health. If they are looking for information about sensitive health information that they don’t feel safe or comfortable approaching the the people around them, reproductive health things like. That mental health, these are very important use cases for teens to have access. Even minor teens, which are, you know, 13 to 17 year olds to have access to the Internet and to social media to get these resources and to use social media in a positive way.
Larry
Yeah, I want to talk a little bit more about time management. so-called screen time in a minute, but I just want to close the loop on this. Mentioned earlier in the conversation this. Curiosity this conversation you’re having with your child, can you be specific on some of the do’s and Don ts when you have that conversation? A lot of parents are really nervous.
Larry
Somehow feel that a they might not have the technical skills their kids do, or they just somehow don’t know how to approach it. Afraid they’re going to come on too strong, not strong enough. How would you approach that conversation?
Hina
You know one thing I will say is think of it as 101 minute conversations and not 100 minute conversation because it is more scary for adults to think about having this great big meeting or combative or taking them to task conversation in terms of the. Gritty. You’ve like, had your little. Seeds of conversations and you want to actually have a family. This is important to do, and so picking the right time for your family meeting, picking the right level of formality for it is important. And I think using tools that have been created by the American Academy of Pediatrics, they have a family media plan, gives you a script. And if you prefer, you can ask around your parent friends who have kids who are a couple years ahead of you, they may have. Through this very. They may even have a contract that they made that they could share with you or ideas that you may not have thought of. Learned so very much as a parent from those who are a few years ahead of me. Reinvent the wheel is what I’m trying to. There are tools out there, ask for help and then just get in there. What?
Larry
About. I mean, there’s some parents at the first sign that something went wrong, even if it’s not the child’s fault. They were bullied. Their instinct is to yank the phone out of their hand and take away the privileges. There are other parents who just have no clue in their lazy fare and just never. There are no consequences. Where do you put consequences into the equation?
Hina
I think consequences are very important, especially in younger. You know your preteens, your tweens and your young adolescent. Because they help you like a good consequence is something that motivates you for behavior that ascribes to the plan that you have set forth the agreement that you have. Forth as a family. So a good consequence helps you. Bad consequence shames you. Potentially makes you feel lonely and disconnected from friends or other people who can help you feel better. When you’re feeling low. And so I do worry when the punishment is to take a kids phone away. When especially the. Offense say had nothing to do with the phone in the 1st place, so I would not use taking the phone away as like a grounding technique for things that had nothing to do with the phone. I think consequences should be specific. A phone specific consequence should be from a phone specific behavior. So I would start there and then. Consequences should sort of fit the level of the issue at hand. If if your child had. No control. If it was their first sort of misstep. If they show that they learned from, it can explain to you the next day what was going through their head and what they learned about it. Are all things that I would take into account when thinking about how much to take the device or the platform or the video game or whatever it might be away. I I think about limits and I think that this. A hard thing to actually do in practice, and I just want to give it to all parents. Like I struggle with this too.
Hina
I have a six and an 8 year old and I am never disappointed or regretful of myself. When I was able to stick to a limit, but when I did cave in on a limit. I knew that I was doing it in the. I knew that it was probably the wrong thing to do and I was. Sort of making a decision not based on the values that I had agreed on, but based on me not being able to tolerate my kid in distress. So my point is, is that we can do hard things. It is. It is OK to have your child or your teen be upset with a limit or a consequence. Is how they will learn.
Larry
I’m glad you acknowledge that your own imperfections in this in Doctor Hill’s self. I mean, clearly we all struggle with parenting. A. It’s a difficult process. And at least my kids didn’t come with the user manual as far as I know. Still don’t. There was a time when the American Academy of Pediatricians had very specific screen time rules, and they actually had a number of hours associated with each different age level. And I know they’ve modified that they I wouldn’t say loosened up, but been much more flexible in that approach. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about screen time and that’s such an important issue for for many parents.
Hina
Yeah. So you know, actually, the American Academy of Pediatrics just had their national meeting and we discussed how really that the two hour screen time rule is not really the thing anymore. It is kind of being phased out. And what it is being replaced by is a framework to help pediatricians approach these conversations. And it has nothing to do with time anymore and instead the framework is about things like. Being calm. What could be crowded out by having an imbalance? Communication, thinking about content and thinking about being connected, we really have walked it back because it kind of makes no sense to talk about screen time anymore when a young person. Is using screen time for education, for directions, for music, for entertainment, for schoolwork. They’re pretty much constantly connected. And what’s more helpful to think about is what are they doing? Who are they connecting with and to kind of really again, I guess it’s about getting back in there and looking at the quality of what their screen time is. This framework is is actually really. We were joking that, OK, you took it away from something so easy for parents and pediatricians to remember. Hour time limit to something that is a framework and is actually a little bit more complicated. And so this goes back to the if you can only do one thing, if you can get one part of the framework, or if you can get one message out, what would that message be? That every little bit counts as every little bit is a bit of connection.
Larry
As we as you and I’ve been. I don’t know if you caught it, but my watch rang. Not my phone. My phone rang too, but my watch. So when you talk about screen time, it’s not just a screen anymore. Mean it’s all around us. Have watches we have. We have, you know, smart speakers, I mean. Smart rings, you name it.
Hina
Yeah, absolutely. It’s like the air that we breathe now and it’s sort of the medium that a good chunk of their day is, is where they flow through it. I don’t think it’s helpful to talk about screen time in minutes anymore. One way that I one thing that I do think is helpful. Is to talk about screen free time. So if we flip that and talk about elevating screen free time, protecting screen free time, glamorizing screen free time, whether it be through outdoor. Through play through sports. Through sacred times, we have decided like meal times like sleeping, bedroom overnight times. Some people have Saturday mornings as like screen free Saturday mornings. Heard I’ve heard screen free power hours. Where? The family I’ve I’ve even heard people say. Can we just try 10 minutes as a family without the? So this is to say, we are all coming in at a different abilities and levels of being able to to put our devices down. But whether it’s 10 minutes or an entire Saturday. I think it is very important for us to talk about how precious it is to have time in person with each other as humans, as family members and to elevate that and that to me is way more impactful, as I have heard from my patients and families who. Tried these skills out than me saying how many minutes of time. You you know you are online.
Larry
Any other topics and we’ve talked about a lot of things, but any other things that you?
Hina
We should add, I’ve been thinking about how do we shift this conversation about cell phones and social media and. Kind of concrete ages for these sorts of things that are being espoused by others. How do we shift that into skills and really distilling down? At each age group level, whether it’s gaming or devices or social media, what are the skills that we hope to learn and how do we help pediatricians and parents and teachers assess and guide children? Teens, young adults from a skills based lens, which is all about learning and learning, also comes from mistakes and so mistakes are part of learning and it’s hard, right? We and I know you. You do so much work on the safety side of it, and that is very, very important. Safety and harm reduction go hand in hand, but I’d really like us to be able to move towards a place where we’re talking about discrete skills, and those skills come in digital literacy. There are great education curriculum for teaching these things. You know, I think parents sometimes need it too, and need it to be distilled down to them so they can talk about it. And when they’re talking about values in their families.
Larry
You know, it’s funny. You talk about about safety as a pediatrician, I’m sure you’ve treated people that have been injured in bicycle accidents or skiing accidents or lots of things. Football, baseball, whatever. I’m guessing you don’t tell them. Away from. Stay away from baseball. I mean, how do you handle the fact that in general life is risky and there’s many positive things that we do every day, some of which? I mean, I broke my elbow riding a bicycle. Bicycle riding is probably one of the reasons I have. Good cardiac health. How do you manage these issues of taking risks? Because some of these things we want to do are beneficial, yet bad things can happen.
Hina
One of the great things about adolescence, especially middle, which is our high school age, adolescence is they’re wired to take risk. In fact, sometimes I think that adults could learn from that a little bit because we get unwired to take risk and and taking risks can lead to. New experiences? New hobbies. Opportunities that wouldn’t have been open if you hadn’t had just said yes and tried something. And so I think, how do you balance taking risk and giving guidance around protecting from risk? Think it goes back to. Our job as parents is to be the nest to be there always and. So if we are there when they need us, then you won the game. If they know that they can come to you in good times and bad in mundane like this meme is so funny. Ha ha too. I just got my heart broken. If you can be that person that they can share the good and the bad with I I I I really do think that that is that is what our role should be in scaffolding young people.
Larry
With that, thank you so much.
Hina
Thank you. Thank you for having me here.