It’s back to school season. Now is a great time to really think about whether we’re teaching our kids the tools they need to thrive in school. One such example of this the child’s relationship with social media. As adults, many of us are growing to understand the way that social media affects our mental health. Yet we don’t always show that to our kids.
Let’s first talk a bit more about social media and mental health, and then we’re going to talk about a common parenting mistake that many parents can easily avoid by talking to their kids about social media use.
Social Media in Therapy
Social media, directly and indirectly, comes up a lot in therapy. More than you likely imagined. Many people find that their opinions, their stresses, their comparisons, and their self-esteem are directly tied into their social media consumption. Indeed, even anxiety and depression can be related not only to what we see on social media, but *the very act of scrolling social media,* due to a phenomenon called Digital Overload.
Still, in general, one of the reasons that many people develop mental health issues and concerns as a result of social media is because they intentionally or unintentionally compare their lives to the lives of those they see online:
- They see people posting loving photos of their spouses while they’re arguing with their own.
- They see people post beautiful traveling photos while there vacations are messy and stressful.
- They see people post about their kids’ fantastic accomplishments while they find themselves yelling at their kids and overwhelmed by parenthood.
They see people looking beautiful or sexy while their photos are messy and unkempt. They see people getting asked out on dates in romantic ways while their dating partner just comes over to watch Netflix.
They compare themselves to what they see online.
In therapy, one of the things we emphasize is that people only post their best selves online and typically overstate what things were really like.
For example, on a beautiful Italian vacation, maybe the couple fought the whole time and just took one nice photo. A loving post about a spouse on a birthday may have preceded their biggest argument. A picture of a new purse or new gym equipment may be hiding that the couple has some serious money issues. Everyone only posts their best selves, and we do not see what happens in the background. Often, life is a lot more messy, and thus comparing yourself to what people post is unfair to you.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because our society has been emphasizing this more and more. Many documentaries, for example, including The Social Dilemma which is available on Netflix right now, all talk about this. Most adults are starting to realize that there is a significant disconnect between what we see on social media and what a person’s real life is like.
But Are We Telling Our Kids?
The problem is that while many of US are learning to understand this, we’re not always teaching our kids this. We’re not showing our kids how to understand social media and how to build resilience to what we see online.
Stacy and Heather talk about this on their Mental Health podcast, Why Do People Do That. You can listen to the full episode here:
One thing that we have to remember more is that our children are experiencing their own separate life from us, especially at school, and they’re navigating many of these adult issues but without the mental development that adults have.
As children get phones and tablets at increasingly younger ages, we have to start thinking about what our kids are experiencing. One thing they’re experiencing is social media, and without necessarily the understanding of what they’re seeing that adults have.
In addition, while adults are also struggling with social media, we have more coping tools and a better general understanding of the world around us. Children do not have this, so they may also be developing long term unhealthy views on what relationships are like, or what life is supposed to be like, or even how much money people make.
We have to remember that our child’s long term resilience may depend on what they learn now, and that may mean teaching them more about social media, among other things.
Let’s work on making this back to school season better than ever. Reach out to Long Island Counseling today to get started.