Why Our Kids Are More Anxious Than Ever | Work Like A Mother Podcast, Episode 42

In this eye-opening episode of Work Like a Mother, host Marina Tolentino dives into the pressing issue of screen time and its profound effects on today’s children. Inspired by Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book The Anxious Generation, Marina breaks down the shocking data linking smartphones and social media use to the rise in anxiety, depression, and self-harm among kids—particularly Gen Z.

As a mom and entrepreneur, Marina shares her personal insights and real-life experiences while highlighting practical strategies to help moms set boundaries around screen time and foster healthier habits for their children. This book review episode isn’t just about raising awareness—it’s about empowering moms to make informed decisions for their families in today’s digital age.

Whether you're struggling to manage screen time or simply want to protect your kids from the hidden dangers of the online world, this episode will leave you with a newfound perspective on parenting in the age of smartphones.

Marina Tolentino
https://www.marinatolentino.com/
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Transcript

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The book called the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haight. And we're gonna talk about anxiety, but more than anything, we're gonna talk about screen time for our kids. What am I supposed to do today in 2024 with my kids? How do we change the trajectory that they're on if we do nothing? Now that they have smartphones in their hands and the entire Internet, they have. Become more anxious, depressed, self harming, and suicidal. So only once your kid is able. To drive, now we are giving them access to the Internet. Hey, guys. Today is an interesting one. It's a topic that has been highly discussed. I feel like it's kind of a buzzword right now, but it's the book. Called the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. And we're going to talk about anxiety, but more than anything, we're going to talk about screen time for our kids. And this episode is going to be a unique one. I've never done this before, but it's a book review, so I just currently, like, binge this entire book in the last two weeks. It's awesome. There's a reason it's still on the number one New York Times bestseller list. Like, it's just amazing. It's written by Jonathan Haight, who was a researcher, so he definitely comes from the point of view, from research, and it's full of graphs and full of data, which can be a little bit. Cumbersome to read through. But I was so hungry to get to the meat of it, of, like, what am I supposed to do today in 2024 with my kids? Like, how do we change the trajectory that they're on if we do nothing? And so I think this episode is going to be really great for anyone who's a mom, regardless of what age they're in, up to age 18, honestly, because this is more relevant than ever before. We know our kids are spending way too much time on screens, but do you know the impact it's actually having on their brains and their development and their emotions? We probably have a sense. It's common sense. It's not good for us, but we don't know how bad it is. And so this book specifically breaks it down. So let's dive into the episode. I'm going to basically give an overview of it and then some of the big takeaways I had and some pages I've bookmarked to review with you guys, but it's just been a. Wow. Aha. Like, slap you in the face. Wake up. So let's dive into today. All right, so to give an overview. We know that social media has totally effed with our brains, ourselves included, right? So for a lot of us, like, for example, myself, I'm 36 years old. I graduated high school in 2006. So I had Facebook in 2005. When it first came out, I made a fake college email address and I got into Facebook. Right? Technically, I was experimenting with social media. I mean, and we had MySpace before that while I was going through puberty. But it was at the tail end of my puberty. It wasn't necessarily at the peak or the start of it. I wasn't in middle school. But really, the impact of all of this hit the kids hardest when they went through puberty and had social media, you know, impacting them. So I'm just going to quote here, and this is from page. What page is this? 44. In the book of the Ancient Anxious Generation, he says children born in the. Late 1990s were the first generation in. History who went through puberty in the virtual world. It's as though we sent Gen Z. To grow up on Mars when we gave them a smartphone in the early 2010s. It's the largest uncontrolled experiment humanity has. Ever performed on its own children, which. Yes, agree with that fully. Right? So he says, in sum, between 2010 and 2015, the social lives of american teens moved largely onto smartphones, with continuous. Access to social media, online video games, and other Internet based activities. This great rewiring of childhood, which is a great term to put it, is the largest single reason for the tidal. Wave of adolescent mental illness that began in the early 2010s. Again, now that they have smartphones in their hands and the entire Internet, they. Have become more anxious, depressed, self harming and suicidal. And we now call that generation generation Z. In contrast to the millennial generation, which. Had largely finished puberty when the great rewiring began. It hit girls harder than boys, and it hit preteen girls the hardest of all. But the mental health crisis also hit. Boys, and their rates of depression and anxiety have also increased a lot, but not as much as it did for girls. Suicide rates in the US began rising around 2008 for adolescent boys and girls, and much, much higher by the this. Was not limited to just the US. This was international, especially across UK, Canada and other major like high tech industries and countries. Feelings of alienation in school rose after 2012 across the western world, and no other theory has been able to explain. Why the rates of anxiety and depression. Surge so much across adolescents and so. Many countries at the same time, in the same way. So all these factors contribute to poor mental health. But the unprecedented rise between 2010 and 2015 cannot be explained by the global. Financial crisis, nor by any other set of events other than the smartphone. So let's dive into it. I've got a couple of pages here that I've bookmarked. So one of them here, I'm jumping to page 64. Now, this sentence says, any child who. Spends her sensitive period as a insensitive. Period is like your early puberty period. So we're talking age ten to 13, mostly. Like, right when you're going and you get your first cycle, you're really starting to enter that period where you're just so sensitive and so, like, hyper critical of yourself. Like, I remember in middle school, you're just constantly wanting to keep up with the Joneses, and you never feel good enough. And so it says, any child who. Spends her sensitive period as a heavy. User of social media will be shaped. By the cultures of those sites. This may explain why Gen Z's mental health outcomes are so much worse than those of millennials. Gen Z was the first generation to. Go through puberty, which we talked about, right? So for girls, the worst years were eleven to 13 year olds. For boys, it was ages 14 to 15. What else do I have over here? Okay, so I'm gonna jump through. So that's an obvious one, right? We know that. So that's the age of sensitivity. Okay, so this is a good point. If I jump to page 105, they're talking about just how once you give someone a smartphone, like most of us, I would say, as parents, we're so naive. We just give them the phone and we think they'll figure it out, right? And, like, they'll just get it. But what we don't understand, it's. It's the entire Internet. It's the World Wide web, meaning as much content that we have access to now our children have access to. So if we are not placing parental. Controls and updating those and checking on those and even setting app limits and time limits and all these other things. We are giving them access to everything. That even adults cannot manage. So one of the things here on. Page 105, they said there is no equivalent to movie ratings like PG 13. Rated R X in the online world. Social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok don't enforce their minimum age of 13. So anyone can sign up for an account, right, because you can just rely on how old you are. Children are free to do that as. They please, to play video games and exchange messages and photographs with unknown adults. Pornography sites also welcome children as long as they click a box to say. That they're 18 or older. And porn sites will show them how to have anal sex long before they've. Even had their first kiss. Once a child gets online, there's never. A threshold age at which she is. Granted more autonomy or more rights. So on the Internet, everyone is the. Same age with no particular age. This is a major reason why a. Phone based adolescent is badly mismatched with. The needs of adolescents. So if we're thinking about this, I'm not reading now, I'm just talking about sensitivity periods, right? So for specifically for the girls, eleven. To 13, and the boys 14 to. 15, they're starting to experience the body changes that they're having. Right. You have so many surging emotions and hormones that you don't even know what to handle. Like, when we say sensitivity, it means, like, they need care, they need emotional connection, they need to be fostered and, like, in a loving, safe environment. Is the Internet safe and, like. No. And welcoming? No. It is so critical. Critical and full of, you know, negativity and comparison and oh my lanta. And like, I know as a kid. I wasn't exposed to porn until later. I lived a pretty sheltered life, but we had Cosmo magazine at the beauty salon and that's pretty much the extent of what I was exposed to. But I can't imagine being exposed to hardcore porn at age 810 eleven, which. Is now the average age of boys. Exposure to first porn. It's insanity to me. So another thing they bring in up to point, which I love this part of the book, it's called building a ladder from childhood to adulthood. So basically, if you're a parent, you're thinking, at what age do I give my child different freedom rights and different levels of autonomy? Right. Hey, ladies, real quick, if you are looking for a mentor, I just wanted to remind you that I offer mentorship to entrepreneurs. So if you're someone who has a never ending to do list and you're spiling out of control and feel like your business doesn't have a track plan, I want to work with you every single week for a month at a time. It's super simple, but I come from over ten years of experience doing this myself, and now I'm willing to give that information back to people. So I've mentored real estate agents, I've mentored wedding photographers, I've mentored other business owners, and they've come from a place of overwhelm mostly, and they really just needed clarity. And a couple of action steps to move the needle. And we've seen Gigantom leaps bounds in their business. Like, I can't even tell you. So if you're interested and you want to know what that looks like, I want you to go to marinatolentino.com, and there's a calendly link there to do a 15 minutes discovery call with me. Just to see if we're a good. Vibe check to make sure we're on the same page. And I would love to work with you one on one to really boost your business to the next level. Let's dive back in. So at what age are they allowed to do different things? So they break it down if you. Have six years old. Once your kid gets to six, they're at the age of family responsibility, so. You'Re able to help out. You can do some chores here and there. If you guys choose, you could always incorporate allowance. Personally, we've chose not to do allowance. Unless it's something that's above and beyond their weekly duties. But they don't get paid for just being a member of the household. Now, at age eight, they're saying this is the age of local freedom. So now they have the freedom to play and hang out in groups without adult supervision. And I'm gonna linger on the adult supervision part when I get to this later in the book because it's just a big issue that I feel like we all have to work on as parents, and we can't be the only ones on the street doing it. But at age eight, they should show. That they can take care of each other, and they begin to run local errands by themselves if they're within a short walk or a bike ride. But they should not be given adult cell phones, and they should be given. A phone or a watch designed for children that would allow them to call or text a small number of people in their contacts. So this is like the dummy phone, basic Nokia flip phone. Like, it only has two or three contacts in the phone, and you can control if contacts are added, like, very much censored and protected cell phone use. It's not a smartphone yet. Okay. And I'll tell you, when Roman was in second grade, when we put him into public school, out of the 23 kids in his class, him and one other kid were the only ones out of 23. So 21 kids in his second grade class had smartphones at home, at school, they were bringing them to school, and these were their parents old iPhones. And so I think as parents, we. Made the excuse of, like, well, I'm. Upgrading my phone anyway, so I'll just give my kid my own old phone. Like, we think that makes sense, but we don't realize is how harming that is and how much they are not developmentally able to do this yet, and we think that they are, and so we're just signing them up for trouble. So if we get to age ten now, this is. My son is entering age ten. Next year, they start to get to. The age of roaming. So preteens can actually roam more widely. Perhaps maybe to what we were allowed to do at the age of eight or nine. So I remember at this age, I mean, I was walking to and from the grocery store at least a half a mile. I could be at my friend's house without adult supervision. Like they would know where we were, but there was no one hovering over us. That was definitely part of it. What else? They have the basic flip phone with. A few apps, but they still don't. Have Internet access to the phones, and that could be their birthday present at age ten. So the basic phone, no Internet access. They should not have most afternoons filled. With adult led enrichment activities. And they just need time to hang out with friends in person and have free play. That's like the big part of it by age twelve. So now we're preteen. This is definitely when we're looking for. Kids to have more adult mentors and role models beyond their parents. So that's like coaches, other things like that. They can start earning money on their. Own and doing chores for neighbors or relatives, like raking leaves or working as. A mother's helper for a neighbor. Maybe they're starting to babysit your siblings. You know, that's definitely an age of responsibility. By age 14, this is now the. Beginning of high school. So now they can definitely start working for payrol. They can join the athletic teams, etcetera, they can do clubs, you name it, extracurriculars. But they still don't have a smartphone. Okay, so even at 14, we don't have smartphones yet. But age 16, they recommend the beginning of the Internet childhood. So only once your kid is able to drive. Now we are giving them access to the Internet. So this is a big year. This is independence, conditional and showing a history of responsibility. So this isn't like your wild child is suddenly getting it. They have earned this right, and it's. Definitely a benchmark that I think we can put in our kids brains of, you know, you need to earn your right at 16 to get these freedoms. So let's see. So 16th birthday should be a major milestone at which we say you can now get a driver's license and you. Can now sign certain kinds of contracts. Without legal requirement for parental consent. You can now open social media accounts as well. But asterisk here, there are good arguments for waiting until 18, but even at. 16, it would be the right minimum. Age to be established by law if there's going to be changes to law. So right now, the US Congress has a minimum age of 13 for social media, but this author is recommending that we change that to age 18. Okay, so now they're at age 18. Fast forward. They graduated high school. This is the beginning of legal adulthood. So we are saying, what else? Well, this is just transition period into the next phase of life. There's no changes there with social media. I mean, they have the ability to vote, they have the eligibility for military service. So they do have autonomy when it comes to the Internet at this point. But hopefully by now we've given them. The guidelines and the bumper lanes to. Be able to navigate the World Wide Web. And it's not just like, here's the Internet, have fun. It's like, actually, there's a lot of dangers out there. Here's what we should do. And what do you do when you find something that's not good? Hey, I'm sorry to interrupt, and I hope you're enjoying this episode of the work like a mother podcast. Real quick. I just want to remind you guys, if you are worried about missing an episode, you don't have to worry anymore because we are creating a weekly email that's going to go out automatically every single time there's a brand new episode. And this email is going to have everything you need to know about this week's featured guests. It's going to have all of the links and the resources that we're going to talk about in this episode so you don't have to go around and fumble through the show notes. But it's me served in your inbox every single week. So if you guys want that access, be sure to click below one time in the show notes today. Sign up for that email and then you'll never have to worry about it in the future. And bonus, if you really love this, we'd love it if you share this with a friend, give us a review on whatever platform you're listening to and we'll continue to bring new episodes and new information that's going to help you level up your life every single week. Age 21. Of course you're a full legal adult at this age. You can drink now. You could go to casinos like, you name it. So in some early puberty is your period of rapid brain rewiring. So, so much is happening in a child's brain that when you start to incorporate these other things, there's just so many dangerous pitfalls that we have to avoid. Okay. We also know that smartphones are a second kind of experience blocker. So once childs. Once children have these smartphones, they push. Out or they reduce all of those non phone based experiences, which is what they need. They need free play. They need to be with their peers. Like, coming up with rules as a group about what's allowed, what's not allowed. What do we like to do together? What do we don't like to do together? That's the stuff where you're just running. Amok in the streets, right? Like, that's the childhood that is literally what our brains need. And so when we give our children a smartphone, they naturally stay inside more. They don't socialize as much. Yes, they're socializing through apps, but it's not the same developmentally. You don't get those cues from eyeballs and eyebrows and body language and tone of voice. Right. Like, all of that is missing. Okay, so if I go down to. There was one other section I wanted to talk about. I mean, is this good or what? Like, I would just consuming this book as if it was the best ice cream ever. I was, like, highlighting the whole thing. And I'll definitely make sure that I link below in the description to go buy the book on Amazon. I recommend the audible because I'm going to listen to this over and over as I hit each one of those. Pillars of my child's development. Changes to be like, oh, yes. At this phase now, we're allowed to do this because this is just so good for me. Okay, so he says on page 268. I'm going to read this. A better way to think about a child rearing is as a gardener, your job is to create a protected and. Nurturing space for plants to flourish. It takes some work, but you don't. Have to be a perfectionist. We weed the garden, we water it, and we step back, and the plants will do their thing unpredictably and often with delightful surprises. Our job as parents is not to make a particular kind of child. Instead, our job is to provide a. Protected space of love, safety, and stability. In which our children of many unpredictable kinds can flourish. Our job is not to shape our children's mind it's to let those minds explore all the possibilities that the world allows. And our job is to not to. Tell children how to play. It's to give them the toys. And we can't make them learn, but we can let them learn. And this quote is so good because it just is so in alignment with the Montessori style of raising your child, which, if you're not familiar, Montessori is very much set up to let our children to be independent learners. We just help create the, and the structure for them to go and do that. So, for example, in Montessori preschools, you'll see that the teachers are not really instructing the children to do anything. Everything is at eye level and accessible to them. They're able to get their own milk and wash their own dishes, etcetera. But we can be there to give assistance when they need it. But we're allowing them the tools and resources to learn on their own. And this is the same approach that we're giving here, a protected and nurturing space for plants to flourish. Like, just think of that. So really how we do this is to allow for more and better experiences in the real world, right? So it's free play. So the best thing we can do. Is give them plenty of playtime with some age diversity and a secure, loving base from which they can set off to play. I also read in tandem with this book, one called Free Range Kids. And it's so freaking good, you guys, because we, like, again, we're just, our. Culture has changed to keep kids indoors. And it's so sad. So one of the things, and one of the reasons why I moved back home to the country was because that's how our kids play here. When we were living in a suburbia with a high rise, like, there was. Hardly anyone outside, the streets were dangerous. For the kids to be on. And it just, it felt so different. Whereas, like, when we're out in the country, we know everyone that's on our street, we know all the kids by name, and our, our neighbors watch out for each other, right? Like, auntie and uncle have eyes on my son and then vice versa. I have eyes on their children, and it's just a completely different environment that we have to bring back. So one of the ways that they encourage this is that you can come up with, with a couple of neighbors and say, hey, we're going to do a block party, like a couple days a week, or maybe even every day if you kids really love it, where you set out some cones and you monitor the traffic. And there is a safety zone set up so that your kids can free play. But with this, we're not allowed to be helicopter parents. You guys, we literally have to step back and go inside, go in the house. Like, yes, for the first couple days, you can kind of supervise and make sure everyone's cool, but do not interfere with people playing. Do not interfere with the rules that they're creating. Of course, if there's safety issues or bullying going on, definitely you need to intervene. But for the most part, what's so developmentally important for our kids is to learn how to self govern. And some of that means people are going to get hurt, and that's okay. We can get some scratches and bruises sometimes. That means they're going to be a little bit risky and climb that tree, and that's okay, too. This is part of development and this is how our kids learn. Um, but if you envision it today, like, how I see some kids, they. All have a smartphone in their hand. When they're on the street still, and I'm like, dude, put the phone away and just go have fun. You know, like, go play with sticks in the backyard. Um, and once they do that, like, they will be so, so happy. But it takes me as the auntie to remind them that they don't need their phone all the time because it is attached to them. Like a second hand or third hand, I should say. And it's just bonkers to me. So take away from this, like, big, big summaries here is to wait until. Twelve or ten to give them their. First basic phone with no Internet access. And if you have already given your kids smartphones, I want to encourage you. You're not a bad mom. I always believe that we do the. Best that we can with what we have at that moment. And culture has kept reminding us that it's okay that everyone else is doing it, so it must be okay. And we don't want our kid to be the weird one out, right? But at the end of the day. This research, the scientific data shows us. How detrimental it is for our kids emotions and for their anxiety and future depression risk. Like, it's crazy. You really have to read the book yourself to, like, get the data. And then once they turn 16, then we say, okay, you've shown your responsible child. You're now getting closer to adulthood. I'm going to give you access to. The World Wide Web with some safety. Issues and some borders. Right? We're going to help you experience this world. But now you have a better perspective on it all. You're not so much as influenced as you were at age eleven, age twelve, age 13. And by 16, you've kind of formed more of a worldview at this point. Point. And what you do and do not like, etcetera. But then if they have questions or there's some safety issues that are happening by this age, you're still there. They're still living under your roof to. Help them out with these issues, and then, and only then, and this is up to you. By 18, then they have full freedom. Right. But 16 to 18 is still within your window of control if you want to give them that access. And I kind of love that. Chip and Joanna Gaines have decided they're not giving their kids social media until 18. And so it's not to say you're gonna be the only one. Are we gonna be the rare ones? Yes. But the more of us that stick to this and put up these boundaries for our families, the more that we're gonna be able to encourage other moms to do this. So I constantly talk about this topic with my friends, with my coworkers who have little ones. And it's not to be critical or judgmental, but I'll just kind of say, like, hey, have you read this book? Like, I really think you should read this book, because my mind was blown, and you might learn a lot of stuff that we didn't know that was going on with our kids these days. And so it's just a way to better prepare and equip and train our kids for success in the real world. And I've personally also taken. What did I do? I did a week off of Instagram last week. I'm doing another week this week. Cause it was just so good for my mental health that I totally recommend doing a social media fast. If you haven't, I promise you it's gonna be there when you pick it back up. But I have so much more free time. Like, I'm not even lying. I have baked fresh bread twice in the last two weeks, which I have never done in the last year. Previous to this. We're doing morning time, where we're, like. Actually sitting at the breakfast table together. Like, what world is this? It's so nice, but I don't want. To ramble too much. This episode was really just a deep. Dive on the book review. Go read it. Go listen to interviews that Jonathan Haight. Is doing with other podcasters. Talk to your girlfriends about. About it. Talk to your sisters. Talk to your grandma or not grandma your grandparents for your kids, because that's another issue. If you create these boundaries at home and then they end up going to Lolo and Lola's or Grammy and papa's, whatever, and there's no screen time limits at those houses, it's important that your kids have consistent boundaries wherever they go, because it's like the slippery slope. Once you unplug them, then they're just off the chain. Right? So it's really important to just know the facts of get convicted on this. And share it with your spouse. So you guys are on the same page and be a united force to readjust. If you've already slipped. Like I said, if you're already. If your kids already have smartphones and they're not 16 yet, it's okay to take them back. Yes, they may hate you for a. Season, but that's your job as parents, is to be, you know, to be that voice of discipline and reason and to say, I'm doing this because I love you. I'm doing this because I care about you. And if they're older and they're like, preteen, show them the book. I would straight up do that. And I've talked about this with my son of like, hey, did you know this is what your brain is doing when you're on this video game? And he's like, what? Like, it's pretty interesting conversation, so dive into it. Guys, I just want to encourage you and inspire you that we have freedom. And autonomy as parents to live a. Life that serves our family the best way. Obviously, no one is perfect, and we're all human trying to figure this out. But the more of us who are on this road to buck what culture is saying, to do what's best for our family, I think we're going to be on a better path. So let me know if you guys have questions or what you thought about this episode. I'd love to hear from you on Instagram, and I'll be back next week.