Teenagers today spend an average of over 15 hours a week gaming, and that number keeps rising every year. On its own, that isn’t a red flag; gaming is simply how a lot of today’s teenagers relax and connect with friends. But in my practice, what I look at isn’t the hours on the screen. […]

In my seventeen years as a child psychologist, one sentence comes up more than almost any other, usually from an exhausted, worried mother sitting across from me: “He used to tell me everything. Now I don’t know what’s going on in his head.” If you’re here because you’re asking yourself why teenage boys don’t ask […]

Nearly 8 out of 10 high schoolers, 77% according to the CDC, are not getting the sleep their growing brains and bodies need on an average school night. In my clinic, when I ask parents to describe their teenager in one word, “moody” comes up more than almost anything else. What most don’t realise is […]

A recent survey of American teenagers found something that surprised even me: 44% of teens said they feel more peer pressure to be online and on social media than they do to smoke, skip class, or drink alcohol. Over half said they’ve felt left out simply because they weren’t part of the same online group […]

A study among Indian adolescents preparing for competitive exams found that nearly 87% reported feeling high pressure from their parents, and 86% reported high academic stress overall  numbers that, in my clinic, don’t surprise me at all. What does surprise parents, almost every time, is learning that a lot of that pressure isn’t coming from […]