Too Much Screen Time –
Oct. 26, 2019 – Now, she took her quest a step further, asking how adults can help teens tackle mental health challenges. “Screenagers: Next Chapter,” a documentary being screened around the United States, centers on stress resilience — a person’s ability to handle stressful emotions. Lower stress resilience is correlated with mood disorders and conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. But when adolescents learn to experience and regulate their emotions, they can recover more rapidly from negative situations and overcome adversity. Adults can help. Different populations of adolescents experience different challenges, educational psychologists Staci M. Zolkoski and Lyndal M. Bullock write, but caregivers can help teens build resilience when they support and encourage kids, be warm and caring, and teach strong communication skills. In the film, Ruston puts those principles into action as she talks to researchers about how to help her increase her kids’ resilience. One of them, psychologist Jessica Borelli from the University of California at Irvine, tells her that parents’ attempts to help their children can backfire.
