Written by Claire Burgess. Managing social media and technology use with teenagers is a well known challenge for many parents and in recent months, there’s been growing concern in the media about the impact of social media on young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Heartbreaking stories have reminded us all just how powerful, and potentially harmful, these platforms can be when young users aren’t supported in navigating them safely. As parents and carers, it’s natural to feel overwhelmed or anxious about how to protect our tweens and teens online, especially as they begin to explore more of the digital world independently. But with the right strategies and open conversations, it is possible to create a supportive framework that helps them build confidence, make safe choices, and feel able to come to us if something feels wrong.  

Here are some tips to help guide you through. 

By Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Friendships and social interactions are a key part of our children’s lives. Friendships help our children learn about the way that we interact with peers, social cues and norms (which can be different with peers than with adults), and gaining a sense of belonging away from their family unit.

It is all very normal and natural for friendships to have their highs and lows but this can be extremely hard for a parent to watch if their child is having a difficult time. We all want our children to be happy and have friends, but this can take time to establish and there can be some very tricky moments.

By Amy Frankcom, Teen blogger. Gender and sexuality can be extremely confusing for some, especially for those who were not raised with a high level of acceptance and understanding of the topic. It’s difficult to navigate and varies for every person; there is no concrete answer because of the fluid nature of gender and sexuality. Due to this, people are always concerned about getting it wrong, and choose to ignore the subject rather than exploring it with others and sometimes ‘messing up’. However, here’s the fact: gender and sexuality is a beautiful thing, encompassing myriads of diversity from all corners of the world. It deserves to be celebrated!

Based on research carried out by Dreams. The pandemic has been difficult for everyone but teenagers have been really hard hit - at a crucial time in their development they have been isolated from friends and missed out on face to face education. In addition to that, some interesting research from Dreams has found that 68% of teenagers have struggled with poorer sleep health since the start of the pandemic. Dreams spoke to 2,000 teenagers aged 13 - 17.

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. As I am writing this blog we are in lockdown 3.0 - back to home schooling and trying to come up with ways to keep our children entertained all day long! Even before lockdown I think we were all coming to accept that screens are a part of our everyday lives. They aren’t going anywhere, and I think we would all agree that they’ve been really valuable through lockdown in keeping us all connected with friends, family and with work or school.

Written by Amy Frankcom. Being a teen twin is strange. I have never known any different, of course, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to not have somebody constantly with you wherever you go, to share special days with. Even though I’ve spent nearly 14 years being a twin, I still struggle to explain what it’s like having one.

Written by Amy Frankcom. During this time of lockdown it is not surprising that many teenagers are turning to social media both as a form of escapism and to keep in touch with their friends, but is it making them anti-social?

As part of her online school work Amy participated in a BBC Bitesize lesson all about creating an argument and this was the result of the exercise she did creating an argument against the statement that ‘social media is ‘antisocial’.

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant.  The blog which was bravely written by our 13 year old teenage friend (who we will call Jemma), is a really powerful read and she has been very honest about the issues she is facing in her teenage years.  Parenting teenagers is always talked about in quite negative terms with comments such as “wait until they are teenagers”, “typical teenager, “I don’t envy you with teenagers!” etc. Teenagers do tend to have a bad reputation, but this is actually not all that different to the way people view the toddler stage and interestingly enough there are a lot of similarities between the two developmental stages.  The brain is going through huge changes at both these points and so this is when we typically see more challenging behaviour and high emotions. 

Hi, In the modern day, being a teenager is very hard. There are many challenges I face as a teenager, such as body image, social media, safety and friendship issues and I want to tell you about them and how I feel day to day.