by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on March 2, 2012
Michael Rich, MD, MPH
Michael Rich, MD, MPH, is Children’s Hospital Boston’s media expert and director of Children’s Center on Media and Child Health. Take a look at his blog archive or follow him on Twitter @CMCH_Boston
Q: Is there a connection between excessive video game playing and increased anxiety levels? My son is 14 and has some basic anxieties like walking the dog at night that I feel are made worse by the first-person shooter games he plays. I’d love to understand if you have seen any connections here.
-Grappling with Gaming, in Westfield, NJ
A: Dear Grappling,
As a parent, you are the best monitor of your son’s well-being. If you have seen an increase in his anxiety that has paralleled his increase in first-person shooter (FPS) game play, then it is probably worth seeing what happens if he cuts back on or eliminates playing these games. Research supports what you are observing—it has found that children and adolescents frequently respond to media violence with increased fear and anxiety, because action entertainment makes violence seem more prevalent than it actually is. Full story »
by Claire McCarthy on July 27, 2010
Dr. Claire McCarthy is a primary care physician and the Medical Communications Editor at Boston Children’s Hospital. Along with her blogs here on Thriving, you can find her at the Huffington Post and Boston.com. Follow her on Twitter @drClaire.
As a pregnant mother, there’s always something to worry about. You worry about the health of the baby. You worry about what you should or shouldn’t do (because you are worried about the health of the baby). You worry about the delivery. You worry about paying for everything a child needs. You worry about finding good childcare. You worry about whether you’ll be a good parent.
Now there’s a study in the journal Pediatrics telling us that pregnant mothers have something else to worry about: the worrying itself. Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on April 2, 2010
By Gary Gosselin, MD, Medical Director of Inpatient Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Boston:
Anxiety is the evolutionary survival instinct wired into our brains that allows us to adapt to dangerous situations. In essence, it’s there to help us survive. But it becomes a problem when it no longer allows us to adapt – when it actively interferes with our ability to function.
With baseball season starting this Sunday, the recent case of Texas Rangers’ infielder Khalil Greene is a perfect example. This is a man whose livelihood is completely based around his ability to perform on the baseball diamond, yet Greene recently contacted his team and told them he’d be unable to report for spring training due to his struggles with social anxiety disorder, which is an extreme fear of social situations. He was consequently cut from the team. Without treatment, maladaptive anxiety can have costly outcomes- in this case it may have cost Greene his career.
Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on February 12, 2010
Media expert Michael Rich, MD, MPH, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston, answers your questions about media use. Last week, he discussed speech delays.
Here’s this week’s question:
Q: My daughter is in junior high, and I’m noticing signs of anxiety. She has become more needy of me, is more fearful, will no longer go upstairs alone, and just feels “randomly stressed.” She is a strong, organized student, has good friends, exercises, eats healthily, and (until recently) sleeps well. The only lifestyle red flag I see is that all year she has been reading very dark and intense books that include subjects like hooking up, angels, suicide, after-life, car accidents, and murder (The Vampire Diaries, for example). She starts a new one every 2-3 weeks. Could these books be contributing to her stress even though she likes them, or should I just accept this behavior as part of puberty?
Vexed About Vampires in Glencoe, IL
Full story »
by Kristin Cantu on February 8, 2010
That’s what a recent study is claiming. This study found that five times as many high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.
According to Children’s psychiatrist, Stuart Goldman, MD, the interpretation of these findings all depend on how you slice it. Full story »
by Kristin Cantu on November 11, 2009
The American Psychological Association (APA) released results from a survey that reveal that parents are out of touch when it concerns their kids’ stress levels. The APA reports the greatest stress sources for kids are related to school pressure and family finances, and that parents often underestimate how stressed their kids really are. We talked to Children’s Hospital Boston psychiatrist Stuart Goldman, MD, about how parents can help manage their child’s stress and how they can be more in sync with what’s bothering their kids. Full story »
