Sandy Ho
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Teen health
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Every generation has its werewolves. Today, of course, there’s the Twilight phenomenon, which has given us Jacob Black and his brotherly pack of lycanthropes. If you’re my age, you grew up watching the incredibly hokey Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf Two movies, plus the slightly less hokey An American Werewolf in London. And if you’re a bit older, you likely went to the local Strand Theater to watch Lon Chaney and Claude Rains in The Wolf Man or Little House on the Prairie star Michael Landon in I Was a Teenage Werewolf.
But, as you’ll see in the news clip below from KENS5 in San Antonio, there’s a group of Texas teens who are taking the obsession with wolfmen one step further, transforming themselves into real-life werewolves – complete with fake tails and teeth.
So what do you think, moms and dads: Is this type of self-expression a good thing, or a sure sign that these kids need to spend less time under the full moon?
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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.
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- Could vampire fiction be contributing to my daughter's anxiety?
- Less stress is best: taking the anxiety out of pregnancy is better for you—and your baby
- Do you know how stressed your child is?
- Addressing the global burden of surgical diseases
- Adjusting after trip to Haiti: depression, anxiety and hope
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 whether or not vampire fiction can contribute to a child’s anxiety.
Here’s this week’s question:
Q: I just recently found some sexual pictures in my son’s phone and I am totally shocked and scared. I do not know what to do and if I should tell his girlfriend’s parents or not. Is this a crime punishable to the parents of these “sexting” teens?
-Asked by Trish on Education.com’s JustAsk forum, after reading the article Is Your Child Sexting? What Parents Need to Know Full story »
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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 »
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Gloucester, a Massachusetts fishing town, made national headlines in the summer of 2008 when it was discovered that 17 teenage girls from the same high school were pregnant. This pregnancy pact hasn’t been confirmed by any of the teens, but that hasn’t stopped Lifetime from making a movie based upon these events. The movie, “The Pregnancy Pact,” is scheduled to premier Saturday, January 23.
Joanne Cox, MD, medical director of Children’s Primary Care Center and Young Parents Program, offers her views on the Gloucester event and how to prevent a new epidemic of teen pregnancy. Full story »
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This week the Kaiser Family Foundation released a report detailing just how much media kids are using.
What’s going on?
A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation confirms that media are a constant presence in kids’ environments:
- Kids spend more time using media than they spend in school: Kids use TV, music, computers, video games, movies and print for a total of 7 hours and 38 minutes a day. Full story »
Related posts:
- School time, down time and Face(book) time: Is one-to-two hours of screen time enough?
- Why do different kids respond differently to media violence?
- Ask a question about your child's media use
- How can we help our teen son manage media so they don't interfere with his life?
- Can I blame the "Slut List" on all the sex in the media?
If your answer is no,there are two studies published this week to encourage more rest for your kids.
A recent study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that 69 percent of teens are getting less than seven hours of sleep a night when they should be getting at least nine. The study also noted that more girls are sleep deprived than boys.
If you have young children who average eight hours of sleep or less a night, researchers have found this may lead to higher blood sugar – a precursor to diabetes. The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, reports the risk is even higher if your child is obese.
You can read more about sleep and the effects it has on your child from Children’s sleep specialist, Dennis Rosen, MD. He blogs on whether sleeping late will keep your child slim and if later bedtimes increase the risk for depression and suicide in teens.
Are your children getting enough sleep?
Related posts:
- Do later bedtimes increase risk of teenage depression & suicide?
- This week on Thrive: Jan. 4 – 8
- Sleep deprivation in teens: risky business?
- Why have kids’ sleep recommendations changed over the years?
- Health headlines: eye exams could expose abuse, sleep meds for kids and too little melatonin makes for a cranky teen
