Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
On March 16, a grassroots committee hosted the Worland Mental Fitness Fair at the Worland Community Center.
Members of the panel were Dr. Ralph Louis, psychologist from Oxbow Center in Basin; Janae Harman, owner of Family Circle Counseling in Worland; Mary Johnson, CEO of Oxbow Center in Worland; and Carol Bell, provisionally licensed therapist at Foundations Counseling in Cody.
The panel answered prepared questions that came from the committee and from similar events in Shell, Greybull and Cowley.
The Northern Wyoming News will be covering the questions on a weekly basis throughout the next several weeks.
How do you help teenagers through digital addiction?
Louis: Pretty much the same way you help anybody with an addiction. Part of that means restricting access to the substance that the person is addicted to. But like any other addiction, it takes therapy to work through the issues that are behind or underneath or motivating the addiction.
When I see a teenager who has an addiction to whatever — internet, website, media, whatever it is — I never see one that doesn’t have other issues going on. And that’s often an escape that they’re moving into. And so it requires an intervention from a professional addictions therapist.
How has social media changed how young people interact? Are they spending more time with social media rather than engaging in life out of social media?
Louis: I would also say that I don’t think it’s just young people. I know a lot of older people with the same issue. And I do agree that it’s a problem. I do think that it has weakened some of our social ties. I do think it has weakened some of our institutional ties and our communities.
I wish I had the answer, because it is definitely part of our culture right now. It’s a big part of our culture right now. And you’re going against the tide, when you say, don’t use social media, or limit your social media.
Parents have some control, sometimes to limit social media, but then the kids don’t have control over their parents use of the social media.
I usually find that when the younger people have an issue with using social media or spending too much time on screen time, usually, the parents are spending a lot of time on screen time too. There’s usually parent examples there.
I think, one of the things you can do, I did this with my kids in my house, was limit the screen time for everybody in the house, including me. And that helped. And I think I could say that I probably don’t have any social media addicted kids. But it caused grief. It did. They felt they couldn’t hang out with their friends all the time on the internet. It was tough for them.
Johnson: I agree with limitations to screen time. But I also think that media is here to stay. And it’s something that we can’t always combat, but we can use it as a tool for connection with children. The best way for me to connect to children is to get into their space, and not force them to come into mine. So if we’re playing a game together, let’s make it interactive with one another. And I’m building a relationship with that child by engaging in something that they know how to do and they enjoy and maybe I learned something.
But I think we have to embrace some of these changes in a positive way. There are resources online that can be helpful. There are things that can be educational that they can use. And so let’s step into those educational spaces with them and build connection while we’re doing it.
Harman: I think that social media can be connections, it depends on how they’re using it. Are they isolating while they’re using it? Are they connecting, while they’re using it, to another person? I think you have to know how your kids are using social media, but set limits.
They’re constantly thinking about that social interaction. So there does need to be some limits. If you’re having trouble setting limits, I recently became certified in a parenting method, and I am going to be offering some parenting classes, I will be doing a parenting class that will really give you some simple, effective guidelines on how to set some of those limits without ruining your relationship with your child.
Bell: I think to that, like most parenting issues, when we set when we set restrictions for our kids, we’re also setting restrictions for ourselves, right? So if you say, no more cell phones at the dinner table, then you can’t have your cell phone at the dinner table either. I think a lot of this has to do with holding ourselves accountable and being willing to parent and do some of that hard work.
We are all addicted to technology. I bet there’s nobody in this room who isn’t somewhat. If you are not addicted to technology, you should probably be up here sitting in my seat because I feel like there’s hardly I mean, I call my phone my beating heart. So when’s the last time you forgot your phone anywhere? It’s almost impossible to forget your phone because the minute we get up out of this chair, we’re going to look at our phones to see if anybody texted us.
Next week: Is there transgender support in the Big Horn Basin?