In the second installment of Pediatric Perspectives, Dr. Tanisha Morton continues her conversation on preparing children for the new school year – this time focusing on mindful media use and the importance of mental health. She offers both practical guidance and candid reflections on how families can navigate screens, social pressures, and emotional wellbeing in 2025.
Mindful Media
In today’s world, where “everything’s on a screen,” Dr. Morton urges parents and caregivers to take a mindful approach to technology use. She acknowledges that in 2025, screens are embedded in nearly every aspect of daily life – school, socialization, and entertainment – but emphasizes the importance of balance and intentional use.
“On screen, life isn’t real life right? As human beings, we need to be social, right? It’s not necessarily on a screen, but with another human around you.” Dr. Morton emphasizes that children need real-life social practice – learning to make eye contact, pick up on tone of voice, read body language, and understand the dynamics of a room – skills that can’t be developed through screens alone.
The guiding principle with regard to social media, says Dr. Morton, is moderation. She suggests that about two hours of social or recreational screen time per day is reasonable, provided that it is balanced with offline activities. “So a balance could be like an hour for an hour. You want two hours on the screen. What are you going to do off of it for two hours? That’s a good compromise, right?”
She also highlights the role of parents in setting boundaries, particularly when it comes to cell phones and social media. Dr. Morton is clear: “I don’t believe in giving a cell phone with no restrictions, no limitations, and going off into the world, right? Because it’s not about that 14-year-old in front of me. It’s about everything else, the other influencers that can influence that 14-year-old.”
When it comes to schools, Dr. Morton believes the issue is not the phones themselves, but the structures around them. Policies must be clear, consistent, and realistic.
Mental health
For Dr. Morton, conversations around mental health must start early and remain ongoing. She stresses the importance of helping children identify and name their emotions – sadness, anger, nervousness, fear – and then providing tools for how to express them appropriately.
She explains, “These are emotions, and it’s healthy to feel all these emotions, right? These make you who you are, and please feel them. Feel all of them.” Dr. Morton explained that while all emotions are valid, it’s important to understand the appropriate ways to express each one. Guidance, she noted, often comes down to teaching children the difference between this response versus that one – for example, choosing words to express anger rather than throwing a chair or lashing out physically.
Bullying, both in-person and online, remains one of the most pressing mental health issues for young people. Dr. Morton noted that in today’s culture, acting out has become normalized and even glorified, particularly in the realm of social media. Behaviors that once might have been discouraged are now rewarded with clicks, views, and likes, creating an environment where young people often believe that any attention – good, bad or indifferent – is better than no attention at all.
She also underscores the role of parents – not just in monitoring devices, but in modeling behaviors and maintaining strong connections with both children and schools. Dr. Morton stressed the importance of parents building strong connections with teachers from the very beginning of the school year. She explained that if parents don’t step in, adults at school can make decisions without parental input. To prevent this, parents must be active advocates – whether that means establishing early communication through email or, better yet, showing up in person so teachers can put a face to the name.
Dr. Morton shares that positively invested parents are their child’s best advocate. She also reminds us that parenting in today’s world requires balance, presence, and intentionality. By setting healthy guardrails around media, naming and normalizing emotions, and keeping open communication with schools, families can foster resilience in children. As she emphasizes, it’s not about eliminating challenges altogether but equipping young people with the tools to handle them well.