Episode 39: Helping Kids Navigate Global Conflicts from Pediatric Psychologist Dr. Parker Huston

Nati Rodriguez [1:47] Dr. Huston, welcome. It’s great to have you on the Annenberg Learner podcast. 

Dr. Parker Huston [1:50] Thanks for having me. 

Nati Rodriguez [1:53] We’d love to hear about your specialization in pediatric psychology. Could you explain what that is?   

Dr. Parker Huston [2:00] Absolutely. I have some special training in addition to working with kids and adolescents for general mental health issues. I focus on the overlap between medical conditions and mental health. So, I see lots of kids who have comorbid medical conditions like diabetes, developmental conditions, genetic conditions, as well as mental health or behavioral concerns. So, I help work on both of those things, how they interact, and how they impact quality of life.   

Nati Rodriguez [2:35] And how did you get interested in this line of work? 

Dr. Parker Huston [2:37] Well, I’ve always worked with kids, even when I was younger, I was the type of person who liked being a mentor — liked helping kids younger than me when we were coaching sports and doing things in school. And then as I was deciding on a career, I have a lot of educators in my family, so for a little while I thought maybe be a teacher. But I enjoy mental health and helping with specific problems and concerns that families and kids have — and so being a child psychologist seemed to suit me. And then I became interested in how medical conditions impact that when I worked in a rehabilitation hospital in Pittsburgh for a short time — and seeing how a medical condition could strongly impact an entire family system and the health and well-being of the family. So, I decided that was the best fit for my skills and interests.   

Nati Rodriguez [3:38] Thank you for sharing that. The media often reports disasters and other traumatic events, and we pick up a lot of our information on social media. How does witnessing those kinds of images and videos impact a young viewer? Can you share your own experience in this work?   

Dr. Parker Huston [4:01] It impacts them a lot, especially when we’re talking about kids who are of the age where they might have their own devices that they can consume media on their own without oversight or supervision. It’s hard for us as parents — I’m a parent myself of a child who has such a device and sometimes comes to me saying, “Hey, I saw this online,” and it puts us as parents behind the 8-ball a little bit because we’ve already lost control of what they’re seeing, what they’re experiencing, where they’re experiencing it, how it’s being reported on, talked about, or portrayed. And so, I think the way that they see it, consume it, and how well they understand the context can have a big impact on what they think about it in relation to the world, or a specific group of people, or how it might relate to themselves and their community, or their sense of identity can be impacted by those images and reports.  

 Nati Rodrigeuz [5:03] What would you tell your own child in that scenario that you described? When they come to you and have seen something, what do you recommend parents do, and what have you done in the past?   

Dr. Parker Huston [5:16] Well, the first thing I do is break it into two different areas, and I’ve talked with lots of parents about this over the years. On one side, I think of proactive things — what are we doing ahead of time? Because devices are being put into kids’ hands earlier and earlier — more of them are connected online. And despite our best efforts, kids are consuming things, they’re hearing things, and seeing things outside of parent oversight.  I think on the proactive side, I usually focus on education about how to find and consume news from reliable sources. And social media makes that a little bit more difficult sometimes, because pretty much anybody can put their own personal opinion and reports on a topic online, and sometimes those get seen before an actual news source is consumed about a topic. If you’re interested in learning about something, or if you see something, how do you find a good source to learn about it? And then teaching them to be curious about what they hear and want to learn more rather than to take the first opinion or the first report they see as the gospel, if you will, of this is how it is, this is the truth, this is the most accurate thing, and then make it a routine conversation. 

Sometimes we parents are surprised when a kid comes to us and they’ve maybe been thinking about a topic for a week or two, and we didn’t even know that they had any knowledge and they’ve been looking it up online, or they’ve been looking at reports about it. And so, again, we’re kind of behind the 8-ball a little bit in helping them to figure out ways to accurately learn about it. And so, the more that we have a regular discussion about it, maybe at the dinner table, or after school, or at a regular interval, the more we might hear about what’s going on in their mind. And then I’d say the other thing in that proactive area is trying to direct them to positive news sources as well. Negative news and scary news get the most hits online, gets the most airtime, if you will, but it skews how people think of what the world is really like. Because if we consume 20 news stories and 19 of them are about tragedy, then it kind of tricks us into thinking that that’s how the world really works. And so, I try and help balance that out a little bit by finding positive news sources or things that might be interesting to them that they can read and learn about too.  

On the reactive side of things, I think that’s a little bit closer to what you were thinking, which is they’ve already seen something and they’ve got some sort of news, image, or story that’s in their mind that is causing them some distress, frustration, or that they’re having a difficult time understanding it. So, on the reactive side, again, maybe thinking about slightly older kids, adolescents, and young adults. I’d say we can’t wait for them to bring it up because by the time they bring it up, chances are they’ve been mulling it over and they’ve been thinking about it for a while. And so, if something major happens in the world that we know they’re going to learn about or maybe have already heard about just bringing it up ourselves and saying, “Tell me what you’ve learned, tell me where you’ve learned it,” and try and engage with them non-judgmentally. We want to teach our kids that they’re allowed to have and form their own opinion, and that it shouldn’t always be guided by just what their parents or other caregivers might think.  

 Nati Rodriguez [9:45] So, we’re in Southern California, and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest school district in the country is moving towards banning cell phones with the goal of limiting that kind of social media usage along with the distraction that happens in the classroom. I’m curious if you have any thoughts on setting limits and if you do those in your household with your children.  

 Dr. Parker Huston [10:09] Yeah. I think any person who works with kids in this time and in the world probably has a pretty strong opinion about technology and the impact on kids and families. It’s hard not to, even though I would say that I’m open to technology as a person and as an individual. I might be on the kind of early adopter side of some technology, and I don’t have the same fears that maybe some folks have about things like artificial intelligence and the impact of technology on our lives. However, I also understand that as an adult, I spend a lot more time thinking about technology and context, and I have a lot more information that I can use to judge the usefulness of technology, when it’s helpful and not — and kids don’t have that up to a certain age. And so, I’m of the opinion that parents, adults, teachers, and schools are there to help teach and guide kids how to use technology effectively — when’s the right time to use it and what are the right situations? And I think it’s difficult in a school setting when kids have unrestricted access to it at certain times to be able to regulate what they’re doing, how they’re using it, whether they’re using it for a helpful reason or not. And so, I certainly understand where districts maybe want to have a blanket expectation that technology is just not going to be used other than maybe school provided technology with lots more limitations on it.  

In my house devices are shut off when they leave the house other than the emergency services. So, my daughter’s phone doesn’t work on the internet, apps, or things like that while she’s at school. And then there are some significant restrictions on the type of things she can do and the amount of time she can use it when she’s not at school. And so, we’re focused on teaching her how to use it appropriately – not withholding it or giving her open access to figure it out on her own. Like I said, I’m not necessarily out picketing or championing any specific school-related policy, but I certainly understand, and I’ve heard of lots of districts wanting to move in that direction. And many times when I hear about it, it’s parent-led — it’s not necessarily the teachers saying that it’s getting in the way of learning, it’s the parents saying, “We don’t want them doing this while they’re at school because we can’t have control over it, they’re misusing it, or they’re suffering because of it.” So, I find that interesting that parents are wanting to place some more limitations on it sometimes.  

Nati Rodriguez [13:40] You’ve been in this work for 10-plus years. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Any other trends that you have seen in this time? You mentioned this parent-led effort to limit their children’s use in a school setting. Anything else that you’re seeing in how parents are interacting with schools, or with doctors that support students in their mental health?   

Dr. Parker Huston [14:09] Absolutely. I think one of the biggest challenges of our generation as parents, those of us who have kids in the birth up to middle school and adolescence — is the way that technology influences their sense of belonging, social connection, and their sense of self-identity. We used to have a lot more tighter control over that, not necessarily in a bad way, but we knew the kids that our kids were hanging out with, and we knew the situations that they were finding themselves in. And now we’ve come to this point where, as the topic today is discussing, kids have so much access to news, information, other people, opinions, popular culture. And for many of those kids, it’s affecting how they see themselves and how they see where they fit in in the social world. And so, for those of us who maybe didn’t grow up in an age where that was ever present, it’s really hard to relate to how an Instagram story can impact the way that I feel about myself today and the way I feel about my social standing at school, because it just wasn’t something that most of us had to struggle with. So I do have, I would say at least a quarter to a third of the people who come through my door have some sort of technology as part of the conversation, whether it’s video game use and which video games, how much time,  social media, or  it’s just general technology use in screen time as a whole. I spend a lot of time thinking with other families about how to fit that into their family structure and their family rules. And I get the question at least weekly about, what age should a kid have a cell phone? I wish there was a simple answer to that but there certainly isn’t.  

Nati Rodriguez [16:21] How do you answer that?  

Dr. Parker Huston [16:22] Well, I answer it a little bit tongue in cheek. I kind of smile when I tell a parent, “I know some 16-year-olds that I wish didn’t have cell phones. And I also know some 8-year-olds who are responsible and have maybe parents living in different houses. And so, it lets them freely communicate with both their parents when they’re not with them.” And so, it’s a hard question to answer, and I usually default to a little bit of what I mentioned earlier, which is our job as parents is not to try and withhold, guard, or so overly restrict that we feel like we can protect our kids from these things. But it’s to educate them about how to effectively interact with these things. They’re going to see the news, they’re going to hear about these things, they’re going to hear and see social media and video games that have violence, and all of these other things no matter what we do. I think it’s on us as adults to teach them proper ways to use these things and to help them be tools for healthy living rather than things that bring us down, cause mental health concerns, or challenges in life.  

Nati Rodriguez [18:02] I’m curious for adults that don’t have children and maybe they’re not in the school systems working with youth directly, what can we do as a community being aware that there is a mental health crisis, and we want to help the youth around us? Any advice that you have for those folks that they can do to support the young people in their lives?   

Dr. Parker Huston [18:24] That’s a fantastic question. I love that. If you enjoy spending time around kids or mentoring, there are lots of ways to get involved with mentorship programs, no matter where you live in the country. Even big national organizations like Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs.  One of the best predictors of resilience in childhood is having at least one, and hopefully more than one, positive adult role model in their life. Some kids have that naturally built into their family and that’s really wonderful. But there’s plenty of kids out there who don’t naturally have that and don’t have a connection to a teacher or a coach who can fill that role. And so, for each one of those kids who might get paired up with a mentor of some sort who can give them some guidance and support, and model some healthy developmental behavior that’s increasing their chance of developing healthy strategies into adulthood and achieving some of the things that they’re capable of. So that’s probably the number one thing is to find an organization. And if you’re not comfortable doing it yourself, perhaps donating to an organization or being involved in another way. But I think anybody can donate their time and emotional energy to a kid who might otherwise not have somebody in their corner all the time to help them.  

Nati Rodriguez [19:55] Thank you. So, one more question that we’d like to ask our guests is what are you currently reading, watching, or listening to?  

 Dr. Parker Huston [20:04] I’m reading a book right now about coaching because I coach soccer for U11 Boys here in Columbus, Ohio. My kids both play soccer and so I do some coaching. I’m always looking for how to be a better coach and mentor to the kids who are on my team. And so, I’m reading a great book about coaching culture by Dr. Jay Martin, and he’s a soccer coach at a local university here in Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. He was my coach when I was a kid and is the winningest coach in any college program across the country, Division 1, 2 or 3. He’s won the most games of anybody. And so, I’m reading a book by him about developing a positive team culture and what it means to be a good coach. So right now, that’s what I’m thinking of as being a good soccer coach. 

• • • Los Angeles Unified School District  
    • Big Brothers Big Sisters of America  
    • Ohio Wesleyan University