Brainy Moms

Social Media & Teens: Advice on Limits, Conversations, & Safety | Jennifer Berger

• Dr. Amy Moore • Season 5 • Episode 513

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What if we approached teen technology and social media use more like teaching someone to drive rather than simply restricting access until they're "old enough"? Media literacy expert Jennifer Berger joins Dr. Amy and Sandy on the Brainy Moms podcast to introduce her groundbreaking program, the Social Media Driver's License, which does exactly that.

After two decades of teaching media literacy to over 10,000 youth, Jennifer noticed a troubling pattern in how we approach teens and technology. Most resources emphasized monitoring, restriction, and punishment – approaches that often backfire by damaging parent-teen relationships and failing to build critical digital skills. Her response? Create a collaborative, skill-building program that prepares tweens and teens to navigate online spaces independently.

The Social Media Driver's License features a unique dual-track approach. Kids ages 10-14 participate in a 10-session course led by older teenagers sharing hard-earned wisdom about social media navigation. Parents simultaneously access an audio course covering essential topics like handling online safety concerns, addressing problematic content, and maintaining healthy conversations about technology. This structure recognizes that eventually, teens will access technology, making preparation more valuable than restriction.

Perhaps most refreshing is Berger's emphasis on maintaining connection. Rather than villainizing teens' digital worlds or implementing rigid, top-down rules, she advocates for genuine curiosity, collaborative boundary-setting, and calm responses when inevitable mistakes occur. As Dr. Amy notes during the conversation, "Connection is the number one buffer against mental health crisis," making this approach particularly valuable for supporting teen wellbeing.

Ready to transform your approach to parenting in the digital age? Check out this episode! 

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Dr. Amy Moore:

Hi, smart moms and dads, welcome to another episode of the Brainy Moms podcast brought to you today by LearningArcs Brain Training Centers. I'm Dr Amy Moore here with Sandy Zimalis. Sandy and I are gonna bring you a conversation with Jennifer Berger. Jennifer is the executive director of Ready Set Screen and has been a media literacy expert for two decades. Through her previous work, jennifer taught more than 10,000 youth how to question media messages and improve their mental health. She has a BA in communication studies from the University of Michigan, ann Arbor, but she considers her in-classroom media literacy educator work her most valuable education. She is here to talk to us about her new program called the Social Media Driver's License, so let's welcome her. Hi, jennifer, we're so excited to have this conversation with you today. Thanks for having me. I love it. Here's why I'm so excited to talk to you today. Love it. Here's why I'm so excited to talk to you today.

Dr. Amy Moore:

We've had conversations about teens and social media on several different episodes and none of them have truly aligned with my belief about teens and social media use and teens and phone use. In fact, I've gotten some backlash for some of the stands that I have taken on not using the phone as a consequence for teenagers, for example, don't take your phone away, your kid's phone away and my belief as a psychologist is this is research-based. But connection is the number one buffer against mental health crisis, and when we sever that connection, we're, I think, doing more harm than good, and so this becomes not a black and white issue, but let's talk about boundaries, and let's talk about boundaries and negotiation and healthy use of social media and phones, and so when I read your bio, when I looked at your application to be on our show, I thought, finally, we're going to have an entire conversation with someone who aligns with what I think is the healthiest way to view social media and phone use in teens.

Jennifer Berger:

That is wonderful, yeah, and I had not found any program, product or anything that did not have a severely monitoring kind of mentality to it, and that was really frustrating for me as someone who had been teaching teens for so long the way I had with my organization that taught media literacy, teaches media literacy, and so it was very similar for me in a lot of ways. I was like teens are not going to vibe with this. How can we make it natural for them and how can we make it more natural and collaborative for parents, instead of the monitoring bit of it, which I'm sure we'll get into.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah, and I think that how does that train self-regulation skills when we are doing all the regulating?

Jennifer Berger:

Exactly Kids need to learn, especially in this age group that we're working with ages 10 to 14 or so, 8 to 15, 7 to 16. It really has everything to do with self-regulation when kids are online because they're not with you, they're not with parents, they're on their own, they're out on their own. I talk about it like you've sent them out into a field. You don't know where they are Exactly. You've sent them into what can be a seedy bar sometimes and without skills that we can teach them and media literacy skills to really be able to self-regulate and be able to make their own judgment, to the best of their ability, about what's okay and what's not and what to do. If it's not, then we are doing them the best service we possibly can.

Sandy Zamalis:

So let's start at the beginning. How do you help parents and families or educators really start the process of media literacy education with our kids?

Jennifer Berger:

to do there first, essentially, is give everybody a level, set background and set of education, set of information about how social media works and how to have these different conversations with your parents and how to have these conversations with your kids all around. Really. So it's 360 degrees. There are two tracks in the social media driver's license course which, by the way, really functions to give the kids the skills that they need in order to make their way on the internet, online social media and using a smartphone. And it also gives their parents the opportunity to give their kids an incentive to learn more before they are given a smartphone, for example, or a social media account, allowed to have a social media account.

Jennifer Berger:

And the two tracks are a course for kids and teens, which is a 10-session, 20-minute per session course, pretty significant and comprehensive. That where older teens are giving the kids who are watching advice essentially on what they've learned about social media and smartphones and what they want to pass on to them. So it's not a talking head, it's not a parent, it's not an adult saying wah-wah, it's teenagers, older teenagers. And then the parallel track is an audio course for parents that talks about each session of the kids' course and talks about some of the things that the kids are learning, but then goes deeper into parent talk, goes deeper into the serious things that like online predators, for example. We don't really talk directly with kids about online predators in this course for various reasons, including not scaring them too much, but we go to a different level with the parent companion, as we call it.

Dr. Amy Moore:

And then do you give advice to the parent on how to talk to their kids about predators?

Jennifer Berger:

Yes, we absolutely do.

Jennifer Berger:

We have a specialist who we speak with, who we spoke with during the podcast, who, audio course, we call it podcast too, but it's inside the course who is an internet safety specialist for parents who gives some really great tips and really good advice based on her own experience, actually as a person who was almost a victim of an online predator.

Jennifer Berger:

But it's not just that, it's also how do you have these conversations with your kids about their own tech use, about their digital wellness, as we call it, creating habits that are going to be good for them on their own, in a self-regulating way, and not a top-down way. Always it takes a combination of those two things. But we talk a lot about what kids won't respond to. And we talk with a parenting specialist who works with resolving conflict between parents and kids, who gives some really excellent advice for parents how to have these conversations in a way, again, that is collaborative, that meets the kids where they are and becomes a true conversation instead of okay, sign this contract, like, sign this tech agreement for our family right now, that doesn't change for the next three years. So the advice it goes deep, essentially.

Sandy Zamalis:

You're trying to create connection. It sounds like really You're really trying to track and help parents understand the nuances but also reach the kids, and I love the fact that you're using like a driver's analogy so it feels like a learner's permit, right when?

Sandy Zamalis:

you have to demonstrate a maturity. You have to demonstrate that you're able to handle the tools. And how do you help parents navigate when there is a blip right or if the child makes a misstep, and if we're not trying to put really harsh and hard boundaries, but instead help them grow and learn to use the tool safely? What do you tell parents for when those hiccups happen? Because they will?

Jennifer Berger:

One of our experts, who was on our who is on our audio course, talks about the best thing that her mom had done for her, which was the blip occurred. Something happened. She posted a picture of herself that she shouldn't have. She sent a photo to another person who she shouldn't have and the story essentially was like my mother was very calm. She was freaking out inside and instead of freaking out at me, she kept it calm and asked me questions, and she also had the point of view in this story and what other many the psychotherapists who we had on everybody was essentially says everything can be fixed. This is not the end of the world Like what happened here, and I don't really mean to dismiss it by saying not the end of the world, but this is not the end of everything Like. This is just something that happens, and the more that we can speak to them that way and the more that we can hear them instead of judging, the better off we really are going to be with kids.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So how did you find yourself at this philosophy right? Was this a if you can't beat them, join them. They're going to get phones anyway. Or did you come at this from a different perspective?

Jennifer Berger:

I came at it from a perspective of being a media literacy educator for about 20 years, working with so many teenagers who felt like they were alone because their parents were villainizing their world, their media, their phone, their it wasn't phone 20 years ago, but their stuff that they really liked, and I really came to the conclusion, just by working with them, that they weren't really being listened to and that just went on for all the years that I have been doing that work, like up until now. When I first was doing this work I was pretty young, so I was coming out from the teenager perspective Like that's what I could understand at that time and I think that really has benefited the work overall. Mental health crisis hitting the newspapers and Meta and other companies that have social media products really not helping kids at all stay safe and in many ways harming them, and the legislators not keeping kids safe either and schools not having the funding that they needed to really institute the really excellent levels of media literacy that are actually available but are not funded. Right now I realized that guess what? We need a stopgap measure. Like something terrible is happening Kids are committing suicide, kids are ending up in the emergency room after committing self-harm at rates we have not seen before, and talking about how the things that created these feelings for them came from social media, and I just was so horrified and so saddened by that. But I knew that I had been teaching the right skills for so long that I couldn't not create this. I couldn't not create the social media driver's license.

Jennifer Berger:

Just seeing how much prevention would have helped, would have perhaps actually stopped that and will also prevent the next teen mental health crisis that might be coming down the pipe, which is why we're reaching 10 to 14-year-olds and not 15 to 18-year-olds at this time. We're going for mental health outcomes prevention right now. So the last piece of that really is that they are going to get phones anyway. We can absolutely wait. Jonathan Haidt, his book the Anxious Generation. One of the pieces of advice is wait until they're 16. There's wait until eight. That talks about not giving your kids a phone until after eighth grade, and my perspective is that is all great. Please, parents, please do that. We should all do that. And also, eventually they're going to get their phone. So then what happens? And so what the social media driver's license does is it helps us be ready for that moment.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So I'm pausing for a minute because we had a conversation about Jonathan Haidt's book right before you popped on. I've historically enjoyed his work, but I found that the Anxious Generation was a sweeping generalization of the actual state of mental health among adolescents. The actual state of mental health among adolescents that the most recent meta-analytic work that has come out and looked at the correlation is what he was saying. Right, but the association between social media and phone use and teen mental health isn't nearly as strong as he made. It seem that it's so nuanced and that those relationships that we have with our kids are contributors. The relationships that they have in person with one another are contributors. The tragedy that COVID lockdowns created in severing social connection contributors. Right, there's so many contributors, and so I think social media is a huge piece and that what you're doing is phenomenal. Right, that's a piece that we actually can speak into, that we actually can give tangible things to help our kids make responsible choices, healthy choices, whereas working on those in-person relationships is harder.

Jennifer Berger:

Can you clarify a little bit for me about the in-person relationship, working on the in-person relationships?

Dr. Amy Moore:

Sure, teaching, I'm just going to use one example. So teaching families to set limits on social media use right, that is a tangible task. That, hey, here's some tips for how to have that conversation. Here's how to collaborate on creating that. Those limits and those boundaries those limits and those boundaries right, which can have dramatic impacts right Limits, those limits are going to have big impacts. Teaching every family how to communicate effectively in all situations is a larger seizure tasks and it's influenced by how you were parented, how your parents are continuing to tell you how you should parent your child, your culture, your socioeconomic status, the parenting style that you have adopted right. And then, once you've adopted a parenting style, you entrench yourself in right and you're not super open to trying a different one, right. So it is a bigger, more complex task to coach those in-person daily relationships within family ecosystems and then the friendship ecosystems at school and in after school activities. So it's just bigger than training a tangible conversation around setting boundaries over social media. So, like, you've identified something that is doable.

Jennifer Berger:

Yeah, interpersonal relationships. Yes, the interpersonal relationship aspect is what I'm hearing and there was a lot right there and I want to say do agree, and I'm not. I don't really want to agree or disagree necessarily about what the science says, but you're absolutely right that, whether it's happening or not, whether social media is to blame, whether smartphones are to blame, we know there is some sort of problem happening with smartphones and social media. What is the most humanitarian thing that we can do about this? Not ridding everyone of their smartphones or taking every smartphone away from 13-year-olds or any of that. But it does fall into the zone for me of we don't really know and it's really hard to study all of these factors. And so what can we do? It's like some of the British laws and European laws around dangerous substances, around chemicals and things like that. We're not exactly sure, but we don't like it right now, and so let's do something at least. But yes, those interpersonal, to speak to the interpersonal skill piece, to speak to the interpersonal skill piece, there are a lot of things I'm not as much in the business of being like. Here's how you have this conversation with your child, because I'm not an actual parenting expert, I'm a media literacy expert.

Jennifer Berger:

What I do know is what doesn't work, and what I do know is what, when you're saying these in this entrenched way of parenting, you know, we all know that when kids become teenagers, it's like your kitten has become a cat, where it's a different, there's a different person. This is a different world in a lot of ways. How do parents adjust their parenting for that? And one of the things is not villainizing their media, like not shutting down the conversation, not creating super rigid rules that are top down where you've had no conversation about it, because the kids will just most kids, I should say many kids will act out against that and will be sneaky, even if they seem even if they seem, they have seemed up until like age nine as being like a quote-unquote good kid.

Jennifer Berger:

This is just. This is just how the teenage mind works, right. It's asserting independence, it's asserting agency. They want agency. They want to make their own decision. They don't want to be told what to do, they don't want to be lectured to. I would say that there are a lot more ways that parents can turn their kids off to coming to them, to having the conversation with them, than there are perfect ways to have the conversation with them, then there are perfect ways to have the conversation.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Sure, but saying no is paralyzing, and so it's not just with teenagers. It's a phenomenon called psychological reactance that, when we are told no, it makes us want to do the thing even more. The difference is, as adults, we have fully formed prefrontal cortexes, right? So we're able to reason through. Why are we being told no? Maybe I should consider some of these reasons right. And that is not happening when we are emotional and when Afraid are emotional, and when afraid, sure, right, because that is a fear-based reaction. You're going to take it away, I'm not going to be able to see my friends, I'm not going to be able to know what's going on in the world, like. Those are all fears that then create additional resistance for sure that.

Jennifer Berger:

But then the parent fears that create the rules, create, create. These rigid rules are also in play. Right when the parents? I'm just really afraid that she's going to be contacted by someone. These fears of what social media or what the smartphone could do to their kids is paralyzing them as well.

Sandy Zamalis:

I was going to say that I think the biggest. It's a game of whack-a-mole. I think for parents a lot, because the problem is that the tech for kids now is so much more advanced than anything we grew up with. So we're constantly playing catch up and trying to figure out where all the loopholes are and what's happening, and it is a full-time job to try to keep up with that. So I love you know, from that social media expert side of things, where you know there's a place you can go to actually find out what's happening, what's current.

Sandy Zamalis:

What should we be super mindful on so that you're not just operating out of fear? Because the reality is it isn't about the phone anymore. Kids have their Chromebooks, they have their watches. They may not have a phone, but they've got access to the internet and everything that they do in their video games. It's not just about social media anymore. The internet has just blown that wide open and it's only going to get more pervasive into how many ways that they can access the Internet. So I'm with you, I think, jennifer.

Jennifer Berger:

More education.

Sandy Zamalis:

It's going to help everybody feel more comfortable because it's not going to go away and so, yeah, you can say no to a phone. Okay, your child's going to find another way.

Dr. Amy Moore:

The internet is ubiquitous.

Sandy Zamalis:

Yeah, the internet's everywhere. They'll go to the library.

Jennifer Berger:

And one thing. One thing the way that we define social media actually even goes beyond, absolutely goes beyond, the phone. The phone is the crux of the whole thing really. Once you give your kids a phone, there it is right in their hand. But what it is? It can be YouTube, it can be in-game chats where people are talking to each other. There's a lot of content going on right there. It can be texting, it can be all of these different things.

Jennifer Berger:

So it's not doesn't have to be a social media company, a social media platform, to to influence them. Just what you're saying. But it's just so. The whack-a-mole, the whack-a-mole metaphor I have heard many times now and it's just not fair.

Jennifer Berger:

What we expect of parents right now, what we expect of parents right now, like what the culture expects of parents as far as keeping up with all of that and watching everything and doing like Parents have enough, like there isn't. There was enough before this and it's just it's. It feels very unfair to me. And then you can't turn to the schools necessarily to do it and you can't turn to someone else and the government isn't fixing it Not that I don't really think that it really would anyone like that. Any rules could really be properly enforced because of the social media companies, and so it's really all on parents.

Jennifer Berger:

And so it's really all on parents, and a recent study showed that 66% of parents were totally overwhelmed by their kids' tech-full lives, essentially, and what we plan to do with the social media driver's license and our organization, ready Set Screen, is to keep parents up on those things so they have an idea. To keep parents up on those things so they have an idea. But in no way would I ever want parents to feel like they have to know what all of the features in Snapchat are. They need to know all of the different things you can do and the things I need to be worried about. And that's exactly this. Playing whack-a-mole is exactly what we try to avoid by giving their kids, giving kids the skills that they need to start forming good judgment, at least to start being smart and independent and balanced about their tech use.

Sandy Zamalis:

I love that approach too, because everything to your point, like everything in the media, it's all fear-based. Like the movie, just a couple, or the Netflix special Adolescence or whatever that just came out, was just terrifying, and if that's the input parents are getting, they need a neutral resource that just gives them helpful tools and information and doesn't scare their pants off of them Wanting to lock their kids in the basement.

Jennifer Berger:

Never to see the light. Never to see the light of day that's right.

Sandy Zamalis:

Be safe and a chain into your bedpost, I know.

Jennifer Berger:

There is so much. There is so much to be. That's not what I mean. There is so much reporting. There are so many stories that we can learn about. There are so many like sextortion, scams and a million different things. And if you just watch the, if you just watch that go by, then you will be terrified, because the things that happen are terrifying and and it's just like with kidnappings, it's just with like with stranger danger, it's just like with kidnappings, it's just like with stranger danger, it's just like with all of it. If you let that consume you and you let the stories become trends, become truths in your mind, then you'll just be more afraid over and over again. And so we're like fighting fear with knowledge.

Jennifer Berger:

Essentially, is what we're trying to do, in a really nonjudgmental way, to just like not interested in judging parents for whether they let their kids look at their tablet or iPad while they're making dinner, these kinds of things that are, of course, recommended by the American Pediatric Association, for example, but are just, you know, for some people, just a lot of people just not realistic essentially. So it's not what it's about. It's not about your kid should only have 30 minutes of screen time or zero minutes of screen time per day, and they should do. They should put their phone down when they come in the room and they should never have the phone at the dinner table, and they should. I am not saying any of those things are bad. I'm just saying if you make these like I keep saying, if you keep making these really rigid rules and not having conversations, then you're in big trouble.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So does your program address pornography?

Jennifer Berger:

Yes, so it addresses on the kid's side. It addresses what to do when you come across quote inappropriate surprises Because, again, this is for 10 to 14-year-olds. We don't know what they've seen and what they haven't seen, and we don't want to be the ones to tell them about this. We know that kids are seeing pornography earlier and earlier, and sometimes it's not of their own choosing. A lot of the time it's not of their own choosing to look at it, and so the conversation about these inappropriate surprises that we bring to light for the kids is really you are going to come across something that you don't think you should be seeing or that you know that your parent or caregiver does not want you to see. Here's what to do about that.

Jennifer Berger:

Almost every adult understands what is happening with you and your as far as what you might have seen and feeling shame.

Jennifer Berger:

You might feel shame, and that is natural, and you might feel, you might feel badly about having seen it, or maybe I don't think we really say maybe you looked for it, but it really talks about it being like an accidental thing, because that's really the majority of this kind of thing Talk to your trusted adult and we even guide them through a process of identifying three trusted adults in their lives, before we even get into any of the information, really, because it's not always your parent who you can talk to about that we just don't want to assume. Go tell your mom or dad that this happened. There are other people you also can talk to, potentially. So here's your come up with your list of three. It could be your aunt, it could be your grandpa, it could be your school counselor, it could be your coach, a lot of different people and so talk to them about what you've seen and know that they're there to help you out and that you did not do anything wrong.

Dr. Amy Moore:

And then do you have a corresponding lesson for on the parent side. Hey, if your child accidentally comes across this and they come to you, this is how you should not respond versus. This is our suggested response.

Jennifer Berger:

We have not addressed it specifically. We talked more about, yes, and there are other resources out there. There are other great resources, a lot of sex education resources, and so what we tried to do with our audio course really is talk about things in a way that that parents that we all haven't heard yet, essentially like you, can't find. You can't find a conversation very easily about this thing called the manosphere that is talking to boys in ways that most of us do not want our boys to be. Thinking about women and a variety of different icky things that you might come across, and talking with parents about how to handle that, because, once again, it's actually maybe not all about pornography. It's actually about, like, how you are connecting with your children in the first place. Right, that will help you deal with things like accidental or on purpose pornography exposure.

Dr. Amy Moore:

I've never heard of the Manosphere.

Jennifer Berger:

It's a terrifying group of misogynists who they're influencers. One of their one, the most famous one, is Andrew Tate and a lot of times what happens is that these influencers show up on YouTube, for example, or really any of the social media platforms. But on YouTube, a study was done that shows that this is what happens, like, for example, if a boy, a young man, is looking for bodybuilding content and we talked to a parent who has this exact. This is exactly her story. Her son is looking for bodybuilding content, he's interested in fitness. He's not like in the supplements world, he's not. He's not looking for steroids, he's not. He's just a good kid who to keep people engaged.

Jennifer Berger:

And so some of the influencers out there are men who are talking about why women are horrible, how they don't have brains, skills, abilities, so on and so forth. I don't really want to repeat a lot of it. Honestly, I think we can all imagine, sure, but then she said that her son is coming to the dinner table and being like I have to be strong because women are so weak, or some kind of stuff that their family does not ascribe to, because they believe in equality in their household, and the mom and dad are like, how do I even talk to him about this? They don't even really know what to say because it's like nothing that they would have ever said in their family. But they know that their child got it online. So the questions have to start. It has to be like where did you learn?

Dr. Amy Moore:

that. Okay, so I learned it in the manosphere. We are calling it, I'm sure he doesn't say it that way.

Jennifer Berger:

Yeah, this guy.

Dr. Amy Moore:

He seemed really cool, right? And so then, as parents, you go, you're never listening to this guy again, or tell me more, don't stop listening to that stuff?

Jennifer Berger:

that's garbage. We don't think that, and then the conversation has ended like that. That is the way that's what the parent audio course is all about is a parent talking with an expert on the topic, so it's a conversation between a parent and an expert. That leads to. What do I do about that, though? And some really good, solid advice for parents, but the person who we the expert who we spoke with was Andrew Reiner, who wrote a book called Better Boys, better Men. That is really all about that boy. His opinion is that boys do not have resilience Various things about our culture right now that are off topic, probably for this conversation but that that just because they're not talking doesn't mean that they don't have something to say.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah.

Jennifer Berger:

So that's been a fascinating experience, like learning about that, but also just learning about some of the other many experiences that parents have been having, like their daughter turning to them with their phone and being like what do I say when she says this? Like a text, coach me on my texting, like right now, like she said this mean thing to me. Do I write something really mean back or do I try to de-escalate this? You know, but it's mom, what do I say?

Dr. Amy Moore:

I love that the daughter is even asking them Of course, yeah, but there can be.

Jennifer Berger:

But, as anyone who has daughters knows, there can also be too much conversation sometimes, so a balance must be had.

Dr. Amy Moore:

So you say that I mean that teens love to talk about technology, right, and so, even though we might hear the peanuts teacher, as they're talking about Snapchat and Instagram and all that they want to share their lives and what's important in their lives with us. And so what are some tips that you have for parents? What are some tips you have when your kid comes to you and is all excited about technology and you hear the Peanuts teacher?

Jennifer Berger:

Don't let on that. You hate it. Don't let on that, you don't want to know about it. Like with many of their interests, oh, let me see, tell me more. Like you're just indicating that it's safe to talk about what they see online with you. You don't have to do it, you don't have to get on Snapchat, you don't have to learn how to use any of it, but it's, oh, let me see, oh, that's really funny, oh that's really cool, or whatever. And also, just like I said, just not villainizing. Just not villainizing. This is their life.

Jennifer Berger:

You know some of our parents who like hated TV, for example, or hated sugary cereals, let us know, all the time, right. So what did we do when we weren't with them? A lot of the time, watch way too much TV and eat too much sugary cereal. So be there with them, be there, watch them, play the game. Play the game with them. If they'll play the game with you. But they want to talk. It seems like they don't want to talk about it. They're like mom, stop it. But they do want to talk. They just don't want to be lectured. They don't want you to do all the talking. They want you to do all the asking and you're showing them by doing the asking that it's okay to talk about it and that you're interested. That is a kind of basic parenting advice, honestly, that a lot of parenting experts have given over the years, but it is really important and it bears repeating over and over again, really.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah, absolutely, because a lot of times, as parents, you see yourself as the expert. So your child comes to you, asks you for advice, you give out the advice and you move on to the next topic. But you are a little bit paralyzed when you're like, oh, they want to talk about this and I don't know, I don't know about this. So how cool is it then that you can just turn things around as a question?

Jennifer Berger:

That's like the joy I have so much respect for today's teenagers. I truly do, and that's one of the great things about teenagers is that they have their own thoughts. You talk to a six-year-old about this stuff and maybe they have some basic ideas they want to talk about on a certain topic. But, like a teenager a teenager you really don't have to be an expert. You don't have to be an expert on the platforms on the social media platforms you don't have to be an expert on platforms. You don't have to be an expert on YouTube. You don't have to be an expert on really like any of the features of any of these things. You have to become an expert at asking more questions that don't sound judgmental, that are literally open questions. So that really is, I would say that is the biggest challenge is like what questions are going to be your standard go-tos as you go into life with a tween who's turning into a teen?

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah, good advice. Okay. So, jennifer, when does this course come out? When is it available? How can our listeners find more about it?

Jennifer Berger:

The course will be available by the time this podcast airs, and that should be by May 23rd. What we hope is that parents will want to take advantage of this dead zone between the end of school and the beginning of summer activities, or the end of summer activities in the beginning of school next year, to give their kids this education, especially if their kids are dying for a phone. And it will be available nationwide, it will be available online and we will have a sliding scale. So even if some families are not able to afford our starting price, which we haven't quite determined yet as of this recording, there will be ways, because we're a nonprofit, we're not a for-profit. Our goal is for accessibility.

Dr. Amy Moore:

And so that website is socialmediadriverslicenseorg.

Jennifer Berger:

That website to go to is socialmediadriverslicenseorg, and you can find out all the information you need and you can enroll in the course Fantastic.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Anything that you want to leave our listeners with that you didn't get to talk about today.

Jennifer Berger:

Oh, such a good thank you for asking that. I always try to ask that as well. I think. Just know that, as the parent of a teen or tween, you're working with someone who is much more turning into an adult and can start having conversations that sound like adult conversations Not inappropriate adult conversations, just more grown-up conversations than they used to be able to. I think. Give them that credit, love them through that and make sure they have the knowledge that they need to make their own decisions in the future once they leave your nest.

Dr. Amy Moore:

Yeah, I think that's fantastic advice, because if they don't learn that in the safety of our home, they're going to learn it somewhere. That's right. That's right. Jennifer Berger, thank you so much for being with us today, for sharing your wisdom on this super important topic. We really appreciate you taking time to be with us.

Jennifer Berger:

Thank you so much, Dr Amy, and thank you Sandy. I really appreciate the time and I hope that your listeners got something good out of this.

Dr. Amy Moore:

I'm sure they got lots of cool things Important too Amazing Great Speaking of listeners. Thank you for being with us today. If you like us, please find us on Instagram and Facebook at the Brainy Moms. You can watch us on YouTube at the Brainy Moms and you can go to our website, thebrainymomscom. If you would like to see Sandy's work in action, be sure to hop over to TikTok and find her at thebraintrainerlady. Look, this is all the smart stuff we have for you today. We hope you feel a little smarter, so we're going to catch you next time.

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Dr. Amy Moore

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