The globe seems to be en­ter­ing in­to the “New Nor­mal” with world and na­tion-wide shifts. An erup­tion of pos­i­tive changes seems to be oc­cur­ring. Hu­man­i­ty was able to view ev­i­dence of how detri­men­tal we were be­ing to moth­er na­ture while we were stuck in­side un­der quar­an­tine.

Sig­nif­i­cant aware­ness has been raised call­ing out for the im­por­tance of men­tal health for both chil­dren and adults. And last­ly, the im­por­tant Black Lives Mat­ter cam­paign has stretched across the world gain­ing new voic­es and recog­ni­tion, in­spir­ing and ed­u­cat­ing mil­lions about their move­ment and the jus­tice that they de­serve.

So­cial me­dia has be­come a way to get live up­dates about im­por­tant is­sues, caus­es, news, and im­ages. So­cial me­dia has been the so­cial con­nec­tion to the out­er world for many while coun­tries were un­der lock down.

As with all things, so­cial me­dia has its ben­e­fits, but it al­so has its neg­a­tives. It can por­tray a false re­al­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly the im­ages, an on­line fan­ta­sy not re­flect­ing re­al life. It is quite easy as an adult to get sucked in­to the fairy-tale of so­cial me­dia im­ages, far less a teenag­er or child who fol­lows the lat­est in­flu­encers across the var­i­ous plat­forms from In­sta­gram, to YouTube to Tik­Tok.

It is cru­cial now more than ever be­fore that par­ents com­mu­ni­cate and stay con­nect­ed with their chil­dren. We are all com­ing out from a trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence, anx­i­ety has height­ened, sad­ness was a com­mon emo­tion, grief was felt and we had a con­stant at­tach­ment to screens. It was com­mon for every­one to com­pare what was go­ing on in their life to what they were see­ing on their favourite so­cial me­dia plat­form. If a moth­er couldn’t help but feel like she was not be­ing a good mom while scrolling her news­feed see­ing oth­er moms work­ing and still hav­ing the time to bake flaw­less desserts, we can’t ex­pect our chil­dren not to al­so do the same com­par­i­son of them­selves to oth­ers as well.

The fact is yes, this edit­ed fan­ta­sy-land has been around for a while, I can count over 20 free apps that are fo­cused on pho­to edit­ing for faces, body shape and smooth­ing, but have par­ents ac­tu­al­ly sat and thought about the im­pact this can have on your child? Have par­ents gone be­yond think­ing about the im­pact of cy­ber-bul­ly­ing? Have they thought be­yond the ob­ses­sion with ma­te­ri­al­is­tic things? Have par­ents thought about how a fake re­al­i­ty can cause an un­healthy ob­ses­sion with a per­fect body? Have they thought about their daugh­ters stand­ing in front of a mir­ror pulling and tug­ging at their skin and what they con­sid­er un­want­ed body weight? Or their sons stand­ing in front of a mir­ror search­ing for bi­ceps and tri­ceps mus­cles and six-pack abs think­ing they are un­at­trac­tive?

Chil­dren are be­com­ing more and more at risk for de­vel­op­ing Body Dys­mor­phic Dis­or­der with this con­stant de­sire to reach a body per­fec­tion that does not ex­ist in the re­al world. Body dys­mor­phic dis­or­der is a men­tal health dis­or­der in which you can­not stop think­ing about one or more per­ceived de­fects or flaws in your ap­pear­ance — a flaw that ap­pears mi­nor or can­not be seen by oth­ers. But you may feel so em­bar­rassed, ashamed, and anx­ious that you may avoid many so­cial sit­u­a­tions. With this con­stant pre­oc­cu­pa­tion teenagers can fur­ther de­vel­op eat­ing dis­or­ders, mood dis­or­ders, anx­i­ety, and risky be­hav­iours such as ex­treme di­ets or sur­gi­cal in­ter­ven­tions to try and change their ap­pear­ance.

Pay at­ten­tion to your chil­dren, if your daugh­ter is beg­ging to go to Star­bucks to make sure she has a cup to pose in a pic­ture for In­sta­gram, and then works out for two hours be­cause she had a drink from Star­bucks, she may be at­tempt­ing to keep up with that fan­ta­sy world. If your son is fo­cused on work­ing out morn­ing and evening and is us­ing every pro­tein and work­out sup­ple­ment un­der the sun, school­work is no longer a pri­or­i­ty, he may al­so be reach­ing for a re­al­i­ty that does not ex­ist.

If “Likes” from friends and thou­sands of strangers or thou­sands of views are your child’s form of val­i­da­tion and how they build their self-es­teem, then it is time to self-re­flect on your par­ent­ing. Have you been their num­ber one fan? Have you been hav­ing those dif­fi­cult dis­cus­sions about body im­age? Have you sat and lis­tened to what they are in­ter­est­ed in? Or have you been the par­ent too tired to en­gage in con­ver­sa­tions? Are con­ver­sa­tions more di­rect­ing or­ders or shout­ing match­es? Have you quar­relled that you don’t un­der­stand how they could like that “type” of mu­sic or watch “that” tele­vi­sion show?

Now is the mo­ment to find the time to spend those qual­i­ty min­utes with your child. Talk rather than shout. Ban­ter in con­ver­sa­tion rather than down­play or put down what they are in­ter­est­ed in. Be mind­ful of your words and mod­el self-love – talk about your­self in a pos­i­tive way, talk about the things you have, the life you have in a pos­i­tive way. Let your chil­dren know that the life that they live when their screens are closed or off is their re­al­i­ty. A re­al­i­ty where they are loved, and if they are strug­gling in their true re­al­i­ty – do not buff them! Start with the sim­ple ques­tion – How can I help?

Maybe they need you to give them more pos­i­tive at­ten­tion, maybe they need to seek pro­fes­sion­al help to love them­selves. But most of all what they need is a safe, non-judge­men­tal place - a par­ent they can come to when they are be­ing sucked in­to a world that ex­ists on­ly through a fil­tered, air­brushed, pho­to­shopped im­age.