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Successful Parent

Hi, I'm Dr. Carrie Mackensen
🧠 Helping parents raise resilient kids in a digital world.
🌟 Psychologist + Mom

10/04/2026

Most parents I talk to have some version of the same question right now: is it a problem that my kid’s using AI for schoolwork?

Good news, we finally have real data on this.

And here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Tech is required, but healthy boundaries around it? That part’s on us.

You’ve got this 🤍

New here? Part 1, all about where the device lives and the router that actually guards it, scroll a few posts back.

10/01/2026

Kids are on Snapchat, here’s what parents need to know.

Snap isn’t just a messaging app. It’s the app most kids get first, and the second they open it to text a friend, they’re shown a map of where everyone is, a feed of stories to scroll through, and streaks that turn friendship into something you have to maintain every single day or lose. It’s like being trapped inside a slot machine!

I talked with Dr. Alison Yeung Alison Yeung, MD | Family Medicine 🇨🇦 about this, and one story from her practice stuck with me. A 14 year old patient told her she can’t do homework without her mom sitting next to her because her phone won’t stop going off. When Dr. Yeung suggested do not disturb, the girl said if she doesn’t respond right away, her friends will just “blow up” her phone more.

This isn’t a healthy relationship dynamic, nor is it the foundation to establish for how relationships work.

This platform creates a bind and a trap of sorts. It’s not just screen time. It’s a social contract kids feel they can’t opt out of, layered on top of infinite scroll and an algorithm that never tells them what’s coming next. Combine all of that and you get exactly what it sounds like: a pressure cooker.

Last, bit of info to know...if your kid is on Snap, turn off maps. Drug dealers use the map to message a ‘drug menu’ to nearby kids. Your child doesn’t have to go looking for drugs, if they are on Snap it comes to them.

09/27/2026

If you haven’t read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, add it to your list.

His core argument: we’ve shifted from a play-based childhood into a phone-based childhood. And he’s not just talking about smartphones. Tablets, video games, smartwatches, anything interactive counts.

Parents, we are over-protecting our kids in the real world and under-protecting them online. Helicopter parenting, snowplow parenting, barely any unsupervised time unless it’s in front of a screen. Meanwhile that same generation has almost unlimited unsupervised time online. We flipped the risk in exactly the wrong direction, and it’s a huge piece of why we’re seeing this decline in youth mental health.

I’ll be sharing more books and authors that shaped my thinking like this one as I count down to my own book, Digitally Dysregulated, coming early next year.

Follow along so you don’t miss it.

09/25/2026

Kids don’t get addicted to Microsoft Word or Excel.

That screen holds the assignment. It also holds the group chat, the game, the video, and one more tab tempting your child and luring them in.

And guarding it is where YOU come in.

So when I run to the grocery store and my boys are on their laptops at the kitchen table, I know that violent content, adult content, games, and social media cannot reach them. Not because I’m hovering. Because the content is blocked on their devices.

The filter you control is the one that holds.

You’ve got this~ 🤍

09/23/2026

The question Alison Yeung, MD | Family Medicine 🇨🇦 gets asked frequently: what age for a smartphone?

Kids are particularly vulnerable to peer pressure between 10 and 14, which is exactly when most of them get a smartphone and get on social media. This is the key developmental period for identity developement and parents want to protect what influences this budding sense of self. Also, this age group is quite impulsive and motivated for peer approval.

Combine these factors with unatural amounts of motivating, feel-good dopamine and minimal metacognition or introspection to recognize the impact of the digital device on them, and it’s a coctail for real problems. But when we delay exposure to later when they have a clearer sense of self, that introspective capacity, and improved self-regulation it’s a different expereince and far less damaging. Talk to a 14 year old about their device use and then talk to an 18 year old. It’s night and day.

My honest answer: not before 16. Ideally 18, but I know that’s a big ask in this day and age. And no smartphone before 16 doesn’t mean no phone at all. A talk-and-text phone is fine and it covers the basics without handing over the whole internet and the damage that comes with it.

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09/20/2026

If you’ve ever picked up your phone to check one thing and looked up 25 minutes later, you already know how this works.

Social media isn’t addictive by accident. It’s persuasive design: technology built on everything we know about human psychology, engineered to capture and hold attention.

Here’s what that does to a developing brain. The apps and games light up your child’s reward center and stamp the message “”this is important.”” That flood of dopamine is far bigger than anything real life offers, so the emotional brain revs up and overrides the thinking brain. And the thinking brain, the part that runs impulse control, good decisions, and emotional regulation, isn’t finished yet.

Our kids are all gas pedal and no brakes. Adults with fully developed brains struggle with this. For a child, it’s not a fair fight.

Over time you see it at home: a kid who is more reactive, more distracted, and harder to parent.

Parents, your child’s brain is actively under construction right now. What the brain does, the brain becomes. It wires around whatever they practice most, whether that’s screens or real life and real people.

Until their brakes are built, you are their brakes. That isn’t being the mean parent. That’s being the surrogate brain your child needs until theirs is fully cooked.

Start here tonight: pick one screen-free window, dinner or the hour before bed, and hold it. That’s it. Watch what comes back.

My book, Digitally Dysregulated, shows you the key ways to protect healthy development without going screen free. Follow along so you know the day pre-orders open.

09/15/2026

Content warning: this clip discusses self-harm content served to a child.

Harmful content is making school devices unsafe for our kids.

Even schools that use filtering software are not fully protected. Extensions can be downloaded. Filters can be circumvented. And the pull of what is accessible is stronger than a child’s impulse control.

This is not a reason to shame your kid, and it is not a reason to blame a teacher. It is a reason to have the conversation before something happens, and to ask your school what your child can actually reach on that device.

Please follow Nicki Petrossi of the Scrolling 2 Death Podcast & Tech-Safe Learning Coalition to learns what you can do at your child’s school.

09/10/2026

This is key! Your child’s first phone does not need to be a smartphone. A basic talk and text only option provides all the convenience without the harm.

From the Parenting in a Digital World Summit, family physician Dr. Alison Yeung Alison Yeung, MD | Family Medicine 🇨🇦 breaks down how to delay giving your kid a smartphone.

She says most parents want to give their child a phone for one of two reasons, either the child is begging for it and feeling left out without it, or the parents just want a way to reach them, maybe they’re walking to school or riding the bus alone for the first time.

Her strategy, separate the need for a phone from the need for a smartphone with internet access. As she puts it, a child’s first device should not be an internet connected device.

Such a simple shift, and it changes everything. 🤍

09/09/2026

Analysts are calling this settlement social media’s Big To***co moment, and honestly, I don’t think that’s an exaggeration, I got to talk about it last week on KTVU Channel 2 News with Allie Rasmus.

After the to***co lawsuits in the 90s, it took about 30 years to see a 70 to 80% drop in smoking, so no, one ruling isn’t going to change a generation overnight, but it’s the start of something.

And I want to be really clear, parents are not at fault here, and either are kids, this is the reuslt of the most addictive technology ever created. The companies knew about the harm and hid it or worse, they straight-up lied to us about it. But As Maya Angelou says, when you know better, you do better. And now we all are learning the truth, we know better. It’s time to protect our kids. 🤍

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