On the 19th of June 2021, Kuen Cheng High School organized an online talk for parents on dealing with their teenagers’ internet addiction. Approximately 500 parents attended the talk after signing up through the School’s Facebook page. The talk began at 8:30 in the morning and lasted for an hour and a half.
The School was honoured to have invited Professor Stanley Chia as the speaker for the day. He is a neuropsychologist with a Bachelor’s Degree in Neuropsychological Research on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) from National Taiwan University. Among his specialisations are play therapy, self-care for parents, and internet social psychology.
He started by defining an internet addiction. He explained that internet addiction was classified as a mental disorder by the DSM-5, and listed some symptoms per the journal. If one exhibits five or more symptoms within a year, as listed in the picture below, one may be suffering from an internet addiction.
After that, Prof Chia talked about ways to prevent teenagers from having an internet addiction. Parents can encourage their children to explore their passions and cultivate their hobbies to keep them from the internet. Prof Chia stressed the importance of not pressuring a child into doing something they don’t like; rather, they should be allowed to slowly find what they truly enjoy.
Next, he talked about things that parents do that irritate their teenagers. Teenagers hate it when parents suddenly ask them to do housework while playing a game that can’t be paused. He adds that it’s especially annoying when parents continue to pester even when their child said that they would come in a few minutes. Moreover, teenagers hate it when parents switch off the power to their devices.
Furthermore, he highlighted what things parents do that make teenagers find irritating. Teenagers hate it when parents suddenly ask them to do the housework while playing a game that can’t be paused while they keep on pestering even when they say they will come in a few minutes. They also hate for a fact that parents would switch off the electricity that causes the computer to shut down.
Besides that, Prof Chia talked about solutions for dealing with teenagers suffering from internet addiction. He mentioned that parents should provide guidance while letting their children take responsibility for their own actions. This journey of recovery would take a long time, so he reminded parents to not expect them to change immediately. Instead, they should provide acceptance, understanding and support while working out the root cause of the problem together with their child.
Before ending the talk, he raised some questions related to the talk for the parents to answer. He also introduced his group parenting course for parents who are interested in learning more. Those interested can check out the picture below for more information.
Overall, the talk was a major success. Professor Stanley Chia hoped that his visit and the sharing today could help parents who are struggling to deal with their childrens’ internet addiction.
