Karen Leick

I'm okay with that.

We're both in Chicago.

And I feel like one really interesting sort of additional factor in Chicago right now is

is that ice is everywhere.

And so we have an actual fear that is really quite serious.

I think a lot of parents want to check in with their kids when they have a fear of something that's going on.

It's interesting to me that actually having a phone is helpful, right?

It actually really helps that particular emergency situation.

But I totally agree that technology allows us to be a little bit more invasive than we used to be, for sure.

You know, historically, in the examples I've given before, what makes parents most anxious is something that's new that they don't know about or they feel excluded from.

So I think one thing that really helps is if you're really scared about something that your teen is doing or is participating in, like, talk to them about it.

So, like, it's much scarier if you really don't know what it is, if you're not engaged in it or you just feel like, this is scary, I...

I can't participate in this.

It's the type of pattern that we see.

The parents will say, this makes my kid antisocial.

And it just means they don't know how to talk to their kid about it.

Be open.

So like what they're doing, be curious, be interested, ask questions.

It's a, it's fun.

It's a really fun conversation.