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<![CDATA[How antidepressant myths can raise suicide risk—and what evidence-based prescribing, tapering, and crisis supports really look like.]]>
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Therapeutic Interventions Targeted at Problematic Use of Digital Technology: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Evidence

Background: Problematic use of digital technology has increased across the world. Despite growing research, evidence on treatment effectiveness across digital behaviors remains fragmented. Objective: This study aimed to systematically evaluate and compare the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions targeted at problematic use of digital technology across various behavioral domains. Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted in accordance with PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) 2020 guidelines (PROSPERO: CRD420251052442). Electronic searches of PubMed, Scopus, and Embase (up to April 2025) were conducted. It identified 125 eligible studies, including 73 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), 32 non-RCTs, 14 pre-post studies, and 6 pilot studies. The interventions that were assessed in these studies included psychological therapies, digital or web-based programs, exercise-based interventions, pharmacological treatments, neuromodulation, parent-focused programs, virtual reality–based interventions, educational programs, and multicomponent approaches. Random-effects meta-analyses using standardized mean differences (SMDs) were performed. Results: For problematic internet use, psychological treatments showed a strong effect (effect size=−2.68; <.001). Digital interventions also showed significant benefit (effect size=−1.16; <.001). For smartphone addiction, psychological treatments (effect size=−1.49; <.001) and exercise-based programs (effect size=−3.07; =.001) showed significant improvement. For gaming disorder, psychological treatments showed improvement (effect size=−1.01; =.02), but results were mixed. There were limited studies to calculate pooled results for social media addiction, pornography use, gambling, screen time, and over-the-top content watching. No treatment studies were found for problematic over-the-top content watching. High heterogeneity and evidence of small-study effects were observed in several studies. Conclusions: Overall, structured psychological therapies showed the most consistent benefit. These findings support structured interventions that aim for control of use and reduce cues linked to high use. Evidence remains limited for several emerging digital behaviors. More high-quality studies are needed in clinical settings and for less-studied forms of digital addiction.
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Alexa Grasso on Mental Health Fitness 

Alexa Grasso shares her routine for staying mentally strong in and out of the Octagon

In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, the Child Mind Institute has launched the Mental Health Fitness campaign — a national call to action highlighting the importance that caring for one’s mental health is just as important as physical health. 

Alexa Grasso knows the importance of prioritizing her mental well-being alongside her physical training. She uses breathwork to stay grounded, acknowledges emotions instead of suppressing them, and practices mindfulness — highlighting that true strength comes from training the mind with the same discipline as the body.

“What I do when I feel stressed or overwhelmed by life, is breathing. It’s super important to breathe, to think clearly and give time to each emotion. To live it.”

About Anna Sitar

Alexa Grasso is a Mexican mixed martial artist and one of the top competitors in women’s flyweight diving of the UFC. Known for her sharp boxing and calm presence in the Octagon, she made history in 2023 by becoming the first Mexican-born woman to win a UFC championship. Grasso’s rise through the sport has been marked by discipline and resilience, earning her recognition as a trailblazer for Mexican athletes in MMA.

About Mental Health Fitness

For decades, we’ve understood that physical fitness doesn’t just happen — it takes skills, regular practice, and a supportive environment. The same is true for mental health. Developed by experts at the Child Mind Institute for three different age groups, our Mental Health Fitness guides have been used by more than 1.8 million students, caregivers, and educators to build emotion regulation skills and resilience. Whether your child is 5 or 15, struggling or thriving, they can learn these skills. And you can practice alongside them. Learn more at Mental Health Fitness.

Related Resources

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The Child Mind Institute Hosts 2026 Spring Luncheon “Future-Proofing Your Kids: Empowered Parenting in the Digital Age”

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Damour, PhD, led a thoughtful discussion to honor Mental Health Awareness Month

New York, NY – The Child Mind Institute, the leading independent nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of children struggling with mental health and learning disorders, hosted its 2026 Spring Luncheon on Monday, May 11. The event featured a dynamic discussion between Lisa Damour, PhD, a three-time New York Times bestselling author and host of the podcast, Ask Lisa: The Psychology of Raising Tweens & Teens, and Dave Anderson, PhD, Vice President of Public Engagement and Education and a senior psychologist at the Child Mind Institute. Their conversation was moderated by Ali Wentworth, an actress, comedian, author, and host of the television show, The Parent Test.

The event brought together advocates and distinguished individuals dedicated to equipping children and families with the skills they need to thrive in today’s rapidly evolving online and social environments. Attendees included Carson and Siri Daly, Jeannie Gaffigan, Kyle MacLachlan, Zibby Owens, and Alysia Reiner.

“We are raising children in a world fundamentally different from any generation before them…a world where childhood unfolds not just in homes and schools but online,” said Harold S. Koplewicz, MD, founding president and medical director of the Child Mind Institute. “Technology brings creativity and connection but also real risks: constant comparison, disrupted sleep, compulsive engagement, and exposure to harmful content. Our job is to help kids build the skills to navigate this world with resilience, confidence, and balance.”

The discussion centered on kids and families and how they can build healthy habits and resilience as they face the demands and distractions of a world increasingly reliant upon and centered around digital technology.

“My umbrella concern is what the conversation about technology is doing to the relationship between adults and kids. The single most powerful force for youth mental health is strong relationships with caring adults,” said Dr. Damour.

“If we focus on driving causal factors — such as family relationships, academic success, in-person friendships, sleep, and movement — we end up promoting a child’s wellness far more than by taking technology away,” said Dr. Anderson.

The luncheon raised over $260,000 to support the Child Mind Institute’s mission to change the lives of children with mental health and learning disorders in the United States and around the world.

The luncheon was co-chaired by Chris Mack, Lisa and Guy Metcalfe, Zibby Owens, and Jil Schaps. The host committee included Robyn and Paul Goldschmid, Desiree Gruber, Molly Jong-Fast, Breanna and John Khoury, Isabelle Krishana, Arielle Tepper, and Sarah J. Wetenhall.

Photos from the luncheon can be found here.

This special event is part of the Child Mind Institute’s programming during Mental Health Awareness Month. The Child Mind Institute recently launched its latest campaign, Mental Health Fitness. Physical fitness doesn’t just happen — it takes skills, regular practice, and a supportive environment. The same is true for mental health. Alongside relatable content from influencers and world-renowned athletes, the Mental Health Fitness resources from the Child Mind Institute provide kids and families with five core mental health skills they can practice every day.

About the Child Mind Institute 

The Child Mind Institute is dedicated to transforming the lives of children and families struggling with mental health and learning disorders by giving them the help they need. We’ve become the leading independent nonprofit in children’s mental health by providing gold-standard, evidence-based care, delivering educational resources to millions of families each year, training educators in underserved communities, and developing tomorrow’s breakthrough treatments. 

Visit Child Mind Institute on social media: Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn

For press questions, contact our press team at childmindinstitute@ssmandl.com or our media officer at mediaoffice@childmind.org. 

The post The Child Mind Institute Hosts 2026 Spring Luncheon “Future-Proofing Your Kids: Empowered Parenting in the Digital Age” appeared first on Child Mind Institute.

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Finding Answers When Your Child Is Struggling: Introducing Ask Kai 

Every day, parents reach out to the Child Mind Institute with questions that keep them up at night: Why does my daughter have such strong emotions? Why can’t my son sit still in class? Is this normal anxiety or something more?.

These questions are urgent, but finding answers isn’t easy. The wait time to see a children’s mental health professional can be months or even years. Many families don’t know where to start, what’s normal for their child’s age, or whether their concerns warrant professional help. And with nearly 1 in 5 children experiencing a mental health challenge within the U.S. alone, too many families are navigating this uncertainty on their own.

That’s why we built Ask Kai — a free, evidence-based symptom checker designed specifically for children’s mental health, available in both English and Spanish.

Meet Ask Kai

Ask Kai is a conversational symptom checker that helps parents and caregivers understand their child’s behavior and points them to appropriate resources. Through a streamlined series of questions and prompts, Ask Kai gathers information about your child’s challenges and provides personalized recommendations in minutes.

Ask Kai doesn’t diagnose your child. Instead, it helps you:

  • Understand whether your concerns align with common mental health challenges
  • Learn what to look for and what questions to ask
  • Find evidence-based resources specific to your child’s needs
  • Know how to find additional support if needed

Think of Ask Kai as a knowledgeable guide who helps you make sense of what you’re seeing and points you toward your next best step.

How Ask Kai works

If you’ve ever used a symptom checker for physical health, you know the challenge: enter “headache,” and you might walk away convinced you have everything from a sinus infection to a brain tumor. Mental health symptom checkers face even greater challenges. Because every child is different, what looks like defiance in one child could look like anxiety in another, and a behavior that’s appropriate at age five might be cause for concern at age ten. On top of that, mental health conditions often overlap.

So how did we build a tool that captures this complexity without overwhelming families? We focused on expertise and evidence:

  • Clinicians and data lead the way: Ask Kai was built using thousands of child mental health evaluations — open datasets spanning different ages, backgrounds, and conditions — and developed in close collaboration with child psychologists and psychiatrists.
  • Evidence-based question selection: Rather than asking hundreds of questions, we used machine learning to identify which combinations of questions provide the most meaningful information without burdening families.
  • Comprehensive resource library: Every recommendation Ask Kai makes is matched to our extensive collection of guides, articles, expert perspectives, and pathways to professional help.

Here’s what happens when you use Ask Kai

Step 1: Initial Screening

You’ll answer a brief set of questions about your child’s behavior, emotions, and how these challenges affect daily life. You’ll also have the chance to describe in your own words what brought you to Ask Kai. These questions cover the areas where we see the most common concerns.

Step 2: Personalized Deep Dive

Based on your responses, Ask Kai selects targeted follow-up questions that dig deeper into the areas you flagged, whether that’s attention and focus, social anxiety, learning, or other behavioral challenges.

Step 3: Matching You to Resources

Ask Kai analyzes your complete response pattern, including the severity and impact of the behaviors you described, and provides a report with recommendations relevant to your child’s age, challenges, and needs.

What Ask Kai can assess

We designed Ask Kai to explore the areas where we can provide the most help to the most families. Ask Kai offers comprehensive screening and resources for:

ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder)

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by difficulties with attention, organization, and impulsive behaviors. Symptoms are usually divided into inattentive behaviors or hyperactive and impulsive behaviors. Inattentive symptoms may include making careless mistakes, being easily distracted, difficulty listening to instructions, trouble with organization, and forgetfulness. Hyperactive/impulsive symptoms may include fidgeting or squirming, trouble playing quietly, extreme impatience, as well as constant talking and interrupting.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in utero, but children may not get diagnosed until they’re in preschool or even older, when symptoms become more apparent. The disorder is characterized by deficits in social communication skills as well as restrictive or repetitive behaviors. Symptoms include a wide range of impaired cognitive abilities, language skills, and behaviors. These symptoms have been thought of as a set of disorders but are now being considered one disorder that presents along a spectrum.

Depression

Depression is a mood disorder that can cause children and teenagers to feel very sad and hopeless. Kids with depression have trouble enjoying things they used to love. They may also seem listless and easily annoyed.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by excessive, persistent, and unreasonable worries about everyday things, like doing well in school or sports. In general, kids with this disorder worry a lot about being perfect.

Oppositional Defiance Disorder

Oppositional defiance disorder is a disruptive behavior disorder characterized by ongoing persistent, age-inappropriate disobedience and resistance to authority. To be diagnosed with this disorder, children would have had to display extreme behavior issues for at least six months. Diagnosis occurs around early elementary school ages and stops around adolescence.

Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety disorder is a type of anxiety characterized by such intense self-consciousness and fear of embarrassment in social situations that the individual avoids social events; also known as social phobia. While some kids with this disorder are specifically afraid of performance engagements like public speaking or sporting events, others are scared of general social situations.

Specific Phobia

Specific phobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by an excessive and irrational fear of an object, situation, or place. Common specific phobias include dogs, clowns, bugs, the dark, and loud noises.

Elimination Disorders (Enuresis & Encopresis)

For young children, bathroom troubles are often a normal part of growing up. But once kids pass potty-training age, peeing or pooping in places other than the toilet might be a sign of an underlying issue. If it involves urine, it’s called “enuresis.” If it involves feces, it’s called “encopresis.”

Nonverbal Learning Disorder (NVLD)

Nonverbal learning disorder (NVLD) is a condition characterized by difficulty processing visual-spatial information — which involves the brain’s ability to interpret and respond to visual input, including where things are in space. These skills are used to do things like putting together a puzzle or reading a diagram.

Specific Learning Disorder (Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, & Dysgraphia)

Specific  learning disorder is a condition that causes children to have difficulty with reading, writing, and/or math. If they have trouble with reading, the disorder is called dyslexia. If they have trouble with writing, it’s called dysgraphia. If they have trouble with math, it’s called dyscalculia. Symptoms are typically first noticed when the child is in preschool or early elementary school.

These ten areas represent some of the most common mental health concerns in childhood. They’re also areas where we have robust data, validated assessments, and comprehensive resources.

What if your concerns aren’t on this list?

Ask Kai can still help. When you describe your situation in your own words, Ask Kai analyzes your response to identify additional concerns and match you to appropriate resources. Your child’s challenges don’t need to fit neatly into one of these categories for Ask Kai to provide value.

However, we will only make recommendations when we’re confident in the evidence behind them. If a particular concern isn’t well represented in our data, we won’t try to provide guidance in that area. Regardless of the results, everyone receives a core set of resources that we believe are helpful for all families navigating children’s mental health.

Your privacy matters

We take data privacy seriously:

  • Your responses are confidential and secure
  • Free-text responses are analyzed using secure AI systems
  • We don’t share your individual information with third parties
  • In addition to providing you with resources, your data will only be used to improve Ask Kai

Try Ask Kai Today

If you’re wondering whether your child’s behavior is typical or cause for concern, Ask Kai can help. In just 10 to 15 minutes, you’ll get personalized insights and resources to guide your next steps.

Start Your Assessment

You don’t have to figure this out alone. We’re here to help.

If your child is in crisis, expressing thoughts of self-harm, experiencing severe symptoms, or in immediate danger, please seek emergency help right away. Call 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline), text “HELLO” to 741741 (Crisis Text Line), or go to your nearest emergency room.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take?

Most families complete Ask Kai in 10–15 minutes.

Who should use this tool?

Parents, caregivers, and professionals working with children ages 4–18.

Will I get a diagnosis?

No. Ask Kai provides screening information and resources, but only a qualified clinician can provide a diagnosis.

What if I need immediate help?

If your child is in crisis, please call 988, text “HELLO” to 741741, or visit your nearest emergency room.

What makes this different from other symptom checkers?

Ask Kai was built specifically for children’s mental health, uses evidence-based assessments, provides personalized follow-up questions, and was developed in close collaboration with child mental health professionals.

The post Finding Answers When Your Child Is Struggling: Introducing Ask Kai  appeared first on Child Mind Institute.