Navigating Social Media Safely: Dr. Devorah Heitner’s Expert Advice for Neurodivergent Kids

The digital world allows our children the opportunity to connect with people all over the place and all of a sudden they have a community. But how do we help our children find the line of privacy and how do we help ourselves find the line of privacy for our children? - Dr. Devorah Heitner

Do you want your neurodivergent child to feel empowered and stay safe while navigating the digital world? Join me as I welcome my guest, Devorah Heitner, who will be sharing valuable insights and strategies to empower neurodivergent children and ensure they have safer online experiences. 

In this episode you can:

• Discover effective strategies for parenting in the digital age, ensuring our children's safety and well-being online.
• Understand the difference between monitoring and surveilling our children and which one builds more trust.
• Learn the importance of media literacy and how to help our children, and ourselves, to critically analyze digital content.
• Uncover practical tips for navigating the digital world with neurodivergent children.
• Understand the unique challenges and benefits of growing up in the digital era, equipping yourself with tools to support our children effectively.

Dr. Devorah Heitner is a leading authority in helping neurodivergent children navigate the digital landscape. With her books, Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World and Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive and Survive in the Digital World, she has become a trusted resource for parents seeking practical advice. Her work has been featured in major publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN Opinion, solidifying her credibility and expertise. With a deep understanding of neurodiversity and the challenges it presents in the digital realm, Dr. Heitner offers valuable insights and strategies for creating safer and more empowering online experiences for neurodivergent children. Parents can trust her guidance to help their children thrive in today's digital world.

Find more about Dr. Heitner here:

https://devorahheitner.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/06/10/my-mother-struggled-with-learning-disabilities-smartphone-would-have-helped-her-find-her-way/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2023/09/15/teens-overshare-social-media/

Listen to her episode on We Should Talk About That:

https://www.westatpod.com/episodes/episode/7e49c6bc/we-should-talk-about-our-childrens-privacy-the-internet-and-growing-up-in-public-with-author-devorah-heitner-phd

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Transcript

Jessica Kidwell: 0:00

I'm Jessica Kidwell and this

Jessica Kidwell: 0:01

Neuroversity, a space to expand our understanding of neurodiversity and elevate neurodivergent voices and experiences. Today, I want to talk about the role that social media and our ever-present devices play in our relationship with ourselves and our kids, especially through the lens of neurodivergence. What are the pluses and minuses of this ubiquitous digital world? How do we set healthy rules and expectations, and what are the red flags we should all be on the lookout for? My guest today is the perfect person to lead this conversation.

Jessica Kidwell: 0:39

Dr Devorah Heitner is the author of Growing Up in Public Coming of Age in a Digital World and ScreenWise Helping Kids Thrive and Survive in the Digital World. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and CNN Opinion and has taught at DePaul and Northwestern, and I have had the good fortune to interview her once before on my other podcast. We should talk about that, which I will also link in the show notes for more information. Dr Heitner, thank you so much for being here. I want to start off by just kind of talking about your latest book, growing Up in Public Coming of Age in a Digital World. Why was it the time to write this book now? What were you seeing in your work that made you think, hmm, this generation needs this book, as well as their parents.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 1:34

I was very concerned about the stories I kept hearing from families about kids getting sort of canceled and parents worrying about kids sharing things that they shouldn't, and it just there's also a lot of kind of privacy issues that came up in my research. So basically everything that I didn't cover in screen wise around growing up in the digital age, which was more about like received, like watching shows and watching things online. This book is more about what are kids posting and sharing about themselves and so and how are they interacting? How are they interacting in digital spaces?

Jessica Kidwell: 2:11

I've heard the term digital native for these. I don't know. Is it Gen Z? What generation do you personally consider the digital natives?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 2:22

I mean Gen Z and then Gen Alpha. I think the millennials you know, grew up in a very particular moment. If you watch, like Pen 15 and look at like a dial up internet and AIM and the sort of early days, those are the students I was teaching like back in, you know, like 2010. But I think, even more so, the kids who are growing up now with touch screens.

Jessica Kidwell: 2:42

So generally, I know that you have a very strong belief that monitoring versus surveilling, versus modeling are all very important lines that parents should get familiar with. Can we talk a little bit about the difference that you see between surveilling our kids' use of devices in social media versus monitoring it?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 3:10

So we want to teach kids how to do it themselves and how to be in these relationships. We know whether it's on Roblox and other server-based games, whether it's in the group text, whether it's in social media. That said, you and I were just kind of chatting in formally earlier about neurodiverse kids and any kid who has needed, for example, an SLP's support on their social skills or belonging to a social skills group or other kind of direct instruction may need more direct instruction on how to be in a group text or how to get along on Roblox than a neurotypical kid, just like they do on the playground. So if you have a kid who you know has needed additional support in social situations, I would say that they may also need additional support in digital social situations. That said, for some kids, digital social interactions provide the kind of response time you know sort of slow down the processing time, depending on what kind of digital situation that might make it easier. So, for example, for a kid whose main social challenge is just about processing speed, they may do better in a group text than they do in an in-person situation at like a party, for example.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 4:25

That's not always the case because, again, like, group text can also move fast. If you have a kid who struggles with nuance, sometimes texting is simpler at the same time, you know, nuance and implication can be even more tricky on text when a lot of neurotypical people struggle to understand meaning and text because you're stripped of like facial expression and vocal tone at the same time. Again, if you're someone for whom vocal tone and facial expression aren't particularly informative anyway, then you may be at an advantage compared to a neurotypical person. On group text, they're just really really, you know, varies depending on not just being neurotypical versus being, you know, neurodiverse. But in what way are you neurodiverse? Again, is it processing speed, is it, you know, being face blind?

Jessica Kidwell: 5:13

Again, like if you're face blind, a group text could be awesome because everybody's name is right there, absolutely, and I have just really found it interesting the way that social media is used for good for my daughter, because there is something about that speed, that speed in which you just referred to, and in overwhelming party social situations her ability to navigate a back and forth is much harder than her ability to navigate the back and forth of a group text and she's able to participate a lot more in a texting situation, whereas I think many parents who have neurotypical children are often trying to encourage more face-to-face interaction because it feels like a skill that many of our kids are losing, but for a neurodivergent individual it actually can cause more stress to put that expectation on them.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 6:24

Right, and we may still want our neurodivergent kids to have practice. But one thing would be thinking about something like for a younger kid, a play date obviously teenagers don't call them play dates but like, maybe you play Minecraft for the first half of the time your friend is here, but then maybe you do go outside and so you do some things where. Or maybe you do a board game or a more structured interaction or even parallel play, where you're both building with Legos, but not necessarily collaborating, and then you do something together, right? So I think we want our kids to be in that zone of proximal development, where they're maybe developing, but at the same time we want them to experience success and not be exhausted.

Jessica Kidwell: 6:59

And it's interesting to think about from the privacy standpoint on when we talk about one and two give our kids the freedom and privacy to have these online interactions. From a neuro typical parent standpoint of a neurodivergent child, I have spent so much time coaching and monitoring and looking for opportunities to practice with her that I feel almost left out of an entire world and it's been kind of a it's been a difficult balance for me to just kind of let go and let her have the experience, even if it's going to cause problems.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 7:46

Right, I think we always want to save our kids from themselves, whether they're neuro, typical or neurodiverse, and but especially, you know, when your kid is neurodiverse, if they have struggled to make friends, you don't want them to, like, mess up that one friendship that they've got. You know like I think it can be really we can be a little bit more emotionally invested. I mean, I think, no matter what, we want our kids to have friends and be happy and all of that. But I think and it's also always worth asking, like who's social need is being served? Like, if your kid is fine playing independently, should you encourage them to reach out socially if they don't feel?

Jessica Kidwell: 8:16

like it. That has been one of the biggest lessons that I have learned through this podcast and through the years of my own therapeutic journey realizing when the discomfort is coming from within me versus discomfort that I'm picking up coming from my child. I think it's a that is a universal parenting thing. It doesn't matter if you have a neurotypical or a neurodivergent child. But especially because I feel like when you are parenting someone who speaks a different neurological language than you, there's a hypervigilance, and knowing when I'm picking up on her discomfort versus my own has been a journey.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 9:00

Yeah, I feel you. I think it's really hard and I certainly struggle with those boundaries in my own family, you know, and even sometimes in my friendships. I'm like wait, how much advice did you just ask for? Oh none, oh none, okay none, all right, like you just told me about your problem and I just needed to listen and instead I'm like going into like mom mode and problem solving mode, yeah, from the perspective of the book in general, what are some of the biggest takeaways that you are hoping parents have from a expectation and rule setting standpoint?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 9:35

Well, I think, especially for neurodiverse kids, I would be very, very clear.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 9:39

You know, like like both the intent and the specifics.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 9:42

And then if you have a kid who's very good at tech, you know I would also expect that sometimes, if they're not invested in being a rule follower, you could get into sort of a cat and mouse situation or sort of whack-a-mole situation with tech, where it might be better for you to just take the tech at night versus trying to be like this is allowed and this isn't allowed, like sometimes just being simple with it.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 10:02

So your kid is getting some sleep and you know unplugging for their physical and mental health, versus like trying to be, you know again, if you have a little hacker in your house, you may not want to, you know, just create like a sort of power struggle with that little hacker. I just think it's really important to know where you can and can't kind of be helpful. And when we mentor kids, we're teaching them how to do stuff, but there may be things your kid can't do, like control their ability. You know that control themselves from checking tech late at night. So for a lot of kids, taking away the tech at night is a better way to go, especially when they're younger. But even if they're struggling with self-regulation, it may be best, even as for teenagers.

Jessica Kidwell: 10:44

I thought it was interesting and I heard you on the tilt parenting podcast where you brought up a specific example of OCD and how the monitoring and taking away is incredibly important. If there is a particular app or a game or something that is clearly causing the obsessive checking to happen over and over again, that is a point where a parent absolutely needs to do more monitoring.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 11:16

And that could be checking grades, that could be checking all kinds of things. So absolutely, and I think we just need to see like, where is my kid going down a rabbit hole? That is really negative for them versus, you know, if they just really love to play Minecraft, but it's positive, but they just need some help, like unplugging and getting their homework done or going to bed. That's a different scenario than you know. They're really melting down every time and if the transitions are rough which for a lot of neurodiverse people, transitions are not the funnest then I would look at are there certain days where maybe we can't access this stuff because it just isn't working? The transitions are too tight and it's not a fit.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 11:50

I think it's important to look at, for example, if your child has a specific diagnosis for example, adhd, dyslexia, autism spectrum disorder, like all of these are different and if they have access to therapists that you're working with outside of or in school, they may have insights in how to support your child. On tech, so you're not hopefully doing this alone and if you want to incorporate some tech stuff into an IEP or even a 504, I mean 504 is harder, you have a lot less control and kind of accountability there. But with an IEP, for example, if you know your kid struggles with attention and is going way off task a lot of the time on their school device, you could write into the IEP that they need a version of that Chromebook or whatever that is a little more locked down or something, ideally, that's not stigmatizing, like not having them have to turn it in all the time in front of other kids, but maybe something else where the version they have is a little bit less likely to be distracting.

Jessica Kidwell: 12:50

And are there additional tools that tech can provide for some of these kids that maybe you wouldn't necessarily see as something that a neurotypical child would need but can be incredibly helpful for neurodivergent children?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 13:06

Oh, 100 percent. I mean there's apps, you know, and I'm not familiar with a ton of them, but there's. I've met people like at South by Southwest EDU, like the person who does that does be visual, which is an app that a lot of folks use with some neurodiverse kids and in families. That I think would be also very helpful with a neurotypical kid, though, where they like swipe through their you know, brushed my teeth, did my you know, and they're just like swiping through and all done. It's like I can see that I could use that app right and I'm not diagnosed as neurodiverse. I'll say I have some questions about that for myself, but I don't have a formal diagnosis. But I do think that a lot, of, a lot of apps are also used just in different ways by people, depending on their needs. So, whether that's discord and people are literally in communities for neurodiverse people, there's a lot of really great conversations on discord about neurodivergence and living with neurodivergence. Some of them would be more appropriate for teens than others. There are definitely more adult conversations on there that you might not want, like your 12 or 13 year old on, but there's great opportunities there and obviously things like speech to text if you have a kid who has really difficulty with handwriting and fine motor, just being able to keyboard from a younger age and getting that written into maybe a school plan, these are incredible access tools.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 14:23

I wrote an article that if you want we can link to you in the show notes about my mother who was definitely had a language based LD but we don't really know. Again, she was sort of in the generation that was on diagnosed but she had a lot of frustration with directions and way finding and a lot of frustrations with language and reading and encoding and spelling and it really affected her job trajectory and her life. And one of the things I wrote about is how an iPhone would have or any kind of smartphone would have just helped her so much because way finding was such a stress for her and if she could have just had a GPS it literally would have changed her life. But she you know my mother died in 1997, so she never had a smartphone. But I think that technology it's just an incredible access point for people.

Jessica Kidwell: 15:10

Yeah, there's so much positive that these devices provide and so much access that is more possible than ever before.

Jessica Kidwell: 15:21

Sometimes the devices are beneficial, but then too much access. You hit the fulcrum where it starts being less beneficial, and I know that that's different for every single person who's using it and certainly for every single parent who is trying to navigate that for their child, whether they are neurotypical or neurodivergent. I think I want to talk a little bit about privacy and the importance of parents respecting their children's privacy and, at the same time, helping them understand how to respect their own privacy with this world of sharing and how these kids, when they find their community online and for our neurodivergent children, that can be very freeing for them, especially if making friends is hard and locally they're having a hard time. The digital world allows them the opportunity to connect with people all over the place and all of a sudden they have a community. But how do we help our children find the line of privacy and how do we help ourselves find the line of privacy for our children, and especially for, as adults, maybe of any kind of kid with special needs.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 16:45

we might have additional support needs ourselves, and how do we balance that need for community and to be able to talk about both the day-to-day and the big picture with our kids and any advocacy we might be doing, et cetera, without compromising their privacy? Oh man, I know it's the share-in-ting, but special needs addition Totally and it is a huge, huge challenge and there's no easy answers, I would say. I mean, I have thoughts about keeping on the side of what's safe and what you won't regret, but it is not easy.

Jessica Kidwell: 17:19

No, not at all. Is there a difference between big privacy and small privacy that we can help our kids learn?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 17:28

Well, I talk about algorithmic privacy as big privacy and growing up in public and the idea of Amazon or TikTok, sort of knowing what you like to be for and what you might like now as one piece of privacy. And then there's the other piece, which is what your aunt Sylvia can see or what your ex-boyfriend can see, which is sort of small privacy, just thinking about the sort of context in which we're sharing.

Jessica Kidwell: 17:51

And the way that there is a digital forever that we have to help our kids understand when they are posting information about themselves, the way in which something that felt shareable today, you do have to think about it in a.

Jessica Kidwell: 18:10

Would that also feel shareable tomorrow or a week down the road, because it's always there?

Jessica Kidwell: 18:19

Yeah, I draw the line on this podcast and with my own personal social media access that I have now that my daughter, who is autistic, is old enough that she understands her diagnosis and, frankly, we are moving much more in the phase where I used to manage her diagnosis when she was younger, because it was about interventions and therapies and but as she's gotten older she just turned 17 and it's her diagnosis, it's not my diagnosis. And having to hand the reins to her is a process, and one of the ways that I have done that is by always asking her permission before I share anything about her diagnosis and my experience with her diagnosis. I ask her permission in the big ways, like a podcast or a social media post, but I'm wondering what your thoughts are as far as from the support standpoint and parents wanting to connect with other parents. What can we keep in mind to kind of give ourselves permission to have that community, but also, how do we keep ourselves from crossing the line?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 19:47

I mean, depending on what you're gonna disclose, it may be best to have the opportunity to be either in person, which is just more private unless digitally shareable, so like an in-person support group, if that's an option where you are, or if you are in a digital space. Is there an option to ask certain questions anonymously, even if you're in the space under your own identity? Sometimes groups are big enough, like if you're in a tiny group, that plausible deniability kind of goes away. But if you're in a group that has a thousand or 3,000 people in it or 20,000 people and you ask a question, if you go anonymous to ask certain questions that are more revealing about your kid or you do things to kind of keep their identity vague, like if they use he, him or she, her pronouns and you use they, them pronouns, that's kind of like obscuring.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 20:31

I mean, obviously for those of us who only have like one or two kids and have kind of any public life, if you talk about your child and publicly, like everyone knows it's you, I mean maybe them. If you have 10 kids, I guess it could be like one of those, but like I have one kid so I really can't talk about him publicly without exposing certain parts of his story, and that's just my choice, it's just not to do it. I do think that support for folks who are raising neurodivergent kids there's tremendous need for support on the like, legal and practical front, dealing with school, the emotional fronts, dealing with a society that isn't always easy, doesn't always want to accept and embrace neurodiversity. I think it makes sense, but I just think it is important to balance those needs and to recognize that kids may or may not when their adults want to disclose their disability or their specific diagnosis or the way they identify. They may, but it's really there should be their choice.

Jessica Kidwell: 21:27

Okay, now on the flip side, what are your thoughts on a parent who has been very careful and very respectful of not disclosing anything about their child that would be identifiable? When your child starts to feel very comfortable about disclosing diagnosis or information about themselves all over the place, how do you help parents kind of get more comfortable with that Cause? I imagine there are some parents who have kept it very close to the vest for many different reasons privacy, fear, the whole gamut in between. Understandable cause we see the stigmas our kids are facing Right. And how do we deal when our kids are of the age where they are out there and disclosing it everywhere?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 22:22

I think it's really important to recognize that the kids are changing the culture and that you don't have control. And the kids are changing the culture and the stigmas that we grew up with. Like I always use the example of you know, I saw a therapist when I was a teenager and now kids disclose that they see therapists, but I didn't even have to be told. Don't tell anyone. Like I just sort of figured it out from the culture. Right, you picked up on it, yeah, and I think it's important to not put that on our kids. Now, I still think it's fine if kids want to keep it private. Plenty of kids get mental health supports, like therapy, and do keep it private, and that's fine too. And they know.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 22:58

I mean, kids are often pretty aware of what the stigmas are. I mean, I know that one of the things that you know, I think your typical people sometimes assume, for example, about diagnoses like autism, is like, oh, people don't pick up on social cues. Well, that's a no for simplification. I've talked to a lot of people with autism who pick up on a lot of social cues and maybe very sensitive to stigma. So I don't think that you know your kid who say your kid is like passing, like your kid does not identify in public as neurodiverse, or maybe has only told a few close friends or something, or only told a trusted teacher, but isn't kind of telling the world.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 23:32

If they choose to then tell the world on Instagram or Discord, you can believe that they thought about it. They didn't just do it out of nowhere and the need that they're feeling to get support may balance out the risks that they're taking. And you might think well, I'm an adult, I can take the long view, but you have to recognize that your kid has a lot of company Now. If they're coming out as neurodiverse and I wrote an article for the Washington Post about when kids come out online that includes also LGBTQ plus kids and neurodiverse kids, and I can also share a link to that for the show notes they've thought about those risks and also they're changing the very fact of them and so many other kids. Sharing is actually changing how risky it is. The more people who share, the more employers won't be able to just be like, oh, I'm not hiring any of those, you know, neurodiverse people.

Jessica Kidwell: 24:18

Yeah, and they're, I think, parents, because by definition we're older and we grew up in a culture that was a little bit more stigmatizing with differences. There's just a lot of fear associated with watching our kids be a little bit more open about their diagnoses or their self identification and I just think what you do a great job, whether your kid's neuro typical or not is helping parents kind of let go a little bit more of the fear, which I think manifests a lot as control.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 25:04

Yes, and I get why people feel so intensely protective of their children, right, and we all inherently want to protect our kids, so I get that. And certainly if you found that your kid was sharing in a way that was really harmful, that was inviting, you know people who were had, you know were exploitative toward your child, or if you have a child who one of the ways their neurodiversity shows up is by being too trusting of people who you know might exploit them, whether that's sexually or emotionally or in other ways, yeah, then you need to take a stronger role in making sure they're safe, right. So I'm not suggesting you know what I mean if you have the kid that will go up and sit in anyone's lap when they're little, even if they don't know them, and they have sort of minimal kind of social worry to the point where it's not safe for them, right, like, and we I think we've seen those kids where and maybe maybe you have one of those kids if you're listening like that's a kid I would be very cautious with about their connections with strangers online, right, because you've already seen that maybe they don't have, they haven't internalized what we would call like a healthy level of anxiety around stranger interactions, right? So in that case, that is a kid who I might be using filters or other things, but I would still be trying to directly educate them.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 26:20

The reason I always say mentoring over monitoring whether we're talking about neurotypical kids or not is that ultimately, we want to teach kids to be safe, you know, on their own, independently. And I think, frankly, the story is very different if you have a kid who may or may not be going to be independent, like that's a different scenario. If you have a kid who it looks like maybe their next step from your house is a group home and the group home has the ability to keep them safe online and they are otherwise not safe and they could be financially exploited or sexually exploited, then I would protect them. Like. So when I say mentor over monitor, I don't mean like leave people vulnerable to being harmed. You know all of us are somewhat vulnerable. But if you know you have a kid who is, like, extra vulnerable, then yeah, you need to put some guardrails in place between the sort of world which can be a not great place and your kid. But if you are nervous about your kid disclosing for your own reasons and they're disclosing on discord and finding great community, then I would also trust that they are changing the world with their peers and that's an amazing thing.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 27:23

So it's a tricky balance and there's no easy answers. I've talked to many parents of kids who have struggled and had negative interactions, both neurodiverse and neuro-typical kids. You know bullying, sexting interactions that we don't want our kids to have and there's no easy answers. But we need to our kids to know they can talk to us and then it's always safe to let us know what's going on. Are there red flags that we look for? Yeah, if your kids behavior changes a lot around their online time, if they're being extra sort of sneaky or having sort of new levels of meltdowns about unplugging, if they seem visibly upset or their sleep changes I mean anything that would be a mental health indicator is an indicator potentially.

Jessica Kidwell: 28:08

And those are the situations where monitoring slash surveilling might be worth doing.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 28:15

Well and you want to do it collaboratively with them. I mean, the thing that makes me the most nervous is when people just like get bark on their kids device or some other monitoring software and they're like, okay, you know, I did it, I've parented. That's the concern If you're monitoring collaboratively with your kid, sitting down and looking with them at the group text when they're a new phone user or whether they've struggled, or if they're bringing it to you to look at that's monitoring. That is part of mentoring. What I worry about is people sort of mirroring their kid's device to them, their own device and thinking they know what's going on, Because I think that gives parents a false sense of security and knowledge.

Jessica Kidwell: 28:50

Can you just define what BARK is, what that app is?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 28:54

for those who don't know, BARK is a monitoring software and it's one of many, but it's just a popular one, so I'm not trying to throw them under the bus in particular, but I think all of these software I think can potentially give parents a false sense that they know what's going on with their children and also, parents need to pick and choose what it is they think they need to monitor.

Jessica Kidwell: 29:14

I think that when you just talked about if their behavior has changed, you really need to decide whether the behavior change is big enough to want to monitor, because if it's just you're not getting the daily report of who they played with at recess or who they had lunch with, you have to kind of pull yourself back from wanting to jump onto their phone and see if you can find that information out, because is that information that you really need to have?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 29:46

Right and I will say I've asked my own kid if I can look at a text conversation, if they're struggling to make plans or something, and I'll be like, oh I see there's no date and time in this text thread. Why don't you try that? Or just little bits of feedback, but I'm not sort of invasively or I think I'm not invasively reading through every text that's ever been sent.

Jessica Kidwell: 30:08

Because I think it's important for parents to know and you remind us that every time we do that especially if we're not doing it collaboratively and we're doing it after hours or when our child doesn't know, at some point that catches up with us and we lose and burn a little bit of connection with our child, Absolutely. Do you have any thoughts, fears, worries about some things that are coming down the pike with AI and how that could possibly change the way our kids interact?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 30:48

Yes, I think all of us could be taken in by chatbots neurotypical, neurodiverse and I think the chatbot situation is concerning, but that's all I can really say about it. I don't know yet. I just worry about the ways we could all be taken in by conversations with people that are not people.

Jessica Kidwell: 31:04

Do you have research or information about ways that parents can help their children and themselves be better consumers of where they're getting their information?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 31:17

That is something that ideally, you're doing with your school librarian or your local librarian, because they are such experts on that stuff.

Jessica Kidwell: 31:23

Yeah, I think that is becoming rampantly important and that if the school librarian or local librarian is not doing it, you've got to figure out a way to help your kids find out where the information they think they're getting is actually coming from. I've been very impressed. My son is in eighth grade and he has civics this year as his social studies class. His civics teacher is really into this and teaching them extremely helpful ways of digging down to see where the TikTok video or YouTube video is coming from, so that they can then decide if it feels like it's true or is it propaganda. Or is there a point of view that's trying to be taken or a point of view trying to be given to help them be intelligent consumers of the media that they're having?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 32:30

100%. I think it's great. I would love to get that civics myself and I have a PhD in media studies, so I literally should know this stuff. It was pre-Tik Talk, so I would love to know how you can tell where beyond, I can tell what channel it's coming from, but to know more about that channel and that background, I think that's really valuable.

Jessica Kidwell: 32:51

Yeah very valuable. Well, dr Heitner, I feel like you have helped me personally. I hope that you have helped some of our listeners to understand some of the ways that the digital world can benefit, impact and hinder ourselves and our neurodivergent children, and to my neurodivergent listeners. I am curious if people want to get a hold of the book or to find out more about what you are doing and where they can see you speak, what are the best ways for someone to follow what's happening in your world?

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 33:34

Yeah, I'm happy to put a link to my sub-stack and Instagram and the show notes and you can get the book anywhere Books are sold You're at local bookstore, all the online places and, if you read it and find it helpful or want to talk about it with friends, I also have a discussion guide on my website at devoraheitnercom.

Jessica Kidwell: 33:54

The book is growing up in public, coming of age in a digital world, but then also screen-wise, which has just been re-released with an updated version. So it is like if you had it, if you already have that book, it's worth getting again because there's a lot more information in it.

Dr. Devorah Heitner: 34:11

Absolutely. I really appreciate that and I think, screen-wise definitely, if you're kind of in the like zero to seven and I would say like seven and up would be growing up in public probably.

Jessica Kidwell: 34:23

Well, I'm very grateful to you for your time today and for your insight, and I look forward to seeing what comes next for you. Thank you likewise. Hey, can you wait a second? I have a favor to ask you Can you open up your podcast app and make sure you're following the show? That means, every time a new episode comes out, you'll already have it waiting for you, and I've asked this before, but I'm going to ask again will you please leave a review of the show on Apple Podcasts? I read every single one and I'd love to read what you think. Okay, that's it. I'll let you go now.

Jessica Kidwell: 35:05

Neuroversity is hosted and produced by Jessica Kidwell. Our audio engineer is Jared Nicolay at Mixtape Studios. Jared also created our theme music graphic design for Neuroversity by Kevin Adkins. Web support is provided by George Fox. For more information about this episode, ways to support the podcast or anything related to Neuroversity, please visit our website at wwwneuroversitypodcom. You can also follow us on your podcast app and social media sites. We are at NeuroversityPod on Instagram, twitter, linkedin and Facebook, and if you like what we're doing, please tell others about Neuroversity and give us a review on Apple Podcasts. There's plenty of room for more curious minds to enroll.