When Your Child Needs a Therapist—and There Isn’t One: Raising Children in the Age of Social Media

There is something uniquely difficult about being a parent in a rural community when your child is struggling.

You know your child. You know when something has shifted.

Maybe they have stopped wanting to go to school. Maybe they are sleeping too much—or hardly sleeping at all. Maybe the child who once loved soccer, drawing, reading or being outside now spends hours in their bedroom, absorbed in a phone or gaming.

Maybe they are anxious.

Maybe they are angry.

Maybe they are overwhelmed by friendships, social expectations or the constant pressure of being connected.

And then you make the call.

You look for a child therapist.

And there isn’t one.

Or there is a six-month wait.

Or the therapist isn’t taking new clients.

Or the only available provider is an hour away.

For families living in rural and island communities such as Whidbey Island, access to children’s mental health care can be a very real challenge. Geographic isolation, limited numbers of specialists and long waitlists can leave parents trying to navigate increasingly complicated mental health concerns with very little support.

This is not a failure of parenting.

It is a gap in the system.

Childhood has become more complicated

Children today are growing up in an environment that is fundamentally different from the one many of their parents experienced.

The social world doesn’t end when school ends.

It follows children home.

It lives in their pockets.

It enters their bedrooms.

Friendships, conflicts, popularity, exclusion, sexuality, body image, news, advertising, gaming, comparison and an enormous amount of adult-created content can all arrive through a child’s screen—sometimes before a parent even knows it is happening.

The U.S. Surgeon General has warned that we still do not have enough evidence to conclude that social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents. Up to 95% of teenagers ages 13–17 report using social media, and more than one-third report using it almost constantly. (HHS.gov)

And the research is becoming more specific.

A 2025 longitudinal study following nearly 12,000 children and adolescents found that increases in social-media use during early adolescence were associated with increases in depressive symptoms the following year. Importantly, the researchers did not find the same relationship in the opposite direction—meaning that, in this study, higher depressive symptoms did not predict later increases in social-media use. (DOI)

That doesn’t mean every child who spends time online will become depressed.

It does mean we need to take children’s digital environments seriously.

Overexposure can become overwhelm

As a therapist, one thing I hear repeatedly from parents is some version of:

“My child can’t seem to turn it off.”

The problem isn’t simply screen time.

It is what the screen is asking a developing nervous system to process.

A child may move from a YouTube video to a group chat to a game to TikTok to a text message to an upsetting piece of news and back again—all within minutes.

There may be no natural stopping point.

No quiet.

No boredom.

No transition.

No opportunity for the nervous system to settle.

And children are still developing the executive functioning skills needed to regulate attention, delay gratification, recognize emotional escalation and step away from something stimulating.

The newest federal public-health guidance is increasingly focused not simply on “screen time,” but on the developmental and mental-health consequences of harmful or excessive screen use. The Surgeon General’s current guidance identifies excessive screen use as a public-health concern and notes particular mental-health and behavioral concerns for teenagers related to social media. (HHS.gov)

Parents are being asked to solve an enormous problem at home

This is where the lack of child therapists becomes especially concerning.

Parents are being asked to understand anxiety, depression, ADHD, executive functioning, trauma, identity development, social dynamics and technology—while simultaneously managing a child’s access to devices designed to hold their attention.

And often they are doing this without a therapist sitting beside them.

On an island like Whidbey, it can feel especially isolating.

There may be one pediatrician.

One school counselor.

A few therapists.

Limited specialists.

And a family that has been waiting months for an appointment.

Meanwhile, the child is still waking up every morning and going to school. Still navigating friendships. Still developing an identity.

Still trying to figure out who they are.

We need to move beyond blaming children for their technology use

I don’t believe the answer is simply:

Take the phone away.

Sometimes a strong technology boundary is absolutely necessary. Children need adults to protect them from environments they are developmentally unable to regulate themselves.But punishment alone doesn’t teach regulation.

A child who is already overwhelmed may need help understanding why they keep returning to the screen.

Is it connection?Escape?Boredom?

Anxiety?Loneliness?Stimulation?

Avoidance? A place where they feel competent? A way to stay connected to friends?

The answer matters.The goal isn’t simply to produce a child who follows a screen-time rule. The goal is to help a young person develop the capacity to notice:

“This is making me feel worse.”

“I need a break.”

“I am getting overwhelmed.”

“I need another person.”

Those are mental-health skills.

Rural families need more than individual therapy

We also need to think bigger than the individual therapist’s office. Children’s mental health in rural communities requires a network. Schools, pediatric providers, parents, therapists, community organizations and families all have a role.

Sometimes the most meaningful intervention is helping a parent understand what they are seeing. Sometimes it is helping a school recognize that a child’s behavior is communicating distress rather than defiance. Sometimes it is creating a plan around technology. Sometimes it is connecting a family with a specialist outside the community through telehealth.

And sometimes a child simply needs one consistent adult who can slow things down enough to say:

“Let’s figure out what’s happening here.”

Connection is part of the treatment

There is an irony in all of this. Children have never had more ways to communicate—and many families are experiencing profound disconnection.

Social media isn’t inherently bad. Research also shows that young people can experience connection, acceptance, creativity and support online. (Pew Research Center)

The question is whether technology is supplementing a child’s real-world relationships or replacing them. Children need other children. They also need more adults than their parents.  They need nature.

They need movement.

They need creativity.They need unstructured time. They need to experience boredom.

They need spaces where they aren’t being watched, evaluated or compared. And they need multiple relationships strong enough that when something goes wrong, they know who to turn toward.

A different kind of rural mental-health care

At Hannah Guggenheim Therapy, I think a lot about children’s mental health in the context of the whole family.

Parents shouldn’t have to wait until a child is in crisis before they can find support. And families shouldn’t have to feel ashamed because they are struggling to manage something that is genuinely difficult.

For families on Whidbey Island and in other rural communities, we need to build more pathways to care—through therapy, schools, pediatric providers, telehealth, parent education and community connection.

We also need to give parents permission to trust what they are seeing and ask for help. 

If your child is increasingly withdrawn, anxious, angry, unable to sleep, unable to disengage from technology, struggling socially, refusing school or simply seems unlike themselves, it is worth paying attention.

You don’t have to wait for a diagnosis.

You don’t have to wait for a crisis.

And you don’t have to figure it all out alone.

Sometimes the first step is simply finding someone who can sit with you and help you make sense of what is happening.

That is where therapy can begin.

Hannah Guggenheim Therapy provides therapy and family support with a focus on children, families, women, LGBTQ+ clients and people navigating major life transitions. Serving Whidbey Island and Washington through in-person and telehealth options.

Sources & further reading

● U.S. Surgeon General, Social Media and Youth Mental Health Advisory (HHS.gov)

● JAMA Network Open, 2025 longitudinal study of social-media use and depressive symptoms in early adolescence (DOI)

● Nature Human Behaviour, 2025 research examining social-media use among adolescents with and without mental-health conditions (Nature)

● Pew Research Center, 2025 survey of teens and parents on social media and mental health (Pew Research Center)