This is Ask Lisa, a podcast to help people understand the psychology of parenting, now in the midst of a pandemic.

Psychologist Dr. Lisa DeMore, author of two New York Times best-selling parenting books, takes your questions.

And I'm co-host, Rina Ninan, a journalist and mom of two.

Some of what we talk about comes from raising children ourselves. Most of the time, I'll be getting

answers to your parenting questions. So send your questions to Ask Lisa at Dr.Lisademore.com.

Episode 23, I can't make sense of America.

What do I tell my kid?

Have you ever tried to explain what's happening in a country in a therapy session?

Because that's actually what I'd like to do today.

I, I, you know, we've talked about this before where you keep checking like your Instagram or social media

or Twitter and you can't stop.

Like what is it?

Is it like dopamine that gets restored or what happens?

Because I can't stop checking to where I'll realize like I'm online checking what the latest

thing is and I'm wasted an hour of my day. I just can't

keep up, but I feel like there's an elephant sitting on my chest and I am eating so much dark

chocolate. I have to stop. Yeah, no, man, what an anxious time. What an anxious time. And the checking, I think that's often

rooted in anxiety, right? This sense of, I need more information, I need more information.

And what we actually see, and we've studied this, when you check for information, if what

you get is ambiguous, it just leaves you more anxious.

And right now, all we get is ambiguous because if you're checking in five-minute intervals,

there's no significant, usually. You know, there have been so many significant events. But if those

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