This episode contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's Parenting Podcast for Monday, October 3rd, the Behind Their Screens Edition.

I'm Jamila Lemieux, a writer, contributor to Slate's Care and Feeding Parenting column, and

Mom to Naima, who's nine and a half, and we live in Los Angeles.

I'm Zach Rosen. I make a podcast called The Best Advice Show. I have two kids. My oldest

Noah is five, and my youngest Ami is two. We live in Detroit, Michigan. Today on the show,

Elizabeth caught up with Harvard researchers Emily Weinstein and Carrie James about their book behind their

screens, what teens are facing and adults are missing.

It's a really unique look at phone usage because they collaborated with teens on their research.

We'll be playing that interview for you.

But first, we wanted to jump into our Monday mailbag.

We got this letter after our episode with Casey Davis, where our listener thinks

her niece is on the spectrum and is wondering if she should tell her brother. It reads,

Hi, Mom and Dad. I've been in similar situations with friends whose children appear to be displaying

some neurodivergent characteristics. I am a speech-language pathologist, so I've usually

waited for the parents

to vent about a behavior or developmental skill first. This opens the door to asking them,

what is your pediatrician said? Both my kids had early intervention services, and so I'm a huge

advocate of getting an assessment, seeing where it leads. Sometimes I suggest asking the pediatrician

if an assessment would be helpful.

In the hands of skilled therapists, the really deep conversation about these issues and diagnosing

them can be handled.

...