This week, host Jeff Lawrence sits with Foundation Academy Mental Health Therapist Nilda Laguna to discuss adolescent anxiety and the possible contributions smart devices make in the causation.

Nilda Laguna is a licensed mental health therapist and founder of Inspirational Therapy in Clermont, Florida. Originally from Miami, she brings over a decade of experience in the mental health field, including her work with the Department of Children and Families, and as a professor and counselor to psychology students.

Nilda earned her Master’s degree in Psychology from Carlos Albizu University, graduating magna cum laude. Her practice is rooted in creating spaces of compassion, love, and acceptance, driven by her deep passion for helping others heal and grow.

Outside of her professional work, Nilda is a mother of two amazing boys. She finds joy in exploring the fields of neuroscience, studying the life of Christ, and discovering new food experiences.

The conversation is framed around the book The Anxious Generation; social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies. (*Amazon)