I asked Dr. Kathy who she turned to when she was young and something felt hard, and her answer was striking because she didn’t name one person; she named a network. Her parents were available, her grandmother lived close enough to walk over, her brother was there, and eventually her brother and sister in law became trusted people she could process life with too. That kind of relational depth doesn't appear overnight; trust builds through hundreds of smaller interactions long before a crisis comes. Someone baked with you, listened, showed up, remembered, helped, laughed, corrected, and cared. Then one day, when something heavy arrives, your mind already knows where to go because those people have proven that they are safe. That is part of what made the story we discussed from South Korea so difficult. The reporting described teenagers who were deeply distressed, many of whom had shown warning signs before dying by suicide, and some had reached out to adults but eventually stopped after feeling dismissed.

Dr. Kathy said something that should probably shape more classrooms and more homes: we do not ask young people often enough what they actually want to learn. Kids regularly tell her they do not feel like adults care about the things they care about or the questions they are actually asking. Some want to know how to do something practical. Some want help understanding themselves. Some want to know how the world works. Others have never thought about what they want because they have spent so many years simply moving from one required class to another.

Dr. Kathy kept returning to the word tool because a tool should accomplish something and then get out of the way. She contrasted that with the way children often experience a phone as a toy, something designed to absorb attention for its own sake. That distinction changes the kinds of questions families can ask. Instead of “How much technology is too much?” we might ask, “What did this technology help us accomplish, and what are we doing now that the task is finished?”