Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are in the world. It’s Dr. Jan Fortman with Relationship Matters TV. I hope everyone is having a beautiful morning, afternoon, or evening. This show today is a very, very, very important show that I thought I would really bring to you, and it’s because of what I’ve been hearing on the news, on special reports, and what I’ve been reading. It’s all about mental health, especially the mental health challenges that teenage girls have. What I wanted to do today was to bring on an expert to give us some insights into what’s happening. So I’m going to bring to you a young lady who has a beautiful first name—beautiful first name! I will bring to you Janice Williams.

Janice Williams
[Laughter] Thank you! Your name is beautiful too!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
How are you?

Janice Williams
I agree! I am great, how are you?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I am just fine, just fine, blessed. You know what? I have to tell people this: we met about a year ago on the Soul Train Cruise, and we instantly connected. We saw each other just a couple of weeks ago again on the Soul Train Cruise and hung out. And, uh, she made me spend money!

Janice Williams
Wait, wait! Oh yeah, I know I should say that because you’re gonna say it!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah, no, no, she didn’t make me spend money. When we went on the excursion, I made her spend money because I was paying money and I’m like, I don’t want to be by myself! But anyway, Janice, you are a licensed mental health clinician. Tell us about that. What is a licensed mental health clinician?

Janice Williams
Okay, first let me say what a joy it is, what a blessing it is that we met, that we connected. You are amazing, and it is my honor and pleasure to be on your show—that’s from the heart. So, I’m a licensed mental health clinician. If you think about psychiatrists treating diseases of the mind, if you think about psychologists testing your cognition and your emotional functions, think about licensed clinicians—mental health professionals actually doing behavioral therapy. We’re the ones that help you learn to identify the strengths that you need to accurately assess a problem, develop treatment, change your behavior. Therapy is how you change your life—not taking a pill, not retreating, but looking at your life and assessing what it is that you want, what it is that you need, and being empowered to believe that you can get those things. So that’s what licensed clinicians do; we are behavioral change agents. The word therapy means change.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, all right. And I know you work—do you mainly work with women or girls, or do you know who do you work with?

Janice Williams
Yeah, Janice, I’m a generalist. I’m in my 49th year, but let’s say 46 years as a clinician. I started very young—right when you’re a teenager. The state of Ohio wouldn’t let me do that; I had to complete six years. But I work with all ages. I’ve worked extensively with youth. I was a school social worker for about 20 years. I retired from Cleveland schools and have been in private practice since 1986. I have always worked with all populations; I don’t limit myself to just one population. I work with children and families, I work with seniors. My specialties are adoption, foster care, mental health, and I also worked in the criminal justice system. So I’m a bit of a generalist. I don’t see myself limited. The human experience requires that we address all stages of life, and it’s good for me too; it prevents burnout.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, okay. So, you know, the topic, as I said at the beginning of this show, it’s been all on the news, all kinds of special reports, and it’s all about teenage girls. And I was surprised at this; it’s something that—but before we go into that, um, this is—wait a minute, I just want to—when you were talking about mental health and, you know, all ages, Ruby Jordan, whose name is Anita, said not taking a pill is the key. She’s so right, yeah, not taking that pill is the key, right? And I have to just acknowledge someone, Jacqueline Rogers, who is probably the next—uh, I don’t know why she’s not running to be president, but I always, you know, [laughter] wow, that’s right, Jackie, I put you right out there! But anyway, so let’s talk about this. This is something really, really serious, and it was something that I just really didn’t know that teenage—evidently it’s an epidemic about teenage girls considering suicide and their mental health challenges. So let’s talk about that. Tell me about what is it that you are seeing.

Janice Williams
Okay, let me start off by saying this is not a new problem at all, but this is a problem that has escalated with the times. As times change and the advent of social media, this is certainly not new, Dr. Fortman. If you think about the fact that adolescence is a challenging time for all of us, particularly for girls, and it’s not that long ago—I’m sure you can think back to being a teenager. We still remember that age group; you’re really challenged. Your friends are important to you, what other people think is very important to you, how you interact with others, whether or not you have friends, whether or not you’re accepted, whether or not you have peer pressure, what’s your status at home. Adolescence by itself is complex and complicated. Now enter and factor in all the advances that had pluses that had serious minuses as well. So you and I, if you don’t mind, came from an era where we didn’t have social media. So if one person said to you, “I don’t like that girl,” and somebody else said, “I don’t like her either,” if they told you, you knew about it. You could either respond or you could choose to ignore it. With social media, you can put on your age, your Instagram, your Facebook, your TikTok, whatever. You can create a meme about someone: they’re ugly, they’re stupid, as the kids like to say, they’re a whole—you can make any slanderous negative comment that you want and disperse it among thousands. Imagine, imagine if, as an adolescent girl, you tell a secret to your friend and you think that secret is safe. You find out that the whole community knows. People are overnose, and they have the capacity to contact you and tell you what they think about you. And don’t forget, not everybody is healthy; there are people who specialize in bullying and tearing other people down.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I would say about eight years ago, so I’ve been in private practice the past 37 years, I remember having a 12-year-old girl who was suicidal. When her parents brought her in, I’m trying to explore why—what’s going on? They seemed loving; she seemed to have a good relationship. Well, back then, there was a website called Musical.ly, and my granddaughter just informed me that Musical.ly is now TikTok. See, I would not know this without my granddaughter; I didn’t know this. But at that time, this 11-year-old girl was interested in this site called Musical.ly, and Musical.ly was supposedly benign. You could create songs and music, and you share your work with others. What’s wrong with that? Well, this 12-year-old created songs and got back hateful responses: “You’re ugly, your music sucks, you don’t have any talent,” and it just went on and on. She started noticing that the negative comments far outweighed the positives, that people who actually had the intention of being hurtful were now targeting her, and she couldn’t stop reading; she couldn’t stop looking at it. And all of this just combined with the self-esteem issues that young girls have anyway about being accepted: “Am I pretty? Am I smart? Do I have friends? Do I fit in? Am I weird?” Combine all of that now with a barrage of negativity, hate, and she decided she didn’t want to live.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, so if you can see how generations ago our struggles with our self-esteem, with peer contact, with relationships, they were on a micro level, but now because of the internet, because of these social platforms, everything is magnified; everything is worse exponentially. So now you have these girls who are very vulnerable to people who may not have good intentions, people who may have pathologies, people who are unhappy and want to hurt someone, and nothing is private anymore. So that’s a whole other level in addition to the other things that girls struggle with. And there are other things we struggle with: body image, you know, “Am I pretty? Am I not pretty? Somebody said I’m ugly, somebody said I need braces, your hair fell out, you gained weight, you lost weight.” We body shame; we compare. We have parents who, “Oh, my one child is very slim, my other child is overweight, my one child is smart, oh this one, she’s struggling.” So these stressors come from a multitude of avenues; they come from peers, they come from family, and they come from within. We look like, “Oh, my nose is too big, oh, my hair is too stringy.” We do these things, but it’s now compounded because of the access to this wider, broader community that may not be positive—often is not.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So really what I hear you saying—and let me know if I’m being correct—that social media has exacerbated this.

Janice Williams
Exactly! You are so right. It did not create it, but it exacerbated it, absolutely.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So now you said this is not anything new.

Janice Williams
No.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
But look at you when you said think about when we were teenagers. Yes, and I hear what you say because when I was a teenager, I was five feet nine.

Janice Williams
Oh wow!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I weighed 97 pounds, okay? And they called me sticks. Of course, I hated it! You know, now if someone would call me sticks, you know, I would say thank you! You know, but back then, it was something that really, really messed with my self-esteem. You know, it was just in my little local community or, or I should say in my little group.

Janice Williams
Absolutely.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And it didn’t go any further. So I could understand when, like you say, it’s on social media, and as Ruby Jones, Anita said, it never goes away. And so I have these young ladies who are more and more and more just—they’re devastated!

Janice Williams
Yeah, because like you say, there are people out there who just really want to cause harm.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You think that bullying also plays a huge role in this also?

Janice Williams
It’s absolutely cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is defined as using, you know, the internet to spread hate and threaten and defame and disparage. Absolutely, that is cyberbullying. So it’s not necessarily, “I’m going to fight you, I’m going to kill you,” but “You’re ugly, you’re stupid, nobody likes you, why don’t you just die, nobody wants you.” That’s cyberbullying—anything that attacks your self-esteem, your self-worth.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So now, when I know you work with young ladies, and I know you told us about the one young lady whose parents said, you know, no, they were going to take her off of social media. But what are some of the signs that parents, teachers, grandparents—what are some of the signs that we see? Because we, you know, when I read this survey and I read this research, and then, you know, they’ve really been talking about it on television, newspapers, and whatever, it’s like, okay, how—if, let’s say I have a neighbor who has a teenage girl, so how would I know? How would her mother know if she’s under this pressure? Or you know what I mean? Because a lot of times, you know, you think of yourself as a teenager and you hide stuff.

Janice Williams
Oh, absolutely! I said, “Oh no, I’m fine!” Oh no! You know, I mean, my mother didn’t know that certain places when I was a teenager I didn’t want to go. All of us—they called me sticks, and you know, all the boys were dancing, paying attention with the girls, the shapely, you know, right? And here I am, I am a stick! Yes, now they want to be like you—the same girls, where are they? And then back then also, because I, you know, I was dark brown skin, yes, and so the boys were paying attention to the light brown skin girls. But, you know, but I hid all of that, you know what I mean? So how would I, as a mom or grandmother or a neighbor, what is it that I should look for?

Janice Williams
Okay, well, let’s go back to basics. So here’s the thing: when we think about social media and the influence of the industry, the person that has the most access to young girls—the people who have the greater access—are family. The first thing we should do before we go looking for signs is make sure that we have a real family unit. We have some real communication. Everybody’s busy. Today, a lot of parents work more than one job; children have a variety of activities. We want to make sure that we have a check-in point for our children, that there’s never a day or time that goes by where you have an established, “Hey, what was your day like?” If it’s in the car, if it’s at night before they go to bed, but just to check in daily, “Hey, how was your day?”

So some of the obvious signs—because there are signs that are overt, signs that are more covert—because kids are good at hiding. So some of the obvious signs might be withdrawing, but you got to consider the type of child that you have. So if you have a quiet child and they’re not talking much, that may not be a red flag for you. So you’re going to look for things like come home from school and they go straight in the room and they close the door, which a lot of kids want to do. Here’s the thing: if that door is closed the entire evening into the night, somebody needs to be knocking on that door saying, “Hey, hey, come tell me what’s up,” or “Come help me fix dinner,” or “Let’s go shopping.” If you leave them to their own devices, that door—and I know children who’ve told me they go home from school, they close that door, and they don’t emerge till the next day—that is a problem.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Appearance should definitely—you intervene, not in a threatening way. What are you doing in there? Open that door! But hey, come out! I need you to help me peel these potatoes, or can you help me do something on the computer because you’re better at it than I, or come watch something with me. Parents should make the effort to engage their kids, even if it takes a little nudging. If that child refuses to engage, that’s a huge red flag. If they absolutely refuse, because that could be a sign that something else is going on, like substance abuse or perhaps they’ve been sexually assaulted. You need to make sure that you’re engaging with your child every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes—that’s your check-in.

Another sign would be change in patterns that you’re familiar with. If you know your child typically has a really big appetite, you know they’re hungry all the time, eat all the time, now they’re barely eating anything. You ready for dinner? Oh no, I’m not hungry! Or they’re picking at their food—a major change in things that you knew to be true are always red flags. It could be sleep patterns—the child that now is sleeping more, hypersomnia, hypersomnia—they’re not sleeping enough. Look for drastic changes, but I think the most reliable thing is actually engaging with your child. Notice if your child seems to be angry more or more touchy or more irritable, and your response should be, “Something’s going on. I’m always here for you.” If it’s not me, would you like to talk to your dad, your brother, your uncle, your grandfather—whoever that child has a relationship with? Do not allow them to isolate. If it gets to the point where you can’t reach them, they won’t open that door, they won’t share, that’s when you call the professionals like myself. But I would hope if you feel that it’s heading in that direction, you would call professional therapists before it gets really bad. If you can’t redirect the behavior, then that’s the point where you need to involve a professional. Don’t wait until it’s extreme. Don’t wait until they leave the house at five and you don’t see them till midnight, you know, when they’re two hours late. You intervene; don’t wait until it’s extreme.

Janice Williams
Also, a comment is—she says also there are mamas who act like they’re on the Bad Girls Club. That’s also who they’re getting some of those influences from.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And she says as well as my friends, who’s a kindergarten teacher, and I guess she says she’s quitting, I guess because of, you know—and then Jacqueline says, “Moms trying to be like their daughters instead of their mother.” They are, in other words, you know, being friends. They are—it’s the worst mistake we can make. You know, if we’re struggling with our identity, if we’re struggling with our mental health, suffice it to say that you can expect it’s going to affect or impact your child, your daughter. If you’re not happy with who you are and you’re trying to transform into somebody you saw on the Real Housewives of Atlanta or whatever else people watch, Basketball Wives, I don’t know, but if you’re not happy with yourself, you can expect a negative impact upon your child. And you absolutely are not their friend; you’re their loving parent, and it’s your responsibility to explain the difference because a friend can’t tell them when to come in, when not to come in, what they can do, what they can’t do. A friend can only suggest; a parent should have the last word. No, you can’t stay out till two, three in the morning. I don’t care whose parent they are!

Janice Williams
Sounds familiar, Dr. Fortman? We were raised by women who didn’t mind saying, “Because I said so!” Thank you! We’re a little more sophisticated; we went to our children, “Why? Why?” But the tragedy is when no one is home to know what time you came in. The tragedy is when the child gets home and they don’t know where the parent is or if the parent is coming home or if the parent is high and they smell marijuana as soon as they walk in. Many of our children are living these lives; they’re seeing their mothers being abused by boyfriends, husbands, girlfriends. Too many of our parents are exposing their personal lives to their children. They need not know; they’re not your friend. They need not know all the intricacies of your relationships. And don’t forget, sexuality is opened up now, so a lot of children are experiencing, you know, gender, same-gender relationships. That’s the choice of the parent, but you need to be very careful in how you explain or present whether same-gender, different-gender. It’s still your business, and your business should not be laid bare for your child’s consumption. They are still your children; some things need to be private. I’m not saying you have to lie, but sometimes we’re putting too much on our children about our personal lives, and they can’t handle that, and it’s not their right.

Gwendolyn Dunbar
There are also the parents who enable their children instead of using corrective measures to make them responsible adults.

Janice Williams
She’s absolutely right! All mountains are factors.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So now, and I know I’m gonna get this around the LGBTQ community. Yes, do you find that there is more stress on the teenage girls in that community?

Janice Williams
I think that because society has not made a definite decision that this is acceptable, the numbers are growing, but society has not totally embraced it. There’s still areas; there’s still people who are not comfortable, and it does add stress because now children have to explain or hide or defend the behaviors of their parents, which isn’t fair, but it’s the real world. So again, whether it’s gender same or gender different, parents should keep elements of their lives private because their children should not have to bear issues that they have no control over.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
A question just came in through the text: if mental health services were offered free by the government, then most of our societal ills could be resolved. Do you agree?

Janice Williams
Yes and no. Here’s the problem: we can offer services, but we can’t make you take them. So I would have to lean more towards no, even though I think that’s a great thing. But understand, we really—the only way you can make somebody accept therapy is if there’s a court order, if they’ve been adjudicated and the court says you have to go. Other than that, just as that parent has said no, I’m not going to curtail her social media account, so I can’t make her do that. So I think that certainly we would be better off if there were more services, there were more available, but we cannot compel people until they’ve crossed the line with abuse and neglect. That’s just the reality.

However, I think there are a lot of creative things that we can do. When I was still a part of Cleveland schools as a school social worker, I remember there were programs like—what was it called? Project Love, where not just girls, they had a component for boys as well, where they got together and talked about self-esteem and they talked about relationships. When I was a school social worker, I ran groups with girls as well as boys to talk about how we deal with conflict, to talk about the challenges of growing up, family issues. So it doesn’t have to be mental illness-focused as much as mental health-focused. Anything that helps people to feel good about themselves, to develop good coping skills, to know how to face life without being overly anxious, without feeling as if they’re inadequate—anything that helps build self-esteem and equips young people, young girls, to manage their lives in a healthy way is going to be productive.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Of the statistics that I read now, what I’m wondering is, you know, now we have surveys, we have research, we publish things, but what I’m wondering is before social media, was this still prevalent? I know you said that, you know, it’s not anything new, but was it still prevalent, but it just was not reported? You know what I’m saying?

Janice Williams
Yeah, it was hush-hush. Do you agree with that, or do you think—I know you said social media, and then we talked about the entertainment industry, right? Some did bring up in the chat the pornography.

Janice Williams
Oh, absolutely! You know, but so is it more rampant now, or is it just reported?

Janice Williams
Yeah, I would say it’s more rampant because society has relaxed so many rules. When I was growing up, you never saw a couple in the same bed. I remember watching—I Love Lucy—they had separate beds. Now, at any time of the day, you don’t have to have cable; on the networks, you can see sex acts. Now there are shows—I remember when I stopped watching Empire because there was an episode where, what was her name, Cookie, lifted a dress, literally showed her behind, literally, physically in a boardroom. So I think things have gotten worse—not that things haven’t always been bad, but now it’s acceptable to show everything. Now there are more mediums. Back in the day, you know, if you were curious, you could find your parents’ Playboy magazines or whatever. Now you don’t need to do that; it is all in your face. I remember going to a public library some years ago, and I’m researching something, and it had nothing to do with sex. Oh my goodness! All of a sudden, pornography filled the entire computer, and I was outraged! I’m an adult; I’m thinking, all these children here! If this just happened to me! So I went to the librarian thinking she’d be upset, and she says, “Oh, those are just pop-ups.” I said, “I know what they are! I’m talking about the fact that I was just assaulted with graphic pornography, and you have a library full of children here!” She says, “It’s nothing we can do about that.” This was Cleveland Public Library. So I didn’t—except then I started calling suburban libraries. I called Strongsville, which is an upscale white community in our area. They told me they had filters for pop-ups. So I’m noticing that where you are has a lot to do with your access. So to answer your question, I know it’s worse because they have access to bad things. Bad things have always happened, but now it’s in our children’s faces. It’s very hard to protect them from it. Again, this was a pop-up that they’re saying they can do nothing about, and when I tell you it was explicit and graphic, so things are worse because we’ve removed the filters, we’ve opened up the portals, and nobody’s checking, and nobody’s really protecting our children. To me, that makes it much worse.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow! So if you’re, um, let’s say you look at your children, especially your daughters, because that’s what we’re talking about, and you see these changes, right? And as a mother, uh, trying to deal with the changes or trying to get the child to open up, but what if you really—you cannot get your child to open up to you? And you said, you know, call in a professional, right? What professionals are you talking about? Sure, how do you access them?

Janice Williams
Yeah, how do you access? And then the third part is, you know, when your daughter says, “I don’t need to go, I don’t want to go, I have nothing wrong with me.”

Janice Williams
Absolutely! So, since the Obama Administration, President Obama put millions of dollars into mental health services in schools. The problem is that state by state, governors had the latitude to decide whether or not they wanted to use those dollars for mental health. And I’m sure everybody has heard about what happened in Mississippi with the Mississippi governors giving a football player, Brett Favre, I believe, five million dollars and more, diverting funds that were for mental health to whatever they wanted. So the federal government has poured dollars into mental health, but when it gets to the governor’s office and then sometimes to the counties—here in Cuyahoga County, we seem to get the smallest share, even though we have the largest number of families and children in need. So I say that to say that many schools have mental health services in place, but the problem is they’re limited, and the quality is not always there.

So there are two routes you can go. If you have a good pediatrician, hopefully your child has a good pediatrician, that might be one place that you can start, and asking your pediatrician for a referral for mental health services because that way you can be assured that your network, your insurance will cover it because these services may or may not be free. A lot of times when they’re free, there’s an income requirement, so if you’re somewhere in the middle, you may not be eligible for free mental health services. And higher, so one option is to start with your pediatrician, start with your healthcare network, and find out what mental health services do you qualify for. The other, of course, is checking with your school to find out if your school has mental health services. But let’s be clear: your school may have mental health services, but if it’s an outside agency, they may have their own criteria as to what health plans they accept. When I retired as a school social worker, I protested social workers being retired. We were laid off, which led to retirement; it was not my decision. The school district decided that it would be cheaper to bring in local mental health agencies because they wouldn’t have to pay us. When they did that, now they made children subject to the qualifications of that mental health agency. As a school employee, I could service everybody, whether you had insurance, didn’t have insurance, it didn’t matter. Once you privatize things, once you hand them over to agencies, they accept Aetna, but they don’t accept Blue Cross, this, that—the criteria—many children are left out, and there’s also something to be said about the quality.

So look at your schools, talk to your pediatricians. That’s probably go through your healthcare network. Now you mentioned the second part: what if your child says, “I don’t want to go?” So if you tell your child to stay in, and it’s three in the morning, and they say, “I don’t want to stay in,” are you going to open the door? Not everything is what children want, and that’s where we’ve kind of changed with tyranny. That’s where the conversation comes. I’m so glad you tell me how you feel about that. I’ll try to go with you, but we’re getting help; this is not negotiable. When we asked our children what they want, don’t be angry when they tell you. Sometimes it’s what do you need, and then we’ll work out how we respond to what you need—not going down by us.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
How do you cope when you see your children are influenced more by their peers than you?

Janice Williams
Yes, there are—there are, as a teenager, yes, but your parent—and cut back access to those peers. Hopefully, you have already asserted yourself as a parent. I can remember clearly hearing things like, “Oh, I don’t want you hanging with that person.” And of course, that’s the person you want to hang with. What’s funny to me is that parents are always telling me about the child that’s the bad influence on their child, and sometimes their child is the bad influence. But the bottom line is you have to assert yourself, but be proactive. Know who their friends are ahead of time. In the days when I was raising my children, I got to know their parents. My dearest friends today I met because they were the parents of the children my kids wanted to play with. So if they wanted to go over there, I wanted to go too. I want to meet mama; I want to meet their—if my child’s spending time over there, to their horror, I would meet them, and we became friends, or we didn’t. So parents, be proactive; don’t wait until after the fact. If you know your daughter’s rushing off the house to meet with Kiana every Saturday afternoon, it might be time for maybe for you to invite Kiana over or maybe for you to call up Kiana’s mom. Hey, let’s set up a playdate or get together. You need to know before the fact; it’s a lot harder when you try to undo something that’s already done.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Another question came in: how does mental health play a factor in teenage girls being drawn to use illicit drugs as an escape?

Janice Williams
So I like the way they ended that question. So there’s two things about substance abuse with girls, with young teenagers, with adults. There are some people who recreationally want to fit in: everybody’s getting high, I’m gonna try it—that’s one group. Then there’s another group: I’m being sexually abused at home; my mother doesn’t talk to me, she’s very busy, she’s got three, four degrees, she’s speaking here, she’s traveling there, she’s not always poor. It’s not always socio-economic class; anybody can be less than a desirable parent. So what happens is the young girl who’s not getting her emotional needs met at home may look for escape. So the route can be different. The route can be peer pressure; the route can be, “I’m miserable, I don’t know what to do, I need to escape.” And then there are children who are not being forced into substance abuse; it goes hand in hand with sex trafficking. There are children who are being introduced to drugs, to marijuana, to alcohol by adults who seek to take advantage. So there are a lot of roads to the use of illicit drugs, substances, but the strongest barrier is a really, really good relationship with your child where you start very early talking about, you know, one day somebody’s gonna offer you a drink, one day somebody’s gonna offer you a joint. How do you think you’d handle that? Let’s talk about it. I remember I think I still have it—a little pamphlet that I bought to talk with my kids about, “Let’s talk about drugs, let’s talk about alcohol.” They were still in elementary school. Let’s talk about it! So you don’t wait until the problem has already begun; you start early. You build a relationship with your children where you say, “There are things out here that can hurt you, and you are precious to me.” So we’re going to talk about why not right now; we’re not gonna wait until somebody offers you your first joint.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Any other piece of it is, don’t be a do-as-I-say-not-what-I-do parent. If they see you getting high, they’re going to want to try it. Don’t fool yourself; your days are numbered. If they see you drinking all the time and you say, “Don’t drink,” they’ve probably already been in your bottle; they know where your stash is. You can’t be hypocritical.

Janice Williams
And I agree with that because you can hear teenagers say, “Well, you do it!” And, uh, so it, on one hand, it’s like, “Well, it’s—that’s an adult that’s doing that,” but you’re right; if it’s a bad habit, right, then that you feel is really going to be detrimental to your child, then don’t do it in front of them. Life separate from your children; they deserve that.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
There was a question here—let me find it. Oh, here it is. Let me find it. Um, and it’s a very important question: how can we get this conversation to a broader audience that needs to hear and benefit? Because, as I said earlier, we’re finding out that it is an epidemic; we’re losing our young girls, we’re losing our teenage girls, and it’s not always reported.

Janice Williams
When social workers in Cleveland—I was the last one that was really kind of forced to retire because we were laid off—that next year, Cleveland had the dubious distinction of becoming number one in the country—not Chicago, where you are, not Washington, D.C., not New York, not L.A.—Cleveland was number one in suicides of children under the age of 17. I don’t remember exactly what percentage were girls, but to answer Nancy’s question, we have to use all platforms that are available to us. That’s our churches, that’s our schools, that’s our sororities and fraternities, community groups, that’s our television platforms, that’s talking to our neighbors, talking to our cousins, talking to our aunts, our grandparents. It really bothers me when someone says, “Well, I’m not going to get involved because it’s not my place.” We really are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers; it is our place. This is humanity.

And here’s the scary part: when these children are contemplating suicide, they’re on social media talking about it. There’s a phenomenon—a kind of a group hysteria—where children have made suicide packs. One child might say, “I’m thinking about killing myself,” and another other children chime in, “Well, why? How?” “Well, because my mother doesn’t love me,” or “My father left,” or whatever, and these children start converging on this topic. Then they start sharing ideas; then one person decides to do it, or they make a pact, or they do these stupid challenges on TikTok you’ve heard about. So the way we get this to broader audiences is in every aspect of our lives. We promote mental health. Unless you live in a silo, you’re involved in groups, you know people. I’ve been criticized for using my Facebook platform to talk about mental health, to talk about these issues, and I say this is what I do. Just today, I don’t know if I was thinking about your show, I was moved to write a piece about what are we doing in the face of all these gun shootings, these mass shootings? What are we doing to encourage not only gun laws but teaching our kids not to hate each other, teaching our children, having conversations about resolving conflict without violence? The platform is every interaction that we have with each other. You know, when we’re on the cruise, we discuss these things; the subject comes up. There’s never a bad time to talk about how we can support and encourage our mental health and positive mental health interactions. There’s never a bad time.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Thank you so much! You know, I ain’t even go to commercial because I talked so much because this was just so important. Because when I stopped in my tracks when I saw the stats—and these stats were 2021 and 2022—and you know when they say the percentage of teenage girls that were happy, three out of five, anxiety and depression, yes, yes!

Janice Williams
Yes!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And contemplating suicide. And you’re right; we have to do everything in our power, everything, to address this situation. And as, like you said, churches, schools—because this is our—these young ladies, these girls are our future.

Janice Williams
Exactly! And one other thing I’d like to add, I think we should not feel that we’re held hostage by the images that the media promotes. I guess it didn’t do any good; I don’t know, but I remember when my children were adolescents writing Procter and Gamble, “I don’t like that ad that you had on TV; I think that was sexually inappropriate.” I remember, you know, about Macy’s—you and I went to Macy’s in Puerto Rico, did we not? Macy’s used to be Kaufman’s here in Cleveland for a while. They started off the May Company, then they were Kaufman’s. I remember my daughter being under 12; we went to get school clothes, and there was this sign, a picture at the girls’ department with all these really short skirts with “bootylicious” on the back. And the young lady on the ad had a skirt on well above almost to her panty line, and her legs were open. And I was like, “Where’s the manager?” So they went and got the manager. “Why is this picture here? We’re in a pre-teen department! Why are you advertising a girl in a skirt up to her underwear with her legs open?” I remember writing a letter to Kaufman’s. Kaufman’s went out of business; I’d like to think I had something to do with it, but I probably can’t take the credit. My point is, if we don’t like the images that are portrayed on TV, go straight to the sponsors. All you have to do—we can Google everything—see who those commercials are, who’s paying for this show. Some people didn’t like some of the images on the Grammys. If you write the sponsors, follow the money. We don’t have to be held hostage to our children, our girls being sexualized before they’re 10 years old.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Thank you so much, Janice! We have run out of time, but it’s so, so very important. I’m, you know, I am going to bring you back so that we can talk about this some more because this is really something that we, as women, especially with moms, grandmas, aunts, something that we should really pay attention to. I want to thank you so very, very much for enlightening us on what we can do as individuals to help our teenage girls.

Janice Williams
Thank you very much for having me! Thank you for bringing this to the public. You rock!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And you are not sticks, girl! They all want to be you now! [Laughter] Wanna be sticks again?

Janice Williams
[Laughter]

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Everyone who commented, your questions and your comments were right on point. We appreciate it! Dr. Jones says, “Well done!” Ruby Jones said, “That was powerful.” Sandy Barney says, “Excellent show and informative,” and I agree with you. Thank you so much, Janice! You have a beautiful day! Bye-bye!

Janice Williams
Thank you!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
This was really informative and powerful, and I didn’t put her contact information because she’s overwhelmed, actually, with clients and with moms really reaching her and wanting to become clients because of their teenage daughters. So I hope that everyone who was listening and watching that you got some valuable information and that you will be proactive in saving our teenage girls. In the meantime, remember relationships are important; relationships matter, and there are all kinds of relationship matters. See you again next week! Bye-bye!