In this episode, we hear from Dr. Karys Mossa, a Greensboro clinical psychologist and founder of Guilford Assessment and Psychological Services. She describes the value of comprehensive psychoeducational evaluations and explains how diagnostic labels can empower children by helping them understand how their unique brains work. She also provides strategies for managing home transitions and executive function, and offers advice on achieving healthy screen-time balance without sacrificing key digital accommodations. Join Us Live: Dr. Mossa will be part of a panel discussion at Noble Academy on Wednesday, October 21 at 5 p.m., along with pediatrician Dr. Jaclyn Dovico of Joyful Pediatrics, and our own Head of High School Academics and Pathway Programs, Jennifer Aceves. This parent tech talk is part of the Digital Citizenship Cooperative of the Triad parent education series, sponsored by Noble Academy, The Piedmont School, Lionheart Academy, Westchester Country Day School, and Westlawn School. See the show notes for more information.
RSVP to Finding the Intentional Technology Balance presentation on October 21 at 5 p.m.: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/19lpBfY4xkR3UzL8d3xAORhRT9koyx5us8gbOvLAbesQ/edit
Understanding Brains & Balancing Tech: Insights with Dr. Karys Mossa
Gayle Cole: Thanks so much for being here to talk today. Will you share a little bit about who you are and the work that you do?
Dr. Karys Mossa: I am Dr. Karys Mossa. I'm a clinical psychologist here in Greensboro and I have a private practice called Guilford Assessment and Psychological Services, and I conduct some comprehensive psychological and psychoeducational evaluations with children as young as two and a half and then also all the way through adulthood.
I do a really comprehensive eval that includes cognitive testing, educational testing, and then any additional testing that's needed to answer the questions that are bringing someone in for an evaluation. So sometimes I'm seeing children who are struggling with reading and are doing really well otherwise. But I also see folks who have multiple concerns. So maybe we're thinking about ADHD and autism or an intellectual disability in addition to these sort of educational concerns.
A lot of these developmental and learning differences also go hand-in-hand with other concerns more in the social-emotional realm, too. So I'm also doing really thorough clinical interviewing, and I send forms in advance to parents and teachers before I do testing to see if there are any other concerns in areas like anxiety or depression, or sometimes I see behavioral concerns.
So, a comprehensive evaluation really allows me to look at what's going on for someone across several domains rather than just focusing on one thing. So, I've kind of noticed a shift in recent years in my field towards these more targeted evaluations for specific diagnostic questions. And I think those can be very useful, but in my experience, families often have more than one question that they're coming in with, or I discover things through my assessment that are really important to consider as context for that person who's being evaluated.
You know, at Noble Academy, we find the evaluations we receive from strong evaluators to be incredibly useful. All evaluations are useful, and it's not because we're trying to put any child into a box, but because those terms—what they do is they unlock what kind of tools we can try, what data we have about what works with the student with that profile. And so we find it all tremendously valuable.
They also are tools for families so that they can understand how and why the child is facing a challenge, how to leverage their strengths, how to, you know, just strategies to use at home. And that's wonderful.
I know that when the parents receive the evaluation, they often talk about this internal conflict um and and sometimes between the parents, they're struggling to decide together. What do we share with the child about what this says? What do we tell them about why they did this and what it says about them? Should we let them see it? Does it depend on their age? Should we just synthesize it for them? What thoughts do you have about that?
Dr. Karys Mossa: Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts about this. This is a really, really great question. I talk about this with all of my families. So, one thing that I often bring up, I'm like, imagine if you went to the doctor and they made you do all sorts of testing and then they never told you what any of it meant and you just left not knowing what happened. I feel like that would probably be pretty confusing. Um, and there's never any resolution for that.
And so, I think there's always an age-appropriate level of sharing that we should do with children after they have an evaluation. But what that looks like depends on the family, the child, and the results themselves. As you were kind of noting, in general though, my advice is always to share the information and to share it sooner rather than later.
I offer to have children involved in feedback sessions when they work with me or to have a separate feedback session with the child to talk about what we learned about their brain and what we can do to support them moving forward. So sometimes we have to have two feedback sessions, particularly if there are things that the parents want to talk about and they have specific questions that they don't necessarily want their kid to know. I don't like to have kids in the room when I'm doing clinical interviewing because we're talking about things that are challenging for them, and I don't want them to feel like we're talking about them like they're not there, but I do like to have a feedback session with kids when families allow me to.
Um, and I think that a lot of parents are really concerned about the labels. Um, and what I've often found though is that children who are coming to see me have already been getting labeled by other people in ways that are often inaccurate or even harmful. And I've heard from a lot of my adult clients with ADHD or learning differences that they were told growing up that they were stupid or they were bad or they were lazy, or they applied these negative labels to themselves because they were comparing themselves to their classmates or their siblings and seeing differences that felt really bad.
And so an accurate label that better explains what's going on can be really empowering for these kids. So, you know, if we as trusted adults are acting afraid of those diagnostic labels or treating them like they're a secret, it tends to give it a really negative connotation.
So, if we talk about it openly and with pride, it sends a message to the child about how cool and wonderful their brain is instead. So I often want to talk about that with the kid, but if the parents aren't ready, I also give them resources, and I give these oftentimes anyway so that they can continue to have conversations about this stuff.
So there's a website that I recommend a lot called Explaining Brains. And the creator of the materials for that website, Dr. Liz Enoff, uses this metaphor about highways and construction zones. So highways are these areas where we're smooth sailing, everything is easy peasy. And then construction zones are areas where we need to slow down and pay a little bit more attention. So everyone's brain has these highways and construction zones. And once we identify them and apply some labels to them, we know where we need to slow down and put our energy.
So some of those construction zones are so common that we have names for what they are, and those are our diagnostic labels. And this kind of framing can empower children to understand that they're different and that there's nothing wrong with that. Everyone is different in lots of different ways, and this is just one way that you're different. And now that we have that information, we can use it to help support you better. Whether that's going to a school like Noble and having extra reading support or going to a therapy or some things we can put in place at home that scaffold and help your brain to remember all the steps of your morning routine or whatever it is that we need to do.
So a diagnostic label, you know, can really provide a sense of belonging. Um, I had a client once also who told me, "I always just thought there was something wrong with me, and it's really nice to know that there's a name for this and that I'm not alone in it." And that's kind of my reasoning for what I do, is that that moment can be so special and very empowering for someone. Um, and it's nice to know that there's other people like you, right? So, having that information can really help to build a sense of community with other people who have those same sorts of strengths and challenges, as all people do.
Gayle Cole: You've been talking about how the results of your evaluations help parents support their children at home, especially with executive function um, you know, those planning, organization, impulse control things. Can you give an example? What's a kind of practical scaffold that parents can set up at home this week if they have a child who's relating to what you're saying, who struggles with organizing their tasks or their focus? What might they do at home?
Dr. Karys Mossa: Yeah, great question. So, one of the ones that I think about a lot is transitions themselves are a task, and that can be a barrier. So that can have a really strong impact on how we're getting started on something. For example, if you're getting out of bed to start the day or stepping away from a really fun activity to do some chores, it can make it really hard to get going on something um that's less fun, like brushing your teeth or taking out the trash, if you're transitioning away from something that's really cozy like your bed or really fun like your favorite video game.
So timers and warnings about that transition coming can help to lessen the difficulty with that transition. So, what I recommend to families a lot is to try letting your kid know when there's five minutes left in what they're going to do or 5 minutes before it's time to get started on something like your homework. Rather than just walking up and saying, "Okay, it's time right now to start your homework," doing something like a timer and a warning can help a lot with that piece.
So, I often recommend visual timers, too, for this purpose because that can be really helpful because some of our uh neurodivergent brains have a really hard time understanding and recognizing the passage of time itself. Um, and then you can also add rewards in. So you can pick a few things that your kid's really good at and a few that they're working on and put them on a little chart where they can earn rewards for completing them. And you can help them um to pick out the rewards, and they can get involved with choosing the rewards so that they can be, you know, involved in the process.
It's a little secret I think that we often don't think about, too, that we um expect perfection and then when the expectation isn't met, then there's like no motivation to kind of keep going on something. So sometimes I'll talk to families and they'll say, "Oh yeah, we set it up so that if they make their bed every day this week, then on Friday they get to go out and do this fun thing." But if they forgot to make their bed on Tuesday, then there's no motivation on Wednesday through Friday to make their bed. So you might as well give up until next week.
So instead, I like to say, "Let's offer a small reward each time," or um when they make their bed five times in a row—or not in a row, but five times total—rather than it having to be all in one week, then they still get that reward and so they're still working towards it and they know they can try again tomorrow and they have a new a new day to try.
Gayle Cole: We're so grateful to you for agreeing to talk on our series of parent Tech Talks. Um, the one at Noble focused on wellness from having balance in technology. And this is something that is for an array of local schools. And so um as an LD school, we think about how complex technology is in the lives of students with learning differences or with ADHD, autism, executive function differences, etc., because for those learners, the neurodivergent, it can be such a valuable learning accommodation technology can. The tools on your phone, the tools on your computer, those things can be really helpful, but they also can be an easy dopamine trap.
And I wonder if you can talk about how families can approach this idea of: we need to be in balance for the sake of wellness. We need to be both tech and analog without removing the accommodations and the helpful tools that we have come to train students on because they're valuable.
Dr. Karys Mossa: Yeah. I think timers can be a big help with this area, too. I think what's most important is to decide what works for your family in terms of the screen time itself and the content, and just to stay consistent with it, whatever that looks like for you guys. Um, kids might not act like it, but their brains really like consistency and clear expectations. So, if we can, you know, set the rules in advance and maintain that consistency, we can avoid having a struggle when it's time for screen time to end every time. And if they learn that if they beg hard enough that you'll eventually give in, you'll be in that power struggle every time that it's time to put the iPad down.
So if we say, you know, "In 5 minutes iPad time is over, you had a total of 30 minutes" or whatever that number looks like for your family, and then when it's over, it's over and we're consistent about that, then we won't have a fight every time. So set the timer for screen time and then give reminders when there's just a few minutes left so that we can prep for that transition.
This can also get tricky, I think, with video games because if your kid's in the middle of something that they can't stop immediately without messing something up for themselves in the game, they can get really frustrated.
Like if they're like, "I'm in the middle of the level and if I stop now, then whatever." So if they're playing games, you can check in with them at that 5-minute mark and say, "Okay, so depending on what kind of game they're playing, maybe we don't start a new level for that last 5 minutes." So having that little warning in there gives also an opportunity for a check-in for what we're going to do for those last few minutes of screen time so that we're not having a power struggle at the end of that.
So maybe we don't make the silly choice of starting a new level with only five minutes left when we know the level's going to take us 10 minutes and we're going to be upset. So maybe we do something else for those last few minutes instead.
But I think the balance of screen time for different purposes can be kind of a a complex thing and it's a personal family decision, and I think the guidance has changed a ton, you know, over the years about what amount of screen time and how much and in what ways. But I think the most important thing is that your family feels confident in what you're doing, and you know it's it's an amount and a content area that is comfortable for your family and your child.
Gayle Cole: Yes. I know sometimes parents will hear their child say, "But I need to be on my computer all the time, it's for school," or "That's where my agenda and my timer, you know, that's where I go for all of my support." Um, and then parents feel a little bit like their hands are tied. What do you—what would you advise them?
Dr. Karys Mossa: Yeah, I think it depends on if it's actually really required, right? So maybe you have to have a conversation with your kid and with the school about what that looks like for your family. So if they need to have that agenda um to have that up, if it's in PowerSchool or wherever we're kind of doing all of our homework, that time shouldn't count against them for their screen time, right? Um, fun screen time versus school screen time is different.
And also there are some things that we could go more analog on outside of that. And I mean, maybe we write down the agenda in advance at the beginning of homework time. We get it all written down, we take a break from the screen, and we come back and check it all off at the end if that's how it works.
And then maybe we as a family take a screen time break after homework for a little while and have family time where our phones are put away, um or we have more group-oriented screen time like we watch a movie together, or maybe we go on a walk or whatever to get our eyes away from those blue lights all the time.
Gayle Cole: I think for a lot of people, it's nice to see some of the analog coming back—people wearing a regular watch that's just a watch that you just wind and it has hands and not a display. And that, you know, you can always use an egg timer. In fact, you can use the timer—we've in the past used timers from board games that had the sand to time things. And, you know, not everything—sometimes there's a good analog solution to the constant use of the digital tools, and also sometimes those tools are serving a very intentional purpose, and sometimes you want your child to be connecting on FaceTime with their cousin in another state and that's a social experience and a learning opportunity, and it isn't necessarily the thing that you're worried about when you're worried about screen time balance.
Dr. Karys Mossa: Yeah, absolutely. I think that kind of comes back to the content thing, too. It's like, what are we using the screen for? What is the purpose of its use in this moment? And how much time are we willing to put on that? I think we'd all be willing to let our kids spend more time on FaceTime with a cousin than we might with them on Roblox with strangers.
Gayle Cole: Right, right. So, you shared one great resource that you like. Are there any others as we wrap this up?
Dr. Karys Mossa: I would say I think there's a lot of really great online resources that I would love to share with you. I don't know if you can put them in the notes for the podcast. That would be fun. I've got some cool resources for that.
Gayle Cole: We'll be glad to put those in our show notes. So, thank you again. I appreciate it and we hope that we'll see you around Noble again in the future.
Dr. Karys Mossa: Sounds great. Thanks so much. I have—I got um a fun one from Explaining Brains that talks a lot about screen time that I really like that I think might be a helpful one.