Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/695013
66 KIDS BAY AREA NEWS GROUP placedbysocialmediaplatforms that make it easier to go incog- nito: Snapchat and Facebook, WhatsApp and Kik, texting secrets late into the night. ABIJAABBADASARICAME from India with her husband in 1998 to Silicon Valley, where they're raising two kids in San Jose, including 13-year-old Smarana. She says dealing with her teens has often been "a roller coaster of emotion for me." She and her husband recent - ly agreed to let their daughter have a smartphone, but it was a rocky road to reach the decision. Sometimes, such as after a recent refusal to let Smarana attend a school dance, things can get edgy and the teen-parent connection seems to short-circuit. "She was very upset, slamming the door, crying,'' says Abbadasari. "She said to me, 'This is the last dance at school, and I won't see any of my friends anymore.' It was a lot of drama.'' For her part, Smarana says that while she and her parents "are pretty open with each other, I do talk more to my friends because they're my age. There's a differ - ence between friends and parents. It would be a little weird'' to think of her parents as her friends. But she says communication is key to the teen-parent relationship, and she enjoys that back-and- forth with hers. "Thankfully, my parents know to trust me.'' Bob Casanova, a licensed mar - riage and family therapist in the Bay Area, says there's an explana- tion for all the drama. "Psychologist Erik Erikson es- tablished the psychological stages of development," he says. "This stage, from 12 to 18 year[s] old, is called 'identity vs. role confusion,' and it's when kids start asking that existential question of, 'Who am I?'" Today, he says, there "are lots of new forces, like social me -