My 9-Year-Old Is Obsessed With a Meaningless Metric. It Has the Power to Ruin Her Day.

Care and Feeding Aug 19, 20261:00 PM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Andrii Iemelyanenko/Getty Images Plus. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, My 9-year-old daughter has become obsessed with her social media accounts to the point where her entire sense of self-worth is tied to how many likes she gets for her posts. If she doesn’t get as many likes as she thinks she deserves, she is in an absolute black mood for the rest of the day. How do I convince her that the world isn’t ending because she didn’t get the equivalent of a standing ovation for posting what she had for breakfast? —There’s Life Beyond Your Phone Dear There’s Life Beyond Your Phone, Your 9-year-old isn’t capable of regulating