This article summarises the Nip in the Bud Podcast on how to move towards a smartphone free childhood and focuses on the pressures felt by children, parents and school professionals around the use of smartphones, social media, gaming and online bullying.
We consider the questions…
- Is my child addicted to their smartphone?
- How can I help my kids balance phone and screen time with time outside?
- How can schools support parents in not buying their child a phone while in primary school?
- How can schools teach online safety in primary school?
- How can I check my child’s phone usage?
- What Apps can my child use safely?
- How can I protect my child from online bullying and porn?
- What is the link between mental health problems and smartphones in our children?
To find out the answers to these questions read on and listen to our podcast with Susie Davies at Nip in the Bud Podcasts.
I am an education consultant and ex-Head Teacher, Alis Rocca, and I am in conversation with Dr Susie Davies on this podcast. Susie is a GP and the mother of two teenage daughters and a twelve-year-old son. Five years ago, when deciding how to manage smartphones within her own family, Susie founded the charity PAPAYA (Parents Against Phone Addiction in Young Adolescents). PAPAYA aims to educate and empower parents on the mental health problems associated with smartphones and social media, and to help parents work together when navigating how they can delay technology with their children.
In this podcast we discuss the common issues and concerns that arise when children have access to smartphones and social media at a young age. Susie talks about her experience as a GP coming across the mental health issues linked to unlimited phone, social media and internet use. She shares her experience as a mother dealing with the challenging parenting approaches that are required to keep your child safe, happy and healthy as they grow and develop.
Some of the themes that Susie and I discuss together are:
What is the correlation between mental health problems and the use of technology?
- Use of smartphone from a young age
- Excessive use of technology leading to poor mental health
- Phone addiction
- Underage use of Apps
How can we delay buying our child a smartphone?
- Work together with other parents to agree to a no phones embargo
- Work together with the school to inform and teach other parents and children of the dangers of having a smartphone too young
- Form community to create a healthy, positive balance with technology
What is the effect of technology on our lives?
- Impacts on our relationships
- Affects our interpersonal skills
- Takes time away from other hobbies and skills
- Takes time away from our exercise and healthy living
- Reduces our self confidence through comparison
- Impacts on how we view the world and ourselves within it
Why is comparison so damaging to our mental health?
- Social media encourages comparison with people from around the whole world
- False idea of reality online with no real ‘backstory’
- Comparison begins younger as younger children have access to social media
- Comparison impacts how we feel about ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally
What can schools do to help?
- Review and update the phone policy and technology use regularly
- Keep phones away from children during the school day
- Engage with parents regularly and inform them of the detrimental side of smartphone usage
- Encourage parents to delay buying a phone until secondary school
- Headteachers to collaborate so that all local schools have similar policy
During our conversation we consider the question…
What does a thriving family look like in this technology heavy age?
Susie discusses the idea that a thriving family is one that shows positive wellbeing. It is a family where all members of it are doing well, and are living life well, rather than just surviving. We go on to discuss how there are so many benefits that technology can bring to our families and we need to be clever and vigilant in order to take the best bits and leave anything that is detrimental to us all thriving.
For example, being able to stream a great movie or series and enjoy watching it together as a family. Taking time to discuss it afterwards and to share ideas or thoughts on any of the themes that may have been brought up. Listening to music, being able to access art and dance and literature at the press of a button is exceptionally rewarding and fulfilling, and we should be sharing these experiences together. All of this can help us to thrive in our lives and to develop and grow. Through the use of technology we can learn about all parts of the world, about people and their cultures, and about history and this can be something that may change us for the better as humans.
Technology can bring us together but we need to have good boundaries in order to make sure we utilise the best bits of tech. We need to know when to switch off screens and how to find balance in our lives.
Screen time must be balanced with time reading a book, exercising, eating together, doing tasks and being outside in nature. Each one of these is as important as the next and children need to be explicitly taught this. As parents and educationalists we are fighting against huge corporations who make millions by understanding how the human brain works and using this neuroscience to better sell their products that will steal our time and ultimately make us unhappy. They understand how to create dopamine hits in the brain that help to get us addicted to phone usage, to gaming, online shopping or scrolling endlessly. It takes the whole family working together, and with other families, to understand this and to notice when the balance has tipped the wrong way.
As parents and professionals working with children, we must model the behaviours that we wish to see in the children. This will mean switching off the phone or computer, putting it away so that notifications do not disturb a meal or a conversation. It means time fully present with oneself or with a family member with no emails or messages being sent or screens used for any reason. If we do not demonstrate this to our children, they will not do it in return. They will not feel the benefits of screens being put away and will only remember the bursts of dopamine that keep them addicted to their phones.
We need to be modelling good boundaries from the moment we have babies, they watch and learn from our behaviours even from the earliest age. A play-based childhood, and one in which children are encouraged to be creative, active and outdoors often, will impact positively on their development and their mental health.
We need to understand the effect of looking at screens before sleep and how this impacts negatively not only on the time it takes to get to sleep, but on the quality of the sleep we have throughout the night and on the duration of our sleep. The impact of not having enough good quality sleep affects the brain both in adults and children and we can often see and feel this in the brain fog, the sleepiness felt in mid-afternoon, the lack of focus, energy and sometimes the lack of joy found in doing things that would ordinarily bring us a sense of wellbeing and fulfilment.
Susie goes on to discuss some of the data that is coming out of the millennium cohort study which is showing that if girls spend more than 5 hours a day on screen they have a 40% chance of having mental health issues. It is becoming more apparent that the younger that children are given screens, the more the correlation between mental health issues, emotionally based school avoidance and self-harm.
As parents and educational professionals we need to come up with healthy boundaries and compromises that will protect our children online and with potential phone addiction. We are in a better position than them to know and understand the dangers of screen use, and this should be central to our conversations with them. Talking to your child about their phone and screen use, sharing the knowledge about phone addiction and how this works in the brain with your child in order for them to understand what is happening, is key to keeping them safe. The likelihood is that we will get resistance from them for this type of conversation and we need to be ok with that and do it anyway.
Children need to be comfortable with difficult conversations so that they know they are safe in sharing any online bullying that they may be receiving or indeed seeing happening to their peers. They need to understand the importance of calling bullying out and know that over time consistent online bullying will impact on their mental health leaving them feeling a lack of self-confidence, feeling unsafe and a victim. Speaking to an adult can support them to know how to manage the situation and to hold the bully to account.
Because porn is so readily available online, parents must understand that if they give a child a smartphone they are then potentially only one click away from accessing porn. Once seen, this cannot be unseen. Susie explains the highly addictive and harmful impact of porn on our children. They need to know that they can talk to the adults in their lives who can help and support them through what they may have been exposed to.
As well as ensuring we have open and honest relationships, to protect our children and young people we can also look at the phone regularly and see the average screen time, the App usage and the search history. We can use parental control Apps to ensure safer usage. Conversations need to be had around this and we need to begin to change any negative habits and replace them with other family oriented things – board games, going for walks, visits etc. We need to replace the negative with positive, not simply remove the phone, game or app, but be proactive in creating shared positive habits that can replace them, together.
Let us know what you do to help keep your child safe around smartphones and online usage.
Listen to our podcast and read and download our fact sheet to find out more, or watch our film for parents and film for teachers.
Useful links
- Jonathan Haidt: The Anxious Generation
- Anna Freud – Mentally Healthy Schools: Online/Cyber Bullying
