Speaker 1Before we begin, this episode is brought to you by Biogland Smart Minds. The clocks have gone back, it's dark by tea time, and if bedtimes have quietly gone sideways in your house, you're not alone. Mine were just the same. Biogland Smart Minds are tasty, sugar-free gummies designed to support growing minds, balanced moods and restful sleep. And they're the ones I'm happy to recommend. Available online and in store at Holland & Barrett. There are three kinds of parents listening to this episode. At the extremes, there are the ones who are deep in it. The fights, the meltdowns, when you take the phone away, the feeling that you have already lost this battle and you're not quite sure how it happened. And then at the other extreme, there are the ones who are not there yet, whose children are younger or who have not yet handed over a smartphone and who want to know what they are doing. walking into. And of course, we've got those that are in between. This episode is for all three of you. Now, before we get into it, if you are new here, or you've been listening for a while, but have not yet done so, please hit follow. It means you will never miss an episode. And given that what we're covering today, you'll want to come back for the next one too. Right, screen time. I want to start with the research because it matters and because it will help you understand what you are actually dealing with. And then I want to get deeply practical. Because knowing there is a problem does not help if nobody tells you what to do about it. So let's start with what we know. Hello, and welcome. How are you doing? What kind of day are you having so far? Thank you so much for being here with me. Now, this is a subject that as parents, we're bombarded with all the information out there and lots of scaremongering. And I want this to be a really practical episode. And in order for me to do a really good job with the practicalities, I have to start with what the research tells us. And so it's really important that we start there because it helps us understand a why the battle may well be happening and and be how we can prevent it. So excuse me if you have heard some of this data before or if it feels like scaremongering, it genuinely isn't intended to. It's meant to be the foundation of the scene setting in terms of the strategy. So first, let's be honest about where the science has landed. Now, for a long time, the debate about screen time was pretty muddy. Some studies showed harm, some showed nothing. And so it was quite easy in those early years to dismiss concerns as a bit of a moral panic. But time has changed. The last five years have produced some of the most significant research on child development we've seen in the generation. And the picture it paints is not comfortable. So Jean Twenge, who's a psychologist at San Diego State University, tracked mental health data for teenagers over decades. And the trend line was broadly flat. And then around 2012, something changed. Anxiety, depression, loneliness. Anxiety, depression, loneliness, and self-harm in teenagers, particularly girls, started rising sharply. 2012 is the year smartphone ownership became widespread amongst teenagers. Now, you have no doubt heard of Jonathan Haidt, even if you haven't read his book, The Anxious Generation. And it has been one of the most discussed parenting books in years. Now, he calls this the great rewiring of childhood. Now, I will say upfront that Jonathan presents quite a lot of data in his book. And there has been some controversy about this idea about cause and effect. So let me just explain very briefly. We can often show in research that there is a relationship between two things. As one thing goes up, something else goes up. As one thing goes down, the other thing goes down. Or you can get as one goes up, the other goes down. But fundamentally, that is different when you show that there's a is very different to what we call causality. This X causes Y to happen. So there has been quite a bit of debate about the data that Jonathan presents. But fundamentally, if we just accept the premise that there has been this rewiring of childhood, because there's lots of data that shows that in essence, we've had a shift in childhood from outdoor, unsupervised physical play, towards phone-based, screen-mediated, always on social life, and that that has actually damaged children's mental health in ways that we are still reckoning with. Now, the harm that the data presents so far is not uniform. So for girls, social media appears the most damaging. There's always going to be exception, but this is broadly speaking what the data suggests. And it's particularly important for boys to understand that they're not alone. They're not alone. They're not alone. They're not alone. They're not alone. They're not alone. They're not alone. They're not alone. The performance of their life that has to be seen to be validated. And for boys, we have gaming and the online communities, those appear to be more problematic for them. Not because they are without value, but because they can become a substitute for the in-person relationships and challenges which boys need to develop. Okay? So here is the mechanism which matters most. Smartphones, smartphones, and social media platforms are designed by some of the best engineers in the world to be as engaging as possible. And we know that as adults. The variable reward mechanism, so you kind of change the way that the reward comes in, whether it's the scroll, the like, the notification, that activates the same dopamine pathways as a slot machine. So it's not a coincidence. It is by design. And what's important here is that children's brains, which are still developing well into their mid-twenties, are particularly vulnerable to this. So when we think about, you hear it all of the time, this prefrontal cortex, the bit behind the forehead, is the part which develops the latest. It's the latest to mature. And that regulates impulses. And it says that when it's fully mature, it's able to say, I've had enough. And it chooses the long-term benefits over the short-term gain. But it's not yet fully online for our children. Which means the system designed to hook adults is even more effective on children. And then there is the displacement problem. And in lots of ways, this I think can be actually more damaging when we think about its cumulative effect, is that every hour that's spent on a screen is an hour that's not spent doing something else. Not sleeping, not playing, not having an unstructured, awkward, formative in-person conversation. Not developing the skills which only develop through boredom, challenge, and embodied experience. So none of this means screens are evil. It means screens, particularly smartphones and social media, carry real risks, which we now understand much better than we did a decade ago, 10 years ago. And it means the stakes of getting this right are higher than many of us probably have realized when we handed over that first device. So let's talk about five signs that it has gone too far. So how do we know when it has become a problem? Not my child uses screens, but this has tipped into something which is affecting their development. So here are the five signs I would want every parent to know. Number one, they cannot transition off. Now I talk a lot and on previous podcast episodes about quite often when it comes, you know, young people about device use is often about the transition. This is more nuanced than simply that. So this is not about moaning. It's not about, you know, five more minutes. It's about genuine dysregulation, meltdowns, rage, inconsolable distress when the screen goes off, the kind of reaction which is wildly disproportionate to what just happened. And what this tells you is that the screen has become a co-regulator. There'll be more of this in the other signs as well. Their nervous system has outsourced its ability to manage itself to a device. The device is doing kind of the emotional regulation work. Their brain should be building the capacity to do itself. The bigger the reaction to screens going off, the more dependent their nervous system has become on that external input. So that's number one. Number two, everything else has shrunk. So think back six months, 12 months, two years, whatever stage you're at in terms of device use. What did your child do pre that time or pre their obsession with it or pre their spending hours on it? What did they enjoy? Who did they spend time with? Now look at now. If the hobbies have dropped away, if the friends they used to see are no longer there, what did they do? What did they do? What did they do? What did no longer coming round. If the physical activity has stopped, if they used to read and they don't anymore, this is the displacement problem made visible in your child. The screen has not just taken up time, it has crowded out development. And the timings and the things it has displaced, physical activity, in-person friendship, unstructured play, reading, creativity, are precisely the things which build resilience, which regulate mood, which develop the skills that they will need as adults. Number three, sleep is affected. Now, not just that they go to bed late or it's something much more pervasive than that. It's difficulty falling asleep. It's. It's maybe waking in the night, maybe not feeling rested in the morning, a tiredness which does not go away even over the weekend. The blue light from screens, regardless of what your young people will tell you, still impacts them, even if there is these blue filters that they talk about. But it suppresses melatonin production, and that's the hormone which signals to the brain that it's time to sleep. But it's not just the light. The mental activation. The motivation of scrolling, the unfinished conversations, the social comparison, which happen in the last minutes before sleep, all of it makes the brain harder to switch off. It makes complete sense. And chronic sleep disruption in children and in teenagers is one of the most significant risk factors for anxiety, depression, poor concentration, emotional dysregulation. It is not a small thing. And number four. Mood is significantly lower without it. So every child is grumpier without their screen. That is normal. Here I'm talking about something much more pronounced. A child who genuinely cannot access or doesn't appear to be able to access pleasure from anything else. Who, screen-free, is flat, listless, irritable, unable to settle. Who can't seem to find anything interesting. Who can't engage in. Who can't play, can't engage in conversation, or just generally engage or enjoy. This is what I hear from parents of children who have passed a certain threshold. Yeah? It's like there's nothing behind their eyes when the phone is away. This is not normal grumpiness. This is a brain which has become calibrated to a level of stimulation which ordinary life cannot match. And number five. They're using devices as a way to avoid. Not relaxing, not winding down, avoiding. So using the screen to escape a feeling they cannot process otherwise. Yeah? The anxiety about Monday. The worry about the friendship. The shame about the exam. The sadness they can't name. The anxiety and stress about completing work. The lack of confidence in their capability. The screen becomes a pressure valve. And every time they use it. To escape discomfort, the brain learns that this is how discomfort is managed. You know, the capacity to tolerate and work through difficult feelings, which is one of the most important skills a child can develop, does not get built because they are actively avoiding it at every opportunity. And the question here is not, are they using screens a lot? It is, what are they doing when they pick up the screen? Relaxing is. It's fine. Avoiding is a signal. Now, this looks different at different ages. So let me give you a bit of an idea about this. For our under sevens, the research here is really clear. Under two, screen time, other than video calling, has absolutely no developmental benefit. And the meaningful risks to language development and sleep are clear. Despite what we get told by clever apps. that say that this is really helpful for our children's development. It just simply isn't the case. The risks are far too high. From the age of about two to seven, the displacement concern is the most acute here. Because children learn, and particularly in those early brain development aspects, and that's socialization, they learn through physical play, through cooperating with others, through movement, through touch, through interaction, and screen time displaces that. So the sign to watch for is. Sleep disruption and language delay. Any screen in the bedroom at this age is worth removing. So as we move up to our seven to 11-year-olds, this is the age range I think that probably catches a lot of parents off guard. Minecraft, Roblox, YouTube. They're genuinely social for this age group. Your child is not just playing. They're navigating friendship, negotiation, creativity. And that has real value. But this is also. This is also the age at which habits form. The question to ask is not how long, but what is being crowded out. If homework, physical activity, sleep, and in-person friendships are all intact, the balance may be fine. If they are eroding, then that is a signal. For our 12 to 15-year-olds, this is the highest risk window, particularly for social media. And also. I would say that this is the age at which identity is most fragile. This is where our young people are often beginning that transition to a new school. That transition of sort of moving away from who am I within this household to who am I within the wider world. And so comparison can be most painful. And the need to belong can be at its most acute. And social media meets all of those needs in a way that feels satisfying in the moment. And tends to leave young people feeling emptier afterwards. Online friendships are real, and I do not want to dismiss them. But the performative layer of social media, the likes, the followers, the curated self of who I am to the public, does something specific to adolescent girls, which the research is now very clear about. And I hear from parents of girls in this age group more than any other. The flatness. The comparison. The sense that everyone else has a better life. This is not teenage drama. It's a documented effect of a specific technology. And when we're thinking about for our 16-year-olds and over, by this stage, most young people have smartphones and social media. So even with a ban, they will be able to once they're over 16. And the question here shifts from should they have it to how do they use it? And what I hear. What I hear from teenagers is that the fear of missing out, FOMO, is real and exhausting. That's what they're saying to you when they're saying all my friends are able to have their phone in their bedroom. Because it is this idea about the fear of missing out. Maybe they don't have permission to have them in their bedroom, but they are being sneaky or they're just staying up much later and therefore they're on their phones. The always-on nature of group chats. The expectation of interaction. The constant replies. You know, I can't reply because, you know, I've had my phone taken away from me. The social consequences, you know, of being seen to have read something and not responded. The skills a 16-year-old needs are not the skills to avoid screens. They are the skills to manage their own relationship with them. And that is what we're going to be building towards. Now, a note here for parents of neurodivergent children. I want to pause here because this matters. For many neurodivergent children, ADHD, autism, sensory processing difficulties, screens can be genuinely regulating. The focused, controlled, predictable world of a screen can provide exactly the kind of sensory environment their nervous system needs. This is not pathological. It is functional. And removing screens without understanding that function or using screen restriction as a function of punishment can cause real harm. The sign to watch for is not how much. It is whether transitions are possible at all. If a neurodivergent child absolutely cannot transition off screens, that is a signal to look at. What need is being met and how else could it be met? Not to necessarily impose an arbitrary limit. Get curious before you get restrictive. And if you're struggling with this, it is. It is worth speaking to someone who understands both the neurodivergence and the technology. Now, what actually helps? So let's think about where you are starting from. And here is what I want to do different in this particular episode. Most advice about screen time assumes that you are starting from a clean slate. That you have a young child and you are setting up good habits. The reality is that most of the parents I hear from are not in that position. So I want to meet you where you actually are with three different starting points. And then as a result of that, three different approaches. So number one, if the horse has already bolted, yep, this is for you if screen time is already out of control. control. If the fights are daily, if you feel like you have lost this one, the first thing is do not go cold turkey. And I know that feels counterintuitive, but a sudden in post withdrawal from something the brain has become dependent on triggers a genuine stress response. The meltdowns will get worse before they get better. The relationships get damaged. And in most families, it ends in capitulation and the problem returning because it's just so too much for your child, but also too much for you. What works better is slower, deliberate negotiated change. And I really would encourage you to stick with this. If the horse is bolted and almost your entire life feels like it is about battling technology. If you go at this slowly and deliberately and negotiated, okay, yes, it might, it will take you. Considerably longer. But what you will have is change that is cooperative and change, which is lasting and meaningful. So start with the bedroom because this is the single highest impact change that you can make. Phones and tablets are laptops as well are out of the bedroom at night, non negotiable, charged in a family space. So you're not at this stage, not reducing their access to it at any other time. You are just simply sitting there. You're not reducing their access to it. That doesn't stay in their bedroom. And then that really targets the one thing that we know, which is around sleep. This one change, if it's done consistently improves sleep within two weeks in most children and better sleep improves mood, impulse control, and the capacity to have a rational conversation about everything else. If you repair the relationship before you restrict the advice, so the devices are coming out of bedrooms. And then as a result, you're not able to sleep. And as a result of that, over those two weeks, that sleep will have a significant effect. And we then focus on repairing the relationship before we start restricting the device. So if your child currently sees you as the enemy in a battle over screens, they will resist everything. Find something to do alongside them. Acknowledge that you have not always got this right. Be self-deprecating. You know, we make errors as parents, and I think it's perfectly acceptable to own those and communicate that to our children. Come at it from a place of, I'm worried about you, rather than you're doing something wrong. Pick one thing, not everything at once, one boundary introduced with explanation, with consistency, and with time to adjust, and then build from there. And get curious, ask genuinely, what are they getting from their screen, but ask in a way where you really listen. What would it mean to have less access? What are they worried about? Because the answer will tell you what you're actually dealing with, and what else needs to be in place. So that's if your horse is already bolted. If you can still wade in, so this is a situation where things have not yet got out of control, but you can see the direction of travel, and you want to course correct before it gets there. You still have influence here, and we want to use it. So we want to create tech-free zones, rather than just use it. Time limits. And research consistently shows that rules about where screens are allowed are more effective, and less conflict generating, than rules about how long. No screens at the table, no screens in the bedroom, no screens for the first 30 minutes after school, you know, that becomes a decompression window. Build the transition ritual, five minutes before screen time ends, give a warning, and tell them what comes next, not just off, now. But off now, and then we're having dinner. The transition is easier when the brain knows what is coming next, and that's part of the discussion that you can have with them, is how can we better transition? Is it that they have a five-minute window? Is it that they have a timer? However that works, that's part of that negotiation. Replace, don't just remove. The screen is currently meeting a need, and if you take it away without replacing what it is doing for them, the need remains, and the pressure to get the screen back increases. So you want to replace it with something that it does for them. What fills the space? That's the question. For younger children, the answer is often physical activity and absorptive play. For teenager, it tends to be their answer, not yours. So have that conversation. Involve them in the agreement, maybe a written family agreement, not imposed, but negotiated. That's more likely to be followed than a rule delivered from on high. What are the rules? What happens when they're broken? What can they expect in return? Put it on paper and revisit it, and if you are not yet signed up to the free resource library, which is drmaryhand.com forward slash library, you can access a screen time, a family agreement. Print that off and use that as a framework, whether you use exactly that one or you create one of your own, you can go and do that. So we've looked at all When the horse is bolted, when we can see it's going in the wrong direction, but we're still able to have those conversations. So now let's look at if we haven't actually handed over a device yet. So this is for parents whose children are younger, or they may well be older, but you're at the threshold of the first smartphone decision. And you have time to use that. So the first one is delay as long as you reasonably can. I know the social pressure is real, but there are more and there's a delay process. You know, we get caught up in this, everyone else has one, but the research is unambiguous that delay protects, particularly for smartphones and social media. A year makes a significant difference in terms of brain development. When you do get there, and you do decide to hand over that smartphone, start with less. A basic phone, which calls and texts, but the first device is a practice ground for the relationship with technology, not an immediate handover of everything. And as you know, I talk a lot about this idea, and I know our children don't see it, but it is a privilege, not a right. And with privileges come responsibility. So we talk about that from the outset, we follow through consistently with that. And we explain that this is the starter and they have to show that they can be responsible. And once they've demonstrated that we can then layer on and add extra things. And we want to start them, maybe using it in family space. The first weeks of a new device set the pattern. If it starts in the living room, shared, visible, that becomes the norm. If it starts in the bedroom, then it becomes much harder to reverse. Build the conversation now before the device arrives. What are your expectations? What are the rules? What does responsible use look like in your family? Having that conversation before they have the device is infinitely easier than having it afterwards. And model what you want to see. Children are much more likely to do what they see than what we say. And we forget how profoundly our relationship with our phones has on our children in terms of what we model. They're watching you on your phone more than you realize. The relationship with technology, which you demonstrate, is the one they will internalize. That is both a challenge and an opportunity. It may well be something that you consider that this is actually a real opportunity for me, you know, as a parent to reconsider my relationship with my phone. Now, the question underneath all of this that I want to leave you with is, and it's the matter, it's the question which matters most. And it's not how much screen time is my child having or how much screen time is appropriate. It is what need is the screen meeting and I help meet that need in another way. Connection, escape, stimulation, identity, belonging, control in a world which feels uncontrollable. All of these are legitimate needs. The screen is just one often imperfect and often costly way of meeting them. When you understand the function, you can work with it. And when you work with it rather than against it, you are much better. So that's it for today. If any of that landed, if you found yourself nodding or recognizing something in your child, why not share it with another parent? That's the best thing you can do for this show and honestly, for them too. Everything I mentioned is in the show notes. And if you have two minutes to leave a review, I'd genuinely be super, super grateful. It helps more parents find the show when they need it most. And if you haven't already hit follow, please do. The next episode lands on Monday and it's not one to miss. Until then, you're doing better than you think.
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