Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pull yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. This is a festive compilation episode and before I do the proper introduction to it, can I just take one moment to make a small, super small request. If you enjoy this podcast, whether you are an active listener, you listen every single week, twice a week, whether you're a bit of a dipper, you come in and out when the topics are particularly pertinent to you, whether you share the episodes, whether you tell everybody, whatever kind of podcast listener you are. I'm just going to make a small request and that is if you enjoy it, please could you spare a moment or two to rate the podcast out of five, to review it, one sentence, why you like it and also to click follow. Now, by clicking follow, what you do is you simply say to whichever podcast provider you listen to, whether that's Spotify or Apple, you're simply saying, please, when new episodes come out, can you pop them in my library? And when I'm ready, I'll listen to them because they're there for me and I don't need to do anything else. Literally takes maybe two minutes to rate, follow and review. That's all. And I would be eternally grateful. Now, this episode is a compilation of your favorite guest moments. So these are the ones that you write in and say that there were real light bulb moments, real amazing clarity and insight that helped you begin to make changes to support and empower that raising those resilient adults. So we've pulled them together in one episode so that you can enjoy the best bits. Now, there is no give with this particular episode, but of course, if you haven't yet signed up to the free resource library, then of course, head over to drmerryhand.com forward slash library, where you'll find the link to download all of the resources. You simply put your email address in and then you get instant access. To all the resources. Now, the podcast has been going for over three years, so there's a lot of free resources, really valuable, helpful pieces of information, crib sheets, nudges and actual practical strategy resources there. So head over there and you'll be able to get access to all of those. As ever, if you enjoy this episode, second nudge here for a rate, follow and review. If you could do that, I would be eternally grateful so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time, here are your favourite guest moments. Why do you think that the numbers are so heavily weighted in terms of the issues around self-harm and the issues around depression amongst a whole host
Speaker 2with girls more so than boys? It's a great question and it's one that I ask myself a lot. I think the big difference between girls and boys is that around the mental health issue is that they come into puberty a couple of years before boys do. And so they are having to deal with the massive transition and the changes and the challenges of puberty, whether that be the physical changes and all the pressures that girls feel for how they should look and seem and behave, coupled with the fact that their brains start to change. So they become less able to assess risk, to think clearly, to manage their emotions, to be able to think themselves at a younger age than it happens to boys. So they have fewer tools, they have less life experience. And so then couple that with the fact that this often coincides with the transition from primary to secondary school. So at the time that they're really managing all those changes of puberty, they're also needing to move from little school to big school. And often what coincides with that also is that they are allowed a smartphone. So we've got a kind of collision of things that just increase the pressure. For girls at that time. Now boys, I think, because they enter puberty a couple of years later, they encounter some of those difficulties a little bit later on in their teens. So it's not that we aren't seeing increase in depression and self-harm type behavior in boys and girls. And I would say, I'm seeing over the 30 years or more that I've been working with young people, I'm seeing an increase in pressure on both boys and girls, whether that be an increase in social media, the financial pressures because of what we're going through. And also parents are around less. That links in with the financial pressures. So there is less support around for our young people, boys and girls. The difficulty for girls is that they have this additional kind of collision of things that happens around the age of sort of 10 and 11 when they go into puberty, they're moving school, and they're first introduced to social media in a big way.
Speaker 1And of course, we know that that we're not going to necessarily go in depth around social media, but we know that social media is a place where society portrays women in not always the best way. And young vulnerable children, and we're not just talking about vulnerable in terms of mental health, but they're vulnerable because these formative years that they're creating this mental model and blueprint about what it means to be a woman can then create this sort of catastrophic impact of how they view themselves and how they should be.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely. And social media isn't all bad. We actually need to learn work with it with our children. But it was interesting, we had a woman on our training course a couple of years ago who was a GP. And we were talking about this. And she said, all GPs have a list of those people who are at risk of mental distress and mental illness. And on that list is teenage girl. Just being a teenage girl makes them vulnerable and puts them at risk the way the world is as a teenager.
Speaker 1Goodness me, isn't
Speaker 2that scary to know that
Speaker 1as you birth these beautiful, gorgeous baby girls, that this is what's, that they're then going to be on a risk factor. Do we know generally, statistically, what the increased probability or likelihood is when we are raising a girl that they are going to struggle either with a mental health issue or just general self, their self-esteem and their confidence compared to boys?
Speaker 2It is higher. I would say, tragically, suicide rates are higher with boys than with girls. But the self-harm and the different, and it's not just the cutting type of self-harm, but it's the eating, disordered eating. It's the having sex they don't want to have or doing things they don't want to be doing, drinking, drugs. There's lots of ways in which young people are not coping. And the coping mechanisms that they use, which we call self-harm, are actually there because they're not coping. It's their best attempts at managing in a world that isn't really set up to support our young people. It's not really very well set up to support them as they're transitioning from being a young child into being a young adult. And there's that patch in the middle where so much change is going on physically, emotionally, mentally, where we could do a lot more to support them.
Speaker 1Jim, that's a really interesting comment you've made around this, the coping mechanisms and self-harm. Would you mind just unpicking that a little bit? Because I would imagine that most people listening to this, when they think of self-harm, will be thinking very specifically either about cutting, and obviously often the assumption is it's on their arms, but we know it now happens on legs and other areas, but actually that there are other things that they can be doing, which is also self-harm.
Speaker 2Absolutely. And the thing we need to remember beneath this is what we look as being problematic behaviour or self-harming behaviour is actually that young person's best way of coping through a time of real challenge and distress. Because where it stems from is an overwhelm of feelings. It's when the world, the pressures that they're feeling, it could be around specific things that are also happening. There's a lot of abuse, bullying. We've talked already a little bit about social media, the pressures of that. When that all gets too much, it's a way of actually coping by the number, coming out, which is where the drugs and the alcohol come in, and sometimes the sex, or as a way of being in control of the pain. So creating a source of pain that actually distracts them from the internal emotional pain. So when I see that behaviour, I always actually really respect and admire that young person for having found a way of just surviving. And once they have better tools and better support in place to help them manage their feelings, then the need for the coping mechanism, whatever it is that they've chosen, does drop away. It is habit forming though, so they might need a little help out of that behaviour. But we have to remember that the teenage brain is under reconstruction. So whilst they're going through puberty, their prefrontal cortex is changing. And it means that they feel things more than we do and feel things more than they used to. But it comes at a time when they don't have as many tools as we do as adults to know how to manage that overwhelm of feelings. So any of us who've got a teen will recognise that, you know, not having the right thing to wear to the party feels like you can't go to the party or a breakup in a friendship group can feel like the end of the world. And as adults, we can look at it and just think it might seem ridiculous or trivialise it. But actually, the teen's experience is that it is that big and that significant and that serious. And that's such an important thing for us
Speaker 1to remember as parents that actually sometimes we, and it doesn't come from a place of unkindness, but we tend to minimise or try and sort of, why are you worrying? It's really not important. Why don't you just wear this? Or why is it such a big deal? For the teen, it's often the case of then feeling that we don't understand, we don't get it. And that can actually end up, in your experience, Kim, can that end up creating a bit of a wedge? And so our teens are less likely to go back to us about the change. The challenges that they're going through and then creates more of this vulnerability for them to feel that they have to cope with things on their own.
Speaker 2Yes, absolutely. And this is true of teens, but it's true of children of any age. As parents, I mean, I'm a parent of three. I know how distressing it can be when your child is struggling. You just want to pile in there and fix it. But we're not doing them a service if we do that, because not only is it not what they want and need, and they end up feeling misunderstood and not listened to, but also it doesn't equip them with the tools to be able to think through problems and figure things out, not on their own, but with the support of caring adults.
Speaker 1I guess you're talking about the idea about what we could be doing instead, rather than either trying to diminish it or dumb it down.
Speaker 2Yes, thank you. So yes, absolutely. We want to go in and fix it, but much better is to listen and trust the pauses. Trust the pauses. Trust the silences, because even if a child's not talking, their mind is thinking. And actually, in asking questions like, what do you think is needed here? Or what would you say to a good friend if they were in your situation? Or if you were to put it into words, how are you feeling right now? It helps them to bring it into a part of their brain which can start to think these things through, to take it from that kind of mess and chaos of overwhelming feeling, into starting to formulate it into something that's a bit more manageable.
Speaker 1I love those questions. And I tell you what I love, Kim, it's this trust the pauses, trust the silences. Because I think sometimes, I think, you know, I'm very open about the fact that I'm a slightly reformed control enthusiast. So I have been very guilty in my parenting of jumping in and solution orientated. What you need to do is, and actually, the magic happens in those subtle questions, and then the silence. When you were when the swap was going to happen, what was the thing that you were most dreading? Or you were most nervous about no longer having
Speaker 3your smartphone? Probably, I always said that it was being alone with my own thoughts, because I can get in my head and get myself really stressed out. And I thought that going on social media was like an escape from that and almost like a distraction. But what I realised after the process was, that's what's causing it. Social media is what's causing me to be in my head and be like, stressing about things and like, getting anxious over things. And I realised it was all being caused by social media. And when that was taken away, it went.
Speaker 1God, that's music to every parent's ears. Libby, tell me a little bit more then, because lots of us, you know, I talk a lot about it. And I think parents are often worried about this idea that devices and social media ends up becoming this place that their young children and their teens are born. What is it about social media, from your perspective, that was feeding into that overthinking and that busy brain bit?
Speaker 3I think it's the fact that you're constantly scrolling and you're seeing people and you're like, oh, that must be nice. Like, I wish I had that life. Or maybe I wish I looked like that, like comparing yourself to other people on social media. Or maybe like the pressure of, I always felt like I had to be replying to everyone all the time. And I'm messaging my friends all day and they're messaging me all day. And it's like, I feel like I have to reply to that. Or if like people are commenting on my post and I feel like I need to now comment back on their post. And there's so much pressure that doesn't really get talked about. And maybe if I wasn't on my phone, people would be messaging me and they'd be like, where have you gone? Like, what's happened? And, or maybe people would even be a bit like angry, like, why are you not replying to me? It's just that pressure where you feel like you need to on your phone and doing something. Or I know for me, whenever I'm like doing my work at college or anything like that, and my phone's always there because I'm using Google maybe to like assist me on my work. And I feel like, right, my phone's there. I just want to pick it up and go on it instead of doing my work. And it's like a constant distraction and sort of like a comfort item to me where I'm constantly like, it's there. So I'm going to pick it up. Not because I have to or I need to, just because it's there and it's convenient. Whereas without, when I had like four days without my phone, I realised I don't need to, like, I'm completely fine being independent without having to use it.
Speaker 1Yeah. And it's that, it's that kind of habitual thing. It's that not realising that you've reached out and you've already got it. Because one of the things that you shared before you did the device swap was the number of hours that you, your average number of hours on a phone. How much was that? How much time were you spending average daily on a phone?
Speaker 3It was about nine hours from about seven to 10 hours, usually nine, which is awful to say out loud because obviously you're sleeping and I'm spending all that time on my phone. But it's just the fact that everything, my whole life was on my phone because I thought that's what I needed. And I thought that I had to rely on that. Whereas now I know that I can go and get the bus without using my phone. I can go and get the bus without using my phone. I can go and get the bus without using my phone or I can get on the bus and not listen to music. Or I can go into college and be with my friends and not feel like I need to sit on my phone. I can socialise with everyone. I can even make plans instead of just like sitting in my room on my phone as like something to cure my boredom. I do have other things that I can be doing.
Speaker 1In the documentary you talked about when you didn't have your phone, you talked particularly about something at lunchtime at college. Can you just kind of, for those who haven't seen the series, and we will be, making a link to the documentary so you can see it in full, but can you sort of tell everybody about that experience over lunch?
Speaker 3Yeah, so this is my first day without my phone and I was in college and there was about maybe 10, I think about 15 of us sat at a table and I was the only person out of them 15 people that wasn't sat on my phone because I didn't have one. And usually I would be joint with them, I would be sat on my phone as well. And it was just sad to look around and see like, we're all sat here and we all have each other's company, yet we feel like we have to have our heads in our phones constantly instead of talking. And I was like, I didn't even realise that this is really sad. Like, why are we doing this? Why are we wasting our life away like this when we have everyone around us to like talk to and just socialise? Like, that's the problem with my generation. We're missing out on this. And it's sad that it took me not having my phone to realise. And I guess that
Speaker 1that, I mean, your story is probably no different to a whole host of your friends and to others in terms of how much time you kind of use that phone. Do you think that those four days that you didn't have, and I think two of those four days were actually you spent in college and two of them were over a weekend. Did you find that those two days you were in college was a real, you were able to kind of look at it with a fresh eyes, fresh lens? Because otherwise, I guess, ordinarily, you'd be. Yeah, it was, it was
Speaker 3definitely eye-opening because it just made me realise, like, because I was thinking about the fact that I didn't have my phone. Whenever I was looking around, I was like, everyone is on their phone when we're in a college full of people our age doing the same courses as us. Like, we have the same interests. Like, why aren't we talking? And I know that, like, college days are long and 10, 15 minutes on your phone probably won't, like, change any thing. But it's all day, every day. And it's like, even in lesson, like, people are still sat on their phones. And it's like, wow, like, we have a whole class, like, you're learning, you've chose to do the subject and we're sat on our phones. It's just, like, awful to watch, really.
Speaker 1I think one of the reasons that parents often sort of make the decision to give their children smartphones is because of that fear that they're going to miss out, that they're going to be different if they don't also have a smartphone. And yet, when you did that four-day experiment, you were. That different one. Did that. How did that affect your, you know, your connection with your friends or how isolated you might have felt?
Speaker 3Well, that is definitely one of the only things that I struggled with. I didn't find many things that I struggled with over the four days. But being out of contact with my friends was definitely a challenge because I'm used to talking to them and updating them and them updating me all day, every day. And I didn't have that with them. And obviously, on my phone, I could text if wanted to but it took so long and it was like that motivated me to not want to because it took so long to do and I definitely fell out of touch with them a lot more than I ever have I think because it was such a difference to go from not talking to them for even one day to like where I'd usually be talking all day every day and that was definitely upsetting for me at some points because I was like wow like I miss them so much and that's what motivated me to make the plans with them and when I made the plans I felt like I was living more if that makes sense because I was experiencing more and even if I'm with my friends and I've organized to meet up with them I still feel like I need to pick up my phone and be on my phone the whole time and the fact that I wasn't and I didn't have that phone to just reach to and pick up that's what made making plans with my friends and the whole experience so much more enjoyable because I realized that there's so much for us to do we just don't do it because we just sit on our phones even though we've got each other's company so that was definitely challenging and I know what you said about um other parents not giving their children phone if you don't give the children their phones then they'll be like an outsider and I definitely felt like that at some points because if like someone had ringed me on my Nokia the ringtone is obviously a lot different to what the usual ringtone is to all my friends so when I'd get this out everyone would laugh at me because I had this phone that was different to everybody else's and obviously that didn't bother me because all my friends knew what I was doing but um it was definitely humbling at some points when all my friends was laughing at me but yeah it didn't bother me but if that's a child who is experiencing it all the time I can see why a parent would be afraid of that
Speaker 1yeah and I guess as you say your friends knew that you were kind of doing this experiment and that you were going to be without your phone did it did it mean overall your shift the the connection time that you had with your friends shifted did it shift to more in person than online or was it the same as it had been before
Speaker 3definitely had different conversations with my friends and usually if like something happens in my life or like say if I bump into someone who like me and my friends both know I'll message them and I'll tell them and it's like I'm updating them all day every day and now when when I went to see my friends I was telling them about my day and I've I'd never had to do that before because it's always just been one quick five second text message to do and it's just been easy in there and we'll talk about other things in person whereas I felt like I was really getting getting that like social like I was able to socialize more and connect with my friends more almost about like the things I wanted to tell them about my day and it was definitely different conversations to what I was used to having with my friends when I
Speaker 1see them yeah it sounds almost Libby like the connection did it feel deeper more meaningful when you were having the conversations because you almost had to wait to have some of those whereas previously you would have just pinged a quick message yes
Speaker 3definitely it felt like the conversation was more easier to flow almost because it usually just one quick conversation and then you move on to the next whereas in person it felt like I wasn't taking this time for granted and I was I was talking to them because like I have something to tell them not just because it's a random fart in my head in that moment you
Speaker 4were talking about Zoe and the two sort of pillars of Zoe are blood sugar balancing and the gut microbiome so should we talk about blood sugar balancing have you ever done the Zoe app
Speaker 1Mary-Anne I have actually and um I've done it twice and my blood it was really interesting with the continuous monitoring actually things that I there were some things that really surprised me but the one for me that had the biggest of all of the spikes was rice which I had in sushi
Speaker 4fascinating so sushi the vinegar and sushi usually has quite a lot of sugar in it too so I wonder if it's a combination of the two together but that that's really really interesting so um I've not I've not done this but my mum had type one and type two diabetes which from you know a long time of looking at all of this blood sugar balancing is a big thing and I think there's a very high proportion of neurodivergent people go on to have diabetes of one flavor or the other you know for me it's things like raisins or grapes or mango so those sort of very very highly sweet sweet um fruits and sort of concentrated fruits seem to do a lot to my blood sugars but things like dates don't so it's all random and we were all completely different so and uh yeah so but what's really important is the big take home from these from these foods is that they're all different and they're all different and they're you know obviously children don't need to do these these glucose monitors but um the big thing is to think about eating good quality protein and good quality fat as much as possible and that would start with a really good high protein breakfast ideally savory and even if that starts off with bacon and eggs which people go that's not that healthy I go you know what it's better to have that than the Cheerios to start off with and if you know they like it and it relatively easy to do then you know and they'll accept it then that's good but then you know you could think about greek yogurt you could think about even a cheese sandwich you know you could think about um peanut butter on toast because all the sort of natural proteins the good quality natural proteins all have a healthy fat in there too so whether it's cheese or milk or peanut butter or cashew nut butter or chia seeds they've got a bit of both um and that's what nature does even grass-fed meat you know has good quality fat I wouldn't say the grain fed meat so much but the grass-fed meat will have good quality fats as well as good quality proteins so that's the sort of thing you want to start the day with if possible now I know kids don't like to change things and so I'd start changing things over a weekend or a half term or the Christmas holidays where you've got a bit more time and my recipes are for those kids that won't switch to something simple like yogurt for instance they just don't like it and so you know things like my chocolate waffles or my super boosted porridges or overnight oats they're you know sweet but they still got the protein boost and the good healthy fats in there so that's what I've tried to do with breakfast specifically
Speaker 1can I just sorry to interrupt you but I but I know one of the common things that I hear from parents with children with teens particularly is about just getting them to have some breakfast so there's there's the shift bit but there's also the getting them to actually do it is there something in the makeup their brain makeup that then makes them not want to have breakfast or is it much more to do with just a generic teen thing and how do we kind of help
Speaker 4navigate that so this is really interesting so the mineral that teens need a lot of when they're going through puberty so this could be a tween or a teen so this could be you know some kids are starting to go through puberty from sort of eight to nine onwards so you know it could be a slight younger child but essentially when you're going through puberty you use up an awful lot of a mineral called zinc and zinc is the second most abundant mineral in your central nervous system so it's really important neurologically okay but it's also super important for turning little girls into women and little boys into men and the body seems to prioritize the zinc for your hormone changes over and above things like your immune system your growth and also sense of smell and taste so we've all probably experienced that covid suddenly losing your smell and taste whether it's for a few days or for longer and it's not always due to no zinc but it's often you do to low zinc because zinc's needed for fighting colds and coughs and things like that and i would say that the prior is such a priority mineral to think about because you get depleted of zinc if you eat lots of sugary foods and teens are drawn to sugary foods you get a lot of zinc in things like seafood fish and meat and very often they decide to go plant-based because they're saving the planet or the animals so they're not getting enough zinc and they're depleting themselves because they're eating lots of sugar or you know ultra processed foods and they need it so it's that perfect storm and it's really often the time where disordered eating starts coming in you know they're skipping breakfast they're grazing on rubbish all day then you know they want to take away rather than you know cooked supper and this becomes a bit of a pattern and it just it's almost like a chicken and egg it sort of self-perpetuates itself so zinc helps to turn on a lot of your gastric juices and it can actually help you to make you hungry help you grow help you grow tall etc and so it is the primary primary mineral to have if your child is not hungry in the morning and equally if they're on adhd medications as i said earlier that can suppress the appetite during the day so it's essential to have a good breakfast even if they have to leave really early in the morning to have that zinc so what i would suggest you do is have zinc at dinner time because it's not it's not like eat zinc appetite turns on it's all about building the levels up so you'd want to give zinc to your child in the morning daily for three months. And a good teen tween dosage is about 15 milligrams. So one, five milligrams. You can go a bit higher, but that's probably the safe one if you don't know anything about their levels. And if you did that for three months, you wouldn't see a change straight away. But usually the sort of six to eight week stage is where you go, oh, they actually wanted to eat my food rather than their crisps. Or you know what? They're actually choosing the healthy option. When I put the snacks out, they're actually taking some of the healthy stuff as well. Or they're just saying things taste yummy. Oh, mummy, that bolognese tastes really good. And you're going, yeah, I've said that for years. That sort of thing. So it just basically, it's a very slow burn thing. And it can help with skin. So very often, they're not interested in what you're telling them about diet. They are really, really shut off from that. Because it's boring. Food's really boring. It doesn't taste nice. It doesn't smell nice. Unless it's crunchy, it doesn't even feel nice in the mouth. And they're not that hungry. So they just sort of want to graze. So they're not going to be interested in that. So if you say this is to help your appetite, they're going to go, I don't need that. I'm all right. But if they're a bit spotty, ashes, or eczema, or asthma, or something else, you can say, well, this would help with that. And they're so self-conscious, because they want to look their best. It's a very, very crucial time to fit in. They don't want to look strange, different, weird, whatever. And so actually, to say this is going to really help your skin is a really good inroad, even though you know it's helping skin, immune system, hormones, appetite, everything. So it's the pivotal mineral for this age group. And another one which is really important is iron, especially with girls who menstruate. So very often, I've literally seen girls go from highly masking probably, but coping autistic, straight ADHD child. And they started to go through puberty and started with the menstruation thing. And within about three cycles, so three bleeds, suddenly something changes. Their mental health crashes. They need to go to the doctor. They need to go to the They need more support. They're moody. They're not eating. You just think, my God, they've gone really depressed. They've had a breakdown. What's going on? And very often, they've just gone below that threshold that they need of iron. So iron is really important, because obviously, you lose lots of blood when you menstruate. And if you have heavy menstruation, you're going to lose more. And paradoxically, really annoyingly, if you're low in iron, you bleed more. So it kind of, again, another chicken and egg situation. Building up iron can transform a young lady in three months in terms of their outlook on life. And if they're looking pale, sort of withdrawn, just sort of, I mean, obviously, we didn't have particularly good summer this summer, but a lot are looking very pale at this time of the year, but they should still have a bit of color on them from the summer. And they're looking very sort of sheet white. And so I would go in with some iron, because iron is the most abundant mineral in your central nervous system. So it's actually even more important neurologically. Zinc, I would say, is most important for boys, because you need a lot more zinc to make testosterone and gonads and stuff like that, muscles and stuff. Whereas the girls and the boys are growing much faster. They're going taller and broader quite quickly, whereas the girls have probably done their growth spurt, or they're growing slightly less. So I'd say the zinc, if you're going to differentiate, and actually, they usually need both, to be honest, both, you know, is if you've got a boy, I'd go zinc. If it's a girl, I'd go iron. But if there's any kind of highly selective eating, I'd definitely go zinc as well. And then iron could also cause quite a sore tummy. So they can often say, when I eat, it feels funny. I just feel uncomfortable. I've got a sore tummy. I don't want to eat that. And so again, that's another sort of red flag. I love that, Lucinda.
Speaker 1I mean, it just seems, it's because you explained things so beautifully, dear, that around actually the reason why they're not enjoying food, the reason why they're not feeling hungry in the morning could simply be this mineral that we can very readily begin to supplement. So I think that that's great. And we know that teens traditionally get so drawn into the sugar fest that actually that that also depletes them, depletes that zinc level. So that's something that we can all implement really quickly and really easily.
Speaker 5Thank you. We haven't sort of been exposed to all the problems yet, because our kids aren't quite at smartphone maturity age. But it's now become obvious that there's this transition point that the latest kids get smartphones when they go to secondary school, and often it's much, much earlier. So there's just this realisation that everyone's just in this position, because everyone else is in this position. This technology has come into our lives so, so quickly. No one asked for it. No one, you know, agreed that this was going to be the way that childhood operates from now on. But this technology is so powerful, that it's just, you know, it's, it's like coming to our lives, it's taken over all of our lives and every aspect of our lives. And there's so many positive benefits to that, of course, we understand that. But it's just, I think, yeah, this sort of uprising of parents that were saying, actually, no, we agree, something's got to change here. This isn't what we want for our children. This isn't what we want for childhood overall. And so, it's just tapped into something, that initial group and the post that Daisy posted on Instagram just tapped into this, like, real heartfelt emotion that so many parents all over the country felt. And, you know, it's just extraordinary to see that momentum behind this thing. It was, as Daisy said, it felt like a real sort of tidal wave of emotion that parents, we've now just started describing it as a new frontier of parenting. Like 15 years ago, no one had to deal with this issue. You know, it just wasn't a thing at all. And now it's become the defining parenting issues of our time. So that's why it's, it was just the, you know, a sort of fluke of timing that meant that this thing was, it was the right time for someone to do something about this. And we've decided to double down on it.
Speaker 1Oh, well, all hats off to you. I think it's a much needed sort of, it's the awareness aspect. And actually, I think what's so powerful about what you've been doing at Smartphone for Your Childhood is the power of the collective and actually what, what, I think often parents have felt very helpless around smartphones. And you've just shown, demonstrated very clearly that when we come together as a collective to say, actually, for some parents, it may, they may still go ahead, but it's just simply, can we just take a moment to consider before we just hand over these devices about possibly delaying, about possibly making a different decision, that when you've got that whole power, that collective together, don't fall into this sort of unconscious, just, just routine habit of just, this is, you know, it's now your time to get your smartphone and we just do it.
Speaker 6Yeah, exactly. Because I think parents before previously felt like they had no choice. I'd have so many conversations with people, my sisters and other people before this happened. What's happening with smartphones and is your child got one? And they say, everyone said, yes, my child has got one, but you have absolutely no choice. You just have to get one because otherwise you're going to leave them left out. And that just seemed like a crazy thing. Like every single parent hates this. And yet they, they feel like they have no choice but to do it. And, you know, that what instantly dissolves all that pressure is if you just have a few people around you who are also doing the same as you, if your child knows that there are five people in their class who also are waiting just a few more years to get that phone and are going to get a brick phone instead, then that pressure just goes out the window. So that's what we realised. We need to try and bring, give that to more people, that sense of empowerment, community and solidarity and just waiting, a few more years.
Speaker 1And it kind of brings us back to this whole notion that, you know, it does take a, takes a village to raise a child. And you've recreated that village sense in one particular area. And hopefully from what, from the comments that you're seeing, that's helping parents feel empowered in other areas, not just smartphones.
Speaker 6I guess so, maybe, because I think this is one of the main ways in which parents feel disempowered. And, you know, it's a cause of daily battles between parents. It's a cause of daily battles between parents and their children. You know, a third of parents, recent poll shows a third of parents have cried about their child's phone addiction. 70% of them think that it's, you know, one of the biggest causes of arguments in their family. So I think if this, this kind of core problem, if, if parents feel a bit more assuredness about what they want to do and a bit more empowerment about what, how they can approach it, then it probably has filtered down into all the other areas of their parenting as well. Because as soon as your child gets a phone, I think you feel very out of control because suddenly those addictive algorithms, the predatory nature of the things on that phone. I mean, that whole area of your child's life, it's really, really hard to be able to control it for them yeah
Speaker 5your point around bringing together that's actually been one of the most extraordinary outcomes of what we've been up to like we as daisy said we realized early on that the the solution here in the interim whilst we wait for government to you know provide stricter guidelines and rules and regulation around this stuff because it's got totally out of control i think everyone kind of agrees that and sees that now and and we're hopeful that there will be government you know proper government intervention in this issue one way or another in the future but that's obviously going to take a long time so we realized quickly and early on that the key to this is bringing people together it's like old-fashioned community building community organizing if people work together then we can we can dilute the significance of this problem and yeah the level of engagement in this issue has just been extraordinary to be part of and you know the people feel so strongly about this issue then they just think oh yeah no that matters to me they they feel so strongly they're willing to band together organize meetups in the play like dates in their like local parks set up meetings to lobby their head teachers like the amount of stuff that people is going on all over the country is really extraordinary i think it's just given people this opportunity to kind of um to do something about something that they that they care about and i think that's you don't want to get too philosophical about it but so many people feel disempowered in general and this is just a really small thing that everyone can make a difference on it so that's what we're trying to tap into that feeling of like determination commitment from parents all over the country and i think the more that we can the more we can use that the more progress that we're going to make because you know one of the things that we say in our messaging is that together we're powerful and you know it sounds cheesy but it really is true like if we act together then we can solve this and we actually don't need governments we do in the long run but for now we can do it together and that's just a really inspiring thing to be part
Speaker 1of yeah and i just think it's that as a parent you're often in your little cocoon in your bubble within your family with the challenges that you're facing and you're often not not realizing or accepting that other other families are also having the same similar challenges and by sort of really shining a torch on this and helping parents see that it's a universal challenge of all parents even though we sort of talk about it but we don't really and then because of that you've then empowered them to feel actually not only can we make a decision to delay smartphone use or even not do it for even longer but actually i'm now feeling empowered to actually do it for them and i think that's a really important thing to do and i think as you say organize things that help my child see that there's other things that they can do with their spare time like getting together with others that don't have smartphones and lobbying school i just i i think i won't i can't underestimate as i'm sure you're probably aware the impact of something as small as seemingly small as sending a whatsapp message and a whatsapp group has had generally on parents feeling actually this is not what this has happened to us we can now do something moving forward to that we feel that we can have some impact
Speaker 6on yes exactly and i think um parents before every parent struggles alone in their home and they're not you know because they're not connected they are basically battling big tech and you know these teams huge teams of um computer tech wizards in who are paid huge amounts of money in silicon valley to make these products as addictive as possible and it's every family who's been against them on their own and it's just no match whatsoever so as soon as we can bring people together to make that choice together that just takes away all that power of big tech our children's lives and that's
Speaker 5that's really important for us as well to frame this whole debate around the systemic problem that we find ourselves in it's not an issue to do with individual parenting i think in the in the society and culture we live in as you sort of touched upon like we're all used to kind of managing our own lives ourselves and you know we are expected to parent in a way more atomized way than we ever have and so it's easy to kind of you know fall into the trap of judging other parents for making decisions that you you think you wouldn't or you wish you wouldn't or you hope you won't um but actually everyone is trying to do the best for their kids in here like all parents want to um give their children what they think is most appropriate and the reason why if you've given your child a phone the reason you've done it is because all their friends have got a phone and they're going to feel left out if they don't get one so that's an impossible bind that this technology has created in society it's a systemic problem uh and and it's not one of individual it's not a failure of individual parenting if you've given your child a phone it's just the fact that that's what society and culture has told you you have to do and you don't really have much of a choice it's incredibly difficult to act alone and say no and so yeah that's what um that's what this is all about really it's about bringing people together to act collectively and solve this problem together it's it's a it's about solving the systemic problem um rather than like blaming others or shaming others for their parenting choices and
Speaker 6i think that that that shame element of it meant that that conversation just wasn't had for ages and once it all kicked off in february it felt like a downward burst and parents finally felt able to have this conversation with each other because everyone was so frightened about hurting other parents feelings or feeling like they were judging their parenting which nobody wants to do it's like the worst thing you can do to a parent so somehow it felt like yeah we'd somehow have that conversation and parents were willing to have that awkward chat about it you know with compassion and kindness and to consider how can we actually get together and start to fix
Speaker 1this and i just love how that has happened because there is so much shame and guilt associated with parents you know associated with parenting and so being able to kind of level the playing field and know there's something so incredibly powerful realizing that they are having exactly the same internal turmoil and dialogue and fear and worry and shame and what that then does which is why my suspicion is and i shall keep monitoring how you're getting on and what you're doing is that you've opened a gateway to more collaboration within parenting well beyond smartphones genuinely Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back.
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