Reflect
These days, my inbox is filling up with parents or schools asking about the methodology for reducing smartphone usage at home or during the school day. Under the umbrella of different campaigns, parents are taking collective action, saying no to smartphone acquisition for children and yes to a childhood that feels more joyful and perhaps less complex.
I get it. I understand the pain of parents who are sick of seeing a child glued to a phone. I understand the angst of the parent who hasn’t got a clue what their child is doing on their phone and worries about who they are talking to on that device. I feel for the parent who, despite their best efforts, cannot seem to get their child to give the phone up. I relate to parents who themselves feel joined at the hip to their phone and feel at a loss without it. We are all learning, struggling and adapting with the proliferation of digital technology in our lives. We need it to manage our work and family lives, yet we feel a tension between that need and the niggling worry that somehow it is bad for us.
It is exciting and reassuring to know that when parents collectively work together, great things can be achieved. The Smartphone Free Childhood campaigns that are popping up over the country and even around the world show that parents can shift the dial and help one another; the primary aim of such campaigns is to make it easier for parents to say no to phones (because “no kids, not everyone has one!”).
In saying that, I wonder why the same energy and fervour hasn’t emerged from parents globally about other factors affecting children’s childhoods? What about the perilous decline of reading in children? Research by the National Literacy Trust tells us that just 2 in 5 (43.4%) of children and young people aged 8 to 18 said that they enjoyed reading in 2023. This is the lowest level since they first asked the question in 2005. Fewer than 3 in 10 (28.0%) children and young people aged 8 to 18 said that they read daily, matching levels seen in 2022. Where is the “Book-rich Childhood’ campaign? Are these points linked? Once we get rid of smartphones from children’s earlier lives, will they immediately pick up a book instead? I doubt it, simply because family life has become busier and busier; parents often don’t have time to take children to libraries or bookshops.
What about children’s mental health? The smartphone seems to have become a scapegoat to some extent, helped by Jonathan Haidt’s sweeping assertion that phone acquisition has caused the mental health crisis in adolescents. One of the things that irritates me about his book is that he fails to convey (or ignores) the complexity of mental health epidemiology. His book distracts worried parents from other, perhaps more major stressors in children’s lives that can cause mental distress and impairment; parental conflict, physical, mental or sexual abuse, genetic factors, gender inequalities, poverty, climate anxiety, academic pressure (I could go on). The fact is, if we want to enrich, protect and ensure that our children enjoy a positive, healthy and happy childhood, we need to take a closer look at what is going on in our family homes and relationships first. We also need to pay greater attention to how our children are feeling about themselves, to the quality of their lives and digital experiences.
Motivate
During and following on from the global pandemic, the team at Tooled Up have interviewed over 100 researchers exploring adolescent mental health. This includes psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and academics with expertise in child and adolescent mental health.
What are the bits that stick in my brain sieve from those chats with experts? Well, one of the most compelling protective assets for children’s mental health is to feel like they belong. Belonging to one’s family system, understanding and appreciating our ethnic or cultural heritage matters, and can have a deep impact on our sense of psychological rootedness. A trip home to Ireland this past week with my teens reminded me of how feeling connected to something bigger than yourself (in my case, my Northern Irish roots) can spur you on, motivate you and fill you with confidence moving forward. When you feel like you belong, you are free to express yourself; you feel liked, loved and ready to take on the world. You also have the sense that if you mess up, fail or make a mistake, forgiveness, understanding and support lie on the other side of unconditional love. That feels good.
Imagine, however, if you experience the opposite of that. Imagine being a child who has a diffability and who is taunted or teased, bullied for standing out. Imagine the impact of those unkind words on how you feel about yourself, and how daunting it is to enter a daily environment where you feel singled out, unwanted or marginalised. The literature on bullying is crystal clear about how mental health can be affected longitudinally by such experiences. Interestingly, for some children who experience isolation, digital experiences through gaming and online friendships can be life-giving, occasionally life-saving. This is where I respectfully disagree that smartphone acquisition is universally a bad idea for all teens; some lonely young people have found connection and acceptance within digital communities.
That said, no parent should ever hand over a phone without talking in depth to their teen about the benefits and risks of being online. We know from research that children who are psychologically vulnerable may be more at risk in the online world. So, as parents we need to assess the quality of children’s digital lives and to stay close to our children; parental warmth and dialogue are mitigating factors in the face of adverse digital experiences.
Support
The Smartphone Free Childhood campaign invites us to consider another question. What are the components of a high-quality childhood?
Without phones to be wedded to, what should children be doing? This is a question that has been answered extensively by researchers. I have already mentioned the critical importance of access to books, of being read to and of reading aloud. In children’s early lives, they should also play imaginatively, actively and freely; enjoy rough-housing with parents, role play and regular doses of adventure – preferably outside! Children need to engage in play that excites, challenges and even scares them (a teeny, weeny bit). They need to be given opportunities to grow, develop, and experiment. You can imagine children’s reactions to the sort of play described above; it is likely to instil joy, laughter and self-confidence. Even in the act of climbing a tree, a child will hone and develop physical skills, in addition to using problem-solving and social skills. Overprotective parenting is linked to worse mental health in early adulthood precisely because children might be denied the chance to try tricky things, or to enjoy ‘scary funny play’.
And what of the quality of home life? Parents (whether together or not) need to prioritise children’s fundamental need for consistency, familiarity and predictability. To be able to flourish mentally, children need time, space and some peace to process their busy lives. The school day can be exhausting and home needs to be a haven. That haven is a place where we talk and are heard. It is a place where people see us and enjoy our company. It is a place where we are both challenged and supported. It is a place where we can be ourselves. It is a place with both expectations, boundaries and consequences. It is a place where we are praised for positive behaviour and where our effort is valued (over performance).
Having an authoritative parenting style (‘love with limits’ as it is referred to by Professor Stephen Scott) facilitates children’s flourishing. When children know they are loved and live in an environment where adults take time to talk to them, guide them and gently set limits with consistency and consideration, children are more likely to thrive. If you aren’t sure what parenting style you have, try this little test that Professor Scott and his team developed. The cool thing is, whatever style you have, the analysis you receive by email gives you suggestions of where there is room for improvement!
The bottom line is, this World Mental Health Day, whilst we consider global factors that can affect children and young people’s mental health, let’s all remember the power we have to affect the cultures within which our children are growing up at home. We can’t control the big stuff, but we can contemplate the environment that our children are growing up in and consider how it might be optimised with mental health in mind.
Are you a Tooled Up member?
Anyone interested in learning more about smartphone free childhoods should join our webinar on this topic this evening (9th October). In it, we explore the rationale for this approach and how we might explain it to our primary-age children. Beyond that, we’ll consider how we can use research insights to inform the nature of childhood activities and experiences. What is truly optimal when it comes to the content of childhood? What do we need to do at home to ensure our children thrive in general? Sign up now.
Over the last few years we’ve worked with numerous clinical psychologists and psychiatrists at Tooled Up, many of them leaders in their field. If you’d like to enjoy some of their insights into children and young people’s mental health, take a look at 10 of our favourite conversations. Topics covered include anger, self-harm, body image, sleep, depression and anxiety and includes content relevant to children of all ages and stages.
School staff interested in cultivating a strong sense of belonging and promoting kindness to others can download some brand new assembly presentations on neurodiversity, kindness and celebrating inspiring individuals with physical challenges. We also have assembly presentations made just for mental health awareness week, for both children in years 5-8 and younger children.
Finally, did you know that October is dwarfism awareness month? We recently worked with Little People UK, a charity which aims to promote dwarfism awareness and pride, to produce some great fact sheets for both younger and older children.