Nip in the Bud® Podcast - The children's mental health charity

Nip in the bud with Dr Susie Davies: How can we move towards a smartphone free childhood?

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We're joined by GP and mother of two teenage daughters and a twelve-year-old son, Dr Davies to discuss moving towards a smartphone free childhood. Five years ago, when deciding how to manage smartphones within her own family, Dr Davies 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 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. And 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. 

We cover themes such as phone addiction, gaming disorder, accessibility to porn and the impact on the developing child, and cyber bullying. She goes into detail about how all of these can impact negatively on our children's mental health and how parents and professionals can work together to protect our children from these issues and support them to navigate the online world safely and age appropriately.

Her book, The Healthy Selfie, is due out in Autumn 2024 and if you sign up to the PAPAYA website you can find out how to purchase it.

PAPAYA - parents against phone addiction in young adolescents:
https://www.papayaparents.com/

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https://nipinthebud.org/blog/

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Jonathan Haidt - The Anxious Generation
https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book

Anna Freud - Mentally Healthy Schools -
https://www.mentallyhealthyschools.org.uk/factors-that-impact-mental-health/school-based-risk-factors/bullying-and-cyberbullying/

Order your copy of The Healthy Selfie: www.thehealthyselfie.co.uk (use discount code PAPAYA

Nip in the Bud - Where to get help

https://nipinthebud.org/where-to-get-help/



Dr Susie Davies: How to move towards a smartphone free childhood


Alis (01:38)

Hello and welcome to the Nip in the Bud podcast, Susie. Thank you so much for joining me today.


Susie Davies 

Thanks so much for having me.


Alis (01:46)

Could we just start by hearing a bit about you? So what's your background? What's your story? And how have you come to be doing what you're doing now and why?


Susie Davies (01:56)

So I'm Dr. Susie Davies. I'm a GP in inner city Bristol and I have three children. They're now all teenagers and I've been running Papaya for almost six years. And so I set up Papaya because I had a deep interest in adolescent mental health and I just really had noticed a decline in wellbeing in young people. And that was particularly noted when I was working at Bristol University with students and I kept wondering why the students seem to be so unhappy and they seem to have a really high number of mental health problems. And as I got to hear their stories, I could more and more correlate their problems with their use of technology, particularly in younger adolescents. So obviously there were exceptions to the rule and lots of them had different stories, but I really began to believe there was a link between excessive tech use in adolescence and poor mental health.

And at exactly that same moment, my eldest daughter was asking me for a smartphone. She was 10 at the time. And I just had this epiphany moment that I didn't think that was necessarily the best thing for her at that time. So I met a couple of other parents in the same situation as me. And over a glass of wine or two, we all decided to delay our girls' first smartphone and set up the charity Papaya. And the rest, as they sort of say, is history.


Alis (03:19)

Fantastic. We'll hear a little bit about that in a minute. But I noticed that you've got a book that's coming out soon that's called The Healthy Selfie. I love the title of that. What's that all about? That sounds like it's exactly what you've just been talking about there. Can you just give us a bit of an overview of The Healthy Selfie?


Susie Davies (03:36)

So the book is written for teenagers themselves. So again, I spend so much time talking to young people that I wanted to have a sort of bigger impact and I get 10 minutes as a GP and I just have too much to say. And so in lockdown, I started writing a book and really it was a book to help young people. I started writing it whilst my eldest daughter was having some knee surgery and I was sitting in the waiting room on one of those plastic NHS chairs.


And I started writing a kind of inspirational letter to her. And really, I just kept writing. And what started as a letter of sort of hope in a difficult time became a book all about well -being and understanding, I guess, the overarching theme of the book is understanding the impact that technology has on all areas of our lives. So thinking about the effect of tech use on our relationships, on our interpersonal skills, on our sleep, on our other hobbies, how it affects what we listen to, what we think about, and just understanding the great impact that has on our own wellbeing, and then really just encouraging young people to think about their tech use, think about it, how it affects them, and then some really powerful exercises to help improve their wellbeing and get a healthy balance with tech. So it's all gonna be beautifully illustrated and really interactive. It's something that I hope that parents will read to get a really good insight into young people's mental health. And then I'm hoping that young people will read it because it's fun, approachable, and will make a real difference to their lives.


Alis (05:15)

Fantastic, thank you. And I think we're going to cover quite a lot of the areas, you know, lightly in this podcast today, but we really urge parents to go out and get your book and we'll put a link in the show notes so that they can read in a little bit more depth of what you're thinking is, but also for those activities as well. One of the chapters that really stood out for me was the chapter, I think it was chapter four, when you talk about comparing.

And I was really interested in that notion of parents comparing themselves to other parents. Why do you think this happens and why is it so unhelpful?


Susie Davies (05:54)

I mean, I think we all compare ourselves, don't we? It's an internal checking system that we have as humans to kind of make ourselves feel good enough. I think fundamentally, whatever our age, whatever our level of security, as humans, we all need to feel that we're good enough. And one of the ways we do that is by comparing ourselves to others. Now, traditionally, you've got quite a small pool of people you can compare yourself to, your siblings, your friends, people in the street, people that you know. And...


And really that, whilst not necessarily healthy, was at least people that you knew in the real world. I know the back story, you know the backstory to those people, you know that their lives may not be perfect. But once we have changed that from real world comparison to online comparison, it's a completely different story. Suddenly, you can compare yourself to anyone and everyone across the globe. So we can compare ourselves physically to people.


You know, to models to some of the most beautiful people on the planet, but also they are curated and filtered images. So they give us an unrealistic expectation of what we should or could look like. We can compare ourselves physically to other people who are stronger and faster and maybe more successful athletes than us. And we can compare ourselves financially. Every area of our life is now open to comparison. And really the end result is we're never going to come out trumps. So we were never going to come out feeling great about ourselves because there's always going to be someone more beautiful or more successful than us. And so I think it's just about being really, really aware of the negative impact that social media can have on this particular area of our life. And it can make us feel less content and less happy with who we are and how we are. And that can really be detrimental to well -being, especially for teenagers, especially for young people who haven't yet formed their self -esteem, who don't have a robust view of themselves. And I think that's why we're seeing a lot of problems in adolescent mental health at the moment that will root in online comparison.


Alis (08:00)

Thank you and I'm expecting your book will show activities or encourage ways to not be comparing in that way so that we're still protecting our children because I think you're right that comparison starts younger and younger across the social media sites.


Susie Davies 

Yeah.


Susie Davies 

Yeah, it really does.


Alis (08:24)

Let's have a think about the charity now. So you over a glass of wine decided to start this charity, Papaya Parents. Can you tell us a bit about that? What is the charity for? What's it all about?


Susie Davies (08:39)

Well, it's all about empowering parents to work together because the fundamental difficulty with delaying that first smartphone or maybe delaying social media, whatever it is that you want to do as a parent is that it's really hard to do it on your own because you will be under incredible pressure from your child or young person to get the next thing, whether that's a smartphone, whether it's the newest social media app. But there's a huge amount of teen and peer pressure to have this technology. And so really the idea behind the was just to help parents work together to think about how they can make positive changes for their children but to not have to do it on their own. How can they form a community? How can they empower each other to have the conversation, have the conversation with fellow parents, have the conversations with their children that can enable you as a family to have that really healthy positive balance with technology.


Alis (09:30)

So if parents have that understanding of how to support their children and children have a better relationship with technology, what are you hoping the end result is?


Susie Davies (09:45)

I mean really our end result is to improve mental health in young people. That's definitely the overarching aim and obviously there's lots of different ways to do that but I think reducing tech use is actually in this day and age one of the most powerful ways we can help improve young people's well -being. So our aim really is to improve mental health but by empowering young people so we run workshops in schools.


And really the workshops are about helping young people understand their relationship with tech, why it's so addictive, why they're so drawn to spending so long on it, and then what they can do about it. So to give them insight, I think every young person should understand why they're so drawn to technology and have the tools that they need to reduce their own tech use if they want to. And it's about educating parents and empowering parents, both with the with the knowledge of the harm that excessive technology can do for young people, but then also the tools that they can do things differently and to equip them to make those positive changes in their family that might be needed.


Alis (10:52)

Hmm. And say a parent listens to this podcast today, thinks, right, I'm going to go and have a look at your website, look at the charity. What would be the steps to try and get their school involved? So you talked about the fact that you've got workshops for schools, and I can imagine parents being keen to almost boycott the schools and say, look, please help. What would you suggest they do?


Susie Davies 

Mm -hmm.


Susie Davies (11:18)

Yeah, lots of our workshop requests do come in from parents. So obviously parents, the main way we work in schools is via parents sort of saying, have you heard about papaya? Please can we come in? Really at the moment we're mainly in Bristol and we're just starting in Bath. So we can't, we don't operate around the country yet, but we will always take requests seriously and we're upskilling and training up as many people as we can as quickly as possible.


But I think there's lots of other ways parents can engage the school, really asking the schools to look at their phone policy. So what happens with phones during the school day, you know, really, really asking heads to have these strong policies where phones are kept out of sight in lockers or in lock up pouches during the school day can make a massive difference. And some schools are actually engaging with parents, sending out letters saying, really we're seeing the detrimental impact of smartphones on young people. Please try and delay at least till secondary school. So not all schools but certainly some schools are being really receptive and working with parents. So I'd really encourage you to engage your heads, head teachers, try and have the conversation, get schools involved because I think if you've got a supportive local primary or secondary school who are trying to reduce tech use during the school day that makes such a massive difference.


And then even trying to encourage parents to collaborate and work together to delay smartphones is incredible where that's happening and that is happening in schools across the country.


Alis (12:50)

So it's really heartening to hear that there are those changes happening. Your strap line, I thought was great, helping families to thrive in the digital age. What do you mean by thrive? What would a thriving family look like for you?


Susie Davies (13:03)

Well, I love the word thrive because I think it sort of means positive well -being. I'm an optimist and I think thriving is all about that. It's more than just surviving, isn't it? It's more than just being. It's doing life well. It's doing life well in a way that children are happy and parents are happy. And obviously there's lots of pressures on us as parents at the moment and lots of pressures on our children. But I do believe if we can get tech use right, within our families, we are much more likely to thrive both as parents and for our children. So really that's about using technology in a way that benefits your family. So taking the good bits out of tech, you know, enjoy streaming a great movie on Netflix and watching it together, or enjoy playing on the Nintendo Wii as a family. You know, there's fun quizzes you can do online, taking the bits of tech that draw you together as a family that help you to interact, that help you have fun, but maybe really helping to get your children, helping them have a healthy balance, helping them to have good screen time boundaries and actually as parents, you know, having good boundaries as parents, switching off from work at the end of the day, you know, reducing our checking of WhatsApp, not looking at work emails late at night and actually because those things will make us happier and healthier as grownups. So it's really about looking at the whole family's use of tech and thinking how can it serve us rather than it being something that's negative in our lives, which I think for many families it is an incredibly overarching negative influence even if we don't recognise it.


Alis (14:40)

Hmm, yeah. I think you're right, for many families it becomes a battle, doesn't it? And what you're saying there is about not getting rid of it altogether, but utilising it so it benefits us. Do you have any success stories of families that have come to you and they've not been thriving, but actually as a result of the support that you've given, you can see those positive changes?



Susie Davies (15:05)

I've got a lovely story of a mum who's now training up as one of our workshop facilitators. And I gave a talk in her school about three months ago. And she told me the story that her eldest child had had a smartphone. They'd had loads of difficulties with her developing a bit of a tech addiction, really withdrawing with her smartphone use. And then so they decided for their second child, who's 10, to delay the smartphone.


And she just said that actually, Papaya coming into her child's school had really empowered her as a parent to delay that smartphone for their second child. And that now 40 % of the year group had all signed a pledge to delay the smartphone. So that was feeling really positive. But also that it had really equipped her to take, to make some changes for the eldest child as well, to help reduce their tech use. So actually she just said as a family, overall their tech use had gone down they were delaying the smartphone for their second child and feeling really positive about it. So that's a really lovely story of where going into school and running a workshop, I feel has made a real difference. And just in the last couple of days, I spoke to a mum who was really struggling with her daughter's use of an iPad and having the iPad overnight, not getting any sleep. And actually she was co -parenting and finding it really tricky, but I just had a really positive conversation with her about working together with her ex -partner to help get that iPad out of her daughter's bedroom at night time. And actually she just got back to me and said, we've managed to make an agreement that the iPad will come out of the bedroom at 10 at night. And that already that although it hasn't been easy, she can see a way through now just by making that positive change and working with her ex -partner to have the same tech boundaries to help her daughter.


Alis (16:55)

Thank you and I think that that's a real difficult one isn't it when there's co -parenting going on is making those agreements between the two so as a child goes between houses there aren't different rules different boundaries different different ground rules for them.


Susie Davies (17:10)

I think co -parenting is particularly, particularly different, but I think if you can get the same boundaries in place, it's just so much easier for the child and it's really hard switching between one household where you're allowed unlimited tech and one household where it's stricter. So I do think whatever the relationship between co -parents is for your child's wellbeing, if you can come up with some agreements and there might be compromise, it doesn't have to be perfect.


You know, obviously in this relationship, one partner wanted much stricter boundaries than the other, but by just getting the iPad out of the bedroom at night time, that actually is making a huge, huge difference to the wellbeing of this girl involved.


Alis (17:53)

You've talked a lot about mental health concerns and about wellbeing. What about things like depression and anxiety, stress and self harm, those deeper, more exaggerated versions of what you've touched on so far? What's the link there between smartphone use, technical use and those conditions?


Susie Davies (18:18)

Yes, so I mean, I think it all starts with this online comparison and lowering of self -esteem that we see in the use of social media. So I think that's the mechanism behind the mental health problems. This is then exacerbated by poor sleep. So obviously, if you've got a phone in your bedroom at night and you're checking messages all night, you're not going to sleep well.


And we know that sleep is linked to wellbeing. And then also there's the opportunity costs. So if you're spending time online, you're not outside playing football, you're maybe not engaging with your friends in face -to -face interaction. So you're missing out on the things that we know are good for wellbeing. But there have been studies that are beginning to really show that there is a link. So the one I think you're mentioning is in 2019, there was a study that just showed a direct link between the amount of time young people were spending on screens and how likely they were to feel depressed or anxious or stressed. So the greater the screen time, the more likely they were to have these mental health problems. And again, there's just a lot more evidence coming out now. So Jonathan Haight in his book, The Anxious Generation, has got a sort of fantastic summary of some of the data, but he looks at the Millennium Cohort Study that and that's a study that has been done in the UK over the past 20 years tracking children over time. And this found that if they've got spending more than five hours a day on a screen, girls have got a 40 % chance of being depressed. Whilst if they're not on the screen at all, it's less than 10%. So again, there's this growing correlational evidence that time on screen just isn't great for well -being. And we're also seeing a huge increase in self -harm that's been going up since 2010 when smartphones were readily available for young people. So again, although there's no direct evidence that says if your child has a screen, they will have these mental health problems, it is becoming more and more apparent that children who get screens younger and spend longer on screens, particularly on social media, appear to have a greater likelihood of mental health problems. And as you mentioned, that what we're seeing is an increase in anxiety, an increase in depression, and then that leading to more instances of self -harm and school refusal and all sorts of other problems, eating disorders also greatly on the rise. So the picture really isn't great for adolescent mental health at the moment in the UK or across the globe really, and we need to be looking very closely at why it is and what's happened since 2010 where the mental health of young people really has fallen off a bit of a cliff edge.


Alis (21:08)

Do you think the younger we start, the better? So the sooner we act as parents to prevent phone use, to support our children to understand the use of social media, the more chance they have of staying mentally well and healthy?


Susie Davies (21:27)

Yeah, I think it starts from the moment they're born really, doesn't it? When my daughter is now 16 and when she is born, I didn't dream that tech use would be something that would be in my parenting repertoire or something I would be considering because it just wasn't there then. But the landscape has completely changed. And I'd say as parents, it's now a lot of parents' number one concern. But I think it starts right from the beginning with how babies see parents interacting with their phones how toddlers and young people are exposed to screens or smartphones, YouTube, really how much exposure they have right from a young age, because their brains are wiring. And actually, if they're spending lots of time on tech right from the beginning, that's where they're getting that dopamine, that feel -good feeling from. And it's much harder to change it in the future. So I think if you've got a young child, really spend giving them that play -based childhood, as much time as possible outside playing is going to give them a really, really good foundation. Now, lots of you will have older children who maybe have had quite high screen exposure up till now, and I'd say it's never too late to change. I think at any moment as a parent of a child of any age, we can make a difference to their wellbeing by being really just proactively engaged with their screen time, finding out what they're doing online, what sites are they accessing, what social media apps have they got, what games are they playing. So it's about the time, the content they're viewing, what impacts it having on them, how's it making them feel really understanding their online world as much, you know, they come home from school, don't we? We ask our children, how was your day? How was school? What did you have for lunch? Who did you play with? But really we need to be saying, well, how's your screen time been today? What have you seen? What have you been accessing? How's it made you feel? And then really very proactively, I think as parents thinking, what is in my child's best interest and separating that.


From what your child wants or thinks they want. Because I think screen use is so compelling and so addictive that I don't think young people are necessarily in a position to make the best choices for themselves. And I think as parents, we need to work with our children to come up with some really good, healthy boundaries and compromises that protect them online and protect their mental health.


Alis (23:59)

You talked about dopamine there and how that can be triggered from the youngest of ages, you know, from our babies sitting in push chairs being given a screen to get almost a dopamine hit as we get a bit of peace as parents. What is phone addiction? What does that look like?


Susie Davies (24:22)

Well, I think phone addiction looks different for everyone, but really it's that compulsive checking of a phone. You know, that excessive scrolling, that inability to be without your phone, the need to compulsively check for messages. And then, so there's the sort of one arm of it is where you have such a dependence on your phone that you're unable to leave it and that you always need to be with it. And then the second side of that addiction would be that it's...


Having a negative impact on your life. So the excessive phone use is then stopping you do things that are good for your wellbeing. So you might see a young person who's on their phone so much that then they don't want to go out on a day trip as a family or they don't want to meet their friends at the park. They would rather be at home on their phone. And really that's when you start to think their phone use is actually really preventing them. Enjoying and living in the real world and that would be a real sign that I would say that tech use has sort of turned into more of an addictive nature.


Alis (25:24)

And what would you suggest a parent does if they recognise those signs? I'm imagining World War Three going off if you suddenly take the phone away. So what would your steps be?


Susie Davies (25:38)

Thank you.

I think the first step is that recognition to come to that epiphany moment where you can see that your child is on their phone and maybe they've withdrawn, that you're worried about them. I think once you've recognised there's a problem, then you can do something about it. So I think it is that first step is that recognition. And then you've got several different options if you think your child is on their phone too much. The first is definitely to start by talking to your child. Again, just acknowledging that you've noticed their phone use, that you think it might be having a detrimental impact on them, sharing any understanding you've got about tech addiction and mental health issues. So really trying to impart knowledge with your child so they can be empowered. And hopefully at that point, if we lived in an ideal world, your young person would say, yes, you're right. Actually, I am using my phone too much. I want to change.

And then as a family, you can work together to how to reduce their tech use, helping put screen time limits on their phone, encouraging them to take it out of their bedroom, trying to delete the apps they're finding most addictive. So working with your child is definitely the ideal scenario. I'm going to be honest, that is probably unlikely to happen because young people love their phones and they are probably unlikely to notice there's a problem because all their friends are doing it too. They will say, well, someone else in my class uses their phone more than me or is on their Xbox more than me. So the likelihood is there's going to be a level of resistance. And I don't think we should be afraid of that as parents. I think that our biggest fear really should be that we don't do anything because we know that that's actually going to have a greater negative impact on our child than actually proactively doing something. So it's then how...

How aggressive are you in trying to help reduce their tech use? I mean, aggressive is the wrong word, but how proactive do you want to be? You can either do it gradually. So you can look at your child's phone, see what the average screen time is. You might find they're using it seven hours a day for average. And then maybe trying to have the conversation, let's put six hours a day screen time on. We're not taking your phone away. We're just trying to get it to a healthier limit. And then maybe gradually over two or three months trying to get it right down to ideally, you know, less than two hours a day, but doing it really gradually, trying to encourage them back to do other things. We don't want to just take away the phone, we want to replace it with, you know, family board games, with games outside, with other positive things that they can do. I think the other thing is to look at the apps they're finding really addictive, or if you've got an app that you think is having a really negative influence, you've then got a difficult decision.

Do you set a time limit on that app or do you actually think about deleting it? So I'm going to be honest, my eldest daughter had TikTok and she only had 20 minutes a day, but I came to the conclusion it was having a really negative impact on her wellbeing. She was being particularly grumpy on a car journey once and I just said, right, I want to see the feed that you're watching on TikTok. And I just spent a few minutes looking at what she's watching and it wasn't anything dreadful, I just thought this is not positive for you. And actually in that there and then in that moment, I deleted her TikTok app. She was really angry for about 30 minutes. And actually that was over a year ago, she has never asked for it back. And actually I would say her wellbeing improved dramatically from that point. So just that 20 minutes a day on TikTok, I think was having an incredibly negative influence on her. So I did, I took that really, you know, that proactive step. I wasn't popular, but I think the end result has been incredibly positive for her. And as I said, she hasn't asked for it back and her screen time, I would say is much healthier. She wasn't bad before, but it's much better now.


Alis (29:50)

So to sum up, it's about as a parent being observing, being really clued in with what your child is doing, but also with their mood changes. So the impact of what they're doing has on their mood. And then almost, well, making sure that you're having those conversations, so it's keeping that relationship one where you can have open and honest conversations with each other, but then being brave, being brave enough to be unpopular and know that unpopularness might only last 30 minutes, might last a day, but actually the outcome is so important. So sort of biting the bullet and being brave as a parent.

And I think, as you said earlier, none of this is in the handbook, not that we get a handbook as parents, but it was never something that we've seen our parents do. It's not something that we've experienced as we've grown up. So we're sort of writing or rewriting what parenting means in the 21st century.


Susie Davies (30:51)

I think as parents we've sort of been catapulted into a really difficult situation that I don't think any of us would choose and lots of young people wouldn't choose either. They say they would rather grow up without social media but actually all their friends are on it. Without it they are ostracised so they have to be on it but I don't think many young people today would actually choose social media as their favourite pastime and I think I was listening to a podcast where a young person was saying actually I wish I grew up in my parents' generation without social media. And I think as a parent, I would rather parent without this, but we can't change that. So we've just got to think, right, how can we make the best of the situation we're in? And I really believe that we can, it's never too late to make a change. It's never too late to change the course a little bit, to realise that maybe your child's tech use is not quite what you want it to be, and to sort of put the ship back on track.


I think we all make mistakes, we can all look back and wish we'd done things differently if we'd known, but all we can do is with the knowledge we've got in this moment, make positive changes to move things forward in the right direction and not to be scared to do that.


Alis (32:40)

What about cyberbullying, online bullying? Do you think this is happening a lot? Do you think it's increasing? What do you think is the effect of that on our children's mental health?


Susie Davies (32:17)

I think cyberbullying is a huge issue for all young people today. And again, bullying in the playground 20, 30 years ago was in person. A young person could come home and escape from it. Well, actually, cyber bullying is 24 -7. There's no escape. And it's very public. It's incredibly humiliating for a young person because they're not just being bullied by one person. They're being bullied on a big class WhatsApp group everyone can see it. So it's incredibly detrimental for well -being and it's very common one in five children report being bullied online and one in four of those will self harm as a result. That is how negative the impact is of being cyber bullied on a young person. It really is incredibly detrimental for them. And I think young people feel really disempowered when they're being bullied because they want to be on these social media apps, they want to be part of groups, and they find it very, very hard to then take the steps to stop the bullying. So only about one in 10 children who are being bullied will delete the app they're being bullied on. They would rather stay, for example, in that WhatsApp group, even if they're being bullied, because they want to belong, they want to be part of that group.


So cyberbullying is a real problem. I think young people today are facing a huge amount of negativity online from both people they know and from strangers. And again, they sort of in theory, I think, are taught in school what to do to block and report the person who's bullying them. But actually, they take on board a lot of those negative comments. And I think it really can affect their well -being and their self -esteem.


Alis (14:40)

I again, I'd go back to the parents and what can we as parents do in that situation because often they don't report as much as that is what's taught to them and as parents we say, tell us everything, you know, share how you're feeling. Are there any signs that you could share now that parents might look out for around if their child is being cyberbullied?


Susie Davies (32:41.166)

Yeah.


Susie Davies (32:56.238)

I think it's about noticing if there's a change in your child's wellbeing, particularly becoming more withdrawn, spending time upstairs, you know, in their bedrooms, withdrawing from the family, maybe being really angry and irritable. We call it sort of the tip of the iceberg. It might be that you're seeing some really bad behaviour or some rudeness in your child or a lot of anger, but actually underneath that is all the emotion or the pain or the rejection that they're going through.


So I'd be just always aware that a change in behaviour may not just be adolescent hormones, it may not just be sort of rudeness per se, but is there something going on behind that behaviour that's fuelling it? And I think, again, in today's day and age, one of the main reasons might be that they're being bullied online. So just, again, having that open conversation, has anything hurtful been said to you on the social media app? You know, has anyone said anything that's unkind recently?

Some schools have sort of QR codes where they can self -report things that are happening, just encouraging your child if something is happening to tell someone at school or to tell you, just keeping that dialogue open as much as possible. Because once they tell someone, then you can help them make the right choices. And again, really encouraging them to block the perpetrator. I think actually if we can empower young people that they can be powerful in this situation. They can delete the app, they can block the person that's bullying them. They don't have to be a victim. I tell in my workshops, I got my first episode of being cyber bullied recently. I'm on Instagram as part of Papaya and I had a complete stranger send me a horrible message because I'd missed an apostrophe. I mean, the most horrendous message I've ever received. And I just say to the kids, I sort of do a bit of a quiz.

What should I do? And we talk through the scenario of should I respond? And actually, it's the most powerful thing I can do is say nothing and block him. And then I say, well, he's noticed a typo. Should I change my post? And I say, no, let's leave the post. Doesn't matter that there's a typo. I'm not going to let this person get to me. And actually, the only thing I might do is unblock and tell this complete stranger that they now are a case study in all my papaya workshops and thank you very much for the bullying but it's you know actually I don't want you know what what the bully is looking for is a response they're looking to aggravate even if I'd report you know email back and said well that's not very nice I'm going to leave the apostrophe that would have just fueled the conversation we need to really stamp out the bully not give them anything back and be empowered as the victim that we don't need to come underneath that bullying. and that we can make a difference and can make a change.


Alis (37:17)

I love that and I think as parents there's always those opportunities to share with our children something that we're experiencing. So it's saying it's not just you, you know, this happens and it's not just because you're primary or secondary, you know, this is life, it happens as adults and this is how I'm responding. So that modelling of behaviours that you want to see in your children is brilliant. I love that story. Thank you. It's great.



Susie Davies (37:45)

Well, the kids really love it in the workshop. Yeah, it's horrible and I again, I say it was actually quite nasty to receive that message. I say it was only about an apostrophe. It wasn't about how I looked. It wasn't about what I'm talking about. It was a simple typo, but actually it still is an unpleasant, unpleasant experience. And again, it facilitates something if we share our own experiences, it facilitates them opening up and experiencing theirs. So I think again, as parents, sometimes we're afraid to show our weakness or things that have gone wrong. But I think the more open we are with our children, the more likely they are to open up and return.


Alis (38:19)

Yeah, and emotion is natural, we're going to have a visceral response and that's okay and let's talk about it and share it and, you know, get back the control as you say, get back some controls that it's not just reactive, but we're responding in a way that we choose. So we're in control.

Gaming. So let's talk about gaming now. You talk about gaming disorders. How prolific is this? And what is gaming disorder?


Susie Davies (38:47)

Also again, gaming disorder follows this same sort of similar pattern to any addiction where the gaming is excessive and out of control, where the young person finds it hard to stop. So you might notice that a young person really is spending every three minutes of their life gaming to the extent where potentially they're not able to sleep, go to school, eat, or even instances of young people not toileting because they don't want to leave a game.


So it's that excessive gaming, but then also it has to be having a negative impact on their life. So they're not doing other things because of the gaming. They're missing out on real world experiences. So it's actually quite common. So the evidence is that three to 4 % of gamers will develop a gaming addiction. And if you consider the fact that most young people in the UK are gaming,


3 to 4 % of them will develop a habit that's detrimental to their wellbeing. So most, the majority of young people can gain within healthy limits, but for a small minority, it can have an absolutely detrimental effect on their wellbeing to the point where they aren't able to really do anything other than gaming. And that's when it really, really can just completely destroy lives.


Alis (40:08)

Thank you. And again, same advice. It's about noticing when that's happening, when there's that negative element has become prolific. And then as parents taking those steps you talked about earlier to try and support their child. Before we finish, I just want to touch on and we won't go in great depth, but touch on porn.

There's the report that you mentioned on your website about from Middlesex University for NSPCC, around 94 % of children have been exposed to porn by the age of 14. Can you just sort of give us some response to that really? Why do you think that's happening and what the effect is on our children and young people?


Susie Davies (41:01)

Yes, I mean, I think again, pornography is something that's kind of come up almost as a bit of a shock for us as parents that because it's now just so available, it is absolutely everywhere on the internet. You know, most young people are just one click away from internet pornography. And again, in the past, pornography was reserved to the top shelves of newsagents. It was hidden under beds. It just wasn't as readily available and it and it wasn't anything like as graphic or as immersive. So really when we talk about internet pornography we really are talking about incredibly graphic, often violent pornography that is incredibly addictive for young people to watch and actually very detrimental for their well -being. It can alter their body image because obviously they're looking at unrealistic human forms so it can make them feel inadequate or not good about themselves.

It also can give them really unrealistic expectations about sexual encounters and sexual experiences because what they're watching is not real. It can also rewire their brain and change their thresholds for sort of experiencing sexual pleasure. And this is something, again, I think that young people, when they're watching pornography, are just not aware of that actually the more they watch porn, the more it's going to take for them to feel aroused and the harder it might be for them to experience sexual pleasure in the real world at the appropriate time. So it is changing the landscape for our young people of how they experience sexual relationships and really having an incredibly detrimental impact on young people.


And I think again, as parents, we just need to be really informed and really aware. It's a hard conversation to have, but I think it's one of the most important ones we can have with our young people. We can't just bury our heads under the carpet that it's not happening because it is. Almost all young people are being exposed to pornography. They're watching it on Instagram, they're seeing it on TikTok, they're being sent clips on WhatsApp. They might be coming across it by accident whilst they're doing their homework, they might be seeking it out, but either way it is one click away, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And I think it's not a level playing field, it's not fair for them. I think we need to support them in sort of trying to avoid content that's going to change the way their brain perceives sexual images.


Alis (43:38)

So if it's just one click away, we're talking any age, you know, primary, young primary, if they're sitting doing their homework or they've been given the iPad in their bedroom to go on YouTube, actually, they are just one click away from that opportunity of coming across pornography, whether they're searching for it or not.


Susie Davies (44:01)

Yeah.

Yeah, young people as young as eight to nine are coming across into hardcore internet pornography. And actually I had a patient recently who was 18 who actually had a sort of post -traumatic stress disorder because she had unlimited access to the internet all through her childhood and had been watching some really horrendous stuff from the age of eight. And she just said to me, you can't unsee it once you've seen it. It's indelibly inked on your brain. And again, she said, I just wish I had never seen this stuff when I was so young.


And an eight year old can't process what they're seeing. They can't understand it. They haven't got the maturity, the skills to make those choices. And that's why just putting filters on your devices at home is so important because we don't want eight year olds stumbling across pornography. And we can put parental control filters and apps on devices to prevent that happening.


Alis (44:53)

Do you give advice on your website, on your charity about how to do that? Where would parents find the advice to put those filters on?


Susie Davies (45:04)

Yes, on the Papaya website we have got some advice on parental control apps. There's also a great website with TechDoc that talks about how to set up sort of safety things on your child's phone and how to put the safety control devices on. So there's lots of advice out there. It does take time. It takes effort. You know, and often as a parent you think it's the last thing I want to do. But even as simply as on an iPhone, you can really quickly. just scroll it so that they can't access inappropriate adult content, just take off just that one click, that one simple change in settings will help filter out some of the inappropriate content. But actually, I would generally recommend adding, and often is a paid for subscription to a parental control app to help filter out extra content.


Alis (45:57)

But it sounds really important, really worth it if we're going to avoid what you just talked about there with that patient having PTSD as a result of her experiences from eight years old.


Susie Davies (46:07)

Yeah, I think it is really worth it because the internet is not, these companies are not trying to keep their sites away from children. There's no age verification on porn site. Anyone can go on and access pornography on Pornhub. It's so easy. It's on YouTube. I just think we have to, as parents, be one step ahead of the game. It's not our children's fault. They can stumble across it know they might seek it out but actually it is so available and it is so addictive that I think it's really really important as parents we take those steps to keep our children safe.


Alis (46:47)

It's hard, it's a challenge, but actually it's our responsibility as parents. It's like we wouldn't send our kids over to play in the park at midnight in the dark on their own. We know that and it's similar, isn't it? It's putting those correct boundaries in place. 


Susie Davies (47:03)


One of my favourite quotes is Jonathan Haight saying, you know, we've overprotected children in the real world, but underprotected them online. And I think that's exactly it, isn't it? We've put all these sort of safety things in place so our kids are safe in the park and we know we don't let them out on their own and we're monitoring them so carefully. We're so scared of them being abducted or falling off the monkey bars. But actually, often we give them unlimited access to the internet, which often has far greater things, worries and concerns and damaging content that they can come across.


Alis (47:33)

So to sum up, if I can get this right, as a parent, delay the introduction of smartphones as long as possible, delay the introduction of social media, all social media platforms, and be aware of the age restrictions actually on them.


Keep those relationships with your children so you can have those open and honest conversations and so they can feel that they can come to you, even if they feel they've done something wrong, but they can come to you and say, I've accidentally stumbled across X, Y and Z. And then establishing those boundaries around safe internet use by putting in filters and timing, you know, making sure there's environments where your children can use screens. So you sit in the lounge where I can see you and you have 20 minutes a day or 10 minutes a day or whatever the boundaries are right for your families. Is there anything else, anything that we've missed that you think actually this would be really good for parents to know?


Susie Davies (48:34)

No, I think that's great. I think that sums it up brilliantly. I mean, I think the main message is just as parents, we can make a difference to our kids' wellbeing. We don't have to just go with the flow. We don't have to accept the status quo. Actually, in this area of our family's tech use, I would just encourage every parent to be empowered to make positive choices for your child. It doesn't have to be the same for each of us. We can all do things differently, but any steps you take to limit your child's screen use and to keep them safer online will have a hugely beneficial impact on their wellbeing in the long run.


Alis (49:07):

And hopefully that's what parents will take away from this conversation today is that there is hope that they are, there is a level of control that they can pull back. What's your hope for the future around this area, Susie?


Susie Davies (49:22)

I really think we're at a tipping point in society. So I am optimistic that actually we've had this sort of 15 years of unrestricted tech use for young people. And I think we really are waking up as a society now to the fact that this isn't good for our kids. So my hope is that actually the generation of children coming through get to have a much more play -based childhood, that they don't spend their childhood on screens. I'm really hopeful that more restrictions will be introduced by the government and the tech companies to actually add in age verification. I would really like to see social media sites delayed till 16 as a minimum and then actually we give our kids their childhood back. If all of them are off their devices, they can actually all enjoy each other together. So my real hope is that there's a huge shift and swing in society that enables young people to come back together. Social media was sort of promised to us as something to bring us together, to connect us, and actually all it's done is draw us apart. Apart from maybe the odd useful phone call with people across the globe, generally it's keeping us separated and we need to come back together. We need to reestablish friendships, face -to -face relationships, stop comparing ourselves to each other online, and actually really start having conversations that improve our wellbeing rather than online connections that don't.


Alis (50:53)

Suzy, that's brilliant, a great summing up and thank you so much for your time and sharing your knowledge with us today.


Susie Davies 

Brilliant. Thanks so much for having me.