The Digital Childhood. Episode 1. Are we asking the right questions?

Screen time advice can make you feel like the solution is simple: count the minutes, set the limit, take the device away. But if you’ve tried that and nothing truly changes, you’re not failing, you’re probably trying to solve the wrong problem. We share a different way to think about children, screens, and digital wellbeing that starts with one grounding idea: a screen is never just a screen.

We talk about why recent screen time guidance for children up to age five can be badly produced and poorly communicated, and how sound-bite research headlines can trigger reactive parenting. Then we shift to the questions that actually help: What is your child getting from the screen that they’re not getting elsewhere? We explore the emotional functions screens can serve such as self-regulation after a hard day, connection when a child feels alone, escape from overwhelm, identity-building, and a sense of control.

You’ll also hear why gaming “levels” can matter more than adults realize, especially for kids who don’t feel competent offline, plus a story about a 13-year-old who feels dislodged at school but valued online. We end with a practical, relationship-based approach: get alongside, show real curiosity, and use inclusion to build attachment and influence, rather than fighting from the other side of the screen. If this perspective helps, subscribe, share with a parent who’s stuck in screen-time battles, and leave a review with the question you want us to tackle next.

Transcript

Why Screen Time Guidance Falls Short

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, this is Kim Lee, child and adolescent psychotherapist from the Children's Consultancy. I hosted yesterday a podcast about the recent government guidelines about screen time for children up to the age of five, and I was particularly critical of the research methodology, the findings, the way the findings have been communicated, and how the research exercise was flawed in a variety of different ways. I don't want to say any more about that, apart from in my view, this guidance is really very badly produced and is not well ill in uh not well informed. We really do need to look much, much more in a much more intelligent way at the cause and effect element of screens because its sound bites don't tell the whole story. And what they do is encourage reactive parenting. And this series, which, as I said in the previous podcast, was designed prior to the publication of these guidelines, looks at the same behavior, the same phenomena, but from a very, very different perspective. My hope is that whilst it's not going to radically change what is or what has become a social problem, it will help parents to reposition themselves in terms of their understandings and responses. The thing is, a screen is never just a screen. For children and young people, it's a window, and it's a window into something that can't be experienced in or seemingly can't be experienced in another way. That said, I believe it can be, and I think parents can play a very important part in that.

Ask What Screens Provide Instead

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Now, I think we've been asking the wrong questions. I think we've been saying questions asking questions which aren't really going to give us the sorts of understanding that we need. So instead of asking how much time is my child spending on a screen, we might ask, what is my child finding there that they're not finding elsewhere? Because the screen is never just a screen. And it provides a multitude of experiences that are to do with connection, attachment, and I'll say more about that in subsequent episodes. Now, people are understandably anxious, and I'm not at all surprised because that research evidence, which is reliable, does point towards a variety of concerns. It also points towards some benefits. But I'll again come on to that later. There's a sort of sense that that something is slipping, something is falling away, that childhood is changing, and that real connection is being replaced by something artificial. And so we count the minutes, we set limits, we remove devices, but nothing really changes. Because what we're trying to do is solve the wrong problem. When a child picks up a device, they're not simply passing time. They might be regulating themselves after a difficult day, finding a sense of connection when they feel alone, escaping something overwhelming, constructing an identity or seeking a sense of control.

Mastery And The Pull Of Levels

SPEAKER_00 4:19

And I think one of the things I became aware of very early on was that one of the quiet benefits of screens or in terms of game playing has to do with this notion of levels. Very often children will say, I'm on level this or I'm on level that, and I I I try and look at them in a way that suggests that I know what they're talking about even when I don't. But the truth is there's a sense of mastery. I'm good at this. This was a difficult level, but I did this, and there's a sense of achievement. Now, is that important? Well, yes, it is actually, particularly if we're talking about children who don't have a sense of ability in other senses. Now, I'm not suggesting for a moment that this is something that we might then use with children who feel like they're not achieving elsewhere. But I think what's important is it points towards the fact that children and and young people need a sense of ability, a sense that there's something that they can achieve. Now, that might very well be better expressed elsewhere, but that's when the grown-up step in.

What A Child Loses Without Gaming

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Once I work with a a boy who was I think he was 13 and he was very quiet and polite, but it I mean he was almost like he wasn't wasn't really there. And his parents were very concerned about his gaming. And it was hours each evening, and he was just withdrawing and difficult to reach, and they wanted the gaming to stop. And I thought, well, good luck with that, because it won't. But when we began to understand what was happening, it started to become clear that at school he felt very uncertain, he felt socially exposed, unable to find his place, and he was really quite dislodged, I suppose. But online, completely different. He knew who he was, he was competent, he was recognized by others, and he had a sense of being valued. So the question was never why won't he stop playing, but what does he lose if he does? If we move too quickly to remove screens, we risk removing regulation, connection, identity, and safety. Now, when I say safety, I'm talking about safety in the context of feeling feeling connected and like you're part of something. And the child is left not better, but more alone if if those devices are removed or prevented.

Get Alongside The Screen Shield

SPEAKER_00 7:13

So the first step isn't about control, it's about curiosity. You might say, what is it about this that you enjoy so much? Because it really does look like you you really enjoy it. This isn't as a strategy, but as a a genuine attempt to try and understand what it is that your child is seeing and experiencing. There was well not there was, there is, there's a boy I see who has a variety of difficulties, and he arrives for each session with a screen. He walks through the front door with a screen, and his mother accompanies him, and I think she feels highly self-conscious because there is part of her thinking he shouldn't be doing this. I say it's fine. I say it's fine because he's using the screen as a shield. He is unable to attend school, and as I said, he has a variety of difficulties. The screen isn't a solution, but it's his way of putting something between himself and others. So he will he will sit and talk occasionally from behind the screen. He hasn't been hasn't been coming very long, and so we really are in the early stages. But in one session, I think he's probably only had about three or four, but in in one session I said, can you tell me what it is that uh can you tell me about the game? And he named it, and I said, Can I see? So he quickly turned it round, he showed it to me and then turned it back again. And I said, Do you mind if I come and sit next to you? And he he he was okay with that. And so I started pointing, and I said, What's what does that do? And what's this and what's that? And he then started to communicate, well, did you have to do this and then you have to do that? And then he got back, he got onto the level thing, and I said, Well, how many levels are there, and how long did it take you to get to get so high? And and what was really interesting was I was sitting next to him, he tilted the screen towards me so that I could see, and then in some of his responses, he turned his head and looked at me. Now, what had shifted was I was behind the so-called shield with him, and he was engaging. Now, I I did this because there what I was trying to do was to see how he would respond to inclusive and attaching behavior. It's not about the screen. But what is interesting, and it reminded me of the fact that when when children show you what they can do, um lots of examples come to mind. And when we take an interest in what they're doing, it stops being about trying to change the behavior, it starts to become inclusivity and attachment. Now, if you think about it from the point of view of this, I mean it's quite symbolic. I was behind or the other side of the screen, and that's where he needed to keep me. But then he allowed me to be on the same side. And if we think about what that means in terms of relationships and connection, there's something very important that that happens. And I think very probably a lot of my comments in subsequent podcasts in on this topic will be will be working on that

Inclusion Creates Influence

SPEAKER_00 11:27

principle. How do we get alongside? How do we uh get into a position where we are inclusive and included so that the child is having a lived experience of attachment, that changes everything. Now, maybe not so easy with adolescents, because the last people they want to be attached to is parents. However, I still think, and have done it with adolescents, that there are ways that we can be included. And once we're included, then we have influence. Whereas if we are the wrong side of the screen, we're trying to take control. And that control will almost always be resisted. So when we understand functions, what how how something is how how something is serving as a function, we can begin to respond to the need, and only then can something begin to change. I'll be back with episode two shortly. Thank you for listening.