Childhood In he Digital World. Episode 5. Connection Before Control

Your child is sitting right next to you, but somehow they feel miles away. When screens take over, it’s tempting to clamp down with tighter rules, stricter limits, and a last-resort device ban. We take a different path: we look at what the screen is doing for your child and what it might be helping them avoid, manage, or soothe. Because the hardest truth for many parents is also the most helpful one: the screen is rarely the real problem. 

We talk about how screen use can slowly replace real life, not overnight, but through a gradual drift where conversation fades, emotions flatten, and effort starts to feel optional. We unpack why the digital world can feel predictable and safe compared with school pressure, social uncertainty, anxiety, or tension at home. We also share a clinical story that reframes “we’ve lost him” into a clearer question: what is your child returning to when they put the device down, and why doesn’t that feel workable? 

Then we get practical. We explain how to get on the same side of the screen by rebuilding connection first: calm presence, gentle interest, and low-pressure invitations that are not surveillance. From there, limits make more sense and conflict eases because your child feels understood rather than controlled. If you’re searching for digital parenting help, screen time boundaries that work, and ways to reconnect with a withdrawn child, this conversation offers a hopeful roadmap. Subscribe, share with a parent who needs it, and leave a review with the biggest screen-time struggle you want us to tackle next.

Transcript

Parents And The Family Context

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back. This is episode five of the series Children in a Digital World. I think we've covered quite a lot of different aspects in the preceding podcasts, but it it really reinforces the fact in my mind that so much of the difficulty that parents describe is both directly and indirectly linked to what happens inside families. And I suppose some of this is borne out by my experiences in the consulting room when I work with children who, and this is not why they're referred to me, but children who seem to exist inside this window that I've referred to, called the screen. And I really do understand the difficulties that parents experience, but I suppose the single most important thing that I observe is that very often, and as I said in the previous podcast, parents are the wrong side of the screen. They need to get behind them with the child as a means of encouraging attachment through through that behavior, rather than being the other side of the screen telling children to get off. Now I don't think that's a silver bullet approach by any means, but I do think, and certainly from my experiences of doing just that in the consulting room, the shift can be quite quite remarkable. Children describe how their focus and how their engagement with whatever is happening on the screen feels so good. And I uh with some children it's appropriate for me to say it feels good, what else feels good, and sometimes not much. Not always, but certainly sometimes. And it seems to me that the uh the child's engagement with a screen, with whatever that might be, is something which can be influenced by our engagement with them. And I think what happens is that screens begin to replace real life, and it doesn't happen suddenly. It sort of starts with something beginning to feel different because almost like your child is there in the same room or at the same table and in the same house, and yet somehow they're not with you. You know, they might respond, but only briefly, and you look up for a moment and grunt a response, then they're gone again. And it's not dramatic, it's gradual, almost imperceptible at first. They become less interested in the things they were once in uh involved in and enjoy it. More time alone, a reluctance to engage. And then over time a pattern begins to form because the outside world feels less appealing, and the digital world feels much more familiar, and they can inhabit that in a way that works. So their interactions become more limited, and their emotional expression becomes quieter, flatter, and parents begin to notice something that they very often struggle to describe. It's like they're here, but they're not really here. Now, this is the point where concern quite rightly begins, but we must be careful, because it's very easy to assume that the screen has caused this. And sometimes, although it's played a part, let's remember that it is more complex than that. When a child begins to withdraw into screens, we're not simply seeing increased use, we're seeing a shift in where life is being lived. You see, the thing is the digital world is more predictable, less demanding, more controllable, and less exposing. Whereas the real world can feel uncertain, overwhelming, disappointing, and for many people difficult to navigate, so the child moves. Not because they prefer the screen, but because the alternative has become harder. I see this a lot with children who uh have withdrawn from school, for example, or withdrawn from the family, or both. And what they do, in a sense, is inhabit a world that they can control. Now, this isn't the case for all children. I think it's more that the patterns tell us something. I once worked with a boy whose parents were deeply worried, and they were worried about a number of different things, but they described him as a distant and withdrawn and increasingly absorbed in whatever device came to hand. And they they were worried and said, We've lost him. He's he lives in cyberspace now, and it must you know it must have felt like that. It must have felt like this this boy was no longer there. But as we began to understand his world, a very different picture emerged. At school, he was behind, and he certainly felt behind. He was socially unsure, and very often found it difficult to join in with others, and as a consequence, he stopped doing that. So he got into a sort of self-maintaining pattern. And at home there was tension, it was unspoken, but it was always present. And in his screen, he found something very different, and it was clarity, competence, control, and acceptance. So again, the question wasn't why won't he come away from it, more kind of what is he returning to when he leaves it, and why is that not working? Now there's a particular stage in this process that matters greatly. It's the point where the screen doesn't simply support the child but begins to replace aspects of life, and not internally, but uh significantly, so then interaction becomes optional rather than the norm, effort becomes avoidable, and emotional risk becomes minimized. And by emotional risk I mean that this could be to do with exposure, a sense of getting it wrong, being in an environment where emotional regulation and consistency and predictability are compromised. And slowly the child begins to live more of their experience in a place that requires less of them. At this stage, parents often feel frustrated, worried, and sometimes rejected. You know, they might try to intervene by setting limits, removing devices, and insisting on engagement. This is understandable. They may also speak to Dr. Google and pick up quick tips and tricks about how to manage such situations. We are quick. And this is an understandable response because parents wanting they're wanting to do the best they can, and that's completely reasonable. But of course, once they move into this sort of setting boundaries, taking screens away, and and whatever else, what then happens is that this will lead to conflict. And that then escalates something that actually could be responded to differently. Because from the child's perspective, something that was important and served a purpose is being taken away. So we must return again to something fundamental, because the screen is never just a screen, it's a window into something your child cannot yet say or allow themselves to face. And at this stage, what it might be showing us is I don't feel confident out there, I don't feel understood, I don't know where I fit, and this is easier. But these very often things that you will hear children say, certainly not at home. In the consulting room, sometimes we do. Because I will ask, I will say, when you're behind the screen, it's a bit like you've got a shield. I wonder what it protects you from. And we might talk about the things that are on the other side of the shield that the children the child doesn't feel able to manage. I should also explain or d reiterate, this is not the only explanation, bearing in mind that with adolescents and people generally, including adults, there is a real sense of important connection that occurs. And you only have to walk down the street and take a look at grown-ups with folk with their phones close by. And this kind of what the what this tells us is connection is really important, but we seem to have moved away from direct personal connection and into indirect connection through whichever social media or other activity is appealing and instant. So the connection, the real connection, has to be rebuilt before control. Because if the relationship is straight strained, no amount of rules is going to change that. Connection must come first, not through interrogation, but through presence, sitting nearby, sharing the space, showing interest without judgment. Because, in a sense, what we're doing is we're entering their world gently instead of pulling them out immediately. So we step in briefly. So what are you doing? You might say, What's this? Show me how that works. I'm rubbish at this is my something like that. I'm rubbish at this. Tell me what's what's happening. And children will very often delight in describing what they're doing. So they are then including you. So this isn't about surveillance, it's about connection. Now, children do not re-engage because they're told to. They re-engage because something begins to feel possible again. So we create low pressure, shared activities, moments of ease, opportunities for them to experience things that work. And we also have to address what lies beneath. And we do it quietly, so we begin to ask, what what is it that do you think that that's hard for you to manage? Is it school difficulties or friendships, or do you sometimes feel anxiety, or do you think there are things at home that you find difficult? Because unless that's understood, the pull of the screen is going to remain. Now, sometimes asking those questions is more important than what the answers may reveal. Because the child will hear the question. They will very probably say, I don't know, leave me alone, or something like that. But what they might not even they might just say, I don't know. Sometimes they might give you some sort of indication that, yeah, there is something in what you've just asked. But I think the important thing is that you are asking, that you are looking beyond the behavior into what the child's experiencing is what's really important because they will feel the connection. They will feel the awareness, the attunement. And these things really matter quite often in the consulting room, and I try not to ask too many questions, but quite often what I'll do is make observations which I'm not asking for the child to confer. What I'm really doing is putting in the child's awareness something that I'm aware of. And over time, what I find is that children may actually repeat something that I've said some sessions ago as if it's something they've just thought of. And of course, the temptation to say, yes, that's what I told you, might be there, but we don't do that. Instead, we say, that's interesting. That's that that sounds like something that's really got some potential. That's that's good. And it works always. So we have to understand the the pull of the screen. We have to understand what what what really the per the purposes are that it's serving. So it's not about removing screens, not entirely and not abruptly, although I would say reducing contact with them is a really good idea, so long as you've got something to replace that with. So it's about restoring something else, a sense of connection, confidence, and belonging. Now, children do not return to the world, and I'm talking about the real one, because they're instructed to. They return because there's something in it that feels safe enough, that they feel connected enough, and something that feels possible, and it's amazing because quite often I will identify something in a child and say something like, Have you ever thought about becoming or about doing? And I know that pretty often children will say no, but I'm saying I see something, and and on on a number of occasions I've seen the thing that I've pointed out start to develop. And of course, what I'm pointing out is not a skill that I think they should or have to develop. What I'm what I'm saying to them is I see this healthy potential in you. And it that the power of that, particularly when it comes from a person who's not the parent, the power of that can be phenomenal. So it's also powerful when parents say it, but it has to be said with almost like it's just occurred to you, or something that you've been thinking about, which you've been waiting for the right moment. And it needs to be definitely not over-enthusiastic because that can then become a pressure, or at least that's how it's experienced. So we again come back to the importance of the connection. The screen is never just a screen, it's a window into something your child can't necessarily say. So I think I would remind you, you're not losing your child. There is a disconnection, but reconnection is highly possible. It simply requires that you encourage the connection rather than just remove what you might regard as being the problem. I hope this has been helpful, and I'll be back with episode six shortly. Thank you for listening.