Latest / Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour / Childhood In the Digital World. Episode 6. Build Before You Ban Screens

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Childhood In the Digital World. Episode 6. Build Before You Ban Screens · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Child and adolescent psychotherapist, and this is the final episode in the series about children living in a digital world.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I want to do in this episode is to think and talk about well, what you do.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because by this point, many parents will be holding a question, not a theoretical one or an abstract one, but a more immediate question, and that is the but what do I actually do?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's one thing to understand the role that screens play, but it's quite another to sit in a room with a child who cannot or will not step away from them.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So this episode is about practice, not perfection, not rigid rules, but what becomes possible when we understand what's happening more deeply.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a natural parental instinct to move quickly to limits to restore order and to take back control.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: But if we begin there, we're most likely to meet resistance because we're acting upon the behavior without yet understanding the meaning.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just gonna add a little theory here, and that is Donald Winnicott, who I've spoken about before, reminds us that the child's external world is often an expression of their internal world.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the first shift is this: not how do I stop this, but what is this doing for my child?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we understand the function, we begin to understand the child and of course the behavior.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, children don't attach themselves to something without reason.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if a screen is being repeatedly used, it's serving a purpose and it's likely serving one or more psychological functions, regulation from an emotional perspective, connection to others, escape, and identity formation.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this aligns strongly with what Bolby, John Bowlby, described as the need for a secure base.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because if that base feels uncertain, the child will seek stability elsewhere.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they find it in the predictability of a screen.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is also the case for what I regard or what I call disenfranchised adolescents, because if their base, their home base, is not secure, then they will create or join another.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that tends to be similarly disenfranchised young people.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, in a sense, what we have to think about is building before you remove something.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the most important principles and often the most overlooked.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can't remove something that is meeting a need unless something else begins to meet it too.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if a child is using a screen to regulate, removing it to try and resolve that simply increases dysregulation.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if a child is using it for connection, then removing it increases isolation.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so before we reduce, we must build more shared time, more emotional availability, more opportunities for success and other forms of engagement.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not perfectly, but consistently enough for something else to begin to take shape.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: We often ask children to maybe not use these words, but to regulate themselves, to stop, to manage, to control, to do things properly, to just behave the way we want them to.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: But developmentally, this is not where regulation begins.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Beyond describes it, the child first requires another mind to receive, hold, and make sense of their experience.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in more contemporary terms, when we think neurodevelopmentally, Stephen Porges reminds us that regulation is fundamentally relational.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that in a sense it is the reflection of the parent's self-regulation and capacity to cope with the child's dysregulation that increases the ability to self-regulate.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when a child is dysregulated around screens, they don't need immediate removal.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: They need presence, calm, and proximity.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I know those are easy terms to use, but actually the more you practice them, the more you'll see change.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: They need someone who can be with them before asking them to move away from said screen.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: We need boundaries rather than abrupt withdrawal because boundaries matter.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: They are containing and they are necessary, but how they're introduced matters just as much.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: An abrupt demand like turn it off now is likely to feel like a rupture.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas a contained transition to come on, let's finish this together maintains connection.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Siegel, Daniel Siegel, describes how integration occurs when emotional experience is met with connection, not fragmentation.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we move we move from control to containment.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this is perhaps the most important point because staying in the relationship is the dynamic which prevents the conflict around screens.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because the issue is no longer the screen, it's the relationship.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And once the relationship is strained, the screens often become more necessary, not less.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the task is to protect and where necessary repair the connection with the child.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when children experience this, the process of mentalization, which I'll talk about in another series, becomes stronger because the child experiences being thought about, understood, and held in mind.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Without that, regulation just becomes far more difficult.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Children don't move away from screens because they're told to.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: They move away when something else becomes visible.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't say go outside, we say come with me, come and let's do something.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: We create shared experience, low pressure interaction, and moments of enjoyment.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And gradually the external world becomes less overwhelming.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we're reintegrating.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when we bring this together, we're left with understanding rather than a rule.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're left with an orientation, understanding before acting, build before removing, connect before correcting, contain before limiting.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, we're not simply managing screen use, we are supporting development.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because this has never really been about screens, it has always been about the child, their experience, their regulation, their need to feel safe, understood, and connected.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when those conditions begin to exist, something shifts.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes a little while, but the shift occurs.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not suddenly, but meaningfully.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: The reliance reduces, the resistance softens.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not because the screens have been taken away, but because they're no longer needed in the same way.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because the screen is never just a screen.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a window into something your child can't yet say or face.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that this is helpful, but it's not a silver bullet.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I of course recognize that there are always other factors.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what I'm trying to do is point you towards the essence of resolution.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: These are not things that are skills you don't have.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: You you do have them, and you've probably not yet realized that they're called upon now.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: The screen is not the problem, it's a problem.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: What it does though is cover a multitude of other things.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, this is not about stopping children with screens, it's about helping them regulate the screen time in a way that works and keeps them connected within the family.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: I sincerely hope this helps.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I will be producing another series soon from the Inside the Consulting Room podcasts.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this will once again talk about real cases and uh hopefully will be helpful in pointing you towards greater understanding.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.