Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - 'My Kids Don't Have Phones... And Here's Why' Dr Charlotte Armitage & Kelsey Parker on What Screens Are Really Doing to Our Kids

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

This week on Mum's The Word, Kelsey Parker is joined by psychologist and author Dr Charlotte Armitage, the woman behind Generation Zombie and founder of Be Device Wise, for an honest look at why she's gone completely screen-free at home.From shocking Ofcom figures (some kids on screens eleven hours a day) to the dopamine trap, the ADHD overlap, and the real dangers reaching children in their own bedrooms, Charlotte breaks down the science every parent needs to hear, plus why it's good for kids to be bored and how to set boundaries from a place of love.Grab a cuppa, get comfy, and join Kelsey and Charlotte for another episode of Mum's The Word.A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Mums the Word. I'm your host, Kelsey Parker. Today, I'm joined by the brilliant Dr. Charlotte Armitage, psychologist, psychotherapist, and the woman behind the critically acclaimed Generation Zombie, with over two decades of experience, and as a solo mum to a 13-year-old herself, Charlotte gets both the science and the daily reality of raising kids in the world. full of screens. She's the founder of B-Device Wise, a familiar voice on BBC Bight size, and she's just won the 2006 Northern Power Woman Award for Person with Purpose. Today, she's helping us figure out screens, boundaries and family well-being, the honest way. So grab a cupper, get comfy, and let's jump into a brand new episode of Mum's the World.

Charlotte. Thank you for joining me. you for having me. This is like my favourite topic. Okay. Devices. screens. Me and my co-host have different views. Interesting. What do you think my views are? It's hard to tell, but I don't know. I'm assuming a no device man. Yeah. I'm a no device man. Yeah. I always talk about it on here. For me, the screens don't work for us. Yeah. And I just feel like I want to be a present parent. But let me hear all your thoughts on screens and devices. Well, I think you're doing the right thing. The evidence regarding how screens impact children is now overwhelming.

And how children are using them now is very, very different. So even just in a year, the off-com children's media lies report, that's the 26 version is out. And some of the children in that are using their screens for 11 hours a day. 11 hours there on their screen. It blows my mind. But I'm the parent. because people go, but what do you do?

But I'm like, we do activities. I'm like an act. Like every day of the week, okay, I am fortunate that I can take my children to activities. But even maybe if I didn't have the money, we'd still go out and do things. But we do gymnastics, we do dancing, we do swimming, we do so many different things that actually by the time they get home, there's not even time to sit on a device. It's more we get in, we have dinner, we read books and we go to bed. Like I've not got the time And then even at the weekends

There's always something going on in our lives Like I run a performing art school So literally from like 8 o'clock on a Saturday till 2 We are there doing that And then there might be a competition or something We've always, we're just a go go go go family So I have opted obviously not to use screens And even when I would go out for dinner

I take things with me We do colouring, we do puzzles we talk. Children can talk. Did you know that? Seriously. But they can communicate with adults. Yeah, they can communicate.

We do so much. The only time they are allowed an iPad, if we're talking screens like in front of them, is when we board a flight. And I will download films and they can watch films or TV shows. Yeah, and that's different. But for me, Arraylia,

when she was sitting on YouTube, obviously there was a time that I did give them devices. I'm not saying that I was straight away like, no, no, no, no, no. When she'd get off the device, she would obviously lose her temper, get really, really angry. And she actually said to me, Mommy, it does things to my brain. They know. So she expressed that to me. So it's actually cruel if I gave her an iPad, isn't it, really? When she's actually expressing that.

Bodie is completely different temperament personality. He probably could sit on a screen for 11 hours and it wouldn't affect him that I can see there and then. Yeah, I think that's the distinction. And going back to obviously having a performing arts school, I actually in 10 years can see a massive change in children. I think that performing arts is the antidote to the damage that screens are doing to children's brains

because I think, you know, I run a performing art school as well, but it's screen acting predominantly. But we use the process of screen acting with looked after children who spend a lot of time on screens to help them stretch their attentiveness. So we encourage them to learn scripts that progressively get longer each week so that they've got something to focus on. They're building a skill. They're building the communication. I've noticed that's actually in teaching dance routines, how quickly they can pick a routine up. Okay. So 10 years ago, if I was teaching a routine, how quick we would actually move through the routine.

Yeah. Now it's how much we go over the routine. And they can't remember it. They can't remember the routine. Yeah. Because I'm like, I can actually see that. Yeah. As someone that works with children, I can actually visually see it again.

Yeah. And that's because they're not moving enough. Our memories are, all of us, our memories are getting shorter and shorter and shorter. If you think back to when we were younger, I can still remember, I can still remember my driving. license number. Wow, that is good. That is impressive. Put it on a speeding fine the other day, but I can still remember it because I learned it when my brain was when I was about 19, and I can still remember that. But I used to remember credit card numbers or I can remember phone numbers from when I was younger. Can't remember anything now. So because we've outsourced

those faculties of our mind to a phone, so a phone can hold all of that. But we're now outsourcing effectively our whole brain, if you think that with AI, which is so much, much worse. We're effectively outsourcing our whole brain and all of the functions of our brain to an external object, so to AI, to a phone. So we no longer have to remember anything. And that's why we've got young children. This is what worries me. So my book's called Generation Zombie. And that's not about Gen Z. That's about what's coming is about what we're going to see coming in the future. And I say it's not about Gen Z because I think people think, because I've called it Generation Zombie, it's about Gen Z. It's not. I think that when we look at young children,

having this integration of devices at such young age. So in this off-com media children's lives report, 2026, 10% they found that 10% of children under one have a phone. Are you have access to a phone? I mean, what? It blows my mind. Obviously, you see people actually put their children in front of dancing fruit and stuff like that when they're like walking down the street.

I'm like, what can they not look at the trees, the birds, nature? Like we're so lost in tech. Yeah. The world is going on around us and we can't see it and we're not exploring it. That's how I feel. But that's right. And I think that observation is absolutely bang on because and the problem with that. So people might be going, well, so what?

Who cares? But actually the problem. Well, your kids being quiet. That's what they want. Everyone just wants their kids to not actually make a sound. And I do think because this generation of. us are giving iPads, phone screens that actually the older generation then expect us to go out and our children to be silent. So I've taken my children out and sat in a British Legion and these

ladies actually said to me, oh, when you sat down, I was panicked because obviously you didn't have any screens, you didn't have anything for your kids. And I thought, oh my God, what's your children's behaviour going to be like? At the end of the night, they were like, we have had such a lovely time with your children. They're so grown up. Everything they say. They're really lovely. Like my talk was up dancing, doing the splits, cartwolds for everyone, putting on a whole performance. But, and Bodie was sat there talking to these ladies. And I thought actually, because they're so used to us all suppressing the children now

with their dummies, because that's what basically is a dummy, isn't it? Well, we're creating zombies. We're creating little mindless zombies because children learn through interacting with the world. So as soon as you put them behind a screen, you know, when you're in the pram and you're walking them down the street, or wherever they are at the dinner table at a restaurant. And like when you said we went out for dinner, As soon as you put them behind a screen, they're effectively not in the room. So they're not learning from that environment.

But it sounds like your children are really confident and they're happy to get up. They're happy to go talk to people. And they learn that skill through engaging in it with other people. Yeah, through doing it. If we're sort of getting, sitting them behind a screen, then if you look at the numbers as well. So we've got a million 18 to 24 year olds are neat. So not in education, training or employment. Why?

Because they've just spent the last 18 years, probably. not getting out, not doing enough, not building confidence, not building resilience. They've all got anxiety as well. Because they spent so much time sat behind a screen. We are creating anxiety. The word anxiety. We're creating mental health problems. We are because, yeah, they probably have got anxiety about going to an interview.

However, guess what? We had to go through that anxiety. But they've got anxiety about picking up the phone as well. And it's because they don't practice these skills. So the soft skills of making eye contact, communicating, working with other people. We're not practicing that. Children are spending much more time, isolated, on their own, behind their devices now, not integrating with other people.

Then we see the consequences of that unfold in the real world when they start to go into the workplace. We went for two that the other day. Obviously, I don't do iPads. And Aurelia wasn't happy about something that had gone on in the mill. So she created, it escalated. So I actually was like, right, come on. We were going outside. We need to have a team talk outside, me and you.

And then obviously the waiters, everyone was looking at me. obviously I had a lot of attention on us because Aurelia was crying and whatever else. We went out, had a Tink Talk, came back in, she was a different child. Yeah. But I think people are embarrassed now. That's what you have to do. People are embarrassed. You actually have to be a parent.

I was going to say it's parenting. I know. You have to parent your child. But do we not want to be parents now? I don't know what it is. It's become normalized. I think that's a problem. I don't think it's about not wanting to be parents.

I think it is a case of, first of all, I think it's education. I think if parents understood the impact that these devices were having on their children, they would make different choices without a doubt. They, you know, they would. I've already seen it change. I've been doing this work quite intensely for maybe five years, started writing a book probably four years ago. So back then, it was quite new.

Everything I was talking about now is a completely different mindset. In the case study I wrote about Tommy, when I read that case study for teachers, they all said, oh, so do you think this is kind of what ADHD, how it starts? because they notice they're seeing a lot of children in schools presenting with these sorts of symptoms. And I said, yes, it could well be. It may not be ADHD. It may be that they spent so much of their early years on a device that they now present like they've got ADHD. And they may well get a diagnosis of ADHD because they present like that doesn't mean that they,

it's whether the brain has become wired to behave like that. But yes, I do think. So when they're in school, basically, they're having withdrawal from their iPads. They're having withdrawal. And they need their iPads. Well, they can't sit still because they're used to having, so when you're watching short-form content, you've got a dopamine release in the brain every few seconds because that's how short. Which is just not good, is it, to just keep having that dopamine hit.

Not when you're a child, not ever, but certainly not when you were a child. So not when the brain's forming, because you're wiring the brain to expect dopamine rapidly for very little effort. So the brain's expecting dopamine. Then when you take it away, you know, child's sort of, I want the dopamine. Yeah, the brain's going, where's dopamine? Dopamine, dopamine, look, looking for dopamine, can't control their own body. But also, they haven't been getting up and moving around and exploring the environment in that nought-to-4 period.

So they can't, the body isn't as developed, the muscles aren't as developed as they should be, because normally a child's getting up, moving around, exploring the world, that's how they learn, and that's how the body develops. But they're not, they sit, because they've got this addictive device, they're sat behind this device, it's captured all of their attention. They're not moving. They don't want to move. And then that has an effect on the body.

So when they go to school, they're uncomfortable, they don't want to sit still, they can't listen, they can't label emotions, they can't make eye contact. This is why we're seeing that happening because there's too much time spent on devices in that early year period. But in terms of whether I think it creates ADHD, I think it certainly creates symptoms that look like ADHD. And I think on top of that, you've got so much misinformation about ADHD that's online. So I think it's 50% like 52% of the videos on TikTok, of the top 100 videos on TikTok about ADHD were examined by a group of psychologists and they found that 52% of them were just describing the normal human experience. So not ADHD. Because then you go, oh, well, if we're going through that, then all of us are on the spectrum, aren't we?

I've got it. Yeah. Because also we're all sent here, like I'm very spiritual. We've all been sent here. And I do believe that ADHD children have been sent here for a reason because their brains do think in a different way that they're going to take us to the next place of where we need to go to. They're going to be the creators.

They're going to be these wonderful people that do incredible things. And I think, you know, the ADHD spectrum now, like you're saying, well, we've all got it, haven't we? You'd tick a box on something of going out of ADHD. I think we'd, well, the thing is with a diagnosis, is if you have to meet a certain number of the criteria, consistently in order to reach that diagnosis and that's the same for any diagnostic label. But looking on TikTok, you'd go.

Looking on TikTok, you'd have everything if you were, even as someone who works in this who is sensible enough to know, you know, the difference between misinformation and content that is legitimate, I still get lost in it and it's hard. There's no way a child can look at that amount of content and be able to decipher what's, you know, a legitimate source. on what isn't and they just take that as fat. So I think it's, you know, you're looking at the overwhelm basically. If you think you've got a 12, 13 year old who's maybe not feeling great, they've moved schools,

they're at home on an evening, they're on their device till late, they're not sleeping properly, they don't feel well, they look online, TikTok pushes some video about ADHD. They hover on it for more than usual, maybe three seconds. Then they get TikTok, like the algorithm, and then they start to think they've got that as well. So you start to behave. Have got ADHD. Yeah, in accordance to what you think you've got or that you identify with it, because your identity is still forming at that age. So it's a dangerous age for them to be online, really, certainly having access to that much information. Like, there's always going to be somewhere where people fit in and, you know, the screens are a great tool. However, what I was saying was obviously for me and looking at children I've taught and over the years, I can see the effects. Yeah, and teachers can. Across the board, across the UK, wherever I'm teaching.

I mean, I would hate being a teacher now. Yeah. I would really, really struggle because I just think we're in such a weird place and funk. But it's interesting because when you look at all these big tech companies and all these people that create YouTube or even the phone, guess what? They don't have it. They don't let their kids have it. Because they know. Yeah.

How are you going to navigate that? Because I had this conversation the other day and it was like, I don't want the kids to have phones. But I know there's going to be a point where they're going to want a phone. But even down to, you know, the world of like bullying and online bullying and watching videos and stuff. And I watched the Emma and Matt Willis show. Have you seen that?

Swiped. Yeah. I haven't watched it, no. But I'd done a similar thing to that in Leeds. Well, when you said about the hours, like some of them kids, they were like six hours in the evening. That's normal. I'm like, what?

That's the worldwide average is 6,040 minutes a day on a phone. That is the worldwide average. I'd say that's the minimum amount that people are spending on phones. But for a kid that's at school, a teenager. All day. I'm used to sleep. They're school from 9 till 3. Yeah. So from before school and after school, they're not doing anything apart from being stuck on their phones.

Exactly. And then we wonder why when they come to GSEs, they're so nervous they can't do them, or that they struggle to go into employment. because those, that six hours that could have been spent doing performing arts, playing a musical instrument, going out and playing, hanging out with your friends, getting into trouble. Things where, you know, you have to navigate situations, you have to problem solve, you have to use your communication skills, you have to fail and get back up, or you succeed and you build confidence, you build self-esteem. They're not doing those things. So by the time they come to the age of 18 to go into the world of work, there's lots of these key areas of learning and development that those opportunities were missed. because they sat mindlessly scrolling online.

So we're actually just causing a bigger problem. Massive. A bigger problem. So when they actually spread their wings and fly, they're not going to flourish and fly because we've just actually clipped all their wings, haven't we really? We've clipped their wings, exactly. That's such a good way of putting it.

We need to, you know, I think the thing is, we grew up in an era of, be scared of the man in the white van, you know, don't take sweets from anybody. The danger exists on the outside world. We grew up in that era. So on a very unconscious level, I think we think that when our children are at home and the doors are locked and they're in their bedroom, they're safe. But they're safe.

After watching that show, I realized. Which one? Oh, swiped. I haven't actually watched it. I was like, we, they're not safe at home. They're at more risk in the online world because it's a bit like putting them in a supermarket full of all the most malevolent people in the world and everybody in the world and saying to them, you know, hey, go have added here. It's my, you know, 12-year-old, six-year-old, seven-year-old, whatever, you know, they don't know what they're doing, go and manipulate. That's the sort of most extreme end of it.

But even if they're just watching short-form content, it's damaging their attentiveness. It's damaging their ability to focus. It's damaging their attitudes and beliefs about the world on a really subtle, insidious level. Do you have an insatiable fascination with the paranormal? Are you ready to dive head first into the eerie realms of the unexplained? brace yourself for the supernatural world is about to reveal all of its secrets on the paranormal activity podcast and who better to guide you through this hair-raising journey than myself, Yvette Fielding, renowned paranormal investigator. Every episode of paranormal activity takes you on an

unforgettable adventure into the unknown. I share my own encounters, chilling experiences and exclusive insights into the world of the paranormal. But that's not all. The true heart of this podcast lies in the stories, evidence and questions shared by our devoted listeners. Like you, whether you're a seasoned paranormal enthusiast or just starting to dip your toes into the waters of the supernatural. Paranormal activity with me, Yvette Fielding, is your ultimate destination. Will you dare to join me? Listen to paranormal activity with me, Yvette Fielding, wherever you get your podcast from. I had a friend. who her five-year-old had gone on the screen the night before,

just briefly, I think they was doing bath time or whatever. And then the next morning, he told her how to hang yourself with a hanger. Oh, my God. So God knows what they were looking at, but that was a five-year-old. That's the content that they could see. We're not overseeing their content. You wouldn't let your child actually just go and talk to a strange man or woman.

Stranger. Yeah. And just not listen to their conversation, would you? No. And so I talk about this in my book, actually. I said, you know, that if someone was talking to your child and holding their attention like a device does, you would be really alarmed by that.

That's really weird. Yeah. What's going on here? What are they saying to my child? This is really strange. You wouldn't allow it. I think, you know, it's something we're not familiar with. They can't see it.

Parents can't see that yet. No. But until what happens too, but then it's too late, isn't it? No, it's really sad. These parents, that it does happen to, that they even, meet a stranger aligned or they talked into hanging themselves or whatever. You know this is getting quite deep. However, they, it's too late by them, isn't it?

We're not aware. Do you know what? We can't catch up with it. The thing is, you know, I was at a talk and there was someone from counterterrorism there. And he was sort of saying, have you heard of 764? No. So 764 an online grooming gang.

And they groom people into self-harming, into hurting their pets, into killing themselves. So this, and then they groomed. people into becoming rumours. So they... Oh my God, that's literally giving me like... It's terrifying. And counter-terrorism were talking about it and they were saying the problem with this is

this is evolving so quickly online. But they can't keep up with it. The law and policy cannot keep up with it because it takes too long to legislate. So even if you try to refer, you can't refer someone who's been radicalised into, say, 764 to prevent because prevent is for extreme misogyny

or radicalisation into other extremist beliefs, but not into 764. So they can't actually, you know, there's nowhere to send these people to. There's no governance to govern this sort of behaviour either. So the online world, you can try and, you know, think about it. We haven't even got a blooming social media ban for under 16s yet. And we've known four years about the harms of social media. We're so behind, AI is now taking over everything. By the time, you know, we're still debating the social media ban.

annoys me so much because I just think for goodness sake, get on with it. I agree. I think about the thing with the attentiveness as well is we've had research spanning 20 years that evidence is that spending too much time on screens can lead to the development of symptoms that present like ADHD. We've known that for 20 years. I think it just hasn't been such a prevalent or so such common knowledge because 20 years ago screens were TV screens.

They weren't screens that were. in our pockets that were accessed 11 hours a day, seven hours a day minimum for children. So we weren't seeing the impact, but we're seeing that on a mass level now. And we're also in this strange age of every human behaviour has to be diagnosed. We have to have some diagnosis for everything

rather than just saying, you know what, that's just part of being normal, it's part of being human, you're not meant to feel good all the time. That's what I'm saying, it's superpower. We've all got so many things that go through. Like, you know, you might have been anxious coming on this today. I don't think he was.

But, do I mean, some people do come through the studio. I was a bit anxious on the train because the train got so full. And one of the trains had got missed and then, you know, I'd just. But they're normal feelings and emotions. And then when the big stuff happens, we're not giving them the tools to actually cope. You know, even for me, what I've been through in my life, I've had to have the tools to cope, but we're stripping them away from the kids. And they're not going to have the tools.

How are they going to cope with life? Well, we pathologise everything. as well. So rather than saying it's actually normal for you to feel like this in this situation, that's, that's, it's normal. I mean, I, when I, I've been doing assessments, as I mentioned, a work in TV. And so that's a non-clinical population typically. And your assessments will say, you know, oh, have you had any mental health problems? And some will say, oh, it's quite sad after my man and died. And I'm like, well, that's, that's normal, isn't it? Yeah, I want you to be, I'd be worried if you weren't. I think I'd be more worried. The thing is, with the diagnostic criteria is

the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder was created in the 50s for communicating presentations amongst mental health professionals. It was never really intended to be used by the general public. A diagnosis should only really be communicated when it's useful for the individual. So whether it's going, if that's going to help them with social, emotional, occupational, support or academic support, you would communicate the diagnosis then because then that leads to the right medication, it leads to the right therapy, it really leads to the right social support, funding, all of that kind of thing. So that's when a diagnosis is useful. But otherwise, we're pathologising people, because if you went through that DSM, even cigarette smoking is in the

DSM as a disorder, right? So if you went through the DSM, so it's anything that is so detrimental to someone's life that they can't function as what we'd consider healthy in most areas of their lives, all of us would hit the trait criteria for something. We've all, we've all got traits of various things. I mean, that, it's being a human. Yeah, that's, it's being human. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. But I'd noticed as well recently on LinkedIn, people have a diagnosis in their bio. In there, in there, sort of the other name, and I have like all my job titles in there. Other people will have sort of, you know, I don't know, ADHD, PMDD. And people would pop it all in there.

I don't know if I'd want everyone knowing all my diagnoses or, you know, all that personal stuff about me putting on it. It's so true. It's a strange. I just think it's such a strange shift. Because we are, everyone is diagnosed now. You're self-diagnosing. Like you're saying.

Defined by labels. We are. But you just wouldn't like, I'm choosing not to label my child. That's for us at home. Like I and her teachers are amazing and whatever else. But, like, within me, I'm like, she's very up and down and round around and a lot. But we get on with it. If it's not causing her any problems and she's functioning well and she's happy, then does it need a diagnosis?

No. You know, I think that's, you know, I've got friends who all say to me, oh, you've definitely got something. And so of you. They probably do, you know. We all do. Like you're saying, we all do. And then people then get offended. by this now that we're saying that everyone does.

It's just a vicious circle, isn't it? Because like what you were saying, the man in the white van, the whatever else that, you know, we were told as children, I think we're fed so much more of that now on screens to us parents that we're worried about the world who are keeping him indoors, keeping him on screens.

But I think actually crime, and I don't know the stats on this, but I think it has all dropped. I don't think there is what the scary world that we think there is out there. And like you're saying... Not out there. It's online now. And it's worse. It's worse online. I mean, you know, the people, perpetrators are finding children online. You know, that's how crimes are committed now. They're not going and hanging out in a white van. Yeah. And one of my conversations was to have, but I feel like we've absolutely covered it. It's okay for your children to be bored. When they're at home, it's okay for them to be bored. On half term, I don't know how many times I was asked for a bit of food because they were bored.

I'm hungry. You're not hungry, you're bored. Like, it's the same thing. It's okay to be bored because when they are bored, that's when they create the games. Yeah, that's it. The brain fills the space itself when they're bored. So when they say, if a child says, I'm bored,

you just say, good, it's thinking something to do. That's okay. Don't feel guilty about it. I think that's the thing is, we've got so much mum guilt, haven't we? It's the parent guilt. It's always feeling like, oh God, it's all the time as well. Like you just feel like you're, I mean, I've just accepted, because I'm a solo parent, right?

Yeah. So I've just accepted that I can't do everything, you know, and I just say to my daughter, I'll just say, look, you know, I'm doing my best. You know, I can't be and do everything. But don't you think now we're fed online via socials and stuff that you've got to do? Like, and I think the kids are getting, I've assimilated with everything they've got to do. It's like you've got to go to a trampoline park. You've then followed that. We're going to go out for dinner.

Also, dinners, I think we go out so much. That's why people do have the screens. I mean, back in our day. Didn't go out. If your mum goes, oh, we're going to TGI Fridays or somewhere, that was like, oh, my God, we're going out. It's a birthday. Oh, my God, we're going out to celebrate.

Now, mine, are like, oh, we're going out again. We go out again. We do so much for our children. It's okay to just sit indoors, go for a walk over the woods, and be satisfied with that. We don't need to just keep doing, doing, doing all the time. But we're all being fed that you must do. Yeah, I actually think it's quite fun to just see how much you can get done a weekend without spending any money.

You know, what can you do? Go to the park, do some drawing at home, go out and play a play a game. And just try and get through the weekend without actually spending a fortune. Because all that stuff costs a lot of money. And also it kind of is exhausting and overwhelming. Children really just need you to be an emotionally present person. as much as you can, not all the time, because we've all got, we're all doing a million things, aren't we?

Emotionally present parent, they need space to evolve and create and to think and to play without screens and they need time outdoors and they need time with other people. So they don't need these expensive activities. They don't need to be going out for meals all the time. They don't need all that. You know, I think we've overcomplicated it. We've overcomplicated life. We've totally overcomplicated it.

Because we're trying to keep up with the jameses. That's the whole thing. Everyone's trying to keep up But just do you, be happy Yeah, well And the thing is Keeping it with the Jones It's constant

Because it's always online It's this constant Echo Chamber of what everyone else is doing And what house everyone else lives in And how they're raising their children It doesn't mean that any of it's the right way And some of it could be fake And most of it is surely

Yeah And it's you're seeing literally two Two to five minutes of someone's life It's not real No and if they're recording it and You know, putting it online Even with me, my partner doesn't do socials.

Yeah. So I actually get asked all the time, are we still together? Because he doesn't appear on my Instagram or whatever else. I'm like, because that's, you're seeing a tiny segment of my life. Yeah.

Like he's there all the time. He's constantly there. He's up. He's annoyed me today. He's done whatever. He's taking the kids to golf or football and whatever else he's getting up to. Like, I just don't need to document it

and show everyone. It's still real. It's still happening. It's still life. Yeah. I do think. we're kind of going shifting away from that now you know i think people are sort of going away from posting everything online now thankfully but yeah i do agree i think we're seeing so much of this

stuff online about what we should be doing and it burns us out you know i think all the information as well of what you should be doing and oh it's it's way too much i think it's too overwhelming so we're getting overwhelmed what the children feel and what are the children feeling like yeah exactly and i honestly think it's really, I think, you know, really strip off that layer of technology, take it straight back to what it was like before, where things were simple, where the nervous system had an opportunity to relax, to reset, where our brains had time to think and to process. If you think about a child who gets up, uses a device in a morning, then they go to school, then they're being stimulated all day,

then they get in the car, they're on a device in the car, then they come home, they're watching screens again, when do they ever get a moment to just sit and, you know, when your child gets in the car and you say, how is your day and they just ignore you? It's because, you know, you can't remember because you've just done it. So the brain is, it's, you know, it's percolating. They're still thinking and processing. So they need that time when they're sat in the car and they're staring out the window and they're just thinking. And what are you going to do then, do you think, when they get older? I don't know. I'll have to cross that bridge right now. Well, hopefully. I mean, they're only five and six.

Hopefully it's all changed. Hopefully it'll be back to break bones. And it won't be the pressure. Yeah, it's hard because I mean, Lil's my daughter's 12 and 13. And I'd say it's probably been a lot easier up to this point. But there has been so much of my parenting has been about helping to sort of shape her attitudes around devices. And so much so that she's now started telling her friends about things that are in the press, about screens and how bad they are for you.

And, you know, so she's trying to get her friends to see that. And when there was talk of the social media around, she said, yes, because everyone's on social media and it, you know, bothers her. She's not. But I just teach her about, you know, what it's doing to her. And I think the best you can do is be honest, be open and tell them why they are on that page and path. And that's what I say with my children. Whatever, you know, why am I not got a screen like everyone else?

Because we've opted not to do that. Yeah, and you're trying to protect them. I think if you come at it from a place of this is because I love you and I know, I know the risks. And I am trying to protect you as I would in any other way. It's not about a punishment. This is me trying to do the right thing for you as your mum. You know, I think, as your parent. I think that's, you know, the angle.

You have to come at it with them. I mean, we could literally talk forever about this topic. It's my favourite topic. But thank you so much. Thank you. That's a wrap on another episode of Mums the Word. Thank you so much for joining us today as we were joined by the amazing Dr Charlotte Armitage.

Don't forget to leave us a review, follow us on socials at at Mums the Word underscore pod, subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch our episodes in full. Just search Mums the Word. Until next time, I'm Kelsey Parker and this has been Mums the Word. And we'll be back with another episode, same time, same place next week.