Question
How can I help and support my 12-year-old with phone addiction?
I would like to have an approach that is collaborative with her and empowering rather than punishment based, or forced... Help!
Answer
If it’s something like a video game her brain is obsessing on to finish and win THEN the solutions are social emotional skills that all children need to practice build and develop:
1- Delay of gratification
2-Planning and organizing
3-responsible decision making
At 12 she can't do any of these on her own.
She needs support and guidance. This is the same as moving the furniture around when she went from crawling to pulling herself up to walk
So how to help her?
1. Ask her what is important to her about her phone usage. Be curious and understand what and why she is using her phone. Together, come up with a good time every day where she can use the phone for these needs. Use this calculator by the American Pediatric Association to come up with the actual time she has in a typical day: https://www.healthychildren.org/.../pages/mediaplan.aspx...
2. Set up screen time control on the phone once those times have been agreed upon and have the phone stop and limit the use. This will build her muscle of planning and organizing. She will get upset and fight this and you will stick to the agreed upon time. The big feelings and being upset is building delay of gratification. All of us feel bad when we stop pleasure. When she fights you and is upset, you need to hold in mind she is just managing and learning to build her delay of gratification. She can't be happy or calm about letting go of this pleasure.
Don't expect her to. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/.../use-your-phone-less...
3. Model the behavior - create times in the day where everyone in the family puts down the phone. Maybe it’s at dinner time or bedtime, but once a day everyday if ALL family members put away the phone then the children will do better
Also if you want a reboot for the entire family join this challenge and read her book:
https://devorahheitner.com/tech-reset/
She is the only expert I like who talks about all things screens and how to manage them. Here is her book:
Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World