Ask What They Watch, Not How Long

Asking what your child watches online is harder than timing it, and more useful.

A two-minute read, three things to try, for ages 7 to 13.

Where to start

Ask what your child watched this week, not how long.
Ask them to show you the funniest thing, the weirdest and someone they’d recommend you follow.
Charge every phone overnight in the kitchen, yours included.
Screen-time advice usually counts hours: how long, when, in which rooms. The harder and more useful question is what your child is watching. A child can spend two hours a day on cookery videos and animal clips and be doing nothing a parent would worry about. Another child can spend twenty minutes a day on a platform that has, in a fortnight, served them a hundred pieces of content about self-harm, because they paused on one and the algorithm decided that was who they were.

The rest of the tip, and why it works, is in the library.

Source

UK Safer Internet Centre, parent-facing pages on age-by-age digital lives

It goes with

What Screen Time Actually Is. For parents who feel they have lost the argument about screens.
Your Child’s Online World. For parents who have seen something on their child’s phone that they can’t unsee.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

Screen time. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
Online safety. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.

The rest of the library

The Parent Book is a library written by therapists: chapters on the situations parents bring to our therapy rooms most often, quick tips for tonight, things to do together, and every sheet to print. One subscription opens all of it, from the day you join.

Subscribe to the library

£129 a year, by Direct Debit.

The Direct Debit is set up now and the first payment is taken on the next collection date. It renews each year on the anniversary of that payment. Change your mind in the first fourteen days and we refund you in full; after that, you can cancel at any time from your account page and read to the end of the year you have paid for.

Start your subscription

Already a subscriber? Sign in School staff: the teachers’ shelf

If you need help right now

If you or your child is in immediate danger: 999 · Go to your nearest A&E · 24/7.
If either you or your child is in a mental health crisis: NHS 111 · England, Scotland and Wales: call 111 and choose the mental-health option. Northern Ireland: call Lifeline on 0808 808 8000 · 24/7.
If your child is under 19 and needs to talk to someone themselves: Childline · 0800 1111 · 24/7 · www.childline.org.uk.
If you are worried that a child is being harmed or is at risk: NSPCC Helpline · 0808 800 5000 · Mon-Fri 10am-4pm by phone; email 11am-4pm, seven days a week. An email sent when the service is closed is not received. · email help@nspcc.org.uk · www.nspcc.org.uk/about-us/our-services/nspcc-helpline · If the NSPCC service is closed and the concern cannot wait, call the police on 101. You can also contact the child’s local out-of-hours children’s social care, social work or social services team. If a child is in immediate danger, call 999.
If you would prefer to text rather than speak: Shout · Text SHOUT to 85258 · 24/7 · giveusashout.org.
If you or someone you are worried about needs someone to talk to: Samaritans · 116 123 · 24/7 · www.samaritans.org.

If you need help right now

Published by Kensington Square Therapy. Company No. 16707111. Written by therapists registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS). This page is not therapy, and not a substitute for professional support. The full library is at theparentbook.com.