The author discusses how they are hoping to avoid giving their tween a smartphone for as long as possible.

Whether you’re a parent, educator, you work with kids or just have an interest in the lives of young people, you’ve probably already seen the most talked-about – and genuinely outstanding – TV show of the year so far.

Adolescenceon Netflix, co-written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, has provoked extensive public debate – not to mention praise in the House of Commons from the Prime Minister – about how to tackle the damage that smartphones and social media can cause to young people’s lives.

I’m the parent of a soon-to-be 13-year-old. Before she started Year 7 last September, everyone told me she had to have a smartphone if she wasn’t going to be socially ostracised.

‘How will she communicate with her friends if she doesn’t have WhatsApp?’ was a common refrain.

My husband and I felt strongly – having read a lot of research – that smartphones and teens are not a good combination.

We discussed our concerns with our daughter, listened to her views about what she wanted and needed from a phone, and agreed on her having a severely limited old phone of mine.

We made the screen grayscale (there’s evidence that the colour on smartphones strongly exacerbates the addiction), restricted access to almost all apps and to the internet. If she needs to access a site, the phone pings us with an approval request.

It’s essentially a brick phone with music, maps and Wordle.

The author and her book, Three Mothers.

Six months later and – surprise, surprise – we haven’t witnessed a single........

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