Parents should regularly check their teenager's smartphone, a psychotherapist has said.

Following the Christmas season, many children will have just received their first smartphone, and with it all information available out in the digital world. 

Psychotherapist Dr Richard Hogan told The Pat Kenny Show he hopes parents wait before they give such a gift to their child. 

“It would be ideal to [wait until] first year in secondary school,” he said. “But I live in the real world and have a teenage daughter myself. 

“It was a struggle to make it to her Confirmation because people were getting [smartphones] in fourth class and fifth class. 

“Confirmation should be the earliest [your child gets a smartphone].” 

He said any earlier to give your child a smartphone is simply too much for their developing minds. 

“You’re just giving your child access to everything out there,” he said. 

“A burner phone is absolutely fine – but it’s the smartphone. 

“It’s accessing TikTok and pornography and everything available.” 

Boundaries for smartphones

When teenagers are given access to a smartphone, Dr Hogan explained, it is important to establish rules and boundaries immediately. 

“I work on this every day in my clinic,” he said.  

“It's difficult to roll back on boundaries when you’ve been permissive, and you’ve given them a smartphone and they’re telling you when they’re going to be on their phones. 

“When I was handing my phone to my daughter, I said, ‘We will be checking this from time to time, you will not be on it in your bedroom at nighttime and it will not be the first thing you see in the morning. 

“She would have promised me anything to get a phone at that point.” 

'I'm her parent, not her best friend'

While the daughter, now in first year, isn’t always to give her phone over checks, Dr Hogan said he can handle his daughter not being happy with him. 

“I'm her parent, not her best friend,” he said. 

“I’m the person who says what time they go to bed and what time they get home.” 

Dr Hogan said it is important to have boundaries between teenagers and their smartphones so they don’t become sucked in and find themselves constantly comparing themselves to others. 

“Exclusion is so insidious,” he said. 

“When you were a kid, you wouldn’t have heard if the other lads were playing football down the road, it wouldn’t have been popping on your feed, on your Instagram. 

“But now the girls are down in Starbucks and it’s popping up on your feed and you’re being excluded all the time.” 

A 2023 study by Planet Youth found 58% of Irish teenagers in the west of Ireland spend three or more hours on social media every day.