On this week’s Parenting segment, a mother asked for help with her teenage son’s phone 'addiction'.

“I'm struggling with my 16-year-old son's phone addiction, and I desperately need advice,” she told Moncrieff.

“It feels like we're constantly locked in a battle over his screen time.

“I ask him multiple times a day to put the phone down – and each time it turns into an argument.

“He accuses me of being a nag, a control freak, and often says he hates being at my house because of it.

“He spends almost all his time in his room glued to his phone and claims it's the only place he finds peace.”

The mother said her son is on his phone from the moment he comes home until the moment he falls asleep, and refuses to participate in family activities.

She asked: “How can we have peace at home again?”

The advice:

Family psychotherapist Joanna Fortune said she hears similar stories ‘every day of the week’.

“There was a recent summary of all the scientific research that does exist," she said.

"This is now about 82 studies across over 150,000 participants, so a substantial review was done.

“The estimates emerging from that were that 25% of people – not teenagers, but people – worldwide have some form of smartphone addiction.

“That's really significant because there was some other research done by the Pew Research Center, who found 95% of teens have a smartphone.”

Phone-free zones

Joanna said that setting up phone-free zones can be a useful boundary.

“It isn’t too late for this parent to set phone-free zones,” she said.

“I'm noting the toilet is a phone-free zone, but perhaps the kitchen and perhaps the dining room where everyone has to go at least a couple of times a day are also phone-free zones – but you have to lead by example and not be on the phone yourself.”

Teenagers

Joanna said it is important to remember that teenagers do not respond well to commands, and that this parent could start by engaging with her son on his own level.

“Watch the critical tone and come at it in a more kind of gentle, creative way,” she said.

“I'm wondering if you could use the phone, and the fact that he's so heavily attached to it, to repair of this rupture.

“Saying to him, ‘Come here, you've been on that all day’ – not judging though, watch the tone – ‘Show me the funniest thing you've seen on TikTok all day’.”

Joanna said once the child is engaged in conversation, you can start to draw their attention to other areas.

She warned other parents that the easiest solution to these types of problems is to avoid them by delaying children’s access to technology.