Anna Williams has opened up about navigating and dealing with the fears parents face around letting their children and teens have access to phones and social media.
Ahead of the release of her new show The Great British Phone Switch, a five-part Channel 4 series that watches as parents and kids swap phones for 48 hours, Anna spoke to woman&home about the dos and don'ts of dealing with children's phone use.
With the likes of Netflix's harrowing drama Adolescence having highlighted the toxic corners of the internet that young people are able to access via their phones, it's easy to understand why some mums ban or limit their children's phone use.
And while there certainly are dangers that can come with giving children free rein in the digital space, Anna says that they can be minimised by having the right knowledge and setting boundaries.
The phones themselves aren't the danger, she highlights; more the lack of understanding of how to keep kids safe while they use them.
"I think that's the main thing. There's nothing wrong with the phone. There's nothing wrong with using one, you know, in the digital world, but what is key is it must be used responsibly and with boundaries," Anna told us.
"And I know it's scary as a parent, but it's typically scary because we don't know enough about it."
Anna also thinks that open, non-judgmental conversations about what young people are doing on their phones will encourage them to share their activities and thoughts with you naturally.
She added, "The best way to feel like you're more 'in control' is to be going through it with your child together, being curious about what they want to play, what they want to look at, what they want to do. Ask them to share it, because then it becomes just part of everyday conversation, part of everyday life."
Anna clarified that this shouldn't feel an interrogation. So rather than asking "What are you doing on your phone today?" or having an "all or nothing" approach to conversations about their online activity, it will work better when discussed in the mix with other topics, naturally.
"It's like everything. It's best if you start to integrate [conversations about phones with] things like talking about feelings and emotions."
Opening up on what she discovered during filming for The Great British Phone Switch, Anna, who guided the experiment alongside Dr Martha Deiros Collado, explained, "The whole point of doing The Great British Phone Switch was to highlight the disconnect between parent and teen, to understand how adults and teens view the digital world through their separate lenses, but then how that translates into family use.
"I have an eight-year-old boy who's already saying, 'when can I get a phone? When can I watch Roblox? Can I do this?'
"And as parents, we naturally come from a place of protection and fear. And the problem is as parents, our fear alienates our children."
The Great British Phone Switch is available to stream now on All4.
