My mum has always been protective, and I fear it is destroying my social life because I haven’t grown up with much access to social media. I don’t mean to say it’s OK to be exposed to social media at a young age, but it needs to be controlled in a certain way.
Because I had a flip phone until the middle of secondary school, I haven’t had a TikTok or Snapchat streak with anyone because I never learned how it works. I know this might sound like me complaining over nothing, but it sometimes feels like my mum is purposely doing this to damage me.
My parents are divorced, and my dad thought I should have a flip phone until it was getting in the way of my friendships, which I suppose was reasonable enough, but no one can contradict my mum.
Is my mum just stubborn, or am I complaining too much and making a mountain out of a molehill?
You told me you are 12 in one of your emails, but then you also mention having a flip phone until the “middle of secondary school”, which would make you 13/14 in the UK, so I’m confused. But I do know school systems can vary and our readership is global, so I’m talking to you as if you are 12. Your age is important here because you aren’t allowed to go on the apps you mention, and some others, until you’re 13. Plenty of people get around this, but even the people who run the apps think below 13 is too young.
Being a young person isn’t easy. You are naturally starting to detach from your family, a process that takes years and is essential if you are to eventually “launch” from the nest. Your brain is in a fizz of redevelopment. You think you know what’s best for you, your parents think they do, and somewhere in the middle we must land on a compromise. I don’t doubt your mum’s motivation is to protect you, but yours is to challenge that. It’s interesting that you look at your dad’s actions in a more understanding way, yet he is half of the parenting equation.
I went to child and adolescent psychotherapist Graham Music, who has decades of experience in this field. He pointed out that there’s a “lot of scaremongering, with many leading researchers suggesting tech, screen and social media are bad, full stop. Should we worry about and sometimes limit phone use? Yes. Does that mean we should ban teens from using smartphones? I don’t think so, but this is best worked out in a spirit of mutual compromise in parent-teen relationships based on good communication.”
But the point is not really what Music and I think. It’s finding a way that you and your mum (and dad) can talk about this and decide on what is acceptable and what isn’t. Perhaps you could even explore social media together. Music says, quite rightly: “If in family life most things can be discussed, including feelings, hopes or friendship issues, and what can be accessed on smartphones, then there need not be a problem. Of course screens are addictive. But in my experience the young people who are most at risk are those already at risk from abuse, trauma, neglect or stress; the unhappy teens who might use screens to compensate. The worst outcomes are seen in teens who already have psychological issues.”
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Your mum isn’t being any more stubborn than you. You’re entitled to care about these things, and to be listened to, but throughout all of this you need to be able to communicate with your mum and she with you. If she can see your point of view, and you hers, this will be really beneficial for all the other discussions that are yet to come. As Music says: “There are no easy answers. Every parent is grappling with such issues. The best inoculation against the risks of social media and smartphones is a happy, reflective young person who is trusted and helped to trust themselves.”
You may also be interested to read this article I wrote with my daughter. Why not show it to your mum as a springboard to talking about things? And ask her what life was like for her when she was 12 – that’s always a good starting point.
Every week, Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem to ask.annalisa@theguardian.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions. The latest series of Annalisa’s podcast is available here.
