Sleep
Sleep is usually the first thing to go and the last thing a parent connects to a phone. The pattern is later and later to bed, the phone in the room, waking in the night to check it, and a tiredness that a long weekend does not touch. Charging the phone outside the bedroom is the single highest-value change available at home, and it does not require anyone to agree there is a problem.
If you need help now
Call 911 if someone is unresponsive or badly hurt. Call or text 988 for thoughts of suicide or self harm. Both are free and open all day and night. All crisis resources
Why it goes first
Use extends into the hours that used to be sleep, because there is no natural end to a feed and because the most socially active hours online are late.
Broken sleep then makes everything else harder to regulate, which makes the next day’s use more likely, which is the loop that turns a bad fortnight into a bad season.
What to ask
Ask what happens after they turn the light off. Ask whether they wake in the night and what they do when they do.
These get honest answers far more often than asking how much they are on their phone, because they are not about the phone and do not read as an accusation.
The one change worth making
The phone charges somewhere other than the bedroom. Announced in advance, applied to the whole household including you, and not presented as a punishment.
Do one thing. Five changes at once reads as a sanction, whatever the intention, and it usually is one.
When it is not the phone
Sleep problems in adolescents have plenty of other causes, several of them medical and some of them straightforward to test for. If sleep does not improve when the phone leaves the room, that is a reason to see a doctor rather than to escalate at home.
Three different kinds of help
These are separate on purpose. A parent looking for clinical help should never arrive in a legal intake queue by accident.
Getting help
A family doctor first, the school counselor second, a therapist third. The first two are faster and cheaper, and both can refer you onward.
Finding helpWe do not provide treatment and take no payment from anyone who does.
The lawsuits
How the claims work, what has to be shown, and why the deadlines are different for a child. This comes second to getting your child care, and that is not a formality.
How the lawsuits workContacting us does not create an attorney client relationship, and what you send is not confidential or privileged.
Reporting and resources
Reporting an image or an adult, what a school can actually do, and the organizations worth your time.
ResourcesNobody pays to be listed and listing is not endorsement.