At the top of my daughter’s Christmas wishlist this year – scrawled in felt tip between a whoopee cushion and ‘10,000 sweets’ – was a smartphone. Just like most of the kids in her primary school class, it’s got a permanent place on her ‘most wanted’ list.
We all want to give our children delight at Christmas. But more and more of us are becoming aware that the moment they get a smartphone, it becomes a battle to stop them being swallowed up by it. You’re not just choosing a present – you’re choosing who gets to shape their emerging identity, what their childhood memories will consist of, and ultimately what sort of childhood they will have. And this is the tension families across the UK are living with.
