"I didn't want to take away what made him happy" 

•  It was in 2016 that I realized my son was addicted to gaming and social media. He was 16 years old at the time and not only a dedicated gamer for years but social media also took up a lot of his time.
  
  It was getting harder and harder to get him off the games, social media, movies and the phone.
  
  My ' feeling ' was telling me the amount of time he was spending behind a screen wasn’t right, but I was confused as his generation was really being pushed to advance with technology.
  
  I didn’t want to deprive him of tech. I even sent him to a school that was technology based thinking " Maybe this generation has that extra genius tech gene!"
  At times I wondered with the amount of time he spent gaming “Maybe he will be a gaming developer”. Many parents go through a period of thinking this.
  
  Then I learned of the damage being created in his brain and his nervous system...
  
  Screens seemed to gradually and insidiously creep into our home, our lifestyle and alarmingly my son's personality. It was having a detrimental impact on his ability to function day to day. Living with an internet addicted child is like walking on eggshells. This situation robs our confidence as parents and brings a lot of confusion, frustration, anger, worry, and eventually exhaustion and a sense of hopelessness, not to mention the guilt.

Was this his personality? Is this normal teenage behaviour? 

As a parent you feel torn, alone and confused about what to do as nothing is working. Your child seems to be changing - becoming closed off, losing interest in activities, friendships, they are not engaging in conversation with you or others, constantly tired and all they want to do is game or scroll on social media…and they just don't seem happy.

• The longer we leave them behind the screen, the worse they become. 
  This is what you see: grades start to fall, friends start to disappear, they stop engaging in activities that they once used to enjoy and they become lethargic. You try to encourage them but it simply doesn’t work.Things can spiral quickly to dropping out of school, becoming depressed, anxious and constantly with a  screen in their face. 

A lot of kid's struggle at school because they can't focus. Nothing compares to the over stimulation of the screen and the activities on the screen, like gaming and social media. So of course school becomes boring. Before I learnt how the screen was affecting his ability to learn, focus and how it was actually causing memory loss, I thought he was just being a "lazy so and so", which lead us into a...

Constant Internet Argument 

Our relationship had turned to nothing but irritation and a distance growing between us.

Sad times indeed.

I was becoming the parent I never wanted to be
Then I became exhausted. This is the next stage after the internet argument- the silent internet argument  
I would walk past his bedroom. Sometimes I would even take his dinner to him  when he was gaming, as I knew he wouldn't eat otherwise. I knew it was wrong. I knew he was suffering but I didn't know what to do.  I just wanted my child back!

 "Why couldn't I get him off the screen?"

So I hit the research trail to see what was going on.

What I learnt made my jaw drop to the ground and "Boom", I found it! 

It’s also not your child’s fault they cant get off the screen, and it's not their fault they are behaving this way. Too much time on the screen whether it be gaming, social media, youtube and all the rest of it totally messes up the nervous system. It affects them socially, mentally, emotionally, physically and behaviourally. Their inability to sleep properly being a major culprit.

I was so full of parental guilt  when I discovered how excessive screen exposure was damaging my son's brain and nervous system at such a crucial time of his development.

Before I go on, I really want you to know, if you are in a similar situation, this is not your fault.  You didn’t know the serious damage that simply playing a game or engaging on social media can have on kids.

Once I knew what was really going on, it was time for action.

So I thought I’d test it out and simply said to him,

" Let’s charge our phones in the hall tonight ”

and all hell broke loose...

That’s when I knew something wasn’t right, this was not his true nature, he has never acted like this in his life. There was a problem.

I thought I’d lost my son forever,  life was horrible.

After trialing the many ways to free him and give him back his childhood,
I discovered exactly what was needed to clear the addiction and restored my son back to a healthy balanced life, with full control over any screen. ( lots of stuff ups along the way)

We finally have the success with being internet addiction free! 
This has been the case for over 6 years now, in which time we have been supporting other families to do the same.

So my intuition was right.
It was not normal teenage behaviour, this was not his real personality. It was a highly disturbed nervous system and a highly addicted brain I was dealing with because once I free'd him from internet addiction he  miraculously started to come back to be his beautiful self once again.

Kind, generous, calm, funny, considerate, his memory improved, his eyes stopped twitching (ticks from the screen time).  Once again he became creative and inspired, he found his passion for music and committed to learning again. He could look people in the eye, engage in conversations, he was no longer fatigued, no more back pain or headaches and he started to eat well again. 

He left the gaming behind and started engaging socially as a healthy teen should.

It’s tricky, because we haven’t raised this child before. As simple as this sounds, well, we don’t actually know their personality as these are the developmental years. Yes, teens are teens but when you feel that something is not right, that something is disturbing them and they have a screen in their face a lot of the time, then follow your parental intuition, it's there for a reason! 

Childhood is the most important time where they are learning who they are, how they fit in socially and who they want to be. These are challenging years to navigate as it is.

Putting a screen in front of them without boundaries is pretty much creating a disaster and making life much harder for them. 

This causes so many problems leeching out into the family, relationships with partners, relationships between siblings, it even affects some parents work life. The stress we endure is monumental and no, it’s simply not meant to be this hard.

This is not normal childhood development and this is not your child's true personality.

A brain is a brain, there is no escaping the effects of excessive screen exposure affecting the brain and nervous system negatively.

If you're seeing any of these issues with your child and they are engaging in quite a bit of screen time, If your parental intuition is saying ‘something is not right here’ then you are right and it is time to do something about it.

Once I free'd my own son, I then went on to support other families to do the same and so DigiTox was born!

DigiTox is a simple step by step proven system, that works to restore kid's back to a state of balance so they can gain control of tech in their lives.

I love to see the kids come back to their true personalities, calmer, clearer, stronger, happier and more themselves. I love to see how the families reconnect as they move through the program.

It's a family program supporting you to turn the fear and worry, the anger and confusion into clarity so you can then take action to confidently move through the digital world confidently rather than getting " caught in the web" so to speak. 

If you are stuck in the exhausting and frustrating internet argument with your child then
Download the free "End the Internet Argument" Course.

Or simply stay in touch in our supportive community on fb and share your story.

I would love to hear your story & thanks for taking the time to hear ours!

" It Takes A Village".