Digital Parenting Program - February 2024

Hi, I’m Vivian - Founder & CEO of ADHD Support Australia, facilitator of the Parenting Children with ADHD Course since 2015, ADDCA trained ADHD Coach, certified PEERS Social Skills for Young Adults/Teens program provider, qualified teacher, Certified Tech Addiction & Digital Health Educator (NIDHW), facilitator of the Digital Parenting Program, certified NeuroACT for teens and adults program, mentor & most importantly, an experienced ADHD mum!

I’m an ADHD parent (with an ADHD diagnosis myself) and I’ve navigated my way through all aspects of raising a daughter with ADHD (& much more), into a healthy, beautiful adult human. She is now a young adult with ADHD and our journey continues to evolve.

I created a local support group in Sydney, Australia offering support and education to parents of children with ADHD, after my daughter's diagnosis. Since 2013, when I founded the group, my passion has been supporting others on the same journey, using the benefit of the knowledge I’ve picked up along the way.

I've organised an expert ADHD speaker nearly every month since (now online) with recordings of past talks available on Patreon. With the aim of reaching and serving as many ADHD families as possible, wherever they may be, I created the Online Parenting Children with ADHD Course and the Digital Parenting Program. I hope that it will be of value to you in helping you navigate your journey with ADHD!

Why am I passionate about reducing young people’s screen time?

As a parenting expert, I’ve been facilitating the Parenting Children with ADHD 6-week course since 2015. Screen use is definitely the number one problem I see parents struggling with.

It is the key reason parents identify as causing unwanted or aggressive behaviours, melt-downs, tantrums and family conflict. These are the impacts parents can readily connect to screen use, so I’m not including the impacts they don’t connect here.

It’s also the major currency parents use as a reward (more screentime) or a consequence (removing screentime) for their young people.

I interact and work with parents, teens & young adults struggling with social skills and making and keeping friends through my PEERS Social Skills for teens & young adults program.

Finding it challenging to find their place socially – I see teens and young adults searching for social connection and looking online to find connections and, perhaps, a sense of control in an online virtual world.

Unfortunately stepping further away from the real world serves to further disconnect them from their peers, siblings, families and away from real life pursuits and activities and they find themselves less socially connected than ever.

Their increased screen use further fuels the vicious cycle by causing further social challenges via

• nervous system dysregulation
• less real-life social interactions
• less opportunity to practice social skills and create friendships

An increase in social isolation, anxiety and depression sadly often follow.

I understand how parents wrestle with the dilemma of feeling loathe to take away what appears the only activity their young person finds pleasure in, whilst knowing in their heart that their young person isn’t reaching their potential and living their best life alone, in their room, in a virtual world with the divide continuing to widen.

Bearing witness to this over the years, made me so sad for these families and young people, so I decided to delve deeper into this topic.

I became more educated and informed by becoming a Certified Tech Addiction & Digital Health Educator through National Institute of Digital Health & Wellness (NIDHW).

Since I’ve begun discussing the effects of screen time in more depth as a possible cause for some behaviours during our weekly group Zoom calls in my Interactive Parenting course, I’ve started hearing parents further confirm this is their experience – that screen time triggers poor behaviour, melt downs and conflict and that when screen time is limited or restricted, behaviour and family life improves.

I had in fact been witnessing and hearing this all along, but didn’t fit the piece solidly into the puzzle until I looked into it further.

I realised that if I truly wanted to help parents, families and young people fully thrive, I needed to create a separate program where parents, if they chose to, could be both educated and supported to implement a solution to what is an extremely challenging endeavour – to achieve freedom from the overuse of screens and devices.

We have accepted screens becoming a ubiquitous part of lives, more or less without question. We regard technology as innovative and inevitable, but rarely with caution.

You are the first iGen parents. The first parents in history whose children are digital natives – who have grown up immersed in technology.

The proliferation of technology has happened to us so quickly, we haven’t had time to understand the impacts or get to grips with grappling with any resulting problems.

Few warn us of any harmful impacts and therefore we are largely unaware, even if our gut instinct is telling us otherwise.

If your doctor, mental health professional or educator isn’t asking about your young person’s screen use as part of their assessment or treatment – why would you think to question it?

I’m happy to question the status quo and bring you the information you need to make informed choices on behalf of your family. Always have. Always will.