Vienna, 1980s. A bunch of teens huddled around something that looked like a tiny suitcase sprouting an aerial. “My mobile phone,” my friend’s dad declared, chest out with pride. We stared at it as if it had just dropped from space.
A few years later, I made my first call on a brick of a handset so heavy it could’ve doubled as gym kit. I felt like the slickest person alive, as if I’d just stepped out of Madonna’s Vogue. Gone were the days of twisting the rotary dial with mum overhearing every word, or ducking into a payphone booth, shoulder jammed against the door, praying your stack of coins would last long enough to whisper about a crush.
How can parents support teens in a world of screens?
Parenting teens in the digital age bears different challenges. Now the phone lives in your teenager’s pocket. Camera, diary, megaphone, sleep disruptor, and sometimes lifeline. Parents tell me the hardest part isn’t the device. It’s the relentless hum that never stops. Your nervous system blinks. The internet doesn’t.
The scale is plain: In the UK, about 95% of 13-17 year-olds use social media, eight in ten children have a profile somewhere, and around two thirds watch livestreams. Younger children drift in earlier than policy intends. These aren’t moral judgments. They are the map your family is walking through.
Fear arrives in waves
If you’re raising a teenager, fear does not come in one flavour. It arrives in two overlapping waves.
Wave one is digital. The always-on internet asks parents to surrender control long before many young people are ready to carry full responsibility, including anticipating consequences. It is the midnight ping that steals your sleep, the group chat that surges faster than judgement, the private messages and disappearing stories, the post that travels further than they ever meant.
Wave two is developmental. Separation begins long before a suitcase rolls to the door. Doors close more often. Secrets grow. Opinions sharpen. With each step into independence you feel the ping in your chest, your gut tensing. Sometimes you’re not ready, even when they are.
Often the two waves collide. Online autonomy accelerates just as offline distance grows. Fear spikes. The temptation is to clamp down or check out. The task is to help your teen navigate new contexts.
Holding yourself
Part of what surges in these moments is your own adolescence waking up inside you. The past has a quiet lever. John Bargh’s work on automaticity shows, cues in the present can trigger old patterns before you notice, tilting what you see and how you react. Under stress we default to our attachment habits: some of us grip, some go quiet, some over-explain to calm our own nerves.
As Daniel Siegel puts it, “children are particularly vulnerable to becoming the targets of the projection of our nonconscious emotions and unresolved issues”. Add teen ambiguity and the ground shifts again: one minute they sound nine and want comforting. The next they want to be met as an adult and bristle at guidance. Name what is yours, pause long enough to steady, then respond. That way you don’t fight yesterday while you are trying to parent today.
Remodel, not catastrophe
“Adolescence is not a period of being ‘crazy’ or ‘immature.’ It is an essential time of emotional intensity, social engagement, and creativity.”, Siegel writes in his insightful book Brainstorm. Presence, not panic. When the feed and life invite reactivity, presence keeps you human. His PART cue helps: be Present, Attune, Resonate, and build Trust.
In this remodel the brain is rewiring for courage, creativity, and connection. You are not losing your child; you are meeting a new version. They need space and they still need you. Stay in contact without gripping. Guide without turning into surveillance. Influence travels first through relationship.
Let them teach you
Times are changing, and teens are often the early scouts. Faster to adapt, quicker to spot what’s coming. Keep the lines open so they can teach you as well as be taught. Modelling discernment in a world of infinite choice is just as hard for adults; we’re as likely to be hooked by clever algorithms and doom-scroll past bedtime. Admit it with a smile. It makes you a partner, not a pushover.
Faye (not her real name), a client of mine shared her success with me:“My son used to ask me to walk him to school; now he races ahead, earbuds in, phone in hand. One evening, instead of pulling back or chasing, I just asked him to explain what track he was listening to. To my surprise, that small question opened the door to a conversation that went far beyond the track he was playing.”
Of course, what holding on and letting go looks like depends on where you live, what you earn, and the culture you raise your children in. Some families can limit tech use; others can’t. Some teens carry more autonomy, some less. These differences matter.
Distance looks different now
Leaving home used to be a front door closing and a long-distance bill. Today distance blurs. A teen can feel far away behind a bedroom door with headphones on, and oddly close from a hall of residence half across the country. You may pass each other in the kitchen without eye contact, though their phone is always lit. The phone compresses space and sometimes stretches it.
What matters is the base they return to. Early bonds shape the implicit and automatic brain’s stress systems; that scaffolding does not vanish at eighteen. It becomes the felt sense that someone has your back, whether the ping comes from the next room or from the campus at midnight. This is why presence matters more than proximity.
Risk and growth, side by side
Your worries are not misplaced. Sleep erodes. Comparison bites. Harmful content exists. Regulation helps but cannot stand in for relationship. And still, alongside the mess, many teens learn exactly what we hope for them: collaboration, creative play, quick literacy with new tools, communities that soften loneliness. The picture is mixed. Tidy answers rarely fit.
You are allowed to feel anxious; it means you are attached. Authority grows when you slow down, listen and explain the why. Teens need room to test judgement in a fast world; boundaries help, and so does your willingness to revise them. Your steadiness will sometimes matter more than your strategy.
The long goodbye
There is a moment in the later teens when you glimpse the adult arriving and a small grief rises. The goodbye begins in pockets. A tidy spare room. Shoes missing by the door. The electricity bill quietly dipping. The pull is to grip or go quiet. There is a third way: influence without clutching, availability without intrusion, curiosity that keeps the conversation alive.
I will end where we began. The suitcase-phone of my Vienna years felt like a marvel. It required intention. You chose when to call. Now the call chooses us. The work of parenting teens is to return choice to the relationship. Keep the lines open. In Siegel’s language, keep the PART in play. The internet will not blink. You can.
If this article resonates and you would like to find out how we can help you, contact us to schedule a confidential enquiry call today.
Written by Veronika Kloucek, Senior Psychotherapist, Trainer, Supervisor, and founder of The Village Clinic with support from AI tools for grammar and clarity. All editorial ideas and authorship remain fully human.
References
Bargh, J. A. (2017). Before you know it: The unconscious reasons we do what we do. Simon & Schuster.
Financial Times. (2024). UK Online Safety Act: Age-assurance rules and what they mean for platforms. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/
Gerhardt, S. (2015). Why love matters: How affection shapes a baby’s brain (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Ofcom. (2025). Children and parents: Media use and attitudes 2025. Retrieved from https://www.ofcom.org.uk/
Siegel, D. J. (2013). Brainstorm: The power and purpose of the teenage brain. Tarcher/Perigee.
UK Government. (2024). Online Safety Act: Explainer. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer