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Everyday I find stories that involve teenagers, device addiction and mental health. They are all over the press, as rates of depression and self-harm soar in youngsters.

One article that caught my eye, by Tech journalist Moya Sarner was about Belinda Parmar – who “was a passionate advocate of the digital revolution – but has started keeping her family’s smartphones and laptops locked away to protect her loved ones”

I then had a very interesting discussion with my 17 year old daughter about confiscating devices. She said “if the kid is trusted with the device it shouldn’t be confiscated.” And there lies the problem. It is not necessarily our kids we don’t trust but the social media giants who have deliberately created addictive platforms and the unregulated content that is published on them. Try explaining that to my 13 year old. Do I trust her to discern which content is suitable for her? I am afraid not.

To quote the article – “These experts agree that abstinence is not the way forward: instead, we need to build what they call digital resilience, and learn to use technology in a measured, controlled way.”

One of the five core pillars of Brighton5 is to teach our kids fearless enquiry. To teach them how to discern, to question, and to ultimately understand the ramifications of their digital activities. This should be done in ways they can relate to – younger teens are heavily influenced by older teens, so Brighton5 aims to empower teens to change their behavior for the better, by helping them help themselves.

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Josie Booth interviewing Brighton5 founder Daisy Cresswell on Radio Reverb
Josie Booth, host of The Mothership, interviewing Brighton5 founder Daisy Cresswell on Radio Reverb

Yesterday we did our first press for Brighton5 – a live interview on local Brighton station Radio Reverb as part of their fundraising Reverbathon 2018. (Big thanks to The Mothership’s Josie Booth for the invite!)

Daisy spoke about where the idea for Brighton5 came from and what it’s all about – we’re hoping to share a link to the interview later this week.

Dipping our toes into publicity is both exciting and daunting – now we have to get on with making Brighton5 happen! It also means we’re putting a call out for people to get involved – from subscribing to this blog (there’s a link below), spreading the word by following us on social media (we’re on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) and sharing our posts, or offering help with the parent radio show/podcast or the TV show.

Let’s help our teens to make a brighter future for us all.

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Brighton5 as it happens consists of (among many other things):
1. Writing the partnerships deck (presentation) for potential sponsors and partners
2. Writing the script for the crowdfunder video
3. Attending Anxiety in Teens session (see previous post)
4. Rewriting the script for the crowdfunder video (after the Anxiety session)
5. Editing the photoshoot we did last Saturday (and waiting for the teens to send over their other pictures)
6. Doing the VAT (yup)
7. Meeting amazing local parents and entrepreneurs with myriad skills, who want to get involved
8. Creating XL spreadsheets to remember everything (double yup)
9. Research: watching super-well-crafted Netflix documentaries incessantly and taking good notes
10. More research: watching teen TV shows with my kids, incessantly asking WHY they are cool
11. Even more research: Listening to recommended podcasts and writing mad scribbles
12. Writing this blog
13. Filtering the WEIRDEST spam comments from this blog (gotta love a bot!) – how fitting this item is no.13
14. Going to the supermarket, making dinners, washing uniforms, tidying the crap off bedroom floors (occasionally)
15. Preparing to speak live on Radio Reverb this Saturday 3rd March – sometime between 10 and 11 with Josie who hosts ‘The Mothership’, where I will be plugging Brighton5 and bigging up their Reverbathon.

Make sure you listen in. If you can’t we will record it anyway. And edit out my nervous gaffs, I am tired after all.

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This morning I attended the ‘Managing Anxiety’ meet up organised by some local primary mental health workers. The session was advertised via three Brighton secondary schools, aimed at parents and carers. At first, it felt like an AA meeting (not that that is a bad thing) as I nervously joined the group sitting in a circle. Strangely only parents from one school attended. This highlights the issue of communications and how you get the good word out there. Time of day may also have been a factor.

Listening to other parents talking openly (albeit anonymously) about their teens’ problems illustrated clear patterns of behaviors related directly to anxiety including pressure of school – especially attendance targets, panic attacks, lack of sleep, isolation…

Of course, some of these problems are age old as kids hit adolescence and become socially dysfunctional – we were told about a study the proved that the level of stress an adolescent experiences by just being looked at is far higher than an adult, as they have a heightened sense of themselves. However, the majority of discussions were taken up talking about screen dependency and the added pressures social media can have on our teens.

The culmination of these honest heart-felt stories make Brighton5 all the more crucial. If kids are all over social, then we owe it to them and ourselves to use that medium to create positive ways of tackling difficult issues. It is glaringly obvious that younger teens need other older teen role models, for help, advice and friendship.

Bring on the girls. Bring on the Brighton5.

Useful links provided at the meeting:
Hey Sigmund – written in language children can understand
And this book about overcoming anxiety in kids – a must read apparently

P.S. If you came to the meeting this morning, please get in touch (tab top right of page)