How many times have you been stood at the school gates, sat in a café, having a conversation with your partner or friend, the phone beeps and their head is in their phone. How does it feel when the connection between you is lost because the phone has beeped?

Well, I don’t know about you but I find it irritating and rude and yet I can also be guiltyof it! It’s a real-life example of Pavlov’s dog experiment, we become ‘trained’ to react to the beep as though our very survival depends on it. It’s a sad situation when we look around us and observe groups of people together yet worlds apart, driven to distraction by the modern technology we are surrounded by.

Of course, it can be useful, we can learn so much from it, I wouldn’t be communicating this to you now without it and yet it takes something from us and importantly from our children that cannot be replaced, we cannot turn back time, that’s it, it’s lost and we are creating a generation of children who are equally lost by our facilitation of ‘screen time’. Before you shout at me, be honest! We are the one’s facilitating it, 2-year-olds can’t go and buy their own iPad! We do that, we give it to them. Maybe a more important thought though is why? Why do we do something that we might not have thought about or maybe we don’t agree with and yet we do it. It is a complex answer partly because we are humans and driven by a group mentality, a wish to not be left behind or left out, because our world is busy and we want two minutes peace, whatever the reason, it’s here and here to stay!

I’ll tell you a story… because I like stories! I went out for dinner the other evening. I assume a mum and dad and their daughter who was nearly 2 walked in, popped her in a highchair, placed an iPad in front of her, sat down, dad picked up the menu, mum her phone. The child sat in her highchair looked at mum, then dad, neither of which saw this look, she looked down at the iPad, picked it up, turned it over, put it back on the tray of the highchair, opened her mouth and screamed. I smiled…the mum immediately looked up, didn’t look at the child, but at the iPad and replied, ‘it’s just an advert, it’ll be back in a minute’ the child screamed again, ‘stop being naughty’ the mum replied, dad got up and walked off. A wave of sadness washed over me, the child was asking for a connection with the two most important people in her world and it was shut down. As the scenario progressed, their meals arrived, and as any child of that age will do, she began to throw her fork onto the floor, dad picked it up once, she did it again, ‘stop being naughty’ mum says, child does it again smiling, ‘you’re being so naughty, I’m going to take you home’, the child bows her head, returns to the iPad and quiet ensues. The child was testing out an idea, if something goes away does it comeback. It’s a developmental learning that every child goes through. It helps them develop resilience but also helps them to feel secure – mum or dad goes away but they come back. Yet all of this was missed. It made me think of the phrase, children should be seen and not heard, which equally makes me wonder if that is the cost of modern technology? A child’s emotional development is being stunted because we want them to be quiet, behave and not interfere with our own addiction to the screen.

So, you can be there, sat right next to your child, partner, friend.

It doesn't mean you are ‘there’, that you are ‘present’ or ‘interested’ you are just…physically ‘there’.

The physicality of being there isn’t enough to stimulate interest or curiosity and being emotional present can be tricky.

It can be especially tricky if during your own childhood one or both parents struggled to get in touch with their emotions and in turn struggled to manage yours.

So here's 3 questions you can think about to help you get in touch with your own emotions and enable you to build relationships that feel more present, whether with your child, your partner, family or friends.