I am a mother to an eleven year old phone addict. She got a phone when she was eight and we have never restricted her usage, which has increased substantially in the last year. It got to the stage where she was on it almost every waking second she wasn't forced by me (DH didn't give a monkeys) to do something else. One day she clocked more than ten hours so I said enough is enough and put restrictions on it. She now has three hours a day, which I still feel is too much, but I recognise she's a tweenager and wants to text her friends, plus it's useful for emergencies and gives some comfort when she is in walking home alone from school.
When she's not on the phone she tries to use other screens by going on her laptop or watching the same handful of shows on the tv over and over. I force her to come out for a walk with me everyday, and we usually go for a coffee and talk about how she's feeling, how her day has been etc. She recently told me she is depressed, but will not accept the phone is contributing to this. I also tell her to do activities like drawing, reading, and she codes simple Scratch games on her laptop. I have to tell her to do these things because without prompting she will just lay down and stare into space miserably.
I have told her I will bankroll any hobby she wants to do, pay for any club she'd like to join, take her to any sport she can think of, and take her on holiday anywhere she wants to go but she says she doesn't want to do anything. She has zero imagination, zero curiosity, no ambitions for her future, and just wants to lay about at home on her phone all the time.
I take her on cheap holidays to get away from the house and provide her with stimulation, but she complains whenever I tell her we're going somewhere. She's not spoilt, she's well behaved, and doesn't expect anything from me, but she takes no joy in a day out or a holiday. I could say I'm taking her to Disneyland and she wouldn't want to go.
I really do feel it's abnormal for an eleven year old not to want to go out and experience things, especially fun stuff like holidays. I have always taken her away a lot and she says it's not special and she doesn't enjoy it. In the May half term I took her to London for four nights in the YHA. We did loads of things and I took her to the theatre three of the nights. When we left I asked her what her favourite thing was and she said staying up on her phone while we waited for the cheap theatre tickets to be posted at midnight. I would have killed for a trip like that at her age, and wouldn't have been able to choose the best bit because it was all great. And we do the seaside, camping, hostelling, city breaks in Travelodges with loads of places to visit... It's cheap and it's UK but it's still fun. Well, it is for me. She's not interested at all.
I blame myself for this. I should have put restrictions on the phone from the start.
Now I'm reducing the time she thinks she's being punished. I have explained to her that letting her use the phone for ten hours is bad parenting, and that I'm not going to stop trying to stimulate her with holidays and days out because I want her to have experiences. But she says I make her feel like she's a problem. She's not a problem, she's my child. But she is fighting me every step of the way.
I just don't know how to change her mindset. I don't think that taking the phone away entirely is an option because I don't want to cut her off from her friends but I do feel like it's a barrier to increasing her happiness. I want her to live her life and actually enjoy it, not feel like the only good thing in the world is spending hours and hours scrolling YouTube shorts or looking at memes. Nothing else makes her happy.
TLDR, my kid has an unhealthy phone addiction and can find no joy in anything else.