Post-pandemic parents know that something has gone badly wrong with this generation’s childhood. Months locked indoors without playmates or clubs accelerated an already alarming trend of ever greater screen addiction in ever younger children. We see it all around us: the family in a restaurant where the children are glued to their smartphones. The harm these devices are wreaking on teenagers is clearly in the same league as tobacco and alcohol. Freddy and Hilda hired me to home-tutor their four children under 10 to try to rid them of their social media addiction. 

Of course, I have taught elder children to learn to code, programme and engage in thoughtful debate on automation and AI, but these pre-teenagers had to learn how to overcome an addiction that comes from unfettered access to smartphones and social media. Now that I am tutoring them these four children spend many more hours reading and exploring the outdoors than their schooled equivalents. And I spend a lot of time playing outdoor games with them, teaching the older ones to play tennis, squash and badminton. They also spend time with other children who come to our house without their smartphones and they have tremendous fun together, swimming in the pool and exploring the woods around us. The other children came to realize what fun can be had without smartphones. It is important that they stay in contact and play with lots of other children of their age. Other parents queue up for their children to have the opportunity to spend time with children who are not addicted to their smartphones. 

Teaching different ages is a juggle; I am constantly rotating my attention between children and subjects: one reads while I explain a new maths topic to another; one writes an essay while I teach another grammar. But it is wonderful to watch the way in which they are becoming more alert and curious about things than they were when they were glued to their smartphones. And they are certainly learning more quickly than they were before. 

I have been tutoring the four of them for over a year now and their parents have asked me to stay on indefinitely; they do not want their children to go back to school with other children who are glued to their smartphones. LK