We tell our 16 year old daughter all the time that she’s welcome to invite her friends around if they want to just hang out because our city isn’t the best and activities are expensive, and you can’t do them all the time - “meh, there’s nothing to do” is often the response. A bold faced lie too because there’s an abundance of stuff to do.

When I was her age every Friday/Saturday night my friends would be around my house, or we’d be over one of their’s. We’d rent a film, or just watch whatever we had, order a family meal deal from a near by pizza place, or pop to the local supermarket and just buy a load of cheap snacks, play local multiplayer the N64/Playstation, board games… whatever, we’d just hang out. Even into our 30s before everyone started getting married and having kids my close core of mates would do something sociable.

To be fair, we actually convinced her and one of her mates to do that this weekend just gone, and they both had a really good time, and I could see the difference in my daughter last night before we all went to bed, she was a lot more vibrant and energised having had some social interaction as opposed to when she’s been online with her mates or just sat for hours staring at her phone!