Risk-averse parents and phones bad for children's mental health, says Allsopp

Kirstie Allsopp has defended allowing her teenage son to go interrailing around Europe and claimed that “risk-averse” parenting is contributing to a crisis in young people’s mental health.

- EMMA GUINNESS

Speaking to The Independent, she said that children are being exposed to more dangers on their mobile phones than they ever could be through travel. The Location, Location, Location star, 52, was recently reported to social services for allowing her son, then 15, to interrail around Europe for three weeks with his 16year-old friend.

She became aware of the report when she received a message from authorities enquiring about what “safeguards” had been put in place for the teen, the Mail on Sunday reported. A believer that “travel broadens the mind”, Allsopp refused to provide this information and was told that the case could be kept open by her local council “in case there was another referral”.

She told The Independent: “Children are being prevented from doing things which previous generations did in terms of independence, travel and being trusted to take jobs like paper rounds. There’s a book called The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. He doesn’t believe that mobile phones alone are causing a crisis of mental health and anxiety in young people.

“He believes it’s a toxic combination of mobile phones and riskaverse parenting. Obviously, every parent judges what is and isn’t safe for their own child to do.”