November 2025 - Magazine - Page 59
November 2025
family dinners, or respond to e-mails while playing with our children, we're not just being
distracted, we are withdrawing the basic form of love that human connection requires," she writes.
This is a particularly acute challenge for today's children who are in a "world immersed
in digital technology", says Catherine.
Her husband Prince William, in a conversation on an Apple TV+ show, recently said that
none of their three children were allowed to have smartphones.
In her essay published on the website of the Royal
Foundation Centre
for Early Childhood, Catherine
says that children
need to be encouraged to develop social and
emotional skills,
which will help
them throughout
their lives.
But that can be impeded by a "world filled with technological distractions", she argues.
"We're raising a generation that may be more 'connected' than any in history while simultaneously being more isolated, more lonely, and less equipped to form the warm,
meaningful relationships that research tells us are the foundation of a healthy life," she
writes.
On Thursday, Catherine discussed some of these issues about family relationships on a
visit to the Home-Start centre in Oxford, a charity which supports families and their
young children.
She played with small children at the centre, including a young girl who tipped out a
tray of flour perilously close to where the princess was sitting. The princess joked the
"messier it is, the better the fun".
The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood was launched in 2021, with the aim of
raising awareness and gathering research evidence about the importance of children's first years.
