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"Mumma, look at my drawing!" "One minute, beta." "Papa, can I tell you something?" "Just let me finish this message."

If any of that sounds familiar, you're not alone. In most homes today, it isn't just the kids who are glued to a screen. Parents are too. Replying to a work message on WhatsApp, scrolling Instagram for two minutes that turn into twenty, watching one more reel, answering emails after the kids are supposedly asleep- phones have quietly become the third parent in the room.

Most of us tell ourselves we're multitasking. But a new study suggests our kids might be experiencing something else entirely: they feel ignored.

this June, the study found that a parent's attachment to their phone can trigger anxiety and insecurity in children and teenagers. Its title says it all, and it's hard to read without wincing a little: "Mommy, do you love your phone more than me?"


What did the study find

The researchers spoke with 600 adolescents in the United States, aged 12 to 17, about how it felt when a parent was on their phone during a family moment.

A lot of them described feeling dismissed, unimportant, even invisible when they were trying to talk, share something they were excited about, or just get a bit of attention, and the parent's eyes stayed on the screen.

It's a familiar scene in Indian homes too


This isn't only happening in America. Picture a typical evening in a lot of Indian households. A child gets home from school, bursting to tell someone about their day. One parent is still finishing office replies, because the workday never really seems to end anymore. The other is scrolling reels or catching up on the family WhatsApp group.

Dinner gets served. Everyone still has a phone within arm's reach. Weekends don't look much different: parents in the room, but not really ‘there.’

Why these small moments carry so much weight

Child psychologists have a phrase for what kids actually need: it isn't a perfect parent, it's an emotionally available one. That means eye contact when they're talking. Listening without half your attention somewhere else. Responding with warmth instead of a distracted "hmm."

When a phone keeps interrupting the connection between parents and children, a child can slowly start to wonder whether they're really worth someone's full attention. Over time, the study suggests, that wondering can turn into anxiety and insecurity.

The effects don't necessarily stop in childhood

Don Grant, the study's lead author, describes what can develop here as "insecure attachment" and he's clear that its effects don't stay confined to childhood. According to Grant, these early patterns can carry into adulthood, shaping a person's confidence, their relationships, their emotional wellbeing years down the line.

This isn't something groundbreaking that wasn’t found before. A 2023 study out of China found that when parents were heavily attached to their own phones, their children were more likely to develop screen addictions themselves.


The reality of parenting in India right now


Indian parents are under a lot of pressure. Long commutes, demanding jobs, a household to run, aging parents to look after: all while trying to raise kids in a world that's more digital every year. Sometimes the phone genuinely isn't a distraction, it's work. Sometimes it's groceries, or an electricity bill, or a meeting that couldn't be moved. No parent can realistically go phone-free.

But experts keep circling back to the same point: it's less about how much time parents spend on their phones, and more about when. A child telling you about their day, or asking for help with homework, or wanting to show you something they just made: those moments don't come back around later.

A missed email usually can wait a few minutes. A child reaching out for you often can't.

A question many modern parents need to ask themselves

Parents spend a lot of energy worrying about their kids' screen habits. How much YouTube. How much gaming. How much Instagram. Maybe it's worth turning that question around for a second: how often does my child have to compete with my phone just to get my attention?

It's not always a comfortable question to sit with. But sitting with it is usually where the change starts. Keeping phones off the dinner table, skipping the scroll during bedtime chats, carving out a no-phone hour each evening, or simply turning the phone face-down when your child starts talking, none of these are big gestures. But they add up.

Kids rarely remember the expensive toy or the latest gadget years later. What tends to stick is who actually listened when they wanted to talk. Because for a child, a parent glancing up from their screen can mean more than any smartphone ever could.