My brother’s addicted to devices at 13

the place you live and as you explained, your brother is seizing whatever he can.

I think you need to talk to your father and grandparents. Show them your letter and ask them to start taking steps to resolve this.

It sounds as if they’ll need help from a psychologist or counsellor and the best place to start getting the help is to go to your family GP or your brother’s school counsellor.

Maybe the school is already aware that your brother has a problem. You need to talk to someone who will listen and take you seriously.

In the meantime, as a family you could start to monitor your own screen times. Do you have phones at the table? Sometimes, grandparents and parents can be the worst offenders for devices.

Make a list of all the phones, iPads and computers in your house and account for them every night. Could one person be responsible for putting them all away at a certain time?

Good luck with all this, you sound as if you could use a break.

Mary-anne Scott has raised four boys and written three novels for young adults, including which was released in March 2018. (One Tree House). As one of seven sisters, there aren’t many parenting problems she hasn’t talked over. To send her a question email life.style@stuff.co.nz with Dear Mary-anne in the subject line. Your anonymity is assured.

My 13-year-old brother plays on his phone. When he loses one phone, he gets another. When he’s not playing games he just lies on the couch. 123RF