Too much Fortnite? How to get kids off screens without smashing their iPads

Kirstie Allsopp has revealed the dramatic remedy she used with her gaming-obsessed sons, but are there other strategies to prise your children from their computers?

Kirstie Allsopp admitted this week to smashing her sons' iPads when they continued to flout the Allsopp house rules for playing Fortnite. "Not in a violent way," she told Channel 5's Jeremy Vine. She "banged" the devices "on a table leg" while her sons, aged 12 and 10, watched. There has been a backlash to her comments online, and she has since left Twitter. I can, however, sympathise with the level of despair behind this act.

"It's passing a terrible message to children," says Suzie Hayman, an agony aunt and the author of Parents and Digital Technology. "It's saying: 'This is how you solve arguments - you smash something.' Any violence is bad," she says, even a gentle bang of a tablet on a table leg.