Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #352 Internet Crazes

Transcript

#352 Internet Crazes · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Now you want to be part of the crowd.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's about belonging. It's about acceptance, about being.
• 0:17
  Speaker 4: Part of the end group.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and dad.
• 0:22
  Speaker 4: Gooda.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: This is doctor Justin Colson. I've just been reprimanded of
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: having chocolate around my lips.
• 0:26
  Speaker 5: And now, well after last week's effort of buying a
• 0:30
  Speaker 5: treat without me, you've now had another one.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: If you missed it last week, I well, you've heard
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: what just happened, and I've been eating some chocolate cake
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: just before we've recorded this podcast, and now I'm getting
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: in trouble for it?
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: Can you take me? Seriously? No, I can't.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: I've still got a chocolate smear on.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Here we go gone now it was chocolate taught with
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: extra strawberry and a chocolate and strawberry taught.
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: Really enjoyed it. I offered you some you didn't want any.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: No, because I'd had my ment balls.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Around righting how good you'd been, but clearly not mind you.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: You still said no, I'm justin your colylie. We've got
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: six kids on the founder of happy Families dot com
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: dot I you do you remember when you were a kid?
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Simpler times, right compared to today? Would you if you
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: could be a.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: Child today or a child back.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: In the eighties when we were growing up, seventies, eighties, nineties,
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: what would you choose?
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: I would go back in time. Yeah, every time?
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, why is that?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: It was just life was simple?
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: So it was simple times. It was yeah, so simple.
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: I can't imagine having to navigate what our children are
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: navigating now.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, back back when we were when we were kids,
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: I remember the big issues were yoyo's, whether or not
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: you could walk the dog or do around the world.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: I mean that that mattered in grade three in the
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: early nineteen eighties.
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: I just remember, you know, hanging out with my friends
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: as a teenager and listening to the radio with your finger.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: On record and play ready to record your favorite song
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: under the cassette tape. Yes, yeah, I remember.
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: That, and then don't leave it in the car too
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: long because the cassette tape tape would get all the
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: heat would destroy the If you live in a hot place,
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: make that really crazy sounds. It slurred everything out.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: So I thought today, we might talk about the crazes
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: of our day and compare it to the crazes of today,
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: because the reality is at the moment, because of TikTok,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: because of Instagram, because of Snapchat, because of social media,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: some of the crazes that have been getting around for
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: the last few years are really concerning. There's a brand
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: new one called the milk Crate Challenge that we're going
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: to talk about soon. But it just got me thinking,
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: what were the crazes when you were growing up? Can
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: you remember any? Like I said, for me, it was yo.
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: Yo's so girls used to love writing love letters to
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: the boys that they liked.
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: That was a craze, it was would you call that
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: a craze?
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, I don't.
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: I don't remember any crazes. I just remember remember, Yes,
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: that was before me.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: That was after me.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: Oh what about do you remember Tassos.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I just never got involved in any of this.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: You were't a crazy person? Oh see, I was into
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: all the crazes.
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: I had the of Marbles, never oh gosh, cabbage Patch
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: girls kids?
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Okay, what about when you got older though? Okay, so
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: there was taoos and tamagotchies and things. Did you do
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: any I'm guessing no because you were a girl. But
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: teenage boys used to get involved in some ridiculous crazes,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: these fads that went through the school system.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: We used to have this stingy like mullets. Oh, mullets
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: a perfect example.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, I never had a mullet.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: No, I'm kind of grateful to hear that.
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: I really like fringes and high fringe. Actually, someone posted
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: a picture the other day of their high fringe tea,
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: you know with the girl when the girls used to
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: tease their fringes and they used to.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: Be really high.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Oh oh right, okay, yes, the fringe went up because
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: when you said tease the fringe, I'm thinking this is
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: way too technical to me. Kylie is sitting up at
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: me right now demonstrating what a teased fringe looks like.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: But of course there's a podcast and no one can
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: see what you're doing. Yeah, the teas fringe. So there
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: was this thing that we called the whimp test, the
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: wimp the wimp test, and this was a craze that
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: went through the New South Wales central coast when I
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: would have been in about grade nine. So we're talking
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: about very late nineteen eighties, maybe the very early nineteen nineties,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: somewhere around probably bang on nineteen ninety ish. And the
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: Whimp test was you made a fist and on the
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: back of your hand, you had to drag your fingernail
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: along the back of your hand. Okay, so you make
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: a fist and then just drag your fingernail from your
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: other hand across the back of your hand and scratch it,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: and then you scratch it again and scratch it again,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: and you had to do one hundred of them, and
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: you actually had to scratch it. People would watch you
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: doing it, and if you didn't sort of lift the skin,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: if the skin didn't go white, you weren't putting enough
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: pressure on it.
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: And it was called the whimp test because you had
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: to do it one hundred times.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Who does these things?
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: People that want to assert their masculinity by demonstrating that
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: they can scratch themselves one hundred times with force. And
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: what would happen is that you would lift enough skin
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: that you would start to bleed, and then you'd be
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: walking a around school for the next two weeks or
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: thereabouts with this big sort of five centimeter scab down
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: the back of your hand to demonstrate that you were
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: not a whimp, because you would pass the whimp test
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: because you'd put a great big scab on the back
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: of your hand by scratching a hundred times.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know where I was, maybe under a rock,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: but I'm grateful.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: The girls didn't do that one. It was just actually
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: there were a couple of girls that did. But that
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: was the boy thing.
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: Well, I remember a story you did tell me, but
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: you were much older, you weren't a teenager.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Which one the milk challenge?
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: Well, I did it twice.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: There was a teenage milk challenge, and then there was
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: a sort of right there was, so we had another challenge,
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: another craze that was going around when I was at school.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I should tell this one. You've
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: already told it, have I on the podcast?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you have.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: Well, I'll do it again in brief.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: So maybe it's just the fact that I've heard you
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: tell it. I don't know.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: You're not a fan of this story at all. Who's
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: a fan of vomiting the milk challenges? Basically, when I
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: was in grade nine, my friends came around my night
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: and said have you done the milkchair?
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: Everyone's doing the milk challenge again.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: This is about nineteen ninety one New South Wales, Central Coast,
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, what's the milk challenge? And they said,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: you've got to drink two leaders of milk in ten minutes.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: And I thought that would be really easy because I
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: was I was going to say I was a professional swimmer.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: I wasn't a professional swim, but I was a squad athlete.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I was training like crazy, four hours a day in
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: the pool. I mean that's a lot of swimming. And
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: I just had a big bottle spaghetti bion A's. But
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: I grabbed two leaders of strawberry milk out of the
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: fridge that mum had just bought and I drank it.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: I reckon in about five or six minutes. I mean
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: it just went straight down, no problem at all. And
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: then to prove that I could hold it down and
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: everything was fine, I went for a run just to
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: be my manly self and that was it. But when
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: I was in my probably nineteen, I definitely left school
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: and some friends said, hey, do you want to do
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: the milk challenge this weekend? And I said, that's pretty lame.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: I did it when I was in grade nine, and
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: it was easy. And they said, we don't know anyone
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: that's done the milk challenge. You think that was easy,
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: You're the only person we've ever heard or who did it.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: They said, how did you manage? How did you drink
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: four leaders of milk in an hour? And I kind
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: of did a double take. I was like, no, no, no,
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: it's ten minutes and two liters, and they said, no, no, no,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: it's an hour and four leaders. So that weekend we
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: went down to the bird.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: It seems pretty easy. If you could do two liters
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: in you ten minutes.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: You'd think so, But the stomach has limited capacity. I discovered, well,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: don't you just go to toilet. No, you don't process
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: it that fast, like, it doesn't just pass through you
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: that quickly. And so I drank the first three leaders
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: in less than thirty minutes, and I sat against the
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: wall of the building that we were drinking four Leaders
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: of milk each outside.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: I reckon I wouldn't make it an hour without going
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: to the bathroom.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: It was don't get caught off on the technicalities. It
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: was a very very painful experience. And what I will
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: say is that the stomach doesn't seem designed to be
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: able to hold four liters of milk or four leaders
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: of anything. And around about fifty five minutes into the
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: hour that we had for it, I only had about
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: five hundred mills to go. But I've watched everybody else
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: bring up there milk, and I just knew in five
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: minutes I wasn't going to get that five hundred MILLI
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: leters in no matter how hard I tried. And so
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: with about two minutes to go, I took a great
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: big swig and then I just opened up my mouth
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: and three and stuff and three and milk just and
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: you know the funny thing about that much liquid leaving
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: your body through your mouth.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: Like just this great big white water.
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: I've had lots of liquid leave my body, a big
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: white waterfall of lots of time.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I know there's really gross, but this is what teenage
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: boys do, right, a big white waterfall of vomit. And
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: because there's three and a half leaders, it just keeps going.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Like you open your mouth and it's like somebody's turned
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: on the fire hose. Three and a half leaders takes
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: a long time to leave. The digestive tract from the
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: stomach and come up through them like I reckon. I
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: actually thought I was going to suffocate because I couldn't
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: breathe air in because there was so much milk coming out.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: We need to actually get on with why we're having
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: this conversation about craze. As we've talked about yoyo's and
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: tamagotchi's and tazos and milk challenges and and whim tests,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: but we need to talk about why our kids are
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: doing them. And we've got to talk about planking, which
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: led to deaths a few years ago. And we've got
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: to talk about the tide pod challenge and the choking challenge,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: and we've got to talk about the Milk Create Challenge,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: why it's happening, what it means for us as parents,
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: and why our.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: Kids are doing this stuff. We're going to do that
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: right after the break. It's the Happy Families Podcast.
• 9:25
  Speaker 6: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having
• 9:29
  Speaker 6: to feel bad or in trouble. The do's and don'ts
• 9:31
  Speaker 6: of Discipline as a webinar to help parents set limits
• 9:34
  Speaker 6: with love, compassion and humanity. Find it now at Happy
• 9:37
  Speaker 6: families dot com dot au slash shop.
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: poor parent who just wants answers now and thankfully we
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: have got past the milk challenge. I hope that you
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: are still still hanging in with us right now.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: Please don't judge me. I was a teenage boy. I'm
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: so sorry. There's a whole of internet crazes that have
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: taken the place of those I'm going to say, those innocent, dumb,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: mostly harmless challenges of our childhood, and the challenges have
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: changed because social media rewards outrageous behavior.
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: It's interesting, as I was listening to you and just
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: thinking back, like on my childhood. Like I said, I
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: don't know if it's just because I was under a
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: rock or not, but I don't feel like girls gravitated
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: to that kind of behavior as much. But in saying
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: that the internet is full of girls these days, it
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: doesn't seem to be favored by one sex or the other.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: So boys do tend to take more risks than girls.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: But social media has probably leveled the playing field a
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: little bit because it's all about likes, it's all about reactions,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: it's all about going viral, it's all about being the
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: next big Internet thing, and I think what's.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: Really going on here is.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: We know from neuroscience that the promise of a reward
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: always outweighs the risk of the behavior. So if the
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: kids are looking at something that's really risky, they're intelligent
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: enough to tell you that it's risky and they can
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: explain what the risks are. We know that when it
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: comes to adolescence, their capacity to identify risk and danger
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: is not particularly different to adults. It may be a
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: little bit because we've got more experience, but they're intelligent
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: enough to figure stuff out, and they can explain things
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: really clearly. They're just so drawn to the promise of
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: reward that they overlook the risks in ways that adults don't.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: The other day, I actually watched somebody do the milk
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: Greate challenge, and as an adult looking at it, I
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: didn't even find it funny. I was literally on the
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: edge of my seat, thinking, what is this person thinking?
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: And this is the difference again between probably male and female.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: And also because I'm the kind of person I am,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: and I'm kind of impulsive, and I'm kind of excited
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: by challenging things, and I'm always up for a challenge.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: I want to do hard things.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: And I watched the Milk Great Challenge for those of
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: you who have not seen it, Essentially, people create a
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: pyramid out of milk crates with a height of five
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: milk crates in the middle, and then four on either side,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: and then three and then two and then one, and
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: they have to walk up and then down the milk crates.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: But milk crates are notoriously unstable, and milk crates wobbly,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: and they don't obviously sit on top of each other
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: perfectly well, like they're going to stick together, but not well.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: And by the time you get to the fourth one,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: it's wobbly, and by the time you're standing up on
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: top of the fifth one, you're up kind of high,
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: and this thing's wobbling all over the place, and people
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: fall down and they hurt themselves, and I mean you
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: can break limbs and that sort of stuff. The other
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: really popular ones recently a few years ago, there was planking,
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: and you probably remember there was a couple of deaths
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: in Australia. So when you do a plank, you basically
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: lie still like a log. And people were just planking
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: in outrageous places, like on balconies of gold coast apartments
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: and every now and again somebody would overbalance and fall
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: off while they we're lying like a plank. There's the
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: choking challenge, where people literally fill themselves, choking each other
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: until they pass out. There's the tide pod challenge. So
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: in Australia we don't have the brand tied. I don't think,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: but it's a laundry detergent. But these kids are getting
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: on social media and they're literally eating, swallowing a laundry
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: detergent or a dishwashing detergent capsule tablet. Yeah, and like
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: you and I, we're looking at each other going, these
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: people are nuts. But like I said, social media big rewards.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: And you know why people really did drink four leaders
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: from well I didn't. I didn't.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: I drank three and three quarter leaders of milk, thank you,
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: and then we've already had that conversation. But you know
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: why they really do it? Do you know what they
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: really do it? It's not just the reward. There's one
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: central reason that people, especially teenagers, especially teenage boys, do
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: these really dumb things.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: It's peer pressure.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: Well it's not just peer pressure. Why does peer pressure work?
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Because you want to be part of the crowd.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's about belonging. It's about acceptance about being part
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: of the end group. And that's why these challenges catch on.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: That's why I never caught on.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: You didn't care.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I didn't.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: And I think that this is probably where we need
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: to bring in the parenting stuff. Our kids are smart,
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: but they're easily influenced and they want to belong. So
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: if you've got a child who wants to participate in
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: these sorts of challenges, it's a great opportunity to open
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: up and say, are our.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Kids going to tell us that? I kind of don't
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: think they are.
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: No.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: But what we can do is we can say here's
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: what I know.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: I know that you've been watching these challenges and you
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: want to do them, and I just want to go
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: through the risks make sure that you're across them like
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: I am.
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Okay, So climbing on top of milk.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Crates like that, you could fall and break a bone,
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: but it is going to look awesome on the internet,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: isn't it? And if you break the bone, you're going
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: to get even more awesome responses, aren't you. So let's
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: actually put it out there and say does that seem
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: smart to you, or just to belong, just to belong.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is why you're doing it.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: It's dumb and it's probably mostly harmless, but it might
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: not be when we're talking about a choking challenge, when
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: we're talking about planking in dangerous places, when we're talking
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: about a tide pod challenge dangerous. And so we want
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: to go back through and explore, explain, empower kind of.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: Conversation with them.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: Remember, when they're not in the moment, when they're not
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: seeking the reward right here, right now, they're much more
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: likely to actually access the part of their brain that
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: will think things through.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: And so we just say, what's the deal? Why do
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: you reckon?
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: These people are doing this stuff and your kids are
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: going to give you really good answers. And then instead
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: of you explaining why you don't want them to do it,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: which is what I normally say here, I think a
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: better response would be to say, why do you think
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: I've got concerns about this particular challenge, get them to
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: explain it to you, and lastly empower them. So if
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: you're given an opportunity to participate, or if you're thinking
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: about participating in a challenge like this, what's the best
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: way to respond.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: That's the way that I approach it.
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: So you've talked about all of these challenges, but a
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: couple of years ago, there was this ice bucket challenge.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: It all all the craze.
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: Everybody was sitting and letting somebody else dump a bucket
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: of ice cold water on their heads.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: That was for a good cause.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Sure do you think that the milk creak challenge would
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: be popular if it was for a good cause as well? Like,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, it could be, right, I don't think that
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: any cause would. I think most people who would be
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: a recipient, most organizations as a recipient of people doing that,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: would say no, no, no, find something safer. We want your money,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: but we don't want you to do in danger yourself.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: But let's go back to this again. What that does
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: the ice bucket challenge is, it's about signaling. I'm aware
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: of people suffering, I'm trying to do something about it,
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: and I'm putting it on social media so oever and
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: can see that I care. So there's a lot of
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: signaling going on. But signaling is all about belonging. People
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: were doing it because they wanted to be part of
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: the crowd. They want to be part of the craze.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: Even the grownups that were doing it, even the sports
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: stars and the academics and the politicians, they were all
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: doing it because they wanted to be part of the crowd.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: The issue here, and again i'd bring this up with
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: the kids. I would just say, there are some challenges
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: that are fun and mostly harmless, and then there are
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: some challenges that are just really, really dangerous. How do
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: you distinguish between the two? And what will you do
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: when you're given the opportunities to participate in them? How
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: will you make a decision as to whether you do
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: or don't. How important is that reward? How important is
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: going viral to you? Is it worth your life? Is
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: it worth the hospital visit? Do you really want to
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: have clean insides so badly that you're willing to swallow
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: a dishwashing detergent tablet? And when you talk to them,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: sensibly out of the moment, I think most kids are
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: going to be.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: Like, yeah, I'm not going to do that.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: And you know the other thing we get caught up
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: about all the worry around this stuff, but the reality
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: is most of our kids are not doing it. Most
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: of our kids are not choking each other Most of
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: our kids are not climbing up milk rates. Most of
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: our kids are not swallowing laundry detergent. Most of our
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: kids are not planking, at least not in unsafe places.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Most of our kids aren't even doing milk challenges and
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: whip tests, let's face it.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: Or playing with yo yos.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: And so that means that as parents, we're pretty much
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: getting this right most of the time. But it's important
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: to to have the conversation and make sure that your
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: kids are making safe, healthy decisions.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Well, hopefully this has been helpful.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Bring back marbles. I reckon marvels were much safer.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I remember the days when we used to play elastics.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: There you go, skipping right, there you go, So you
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: were into crazies.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Well maybe a little bit.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: I just want to do a Tommy drop. You remember
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: You probably don't remember the tom bowl er.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: It was the biggest marble and you could do a
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: Tommy drop and drop it on somebody else's marble and
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: if you dropped it hard enough, sometimes you didn't break
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: their marble.
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Tommy drops are the best. Is to have such
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: a good marble collection. I don't know what happened to it.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Hey, we really hope you enjoyed this conversation about simple
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: times and dangerous times and the challenges and crazes that
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: our kids get up to, especially with the advent of
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: social media and the Internet.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: I hope it's been helpful.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a rating
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: and review. It's those five star ratings and reviews that
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: make all the difference in other people finding out about
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: the podcast and make your family happier. Oh by the way,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: one of those five star reviews has just come through
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: from t Menage you who said, oh MG, why haven't
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: I listened to this earlier? My son's high school has
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: membership that parents can access. I even attended a short
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: seminar at school. I just wish I'd started listening to
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: this podcast earlier. It is fantastic, So thank you very
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: much for that five star review. We've had a bunch
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: comes through over the last few months, but we haven't
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: been reading them out and we're going to start doing
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: that again. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: Ruhlon from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: and if you'd like more info about getting hold of
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: that membership.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: That makes such a difference because a happy family doesn't
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: just happen.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Please visit memberships at happy families dot com dot au