Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #873 Calm, Chaos & Corporal Punishment

Transcript

#873 Calm, Chaos & Corporal Punishment · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
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  Speaker 2: wants answers. Now, considering stress is something that we can't
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  Speaker 2: get away from. Our kids are going to experience that,
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  Speaker 2: regardless of how amazing we are as parents. The way
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  Speaker 2: we interact with them can actually help will hinder. And
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  Speaker 2: now here's the stars of our show.
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  Speaker 1: My mom and dad. Gee, it's been a while since
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  Speaker 1: we've talked to doctor's desk. This is Happy Families.
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  Speaker 2: I hadn't noticed.
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  Speaker 1: This is my favorite episode ever. We get to talk
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  Speaker 1: about the latest science and how it's affecting our families today, Kylie.
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  Speaker 1: Because it's been a couple of months since we've done this,
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  Speaker 1: I've snug a couple of extras in, so we're going
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  Speaker 1: to have to go really really fast. A whole lot
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  Speaker 1: of different things to talk about to make our families
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  Speaker 1: happy based on the very latest in science. Where would
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  Speaker 1: you like to start. I've given you a handful of them.
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  Speaker 1: You just pick and I'm going to talk.
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  Speaker 2: Let's talk about mindful parenting.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, this one's really interesting. So this comes from Joan Drucek,
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  Speaker 1: who is just a titan of parenting science and has
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  Speaker 1: been for multiple decades now. The research article is published
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  Speaker 1: in Parenting Science and Practice, which is a very fancy
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  Speaker 1: parenting journal, Parenting Scientific Journal, And essentially, here's what the
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  Speaker 1: researchers have done. They're talking about mindfulness. Mindfulness in parents
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  Speaker 1: is associated with a number of positive family characteristics. Mindful
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  Speaker 1: parents usually parent in more positive ways. Their children typically
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  Speaker 1: are seen to have fewer externalizing disorders and challenges and
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  Speaker 1: also fewer internalizing difficulty. So externalizing is sort of like
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  Speaker 1: the lashing out and being angry, and the internalizing is
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  Speaker 1: the anxiety and depression kind of stuff. And they also
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  Speaker 1: typically have better parent child interactions and relationships. But this
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  Speaker 1: study is looking at whether or not parent mindfulness is
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  Speaker 1: associated with child mindfulness, that is, to kids end up
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  Speaker 1: being mindful because their parents are. And the conclusion basically
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  Speaker 1: is not really that much. We're talking here about kids
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  Speaker 1: age between nine and twelve, and basically the research has
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  Speaker 1: found that if you're a mindful parent, in other words,
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  Speaker 1: if you're parenting with intention, you're present, you're in the moment,
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  Speaker 1: you're there for your kids, you're going to be a
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  Speaker 1: more mindful parent. Right Like the intention the.
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  Speaker 2: Mindful experience for you as a parent is going to
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  Speaker 2: be better.
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  Speaker 1: That's right, and it does have a small relationship to
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  Speaker 1: children being more mindful, but overall you just have a
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  Speaker 1: better experience in the family.
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  Speaker 2: But I'd also say that doing a study with nine
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  Speaker 2: to twelve year olds is probably a little bit unfair
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  Speaker 2: as well. I look at the cleanliness of our married
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  Speaker 2: daughter now compared to when she was at home as
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  Speaker 2: a sixteen year old, and you would never have thought
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  Speaker 2: in a million years that you'd be able to see
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  Speaker 2: the floor in her own home. But she lives a
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  Speaker 2: very clean life because of what she learnt from me.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes the modeling takes a while to kick in and
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  Speaker 1: take over. So being mindful and intentional as a parent,
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  Speaker 1: being present will make a difference, but it may not
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  Speaker 1: lead to immediate results for your children. If you look
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  Speaker 1: at them saying, my goodness, they're just not mindful like me.
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  Speaker 1: They'll probably get there eventually, is what I would say.
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  Speaker 1: The research doesn't support that they're going to get there
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  Speaker 1: right now, though.
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  Speaker 2: So your second study is all about positive parenting and
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  Speaker 2: whether or not it can reduce stress in our adolescence.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, not just adolescents, but also in childhood. So this
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  Speaker 1: was researched by Jamie Hansen and Isabella Kahale at the
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  Speaker 1: University of Pittsburgh, and what they basically said is this,
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  Speaker 1: we know that warm and supportive parenting buffers against the
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  Speaker 1: effects of stress. We know that during both childhood and adolescents,
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  Speaker 1: and even during adulthood. It's a key takeaway of all
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  Speaker 1: parenting research. If you don't want your kids to be
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  Speaker 1: to be stressed out, be warm and supportive as much
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  Speaker 1: as you reasonably can. But we also know this stress
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  Speaker 1: is an inevitable part of childhood and adolescents, and kids
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  Speaker 1: who experience stress, particularly from physical abuse and from neglect,
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  Speaker 1: they have less brain tissue in a part of the
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  Speaker 1: brain that's known as the hippo campus. Now that's important
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  Speaker 1: for learning and memory. Always remember elephants never forget, and
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  Speaker 1: hips no, well, hippos and elephants. They're kind of big
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  Speaker 1: and gray and from Africa. So the hippo campus is
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  Speaker 1: good for memory.
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  Speaker 3: Where you were going with it, that's from twenty years
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  Speaker 3: ago when I was doing neuroscience in second year psychology.
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  Speaker 3: I've always remembered the hip campus relates to elephants who
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  Speaker 3: never forget, so it's good for learning and memory. Anyway,
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  Speaker 3: what the research has found is that kids who are
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  Speaker 3: experiencing a whole lot of stress in their lives, they're
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  Speaker 3: not experiencing a reduction in brain tissue in the hippo
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  Speaker 3: campus if they've got warm, supportive parents. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So for me, when I think about this, is what
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  Speaker 2: is my parenting going to add to their stress or
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  Speaker 2: is it actually going to reduce it. So we can
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  Speaker 2: do lots of things throughout life that actually create more
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  Speaker 2: stress in our kids, but considering stress is something that
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  Speaker 2: we can't get away from. Our kids are going to
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  Speaker 2: experience it regardless of how amazing we are as parents.
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  Speaker 2: The way we interact with them can actually help or hinder.
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  Speaker 1: This is the question that I want to ask myself
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  Speaker 1: more when my child's having a hard time, am I
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  Speaker 1: going to add to their challenge and the task of parenting?
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  Speaker 1: I think if we want to be warm supportive parents
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  Speaker 1: is to not add to the difficulty of the task
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  Speaker 1: that our kids are facing. So I want to just
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  Speaker 1: share a bit more about this because it's so fascinating.
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  Speaker 1: So they've brain scanned five hundred kids between ten and
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  Speaker 1: seventeen using MRI, and essentially what they've found is that
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  Speaker 1: positive parenting had protective effects against the connection between stress
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  Speaker 1: and behavior. In other words, kids who had experienced more
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  Speaker 1: distress from negative events, but who also had parents who
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  Speaker 1: were warm and supportive showed less challenging behavior. They were
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  Speaker 1: less likely to break rules, they were less likely to
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  Speaker 1: be aggressive, and they had more tissue in the hippa campus,
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  Speaker 1: which is important for learning and memory. Really really beautiful
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  Speaker 1: research showing that warm, supportive parenting.
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  Speaker 2: How we interact with our kids really matters.
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  Speaker 1: It makes such a difference.
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  Speaker 2: So studying number three is all about household chaos and
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  Speaker 2: mother communication. This is intriguing.
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  Speaker 1: This kind of builds on what we were just talking
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  Speaker 1: about with the whole hippo campus and stress and supportive
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  Speaker 1: parenting thing. So this is a research paper that was
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  Speaker 1: published in the Journal of Family Psychology just in the
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  Speaker 1: last couple of months, and the research is I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I can summarize this really quickly. The research is found
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  Speaker 1: that when household chaos goes up, parents are far less
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  Speaker 1: responsive to their children. Right, and the kids.
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  Speaker 2: Our kids deem us as being unavailable.
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  Speaker 1: They perceive that, they absolutely perceive that parents are less responsive.
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  Speaker 1: And the critical thing here is the researchers were looking
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  Speaker 1: at adolescent disclosure. That is, to what extent do children
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  Speaker 1: talk to us about difficult things in their lives? And
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  Speaker 1: essentially they found that responsiveness drops when chaos is high
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  Speaker 1: and disclosure falls through the floor. If you want your
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  Speaker 1: kids to talk to you, especially as teenagers, about hard
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  Speaker 1: things that are happening in their lives, we've got to
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  Speaker 1: keep chaos to a minimum. We've got to have the warmth,
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  Speaker 1: the responsiveness, the support that's got to be there. So
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  Speaker 1: that's really the take home message from that study.
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  Speaker 2: Our fourth study is all about corporal punishment.
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  Speaker 1: Beryl Higgins is based at the Institute of Child Protection
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  Speaker 1: Studies at Australian Catholic University. He's in Melbourne and he
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  Speaker 1: and a bunch of big names who have worked in
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  Speaker 1: this area for a long time, Elena Morovska, Sophie Havyhurst
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  Speaker 1: and others. In fact, there's I think eleven different people
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  Speaker 1: involved in this particular piece of writing. They've written something
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  Speaker 1: called Corporal Punishment of Children in Australia, The Evidence Based
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  Speaker 1: Case for Legislative Reform, published in the Australian and New
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  Speaker 1: Zealand Journal of Public Health. Now, this research essentially reviews
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  Speaker 1: all of the laws that allow corporal punishment, has a
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  Speaker 1: look at the International Agreements on Children's Rights, the evidence
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  Speaker 1: on the effects of corporal punishment, and outcomes of legislative
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  Speaker 1: reform in countries that have changed their laws to prohibit
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  Speaker 1: corporal punishment, and essentially, what they find is that there
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  Speaker 1: is extensive evidence that demonstrates that corporal punishment doesn't have
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  Speaker 1: any positive effects, it only has adverse effects. Firstly, and
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  Speaker 1: here's the critical thing, This is why I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: bring this up in the podcast, even if we only
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  Speaker 1: talk about it briefly. When countries change their legislation and
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  Speaker 1: then they educate the public about why it's happening, why
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  Speaker 1: corporal punish needs to end, and provide alternative strategies for parents,
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  Speaker 1: we see corporal punishment rates decrease. But what needs to
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  Speaker 1: happen is we don't change attitudes towards smacking unless we legislate.
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  Speaker 1: One thing that they found was that legislative reform usually
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  Speaker 1: happens first, and then changes in attitude and reductions in
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  Speaker 1: challenging behavior follow the legislation. Like seat belts. Everybody was
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  Speaker 1: cranky about seat belt legislation. Everyone thought it was nuts
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  Speaker 1: that we had to wear seat belts. Look the government's
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  Speaker 1: getting into our cars for the goodness aches That was back
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  Speaker 1: in the seventies and eighties. Now you wouldn't think of
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  Speaker 1: getting in a car without putting on your seat belt.
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  Speaker 1: Attitude change and behavior change follow legislation, and that's the
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  Speaker 1: argument here. It's a brilliant article. You can download the
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  Speaker 1: whole thing. The pdf is available, all the content is there.
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  Speaker 1: It's really really wonderful and I think Darryl Higgins and
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  Speaker 1: his team are fighting a really tough battle, but I'm
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  Speaker 1: right there with them, so good to talk about this.
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  Speaker 2: Our last piece of research is all about mindfulness in
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  Speaker 2: schools and how it might not do as much good
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  Speaker 2: for our mental health as we thought.
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  Speaker 1: Mindfulness in schools doesn't improve mental health. That's the reality.
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  Speaker 1: The landmark Myriad study which has been ongoing, found that
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  Speaker 1: mindfulness in schools doesn't really have any impact on mental
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  Speaker 1: health at all. And it's probably by the way, Myriad
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  Speaker 1: stands for my Resilience in Adolescents, big study that's been
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  Speaker 1: happening with a bunch of kids in secondary school aged
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  Speaker 1: eleven through sixteen in the UK, and essentially what they've
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  Speaker 1: found is that mindfulness at schools isn't working and.
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  Speaker 2: Is that because it actually is a tool that should
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  Speaker 2: be learned at home.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's primarily because it's developed inconsistently in schools.
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  Speaker 1: Like one teacher does it this way, another teacher does
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  Speaker 1: it that way, another teacher doesn't do it at all.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lack of buying from kids. There's so much
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  Speaker 1: going on, not just the inconsistency with the practice of it,
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  Speaker 1: but we've got individual differences with kids. So kids that
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  Speaker 1: are coming from more challenging backgrounds and environments, they're going
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  Speaker 1: to benefit more from it, but they're maybe going to
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  Speaker 1: resist the practice more because they don't have or don't
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  Speaker 1: want to experience the discipline of mindfulness. Essentially, when you
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  Speaker 1: get findings like this, it moves things forward because it
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  Speaker 1: helps us to understand what doesn't work, which gets as
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  Speaker 1: closer to what does work. I think what's really going
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  Speaker 1: on here, and this is what the research have said.
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  Speaker 1: We're placing children and teachers in an untenable position when
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  Speaker 1: we ask them to deal with complex mental health problems
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  Speaker 1: that they don't have the competence, experience, and confidence to
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  Speaker 1: work with. And when we put this stuff on teachers
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  Speaker 1: in a few weeks time, I haven't told you about
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  Speaker 1: this yet, but in a few weeks time, our next
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  Speaker 1: Doctor's Desk is going to be a special school edition.
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  Speaker 1: And I want to do it because we see teachers
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  Speaker 1: being asked to do so much stuff around children and
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  Speaker 1: well being that teachers haven't been trained for, they're not
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  Speaker 1: qualified for. And I'm not saying that is a bad
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  Speaker 1: thing about teachers. I'm seeing it's an unfair expectation on teachers,
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  Speaker 1: like they've got so much to do already, and then
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  Speaker 1: we're saying, oh, and by the way, well being is
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  Speaker 1: now your responsibility as well. Now, in some ways it
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  Speaker 1: kind of has to be right, because you've got to
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  Speaker 1: have psychologically safe environments so that kids will want to learn.
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  Speaker 1: We talked about before the Hippo campus, the elephant, remember
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  Speaker 1: the Hippo campus, and memory and learning and stressful environments
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  Speaker 1: thin out hippocampal cortical structure, which means that kids are
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  Speaker 1: going to learn less well, they're going to have less
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  Speaker 1: adaptive behaviors. So there has to be some of this
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  Speaker 1: happening in schools. But giving teachers appropriate resources and time
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  Speaker 1: and training is essential. And then you've got to recognize
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  Speaker 1: that the kids coming from all kinds of backgrounds, but essentially,
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  Speaker 1: mindfulness may or may not work, but certainly the research
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  Speaker 1: is showing that in schools it's not because it's such
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  Speaker 1: a complated environment and there are so many challenges that missus.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Happy Families is an action packed, chocol block full episode
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: of the Doctor's Desk on the Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Well, having experienced a significant amount of chaos in our
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  Speaker 2: lives over the span of our parenting, I really appreciated
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  Speaker 2: the reminder that if we can keep things calm in
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  Speaker 2: our house and our children recognize our availability, they are
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  Speaker 2: more likely to disclose things. And I've noticed that a
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  Speaker 2: lot as I've been able to kind of even you
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  Speaker 2: talk about household chaos, but even just your own emotional chaos.
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  Speaker 2: When the kids see that I'm highly emotive, they're less
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  Speaker 2: likely to talk to me, where if I've got everything
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  Speaker 2: in check, they'll come and share things with me that
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  Speaker 2: they wouldn't otherwise have. And there have been a few
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  Speaker 2: a handful of times in our children's lives where I
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  Speaker 2: found something out much later down the road, and when
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  Speaker 2: I have specifically asked, how come you didn't talk to
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  Speaker 2: me about that, our mum, you were so busy at
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  Speaker 2: the time, or you had so much on your plate,
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  Speaker 2: I didn't want to add to it. You know, they
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  Speaker 2: actually are really beautiful, thoughtful kids and they don't want
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  Speaker 2: to add more to us stress. And when they feel
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  Speaker 2: like their stress is so big and you're already feeling stressed,
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  Speaker 2: they don't want to add to that.
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  Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rawan from
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. For more
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  Speaker 1: information about making your family happier, we would love for
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: you to visit us at happy families dot com dot
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  Speaker 1: au