Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #530 From the Doctor's Desk
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
- 0:05Speaker 2: It's the podcast for.
- 0:07Speaker 1: The time poor parent who just wants answers now.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Being on Instagram and following all of these parenting accounts
- 0:13Speaker 2: has also been shown to make mums feel less competent
- 0:16Speaker 2: because they start comparing themselves to others and everyone else
- 0:19Speaker 2: seems to be getting it.
- 0:20Speaker 1: Rock and Now here's the stars of our show, My
- 0:23Speaker 1: mum and Dad.
- 0:24Speaker 2: Hello. This is doctor Justin Coilson, the founder of Happy
- 0:27Speaker 2: Families dot com dot you and dad to the six
- 0:30Speaker 2: kids that I share with my wife. The podcast host partner,
- 0:33Speaker 2: Kylie miss Families, who joins me today for an episode
- 0:36Speaker 2: of The Doctor's Desk. Today, it's a conversation about the
- 0:39Speaker 2: latest science, the latest research, the latest findings that relate
- 0:41Speaker 2: to parents and Kylie, today's some doozies. These are the
- 0:46Speaker 2: kinds of conversations where we pause and go, okay, so
- 0:48Speaker 2: what do we do with this now? But it's information
- 0:51Speaker 2: that I think parents need to have. So we've got
- 0:53Speaker 2: three studies to go through in our conversation today. Where
- 0:56Speaker 2: do you want to start? Pick one? Pick a card,
- 0:58Speaker 2: any card. We've got three to choose from.
- 1:00Speaker 1: Let's start with ADHD. Recently you did a webinar on ADHD.
- 1:06Speaker 2: Yeah, two hour workshop actually with about fifty people. It
- 1:09Speaker 2: was great, and so I'm thinking that we'll start there. Okay,
- 1:12Speaker 2: this kind's a fairly controversial piece of research. I think
- 1:16Speaker 2: just published May nineteen, so it's only a month old,
- 1:19Speaker 2: comes out of Ohio State University, and it's part of
- 1:22Speaker 2: a much larger study. But essentially, researchers have asked parents
- 1:25Speaker 2: of one hundred and thirty four kids with ADHD to
- 1:29Speaker 2: complete a very detailed questionnaire about the kinds of foods
- 1:32Speaker 2: the kids eat, including how much over a three month period,
- 1:36Speaker 2: And then they've got another question. They're asking them to
- 1:38Speaker 2: rate the symptoms of inattention, which is obviously a central
- 1:43Speaker 2: pillar for so much ADHD in their kids, like having
- 1:46Speaker 2: trouble staying focused, not following instructions, difficulty remembering things, difficulty
- 1:50Speaker 2: regulating emotions, all that kind of thing. And what the
- 1:53Speaker 2: research showed was that kids who consumed more fruits and
- 1:58Speaker 2: vegetables showed less severe symptoms of inattention. In other words,
- 2:05Speaker 2: eating a healthy diet, including fruit and vegetables, may be
- 2:08Speaker 2: one way to reduce some of the symptoms of ADHD.
- 2:11Speaker 2: Now this is provocative because research for the last couple
- 2:13Speaker 2: of decades has kind of raised questions about whether diet
- 2:18Speaker 2: does or does not have anything to do with ADHD.
- 2:20Speaker 2: This is not saying, by the way, that getting diet
- 2:22Speaker 2: right will cure ADHD. What it's saying is that it
- 2:24Speaker 2: reduces some of the symptoms that we see with ADHD kids,
- 2:30Speaker 2: specifically around that inattention side of things.
- 2:33Speaker 1: So there's still no clarity.
- 2:35Speaker 2: Really well, I think science is one of those things
- 2:38Speaker 2: where clarity comes bit by bit, studied by study, year
- 2:42Speaker 2: by year, decade by decade. I think that if I
- 2:45Speaker 2: was to read this as a parent with a child
- 2:48Speaker 2: who has ADHD, it would be a reminder that I'm
- 2:52Speaker 2: going to give my child the best shot at regulating
- 2:57Speaker 2: and inhibiting those responses that are some how so unhelpful.
- 3:02Speaker 2: So often, if I can help my child to stay
- 3:05Speaker 2: off the process stuff and eat more fruit and vegetables.
- 3:07Speaker 2: In other words, the better my child's diet, the more
- 3:10Speaker 2: likely it is that they'll be giving themselves the best
- 3:12Speaker 2: shot at doing as well as they possibly can.
- 3:15Speaker 1: I know, over the years, we've had lots of conversations
- 3:18Speaker 1: with lots of different parents who have recognized that certain
- 3:22Speaker 1: additives or food colorings have had a huge impact on
- 3:25Speaker 1: their children's behavior. This study hasn't actually looked at any
- 3:29Speaker 1: of that. It's just the acknowledgment that food and vegetables
- 3:32Speaker 1: support healthier development.
- 3:34Speaker 2: Yeah, you're exactly right. There was nothing in here that
- 3:36Speaker 2: I can find in the study that's looking at all
- 3:39Speaker 2: of the process stuff, the additives and so on. What
- 3:42Speaker 2: we do know though, is that the studies on fruit
- 3:45Speaker 2: and veggie intake and the role of food in security,
- 3:48Speaker 2: because food and security came up as well, and the
- 3:50Speaker 2: more insecure kids are around the ability to get food,
- 3:53Speaker 2: the more likely it is that their ADHD symptoms will
- 3:55Speaker 2: be exacerbated. So kids that are living in poverty basically,
- 3:58Speaker 2: or kids that don't get access to good, healthy, save food,
- 4:01Speaker 2: they're much more likely to have higher reports of ADHD symptoms,
- 4:05Speaker 2: especially around that in attention. So food and security, it's basically,
- 4:10Speaker 2: if you don't know that you can get food, if
- 4:12Speaker 2: you're hungry, you're going to get irritated. That happens whether
- 4:14Speaker 2: you've got ADHD or not. It's just that the ADHD
- 4:18Speaker 2: symptoms are exacerbated in that case. So that's the study,
- 4:23Speaker 2: like I said, comes from the Ohio State university, and
- 4:26Speaker 2: it's a kind of an interesting one. We will link
- 4:28Speaker 2: to that in the show notes. Essentially, if you've got
- 4:30Speaker 2: kids who are not neurotypical, then it might be worth
- 4:34Speaker 2: just having a quick look at their diet and maybe
- 4:36Speaker 2: you might find that the more fruit and veggies they get,
- 4:39Speaker 2: the greater the reduction in their ADHD symptoms. Of course,
- 4:42Speaker 2: there's many other things that play a role in whether
- 4:44Speaker 2: or not your child is going to have exacerbated and
- 4:47Speaker 2: amplified symptoms or not. But this is just one part
- 4:49Speaker 2: of the one part of the recipe for trying to
- 4:51Speaker 2: make things go better.
- 4:53Speaker 1: Well. Setting number two is all about childcare, so let's
- 4:56Speaker 1: dig into that.
- 4:57Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this one has the potential to upset some people.
- 5:00Speaker 2: I promise you we're not sharing this to be provocative.
- 5:02Speaker 2: My job here is to share what the latest research shows,
- 5:05Speaker 2: and studies into children in childcare have been controversial and
- 5:10Speaker 2: provocative for the last several decades. Jay Belski has probably
- 5:13Speaker 2: done the best work on this over the decades, but
- 5:15Speaker 2: now he's quite an elderly gentleman and the baton has
- 5:19Speaker 2: been passed on to some others. So the one comes
- 5:22Speaker 2: from the University of Zurich. It was actually published a
- 5:25Speaker 2: couple of months ago in March of this year, thirteen
- 5:28Speaker 2: hundred kids from Zurich or going to school, their teachers
- 5:33Speaker 2: their parents suggest that the more time that kids spend
- 5:36Speaker 2: in external daycare, the more likely it is that they're
- 5:39Speaker 2: going to exhibit problematic behavior. But the research also showed
- 5:44Speaker 2: that by the end of primary school that problematic behavior
- 5:46Speaker 2: seems to disappear. Now, this is an association. It's not
- 5:50Speaker 2: what we say, if you put your kids in childcare,
- 5:52Speaker 2: they are going to be problematic. That's what we call
- 5:55Speaker 2: a causal relationship. And you can only figure that out
- 5:58Speaker 2: if you randomly like a bunch of people and stick
- 6:01Speaker 2: them met of childcare and randomly select another bunch and
- 6:03Speaker 2: don't stick them in a childcare. We obviously can't do
- 6:05Speaker 2: that as an experiment that we just ethically we can't
- 6:08Speaker 2: do it, but also logistically, like families have to live
- 6:10Speaker 2: their lives, and so it's what we call correlational or
- 6:14Speaker 2: it's looking at the association between these things. And essentially
- 6:17Speaker 2: what it showed is that the kids who are in
- 6:19Speaker 2: childcare do tend to have some more challenging behaviors throughout
- 6:24Speaker 2: their early childhood.
- 6:26Speaker 1: It's interesting in some ways, it just kind of makes sense.
- 6:30Speaker 1: When you have your children in your home and they're
- 6:33Speaker 1: not in any kind of external care, you have absolute
- 6:38Speaker 1: control over who your children associate with when you put
- 6:42Speaker 1: them into even once they hit school. Once you put
- 6:45Speaker 1: them into school, you're actually opening them up to a
- 6:48Speaker 1: wide variety of social contexts in one setting. And so
- 6:53Speaker 1: I remember when my littlest sister went to day care
- 6:58Speaker 1: and she came home with the F word.
- 7:01Speaker 2: Really family, real family, We.
- 7:04Speaker 1: Don't we didn't swear, we don't swear. And she came
- 7:07Speaker 1: home and it was like she was saying, I want
- 7:09Speaker 1: an apple. She would just use that it would come out.
- 7:14Speaker 1: My mother was horrified. But the reality is she was
- 7:18Speaker 1: now associating with people who had different values, different standards,
- 7:22Speaker 1: and different ideology around life in general. And so all
- 7:27Speaker 1: of these things that we often see is bad behavior
- 7:29Speaker 1: and not necessarily bad behavior, but different values.
- 7:32Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think what also could happen here is
- 7:35Speaker 2: not only are kids being exposed to different ways of behaving,
- 7:38Speaker 2: they're also, as they get older, started to move more
- 7:41Speaker 2: and more towards what's popular, what's going to bring me
- 7:43Speaker 2: social status? How do I fit in where do I belong?
- 7:46Speaker 2: But it's also possible that external childcare could lessen the
- 7:49Speaker 2: strength of child parent attachment and interaction. And some early
- 7:52Speaker 2: research going back to like the nineteen nineties early two
- 7:54Speaker 2: thousands showed that the more time kids spend in childcare,
- 7:58Speaker 2: the greater the risk was that the parent child attachment
- 8:01Speaker 2: could be affected. And that makes sense.
- 8:03Speaker 1: There's just less one on one time, That's what I
- 8:05Speaker 1: was going to say. Once you're in a classroom situation,
- 8:08Speaker 1: you've got twenty twenty plus kids to too adults.
- 8:11Speaker 2: And it's less time with your grown ups that matter most.
- 8:12Speaker 2: Your mum, your dad, your parents, your caregivers less time
- 8:15Speaker 2: with them as well. And again this isn't to put
- 8:17Speaker 2: guilt on parents at all. It's just to highlight that
- 8:20Speaker 2: when we put our kids into childcare, there and many
- 8:24Speaker 2: parents have no choice. I mean, we live in a
- 8:26Speaker 2: society now where if you don't have that double income
- 8:28Speaker 2: it's because you've got somebody who's doing very well with
- 8:31Speaker 2: the primary income, or alternatively, you're going to struggle. Like
- 8:34Speaker 2: it's really challenging. And so the goal is how do
- 8:38Speaker 2: we help our children to have the very best attachment
- 8:40Speaker 2: relationship with us when they're not in care. How do
- 8:44Speaker 2: we manage how do we amplify the quality of the
- 8:47Speaker 2: connection that we experience with them? Because ultimately, the two
- 8:50Speaker 2: things that the research is behind this study have pointed
- 8:53Speaker 2: to are these two issues. One that you raised, the
- 8:54Speaker 2: one that I raise, That is the attachment relationship being affected.
- 8:57Speaker 2: That is the quality of the connection being reduced because
- 9:00Speaker 2: parents drop the kids off early, they pick them up late,
- 9:02Speaker 2: they're exhausted. They basically give them breakfast and give them
- 9:05Speaker 2: dinner and put them to bed, and they really spend
- 9:07Speaker 2: time with them on the weekends. That's part of it.
- 9:10Speaker 2: And the peer group, the challenging behavior that gets picked
- 9:14Speaker 2: up in broader social settings is the other thing. So
- 9:17Speaker 2: that's pretty much it. Now. I do want to highlight
- 9:19Speaker 2: one other thing with this study, Kylie, and that is
- 9:21Speaker 2: that while it sheds some light on some possible unfavorable
- 9:24Speaker 2: links between external childcare and the way kids are developing,
- 9:29Speaker 2: specifically later on as they age, there is no causation here.
- 9:34Speaker 2: It could be any number of other things. And there's
- 9:37Speaker 2: also this issue of the quality of the childcare that
- 9:39Speaker 2: the kids receiving outside the family.
- 9:41Speaker 1: A'm just about to say that I think about the
- 9:43Speaker 1: experiences our kids have had, and I would say, hands
- 9:47Speaker 1: down nine times out of ten they've actually brought home
- 9:50Speaker 1: positive yeah behaviors as a result of the places we've
- 9:53Speaker 1: chosen to place them in.
- 9:55Speaker 2: Right, and Australia is very lucky in that we do
- 9:58Speaker 2: have a we have quite a high standard of childcare generally,
- 10:01Speaker 2: especially in comparison to other places around the world. I
- 10:03Speaker 2: know that there's still plenty of room for us to
- 10:05Speaker 2: move improve, get things better, but we do pretty well
- 10:08Speaker 2: compared with other places around the world. So that's the
- 10:11Speaker 2: second study. Oh and I might also throw in just
- 10:13Speaker 2: so that people know we're not throwing shade. All of
- 10:16Speaker 2: our kids have gone to childcare. We needed the break.
- 10:19Speaker 2: So after the break, we're going to talk about one
- 10:21Speaker 2: last study about how Instagram affects the way mums feel
- 10:24Speaker 2: about themselves. Family life is pretty tough going. Sometimes most
- 10:32Speaker 2: days are a struggle between strong willed children and frazzled parents,
- 10:36Speaker 2: but it can be better. The twenty one Days to
- 10:38Speaker 2: a Happier Family program is designed for busy parents who
- 10:42Speaker 2: want a calmer, happier family, and it can be done
- 10:45Speaker 2: with evidence based strategies and practices that really work. In
- 10:49Speaker 2: twenty one days. All resources are available for your family
- 10:52Speaker 2: for twenty one days to a happier family at happy
- 10:55Speaker 2: families dot com dot au.
- 10:57Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
- 11:00Speaker 1: poor parent who just wants answers now. And we have
- 11:03Speaker 1: one more study.
- 11:04Speaker 2: Yeah, this one is kind of interesting to me. It
- 11:07Speaker 2: highlights once again just how challenging it is to navigate
- 11:11Speaker 2: the world when social media is involved. We talk all
- 11:14Speaker 2: the time about how kids are affected by it, but
- 11:16Speaker 2: one thing we don't talk often about is how parents,
- 11:20Speaker 2: specifically mums, are affected by it. And a brand new
- 11:24Speaker 2: study published in Actors Psychological explores the impact of parenting
- 11:29Speaker 2: related Instagram accounts on mums and what the researchers have
- 11:34Speaker 2: found is quite a mixed experience. So mums will often
- 11:38Speaker 2: feel really well supported by a community of fellow parents.
- 11:40Speaker 2: They're following this page. They feel like this person gets them.
- 11:43Speaker 2: They're keeping it real, they're talking about the ups and
- 11:45Speaker 2: the downs and the good and the bad, and that's great.
- 11:49Speaker 2: But being on Instagram and following all of these parenting
- 11:52Speaker 2: accounts has also been shown to make mums feel less
- 11:55Speaker 2: competent because they start comparing themselves to others and everyone
- 11:58Speaker 2: else seems to be getting it right. I've even seen
- 12:00Speaker 2: this on my Facebook account. Right, So, a few weeks
- 12:02Speaker 2: ago we had that Carrots and Sticks webinar, and a
- 12:06Speaker 2: bunch of people were sort of saying things like, I
- 12:08Speaker 2: wish that I could be as good as everyone else
- 12:09Speaker 2: who's on here, commenting about how well they do their
- 12:11Speaker 2: parenting and how much they managed to not hit everyone
- 12:15Speaker 2: with carrots and sticks and all that sort of stuff.
- 12:16Speaker 2: So there's that whole sense of, well, you've all got
- 12:19Speaker 2: the answers and I don't, And I'm feeling even less
- 12:22Speaker 2: confident because I'm reading all of your comments and you're
- 12:24Speaker 2: telling me how good you are. I don't seem to
- 12:26Speaker 2: be able to hold it together at all.
- 12:27Speaker 1: It's interesting, most of us actually have the answers. We
- 12:31Speaker 1: could sprout them off to anyone every day every week
- 12:35Speaker 1: through it, but once we're actually asked for practice it,
- 12:39Speaker 1: everything goes out the window, because, as you've said multiple times,
- 12:44Speaker 1: it's easy principles having to be applied in the hardest moments.
- 12:48Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Parenting is actually really easy when
- 12:52Speaker 2: it's somebody else's kids. You know, the answers. We had
- 12:55Speaker 2: all the answers before kids came along and you can
- 12:57Speaker 2: see what your sister in law should be doing with
- 12:59Speaker 2: her kids and the name should be doing with theirs.
- 13:01Speaker 2: But your kids that they're a bit different. We need
- 13:03Speaker 2: special help with them. So this was research conducted out
- 13:06Speaker 2: of the University of Copenhagen two hundred and seventy moms
- 13:09Speaker 2: with one or more children, and basically they were asked
- 13:13Speaker 2: how much time on average they spent on Instagram every
- 13:15Speaker 2: day during the last week. Then they indicated what sort
- 13:17Speaker 2: of accounts they followed, and if they followed insta parents
- 13:20Speaker 2: like influencers who are posting about their experiences with parenting,
- 13:25Speaker 2: that's where the research really took off. They also looked
- 13:27Speaker 2: at other kinds of accounts that could be followed, like
- 13:30Speaker 2: professional accounts that share information about child development or parenting,
- 13:33Speaker 2: or even university run Instagram accounts that post about child development.
- 13:38Speaker 2: And basically, when they walked through this, the results show
- 13:42Speaker 2: that mums frequently follow accounts that discuss parenting. And we
- 13:46Speaker 2: know that because we've got a couple of hundred thousand
- 13:48Speaker 2: followers on our Facebook account and I know tens of
- 13:51Speaker 2: thousands of followers on our Instagram account. They spend nearly
- 13:54Speaker 2: an hour a day on the platform, nearly an hour
- 13:56Speaker 2: a day on Instagram, and about forty point seven percent
- 14:02Speaker 2: forty percent of parents basically said, yet this is negatively
- 14:05Speaker 2: affecting me. The insterta parent accounts make me feel like
- 14:09Speaker 2: I have to be comparing myself to others. I'm not
- 14:12Speaker 2: living up to the expectations. I'm being negatively affected by
- 14:15Speaker 2: what I'm reading. And it seemed like the insta parent
- 14:18Speaker 2: profiles had much more of a negative impact on the
- 14:21Speaker 2: way mum's felt about themselves in terms of feeling like
- 14:23Speaker 2: they were incompetent and not feeling the same level of
- 14:25Speaker 2: support compared to the more credible accounts from university on
- 14:29Speaker 2: pages or people who actually really know what they're talking about,
- 14:33Speaker 2: rather than being an insta influencer parent.
- 14:36Speaker 1: So I haven't had a lot to do with social
- 14:38Speaker 1: media since really the beginning I started. I have an account,
- 14:42Speaker 1: and I usually use it more now just to stay
- 14:45Speaker 1: in touch with people by a messenger. But part of
- 14:49Speaker 1: the reason I stopped using it was because I looked
- 14:52Speaker 1: at everybody else's photos and I'm not very technically challenged,
- 14:56Speaker 1: and so I don't know how to use all of
- 14:57Speaker 1: those filters and things and so in my own space,
- 15:01Speaker 1: in real life, everything looked beautiful to me. But then
- 15:04Speaker 1: compared to the photos other people were posting of their things,
- 15:08Speaker 1: my photos just didn't do my space or my family justice.
- 15:12Speaker 2: Yeah, because you've got to know how to use the
- 15:14Speaker 2: lighting and the filters and all again and get it
- 15:16Speaker 2: all looking right. Yeah.
- 15:17Speaker 1: So in the early days, I actually stopped posting because
- 15:19Speaker 1: it was just like, I can't I can't compare with that.
- 15:22Speaker 1: You know, they were posting what looked like magazine worthy
- 15:25Speaker 1: photos and my photos were just photos.
- 15:28Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 15:29Speaker 1: But obviously as your profile has increased, I've actually stopped
- 15:33Speaker 1: posting to kind of give us a little bit more
- 15:35Speaker 1: privacy in our kind of private lives.
- 15:39Speaker 2: But yeah, I've only got one one image on my
- 15:42Speaker 2: Instagram account, just one photos all I've ever posted with
- 15:44Speaker 2: my Instagram account. I don't even know how to log
- 15:46Speaker 2: in anymore. But let's move back to this so they'll
- 15:48Speaker 2: take our message from these studies, because we do need
- 15:50Speaker 2: to wrap up number one when it comes to ADHD.
- 15:52Speaker 2: There are multiple things that are going to exacerbate or
- 15:55Speaker 2: lessen the symptoms that our kids are showing, and new
- 15:59Speaker 2: research that contrary to previous research. Of course, that more
- 16:04Speaker 2: fruit and vegetables may have some impact, especially on the
- 16:06Speaker 2: inattentive side of ADHD symptoms. The second thing that we
- 16:10Speaker 2: talked about is that childcare, well, the more of it
- 16:12Speaker 2: your kids are exposed to, the greater the risk that
- 16:14Speaker 2: attachment and challenging behaviors from peers could affect their behavior.
- 16:20Speaker 2: And so we want to make sure that we're really
- 16:22Speaker 2: creating secure relationships for our kids if they're in childcare.
- 16:25Speaker 2: And the final take home messages social media, stay off it.
- 16:28Speaker 2: It's not helping you, fair call.
- 16:31Speaker 1: I know that my life's better when I'm not spending
- 16:33Speaker 1: so much time on it.
- 16:34Speaker 2: The Happy Families Podcast is produced by Justin Rowland for
- 16:37Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. All of
- 16:39Speaker 2: these links to the Doctor's Desk articles will be found
- 16:42Speaker 2: in the show notes of this podcast. And we can't
- 16:44Speaker 2: wait for you to join us tomorrow for our Old
- 16:46Speaker 2: Do Better Tomorrow episode of the Happy Families Podcast