Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1061 - This Week in Parenting: Raygun, Lost High-Fives & Panic Attacks

Transcript

#1061 - This Week in Parenting: Raygun, Lost High-Fives & Panic Attacks · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:02
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:06
Speaker 1: time poor parent They just once answers.
0:09
Speaker 2: Now.
0:13
Speaker 3: I know this podcast isn't about me, but this is
0:16
Speaker 3: the most fun that I have on the Happy Family's podcast.
0:19
Speaker 3: It's today, This Week in Parenting. Hang on, let me
0:21
Speaker 3: do that properly, This Week in Parenting. I love what
0:28
Speaker 3: JR does with that. I love how I suddenly sound
0:31
Speaker 3: so much bigger. It's so much fun Kylie. I'm so
0:34
Speaker 3: sorry you're not even saying anything. You're not even laughing
0:36
Speaker 3: at me.
0:37
Speaker 4: That's because you had my mic off.
0:39
Speaker 3: More stories than normal today, some very serious, some less serious.
0:45
Speaker 5: We always go over time on this one.
0:47
Speaker 3: I'm on a mission, though, to hit absolutely everything, which
0:49
Speaker 3: means too much content, not enough time. What we should do?
0:52
Speaker 3: I mean, it's called This Week in Parenting, and we
0:54
Speaker 3: do it once a month. Maybe we should just do
0:57
Speaker 3: it once a week. Anyway, let's go.
1:00
Speaker 4: Story number one. This has to be one of the
1:02
Speaker 4: most polarizing stories that's come out of the Olympics. It's
1:06
Speaker 4: just two words. Ray gun I was the Olympic breakdancer
1:10
Speaker 4: and international meme.
1:13
Speaker 5: Up against the world's best.
1:15
Speaker 4: The thirty six year old opted for a more creative.
1:17
Speaker 2: Tak Raygun didn't score a single point.
1:20
Speaker 4: You have to ask was her performance that bad? Well,
1:23
Speaker 4: unfortunately it was.
1:24
Speaker 3: I think she brought shame to both break dancing, herself
1:28
Speaker 3: and Australia. Frankly, people were saying, is she touching her toes?
1:33
Speaker 3: Is she trying to kick her duvet off at night?
1:35
Speaker 3: What was she doing?
1:36
Speaker 4: We decided that this was definitely something that parents and
1:39
Speaker 4: kids across the country are across the.
1:41
Speaker 5: World, across the ground, that's right.
1:43
Speaker 4: Are talking about right now, and so we need to.
1:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, we put it on Facebook. Comments went absolutely nuts.
1:48
Speaker 3: Now we didn't just say, oh what do you think
1:49
Speaker 3: about Raygun? I don't think that that's a constructive discussion,
1:53
Speaker 3: because technically that's not parenting news. This week in Parenting
1:56
Speaker 3: is about parenting news. And so here's what we write
1:59
Speaker 3: on Facebook. From golden glory to some not so golden moments.
2:03
Speaker 3: It's been a wild ride for Australia at these Olympics. Raygun,
2:06
Speaker 3: the breakdancing trailblazer, is sparking debate across the nation. Some
2:09
Speaker 3: are cheering her on, others not so much. But guess what,
2:12
Speaker 3: these headline grabbing moments are pure gold for sparking meaningful
2:15
Speaker 3: conversations with our kids. Let's use Raygun's story to dig
2:19
Speaker 3: into values, dreams and what it really means to be
2:22
Speaker 3: a winner.
2:23
Speaker 4: Here are some of the questions that we placed on
2:25
Speaker 4: our socials. Do you think Raygun's performance was a hit
2:28
Speaker 4: or a miss? Why are people reacting so differently? And
2:32
Speaker 4: is it fair? Is it kind? No points on the board?
2:35
Speaker 4: But was ray Gun still a winner in some other way?
2:38
Speaker 4: And have you ever tried your hardest and still didn't
2:40
Speaker 4: come out on top? How does that feel?
2:42
Speaker 3: So the whole idea of these questions is not to
2:44
Speaker 3: get caught up in the weeds of what was going
2:47
Speaker 3: on with ray Gun and this performance. It's kind of
2:50
Speaker 3: in some ways ancillary or to the side of what's
2:55
Speaker 3: really going on here. Kids are watching this. There's a
2:57
Speaker 3: whole lot of judgment going on, and I think they
3:00
Speaker 3: it's emblematic of our broader society's approach to things. Plus,
3:02
Speaker 3: we see what happens on social media when this stuff
3:05
Speaker 3: goes ballistic, which it has. These conversations, these questions help
3:10
Speaker 3: children to have some empathy but also think a little
3:12
Speaker 3: bit more deeply about the topic. That's why we wanted
3:16
Speaker 3: to talk about that on this week in Pairenting. We
3:18
Speaker 3: will link to our Facebook posts so that you can
3:21
Speaker 3: have the same conversations at your home if you would
3:23
Speaker 3: like to.
3:23
Speaker 4: In the show notes, story number two, Nate Burne. He's
3:27
Speaker 4: not a name that you've probably heard of.
3:30
Speaker 5: Unless you're watching ABC Breakfast TV.
3:33
Speaker 3: In that case, you would know exactly who was because
3:35
Speaker 3: you'd see him doing the weather every morning.
3:38
Speaker 4: But he recently had a panic attack on air, and
3:42
Speaker 4: this is the footage from it.
3:44
Speaker 1: We're going to see lots more rain in the days ahead.
3:46
Speaker 1: I'm actually going to need to stop for a second.
3:49
Speaker 1: Some of you may know that I occasionally get affected
3:52
Speaker 1: by some panic attacks, and actually that's happening right now, Lisa,
3:57
Speaker 1: maybe I could hand back to you.
3:59
Speaker 2: You certainly can date and Nate wrote a great piece
4:02
Speaker 2: on the ABC online website about this, and I reckon
4:07
Speaker 2: we might re up it put it on our socials
4:10
Speaker 2: so you can have a bit of a read.
4:12
Speaker 3: So technically not parenting either, but again worth bringing up,
4:15
Speaker 3: worth having the conversations, normalizing the reality that anxiety and
4:20
Speaker 3: panic attacks are an all part of life for some
4:23
Speaker 3: people and that they can happen, And what I think
4:27
Speaker 3: really stands out to me, Kylie, is that you can
4:29
Speaker 3: have a panic attack on the inside but still looks
4:31
Speaker 3: like you're okay on the outside. I mean, you can
4:32
Speaker 3: hear Nate's voice trembling, you can hear him struggling with it,
4:35
Speaker 3: but he held it together, communicated what he needed to communicate,
4:39
Speaker 3: and then he got out of there. I just think
4:41
Speaker 3: that he handled it brilliantly, and the team handled it brilliantly,
4:44
Speaker 3: and it gives us the opportunity to have some really
4:46
Speaker 3: important conversations.
4:47
Speaker 4: But I think that can only happen when there's open
4:50
Speaker 4: communication and a general understanding across the board. Like if
4:54
Speaker 4: he didn't have that support structure in place, I think
4:56
Speaker 4: it would have been a lot harder for him to
4:58
Speaker 4: go through that process.
5:00
Speaker 3: It's something that's ironic. I've just talked about how social
5:03
Speaker 3: media was so a brutal, honestly brutal to Raygun. Everything
5:09
Speaker 3: that I've seen, and we posted this as well on
5:11
Speaker 3: our Facebook page, everything that I've seen around the response
5:14
Speaker 3: to Nate and his panic attack has been nothing but supportive,
5:18
Speaker 3: which also gives us the opportunity to say to our kids,
5:20
Speaker 3: how do we get more of that in our lives?
5:21
Speaker 3: Especially when we're online versus the alternative, because the inflammatory
5:26
Speaker 3: nature of what happened with Raygun is so different. It's
5:30
Speaker 3: so different, but that's what the algorithm feeds on. And
5:32
Speaker 3: yet the Nate Burn thing, I just think it was
5:35
Speaker 3: beautifully dealt with.
5:37
Speaker 6: Story number three, Miarrah Rangers Council has come under fire
5:41
Speaker 6: after it banned a school crossing supervisor from high fiving students.
5:46
Speaker 3: This is from news dot com to quote, students of
5:49
Speaker 3: Mount Dandenong Primary School and Greater Melbourne will no longer
5:52
Speaker 3: receive high fives from their beloved crossing supervisor John Golden
5:57
Speaker 3: during drop off and pick up after he was reprimanded
6:00
Speaker 3: by Yarrow Rangers Council. Mister Golden, who has recently crowned
6:03
Speaker 3: one of Victoria's top crossing supervisors, has been warned by
6:08
Speaker 3: the council against quote initiating unnecessary physical contact close quote
6:14
Speaker 3: with the children.
6:15
Speaker 2: It's a bit sad because it really brightens our day.
6:19
Speaker 4: I guess there's always got to be someone to complain.
6:21
Speaker 5: I don't know the world's gotten soft.
6:23
Speaker 4: Okay, so my mouth's dropping. Unless there's more to this story.
6:27
Speaker 4: This breaks my heart. Yeah, this actually breaks my heart,
6:31
Speaker 4: not only have we acknowledged in those few lines you've
6:34
Speaker 4: just read that he's one of the top crossing supervisors.
6:38
Speaker 4: He obviously has a good reputation and the kids know him.
6:43
Speaker 4: He's there every day.
6:45
Speaker 3: Just need to clarify something for our overseaslessness as well.
6:47
Speaker 3: A lollipop man or a lollipop lady, they're the people
6:50
Speaker 3: who stand at the bestry crossing and hold up the
6:53
Speaker 3: sign that looks like a lollipop that says stop or
6:55
Speaker 3: go or whatever so the kids can cross the road safely.
6:57
Speaker 3: So here's this guy. He's giving the kids a high five.
7:00
Speaker 3: The council stepped in and said, no, let me continue here.
7:03
Speaker 3: Here's another quote from the website. Outraged parents have rallied
7:05
Speaker 3: behind the cherished lollipop Man, with one beginning a petition
7:09
Speaker 3: to have the ban removed. Basically, someone somewhere has believed
7:13
Speaker 3: the media hype that the world is so dangerous that everyone,
7:18
Speaker 3: including the beloved lollipop man, is out to get them
7:20
Speaker 3: or their kids. I mean, it's as you said, it's
7:22
Speaker 3: just nuts. Society falls apart without trust. The overwhelming majority
7:27
Speaker 3: of people are good, safe and wanting to help. Mister
7:32
Speaker 3: Golden is going to have to have done a whole
7:34
Speaker 3: number of checks before he's allowed to do the job.
7:36
Speaker 5: He's giving kids high fives for goodness sake.
7:37
Speaker 4: He's volunteering his time now now.
7:39
Speaker 3: If he's that's right he's doing. I don't know if
7:42
Speaker 3: they get paid or not, but if they do, it'll
7:43
Speaker 3: be a pittance.
7:44
Speaker 5: If he's stopping.
7:45
Speaker 3: Cars to give kids high fives while the car still
7:49
Speaker 3: on the road, or if they're driving past they're hanging
7:51
Speaker 3: out the window on high fiving, well, that's fair enough,
7:53
Speaker 3: that's concerning.
7:54
Speaker 5: That's dangerous.
7:55
Speaker 4: Well alternatively, if that's what I'm getting here, if there
7:57
Speaker 4: are children specifically who don't like physical contact or have
8:01
Speaker 4: felt uncomfortable because they feel like they don't have a
8:04
Speaker 4: choice in it, then again, having a conversation with him
8:07
Speaker 4: and just explaining, hey, Freddie doesn't really enjoy a high five,
8:10
Speaker 4: can you just let him walk past you? Or whatever?
8:11
Speaker 5: Like just this total band sign the petition.
8:15
Speaker 3: High five's are good. They boost morale, Kids get happy.
8:18
Speaker 4: What do you think about Kids need to be seen,
8:22
Speaker 4: heard and valued. This is such a beautiful way to
8:25
Speaker 4: start their day.
8:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's such an easy one. I can't believe that.
8:28
Speaker 3: I can't believe it's happened, all right, two heavy ones
8:31
Speaker 3: after the break. The study has been reported as saying
8:33
Speaker 3: that autism can be reversed and new mental health data.
8:37
Speaker 5: And Aussie Kids.
8:43
Speaker 4: Story number four. You've got a story reported in the
8:47
Speaker 4: Telegraph in the UK justin about autism being reversible. This
8:51
Speaker 4: sounds both incredible and probably a bit provocative.
8:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to read this to you. And the
8:56
Speaker 3: reason this is not in the doctor's desk is because
8:57
Speaker 3: it doesn't qualify. Here's the headline in the teleph autism
9:01
Speaker 3: can be reversed, scientists claim. The summary underneath the headline
9:05
Speaker 3: says study with two non identical twin girls found some
9:09
Speaker 3: symptoms can be reduced to an indistinguishable level.
9:13
Speaker 4: Now I'm guessing you're going to tell me that the
9:15
Speaker 4: fact that it's a study of two te people.
9:17
Speaker 5: Yeah, well that is part of the problem. Yeah.
9:19
Speaker 3: So the story goes on to talk about two young
9:21
Speaker 3: girls who had severe autism though were twenty months old
9:23
Speaker 3: when they were diagnosed, and they went through a series
9:25
Speaker 3: of quite complex and challenging protocols over a number of
9:28
Speaker 3: years and tipped off a bunch of development mental milestones
9:31
Speaker 3: and wohila, they're cured. So in this and I'm using
9:36
Speaker 3: air quotes or scare quotes here study. In this quote
9:38
Speaker 3: unquote study, there's a long list of inventions by clinicians
9:42
Speaker 3: and the girl's parents, including dietary changes and speech therapy,
9:45
Speaker 3: and applied behavior analysis otherwise known as ABA, which I'm
9:48
Speaker 3: really strongly against ninety nine point nine percent of it
9:51
Speaker 3: because it's usually done in unkind and cruel ways, and
9:54
Speaker 3: reported that the girl's scores improved in some behavioral categories
9:59
Speaker 3: on what's known as the ab TECH, the Autism Treatment
10:01
Speaker 3: Evaluation Checklist. That's a questionaut that basically assesses the effectiveness
10:07
Speaker 3: of whether autism treatment is working. So it's a fascinating
10:10
Speaker 3: story because some profound, like really really profound results are reported.
10:15
Speaker 3: But and it's a great big butt, always a big butt.
10:18
Speaker 2: I like big butts.
10:19
Speaker 3: I think we've got a case of really poor reporting,
10:22
Speaker 3: and I need to clear a couple of things up.
10:24
Speaker 3: So first off, as you said, Kylie, it's called a study,
10:26
Speaker 3: but it's not a study. Well, if it is, it's
10:28
Speaker 3: a case study. We don't have any clinical trial here.
10:30
Speaker 4: It's just a study of one family.
10:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, two girls trying some protocols. Second, methodologically weak, selectively
10:37
Speaker 3: describes only two children, lacks sufficiently rigorous data collection and
10:42
Speaker 3: adequate follow off.
10:42
Speaker 5: Of the children.
10:43
Speaker 3: And third, autism doesn't quote unquote go away. Everything we
10:47
Speaker 3: know about it suggests otherwise just irresponsible reporting in one
10:52
Speaker 3: of the biggest papers in the UK are in Europe.
10:55
Speaker 3: Really and it's a really big challenge that this has
10:59
Speaker 3: been reported.
11:01
Speaker 4: I would assume that parents who are dealing with children
11:04
Speaker 4: with similar challenges would take great hope in reading this
11:09
Speaker 4: article and seeing that there may be possibilities for improvement
11:13
Speaker 4: with their children.
11:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, Kylie, maybe, and that's both good and bad. I mean,
11:17
Speaker 5: we need hope.
11:17
Speaker 3: We need to Hope means that you've got a goal,
11:19
Speaker 3: you've got pathways, and you've got the belief that you
11:21
Speaker 3: can get there. If every family could do what this
11:24
Speaker 3: protocol was, then maybe we would see children doing better.
11:28
Speaker 3: But the thing is we don't really know. Like I said,
11:30
Speaker 3: it's not even a study, it's a case study. It's
11:33
Speaker 3: true that some of the things that they did can
11:34
Speaker 3: help to contain certain challenges that are associated with autism,
11:37
Speaker 3: but some of the things that they did don't. And
11:40
Speaker 3: that's why we need two things. Number One, we need
11:42
Speaker 3: really good quality research and number two, we need good
11:44
Speaker 3: quality reporting. I mean, in a perfect wall, the data
11:47
Speaker 3: would be right. And I really, truly, truly hope that
11:50
Speaker 3: the kids are thriving and I'm hopeful that it's been
11:52
Speaker 3: good for the family. But it's not science. And if
11:54
Speaker 3: anyone saw it, I would be encouraging them to take
11:57
Speaker 3: it lightly and get appropriate help. It's just it's not
12:01
Speaker 3: a good story. It's in this Week in Parenting to
12:03
Speaker 3: highlight that sometimes stuff that you read in the papers,
12:06
Speaker 3: imagine that might not be as trustworthy as you think.
12:09
Speaker 3: All the stuff that you read online or see on
12:11
Speaker 3: TikTok okay.
12:12
Speaker 4: Final story for this Week in Parenting.
12:16
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no no, that's not how you do it.
12:18
Speaker 3: It's this week in Parenting.
12:21
Speaker 4: This Week in Parenting.
12:26
Speaker 5: I don't know, JR. See what you can do with that.
12:29
Speaker 4: Ossie kid's mental health is not good.
12:32
Speaker 6: Professor Patrick mcgoury is a brilliant Australian. Today he released
12:35
Speaker 6: a report that was about the mental health failures of
12:38
Speaker 6: this country and particularly yet again, how we are failing
12:41
Speaker 6: a generation of kids.
12:43
Speaker 3: Okay, this is a landmark study over five years led
12:46
Speaker 3: by Professor Patrick mcgory one of Australia's most well known
12:51
Speaker 3: and highly respected psychiatrists published in The Lancet. Natasha Robinson
12:56
Speaker 3: reported this in The Australian last week, and I quote
12:59
Speaker 3: Australian psychiatrists have led the biggest ever worldwide study into
13:03
Speaker 3: youth mental health, finding that young people's psychological health has
13:08
Speaker 3: quote entered a dangerous phase close quote goes on to
13:14
Speaker 3: say the incidents of mental ill health in young people
13:16
Speaker 3: in Australia has risen by fifty percent of the past
13:18
Speaker 3: fifteen years, and has further risen alarmingly steeply since the
13:22
Speaker 3: COVID nineteen pandemic, especially among teenage girls, such that almost
13:25
Speaker 3: fifty percent let me say that again, almost fifty percent
13:29
Speaker 3: of women age between sixteen and twenty four report experiencing
13:34
Speaker 3: a mental health disorder. Professor mcgury said. The conclusion is
13:39
Speaker 3: that society is in trouble in terms of its ability
13:42
Speaker 3: to safeguard the mental health of young people as they
13:45
Speaker 3: make the transition from childhood to adulthood.
13:50
Speaker 4: Justin how do we compare with other countries.
13:52
Speaker 3: Well, Based on this particular set of research, Australia is
13:56
Speaker 3: second only to the United States in terms of rising
14:00
Speaker 3: mental ill health trends and I had to say it,
14:04
Speaker 3: but suicide is the leading cause of death among people
14:06
Speaker 3: aged fifteen to forty four in this country.
14:11
Speaker 4: These just such staggering numbers that we're talking about fifty percent,
14:19
Speaker 4: that's one and two. It means that my children are.
14:23
Speaker 3: Well three and six because we've got six daughters likely
14:27
Speaker 3: to show up with a diagnosis.
14:30
Speaker 4: And not only that, associate with friends who are also
14:33
Speaker 4: struggling deeply, not to mention the fact that at some
14:37
Speaker 4: point they are going to experience deep sadness as we
14:41
Speaker 4: already have as a family, with friends and family leaving
14:46
Speaker 4: like it's such tragic circumstances.
14:50
Speaker 3: Based on what Professor mcgrori has said, compared to the
14:53
Speaker 3: forty billion dollars a year, let me say that again,
14:55
Speaker 3: forty bill that we spend on about six hundred thousand
15:00
Speaker 3: strains with a physical disability, Australia spends about eleven billion
15:05
Speaker 3: on over five million people with the mental illness. So
15:09
Speaker 3: we're talking about five times five times the number of
15:13
Speaker 3: people struggling with mental illness as physical disability, and we're
15:17
Speaker 3: talking about forty billion for physical disability versus eleven billion
15:22
Speaker 3: for mental illness. We're spending about seven percent of our
15:26
Speaker 3: health budget on mental health, but the suite of conditions
15:29
Speaker 3: as responsible for fifteen to twenty percent of the health
15:31
Speaker 3: burden society. We're just we're getting it wrong. We're getting
15:35
Speaker 3: it wrong as a society in terms of why mental
15:37
Speaker 3: health challenges are so great, but also our funding allocation
15:40
Speaker 3: of the way we're trying to deal with this is
15:42
Speaker 3: similarly not right. I'm not suggesting we should take anything
15:45
Speaker 3: away from people with physical disabilities, by the way, I'm
15:48
Speaker 3: just saying we're fundamentally, not just fundamentally, we're completely under
15:51
Speaker 3: resource when it comes to mental health challenges.
15:53
Speaker 4: So what would you say are the major contributing factors
15:56
Speaker 4: to the rise that we've experienced, especially since COVID.
16:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, so a couple of things. First of all, disintegration
16:02
Speaker 3: of families and relationships, lack of margin, feeling overwhelmed, burn out,
16:05
Speaker 3: too much going on, lack of nature, too much time indoors,
16:09
Speaker 3: too much screen time, legislation around screens and algorithms. It's
16:14
Speaker 3: not really about the screen time, it's about the algorithms
16:16
Speaker 3: and what this stuff is doing to our mental health.
16:19
Speaker 3: Zuckerberg and his ILK are responsible for more harm to
16:22
Speaker 3: the mental health for young people than pretty much anyone
16:24
Speaker 3: who's ever walked the planet. What we really need is
16:27
Speaker 3: a move towards more natural living, less financial pressure, stable families,
16:30
Speaker 3: margin in our lives, just a whole.
16:33
Speaker 5: Lot more nature.
16:34
Speaker 3: This growth is good paradigm that we've been living under
16:38
Speaker 3: for decades now, It's simply not true. It's far more
16:41
Speaker 3: complex than that. But yeah, these are the challenges we're
16:44
Speaker 3: dealing with.
16:45
Speaker 4: Well, it's a bit of a heavyweight to finish. Sorry,
16:49
Speaker 4: this week and Parenting episode, I.
16:51
Speaker 3: Said it was my favorite. I feel like I've had
16:52
Speaker 3: a good rant. I feel like I've talked about important things.
16:54
Speaker 5: But it is pretty heavy, isn't it.
16:56
Speaker 4: Let's wrap it up here.
16:57
Speaker 5: Okay, So we.
16:58
Speaker 3: Need to promote mental health building activities in our families.
17:01
Speaker 3: We need to recognize that individual responsibility is the way
17:04
Speaker 3: to go because the government can't seem to create a
17:06
Speaker 3: system that's supportive.
17:08
Speaker 5: Oh thank you for listening to this week in pairing.
17:09
Speaker 5: We so much appreciate you being with us.
17:11
Speaker 4: I'm glad you took that breath.
17:12
Speaker 3: On the Happy Families podcast, which is produced by Justin
17:16
Speaker 3: Ruland from Bridge Media. We will link to all of
17:18
Speaker 3: these stories in the show notes, and if you'd like
17:19
Speaker 3: to know more about how your family can be.
17:22
Speaker 5: Especially with stories like the one I've just shared
17:25
Speaker 3: Sign up to our free, super helpful newsletter at happyfamilies
17:28
Speaker 3: dot com, dot a u