Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1004 Ditching Screens as a Grown Up

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#1004 Ditching Screens as a Grown Up · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers Now. Hello and
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  Speaker 1: welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. I'm doctor Justin Colson.
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  Speaker 1: This is the podcast for the time poor parent who
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  Speaker 1: just wants answers Now, and today it's all about answers
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  Speaker 1: to your questions. Every Tuesday on the pod, I answer
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  Speaker 1: your questions about making your family happier. If you would
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  Speaker 1: like to submit a question, I love it when you do.
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  Speaker 1: Submit your questions via Happy families dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 1: Just go to the website, click on the podcasts link
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  Speaker 1: and push the record button. Leave your message there. It
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  Speaker 1: is that simple. Our first message comes through from an
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  Speaker 1: anonymous listener who says, I'm having some trouble with screens,
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  Speaker 1: except I'm the one having difficulty. I find I'm often
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  Speaker 1: getting stuck on them, and especially my three year old
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  Speaker 1: ends up watching silly amounts of TV. How can I
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  Speaker 1: ditch screens for myself? Any tips or tricks would be great. So,
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  Speaker 1: first off, really great that you've got the self awareness
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  Speaker 1: to be mindful of the fact that you are using
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  Speaker 1: your screen too much. Wouldn't it be great if you
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  Speaker 1: had the regulation to match the awareness so that you
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  Speaker 1: could pull it back. And I love the fact that
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  Speaker 1: you've recognized the more that you're on your screen, the
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  Speaker 1: more that your kids are on theirs. Anonymous, thank you
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  Speaker 1: so much for the question. Let's have a look at
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  Speaker 1: some statistics before I step into some solutions. So digital
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  Speaker 1: is on the app from the We Are Social twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty three Digital Report. Total population of Australia twenty six
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  Speaker 1: point three million, thirty two point seven of them are connected.
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  Speaker 1: To sell your mobile connections, let me say that again.
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  Speaker 1: We have a population of twenty six point three million,
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  Speaker 1: but we have thirty two point seven million mobile phones
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  Speaker 1: connected to the Internet. In other words, one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: twenty four point three percent of the population are connected.
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  Speaker 1: Some people have more than one mobile phone. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: twenty five point three of the twenty six point three
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  Speaker 1: million recognized as Internet users based on adoption and use
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  Speaker 1: of connected devices and services, and twenty one point three
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  Speaker 1: million actively using social media right now and in terms
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  Speaker 1: of time on the most popular platforms Dart it's about
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  Speaker 1: a year old now. Facebook seventeen hours and forty eight
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  Speaker 1: minutes per user per month, TikTok twenty nine hours, thirty
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  Speaker 1: six minutes per month. Again, this is all people sixteen
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  Speaker 1: to sixty four. We've got Instagram eight hours thirty six
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  Speaker 1: a month, What's App five hours thirty six month, YouTube
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  Speaker 1: seventeen hours per month as well. In other words, we
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  Speaker 1: are social, We are online a lot, and it can't
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  Speaker 1: not I know it's a double negative, but it can't
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  Speaker 1: not affect our relationships. Every time we click, every time
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  Speaker 1: we like, every time we swipe, every time we comment,
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  Speaker 1: every time we share, we feed the algorithm and we
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  Speaker 1: tell the algorithm what to do to keep us there longer.
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  Speaker 1: This is such a big challenge. It's massive for our kids,
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  Speaker 1: but it's huge for us as parents as well. So
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  Speaker 1: let me go through a handful of ideas that some
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  Speaker 1: I like, some I don't like. But these are ideas
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  Speaker 1: that I've used historically to reduce my phone usage because
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  Speaker 1: I am kind of addicted to it and these things
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  Speaker 1: have helped me. Number One, something as simple as sticking
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  Speaker 1: a hair tidy around the phone. When you do that
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  Speaker 1: and you put it right in the middle, it means
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  Speaker 1: that it's really easy to answer phone calls and sort
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  Speaker 1: of swipe to the left or the right, and the
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  Speaker 1: bottom of the screen to pick up that call, but
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  Speaker 1: you can't really use the phone for a whole lot more.
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  Speaker 1: Put a couple of hair tidies around it and promise
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  Speaker 1: yourself that you're not going to move them. It just
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  Speaker 1: makes swiping on the phone annoying. It's tedious, and it's
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  Speaker 1: a really quick fix. I don't think that it's the
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  Speaker 1: most helpful thing. It's pretty easy to get around, but
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  Speaker 1: you're increasing the friction and making it a bit harder
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  Speaker 1: to use the phone. Another one that's really common that
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  Speaker 1: I've also found to be not particularly helpful but everyone
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  Speaker 1: raves about it is going grayscale, so making the telephone
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  Speaker 1: black and white. It's just not nice to use. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: then you don't like using it, and the whole idea
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  Speaker 1: is I want to use the thing, but obviously that's
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  Speaker 1: the issue. It's just that it's so easy to change
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  Speaker 1: it back. Here are some things that I have done, though,
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  Speaker 1: that I found to be really really helpful. Number one,
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  Speaker 1: delete apps. Like I've got a couple of apps that
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  Speaker 1: I have to use for social media for work, but
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  Speaker 1: I only use them when I'm doing work stuff. I
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  Speaker 1: simply post and walk away. I don't read the comments.
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  Speaker 1: I don't interact. I just post and walk away. So
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  Speaker 1: if I didn't have work, I would delete the apps
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  Speaker 1: completely and deleting the apps even if you don't want
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  Speaker 1: to delete them forever. Do an experiment. Just delete it
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  Speaker 1: for a week and see how your life feels. Watch
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  Speaker 1: what happens. Another idea that I found to be incredibly helpful.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, this is probably my favorite of all the
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  Speaker 1: ideas that I can share with you, is to just
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  Speaker 1: turn off notifications. When you turn off the notifications, maybe
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  Speaker 1: keep your SMS notifications on, but turn off your notifications
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  Speaker 1: for email, for any social media, for any and all apps.
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  Speaker 1: Just turn every notification off. You don't need another bell
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  Speaker 1: or whistle, another ping or beep to draw you back
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  Speaker 1: to the phone just so that you can find out
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  Speaker 1: that somebody gave you kudos on Strava, or so that
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  Speaker 1: you can find out that a podcast has been uploaded.
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  Speaker 1: You just don't need the notifications. Turn them off, watch
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  Speaker 1: how it changes your life. Outside of that, The other
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  Speaker 1: thing that I found to be really helpful, and this
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  Speaker 1: is probably the last one that I mentioned, is creating
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  Speaker 1: tech free zones and tech free times. So I have
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  Speaker 1: this thing where I don't look at my phone for
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  Speaker 1: the first tan fifteen minutes when I wake up, and
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  Speaker 1: I don't look at my phone for the last ten
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  Speaker 1: or fifteen minutes before I go to bed. They're my
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  Speaker 1: tech free times. No phones at the dinner table, that
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  Speaker 1: kind of thing. But also no phones in the bedroom.
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  Speaker 1: Or if I'm going to use a phone and it's
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  Speaker 1: after I don't know, I say eight pm, I have
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  Speaker 1: to use it standing up in the corridor. So in
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  Speaker 1: winter time that's horrible. I don't want to stand up
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  Speaker 1: in the corridor on my phone. It's cold. I'd rather
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  Speaker 1: be in bed. And so having little rules like that
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  Speaker 1: it requires a bit of self regulation. It requires a
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  Speaker 1: bit of discipline, but it can really make a big difference. Anonymous.
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  Speaker 1: I hope that's helpful. Get off the device. Life is
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  Speaker 1: to be lived. You're not just here to be entertained
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  Speaker 1: and have the tech platforms tell you how to live
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  Speaker 1: for your life. There's so much more to life. Life
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  Speaker 1: is so rich when you can put the screen down.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for the question. Question number two.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, Justin and Kylie, my six year old neurodiverse son
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  Speaker 2: tends to find enough intelligence in his meltdowns to go
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  Speaker 2: for what is going to trigger my husband and I emotionally,
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  Speaker 2: I feel like my reactions drive the behavior, but I'm
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  Speaker 2: not sure how to stop.
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  Speaker 1: This is a tough question, and I really appreciate it.
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  Speaker 1: The issue of neurodiversity with a six year old knowing
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  Speaker 1: what they're doing, that is there's a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: malice here. There's a bit of a I reckon I
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  Speaker 1: can get one over my parents. Maybe there's some truth
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  Speaker 1: to that, but whether you having eurodivergent child or not
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  Speaker 1: is not particularly relevant. Kids just push our buttons, regardless
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  Speaker 1: of whether they're ADHD autistic or whether they're just kids
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  Speaker 1: being kids. One thing that we know is that I
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  Speaker 1: don't wake up in the morning feeling like this is
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  Speaker 1: their opportunity to destroy our lives. What happens instead is
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  Speaker 1: they get caught up in the moment and their big
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  Speaker 1: emotions start to drive behavior that is not healthy for them,
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  Speaker 1: it's not adapt for us, it doesn't make the family
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  Speaker 1: feel better. So a couple of quick ideas here to
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  Speaker 1: be helpful. Number One, you're in charge of your buttons.
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  Speaker 1: Often I'll hear parents say my kids don't respect my boundaries,
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  Speaker 1: and my response to that is perhaps a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of a bit a tough laugh. It's a bit of
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  Speaker 1: that sort of build a bridge and get over it
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  Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But let me say it anyway, if
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  Speaker 1: your children are not respecting your boundaries, it's because you're
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  Speaker 1: not respecting your boundaries. You can't expect your kids to
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  Speaker 1: respect your boundaries if you don't, And if you respect
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  Speaker 1: your boundaries, they don't have any choice but to respect
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  Speaker 1: your boundaries because you're respecting your boundaries. So you are
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  Speaker 1: the one who is in charge of boundaries. You're the
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  Speaker 1: one who's in charge of buttons. If there are buttons,
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  Speaker 1: they're yours. You look after them, you protect them. You
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  Speaker 1: make sure that kids know when they've gone too far.
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  Speaker 1: This can sometimes be a source of contention and frustration.
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  Speaker 1: So I want to emphasize by acknowledging this, it's not
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  Speaker 1: meaning that you're going to turn into a big, mean, nasty,
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  Speaker 1: growling parent because the kids have gone too close to
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  Speaker 1: your boundaries or buttons, but rather it's the whole that
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  Speaker 1: boundary really clearly, if a child pushes past the boundary,
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  Speaker 1: you make it really clear you've just gone too far,
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  Speaker 1: or that's a boundary that you are not to cross,
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  Speaker 1: or my limit is here, and you've pushed to this point,
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  Speaker 1: or you just say I won't be spoken to like
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  Speaker 1: that and you walk away. Now, obviously, if you're in
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  Speaker 1: a shopping center, you can't walk around your six year old,
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  Speaker 1: as much as you probably wish that you could. But
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  Speaker 1: usually this stuff doesn't happen with your six year old
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  Speaker 1: in the shopping center. It happens in the living room.
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  Speaker 1: Why because they feel like they're safe and they can
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  Speaker 1: get away with it there. Protect your boundaries, what'tch your buttons.
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  Speaker 1: You're the one who decides what they're going to be,
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  Speaker 1: and you can hold them fairly closely and fairly safely
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  Speaker 1: without injuring or hurting or scaring anyone else. Second idea.
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  Speaker 1: Stephen Covey highlighted this in his book Seven Habits of
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  Speaker 1: Highly Effective People. It may have come from somewhere else,
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  Speaker 1: don't know. He's the one that I always give credit
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  Speaker 1: to for the idea. He explains that there's a space
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  Speaker 1: between stimulus and response where we get to choose the
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  Speaker 1: way we're going to respond to the stimulus. So the
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  Speaker 1: stimulus is you're child having this meltdown, your child targeting you,
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  Speaker 1: pushing buttons, whatever it is. But you get to choose
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  Speaker 1: how you're going to respond. You can choose to blow up.
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  Speaker 1: You can choose to explode, you can choose to reprimand
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  Speaker 1: you can choose to get furious, or you can choose
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  Speaker 1: to get curious. You can choose to understand. You can
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  Speaker 1: choose to explore. You can choose to step away. You
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  Speaker 1: can choose to walk outside. You can choose to get
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  Speaker 1: some air. You can choose to breathe and close your eyes.
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  Speaker 1: You can choose your response. And you have the wonderful
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  Speaker 1: gift of imagination, you have the wonderful gift of conscience,
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  Speaker 1: and you have the wonderful gift of free will to
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  Speaker 1: be able to choose those things for yourself. So I
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  Speaker 1: would really strongly encourage you to just remember that whole
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  Speaker 1: stimulus response formula. In between the stimulus and response is
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  Speaker 1: a space to choose how you're going to act. Choose wisely.
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  Speaker 1: Third idea get enough sleep. Honestly, it's the number one
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  Speaker 1: thing you can do to be a better parent is
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  Speaker 1: to get enough sleep. You can take on the world
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  Speaker 1: when you have enough sleep. When you sleep deprived, anything
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  Speaker 1: is going to push your buttons. Idea number fo or
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  Speaker 1: work on getting your heart right. Sometimes we look at
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  Speaker 1: our kids and we've just decided we've prejudged them right,
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  Speaker 1: We've become prejudiced towards our children. Yeah, you're my adhd nightmare,
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  Speaker 1: you're this one or that one. Like I hear parents
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  Speaker 1: say this stuff every now and again. I've even said
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  Speaker 1: horrible things to my kids. Why because my heart wasn't
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  Speaker 1: right towards them. See the struggle. Look at the broader context.
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  Speaker 1: Remember that they're just little. They've got their l plates on,
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  Speaker 1: and in the case of a kid who's neurodiversion, it's
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  Speaker 1: making life even more challenging. So near adversity complicates things.
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  Speaker 1: Get your heart right Number five. I can't recommend this enough.
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  Speaker 1: Get outside when things are blowing up, get outside, get
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  Speaker 1: into the yard, go for a walk in the street.
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  Speaker 1: There's something about being in nature that changes things. Reduce
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  Speaker 1: the pressure. Have a mantra. My mantra has always been
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  Speaker 1: I'm calm and kind. I'm calm and kind. I know
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  Speaker 1: plenty of other people with much more creative ones, but
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  Speaker 1: that one's worked for me. Another idea, picture an audience.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine somebody's watching you. We're always better behave when we've
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  Speaker 1: got an audience. Ultimately, This is on you. This is
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  Speaker 1: about pairing competence and pairing relationships and not feeling too trapped.
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  Speaker 1: So if we can, if we can feel confident what
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  Speaker 1: we're doing by using those skills, we can build better
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  Speaker 1: relationships and over time things will even out, things will
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  Speaker 1: feel better. Good luck. I know it's hard. Thanks so
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  Speaker 1: much for your questions Today, next Tuesday two more of
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  Speaker 1: your questions send us a voice note via happy families
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: dot com dot you. Just click on the podcast link
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: at happy families dot com dot you, push the record button,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: leave a voice note. It's that simple. Submit your questions
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: happy families dot com dot au. The Happy Families podcast
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  Speaker 1: is produced by Justin Rawan from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: is our executive producer. For more information about making your
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: family happy, you'll find it at happy families dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot A. You