Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #200 When Social Media Attacks

Transcript

#200 When Social Media Attacks · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
0:10
Speaker 2: Now, when we get curious, not furious, we move towards
0:14
Speaker 2: the issue that's causing us the consternation, but we do
0:17
Speaker 2: so in a graceful way.
0:18
Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
0:22
Speaker 1: and dad.
0:22
Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson, the author of six books.
0:26
Speaker 2: Nearly forgot how many there were about raising happy families.
0:29
Speaker 2: I'm here with my wife and co host, missus Happy Families. Kylie,
0:32
Speaker 2: mum to our six daughters.
0:34
Speaker 3: You're sounding a bit flood today.
0:36
Speaker 2: Mahamah No, I'm not trying to sound flat. I'm actually
0:38
Speaker 2: doing okay, although I have got a little bit of
0:40
Speaker 2: a This is the Happy Families Podcast. It's for people
0:46
Speaker 2: to feel good about life. But you know, something has
0:49
Speaker 2: gotten in my crawl over the last little bit. You know,
0:52
Speaker 2: we've got about one hundred and seventy thousand people who
0:54
Speaker 2: follow us on Facebook. That's a very big community to
0:57
Speaker 2: keep tabs on, and normally we've got to really support
1:00
Speaker 2: of really positive community. But just recently there's been a
1:03
Speaker 2: couple of social media moments that have really been challenging
1:07
Speaker 2: for me, and it's kind of a bit of a
1:09
Speaker 2: tough one because like, if you follow somebody, it's because
1:12
Speaker 2: you like them, right, But every now and again I'll
1:15
Speaker 2: post something and somebody won't like what I've posted, and
1:17
Speaker 2: all of a sudden it turns into this, I'm unfollowing
1:19
Speaker 2: and I've got to delete you and cancel culture. You know,
1:21
Speaker 2: we're canceling. We're canceling you, We're canceling your Facebook page.
1:24
Speaker 2: That kind of mentality. I don't really quite know how
1:27
Speaker 2: to articulate exactly what I want to say. But I
1:30
Speaker 2: had a post go up not too long ago, and
1:33
Speaker 2: it was related to something that I teach really explicitly.
1:37
Speaker 2: It's based on decades of social and evolutionary psychology research,
1:40
Speaker 2: but it's actually based on millennia of what it is
1:43
Speaker 2: to be human. And what I posted was this really
1:46
Speaker 2: simple phrase, high emotions, low intelligence. That is, when we
1:51
Speaker 2: get into situations where we or our children get really
1:55
Speaker 2: really emotional, what happens is our intelligence goes out the window.
1:58
Speaker 2: We behave less intelligently, less rationally, less well considered, and
2:03
Speaker 2: usually less favorably when our emotions are really high. That
2:07
Speaker 2: makes sense, right, And there's loads of neuroscience, there's brain
2:10
Speaker 2: scan imagery, there's all kinds of things that will emphasize this.
2:13
Speaker 2: In fact, I'm not going to show if I'm going
2:15
Speaker 2: to keep it really simple, but basically, there's parts of
2:18
Speaker 2: the brain that look after planning and thinking, and we
2:21
Speaker 2: call that mainly in our prefrontal cortex. That's the bit
2:24
Speaker 2: above your eyes, behind your forehead. That's where our brain's
2:27
Speaker 2: executive is. Now, there are other parts of the brain
2:30
Speaker 2: that are involved in this thinking as well. But when
2:32
Speaker 2: something happens and we want to kind of map out
2:35
Speaker 2: what's the best way forward here, that's the part of
2:37
Speaker 2: the brain that we use the most.
2:39
Speaker 4: And then in the middle of our brains.
2:40
Speaker 2: Like if you drilled right between your ears all the
2:42
Speaker 2: way through just above that drill line, right in the
2:45
Speaker 2: center of your brain, there's this thing called the limbic system,
2:47
Speaker 2: and it has a whole lot of brain neur anatomy
2:50
Speaker 2: like the amygdalo you've probably heard of having an override.
2:54
Speaker 2: That's the fear the anger responds that whoa you know,
2:57
Speaker 2: alarm warning, Will Robinson, It's all about to happen, the
3:00
Speaker 2: fight or flight mode, and what happens in brain scans
3:04
Speaker 2: is when we get people into something of an emotional state,
3:09
Speaker 2: the blood flows away from the thinking parts of the
3:11
Speaker 2: brain and towards the emotional parts of the brain. I
3:14
Speaker 2: know you've been so angry with me. Sometimes the angrier
3:18
Speaker 2: you are, the more right you are. Right, Yeah, and
3:21
Speaker 2: you be.
3:21
Speaker 3: You feel more justified to feel the way you do.
3:24
Speaker 2: And you'll tell me things when you're angry that seem
3:27
Speaker 2: right to you in the moment, But when you've calmed down,
3:32
Speaker 2: they don't seem quite so right anymore, because your intelligence
3:35
Speaker 2: returns and you start to think a little bit more broadly.
3:37
Speaker 2: You start to think a bit more Laterally, you start
3:39
Speaker 2: to remember stuff that you couldn't remember in the heat
3:41
Speaker 2: of the moment. I'm saying you, but of course I'm
3:43
Speaker 2: as guilty as anyone. It happens to all of us.
3:45
Speaker 2: It's part of being a human. So I've posted this thing,
3:48
Speaker 2: high emotions, low intelligence, and there was just.
3:51
Speaker 4: This huge disagreement. But it got very personal.
3:54
Speaker 2: It's almost like everybody who read it that disagreed with
3:57
Speaker 2: it for whatever reason.
3:58
Speaker 4: I don't know.
3:58
Speaker 2: I mean, I do you know that some people interpret
4:01
Speaker 2: it incorrectly. Some people thought that I was saying that
4:03
Speaker 2: if you're an emotional person, you can't be an intelligent person,
4:06
Speaker 2: which is not the intent. And there was a link
4:08
Speaker 2: to a blog and it explained exactly why it said
4:11
Speaker 2: what it said. But what I'm finding is that when
4:14
Speaker 2: people come up against something that conflicts with their worldview,
4:19
Speaker 2: instead of doing that thing that I always talk about,
4:21
Speaker 2: get curious, not furious, they do exactly the opposite. They
4:24
Speaker 2: get furious, they blow up, and any disagreement becomes an
4:27
Speaker 2: opportunity to cancel someone or to dive into your own
4:31
Speaker 2: echo chamber and recruit as many people as you can
4:33
Speaker 2: to your side so that you can prove that you're
4:35
Speaker 2: right and the others are wrong. And in a world
4:38
Speaker 2: that says that it's all about being pluralistic and tolerating,
4:42
Speaker 2: in fact encouraging diversity and being open minded inclusive, social
4:47
Speaker 2: media may be the least inclusive, least tolerant place that
4:52
Speaker 2: we could be on the planet. Unless you align with
4:56
Speaker 2: a particular view at a particular time, for a particular
4:59
Speaker 2: reas and for a particular person. Drives me crazy. I
5:03
Speaker 2: just love to be open minded and to be curious
5:06
Speaker 2: about things. And I'm having a moment. I've been having
5:09
Speaker 2: a moment for a bit over this.
5:11
Speaker 3: I had an experience probably maybe fifteen years ago, and
5:15
Speaker 3: it has literally changed the way I see social media.
5:19
Speaker 2: There was Bentley social media, then I think Facebook came
5:21
Speaker 2: out about fifteen years ago.
5:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wasn't on there very long, and I didn't
5:24
Speaker 3: post for very.
5:25
Speaker 4: Long earlier adopter.
5:27
Speaker 3: Because what happened was one of my friends put a
5:29
Speaker 3: post up she was having an absolute meltdown because she
5:32
Speaker 3: couldn't get her kids to do homework. So she's a
5:35
Speaker 3: really good friend of mine and she knew exactly how
5:37
Speaker 3: we felt, what our philosophy was about homework, and so
5:40
Speaker 3: because I wanted to be brief in my response, I
5:44
Speaker 3: just said to her, let go of homework. You know
5:47
Speaker 3: what the teachers can't get done today, they'll do tomorrow.
5:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're going to do a podcast on homework
5:51
Speaker 2: soon because it's such a hot button issue. But social
5:54
Speaker 2: media might blow up when we do that as well. Anyway,
5:56
Speaker 2: So what happened with you?
5:57
Speaker 3: Sorry, Within seconds, one of her friends, who I don't know,
6:02
Speaker 3: got on and absolutely went to town at me.
6:05
Speaker 2: And it's so personal, isn't it? And it's almost like
6:08
Speaker 2: any social graces. In fact, that's a really interesting word
6:11
Speaker 2: to use. There is no grace afforded to somebody when
6:14
Speaker 2: they step outside of what somebody else perceives.
6:17
Speaker 4: They should say.
6:17
Speaker 2: There's no grace, there's no forgiveness, there's no you know,
6:20
Speaker 2: justin we've seen your post a million posts that have
6:22
Speaker 2: helped our family, and we don't agree with you on
6:25
Speaker 2: this one, but we're going to stick with you. This
6:27
Speaker 2: is like, we don't care about your last million posts.
6:30
Speaker 2: You've lost us right now. Just it does my head in.
6:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, No matter what I said to this woman, it
6:35
Speaker 3: actually just got worse, and that other people joined in,
6:38
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, I was in this position
6:40
Speaker 3: where I was being judged for literally too little.
6:45
Speaker 4: Line, a couple of sentences, yeah, without.
6:47
Speaker 3: Any context whatsoever, and I had to ring my friend
6:51
Speaker 3: and apologize profuse. I felt terrible that this had now
6:54
Speaker 3: implicated her. She then explained to me that the person
6:57
Speaker 3: who was responding to me was a teacher who feels
6:59
Speaker 3: hard done in the state system and feels, you know,
7:02
Speaker 3: kind of very poorly supported by parents and the education.
7:06
Speaker 2: Department, and is defensive and probably wants to be heard
7:09
Speaker 2: and have a voice. And I get that there's two
7:11
Speaker 2: sides to all of this what I'm really astounded by.
7:14
Speaker 2: I actually want to ask you a couple of questions
7:15
Speaker 2: about that and see how much it resonates and corresponds
7:18
Speaker 2: with my experience. But what I'm finding is that people
7:23
Speaker 2: have to be right. There's just this degree of certainty,
7:26
Speaker 2: this absolutism that I find I'm really uncomfortable with. Like
7:32
Speaker 2: I know, I get paid to share what the research says,
7:35
Speaker 2: and people really appreciate the books and the things that
7:37
Speaker 2: we share in this podcast, but I'm not really certain
7:40
Speaker 2: about much of it. That's the reality, And as a scientist,
7:43
Speaker 2: I've been trained to not be certain about things. In fact,
7:47
Speaker 2: as research scientists, we're trained to be skeptical of everything
7:52
Speaker 2: and to seek as much evidence as we can. And
7:54
Speaker 2: that's why I'll usually catch. What I'm saying is you know,
7:57
Speaker 2: on average what we see or it really depends, but
8:00
Speaker 2: what we might expect in usual circumstances because you just
8:03
Speaker 2: never know. But people want absoluteism, unquestioned clarity, and definite
8:11
Speaker 2: responses like homework's good or homework's bad. Well, no, it
8:15
Speaker 2: depends what kind of homework, it depends how old the
8:17
Speaker 2: child is. We'll talk about that. Like I said later,
8:19
Speaker 2: and it sounds like that's your experience. Now I've got
8:21
Speaker 2: a question for you. When this was happening. Were you
8:24
Speaker 2: able to walk away from the argument? Were you able
8:27
Speaker 2: to put your phone down and just leave it be?
8:29
Speaker 4: No?
8:29
Speaker 3: I felt physically ill. It was like someone had physically
8:33
Speaker 3: assaulted me.
8:34
Speaker 4: Yeah.
8:35
Speaker 3: It was all encompassing. It took up all of my headspace.
8:39
Speaker 4: And probably all of your afternoon or evening or whatever
8:41
Speaker 4: it was.
8:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
8:42
Speaker 3: I was a mess. I couldn't function properly because all
8:44
Speaker 3: of a sudden, everything I knew about myself was being questioned.
8:48
Speaker 3: I was being attacked. I was being attacked just for
8:51
Speaker 3: having an opinion.
8:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is kind of my point. Now.
8:55
Speaker 4: I could not get away from the phone.
8:57
Speaker 2: I was having a bad day, and I saw all
8:59
Speaker 2: of these men mesages coming through, And there were literally
9:01
Speaker 2: hundreds of messages coming through. Some were very, very supportive,
9:04
Speaker 2: some were exactly the opposite. Some were vitriolic, really really
9:09
Speaker 2: really nasty. And I just sat there and thought, I'm
9:11
Speaker 2: actually here trying to help. Like my job, my life
9:14
Speaker 2: is built around inspiring and helping and making a difference
9:17
Speaker 2: in people's lives. And what I've shared does make sense
9:19
Speaker 2: and it's got strong empirical support. It's not like I've
9:22
Speaker 2: just pulled this idea out of the air and chucked
9:24
Speaker 2: it on the internet like several other people do.
9:27
Speaker 4: I mean that they're everywhere.
9:31
Speaker 2: This is a really clear scientific reality and human reality.
9:36
Speaker 2: And yet that statement that high emotions leads to low intelligence.
9:42
Speaker 2: It seemed to actually bear itself out in the comments
9:45
Speaker 2: section as people got.
9:46
Speaker 4: More and more emotional.
9:47
Speaker 2: But I found myself becoming more emotional, and I started
9:50
Speaker 2: thinking to myself, I want to reply to them and
9:52
Speaker 2: tell them exactly how I feel, which would have been
9:55
Speaker 2: a very unintelligent thing to do. And it took a
9:56
Speaker 2: lot of restraint for me to not do that. And
9:59
Speaker 2: I'm not that kind of guy. But that got me thinking,
10:03
Speaker 2: if that's what happens to you, you know, a mature
10:06
Speaker 2: woman getting used to social media a decade or more ago,
10:09
Speaker 2: me a guy with a PhD in psychology who literally
10:12
Speaker 2: teaches people how to not get caught up in this
10:14
Speaker 2: stuff and to deal with it much more effectively.
10:17
Speaker 4: What must it be like for a.
10:19
Speaker 2: Fourteen year old girl or boy, or an eleven year old,
10:23
Speaker 2: you know, for a child who is encountering this, perhaps
10:26
Speaker 2: for the first time in their lives. Now that they've
10:28
Speaker 2: finally been allowed to get that Facebook account or that
10:30
Speaker 2: Instagram account or the snapchat l TikTok account, what must
10:33
Speaker 2: it be like for them to have to encounter this
10:37
Speaker 2: kind of challenge, this kind of adversity and pressure. And
10:41
Speaker 2: I want to talk about what we can do as
10:42
Speaker 2: parents in that circumstance and tie it back to this
10:46
Speaker 2: issue that we've both faced right after the break.
10:50
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11:53
Speaker 3: poor parent who just wants answers now, and today we
11:56
Speaker 3: have been talking about what we can do and how
12:00
Speaker 3: we can work through challenges when social media just blows
12:04
Speaker 3: up in our face.
12:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, when it goes put or capow or whatever.
12:08
Speaker 2: And we've both had that experience and it happened to
12:10
Speaker 2: me fairly recently, and I'm actually really tender about it.
12:13
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's because I was just having
12:14
Speaker 2: a really rough day anyway. I mean, I don't have
12:17
Speaker 2: too many bad days. I think that I live one
12:19
Speaker 2: of the most wonderful I love my life, I love
12:21
Speaker 2: my family. I feel like we've got a great life.
12:23
Speaker 2: But this just man is just threw me so far
12:26
Speaker 2: and so hard.
12:27
Speaker 3: Well, let's face it, it's not the first time it's happened.
12:29
Speaker 3: There have been lots of times where people have disagreed.
12:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm good with disagreement. I love disagreement, not
12:36
Speaker 2: because I don't like conflict and unkindness, but I love
12:38
Speaker 2: disagreement because it can often lead to learning with the
12:41
Speaker 2: right mindset.
12:43
Speaker 3: I wonder if what we're experiencing more is just the
12:46
Speaker 3: fact that, you know, when somebody opens up a post,
12:50
Speaker 3: you've got an explanation, right, But they're looking at the
12:53
Speaker 3: image and the image has four words.
12:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, high emotions equals low intelligence, that's the four words.
12:58
Speaker 3: And instead of reading what's going on, they see this
13:01
Speaker 3: image and it's like walking in halfway through a conversation,
13:04
Speaker 3: or just overhearing a snippet of a conversation, and so
13:07
Speaker 3: it's completely taken out of context, and as a result,
13:11
Speaker 3: our response is completely out of content.
13:13
Speaker 2: So this is the podcast for the time, poor parent,
13:15
Speaker 2: Who's just one's answers now, So let's talk about answers
13:17
Speaker 2: for a sec That situation that you've described is a
13:20
Speaker 2: great description of what's probably going on. But one of
13:23
Speaker 2: the things that I teach explicitly and ongoingly is get curious,
13:27
Speaker 2: not furious. Now, I admit I didn't actually get too
13:30
Speaker 2: curious either. I was pretty defensive. I was pretty tender.
13:32
Speaker 2: It had been at alosy day, I've emphasized that sufficiently,
13:36
Speaker 2: but nobody else was curious. There was no hint of
13:39
Speaker 2: that statement. Strikes me as inconsistent with what I believed
13:44
Speaker 2: or you seem to feel really strongly about that. Can
13:46
Speaker 2: you help me to understand more when our children are
13:48
Speaker 2: having a hard time?
13:49
Speaker 4: That's exactly what I encourage parents to do.
13:52
Speaker 2: The other day, we had a child who refused to
13:53
Speaker 2: go to swimming lessons, and my response to her was, Emily,
13:57
Speaker 2: can you help me to understand what it is about
13:58
Speaker 2: swimming lessons that you don't want? She calmed down straight
14:02
Speaker 2: away and she said, sure, Dad, I don't like my teacher.
14:05
Speaker 2: I said, ah, so if we can work out the
14:07
Speaker 2: teacher problem, do you think that you'll be okay with
14:08
Speaker 2: swimming lessons? She said yep, and that was kind of it,
14:12
Speaker 2: and I said, okay, well we'll do that today.
14:13
Speaker 4: You're still going to have to go to swimming and
14:15
Speaker 4: then she blew up again.
14:16
Speaker 2: But when we get curious, not furious, we move towards
14:21
Speaker 2: the issue that's causing us the consternation, but we do
14:24
Speaker 2: so in a in a graceful way. We do so
14:27
Speaker 2: in a way that says, justin I've been following on
14:29
Speaker 2: social media for a while, and I know that if
14:31
Speaker 2: you say something provocative, then there's probably something behind it
14:33
Speaker 2: that I'm missing. Right now, maybe I can just read
14:36
Speaker 2: your article or ask you a couple of questions and
14:38
Speaker 2: I can understand it better.
14:39
Speaker 4: What did you mean when you said that? Now, I'm
14:41
Speaker 4: never going to.
14:41
Speaker 2: Respond with frustration to a response like that, and our
14:44
Speaker 2: children don't don't want to.
14:45
Speaker 4: That's a different setup.
14:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm I'm just thinking about it in the real world,
14:51
Speaker 3: you know, tangible, real world.
14:54
Speaker 4: Are you saying that I'm not real world?
14:56
Speaker 1: No?
14:56
Speaker 3: No, no, I'm taking it outside of you know, technology and
14:59
Speaker 3: social media in the real world. Is there actually any
15:03
Speaker 3: one person that you associate with where you just absolutely
15:08
Speaker 3: agree with everything they do and say, no, it doesn't exist.
15:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if we were sitting down opposite one another
15:14
Speaker 2: at a table, we'd work it out.
15:16
Speaker 1: Well.
15:16
Speaker 3: But you and I, I mean, we love each other,
15:18
Speaker 3: we live with each other, we do everything together, and
15:21
Speaker 3: yet we have really different views on some things, and
15:24
Speaker 3: that is normal and healthy. And yet when we get
15:28
Speaker 3: onto social media, we kind of expect that everybody's going
15:30
Speaker 3: to be exactly like us for some reason, and if
15:33
Speaker 3: somebody has a strong opinion, we all kind of jump
15:35
Speaker 3: on the bandwagon. It was like.
15:38
Speaker 4: We had a lot of following going on, yeah for ourselves.
15:41
Speaker 3: And we just kind of get caught up in the
15:43
Speaker 3: emotion of it.
15:44
Speaker 4: The pylon begins.
15:45
Speaker 2: That actually kind of leads into the second take home
15:48
Speaker 2: message that I want parents to get from this, whether
15:51
Speaker 2: they're getting caught up in it in any kind of
15:53
Speaker 2: interaction themselves, or whether the kids are caught up in
15:55
Speaker 2: any kind of dramas and challenges, and that is that
15:59
Speaker 2: I don't think that when we're on screens, our hearts
16:04
Speaker 2: turn towards one another in the same way that they
16:08
Speaker 2: do when we're face to face. When I'm sitting down
16:11
Speaker 2: with somebody who is an adversary, somebody that I disagree with,
16:14
Speaker 2: and we're face to face, we're at a table, or
16:17
Speaker 2: we're sharing a walk through a park as we try
16:19
Speaker 2: to iron out our differences, what can normally happen is
16:22
Speaker 2: we start to see one another as people, and our
16:25
Speaker 2: hearts are designed to be open to the other person,
16:29
Speaker 2: to listen to perspectives and try to understand. We give
16:32
Speaker 2: people the benefit of the doubt.
16:35
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting when you were saying that I
16:37
Speaker 3: remember a number of times with our children over the
16:40
Speaker 3: years where they've had, you know, falling outs with their
16:43
Speaker 3: friends and they've tried to make phone calls and the
16:46
Speaker 3: phone has been ignored, or they've sent a sex message
16:49
Speaker 3: and it's gone nowhere, and so either your I have
16:52
Speaker 3: actually put them in the car and taken them to
16:54
Speaker 3: their friend's house and it knocked on the door as
16:57
Speaker 3: soon as they've seen each other. Has been an absolute
17:01
Speaker 3: emotional outpouring as they have just realized that this is
17:06
Speaker 3: all silly and they just want to be friends and
17:09
Speaker 3: what happened at school in the playground today is really
17:13
Speaker 3: not important. But it would never have happened if they
17:16
Speaker 3: were not face to face, it would have continued.
17:18
Speaker 2: So I think that they're my two key take home messages.
17:21
Speaker 2: Number one, get curious, not furious. You don't need to
17:23
Speaker 2: attack people, and please don't attack me. There's a bit
17:27
Speaker 2: of self interest here, but really get curious, not furious.
17:30
Speaker 2: And the second thing, imagine if we could turn our
17:33
Speaker 2: hearts towards the other person, give them better for the doubt,
17:36
Speaker 2: and think to yourself, hang on, I've clicked like and
17:40
Speaker 2: follow on this person's social media profile therefore they're adding
17:44
Speaker 2: some value to my life. What's to be gained by
17:46
Speaker 2: attacking them? What's to be gained by being belligerent or
17:50
Speaker 2: rude to them? Maybe we can humanize the person that
17:53
Speaker 2: we're about to go to war with and wonder if
17:57
Speaker 2: perhaps war is not the best answer, much more likely
18:00
Speaker 2: to help people come to our way of thinking if
18:04
Speaker 2: we treat them like a human rather than as our foe,
18:07
Speaker 2: the person we need to defeat. There's one more thing
18:10
Speaker 2: that I think we really need to touch on, though,
18:12
Speaker 2: For every parent of a child who has access to
18:14
Speaker 2: social media, I just can't imagine what it must be
18:17
Speaker 2: like for a child. I couldn't stop it as a
18:20
Speaker 2: PhD in psychology. You couldn't stop it as a mature
18:24
Speaker 2: mum going through this kind of challenging thing. And I've
18:27
Speaker 2: heard the horror stories. I've spoken to so many parents
18:29
Speaker 2: who are heartbroken because their children have wound up in
18:34
Speaker 2: flaming firestorms of tweets and accusations or arguments over text
18:41
Speaker 2: message or in group chats on Instagram or whatever it
18:44
Speaker 2: might be watching this happen, and their kids just can't
18:49
Speaker 2: get away from it in the same way that I
18:50
Speaker 2: couldn't get away from it when this was all blowing
18:52
Speaker 2: up for me. It's a very sensitive topic, but I'm
18:57
Speaker 2: aware of one fourteen year old who suicided, and at
19:02
Speaker 2: least in part, this was because of the terror of
19:08
Speaker 2: being left alone with the bullies who just wouldn't leave
19:14
Speaker 2: her alone. I think as parents, we've got to be
19:17
Speaker 2: able to have the wisdom, because we're not in the
19:20
Speaker 2: moment the wisdom to say to our children, this is
19:23
Speaker 2: awful right now. We just need to take a few
19:26
Speaker 2: screenshots of the horrible things that are going on, and
19:29
Speaker 2: then we need to get out of the conversation, turn
19:32
Speaker 2: the phone off, and just have a day and a
19:34
Speaker 2: night with no devices. Because once you convinced me to
19:38
Speaker 2: put my phone down, and it took me a while,
19:40
Speaker 2: I knew that you were right by the way you said,
19:42
Speaker 2: put it down, stop it, come on, give me the phone,
19:45
Speaker 2: and eventually I handed it over. It took a long time,
19:48
Speaker 2: but once I did it, I almost immediately began to
19:52
Speaker 2: feel more peaceful, and then I was able to connect
19:54
Speaker 2: with you, and we were able to talk about what
19:57
Speaker 2: was going on and then talk about something completely irrelevant
19:59
Speaker 2: so that we could kind of let it go. And
20:01
Speaker 2: it made all the difference. If you're a parent who's
20:03
Speaker 2: going through it, don't let your child become a horror story.
20:06
Speaker 2: I know how sensitive I became in the moment. If
20:09
Speaker 2: I was a fourteen, thirteen, twelve year old girl or boy,
20:13
Speaker 2: I suspect that it could have been devastating, maybe even catastrophic.
20:16
Speaker 3: So I guess to just summarize, We've talked about a
20:19
Speaker 3: lot of things today, and there's been you know, this
20:21
Speaker 3: has been a really sensitive topic for you. The three
20:24
Speaker 3: take homes for today are one, get curious, not furious.
20:30
Speaker 3: Number two, turn our hearts towards one another.
20:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, give people the benefit of the doubt. I'd be charitable,
20:37
Speaker 4: it's okay to be kind.
20:38
Speaker 3: And number three, if your children or you are caught
20:42
Speaker 3: up in this, just get away from the screen.
20:46
Speaker 2: Great summary if you've enjoyed the podcast, a bit of
20:49
Speaker 2: a different one from what we normally do, but hopefully
20:52
Speaker 2: this has been helpful and I don't know, maybe it
20:54
Speaker 2: even gives you a bit of an insight into some
20:55
Speaker 2: of the stuff that we.
20:57
Speaker 4: Deal with on an occasional basis as well.
21:00
Speaker 2: If you've enjoyed the podcast, we encourage you to share
21:02
Speaker 2: it with your friends. Jump onto Apple podcasts, leave us
21:05
Speaker 2: a rating and review. We love the five star ratings
21:08
Speaker 2: and reviews and it makes me feel especially good after
21:11
Speaker 2: an episode like this or a day like this. So please,
21:14
Speaker 2: not that I'm after sympathy votes or anything, but we
21:16
Speaker 2: love your five star ratings and reviews. They help people
21:18
Speaker 2: to find the podcast and boost it in the rankings
21:20
Speaker 2: so that more people can make their families happier. We
21:23
Speaker 2: appreciate Justin rule On from Bridge Media for making the
21:25
Speaker 2: podcast sound great.
21:26
Speaker 4: He's our producer.
21:26
Speaker 2: Our executive producer is Craig Bruce, and if you'd like
21:29
Speaker 2: more info about how to make your family happier, please
21:32
Speaker 2: visit happyfamilies dot com dot au