Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #938 This Week in Parenting: Smartphone Obsessions & Uni's vs Tradies

Transcript

#938 This Week in Parenting: Smartphone Obsessions & Uni's vs Tradies · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just once answers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Now once a month we do this episode that should
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: not be called This Week in Parenting because it's not
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: done weekly. It's done monthly. It should be done this
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Month in Parenting.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't sound good.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: It doesn't. This Week in Parenting is what it's supposed
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: to sound like. It sounds serious, doesn't it. It's time
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: for our dive into the news, the things that are
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: happening that affect parents, that affects kids, that parents want
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to be across. That's our conversation for today. Five things
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: in record time. We've never done it this fast before,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: but I think we can do it this time. Kylie.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Number one, if you're going to talk about this Week
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: in Parenting, you can't have a conversation without naming Percy Jackson.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: My name is Percy Jackson.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Am I a troubled kid? Yeah? You could see that.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Percy Jackson. The series has been on Disney Plus for
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the last couple of months.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Is this not the name on every teenage probably girl.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: And tween tween girls and boys. They love Percy Jackson.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Have you watched any of it? With the kids. They've
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: been watching it religiously.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I have not.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I haven't either.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of been cute. It's actually been
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: really cute because there's only one episode dropping each week.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: It's like taking me back, he said, the old days.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: And I love the fact that they're waiting waiting.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: What did you used to wait for when you were
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: in year twelve? So we're going back to mid nineteen nineties.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: What was the thing that you waited for more than
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: anything else?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I don't remember, Honestly, I don't remember.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: You're that old.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: No, I just don't think TV played a huge part
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: in my life.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: So I don't know. If I want to confess this,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have to drag it out of me. Do
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: you want to know what I used to hang out
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: for year twelve?
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: It was Neighbors?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: No no, no, no no. It was nineteen ninety three,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: an episode that drops were just once a week. I
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: can't believe I've got to say this. I'm struggling with it.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Doubt it was nine year.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I used to love watching Jason Priestley and Shannon Dohity
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and Luke Perry Perry how good was he? And Jenny
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Garth he really.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Wasn't that good looking. I don't know.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Everyone got around and Dylan seriously used to love that show.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Every Friday night, I'd sit down as shows were on.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Then that's the only one that matters right now anyway,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Percy Jackson. The kids have been watching it like crazy.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I just want to acknowledge it. If you kids haven't
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: watched it, I don't think that it's nearly as good
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: as the book. It never is, so I encourage you
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: kids to read the book. We've told Emily, our youngest,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: she's nine, she can't watch the show till she's read
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the book, and she has picked up Percy Jackson and
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: started reading.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: We don't believe in bribes, but this is a good one.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: If the kids can read a book, it's worth Percy Jackson,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: you know it's magic. You know why it's magic because
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: kids love to see other kids doing things without parents around.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: There's this It's a safe form of risk taking, and
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: it highlights the kids they can actually do things independently
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: that they can watch.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: That safe about Percy Jackson.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. In a series for the I
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: said I haven't watched it, but that's not entirely true.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I've watched a few snippets with the kids, and I
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: actually think that he overcomes the obstacles and challenges that
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: he's got way too easily, way too quickly. I think
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: that I think that he needs to be taken closer
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: to the edge. But just on this the safe risk
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: packing is kind of where I wanted to pick this
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: up over the Christmas break, when you on the holiday
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: that you didn't come to with us because it was again, yeah,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: on the holiday that you chose to stay home for
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and just told me to take the kids away on
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: that holiday there. I probably still had my grammar wrong,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: but everyone knows exactly what we're talking about here. You
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: decided to stay home because I was going to my
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: parents place and so I.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Could clean up all the rubble from the renovation.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Whatever story you need to tell you home, we all
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: know why you stayed home. Anyway, we're doing this way
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: too slowly. But my dad has a boat that he
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: hardly ever takes out. But we's got a donut. The
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: doughnut had holes in it, so we went and bought
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: a new donut. For those of you who don't know
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: what to donut is not a thing that you eat
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: it's the thing that you tie on the back of
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the boat and the kids hold onto the donut, they
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: hold onto the tube. Yeah, and watching the kids, I
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: mean they were terrified. We're in open water, we're zooming
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: around on the central coast in the boat. The kids
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: are being whipped around here and flipped around there, and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: they're getting shot off into water where there's jellyfish and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: probably who knows whatever else in the water. And they
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: loved it. They loved the idea of being able to
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: take that risk. It was just so great. That's why
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I think things like Percy Jackson are fantastic. We need
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: more of it for our kids. That's our first big conversation.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Point number two is a thing called power World. So
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: in this video we're going to be talking about power World,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the latest game to take the Internet by storm. Is
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: sold millions of copies in the first twenty four hours
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: of its release.
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  Speaker 2: What what what is cow World?
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: When I haven't prepped you and you just look at
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: me like more weirdo? Power World is Did they come
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: up with these names? Sounds like? Okay? So here's the thing.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: PC and Xbox have this game.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: It's called how It's a game.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's fairly new. It's found this enormous following.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: It peaked a couple of weeks ago with more than
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: two million players online at once.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: What's so special about it?
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Well, the reason I'm bringing this up is because they're
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: currently under investigation by a Nintendo's Pokemon company for intellectual
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: property infringement. But why gamers love Power World is this.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: It does lean heavily into Pokemon. It certainly has a
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: ring of Pokemon about it, but Powerworld combines elements of
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Fortnite and Mindcraft, and another game that's called Zelder Tears
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of the Kingdom brings all of that into this wonderful
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: gameplay experience, and there's this survival kind of game that
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: kids are playing, got to collect monsters, mindful resources. Obviously
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of shooting involved in it. But the
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: other thing is as you're collecting all your pals, you
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: can butcher them for me and you can exploit them
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: for their label, which is not exactly what happens in Pokemon.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Nobody's killing Pikachu, but Nintendo's going up to Power World
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: because they think that the games developer has based their
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: pals on everything that COmON does. It's based on Pokemon,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: but unless Ninto actually takes them to court, which at
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: this point they're not, They're just investigating. Power World is growing.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: It's going absolutely bonkers. Eight million copies sold in just
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: six days. This thing is going huge. And I started
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: bring it up because a lot of parents are going
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: to be saying, oh, my kids want to play power
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: World now instead of Minecraft a Fortnite. And that's why
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: because gamers love it and it brings together a whole
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: lot of great elements from other games. Power World is
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: on the rise and kids cannot get enough.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Well, i have no idea what this thing is about.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I've got a name on my page, Megan the Stallion.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: There's two eas there?
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Is it a horse?
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Meghan? Are you actually you are? I can tell from
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: your face? Okay, Megan the Stallion. So the has two e's,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: So it's Meghan the Stallion. Meghan as a I'm a
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: holy the reverence, Yes, yes, reverence. Me doesn't behave quite
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: so reverently. So what's going on? Megan thee Stallion has
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a brand new song that has hit number one on
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the charts on both al Apple, Yes Apple and Spotify.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: The song is called Hiss and the reason that I
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: wanted to bring this up is because provocative, controversial songs
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: make noise for our kids. They often don't tell us
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: about it. But if you've got a tween or teen,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: especially if they're on TikTok, especially if they're on Spotify,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: especially if they're counting down the charts, especially if they're
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: into everything that's hot in music, they will know who
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Megan the Stallion is. She is best known for the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: duet that she did with Cardi B. The song was
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: called WAP. If you don't remember the song, don't look
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: it up. I'm not going to sing it for you.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: We're not going to play it for you. The explicit
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: lyrics in this song are literally the worst that I've
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: ever come across, especially for a song that made it
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: onto the charts and was like I think it was
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: top three or a top maybe it was even number one.
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  Speaker 1: It is really degrading and extraordinarily explicit. And his her
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: brand new song has just hit the charts, has gone
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: to number one. And part of the reason that this
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: is two reasons that this is really really popular, number one,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: really catchy song with three minutes of the most explicit
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: lyrics you'll ever hear. So that's the first thing. And secondly,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Meghan d Stallion is, well, she's got beef, Kylie, I
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: think that's what the kids say these days. Got beef
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: with Nicki Minaj. You know what beef is? Beef is
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: we No? No, no, no, don't know antagon this stick
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: towards each other. There's a fight.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Oh there's beef. Oh yeah.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: If there's beef between two people, there's a fight. And
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Nicki Minaj and Meghan the Stallion, this feud has been
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: all over TikTok's been all over a whole lot of
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: other social media platforms, very long, complicated history. When I
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: was in radio, I would have cared. Nowadays, I'm just
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: sort of staying on top of the headlines. And Minaje,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: as well as a whole lot of other people, believe
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: that the explicit lyrics of Hiss are all about Nicki
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Minaj and they're supposed to be insulting her and her husband,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: and so she.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Sounds like she's back in her sixteen year old teenage brain.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: It's all happening at school yard antics, all about Hiss.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: The beef between Minaje and Meghan is believe the question I.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Have about all of this is when did it become
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: okay for these kind of lyrics to be plasted all
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: over the internet. I just I don't understand why our
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: kids have to be subjective to such so.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: A quick tea bid, yeah, quick tangent on this. I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: left radio in the early two thousands, around about two
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: thousand and two, two thousand and three, somewhere there. And
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: one of the central reasons that I left, so the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: main reason I was because I was struggling as a dad.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: That was the main reason. I just wanted to go
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and do psychology and learn how to be a bit
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of parent. But something that I don't talk about publicly
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: very often is that I was also really struggling from
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: a moral perspective with number one, what I was being
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: asked to do and say on the radio. And there
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: were a couple of shifts where I just refused to
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: go to work and do those shifts because of the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: explicit style contests that we were running. But the second
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: reason was as the music director of the radio station,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I was the one who was supposed to be choosing
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the music, and what I discovered was that I had
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: no say in the music at all. The record companies
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: brought us what the hits were going to be, and
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: we pretty much said, yep, so long as it fits
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the format, will play it. I mean, some people won't
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: be offended by this at all. But there was a
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: song by a group called The Androids called I Want
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: to Do It with Madonna, and I just remember thinking,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be playing this and having my
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: kids listening to this and singing along with this. It
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel right to me. There was another song that
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: was released at the same time called It's just Paorn, Mum,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and I didn't even type the title of the song
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: into the computer, like I was just like, it's not
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: just porn, mum, and talking to mum like that, Like
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I just I had massive beef with the radio industry
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: in the music industry about what was okay and what
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: was not. But I would say that there's been this
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: very steady degradation since the nineteen sixties nineteen seventies. It's
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: just gone bit by bit by bit by bit, and
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: standards have shifted, moray's and norms have changed, And this
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: is where we find ourselves now in twenty twenty four,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: when parents are saying, oh my goodness, I can barely
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: turn some radio stations on because Megan D. Stallion is
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: going to be singing whap with Cardi b or Hiss
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: against Nicki Minaj. So that I mean, this has been
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: a several process and here's where we find ourselves.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: The fourth thing you put on the list is pretty serious.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: So let's get into this, okay.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: This is from a news article that was written by
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Natasha Betail. I just think she's such a smart writer,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: and she wrote a piece in The Australia a couple
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: of weeks ago. It says this smartphone obsessions of dumbing
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: down Australian kids. OECD testing reveals. So I'm just going
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: to read a couple of paragraphs. I'll make some commentary.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: You can throw your two cents worth in. Let's see
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: how we go here. Addictive online gaming and digital distractions
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and dumbing down a generation of Australian teenagers as school
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: results stagnate at the lowest level in two decades according
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: to the latest global testing. The alarming link between high
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: tech play and declining levels of numeracy and literacy has
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: been spotlighted for the first time by the OECD, the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which one on Tuesday Night.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: The gaming and social media use is driving poor results
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: in schools worldwide. OECD testing reveals that half of Australia's teenagers,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: let me say that again, half of a teenagers lack
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the mathematical ability expected at the age of fifteen, meaning
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: they would fail to convert currency or calculate the price
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of an item on sale in a shop. And forty
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: three percent of Austraining teenagers cannot read to the minimum
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: standard needed to interpret information on a public transport map.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm just going to put it out there.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: I didn't have social media or a phone, but I
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: would struggle with maybe one or two of those out.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: With converting of currencies, you can do that the New
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Zealand New Zealand dollars a a dollar.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: But I'm more concerned about I'm more concerned about interpreting
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: the public.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Tras not being able to read enough to understand public
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: transport maps.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: No, but here's the thing, They're confusing maps that these
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: are life skills, right right. I don't remember being taught
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: those kinds of skills in school. I think about the
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: conversations we have with our kids regularly when they come
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: home and go, when am I ever going to use
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: use trigonomogy or whatever it is. It seems like so
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: much of what our kids are taught often doesn't feel
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: like it converts into day to day life. So this
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: to me, I mean, I'm not a scientist, but I
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: kind of feel like, are we just making a lot
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: of noise about something that is probably correlational and not causal.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Well, well, there's a couple of things. First of all,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure how they're getting the data to
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: say that this is a causal thing, that being on
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the devices is leading to these outcomes, So that's not
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: outlined in the article at all, and I'm concerned about
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: that conflation. The second thing is, to me, I mean,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: you're concerned about what the curriculums teaching are widely shared
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: by a lot of people. But here's the sentence that matters.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Today's students are lagging a year behind students who took
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the test twenty years ago, before the advent of smartphones
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and social media. So in other words, current students globally
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: are performing about one year worse than they did twenty
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: fear years ago. And so I think the OECD is
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: basically saying, yeah, you know, we've got kids from eighty
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: one countries. They're all fifteen, there's seven hundred thousand of them,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and they're doing worse than twenty years ago. Let's point
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the finger at phones.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: So I look at life. Twenty years ago, there were
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: definitely families who lived at busy lives. The level of
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: complexity in our lives today is tenfold comparative.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think that we can just blame phones.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've got to look at family structure and
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: family breakdown. We've got to look at the fact that
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: there are more dual income families.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Was just about to say, how many kids come home
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: after school and actually have a parent in the home
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: with them and is able to kind of help them
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: through those processes.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: And when you look at the economic realities, how parents
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: do it on one income in today's economic climate is
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: just phenomenal. Anyone who's doing that.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: I would think a child who is obsessed with sports,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: for instance, doesn't have to have a phone, but it's
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: always on the football field and not do it their
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: schoolwork would have the same challenges as opposed to somebody who's.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: That one left. That one's not so much the case.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: We see that as kids are involved in those extracurricular
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: structured activities and unstructured time as well, so long as
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: they're not in front of a screen, they actually seem
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: to not have the same negative impacts from an academic perspective.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: But here's the critical thing. According to Natasha Bitter's article
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: on the OECDPS are ranking Australian now ranks tenth in
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the world in maths and ninth in science and reading.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: That's a pretty good result, don't you think.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Well, here's the top six Singapore, Macaw, Chinese, Taypey, Hong Kong, Japan,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and Korea. They're the top six. We're on par with
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Britain and Ireland. We're doing better than the US and Germany,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of others. I look at that and
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I kind of think to myself, I don't mind being
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: tenth because I don't necessarily want my kids to be
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: living the way kids live in Singapore, Macow, Chinese typey,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Hong Kong, Japan and Korea. Like, I think we've probably
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: got a pretty good balance all things considered, and being
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: top ten, that's probably good enough for me. Nevertheless, just
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: wanted to highlight it. I thought it was an interesting
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: piece of news and was worth bringing up on this
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: week in parenting.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Well, number five is actually a little bit fun. I
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: think there's an ad that's making some noise. Compare the pair.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: James got a whopping ata and went to UNI, where
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: he discovered parties, a scary student loan and the concept
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: of deferring. Locke chose a different pathway, a pathway he
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: built himself with his own two hands, and he got
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: paid along the way. Lockie made a deposit on a house.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: By the time he was twenty five. James still lives
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: with his mum. You don't have to take the stairway
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: to UNI. You can build a pathway to construction construction
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: pathways dot com dot a year ern while you learn so.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Construction Skills Queensland is recruiting teenagers to train as tradees
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and they've got a very provocative advertising campaign that's mocking
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: going to UNI because of the fact that there's gap
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: years and partying and blagiarism and student debt, and you're
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: still living at home with your parents when you're in
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: your twenties, whereas if you go out and get a
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: trade you can own your own home by the time
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: you're twenty five, because you've been earning all the way
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: through and you've been responsible. And I think it's a
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: really clever ad. And the University's Australia group they are
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: furious about it, absolutely going nuts, really mad. They're basically saying, Hey,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the federal government, you're paying for free takee for people. Now,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: what about some free degrees?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: If that's what it takes for us to get some
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: free education.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: POSTS don't think I do it. The NDS is taking
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: any money that we could have funneled into education. I
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: can tell you that much for sure. Here's here's what
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: we know. Education matters. It's one of our most valuable assets.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: You cannot get enough education. We should be encouraged encouraging
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: people to get education.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: But there's not just one way to be educated. Yes,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: and I think the conversations we're having in our own
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: home have changed so much over the last twenty years
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: as we have seen our kids go through the schooling system,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: and what we once fell so strongly about has changed
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: as each of our children have showed different skill sets,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: different aptitude, different desires and wants for their future.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I went to Union when I was twenty six, twenty seven,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: twenty seven. I think it was maybe turning twenty eight
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: or something like that. You don't need to go straight
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: to UNI out of high school. Number one construction skills
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Queensland are completely within their riots to be encouraging people
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: to step into to trades. University data right now, what
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: we've seen is that there was a five percent drop
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: in university admissions in twenty twenty two, looking at another
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: one percent last year, potentially another one or two percent
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: this year. So university admissions are actually dropping a little
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: bit right now. That probably has a lot to do
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: with what's been going on with migration and getting international
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: students into the country. But universities are worried because they
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: need billions of dollars to run and they need lots
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and lots of students to do that. But here's the thing.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Not only do we have a skills shortage, a substantial
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: skills shortage, and it comes to professions and things that
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: university trades you for. We have got a breath taking
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: an overwhelming lack of tradees in this country. We can't
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: get enough builders, we can't build enough houses, we can't
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: get enough carpenters. Ever tried to call a plumber and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: like getting somebody to come out and do something for
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: you quickly. It just doesn't happen. Once upon a time
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you could make a call and you'd have someone there
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the same day or the next day. Doesn't happen very
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: much anymore because we've just got such a shortage of
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: trades and they, I mean, they're charging big bucks well and.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: They're really picky. If you don't have a job that
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: they feels worth their time and effort, they won't even
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: show up.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: So we've got skills shortages across the board, and people
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: are being well paid usually for what they're doing there.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I just think that unions are having a big complaint here.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: They need to stop putting their fees up and actually
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: stop the bloat universities. I've got several friends that still
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: work in university. I've obviously left the university sector, but
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: universities are breathtakingly bloated. They are spending like drunken sailors
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: who are back on shore, and it's not for the economy.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: It's not helping, it's not what universities are for. They've actually,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: in many ways forgotten what their mission is. And I
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: just think construction skills Queensland. You go for it, you
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: get those people on those skills. And for parents whose
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: kids are not that academically oriented right now, never ever,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: ever dispute that education matters, and it matters enormously. But
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: let you kids know that if they're not loving education
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: right now, if they want to go and get a trade,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: or if they want to go and do something part
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: time so they can upskill themselves, they can always go
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: back to you any later and when they're ready to
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: go back. University is a brilliant place to be. It's
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: one of the best places to be. But until then,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: go out and do something productive and become competent and
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: capable of doing something that you can feel good about.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Having gone through this process from the sidelines. As I
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: watched you do it, the acknowledgment that with life experience
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: you going into university after having had a few years
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: out of the system was such an enjoyable process. Unieds hard.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: It's really really hard. But if you know why you're
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: there and you actually know where you want to go, yes,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: it makes that process so much more enjoyable.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not for kids, it's for adults who are there
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: because they want to learn. I just think that's the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: better way to go. Go and get your go and
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: get your trades otherwise, and help with the skills shortage
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: that we've got in this country. In the article that
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I came across that was making a big deal about this,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: they just said, UNI isn't the bill and end all.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: When your kids thirty and they own their own construction
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: company and their house because they learned how to be
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: a builder and they created their own business, they'll thank you.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And I think we need to stop downplaying the value
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: of contra pay. Yeah, the contribution to people who are
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: not university educated still make to society. We just have
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: this elitist mentality around universities that needs to stop. It's
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: not healthy for our kids, not healthy for our society.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And there's plenty of good ways to make a living
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: and make a contribution. That's this week in parenting.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: And that was the express version.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Goodness. I'm so sorry. The Happy Families podcast is produced
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: by and row On from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: our executive producer. We hope we gave you some stuff
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to think about. I love these conversations. I feel like
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: these are the conversations we need to be having. About
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: parenting and about raising kids and what's going on in
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the world. This is why we do the podcast. Thanks Jr.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: For the great work you're doing for Craig for the instpo.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: For more information about how you can make your family happier,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: please visit us at happy families dot com dot a.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: You