Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The Hidden Cost of Fighting the Wrong Battles (a Q&A)

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The Hidden Cost of Fighting the Wrong Battles (a Q&A) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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Speaker 1: Every Tuesday on the Happy Families Podcast, we answer your
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Speaker 1: tricky questions. Today one that sent me very deep into
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Speaker 1: a rabbit hole of what evidence is there and what
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Speaker 1: evidence isn't there for how our kids are using their
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Speaker 1: headphones and Bluetooth and radiation. And I'm not that kind
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Speaker 1: of doctor, so this was fascinating. But if your kids
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Speaker 1: are using headphones, if your kids are on screens, if
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Speaker 1: your kids do any bluetoothy, radiation, Wi Fi sort of stuff,
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Speaker 1: then you will want to hear rose from Brisbane's question today.
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Speaker 1: It's coming up next. Stay with us. Okay, this is
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Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcast today. What do you do when
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Speaker 1: your child will not listen to reason and you are
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Speaker 1: trying to be so reasonable about having some limits around
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Speaker 1: their use of headphones because you are concerned that their
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Speaker 1: brain is going to be fried. Welcome to the Happy
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Speaker 1: Families Podcast, where you get real parenting solutions every single day.
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Speaker 1: We are astray as most down load apparently podcast. That's
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Speaker 1: thanks to you. Thanks for listening. My name's doctor Justin Courson.
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Speaker 1: Here with missus Happy Families, my wife Kylie, and every
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Speaker 1: Tuesday on the Happy Families Pod, we answer your tricky
1:10
Speaker 1: questions family and relationships and discipline and screens and sleep
1:15
Speaker 1: and fussy eating and you name it. We'll talk about anything, finance,
1:18
Speaker 1: pocket money. We're pretty much happy to answer your questions.
1:21
Speaker 1: If you'd like to submit a tricky question, We've got
1:24
Speaker 1: a super simple system at Happy Families dot com dot au.
1:27
Speaker 1: You literally just scroll down to the bit where it
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Speaker 1: says press record, You click the button and start talking.
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Speaker 1: Just like Rose from Brisbane.
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Speaker 2: Hi, Justin and Kylie Rose here from Brisbane. Love your podcast.
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Speaker 2: I really like your thoughts. We'regun adolescent, significant use of
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Speaker 2: Bluetooth devices from game when he had set speaker boxes
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Speaker 2: and worst the air pods. I'm concerned it's frying my
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Speaker 2: fifteen year old son's brain. With research flagging high levels
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Speaker 2: of radiation going direct to the brain. I have tried
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Speaker 2: to laborate a problem solving, negotiating modeling replacements, and having
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Speaker 2: open discussions on what research suggests. His response, I don't
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Speaker 2: care what research says. I'll be fine. He pushes the
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Speaker 2: boundary of leaving them at home, refuses to wear corded headphones,
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Speaker 2: but respects the boundary of putting his phone away by
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Speaker 2: eight pm eleven pm weekends. For context, He's a loving,
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Speaker 2: respectful teenager, as active and has great empathy, but stainly
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Speaker 2: sees this as an unnecessary worry. Is he right or
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Speaker 2: is my concerned valid? Oh?
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Speaker 1: This is so much fun. I was just thinking I've
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Speaker 1: just written a book about teenage boys and I got
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Speaker 1: this question. I was like, I am, We're going to
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Speaker 1: have some This is a great one. I love this
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Speaker 1: one from Rose. What were you just thinking?
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Speaker 3: Just that feeling of invincibility that most youth experience.
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Speaker 1: Especially teenage boys, especially.
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Speaker 3: Teenage boys, it will never happen to me.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So there's so many things that I want to
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Speaker 1: talk about here. This is a really fun question. The
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Speaker 1: first thing that came to mind as I listened to
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Speaker 1: what Rose was saying was I don't care, I'll be fine. Like,
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Speaker 1: if there is ever a statement from a teenage boy
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Speaker 1: that just captures the very heart of what we're up against,
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Speaker 1: it's I don't care, I'll be fine. I want you
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Speaker 1: to be careful when you go to the party. I
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Speaker 1: don't care, I'll be fine. I want you to be
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Speaker 1: careful when you go surfing or down to the skate park.
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Speaker 1: I don't care, I'll be fine. I'm really worried about this.
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Speaker 1: I don't care. I'll be taking I don't care, I'll
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Speaker 1: be fine, Like this is just quintessential teenage boy responding,
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Speaker 1: I want to talk about the developmental psychology realities around this.
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Speaker 1: This is just such a sweet spot for where we
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Speaker 1: find so much tension and conflict. Sweet spot that's probably
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Speaker 1: the wrong word, because there's nothing sweet about it. And
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Speaker 1: you can hear roses frustration. She's like, but I'm the
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Speaker 1: mum and I know stuff, and he's not listening to me,
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Speaker 1: and we all struggle with his parents. When you are
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Speaker 1: a teenager and somebody talks to you, especially a teenage boy,
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Speaker 1: so sorry, quick step back. We know that teenage boys
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Speaker 1: are much much lower on impulse control and much much
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Speaker 1: higher on sensation seeking than teenage girls their age. In fact,
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Speaker 1: at every age, boys seek sensations more than girls, and
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Speaker 1: at every age, boys impulse control is poorer than girls.
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Speaker 1: So much so the Lawrence Steinberg, the world's leading adolescence researcher,
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Speaker 1: did a study in I think it was twenty fifteen
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Speaker 1: and found that the average twenty four year old boy
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Speaker 1: has the same level of impulse control as the average
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Speaker 1: ten year old girl. So that's just a little bit
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Speaker 1: of developmental psychology background there. I'm so glad you think
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Speaker 1: that's funny. I had fun writing about that in my book.
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Speaker 1: But let's bring this because with the whole bluetooth and
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Speaker 1: headphone thing, we're not really talking about sensation seeking and
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Speaker 1: impulse control, but we are talking about this pig headedness
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Speaker 1: and I'm going to do it my way and I
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Speaker 1: don't care. I'll be fine, which kind of it's aligned
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Speaker 1: with that mentality. And here's what's actually going on. Teenagers
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Speaker 1: are really really, really bad at understanding the future. Humans
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Speaker 1: generally about it understanding the future. Like even when you
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Speaker 1: talk to a forty or a fifty year old and
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Speaker 1: you talk about the future, it can be hard. I
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Speaker 1: don't know what's going to make me happy in ten
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Speaker 1: years time. We were recently having a conversation with a
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Speaker 1: finance guy about our retirement and they were like, well, well,
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Speaker 1: how do you want to live? What do you want
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Speaker 1: your life to look like? What's going to make you
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Speaker 1: happy in retirement? I'm like, I don't know, Like, I
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Speaker 1: don't know what I want. Do I want to be
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Speaker 1: close to the kids, I think so, Do I want
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Speaker 1: to be near the bitch. Maybe how often do I
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Speaker 1: want to travel? I don't know, Like do I want routine?
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Speaker 1: So we're really bad at predicting the future. But teenagers
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Speaker 1: are worse out it than almost anybody. So when you
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Speaker 1: say to a teenager, what's it going to be like
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Speaker 1: when you're fifty and you can't hear anything? You know what?
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Speaker 1: They think it's not going to happen. Well, number one,
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Speaker 1: it's not going to happen. But number two, what's fifty? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: like fifty, that's you. I'm never going to be as
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Speaker 1: old as you. You are so old, so old. I
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Speaker 1: turned fifty last year, and I still remember when my
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Speaker 1: dad turned fifty and I was just thinking, oh my goodness,
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Speaker 1: I cannot comprehend being that age. And now I'm there
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Speaker 1: and I feel young and vibrant and vited.
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Speaker 3: I going to say, do you feel like not even also.
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Speaker 1: But that's a different conversation. That's beside the point. The
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Speaker 1: main point here is that kids can't comprehend teenagers is terrible,
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Speaker 1: especially seenage Boy's terrible at comprehending the future, and like,
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Speaker 1: the future to them is this weekend. If you're lucky,
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Speaker 1: what do you wanna do this weekend? I'm not so
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Speaker 1: far away. I can't imagine talking to a fourteen year
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Speaker 1: old or a fifteen year old about what they want
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Speaker 1: to do when they finish school, being twenty four and
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Speaker 1: having finished university or a trade and being like, twenty four. Oh,
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Speaker 1: my goodness, mind blowing. Can't wrap our head around that.
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Speaker 1: Twenty four is old when you're.
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Speaker 3: Fort an, when you're married and you've got children.
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Speaker 1: They can't do it. They just can't do it. So Rose,
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Speaker 1: the first thing that I really want to emphasize is this.
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Speaker 3: Your son's normal.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much. There are two other things that I
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Speaker 1: just want to highlight. None of his friends are wearing
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Speaker 1: headphones with cords. He feels like if he wears a
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Speaker 1: headphone set with cords, he's going to look like a loser.
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Speaker 1: And fundamentally, at this age, the promise of the reward
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Speaker 1: in life vastly outweighs any potential risk. He will downplay risk.
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Speaker 1: He doesn't care. He'll be fine because it's much more
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Speaker 1: rewarding to do things his way. And you can do
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Speaker 1: all your collaborative problem solving. You can do all of
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Speaker 1: your three e'es, explore, explain, in power all those kinds
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Speaker 1: of things but ultimately, if he doesn't identify the value
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Speaker 1: in what you're saying, he's never going to endorse it,
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Speaker 1: and therefore you're going to have conflict, conflict conflict.
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Speaker 3: Which leads into kind of I guess where I land
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Speaker 3: with this. He's fifteen. You literally have three more years
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Speaker 3: before he's a fully fledged adult.
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Speaker 1: Sorry reality check, Rose, just in case you weren't sure yet.
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Speaker 1: Three years or less, because he's already fifteen, two and
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Speaker 1: a half years, and he's an adult.
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Speaker 3: And at this stage of his life, he is actually
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Speaker 3: starting to make some important decisions for himself. Yeah, there's
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Speaker 3: a there's a level of independence that he hasn't experienced before.
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Speaker 3: And so as we've experienced with each of our girls
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Speaker 3: as they get to this stage, there is this real
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Speaker 3: tension as a parent between I'm the parent and I
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Speaker 3: know best and actually, you're becoming your own person, and
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Speaker 3: I actually need to take a step back and let
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Speaker 3: you make some decisions.
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Speaker 1: What you're saying is pick your battles.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So, ultimately, the most important thing, no matter what's
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Speaker 3: going on in your life, is the relationship that you
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Speaker 3: share with your child. And if we're so caught up
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Speaker 3: in being right about in this case, radiation and headphones.
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Speaker 3: We lose valuable opportunities to connect with our child.
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Speaker 1: Rupturing the relationship is probably the most harmful thing that
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Speaker 1: you can do, especially this age, and I would argue
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Speaker 1: that this is just a battle that's not worth fighting.
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Speaker 1: I'm going to step into what I was able to
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Speaker 1: find in my deep dive right up the break, plus
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Speaker 1: one more really important insight that jumped out of me
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Speaker 1: and to Rose's message that I think is really the
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Speaker 1: very core of my response to this one. We're back.
9:14
Speaker 1: This is The Happy Family's podcast. Thanks you so much
9:16
Speaker 1: for choosing to be with us. If you find the
9:17
Speaker 1: podcast helpful, we'd love for you to share it with
9:19
Speaker 1: your friends. More listeners means we get to influence and
9:22
Speaker 1: help more families like Rose from Brisbane, who's saying what
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Speaker 1: I would do about my fifteen year old who he's
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Speaker 1: just not listening, probably because he's got headphones in and
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Speaker 1: then turned up too loud in their noise canceling headphones. Rose,
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Speaker 1: here's some bad news for you. I want to validate
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Speaker 1: your concern. I want to tell you you're right, and
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Speaker 1: I want to tell you that as the adult in
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Speaker 1: the room, you've got it all right. I did a
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Speaker 1: lot of looking around, and basically what I found is
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Speaker 1: in terms of bluetooth radiation frying your son's brain, based
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Speaker 1: on the weight of peer reviewed evidence right now. While
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Speaker 1: there are some and I do need to acknowledge there
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Speaker 1: are some studies that raise concerns, I would say the
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Speaker 1: overwhelming weight of evidence does not support the concern that
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Speaker 1: radiation bluetooth radiations frying your son's brain. I used to
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Speaker 1: worry about that so much so that I bought a
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Speaker 1: couple of pairs of corded headphones over the last few years,
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Speaker 1: but I've stopped using them because they're just annoying. They're
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Speaker 1: not practical, and the evidence except on a few podcasts
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Speaker 1: where you get a few people who have just got
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Speaker 1: big voices and they want to tell everybody about it,
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Speaker 1: the picture is not completely settled. I will definitely say
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Speaker 1: that I think there are still more questions around it,
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Speaker 1: and I understand the concern and caution. But the World
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Speaker 1: Health Organization did a twenty twenty three systematic review and
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Speaker 1: concluded that there is no conclusive evidence at all linking
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Speaker 1: exposure from consumer devices to either neurological or cognitive disease.
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Speaker 1: They did note there's not a lot of evidence on
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Speaker 1: longitudinal effects, especially among younger populations because they haven't been
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Speaker 1: around for a long time. But overwhelmingly, the bottom line
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Speaker 1: is your concern rose on this is not a rational
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Speaker 1: given the volume of online content about this, But the
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Speaker 1: peer reviewed research doesn't support this idea that your child
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Speaker 1: is going to have any brain frying as a result
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Speaker 1: of being on bluetooth. I think that your son's going
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Speaker 1: to be fine. My bigger concern. The one thing that
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Speaker 1: I did find a lot of evidence for is that
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Speaker 1: you shouldn't be worried about radiation. You should be worried
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Speaker 1: about volume. So people kids listen to their headphones way
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Speaker 1: too loud, and there was a.
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Speaker 3: Oh, and your living proof that that's a problem. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I was a radio and outswer for the first decade
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Speaker 1: of my working life, and before that I used to
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Speaker 1: listen to music very loud as a kid as well.
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Speaker 1: And I'm now fifty years old and my hearing is
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Speaker 1: not quite where it needs to be. I did have
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Speaker 1: my hearing tested a few years ago, and the guy
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Speaker 1: just said that you needed to talk about it. There
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Speaker 1: was nothing the matter with my hearing, which I thought
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Speaker 1: was fabulous. Just one piece of it.
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Speaker 3: I think that he was just on your.
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Speaker 1: Side, one piece of evidence that clearly.
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Speaker 3: Was not reading the evidence in front of him.
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Speaker 1: Useful heroes, And I think that your son will actually
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Speaker 1: listen to this. There was a daughter analysis published in
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Speaker 1: BMJ Global Health. It concluded that more than a billion
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Speaker 1: teams and young people are potentially at risk of hearing
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Speaker 1: loss due to their use of headphones, earbuds and attendants
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Speaker 1: at loud music venues. The study found that unsafe listening
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Speaker 1: practice is a highly prevalent worldwide, with the global number
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Speaker 1: of young people at risk of hearing loss estimated to
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Speaker 1: be between six hundred and seventy million and one point
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Speaker 1: three five billion dollars. So it might be worth having
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Speaker 1: a conversation with your son since he seems to be
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Speaker 1: empathic and considerate and active and all those things that
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Speaker 1: you highlighted. I'd be inclined to say, Hey, you know what, kiddo,
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Speaker 1: this is a fight that I'm clearly not going to win.
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Speaker 1: We've been over this again and again and again. It's
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Speaker 1: a source of tension between us, and I just don't
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Speaker 1: want the tension. And while I'm still nervous about it,
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Speaker 1: and I think the evidence is not clear cut. I
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Speaker 1: get that I'm not going to win this fight. But
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Speaker 1: I have a compromise for you. Could you just keep
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Speaker 1: the volume low and I reckon if you were to
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Speaker 1: talk to him about hearing loss and the problems with
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Speaker 1: having music too loud, and just telling to Google round
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Speaker 1: or do some chat gpting on that, he'll find some
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Speaker 1: stuff and he'll probably see the value in that request.
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Speaker 1: He'll identify that it's useful, he'll endorse it, and he'll
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Speaker 1: get on board. I just think, oh gosh, take the win. Rose.
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Speaker 1: At the risk of sounding a little bit dismissive, I
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Speaker 1: promise you I don't mean to take the win. It
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Speaker 1: sounds like he's just a great kid. He's engaging with you,
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Speaker 1: he's having the conversations, he's hearing what you're saying.
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Speaker 3: He puts his phone away at eight o'clock, he's putting
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Speaker 3: his phone.
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Speaker 1: Take the win anyway. We hope that's been a helpful conversation,
13:45
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for sending us you a question.
13:47
Speaker 1: We love questions about literally any topic at all. We'll
13:49
Speaker 1: tackle it. We're up for it. Send your tricky questions
13:52
Speaker 1: via voice note to podcasts at Happy Families dot com
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Speaker 1: dot you or jump online to Happy families dot com
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Speaker 1: dot you find the record button. It's a super simple system.
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Speaker 1: Start talking and let us know what's on your mind.
14:03
Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rowland from
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Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Mimhammonds provides all of our research, admin and
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Speaker 1: additional support and if you'd like more info to make
14:11
Speaker 1: your family happier, visit happy families dot com dot au. Oh,
14:15
Speaker 1: and just over a month until the book launches. Boys
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Speaker 1: comes out in just over a month. If you like
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Speaker 1: the stuff that I talked about earlier about Boys, there's
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