Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #498 Children and Vaping with Dr Lisa Damour

Transcript

#498 Children and Vaping with Dr Lisa Damour · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
0:05
Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
0:09
Speaker 2: answers now. Hello. This is doctor Justin Coilson, the founder
0:12
Speaker 2: of Happy Families dot com dotu and the author of
0:15
Speaker 2: six books about raising a happier family. Today a real treat.
0:19
Speaker 2: I'm super excited to talk to you about. Well. Well,
0:23
Speaker 2: it's a topic that really worries a lot of parents,
0:25
Speaker 2: and for good reason. We're going to talk about vaping.
0:28
Speaker 2: Although tobacco smoking has fallen out of favor among the
0:31
Speaker 2: Australian youth in recent years, the vaping alternative has skyrocketed
0:36
Speaker 2: in terms of popularity. Last year, the Australian Lung Foundation
0:40
Speaker 2: reported that e cigarette use by Australian's fourteen year older
0:44
Speaker 2: has more than doubled in the period from twenty sixteen
0:46
Speaker 2: to twenty nineteen, and the likelihood is it's probably more
0:49
Speaker 2: than that by now. Doctor Lisa Demore is a psychologist
0:55
Speaker 2: and an expert on teenagers. She's written for The New
0:58
Speaker 2: York Times for a number of years. She's had to
1:00
Speaker 2: New York Times best sellers, and of all of the
1:04
Speaker 2: parenting experts in the world that are out there, I
1:07
Speaker 2: don't know that there's any that I respect as much
1:09
Speaker 2: as Lisa. She's just an absolute superstar and understands the
1:13
Speaker 2: psychology of adolescents like no one else. I just love
1:17
Speaker 2: what she has to say. I recently had a conversation
1:20
Speaker 2: with her about vaping as part of Our Happy Family's
1:24
Speaker 2: Instagram Live series, where we sporadically and on an ad
1:28
Speaker 2: hoc basis talk to experts about really important topics like vaping.
1:32
Speaker 2: If you have teenagers, this is a must listen conversation.
1:37
Speaker 2: I'm going to replay it from Instagram, but as a
1:40
Speaker 2: sort of an intro. When we began the discussion, I
1:42
Speaker 2: asked Lisa to fill everyone in on her career and
1:45
Speaker 2: the key areas that she focuses on in her work.
1:52
Speaker 3: So I'm a psychologist. I'm in the United States. My
1:56
Speaker 3: specialty area is adolescence. I spent a lot of my
1:59
Speaker 3: work teenagers. My long form work, my books are about girls,
2:04
Speaker 3: but I do a lot of work around kids of
2:07
Speaker 3: all ages and also all genders.
2:09
Speaker 4: So I write regularly for The New York Times.
2:11
Speaker 3: That work is entirely co ed, and I haven't asked
2:14
Speaker 3: Lisa podcast, which comes out every week where my fantastic
2:18
Speaker 3: co host Riena and nine and I answer questions about
2:21
Speaker 3: kids of all ages, kids of all genders.
2:23
Speaker 4: So I'm just kind of an all around developmental clitical psychologist.
2:27
Speaker 2: So, like you said, important conversations today, why don't you
2:29
Speaker 2: introduce the topic, and well we'll start chatting about it.
2:33
Speaker 4: Sure, So we're going to talk about faving, and I will.
2:36
Speaker 3: Tell you justin I'm actually glad in some ways to
2:39
Speaker 3: be able to talk about much more normative developmental stuff.
2:41
Speaker 4: Not that this is normal developmental, but I would say
2:44
Speaker 4: the last few years has been so heavily focused on.
2:46
Speaker 3: Getting kids and families through the pandemic that there's something
2:50
Speaker 3: to me important about being able to return to the
2:54
Speaker 3: risk factors that kids are engaging, the forces the kids.
2:56
Speaker 4: Are up against through adolescens tween teen life.
3:00
Speaker 3: So we're going to talk through vaping, and you and
3:02
Speaker 3: I sort of thought through some questions that we thought
3:05
Speaker 3: would be type of mind for the people who are
3:07
Speaker 3: joining us, and so we hope we kind of work
3:10
Speaker 3: our way through this, and then we'd love people to
3:15
Speaker 3: ask us questions, to put them right in the chat,
3:17
Speaker 3: and we'll try to get to.
3:18
Speaker 2: As many as we can perfect before we get to
3:21
Speaker 2: those questions Lisa, let's just highlight I think it's really
3:24
Speaker 2: important we do this. You and I have psychology backgrounds,
3:27
Speaker 2: we're not medical practitioners. We're not physicians, we're not professors
3:31
Speaker 2: of biology or chemistry or anything like that. So the
3:35
Speaker 2: conversation that we're having about vaping, we need to acknowledge
3:39
Speaker 2: at the outset that there's still a lot that we
3:41
Speaker 2: don't know about e cigarettes vaping generally. But what we
3:45
Speaker 2: do know is, even at this early stage, it's harmful
3:50
Speaker 2: and it's not in our children's best interest to be
3:52
Speaker 2: doing it. I think that it would be a conservative
3:55
Speaker 2: approach here would be to say that it's not safe,
3:57
Speaker 2: it's not healthy, and it's not wise, and we don't
3:59
Speaker 2: want our kids to be doing it, and that's probably
4:02
Speaker 2: the best foundation before we step into the pairing. Is
4:04
Speaker 2: everything you'd add to that or should we dive in?
4:07
Speaker 4: I think that's right, and I think it is true.
4:09
Speaker 4: I think the data are still coming in.
4:10
Speaker 3: We don't know a whole lot about the impact of
4:12
Speaker 3: negotine on the young Breen, because you know, for better
4:14
Speaker 3: for us, this is not than something we've been in
4:16
Speaker 3: a position to study before.
4:18
Speaker 4: But I know that with our question not beeping is
4:21
Speaker 4: better than beeping.
4:23
Speaker 2: I must have said a kid.
4:26
Speaker 4: If you're a kid, not fee thing is better than beeping.
4:28
Speaker 2: Right. Of course, when we say that to our kids,
4:31
Speaker 2: they may roll their eyes and go, well, what would
4:34
Speaker 2: you know? You never vape, you don't know what it is.
4:35
Speaker 2: In fact, just when I did a quick Facebook live
4:38
Speaker 2: a few minutes ago to let people know that we
4:39
Speaker 2: were going to be doing this and to bring them
4:41
Speaker 2: into our Instagram feed, here Loretta said, and I quote,
4:45
Speaker 2: my eleven and twelve year old have already seen kids
4:48
Speaker 2: their age doing it. And these kids doing it just
4:52
Speaker 2: think it tastes you. They don't think about the chemicals
4:55
Speaker 2: they're breathing in. It seems innocent, just like smoking probably
4:58
Speaker 2: in the fifties. And I love I love the use
5:00
Speaker 2: of her word innocent. There's just that sense that it's
5:05
Speaker 2: no big deal. Mom stops stressing out Dad. It just
5:09
Speaker 2: tastes good, and everyone's doing it. What's the big deal?
5:11
Speaker 2: So let's start off by talking about why kids start vaping.
5:16
Speaker 2: We've both got a few different ideas on this, and
5:19
Speaker 2: they'll probably compliment one another really nicely. I hadn't thought
5:24
Speaker 2: of that particular issue release so that it tastes you.
5:27
Speaker 2: I mean my number one was kids, especially in their
5:31
Speaker 2: adolescent years, they crave experience. Their brains are wired for
5:36
Speaker 2: reward and everyone else is doing it. They want belonging
5:39
Speaker 2: and acceptance, and this is the way that they get
5:41
Speaker 2: to signal to everyone, Hey, I'm cool and I want
5:44
Speaker 2: to be like you and you want to be like me.
5:45
Speaker 2: So it's a really it's just a belonging acceptance kind
5:49
Speaker 2: of thing. And like I said that, the idea that
5:52
Speaker 2: I can do something new, I've got the autonomy, I've
5:55
Speaker 2: got the power to choose to do something, and if
5:57
Speaker 2: my parents won't like it, now I've got some power
5:59
Speaker 2: in my life as well. So that was a big three.
6:02
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm doing that in thirty seconds or less,
6:04
Speaker 2: and we can unpack it work if you walk, do
6:06
Speaker 2: you want to talk more about that or do you
6:08
Speaker 2: want to extend on that with some of your audience?
6:10
Speaker 4: Well, so I think yes to all of that.
6:12
Speaker 3: And you know the nature of the adolescent bring is
6:14
Speaker 3: that it's sensation seeking. It's looking for novelty, and like,
6:17
Speaker 3: what's more novel than a gummy bared flavored E cigarette? Right,
6:22
Speaker 3: I Mean, that's that's novel of anything? But I think
6:26
Speaker 3: the way that I like to walk up to this
6:28
Speaker 3: and I actually like to talk with kids about it,
6:30
Speaker 3: is they are very much the victims of a quite
6:34
Speaker 3: sophisticated marketing scheme, right, And when I talk with kids
6:39
Speaker 3: about vaping, I say, here's the thing. Vaping was not
6:42
Speaker 3: a bad idea to start. Vaping was designed to get
6:44
Speaker 3: people who were addicted to tobacco cigarettes off of the
6:48
Speaker 3: cursed cancer causing properties of tobacco without having to give
6:51
Speaker 3: up nicotine.
6:52
Speaker 4: Like that was not a bad idea at all. It
6:54
Speaker 4: actually remains a good idea.
6:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then I say them, but then the people
6:59
Speaker 3: who made those said, he check it out. We have
7:02
Speaker 3: this highly addictive substance. We could get a whole new
7:06
Speaker 3: market of middle school kids engaged with this if we
7:09
Speaker 3: put it in really cool, slick packaging, if we make
7:13
Speaker 3: it seem kind of electronic and neat to look like
7:15
Speaker 3: chargers that are sort of exciting, and then truly, if.
7:18
Speaker 4: We make strawberry bubblegum flavor.
7:21
Speaker 3: And like all of these wild you know, melon jazz flavors, and.
7:27
Speaker 4: That's what happened.
7:28
Speaker 3: And so I think it's really helpful for us to
7:31
Speaker 3: appreciate that the people making these products know exactly what
7:36
Speaker 3: they are doing and to really appreciate that they are
7:40
Speaker 3: trojan horsing an addiction to kids, and our kids are
7:46
Speaker 3: largely naive to that and nicotine. We should just have
7:50
Speaker 3: to say it is wildly addictive.
7:53
Speaker 2: So if you really thinkngrateful, I mean we it's you know,
7:59
Speaker 2: it's certainly we are not.
8:00
Speaker 4: It's we don't really know how it affects the developing rain.
8:03
Speaker 4: But as I said to.
8:04
Speaker 3: My own kids, do you want to find out? No,
8:05
Speaker 3: you probably don't want to find out, like why would
8:07
Speaker 3: you make yourself a guinea pig? But it's a quite
8:11
Speaker 3: remarkable thing to think about in terms of what has
8:14
Speaker 3: been pulled off by the vaping manufacturers by way of
8:18
Speaker 3: making an entire market for themselves that then has to
8:22
Speaker 3: come back for more because they're addicted. So when we
8:24
Speaker 3: think about why kids might do it, we really want
8:28
Speaker 3: to appreciate they are very much ponds in a larger
8:32
Speaker 3: and targeted and highly sophisticated marketing scheme.
8:37
Speaker 2: What the what the manufacturers have done here as well,
8:40
Speaker 2: is they've they've disposed of all of the I'm going
8:43
Speaker 2: to use the word grottiness of smoking, you know, the
8:47
Speaker 2: stained fingers and the and the stench. I mean, I
8:50
Speaker 2: know some people really do lock the smell of nicotine
8:53
Speaker 2: and tobaccout, but there's a general trend away from that,
8:57
Speaker 2: especially with young people. And they've created when you pick
9:02
Speaker 2: up an iPhone or you pick up a well designed tablet,
9:06
Speaker 2: these things feel nice, they feel luxurious to hold, and
9:09
Speaker 2: the designers of these products have made them appealing. That
9:12
Speaker 2: made them feel nicely weighted, and they feel silky smooth,
9:16
Speaker 2: and the smell of the e cigarette product it's delightful.
9:23
Speaker 2: I have no desire to smoke an e cigarette none whatsoever.
9:26
Speaker 2: I never have, never will. But I'll tell you what,
9:29
Speaker 2: when I walk past somebody who's smoking one, I can't
9:31
Speaker 2: help it just go, oh, that's not really good.
9:34
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, And I think you know that word innocence
9:37
Speaker 3: that you're brought up kids really don't get it. That's
9:41
Speaker 3: something that is gummy bird flavored and pink and looks
9:45
Speaker 3: like a USB drive is a dangerous thing. And that's
9:50
Speaker 3: not an accident that it doesn't seem dangerous. If you
9:52
Speaker 3: make a gummy bird in pink, you can make it
9:55
Speaker 3: look a lot safer than it is.
9:56
Speaker 4: So in terms of why kids start. I think that's
9:58
Speaker 4: a key reason, and then all of the reasons that you.
10:00
Speaker 2: Mentioned, So let's just tap into I know that people
10:04
Speaker 2: get really excited about neurostuff, brain science. I tend to
10:08
Speaker 2: think that knowing neurobiology neuroscience doesn't actually do much in
10:12
Speaker 2: a practical sense. It doesn't necessarily help people, but it's
10:16
Speaker 2: still curs it's still really interesting to me. There's this
10:19
Speaker 2: whole thing that people are talking about for years now
10:22
Speaker 2: that the adolescent brain isn't fully developed until the mid
10:25
Speaker 2: twenties and all that kind of thing. But one thing
10:28
Speaker 2: that some really clever researchers have found in the last
10:31
Speaker 2: few years is you mentioned the sensation seeking. But even
10:35
Speaker 2: if we pull back from sensation seeking, because smoking an
10:37
Speaker 2: e cigarette probably isn't going to give you a wild sensation,
10:42
Speaker 2: but there is something rewarding. There's something socially rewarding about this.
10:47
Speaker 2: I mean, one of my kids said to me the
10:49
Speaker 2: other day. She's in grade nine, and she came to
10:52
Speaker 2: me and she said, Dad, they're all doing it, and
10:54
Speaker 2: I'm actually starting to feel like I'm a bit of
10:56
Speaker 2: a weirdo because I'm not. I'm starting to feel like
11:00
Speaker 2: I don't belong I'm a bit different, and they're looking
11:03
Speaker 2: at me like I think I'm better than them because
11:06
Speaker 2: I won't do it, so I think in fact, Jesse
11:09
Speaker 2: is hopeful has just jumped in city. If you don't
11:11
Speaker 2: want to drink coss my pot, you still feel like
11:12
Speaker 2: you're doing something cool. And this is what a lot
11:15
Speaker 2: of kids are grapping with. They recognize that they may
11:17
Speaker 2: be ramifications in association with health, but popularity, the pull
11:22
Speaker 2: of just having people around you who loved you, somewhere
11:26
Speaker 2: you belong. This can actually interfere with our capacity to
11:29
Speaker 2: feel like we belong. And the conversation that I had
11:33
Speaker 2: with my daughter around this was really it's complex. It's
11:38
Speaker 2: hard as a parent to sort of to look at
11:39
Speaker 2: the kids and say, it's really hard to be unpopular,
11:42
Speaker 2: isn't it. Where are you going to land with this?
11:44
Speaker 2: Because when you're fourteen, your friends are your oxygen absolutely well.
11:50
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because I was looking at some data
11:53
Speaker 3: before we have done and one thing that.
11:55
Speaker 4: Is true, and I think this is true in the US.
11:57
Speaker 4: They didn't look at the Australian data.
11:59
Speaker 3: Eleven of high schoolers are vafing and two percent of
12:03
Speaker 3: middle schoolers are vaping. But they're very high profile. They
12:09
Speaker 3: kids are very aware of what they're doing it. They're
12:12
Speaker 3: letting kids know they do it. There's a lot of
12:14
Speaker 3: discussion about it, there's a lot of awareness of it.
12:18
Speaker 3: And one of the things we have found to be
12:20
Speaker 3: very very helpful when we do research studies on harm
12:23
Speaker 3: prevention of any kind, addiction prevention, is to actually give
12:26
Speaker 3: kids real statistics about how many kids are doing it.
12:29
Speaker 4: And same with drinking, drugs, other things too.
12:32
Speaker 3: Most kids don't Most kids, the majority of kids are
12:34
Speaker 3: actually steering clear of it. And one thing that has
12:37
Speaker 3: helped kids to stay away from that is that reassurance that, yeah,
12:41
Speaker 3: it may seem like everyone's doing it, or people may
12:43
Speaker 3: be very aware of who's doing it, but they're actually
12:47
Speaker 3: in the minority and most kids and this is how
12:49
Speaker 3: I would start to bend the conversation. Most kids are
12:52
Speaker 3: doing a much better job of taking care of themselves
12:56
Speaker 3: and not getting engaged. And this is my like the
13:01
Speaker 3: drum I bang on anything risk related. I always frame
13:05
Speaker 3: it up with kids in terms of them taking good
13:07
Speaker 3: care of themselves, and that's why we don't want them
13:10
Speaker 3: to smoke or drink, or do drugs or drive when drunk.
13:12
Speaker 3: Or any of those things because they're not taking good
13:15
Speaker 3: care of themselves.
13:16
Speaker 2: How do we get the conversation started. You've got a child,
13:19
Speaker 2: you don't know if they're bathing or not, but you
13:21
Speaker 2: know that if they're in anything from I'm gonna say,
13:23
Speaker 2: in Australia, grade six or above, we need to have
13:26
Speaker 2: this conversation. What great would you say? In America would
13:29
Speaker 2: be the time I think you want to.
13:30
Speaker 3: Start it by middle school, so that you know, probably
13:32
Speaker 3: sixth grade is when you want to start it.
13:35
Speaker 4: And here's the thing though.
13:36
Speaker 3: I would not make a plan to say have the like, Okay,
13:41
Speaker 3: my kids in sixth grade, we're going to talk about bathing, right,
13:44
Speaker 3: I would I would not have that be how to
13:46
Speaker 3: attack it.
13:47
Speaker 4: What I would do is, I would.
13:48
Speaker 2: Like you turn on the fire hose. They're like, whoa,
13:52
Speaker 2: what did I do wrong?
13:54
Speaker 4: Yeah?
13:57
Speaker 3: What I would do is I would listen for it
13:59
Speaker 3: to come because it will often come up that they'll mention, oh,
14:03
Speaker 3: you know so and so I had an ease something.
14:05
Speaker 4: I mean, they'll mention it.
14:06
Speaker 3: Or I would look for something in the environment, you know,
14:08
Speaker 3: like I was reading an article and it came up.
14:10
Speaker 3: But I would then say, have you heard about this,
14:14
Speaker 3: What do you know about this? What's the word on
14:18
Speaker 3: the street about this? Your kids are going to be
14:21
Speaker 3: in a huge range of the data they have on vaping.
14:25
Speaker 3: Some of them may know nothing, some of them.
14:28
Speaker 4: May be very familiar and aware. Some of them may
14:32
Speaker 4: know things that are completely untrue.
14:35
Speaker 3: So before you start with whatever your spiel's going to
14:38
Speaker 3: be about vaping, you need to know what your kid knows,
14:42
Speaker 3: what your kid thinks, how familiar they are, because that
14:45
Speaker 3: will do so much to orient you about where to
14:47
Speaker 3: even start the conversation.
14:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's a phrase that I use all the time.
14:53
Speaker 2: In fact, there are three phrases that I integrate together,
14:58
Speaker 2: and I'll just have this thing full the rhyme or alliteration.
15:02
Speaker 2: So I suggest that parents get curious, not furious, because
15:05
Speaker 2: as parents, our initial reaction is protection, and protection often
15:11
Speaker 2: leads to us being what I'll call a puff fish parent.
15:14
Speaker 2: You know, puffer fish when it feels threatened, it blows
15:16
Speaker 2: itself up really big to eliminate the threat. So when
15:19
Speaker 2: we see a child one about children.
15:20
Speaker 1: What about dear little angels, about precious precious cherubs doing
15:24
Speaker 1: something that we think is harmful, we kind of get
15:29
Speaker 1: this sense that if I make myself as big as
15:31
Speaker 1: I can, as strong and forceful as I can, I'm
15:34
Speaker 1: going to put the fear of God into them, and
15:36
Speaker 1: they're going to run from whatever I'm threatening them over.
15:40
Speaker 2: So what, as you and I would both tell parents
15:44
Speaker 2: all the time, what that usually does is you kind
15:48
Speaker 2: of hinted at it before. Don't you ever let me
15:50
Speaker 2: catch you doing that. That often comes across as don't
15:54
Speaker 2: worry you are. I'm going to be real sneaky now
15:56
Speaker 2: I know how you feel about it. I'll never get caught,
15:58
Speaker 2: So get cureurious, not furious, Understand, don't reprimand explore, don't explode.
16:04
Speaker 2: These are the phrases I use all the time, so
16:06
Speaker 2: essentially say, if we can explore their world with genuine curiosity. Hey,
16:12
Speaker 2: do you know what, I'm in my forties, I'm in
16:15
Speaker 2: my fifties, however old you are as a parent raising
16:17
Speaker 2: these teenagers. And I was watching this Instagram before with
16:21
Speaker 2: these two experts who were talking about vaping. How serious
16:25
Speaker 2: is vaping at your school? You just and I asked
16:28
Speaker 2: you to start really really wide, like what's happening at
16:32
Speaker 2: the school, what are you seeing online? What's happening in
16:34
Speaker 2: your group of friends. You can bring it all the
16:36
Speaker 2: way into the personal eventually, but you want to start
16:39
Speaker 2: nice and whites and the I'm not feeling threatened and
16:41
Speaker 2: defensive and what do you think about it? What are
16:43
Speaker 2: people saying about it? How's it affecting people? Is there
16:46
Speaker 2: anything is there anything going on that you want to
16:49
Speaker 2: talk about? Do you have any questions? Like the more
16:52
Speaker 2: curious you get, like you said, I mean that this
16:55
Speaker 2: whole conversation is about how do you open this discussion
16:57
Speaker 2: with them? Do you open a discussion with questions with
17:00
Speaker 2: like kids?
17:01
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Absolutely?
17:03
Speaker 3: And then what I was saying earlier about helping kids
17:06
Speaker 3: understand the marketing behind it, there's some really nice research
17:10
Speaker 3: that shows that when kids know they're being played, they
17:13
Speaker 3: become much more cautious about engaging with things. That one
17:17
Speaker 3: of the beautiful things about teenagers is they do not
17:19
Speaker 3: like to be manipulated by adults. And so when I
17:23
Speaker 3: talk with middle and high schoolers about bathing, I'm like, look,
17:27
Speaker 3: you know, there's.
17:28
Speaker 4: A lot of money in this for someone if.
17:30
Speaker 3: They can get you hooked on this, And they design
17:33
Speaker 3: this to make it very attractive to people your age,
17:36
Speaker 3: and they put a highly addictive chemical in it, and
17:39
Speaker 3: there's two things that you don't want to happen.
17:41
Speaker 4: One you do not.
17:42
Speaker 3: Want to be their toy, and two you don't want
17:45
Speaker 3: to have nicotine running the show for you. And I
17:48
Speaker 3: think that idea of not being autonomous anymore, not getting
17:52
Speaker 3: to choose, you know, where one does things, how one
17:54
Speaker 3: does things, because you're thinking about nicotine and thinking about
17:57
Speaker 3: how to get more nicotine, that I think is a
18:00
Speaker 3: way to structure really suggest if you want to maintain
18:03
Speaker 3: the itonomy that is narrow deep important to teenagers, you're
18:08
Speaker 3: going to want to stay away from this because someone
18:09
Speaker 3: else is running you if you become addicted to these
18:12
Speaker 3: things and that you know, I think keeps it neutral,
18:18
Speaker 3: keeps it honest, and actually pleas to what teenagers care about,
18:20
Speaker 3: which is actually being independent.
18:22
Speaker 2: We've used up our timely so, but we also want
18:24
Speaker 2: to answer some questions. So what am I doing? Gosh,
18:27
Speaker 2: we could talk for hours about this, right, I mean,
18:29
Speaker 2: we've just skimmed the surface. This has not been comprehensive
18:32
Speaker 2: at all. Let me go through a couple of the
18:33
Speaker 2: comments that have come through and let's respond accordingly. So
18:36
Speaker 2: first off, doctor Lexi Frye has shown as the Royal
18:40
Speaker 2: Children's Health Pole, the RCCH Pole, which comes out pretty
18:45
Speaker 2: regularly here in Australia talking about e cigarettes, bathing and
18:50
Speaker 2: teens to parents know the dangers. There is some data
18:53
Speaker 2: that has come through here that suggests that in Australia
18:56
Speaker 2: the numbers could be I've just lost it. Sorry. For
19:00
Speaker 2: all twelve to seventeen year old students, around fourteen percent
19:03
Speaker 2: indicated that they had ever used an e cigarette at
19:06
Speaker 2: least once, and thirty two percent of these had used
19:08
Speaker 2: one in the past month in a secondary school survey.
19:11
Speaker 2: So our Rossie numbers are fairly high compared to what
19:14
Speaker 2: you've mentioned from from the US drama Queens seventy five says,
19:19
Speaker 2: where do they get them? They buy in Bolk after
19:22
Speaker 2: making connection on Instagram. Then they on sell. So I've
19:26
Speaker 2: got a couple of things to mention abou where they're
19:27
Speaker 2: getting them. But before I do, have you got anything
19:29
Speaker 2: that you would add to that?
19:31
Speaker 3: No?
19:31
Speaker 4: I think keep going, keep going.
19:33
Speaker 2: Okay, So a lot of there's a guy here in
19:36
Speaker 2: Australia who talks about this all the time. People are
19:39
Speaker 2: using Instagram and Snapchat to buy drugs and during the
19:43
Speaker 2: pandemic it absolutely went bonkers. And your kids. They can
19:48
Speaker 2: literally pick up Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok, and they
19:52
Speaker 2: can have drugs delivered to the door within thirty minutes.
19:54
Speaker 2: And there may be all kinds of laws around their access,
19:58
Speaker 2: but those laws have never really been particularly particularly effective.
20:06
Speaker 2: What else have we got here? Uh? Black market? Eye opening?
20:09
Speaker 2: The kids even know about the black market, but let
20:11
Speaker 2: me tell you little forest photography they do.
20:14
Speaker 4: I thought this was fascinating. What if your team, what
20:16
Speaker 4: if your team wants to keep faking because they say, well,
20:18
Speaker 4: we're all going to die anyway.
20:20
Speaker 2: I just found that one. I was about to read it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
20:22
Speaker 2: such a teenage response, right.
20:24
Speaker 4: That's perfect, That's imperfect. And the nice thing is like,
20:27
Speaker 4: that's the kind of thing a teenager says that. Like
20:30
Speaker 4: for me, I think humor is the only answer. I think, like,
20:33
Speaker 4: I think it's such a it's such a you.
20:34
Speaker 3: Know, kind of wonderfully kind of existential crisis teenager. Anything
20:37
Speaker 3: to say that, I think, to engage it on this
20:39
Speaker 3: level is probably not that useful. But I think I
20:42
Speaker 3: think to say something that is basically like, well, this
20:45
Speaker 3: is true, we are all going to eventually die. But
20:47
Speaker 3: I have a lot of important things I want you
20:48
Speaker 3: to do in your life. I think there's a lot
20:50
Speaker 3: of value in your life between now and that point.
20:52
Speaker 3: So like, let's not rush it along, you know, like
20:55
Speaker 3: I would. I would just be playful with that.
20:59
Speaker 2: How would you like to die if you could choose?
21:01
Speaker 2: What would you like to buy? With nicotine poisoning and
21:04
Speaker 2: cancer associated?
21:05
Speaker 4: I mean you want to go out?
21:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's let's let's play with this little and
21:09
Speaker 2: not the way trying to mind like a lot of
21:10
Speaker 2: something that really is tragic, but with your teenage just
21:13
Speaker 2: sometimes that's the way you've got to go do it.
21:16
Speaker 3: There's another one here that I think is such an
21:18
Speaker 3: important point, and it may be a really good one
21:20
Speaker 3: for us to wrap up on about on the spectrum
21:23
Speaker 3: harm e cigarettes are low, this is true, and just
21:26
Speaker 3: keep the lines of communication open, checking every now and
21:29
Speaker 3: then about the constant financial impact. And I think this
21:31
Speaker 3: is true, and I think it gets to a really
21:33
Speaker 3: central point in talking with teens about risk. If we
21:36
Speaker 3: talk about everything like it is as dangerous as everything else,
21:41
Speaker 3: they also stop taking us seriously. And so when I
21:45
Speaker 3: talk with kids about substances, I will say, Okay, there
21:49
Speaker 3: is heroin and cocaine and like I will like put
21:53
Speaker 3: the I'm like these like dead on site, like you
21:58
Speaker 3: want no part of any of these, and then I
22:00
Speaker 3: will move. I don't say, Okay, here's marijuana. Here's how
22:03
Speaker 3: marijuana will harm your developing brain. Okay, here's cigarettes. Here's
22:07
Speaker 3: why you don't really want to get yourself involved with cigarettes. Okay,
22:10
Speaker 3: here's the deal on vaping. Here are the harms that
22:12
Speaker 3: come with aaping. But I really am very deliberate and
22:16
Speaker 3: about not talking about these cigarettes as if.
22:19
Speaker 4: I'm talking about heroin. And the reason for that is
22:22
Speaker 4: that kids will just tune you out. Yeah, and so
22:25
Speaker 4: if it's always on, you know, like everything's on the.
22:28
Speaker 3: Ceiling, they're like, then nothing's on the ceiling. And so
22:31
Speaker 3: to say, here are the harms. I love you. You
22:34
Speaker 3: have one body, you have one brain, You have one
22:36
Speaker 3: set of lungs that are supposed to get you through
22:38
Speaker 3: the rest.
22:38
Speaker 4: Of your life.
22:39
Speaker 3: My advice to you is you take really good care
22:41
Speaker 3: of them, because none of these are easily replaced.
22:45
Speaker 4: And just to really keep it on that.
22:47
Speaker 2: The story that comes to mind, Lasers say that is
22:51
Speaker 2: the conversation that a lot of parents have with the
22:54
Speaker 2: teenagers about if you drink here's what's gonna happen drinking alcohol. Now,
22:59
Speaker 2: alcohol is a horrendously dangerous substance, but like you said
23:03
Speaker 2: on the continuum, it's not the worst one. And when
23:07
Speaker 2: we and we should be discouraging our children from drinking, absolutely,
23:13
Speaker 2: but when we said to them, if you drink, you're
23:15
Speaker 2: going to end up having issues around violence and sexual
23:18
Speaker 2: assault and you might have a car crash or get
23:20
Speaker 2: in a fight and all those kinds of things, and
23:22
Speaker 2: your teenagers looking at you, going yeah, But on Friday
23:25
Speaker 2: night at that party that you didn't know that I
23:26
Speaker 2: went to, everyone was completely plastered, everyone was drunk, and
23:29
Speaker 2: nothing happened. Then they just had a great time. Like
23:31
Speaker 2: what's the big deal? So maintaining that credibility, I just
23:35
Speaker 2: I love. Just a couple of things as we wrap
23:38
Speaker 2: this up, Ali has said that his son Vabes and
23:42
Speaker 2: recently came home from Skill having vomited because of it.
23:45
Speaker 2: He told me he got Nick sick. And I've never
23:48
Speaker 2: heard of that. And Ali says, how would you respond?
23:51
Speaker 2: I think that our whole conversation is how you would
23:53
Speaker 2: respond to that. And Miguel Mike Gal or MiG Gal says,
23:59
Speaker 2: many Vabes are not the cannabis, which obviously another discussion about.
24:04
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and these are two things.
24:09
Speaker 4: Absolutely justin thank you so much for doing this. This
24:14
Speaker 4: was really fun.
24:19
Speaker 2: Well. I hope that you found that conversation with doctor
24:21
Speaker 2: Lisa de Moore and myself helpful. By the way, as
24:24
Speaker 2: I mentioned, Lisa has written not one, but two New
24:26
Speaker 2: York Times bestsellers, Untangled and under Pressure. You can find
24:29
Speaker 2: them online wherever you buy your books. We'll put links
24:32
Speaker 2: to Lisa's website in the show notes as well, and
24:34
Speaker 2: you might want to check out her podcast, Ask Lisa,
24:36
Speaker 2: It's an absolute ripper. The Happy Families podcast is produced
24:39
Speaker 2: by Justin Rouland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
24:42
Speaker 2: executive producer, and for more and about making your family happier,
24:45
Speaker 2: please visit Happy Families dot com dot au