Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #990 Mental Health Challenges with Anne Hollonds

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#990 Mental Health Challenges with Anne Hollonds · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers. Now, Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Happy Family's Podcast. My name is doctor Justin Colson
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  Speaker 1: and the author of nine books about raising happy families
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  Speaker 1: and the co host and parenting expert on Channelin's hit
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  Speaker 1: TV show Rental Guidance. Also a dad to six kids.
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  Speaker 1: Just recently we did something unusual, We did something a
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  Speaker 1: bit different online. We conducted an online conference called Breaking Point,
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  Speaker 1: very much about the state of mental health and young
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  Speaker 1: people around the country and what we can do to
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  Speaker 1: improve things because well, things aren't looking that great. I
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  Speaker 1: was absolutely delighted and really honored to have the opening
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  Speaker 1: speaker for our online conference. As the National Children's Commissioner
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  Speaker 1: and Holland's and Hollands commenced as National Children's Commissioner in
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  Speaker 1: November twenty twenty. It's a five year appointment. Before she
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  Speaker 1: was appointed the role of National Children's Commissioner, she was
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  Speaker 1: the direct actor of the Australian Institute of Family Studies,
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  Speaker 1: which is an independent authority run by the Australian Government
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  Speaker 1: responsible for conducting research and providing advice on child and
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  Speaker 1: family wellbeing and in that role. She was also the
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  Speaker 1: director of the Australian Gambling Research Center and for twenty
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  Speaker 1: three years was a CEO of government non government organizations
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  Speaker 1: focused on research and policy and service delivery and health
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  Speaker 1: and education and social services. Has two adult daughters, three
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  Speaker 1: grandchildren and has just done so much work MBA strategy
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  Speaker 1: and leadership sessions at Harvard and Stanford Universities. We're talking
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  Speaker 1: top twelve as you would expect for the National Children's
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  Speaker 1: Commissioner in the online digital conference Breaking Point, and I
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  Speaker 1: spoke for about an hour about so many things related
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  Speaker 1: to our young people and their mental health. It was
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  Speaker 1: a wonderful, wonderful conversation. I'm going to share with you
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  Speaker 1: an extract of that in today's podcast. Let's start with
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  Speaker 1: the question what is the current state of mental health
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  Speaker 1: for young people?
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  Speaker 2: Well, we know that even before COVID just in that
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  Speaker 2: the rates of mental health issues for children and young
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  Speaker 2: people had been increasing. And you know, it's hard to
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  Speaker 2: remember back before the pandemic, but what was happening then
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  Speaker 2: was that, you know, regularly the government was announcing more
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  Speaker 2: and more funding for what was called youth mental health
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  Speaker 2: services because of the increasing demand. But you know, I
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  Speaker 2: remember thinking at the time it never seemed to be
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  Speaker 2: quite enough, And of course then the pandemic hit, and
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  Speaker 2: a kind of what the pandemic did was it an
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  Speaker 2: amplified the broken systems out there, the fact that kids
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  Speaker 2: weren't able to get what they needed. And we saw
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  Speaker 2: during the pandemic increased rates of presentations to emergency departments
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  Speaker 2: of much younger children with much more serious mental health
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  Speaker 2: issues like eating disc orders and suicidality. And that was
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  Speaker 2: also shown through helplines like Kids' Help Line that they
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  Speaker 2: there was this upteap during COVID. Since COVID, of course,
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  Speaker 2: we've seen that long tail of the pandemic's effect which
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  Speaker 2: we all predicted for children, and that is, you know,
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  Speaker 2: we've seen continued high rates of anxiety school refusal. We
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  Speaker 2: just had a Senate inquiry about kids who are too
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  Speaker 2: anxious to go to school, and also problems like eating
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  Speaker 2: disorders and so forth. On the positive side, I guess
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  Speaker 2: what's happened is that now the discussion about mental health
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  Speaker 2: issues is much more mainstream, so we are able to
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  Speaker 2: have these conversations. But unfortunately we haven't kept up with
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  Speaker 2: the services for children and young people, and particularly I'm
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  Speaker 2: concerned about services for kids twelve and under.
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  Speaker 1: And when you describe that situation, one thing that I
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  Speaker 1: hear from parents time and time again is that when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to this breaking point idea, they just can't
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  Speaker 1: get the kids into a psychologist. It's almost impossible to
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  Speaker 1: get the mental health access that they require, whether the
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  Speaker 1: kids are under twelve or over twelve. It just seems
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  Speaker 1: that waitlists are enormous. And then, of course, once you
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  Speaker 1: get your child into a psychologist, if that therapeutic relationship
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  Speaker 1: isn't ideal, if the child doesn't click with the psychologists,
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  Speaker 1: we know from research that the stronger that therapeutic alliance,
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  Speaker 1: the more likely it is that we get good outcomes
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  Speaker 1: in that therapeutic context. So the kids get in, they
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  Speaker 1: don't like the psychologists, and the parents says, well, I
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  Speaker 1: can't go back to square one, because I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: be eighteen months down the track before I finally find
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  Speaker 1: the psychological help that my child needs. Where do you go?
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  Speaker 1: Not necessarily from your view as the National Children's Commissioner,
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  Speaker 1: but where do you go as a parent who is
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  Speaker 1: just crumbling under this weight and desperate for their child
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  Speaker 1: to get help? What options do they have.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's really really hard justin I mean, I've spoken
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  Speaker 2: to families that have been unable to get help in
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  Speaker 2: the public system for eleven and twelve year olds who
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  Speaker 2: are suicidal. I mean, that is to me shocking. They
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  Speaker 2: were told they were told to go find a private psychiatrist,
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  Speaker 2: which you know, like we know, there's not enough of them.
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  Speaker 2: There's not enough that are psychiatrists and psychologists that are
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  Speaker 2: trained to work with children. It's like ten percent or
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  Speaker 2: less have the training to work with children. But also,
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  Speaker 2: of course there's the cost, so you know, it is
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  Speaker 2: really hard. And I know from a personal experience in
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  Speaker 2: my own family of a child that was struggling to
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  Speaker 2: return to school after COVID, that getting helpful children with anxiety,
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  Speaker 2: even in a big city, even with a family that
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  Speaker 2: has all the resources available, is near impossible. And you know,
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  Speaker 2: if you go out of the big cities and you're
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  Speaker 2: in the regional or remote areas, you can pretty much
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  Speaker 2: forget it. So you know, like it is, it's absolutely
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  Speaker 2: a failure, I believe of our governments to leave families
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  Speaker 2: in this die situation, and it is a sign that
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  Speaker 2: we're not making child well being the priority it should be.
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  Speaker 2: In this country. But your question was what should parents
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  Speaker 2: do if they can't get their help? Well, all I
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  Speaker 2: can say is just you have to keep trying. You
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  Speaker 2: have to keep banging down those doors. I mean that
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  Speaker 2: is our job as parents to get the help for
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  Speaker 2: the children that they need, and you know, hopefully eventually
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  Speaker 2: something will open up. Look, the other thing parents should do,
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  Speaker 2: of course, is to be there for their child. Don't
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  Speaker 2: underestimate your own value. Even when it comes to teenagers,
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  Speaker 2: they do need parental, very strong parental relationships. And in
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  Speaker 2: order for you to be able to help your child,
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  Speaker 2: you've of course look after your own mental health and
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  Speaker 2: well being, and so you know, you need to address
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  Speaker 2: whatever issues you have, and it could even be things
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  Speaker 2: like you know, as adults, we're all addicted to devices
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  Speaker 2: and we have to really, I think, put a mirror
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  Speaker 2: up to ourselves, and I think we need to focus
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  Speaker 2: on building that very strong relationship with each child, like separately,
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  Speaker 2: not children as a group. We need to know our
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  Speaker 2: children so that we can be attuned to their needs
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  Speaker 2: and just don't give up. Don't give up trying to
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  Speaker 2: find that help.
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  Speaker 1: And I really want to talk about the trends, especially
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  Speaker 1: as they apply to social media. But a couple of
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  Speaker 1: things that you've highlighted, I'd really like to go a
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  Speaker 1: little deeper on those. The first that I want to
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  Speaker 1: pick up on is my understanding as I've looked at
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  Speaker 1: research from right around the world. My understanding is that
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  Speaker 1: providing parenting skills and parenting tools to adults, and even
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  Speaker 1: providing parents with the help that they might need not
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  Speaker 1: just for their own issues but for their children's issues,
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  Speaker 1: seems to be far more adaptive, far more helpful than
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  Speaker 1: getting kids into therapy. I'll give you an example of
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  Speaker 1: what I mean, and then I'll ask for your reaction
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  Speaker 1: to what I'm describing. If I'm working with an eight
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  Speaker 1: year old or even a thirteen year old who is
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  Speaker 1: dealing with anxiety or is emotionally disregulated, has some really
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  Speaker 1: big challenges, and I'm working with them at I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: two o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon, the likelihood of them
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  Speaker 1: holding on to these skills that I've tried to practice
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  Speaker 1: with them in a clinical setting at five point thirty
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  Speaker 1: on Thursday night, when everything's going haywire is practically zero.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, even most adults struggle to do that. Because
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  Speaker 1: I want to get a little bit nittigritty for for
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  Speaker 1: just a moment if I can. And we've been talking
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  Speaker 1: about these these trends with increased mental health challenges for
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  Speaker 1: our young people. What do you think of the central
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  Speaker 1: forces that are driving these trends? If you look at
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  Speaker 1: society right now, why are we where we are from
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  Speaker 1: a mental health perspective?
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'd be very rich if I had
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  Speaker 2: that answer, wouldn't I. We are all scratching our heads
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  Speaker 2: about this about why, and I think it is multi
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  Speaker 2: layereds Often I think though we jump to blaming social
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  Speaker 2: media for the problem. Well, you know, while there are
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  Speaker 2: certainly issues with social media, by the way, for adults
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  Speaker 2: as well as children and social media addictions, I don't
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  Speaker 2: think that's the whole story. And you know, I guess
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  Speaker 2: it's been well articulated what some of the issues are about,
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  Speaker 2: sort of the cyber bullying thing and also the the comparison,
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  Speaker 2: you know, the sense of sort of my life is
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  Speaker 2: not as good as someone else's on social media piece.
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  Speaker 2: But I think it's the other thing that has I mean,
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  Speaker 2: there are a lot of things that have changed the
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  Speaker 2: Internet itself, putting aside, social media has allowed kids to
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  Speaker 2: become more exposed to a range of things in the
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  Speaker 2: world that they would previously not have been exposed to.
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  Speaker 2: And I think it's just when I'm talking just basic
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  Speaker 2: information about what's going on in the world. And it
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  Speaker 2: struck me recently I heard that a big survey of
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  Speaker 2: young people just recently found that the top three things
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  Speaker 2: that kids are worried about there were number one was
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  Speaker 2: cost of living, number two was mental health issues, and
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  Speaker 2: number three was climate change. And I think that really
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  Speaker 2: says to us as adults that you know, the idea
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  Speaker 2: that kids can be protected from the you know, what's
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  Speaker 2: going on around in the world, and you know that
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  Speaker 2: we that they you know, we just don't talk to
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  Speaker 2: them about it, just you know, they let them go
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  Speaker 2: out and play. That doesn't work. Children these days will
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  Speaker 2: know from a very early age about what's going on
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  Speaker 2: in the world, and again think it puts a lot
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  Speaker 2: more pressure on us as parents to be talking with
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  Speaker 2: them about this, helping them to make sense of it,
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  Speaker 2: because if you're just seeing you know, negative news, and
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  Speaker 2: there's been a lot lately that we've been worried about.
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  Speaker 2: Of course, if you're just sitting on your device and
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  Speaker 2: streaming this that all these bad news stories on your own.
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  Speaker 2: As a child, you're not able to you don't have
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  Speaker 2: the maturity to put all of that in perspective. Right,
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  Speaker 2: So as adults, you know, for example, we might have
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  Speaker 2: been in shock over what happened at Bondi Junction on Saturday,
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  Speaker 2: but we have some capacity to rationalize about it and
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  Speaker 2: put it in some kind of context and perspective. Children
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  Speaker 2: don't necessarily have that ability, and it can seem much
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  Speaker 2: more catastrophic for a young person. I mean, this is
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  Speaker 2: where parents really have a job to do, in my view,
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  Speaker 2: to be able to sit down and have an open conversation,
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  Speaker 2: to convey to kids that it is okay to talk
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  Speaker 2: about these things and that as a parent, I also
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  Speaker 2: feel sad and shocked, and I don't have all the answers,
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  Speaker 2: but let's have the conversation, and I'd like to hear
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  Speaker 2: what you're thinking, how did this affect you? And you know,
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  Speaker 2: to open up about it, because that helps the children
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  Speaker 2: to process the bad news. And I'm not sure that
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  Speaker 2: as parents we've really understood how important our role is
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  Speaker 2: in an environment where where the kids are exposed much
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  Speaker 2: much earlier to a whole lot of stuff that we
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  Speaker 2: didn't know about till you know, we were to anyone.
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  Speaker 1: And when I hear say that, I think that the
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  Speaker 1: twenty four our news cycle has gotten to be a
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  Speaker 1: contributed to the stress, especially that our older kids are experiencing.
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  Speaker 1: But I can't help but think that we're creating this ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like in so many ways we are our
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  Speaker 1: own worst enemy. We've got the screens going all the time,
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  Speaker 1: We've got the news going all the time. Our society
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  Speaker 1: has built itself around this need to know and need
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  Speaker 1: to know now your reference BONDI and the awful tragedy
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  Speaker 1: that occurred there. In the days following that, I was
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  Speaker 1: asked to do countless media interviews about how to talk
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  Speaker 1: to the kids about it. Several of those were on
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  Speaker 1: the television. I'm sure you had the same experience. And
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  Speaker 1: so you're sitting in a TV studio or you're sitting
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  Speaker 1: online watching the TV programming. And it was one thing
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  Speaker 1: for me to hear about it and read about it
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  Speaker 1: across the weekend. It was another thing entirely to start
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  Speaker 1: watching footage that people recorded on their phones of this
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  Speaker 1: of this man, what it was doing.
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  Speaker 2: The imagery, I think it gets to you more than
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  Speaker 2: the word this thing.
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  Speaker 1: And now we now.
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  Speaker 2: We've got CCTV iPhone images, you know, we get everything
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  Speaker 2: instantly right, and again I don't think that we've really
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  Speaker 2: come to terms with what effect that has on us psychologically.
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  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what happened to me on Saturday. So
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  Speaker 2: I had my little grandchildren with me, five and eight,
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  Speaker 2: and I saw it on my newsfeed and I made it.
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  Speaker 2: I was really shocked. I didn't know how to process
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  Speaker 2: this in the moment, and I thought, well, I'm just
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  Speaker 2: not going to turn the television off. And of course
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  Speaker 2: they're still quite young, so they don't have their own phone,
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  Speaker 2: so they did not know about this until the next day.
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  Speaker 2: And I made that decision too, that I needed time
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  Speaker 2: to process what had happened as an adult first before
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  Speaker 2: before you talking with kids about it. So, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I think that we need to recognize that that that
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  Speaker 2: that it is so confronting sometimes that even as adults,
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  Speaker 2: but then it's going to be even more confronting and
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  Speaker 2: difficult to you know, understand for children. And that's where
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  Speaker 2: we as as parents come.
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  Speaker 1: In from the Happy Families Online Digital Conference breaking point
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  Speaker 1: that is, the National Children's Commissioner and Holland's. You can
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  Speaker 1: find more of that conversation at happy families dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot you just go to the shop and look for
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the Breaking Point Digital Conference. I think that you'll find
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  Speaker 1: so much there of tremendous value. Tomorrow, on a Happy
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Families podcast, we look at this week in parenting. We're
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: going to take a look at somebody who is arguing
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: that vaping could actually be good for kids, and that
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: we need vaping vaping rooms for our kids, and also
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a new nicotine threat that is taking over schools. That
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and more This Week in parenting is on the Happy
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  Speaker 1: Families podcast tomorrow. The Happy Families Podcast is produced by
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  Speaker 1: Justin Rowland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
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  Speaker 1: For more information about making your family happier, visitors at
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: happy families dot com dot au.