Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The "Kids These Days!" Effect

Transcript

The "Kids These Days!" Effect · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Kids these Days?
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: What is the deal with kids these days? I feel
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: like I feel like I've literally just become a talkback
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: radio host. Kids these days? Fair give us a call
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: in the open line. Now, tell us what kids? That's
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: how it feels, right. It feels like I'm a boomer
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: who's complaining about kids these days.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: You're getting close. It's like I believe you said that
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: you just turned fifteen.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: The kids these days affect every generation thinks that the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: younger generation is going to the dogs. It's a tendency
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that traces back millennia, and a fascinating new studi has
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: just been published that explores where this perception comes from,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: finds out that it's wrong, and points to two main culprits. Today,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: on the Happy Families Podcast, we unpack why previous generations
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: think current generations are just not made to handle life
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: they're wrong, and where these ideas come from. This is
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: going to be a really fun one. It's the Doctor's
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: desk on the Happy Families Podcast. All that and more
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: coming up next. Stay with us. Hello, and welcome to
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcast. We are so glad you've joined us.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Where Justin and Kylie Course and this is Australia's most
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: downloaded parenting podcast where you get real parenting solutions every
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: single day. Today a quick lesson in charity, compassion and
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: long memories. Kylie, do you think that kids back in
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the day were more respectful than kids today? Trick question? Perhaps?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Are you looking at me with that scrunched up face,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: like where are you're going? Are you going to try
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and get me on this one? I have to say, yes, Oh,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: are you falling for the kids? These says Fallacy. No,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: But I listened to the things that happen in the
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: classroom and they just they didn't happen in my space.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Didn't happen in your day?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not saying my day, but I didn't experience it,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: and I didn't have conversations with people where it was happening.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Interesting. What about intelligence? Do you think the kids today
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: are just less intelligent than No?
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: No, no, for the most part, Like that was a
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: really trick question for me, because for the most part,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I don't actually have a generational thing. I think that
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: too often, Like I have so many conversations with people
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: where they're reminiscing about you know, kind of the seventies
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: when we were growing up, or the eighties or whatever.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: And I feel like they've got a bit of the
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: rose colored glasses syndrome going on. Yeah, because they talk
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: about it like it's this very topia of you know,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: just brilliance, and.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: We had it right, we did it right. We're emoticizing
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and getting nostalgic about the past.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: But it really wasn't.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was hard. So let me tell you about
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: this study because it caught my attention and I just,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I really really like this one. This is
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: in the journal Science Advances. Science Advances, published a couple
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: of years ago. Actually it was published just before COVID.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that makes any real difference, because
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the kids these days phenomenal been around since well, we've
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: got recorded history from the six hundred's BC where people
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: are saying, kids these days, they're not respectful like we
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: used to be, and it seems like it's ubiquitous. It
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: seems to go across not just the generations, but across
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: cultures as well. So let me walk you through this.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: We did have corporal punishment back then.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: That's what they'll say on the talk back shows. Kids
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: were more respectful back then because they knew they were
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: going to get a warp. I think kids were just
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: sneakier back then because they knew they were going to
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: get a warp. So here's what happened why the youth
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of today seemed lacking. That's the study by John Protzko
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: and Jonathan Schooler in five preregistered studies. Preregistered means that
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: they're doing science the right way, and you can sort
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: of get in there early. You know exactly what they're
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: going to do, and they're not going to mind the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: data to find some kind of solution because they're not
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: finding what they're looking for. They have a look at
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: people's tendency to believe that kids these days are efficient
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: relative to kids of previous generations. And they had a
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: look at a US study, but they had three and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: a half thousand American adults, and they found that adults
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: today believe that today's youth are in decline, decline, they're
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: going backwards. Authoritarian people especially think youth less respectful their elders.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Intelligent people especially think youth or less intelligent, and well
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: read people especially think youth enjoy reading less. And basically
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the rest of the study was about working out what
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: are the mechanisms behind these beliefs? Why is it that
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: people believe what they believe about kids these days?
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of a quote that you've shared multiple
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: times on the podcast, something along the lines of the
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: past is a foreign country. They do things differently. There
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: is something like that.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly it. They do things differently there. It's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: from a novel called The go Between by LP Hartley.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And I think about my upbringing, and I think about
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: the experiences that I had as a youth, and I
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: think about how much I've learned and grown and therefore
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: have changed the way I interact with our children. And
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: it's so hard to look back and judge the youth
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: of our time based on what we now know.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Right, And that's one of the key mechanisms You've just
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: tapped into, one of the two things that these researchers found.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: So what I want to do just before the break
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: is I want to share the two mechanisms that underpin
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: why adults are doing this, and while there is some
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: evidence for some of these things being problematic and challenging,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: why this belief has persisted across generations, and whether it
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: is or is not true. So mechanism number one is
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: when we denigrate kids, we denigrate the rising generation because
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: what we tend to do is we notice the limitations
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: of other people, particularly in areas that we're excelling. Okay,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: so somebody who is quite authoritarian that means that they're
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: big on respect, they're going to notice where disrespect exists.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: And if that's a strong or somebody who reads a lot,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: they're going to notice. Kids are on screen these days.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Somebody who is more intelligent is going to be like
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: kids these days, Like the non.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Viauon but screens is going to be a huge one
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: because we didn't have a screen.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Of course, So these things stand out and make us
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: much more likely to denigrate the rising generation. The other
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: mechanism behind this is that we think that we've always
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: been how we are now. So I look at myself
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and I think, well, I believe what I believe, and
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I act the way that I act, and this is
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: how I've always been. And kids these days, I mean,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: they're just so immature and they just haven't figured this
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: stuff out. Which so I have a journal that I
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: kept when I was a teenager and a young adult,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and every now and again I flick through it and
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I read it, and I struggle to read it because
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I can't believe how immature I was. I can't believe
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the things that I said, the things that I thought,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the thing I mean, I was not. I don't think
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I was a bad kid, but oh my goodness, I
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: just I shake my head and think, really, you actually
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: said that, Like, come on, you goober.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: But we do this in our like in our homes
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: all the time. We get our children in trouble for things,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: expecting them to do something that we could never have
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: at the same age they were at.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, that's right, And that's where this Kids
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: These Days effect comes from. After the break, I want
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: to talk a bit more about it, including a quick
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: summary of some ideas that I've got around why this
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: belief exists and why it's bad. We're back. This is
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the Happy Families podcast. If you like what you're hearing,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: please give us a follow and share the podcast with
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: those around you so that can make other people's families
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: happy as well. In the podcast today, Kids These Days, Kylie,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I want to make a couple of arguments, a couple
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: of statements about why this is a bit of an issue.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: The first is that every generation complains about the next
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and they always have. Adults have literally, we've got so
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: many great quotes through the centuries, through the millennia where
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: adults have been lamenting that kids these days are worse
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: or lasier or more disrespectful, and the complaints haven't changed
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: across the centuries, Like people today are still making the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: same complaints as people one hundred years ago or five
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: hundred years ago or a thousand years ago, literally the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: same complaints. Kids today are disrespectful, don't respect their elders,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: they're lazy, they're indolent, they're not going anywhere, they're not
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: doing anything, they're not learning. And yet kids still make
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: it like it's just is it.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Just because we're all deluded?
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, it actually is. It actually is.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: What's crazy is that when you actually look at the evidence,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: kids are doing better than they've ever done in so
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: many areas.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there are definitely areas for us to
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: be worried, But I genuinely think that a lot of
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: this is media beat up, a lot of this is hype.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Mental health challenges, education challenges. They've always existed, and part
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: of what's going on here. The reason, if anything, that
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: things are worse is not because of kids. Rather, it's
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: because of what the adults are doing to the world.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: The mental health industrial complex as it exists now did
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: not exist when we were growing up, and kids then
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: didn't have the same mental health challenges because parents were
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: more available. The cost of living was more of a
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: ful audible people lived, I would argue, reasonably more balanced lives, hopefully,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to get romantic or nostalgic about
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: the past. But also there was not this huge mental
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: health industrial complex out there telling everybody that they had
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: anxiety and depression and they needed to be a medicaid
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: and they need to be medically Yeah, like big Farmer
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and big mental health. I genuinely believe it're responsible, literally
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: responsible for at least part of the enormous increase in
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: mental health challenges. Has society changed as well, Yes it has.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Is that part of the part of the problem, Yes
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: it is. But anyway, the second key point bouncing out
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: of this study is and the researcher has mentioned it,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: but it's one that I want to have a home
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: nostalgia to thoughts memory, so we romanticize our own youth,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: we forget that, we will criticize it exactly the same
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: ways when we were young. That's why I tell the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: story about why I hated high school, while why I
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: barely finished, how I had a whole lot of attitude.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I gave my parents a hard time. I share that
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: because I don't want to forget that I was a
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: pain in the barm. And so when our kids are
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: being a pain in the bum, it's my way of remembering, well,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I was too. And that's just what kids are as
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: they're trying to figure themselves out in a society that
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: does not make it easy for them.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: You suggested you had a few points, what's your next one?
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: So I think, and this is kind of a bit
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of a gut punch to us as adults, but I
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: think the complaints reveal more about us than about the kids.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Our lack of tolerance.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like starting with the man in the mirror to
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: quote I don't know if I want to quote Michael Jackson.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Actually his reputation has not stood well under scrutiny. But basically,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: all of these criticisms about kids these days seem to
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: reflect our anxieties and our resistance to change.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: But do you think it's that, or do you think
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: it's actually more to do with, especially from a parenting perspective,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: our anxieties around what other people will think of us
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: as a result of where our kids are.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: There's probably a little bit of that. I know how
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I feel about the kids being on screens, but I
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: know how much I was on a screen. And I
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: hope the kids aren't listening to this episode as it drops,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: because I watched I was on screens so much. I
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: mean I was outside a thousand times more than the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: kids as well. But I would come home from a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: six hour surf on a Saturday morning and I just
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: plunk myself on the couch and watched Channel nine's Wide
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: World of Sports all Saturday afternoon. I'll watch it for
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: five or six hours and would not move. And my
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: parents are okay with me sitting on the couch for
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: five or six hours on a Saturday over That's just
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: what I did today. If a child was doing that,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: if one of our children were doing that, I'd be
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: up in arms. I'd be like, come on, get outside, movier. Body.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Having said that, I had been a champion swimmer and
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: doing all the surfing and all that sort of thing.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of a bit are you justifying. Yeah,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: it's a bit here, it's a bit there. Thanks for that.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: There's another point that I wanted to make as well,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: and that is that the evidence doesn't actually support the
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: decline narrative. So it is true that some evidents in
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the last handful of years is showing that young people
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: are less conscientious, more lonely, are less likely to persist
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: with something difficult. That evidence does seem to be there,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: but I want to really hasten to add the best
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: evidence comes from a big American survey that was looked
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: at in the Financial Times just recently by a guy
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: called John Burn Murdoch, and the youngest age group he
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: looked at was the sixteen to thirty nine year old
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: age group relative to the forty to sixty age group
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and then the sixty plus age group. Sixteen to thirty
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: nine is a massive age group, a huge developmental difference.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: But the younger age group, and we're talking about up
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to forty certainly getting worse outcomes than you'd like. But
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I just when we have a look at what the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: evidence shows objectively, at a general level, young people are
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: often more tolerant and more socially conscious, and they're more
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: capable than previous generations. I just think we're riding our
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: young people way too hard. And the last thing is
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: that the complaints are harmful, like we're denegrating them. These
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: constant negative characterizations. They have to some damage to intergenerational relationships.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: They have to become self fulfilling prophecies that are going
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: to undermine young people's potential and confidence. And I don't
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: think it's helpful so kids these days, it's not a
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: helpful conversation. I think we've got to believe in our kids.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: I think we've got to support our kids, and we've
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: got to push them in positive directions, not keep on
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: bagging them and telling them how they're not adequate.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that you've proved your point good a
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: million times over.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Sorry that you are joining the boomers with your.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Naging something nice about me, and you've gone there. We
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: need to wrap it up. The Happy Families podcasts. I
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: hope you like this Doctor's Desk episode. Gosh, the Happy
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Families podcast has produced kids these days. It's you these days,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: you know what? Before I finish with Jr's specially outro
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: people say kids these days. But if you talk to
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: anybody who works in the services industries, anyone who works
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: in a restaurant, works in retail, who works in a
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: public facing industry, they will tell you that it's the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: boomers as the adults that are much more disrespectful, that
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: are much more entitled. Yeah, that just get stuck into
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: people and dig their heels in and have tantrums in
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: restaurants and shop fronts because their steak hasn't been cooked
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: quite right.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Or We've got three girls working in retail at the moment,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: and I am just bewildered at the level of entitlement
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: that people have.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: And it's not just the old blokes, Like my mum's
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: name is Karen, so I hate this title, but our
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: girls have come home many times and said the sixty
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and seventy year old Karens that come in and just and.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: The way they just drutally attack.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, how.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Girls come home nearly in tears as they kind of
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: share experiences where they've just been berated for nothing more
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: than they didn't have their size.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, respectfulness, laziness, all the things that kids have been
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: bagged for. I think it's cross generational. Just can't we
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: can't see it. Can't write off an entire cohort, an
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: entire generation, just because we see a couple of bad examples.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: It happens at every stratum and every age, and every
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: cohort and every part of society. Now I feel like
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: we've finished. That was good. That was good. Be nice
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to people, be productive, be respectful, read a book, Turn
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: off your screen for a run, no matter how old
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: you are. The Happy Family Podcast is produced by Justin
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Ruland from Bridge Media. Justin, we appreciate your work so
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: much doing such a great job for us. Mim Hammond's
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: provides research, admin and other support. And if you're enjoying
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the podcast, please share it with a friend, leave us
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a five star review, and post a comment about why
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: you like the pod. We'll be back tomorrow with more
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: on The Happy Families podcast and I'll do better tomorrow
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: analyzing the week that I was working out what worked,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: what didn't, and how we can be better tomorrow. Thanks
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: for joining us on The Happy Family's podcast.