Latest / The You Project / #2249 Permissive Parenting - David Gillespie

Transcript

#2249 Permissive Parenting - David Gillespie · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: Oh, g'day, team. It's for you, Project. Tiffany Ann Cook
0:02
Speaker 1: and David Michael, Kevin Patrick Gillespie up there in the
0:05
Speaker 1: bloody Sunshine State, just rocking on as he does. He's
0:07
Speaker 1: been very sparse on the articles. I'm going to have
0:11
Speaker 1: to give him a one-on-one chat later, but nonetheless, he
0:15
Speaker 1: comes at a good price, so we'll give him one
0:18
Speaker 1: more chance. He's on probation. He's on probation. He's on
0:22
Speaker 1: thin ice.
0:23
Speaker 2: Hi, bro.
0:23
Speaker 1: How are you?
0:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, good. Look, I'm very sorry to you and the listener.
0:31
Speaker 2: But I'm going to get into it, I promise. This week, absolutely.
0:34
Speaker 1: You said that last time. I know. Because I haven't
0:37
Speaker 1: been on the show, I haven't been compelled to write anything.
0:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway. It's taken a while to get back in
0:43
Speaker 2: the groove.
0:44
Speaker 1: You've probably been doing things that make you dough.
0:47
Speaker 2: That's right.
0:48
Speaker 1: You know, trying to. You know, I know you're living
0:52
Speaker 1: a very subsistent lifestyle, and I know it's day-to-day for
0:56
Speaker 1: you financially. Yes, yes.
0:59
Speaker 2: That's why I do this gig.
1:00
Speaker 1: This will bolster the coffers, whatever coffers are. Tiff, what
1:05
Speaker 1: are coffers?
1:06
Speaker 3: Coffers?
1:07
Speaker 1: Do you know that term, bolster the coffers? Do you
1:09
Speaker 1: know the etymology of that, David?
1:13
Speaker 2: No, but it sounds like it might be related to coffins.
1:15
Speaker 2: Maybe have the same Latin root.
1:19
Speaker 1: Bolster the coffers. Obviously it means, I don't know, fill
1:22
Speaker 1: the bank account or something, or I could be getting
1:25
Speaker 1: it wrong. What have you got?
1:26
Speaker 3: It means increase the amount of money available to a person, organisation,
1:31
Speaker 3: business or government.
1:33
Speaker 2: Great.
1:33
Speaker 1: Now ask what's the origin of that expression. Now your
1:39
Speaker 1: challenge is to be as quick as Jamie on the
1:41
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan project. What have you got for us?
1:48
Speaker 3: It has its roots in the days when money was
1:51
Speaker 3: literally stored in chests rather than bank accounts. The origin coffers,
1:55
Speaker 3: the word comes from an old French coffre, meaning chest
1:59
Speaker 3: or strong box. Ultimately from the Latin coffiness, meaning basket
2:05
Speaker 3: or container. It's not really giving me any time.
2:08
Speaker 2: No, that's okay.
2:09
Speaker 1: That's enough. Now I'm going to, Quiz Gillespie on that
2:12
Speaker 1: in eight weeks with his identity. And he will tell
2:17
Speaker 1: us word for word what you just said.
2:19
Speaker 2: That's right.
2:20
Speaker 1: With his big, giant brain. We were chatting before we
2:23
Speaker 1: went live that there was an interesting study done in
2:27
Speaker 1: the UK with kids and screens and some interesting results.
2:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this was one of those television studies. There's
2:36
Speaker 2: a series running on Channel 4 in the UK at
2:38
Speaker 2: the moment called Swiped. And one of the episodes is
2:43
Speaker 2: this one, The School of Banned Smartphones. And it goes
2:47
Speaker 2: into a school, the Stanway School in the UK. And
2:52
Speaker 2: what they did was they banned smartphones on the premises
2:56
Speaker 2: for 30 days. Yeah. Now, that's already in place in
3:02
Speaker 2: a lot of states in Australia. A lot of schools here,
3:05
Speaker 2: certainly in Queensland and I think New South Wales at
3:07
Speaker 2: the very least, ban smartphones during the school day. This
3:14
Speaker 2: was an unusual thing because in the UK they're still
3:16
Speaker 2: allowed to use them. But what they were doing was
3:19
Speaker 2: measuring the effect it had on focus and depression symptoms.
3:24
Speaker 2: So Focus is, you know, often people describe it as
3:31
Speaker 2: ADHD-like behaviour. People are scatty. They can't keep focused on
3:36
Speaker 2: a single thing for more than a few seconds. They're
3:38
Speaker 2: all over the shop. And just anecdotally, when you talk
3:41
Speaker 2: to teachers here, as I often do after I've spoken
3:43
Speaker 2: at schools, which I do on a fairly regular basis,
3:47
Speaker 2: the common feature of the things they say is they
3:52
Speaker 2: really hate focus. just after the holidays because the kids
3:56
Speaker 2: come back to school, they've just spent all holidays on
4:00
Speaker 2: devices 24-7 and they can't focus for more than a
4:03
Speaker 2: few seconds. And it's just, they say that first week
4:07
Speaker 2: back is just hell. These guys, they took the phones
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Speaker 2: out for 30 days. They measured... A bunch of symptoms
4:14
Speaker 2: which are associated with depressive effects, anxiety effects, and focus effects.
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Speaker 2: They found, in general, the mental health of their students
4:23
Speaker 2: and their ability to focus was improved by 17%, which
4:28
Speaker 2: is pretty significant for just stopping it for 30 days. Now,
4:31
Speaker 2: these kids were still able to use their smartphones before
4:34
Speaker 2: and after school and at home and all that sort
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Speaker 2: of thing. All they did was stop using them during
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Speaker 2: school time. And they got a very significant effect. And
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Speaker 2: that's just with 30 days. So leads you to the question, well, why?
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Speaker 2: Why would that be the case? I mean, I know
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Speaker 2: people bang on endlessly about smartphones aren't good because they
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Speaker 2: distract people or, you know, they're seeing things on there
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Speaker 2: that they shouldn't see or, you know. body dysmorphia stuff
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Speaker 2: and all that kind of thing but people rarely get
5:07
Speaker 2: down to the really hard mechanics of what's going on
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Speaker 2: the reason smartphones are a problem is because they contain
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Speaker 2: applications explicitly engineered to attack the brain's addiction wiring it's
5:21
Speaker 2: that simple And a side effect of attacking that wiring,
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Speaker 2: besides the intended effect, which is to create addiction, is
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Speaker 2: that it creates anxiety, depression, and lack of focus. And
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Speaker 2: what this study does is add really current, really well
5:37
Speaker 2: done evidence to that pile, which is when you take
5:40
Speaker 2: it away, those things improve. Why does it improve? Because
5:45
Speaker 2: a particular kid was or was not looking at whatever
5:47
Speaker 2: it is they normally look at. You can't say that.
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Speaker 2: What you can say is that the reason it improved
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Speaker 2: is that a piece of the mechanism was taken out
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Speaker 2: for 30 days and not even completely taken out just
6:01
Speaker 2: for a few hours a day while the kid was
6:03
Speaker 2: in school. and if anyone sits there and says i
6:07
Speaker 2: don't believe that it's possible that these devices could be
6:11
Speaker 2: responsible for the modern epidemic of anxiety depression and adhd
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Speaker 2: just has to look at evidence like this which proves
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Speaker 2: the opposite which is that when you take that device
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Speaker 2: away even a little bit and even temporarily you instantly
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Speaker 2: start improving those measures.
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Speaker 1: What what's fascinating is how much are these kids using
6:33
Speaker 1: their phones at school, like in school hours, for there
6:39
Speaker 1: to be such a dramatic impact? Let's say, what's school,
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Speaker 1: 9 to 3.30? Let's say six and a half, or
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Speaker 1: I don't know, let's say seven hours. So that's 17
6:48
Speaker 1: hours a day. Well, obviously they're sleeping, but it's still
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Speaker 1: a lot of hours a day where they can still
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Speaker 1: use the phone. And it's a short period of time,
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Speaker 1: as in the study is a relatively short period of time.
7:02
Speaker 1: and 17% is a massive impact on a short study
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Speaker 1: where you're only reducing it during school time. I know
7:12
Speaker 1: this is more of a philosophical, ethical parenting question, but
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Speaker 1: why do you think that and I'm not a parent,
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Speaker 1: so there's no judgment in this, just curiosity. Why do
7:28
Speaker 1: you think that parents are so eager to give 10,
7:30
Speaker 1: 11 and 12-year-olds a phone when there is a fair
7:35
Speaker 1: bit of public knowledge now that in many ways it's
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Speaker 1: a bad idea? What do you think drives that?
7:44
Speaker 2: Peer pressure drives that. We've got... several generations of parents now,
7:52
Speaker 2: I mean, if you look at the history of parenting advice,
7:55
Speaker 2: it's quite interesting. Actually, you had a very significant, well,
8:00
Speaker 2: a very lengthy history examination of the history of parenting
8:05
Speaker 2: advice in one of my books called Teen Brain, which
8:08
Speaker 2: I'm sure riveted many people. It riveted me reading it,
8:12
Speaker 2: but I don't know that anyone's, no one's ever said
8:14
Speaker 2: to me, oh, that book, oh man, that history of
8:16
Speaker 2: parenting advice, that was incredible.
8:19
Speaker 1: Thank you for writing that. But both of them that
8:23
Speaker 1: read it fucking loved it.
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Speaker 2: They loved it, yeah. But it is actually quite interesting
8:28
Speaker 2: because we've transitioned what we tell parents to do when
8:33
Speaker 2: raising their own kids. We've transitioned from a phase of,
8:38
Speaker 2: very high expectations just after the second world war where
8:42
Speaker 2: essentially there was no parenting advice but families were generally
8:47
Speaker 2: large um you know on average five plus kids in
8:50
Speaker 2: a family and there was a good reason for it
8:53
Speaker 2: a lot of the domestic labor required manual labor there
8:57
Speaker 2: were no washing machines there were no you know the
9:00
Speaker 2: the things to clean and look after a house We're
9:04
Speaker 2: not great. And so it was good to have a
9:08
Speaker 2: family of kids who you could deploy as labor. And
9:15
Speaker 2: that's what happened.
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Speaker 1: It worked for my mom and dad. Don't worry about that.
9:19
Speaker 2: And as labor-saving devices in the home increased in capability
9:26
Speaker 2: over the following three or four decades, the need for
9:30
Speaker 2: that became secondary and kids became secondary in terms of
9:35
Speaker 2: the need for labor. They were then ornaments to the
9:38
Speaker 2: household in a sense. And parents started looking for Advice
9:44
Speaker 2: about what they should be doing in terms of raising
9:47
Speaker 2: their kids. And what they got was Dr. Spock, who
9:52
Speaker 2: put out quite a lot of, well, a core book
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Speaker 2: on this. It was pretty heartwarming. It really was learn
10:03
Speaker 2: to say no, lots of control the atmosphere, motivate them
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Speaker 2: in the right direction, all that kind of stuff. And
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Speaker 2: we've drifted away from that in successive generations of parenting
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Speaker 2: advice to now, if you look at modern books about parenting,
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Speaker 2: it's essentially don't stand in the way of the child's
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Speaker 2: desires in any way whatsoever. Effectively, most parents are guided now,
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Speaker 2: if they're guided at all, towards parenting. permissive parenting which
10:35
Speaker 2: is never say no be a lawnmower parent you know
10:39
Speaker 2: where you're clearing the way in front of them or
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Speaker 2: a helicopter parent where you're you know monitoring their every
10:45
Speaker 2: move because there are very very few children per family
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Speaker 2: and a lot of the parents are probably even if
10:54
Speaker 2: they don't admit it, are feeling guilty about the fact
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Speaker 2: that they don't get to spend much time with their kids.
11:00
Speaker 2: And so there's this real drift in parenting now towards
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Speaker 2: permissive parenting where essentially a child doesn't hear the word no.
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Speaker 2: And so if you come along and say to a
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Speaker 2: parent who's raised their child to the age of 15,
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Speaker 2: never having told them no to anything, And say to them, well,
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Speaker 2: what you need to do now is you need to
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Speaker 2: tell them no to this highly addictive thing. I mean,
11:28
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be easy anyway, because it's highly addictive. If
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Speaker 2: it was easy to stop, then it wouldn't be addictive.
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Speaker 2: So say to those parents, that's what you need to do.
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Speaker 2: They're going to struggle with that. They really are. Anyone
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Speaker 2: would struggle with it, let alone parents who've never said
11:45
Speaker 2: no to their kids in their entire life. So you
11:50
Speaker 2: end up in a system where Parents are left there
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Speaker 2: on their own and told, this is a battle you've
11:56
Speaker 2: got to fight. You've got to take the war on
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Speaker 2: with your kid. And we know we haven't trained you
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Speaker 2: for it at all. And we're not even going to
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Speaker 2: admit that this is hard or that you're dealing with
12:05
Speaker 2: an addiction, but you've got to somehow get them to
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Speaker 2: stop doing this. And that's just about mission impossible because
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Speaker 2: the kid's going to react like any addict would react,
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Speaker 2: which is they react differently. you know, angrily. And, you know,
12:21
Speaker 2: depending whether they're male or female, that anger may well
12:24
Speaker 2: manifest in violence or in manipulation. So it is difficult
12:31
Speaker 2: to stand there and say to a parent, well, you
12:33
Speaker 2: should be telling them not to do this because it's dangerous.
12:35
Speaker 2: And That's really, really hard, which is why, even though
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Speaker 2: a lot of people say that the government's digital thingy
12:41
Speaker 2: about kids under 16 shouldn't be able to use Facebook
12:44
Speaker 2: and stuff like that is a bit hopeless because any
12:47
Speaker 2: half-smart kid can get around that. True, but it is
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Speaker 2: the law, and it does at least give parents that
12:55
Speaker 2: backup to say, actually, I don't want you to do
13:01
Speaker 2: this because you are breaking the laws.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
13:04
Speaker 2: So they at least get that. Just the same as
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Speaker 2: with alcohol. There's plenty of parents who, if it weren't
13:09
Speaker 2: against the law to give kids alcohol, would do it.
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Speaker 2: There's plenty of parents who would do it even if
13:13
Speaker 2: it is against the law, but at least those who
13:16
Speaker 2: want to stop it can say, this is against the law,
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Speaker 2: so I'm not doing it.
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Speaker 1: I reckon I had the most permissive parents in Australia.
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Speaker 1: My parents never... But the funny thing was, because there
13:28
Speaker 1: were very few rules in my house... I wasn't tempted
13:32
Speaker 1: to do stuff. I mean, obviously, there were no phones
13:34
Speaker 1: and stuff, but I've told this story before, but I
13:38
Speaker 1: remember being literally, I would say, eight years old. Mum
13:42
Speaker 1: and I are going somewhere in the Valiant Regal, the
13:47
Speaker 1: 245 Hemi Valiant with four doors and brown bench seats.
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Speaker 1: And me having to light mum's cigarettes as we went.
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Speaker 1: So I'd push in the cigarette lighter. I'd get one
13:58
Speaker 1: of the Winfield Blues or whatever they were. I'd take
14:02
Speaker 1: a drag so it lit and then I'd hand it
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Speaker 1: to mum. And that was just the standard protocol. So
14:09
Speaker 1: while I've never smoked a cigarette, I've lit about 200. So, yeah,
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Speaker 1: do you think there's a correlation between the guilt of
14:17
Speaker 1: which you spoke of before, the parental guilt, and the
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Speaker 1: permissive parenting?
14:24
Speaker 2: No, I think that's probably more correlated with there's been
14:29
Speaker 2: also a substantial change in what households look like. After
14:33
Speaker 2: the Second World War, most households consisted of a working father,
14:37
Speaker 2: a stay-at-home mother, who had to spend the vast majority
14:40
Speaker 2: of her week doing the manual labour required to keep
14:44
Speaker 2: the household running, and for which having kids was a
14:48
Speaker 2: big help. You transition that forward now and you've got
14:52
Speaker 2: a significant percentage of the female population working just as
14:57
Speaker 2: long hours as the male population. There's nobody at home
15:01
Speaker 2: most of the time. And there's a smaller number of kids.
15:07
Speaker 2: And there's people running around offering them things which on
15:11
Speaker 2: the surface look like babysitters. So handing a kid an iPad,
15:14
Speaker 2: et cetera, shuts them up, puts them on stun, sits
15:16
Speaker 2: them in the corner quietly while the parents can get
15:19
Speaker 2: on with things. So it's a fundamental change in the
15:23
Speaker 2: structure of the households that we're talking about has led
15:27
Speaker 2: to a position where most parents have far less time
15:31
Speaker 2: to spend with their kids anyway. And that inevitably is
15:36
Speaker 2: in with many parents is going to lead to a
15:37
Speaker 2: position where they don't want to spend the time they
15:41
Speaker 2: do have with their kids fighting with them about a device.
15:45
Speaker 1: You know, this is just an observation I made. This
15:50
Speaker 1: is kind of related, but interesting. So About a year ago,
15:55
Speaker 1: the cafe that I go to, there was this young girl,
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Speaker 1: very nice girl, who got a job there, I would
16:01
Speaker 1: say 16, 17, you know, delivering coffees, waiting tables, all that.
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Speaker 1: When she started, I was like, I don't know if
16:10
Speaker 1: this is the job for you because she couldn't look
16:13
Speaker 1: people or she didn't tend to look people. Lovely, but
16:17
Speaker 1: no confidence. Didn't look people in the eye, didn't have
16:20
Speaker 1: any kind of conversation, didn't, you know, like it was...
16:24
Speaker 1: not through no fault of her own, not amazing customer service.
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Speaker 1: It was just plonk it on the table, walk away. Now,
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Speaker 1: a year later or so, that same girl is a
16:35
Speaker 1: totally different, and like she's relatable, she talks, she looks
16:43
Speaker 1: you in the eye, she asks you what you're doing today.
16:46
Speaker 1: And I just think having that, Having a job like that,
16:50
Speaker 1: I don't know how many hours she works, a few,
16:52
Speaker 1: maybe 10 to 20 hours a week around school. And
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Speaker 1: it's just been this development where I see kids being
16:59
Speaker 1: in an environment where they've got to interact, have conversations,
17:03
Speaker 1: figure stuff out, kind of negotiate and navigate different personalities
17:08
Speaker 1: and ages and people. I think things like that are
17:11
Speaker 1: awesome for kids.
17:13
Speaker 2: I agree with you. I think... There's very few places
17:18
Speaker 2: now where kids are forced to interact face to face.
17:24
Speaker 2: You know, the default proposition most of the time is
17:27
Speaker 2: that they have to interact or that they choose to
17:30
Speaker 2: interact via devices, even when they're at school. And they're
17:33
Speaker 2: in a playground together. They may choose to interact by
17:36
Speaker 2: sharing a post with their friend who's sitting a metre
17:39
Speaker 2: away from them rather than talking to them in person.
17:42
Speaker 2: And whereas the scenario you've described, how do you do
17:46
Speaker 2: that by phone? She was forced to interact remotely. in
17:50
Speaker 2: person with you and the other customers and take you
17:54
Speaker 2: as you come. There wasn't an option for her to
17:56
Speaker 2: get on her phone and tell you to order something
17:59
Speaker 2: or for you to interact with her on her phone.
18:02
Speaker 2: And I think that's a big problem for our society
18:05
Speaker 2: is that this whole generation and probably the generation before
18:10
Speaker 2: them even, are being inserted into a society where all
18:15
Speaker 2: of the traditional ways of interacting face-to-face with people are
18:19
Speaker 2: being destroyed. Where their social life consists of going to
18:24
Speaker 2: their bedroom and interacting on a device. It rarely consists of,
18:30
Speaker 2: and as corny as this sounds, going to a band,
18:34
Speaker 2: who with other people who play instruments or going to
18:36
Speaker 2: a youth group or hanging out at a social club
18:39
Speaker 2: or even playing sport is less and less of this
18:44
Speaker 2: face to face real life interaction. And we are built
18:49
Speaker 2: by evolution and our evolution was designed around face to
18:53
Speaker 2: face interaction with other humans. If we cut 99% of
18:57
Speaker 2: our communication channels, because what we type in a text
19:01
Speaker 2: is nowhere near what we get if we interact with
19:04
Speaker 2: a person face-to-face. Not only do we get to hear
19:08
Speaker 2: what they say and they get to hear what we say,
19:11
Speaker 2: we get to see every micro expression on their face,
19:14
Speaker 2: every movement of their face, their body, where they stand
19:19
Speaker 2: in relation to us. all manner of thousands of pieces
19:23
Speaker 2: of communication, which were evolved to assimilate into a complete
19:27
Speaker 2: message in our brain in real time. And if we're
19:30
Speaker 2: not getting practice at doing that, we don't learn it.
19:34
Speaker 2: It isn't magic. It doesn't come, you know, it doesn't
19:38
Speaker 2: descend from somewhere into us and we're suddenly able to
19:40
Speaker 2: do it. It's something you have to learn and you
19:43
Speaker 2: learn it by doing it. And if you never do it,
19:47
Speaker 2: you're going to grow up with a generation, of people
19:50
Speaker 2: who don't know how to interact with other people at
19:53
Speaker 2: all face-to-face because they've never had to do it. And
19:57
Speaker 2: we see this, you know, as you know, I'm involved
20:00
Speaker 2: with Handball. And we have lots of young kids come
20:03
Speaker 2: along to the club and trying out handball and so on.
20:07
Speaker 2: And increasingly, it's the case that a lot of them
20:09
Speaker 2: have no idea how to catch or throw a ball.
20:13
Speaker 2: And we're seeing that even in the transition over the
20:17
Speaker 2: 10 years we've been running this, because comparing to 10
20:19
Speaker 2: years ago, where every 10-year-old who walked through the door
20:23
Speaker 2: could at least do that. Now, a lot of them can't.
20:28
Speaker 2: And it's not their fault. They just never have been
20:30
Speaker 2: asked to. If all their interactions with the real world
20:33
Speaker 2: are via a device, they're never going to acquire those skills.
20:38
Speaker 1: I was talking to a mum the other day who
20:43
Speaker 1: was telling me that her husband was teaching her daughter
20:46
Speaker 1: how to ride a bike. I'm like, oh, how old
20:48
Speaker 1: is she? Thinking she's four.
20:50
Speaker 2: Sixteen.
20:51
Speaker 1: Sixteen. I'm like, what? By the time I had 12
20:56
Speaker 1: years bike riding experience, and again, it's not the kid's fault,
21:00
Speaker 1: just never had a bike, never learned to ride a bike.
21:03
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, the world.
21:05
Speaker 2: Well, you don't need to. If your whole world is
21:08
Speaker 2: contained within a device. Yeah. then you don't need to.
21:12
Speaker 2: I'll bet she could outplay you on just about any
21:14
Speaker 2: game on the internet. No doubt, no doubt. But if
21:19
Speaker 2: the whole world doesn't contain physical interaction and if it
21:24
Speaker 2: doesn't contain face-to-face social interaction, then it's bizarre to expect
21:30
Speaker 2: that they'd be able to do it. And what you've
21:31
Speaker 2: seen with that girl in the cafe is exactly that.
21:34
Speaker 2: She came to you fresh out of the digital world
21:36
Speaker 2: and had no idea what to do. She's now spent
21:39
Speaker 2: a year in the real world and interacts the way
21:41
Speaker 2: you'd expect her to interact.
21:43
Speaker 1: It's been a really interesting observation as someone who does
21:48
Speaker 1: what I do for a living, which is watch humans
21:50
Speaker 1: and talk to humans and try to understand humans. Watching
21:54
Speaker 1: her development, it's like she developed five years in one year.
22:00
Speaker 1: As you correctly pointed out, her capacity to communicate to
22:05
Speaker 1: look people in the eyes, to understand body language and
22:08
Speaker 1: all of this stuff that she'd maybe have no awareness
22:10
Speaker 1: of because it's just happening organically as she goes. But
22:15
Speaker 1: she seems like a different person. And even in terms
22:19
Speaker 1: of emotional stuff, you know, confidence and, you know, self-awareness
22:25
Speaker 1: and situational awareness, how to be different and do different.
22:28
Speaker 1: But then I think back about the girl on the bike,
22:32
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, That's not a bad thing. That's just
22:35
Speaker 1: an interesting observation. She probably never needs to ride a bike.
22:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, wait till the next wave comes. And we,
22:41
Speaker 2: you know, because we're visibly outsourcing thinking at the moment
22:45
Speaker 2: to AI. So let's wait for the next bit where
22:50
Speaker 2: no one knows how to think.
22:52
Speaker 1: Oh, God.
22:53
Speaker 2: Oh, God.
22:54
Speaker 1: I think, yeah. Yeah, well, that's terrifying. I just want
22:58
Speaker 1: to jump back to this study for a moment. You
23:00
Speaker 1: may or may not know this. I think you mentioned, but... Quickly,
23:04
Speaker 1: what was the pre and post testing? Where did they
23:08
Speaker 1: get this 17%? What kind of testing?
23:11
Speaker 2: They were doing, I don't, I haven't got the detail
23:13
Speaker 2: in front of me. They were using standardized checklists. Now,
23:17
Speaker 2: I don't put a lot of store by standardized checklists,
23:19
Speaker 2: but if you're using the same one before and after,
23:21
Speaker 2: then fair enough, right? The reason I don't.
23:24
Speaker 1: Some continuity, yeah.
23:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't put a lot of store by it
23:28
Speaker 2: because I think they're often asking for the wrong things.
23:30
Speaker 2: But I think if you are, if you're making sure
23:34
Speaker 2: you use the same thing both times, then comparing them
23:37
Speaker 2: is a fair enough call. There was another study, by
23:40
Speaker 2: the way, just came out, an Australian one, that pointed
23:44
Speaker 2: out a significant association between sugar consumption by sugary beverages
23:50
Speaker 2: and increases in depressive symptoms. Once again, not a fan
23:53
Speaker 2: of the study. It was a large group of people,
23:56
Speaker 2: but it was a food frequency questionnaire. And I hate
24:01
Speaker 2: those kinds of studies because people tell you what they
24:03
Speaker 2: think you want to hear. Yeah. not what you actually consumed.
24:06
Speaker 2: But even with those caveats in mind, they notice significant
24:10
Speaker 2: associations between an increase in depressive and anxiety symptoms and
24:17
Speaker 2: the amount of sugar-sweetened beverages a person consumed. That isn't
24:22
Speaker 2: a surprise to me because sugar is addictive and those
24:25
Speaker 2: things are linked to addiction.
24:29
Speaker 1: I want to take a left turn just a little bit. Tiff,
24:32
Speaker 1: do you know the answer to this? In 2026, are
24:36
Speaker 1: chores still a thing, like for kids? Do they still
24:40
Speaker 1: have a– well, Gillespie's got six kids, but they're all
24:44
Speaker 1: like 37.
24:45
Speaker 3: Gillespie's kids would definitely have chores.
24:50
Speaker 2: They still do.
24:52
Speaker 1: Do your kids– like what's your youngest kid?
24:56
Speaker 2: My youngest are 22, the twins. But they're not living
24:59
Speaker 2: with us at the moment. They're living in Sweden playing handball.
25:02
Speaker 2: But when they were living here, they definitely had chores.
25:05
Speaker 2: Getting them to do it was another thing altogether. But, yeah,
25:08
Speaker 2: Finn had to mow the lawn. Elizabeth had to clean
25:10
Speaker 2: the toilets, et cetera.
25:12
Speaker 1: Was there a pocket money attached to that or that
25:15
Speaker 1: was just a requirement of board?
25:17
Speaker 2: No. It was just a requirement.
25:20
Speaker 1: Just a requirement of being able to live.
25:22
Speaker 2: In the house. That's right. Your pocket money was we
25:24
Speaker 2: still feed you.
25:27
Speaker 1: Pocket money is your breakfast. Eat up.
25:31
Speaker 3: Wow.
25:31
Speaker 1: Do you think that exists in 2026? I'm sure our
25:34
Speaker 1: listeners are going, no, it doesn't. Or yes, it does.
25:37
Speaker 2: But look, I suspect there are some families where it exists.
25:42
Speaker 2: We can talk about it another time. And the reason
25:44
Speaker 2: I'm saying that is I don't have the study to
25:46
Speaker 2: hand and I don't have it in my head. And
25:48
Speaker 2: it's a long time since I wrote this book. But
25:50
Speaker 2: there was a strong link between in that book between
25:55
Speaker 2: whether or not a mother demand fed breastfed or just
26:02
Speaker 2: fed to a schedule between that and her own sanity
26:08
Speaker 2: going forward in raising kids and likelihood to postnatal depression
26:12
Speaker 2: etc and also the health mental health of the kids
26:17
Speaker 2: so we will talk about that one next time and
26:19
Speaker 2: I'll have the exact numbers in front of me but
26:21
Speaker 2: it was quite interesting because If you boil it down,
26:24
Speaker 2: what that is, is saying no to a baby very,
26:27
Speaker 2: very early, which is demand fed means you feed the
26:30
Speaker 2: baby when it wants to be fed. Schedule fed means
26:33
Speaker 2: you feed it according to a schedule that suits the mother,
26:37
Speaker 2: regardless of what the kid thinks about it. So it's
26:41
Speaker 2: interesting to look at those numbers when we have a
26:44
Speaker 2: talk about it, because they were big numbers and very
26:47
Speaker 2: big differences between the two groups.
26:49
Speaker 1: I've never even thought about that. I've never thought about that.
26:53
Speaker 1: That is very fascinating. I know we've got to go, well,
26:57
Speaker 1: we've got to go early because I've got stuff to do.
26:59
Speaker 1: But my last question is more of just an open-ended,
27:04
Speaker 1: you don't know the answer, but what are your thoughts about,
27:07
Speaker 1: so it seems like we're providing resources that allow our
27:11
Speaker 1: kids to think less and solve less problems. And as
27:15
Speaker 1: you said, outsource thinking. What are some of the potential
27:20
Speaker 1: ways answers to that problem or what are some of the,
27:24
Speaker 1: I don't know, tools or resources or do you have
27:27
Speaker 1: any ideas about how to turn that round or slow
27:30
Speaker 1: that down.
27:31
Speaker 2: Or Yeah, look, I don't think it's actually that big
27:35
Speaker 2: a problem to solve if you start, say, at the
27:37
Speaker 2: school level, which is one of the big problems with
27:40
Speaker 2: schools is assessment. And if your assessment is all assignment-based,
27:44
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember when you were in school,
27:46
Speaker 2: it's a very long time ago, I know. Perhaps we
27:48
Speaker 2: can ask Tiff. I sat next to.
27:50
Speaker 1: Jesus and the 12 apostles.
27:54
Speaker 2: And neither you nor Jesus were probably asked to do
27:56
Speaker 2: too many assignments. Most of your assessment was probably an exam.
28:02
Speaker 2: in the school. And it's very hard to deploy AI
28:06
Speaker 2: in a handwritten exam. You either know the answer and
28:09
Speaker 2: can write it down or you can't. Whereas now what
28:13
Speaker 2: teachers are telling me when I talk to them in
28:15
Speaker 2: schools is they get two different streams of response. They
28:18
Speaker 2: have kids who hand in A plus assignments, fantastic assignments.
28:24
Speaker 2: But when they're asked to do an exam, they're D kids. So,
28:27
Speaker 2: you know, obviously the AI is doing the assignment, but
28:31
Speaker 2: the AI can't be used for the exam. And if
28:34
Speaker 2: the point here is that the kid has to know
28:36
Speaker 2: whatever it is that's being tested, then there's no point
28:39
Speaker 2: giving the assignment an A and the key to D
28:43
Speaker 2: on the internal exam. That doesn't help them. We could
28:47
Speaker 2: just go old school on that, which is go back
28:50
Speaker 2: to exams, get away from all this assignment stuff, because
28:54
Speaker 2: all you're testing with an assignment is the ability of
28:57
Speaker 2: the kid to put the prompt into an AI. Whereas
28:59
Speaker 2: if you're testing an exam, you're testing the person in
29:02
Speaker 2: front of you. And if you say, well... Even that
29:06
Speaker 2: can be rigged a little bit in that you could
29:08
Speaker 2: put a whole bunch of old exams in and practice
29:11
Speaker 2: them with an AI giving you the correct answers. And yes,
29:13
Speaker 2: you could. It gets even harder to rig that system
29:18
Speaker 2: if it's an oral exam. So still, even to this
29:21
Speaker 2: day in Europe, a lot of high school students are
29:24
Speaker 2: not examined by written exams. They're examined by oral exam,
29:28
Speaker 2: which means they have to go there, sit in front
29:30
Speaker 2: of a panel of examiners and answer questions that the
29:32
Speaker 2: examiners think of on the spot. So those are solutions
29:37
Speaker 2: to that problem. Even when I was in university, we
29:41
Speaker 2: did full year subjects that were examined with a three
29:44
Speaker 2: hour handwritten exam at the end of it, and that
29:47
Speaker 2: was it. A whole year of study and three hours
29:50
Speaker 2: to hand write a response. Even if we'd had AI,
29:54
Speaker 2: it wouldn't have helped. So there are solutions. but it's
29:59
Speaker 2: going to require us backing out and reversing a lot
30:02
Speaker 2: of the stuff the education system has done in the
30:05
Speaker 2: last three or four decades.
30:07
Speaker 1: I can't see that happening very quickly because I think
30:10
Speaker 1: it's like they're after efficiency and streamlining and minimising work
30:16
Speaker 1: for teachers and AI as a way to do that.
30:20
Speaker 1: But But I agree with you. Like, even to sit
30:24
Speaker 1: down and write an essay in exam conditions about whatever
30:29
Speaker 1: it is, you know, like the Ballarat gold rush. Tell
30:32
Speaker 1: us about that. What are some of the... Tell us
30:37
Speaker 1: the story about that in your words, right? Either you
30:40
Speaker 1: did the work, you know the literature or you know
30:43
Speaker 1: the stories or the history or you don't. But, yeah,
30:48
Speaker 1: I guess that's... That's labor intensive because all of that's
30:52
Speaker 1: then got to be read.
30:55
Speaker 2: Well, that's where AI can be used. That's where it
30:58
Speaker 2: can be used is have it read the results and
31:02
Speaker 2: give the teacher an assessment of it. That's a possibility
31:06
Speaker 2: and that might help.
31:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not the worst idea. Tiff, were you a
31:11
Speaker 1: good student?
31:15
Speaker 2: Of course she was. Look at the glasses she's wearing.
31:17
Speaker 1: Yeah. You look smart.
31:20
Speaker 2: No, no.
31:21
Speaker 3: If you'd read my reports, I was, I was, I
31:23
Speaker 3: was a good student in primary school. I was a
31:25
Speaker 3: terrible high school student.
31:27
Speaker 1: I learned two words. I learned a few, but through
31:30
Speaker 1: my reports, I learned two key words. One was verbose
31:33
Speaker 1: and one was loquacious. And apparently I was both. Yes. And, uh, Also, well, exactly.
31:47
Speaker 1: I put up a post yesterday of me talking in
31:50
Speaker 1: front of an audience and a quote from my year
31:52
Speaker 1: nine teacher, who, by the way, was fabulous. And the
31:57
Speaker 1: prediction that she made was very logical and rational based
32:01
Speaker 1: on the evidence she had before her, Your Honour. And
32:05
Speaker 1: she said, nobody's ever going to pay you to talk,
32:08
Speaker 1: so you should listen and then you might get a job.
32:11
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah. Is that true, though?
32:14
Speaker 2: Is that true?
32:15
Speaker 1: Hey, mate, it's been good. Oh, wow.
32:18
Speaker 2: So people are actually paying you to talk.
32:23
Speaker 1: Jeez, you're hurtful. So hurtful. I'm not as dumb as
32:27
Speaker 1: you think.
32:28
Speaker 2: I don't think you're dumb.
32:30
Speaker 1: You do.
32:31
Speaker 2: No, I've told Tiff all the time. He's not as
32:33
Speaker 2: dumb as you think.
32:35
Speaker 1: Yeah. He's not as dumb as he looks. Do you
32:39
Speaker 1: know what? I must, well, no, I was going to
32:42
Speaker 1: say I must look dumb. That's not true, but I
32:44
Speaker 1: must look a certain way because I had this conversation
32:47
Speaker 1: this morning. In fact, I said, whenever I, over the
32:50
Speaker 1: last 20 years, whenever I get on a plane and
32:53
Speaker 1: you end up, which is a lot, or historically it's
32:55
Speaker 1: been a lot, not so much this year, but People
32:58
Speaker 1: will go, what do you do? I go, what do
33:01
Speaker 1: you think I do? And they always guess military or
33:05
Speaker 1: police officer or tradie. I'm like.
33:10
Speaker 2: Is it because you look outdoorsy?
33:13
Speaker 1: Well, obviously not because they look stupid, but there's a
33:15
Speaker 1: certain like shaved head, wolf headness. I don't know.
33:20
Speaker 2: I think they're just saying that you look fit. I
33:24
Speaker 2: think that's what they're saying. Maybe.
33:26
Speaker 1: No one says, you know, poet, you know, philosopher. Nobody's
33:31
Speaker 1: saying that. Gillespie, appreciate you. We'll say goodbye affair, but
33:37
Speaker 1: for the minute, thanks.
33:39
Speaker 2: No worries. See ya.