Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #241 Best Of - Bubble Wrap Kids

Transcript

#241 Best Of - Bubble Wrap Kids · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: poor parent who just wants answers. Now, my name's doctor
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Justin Coulson, and today once again I'm joined by Luke
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  Speaker 1: and Suzie, a husband and wife radio team. They have
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  Speaker 1: three young boys, and the conversation just doesn't seem to
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  Speaker 1: be going away about this content that pops up on
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  Speaker 1: social media from time to time that is so damaging
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  Speaker 1: for our children. Instead of talking about the specifics, as
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  Speaker 1: I have done on the podcast a few times, we're
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: going to have a slightly more general conversation about how
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  Speaker 1: we're supposed to deal with these social media challenges.
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  Speaker 2: Doctor Justin Colson, always good to talk to you.
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  Speaker 1: How are you really nice to be with you? Luke Hello,
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  Speaker 1: Susie Hello.
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  Speaker 2: Now. We know that social media has its pros and
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  Speaker 2: its cons, and recently we saw a big story going
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  Speaker 2: around about a particular con there's material and content that
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  Speaker 2: is targeted towards children that is just not healthy for them.
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  Speaker 2: And our oldest parents I guess sometimes is we've either
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  Speaker 2: got two extremes. We're either in too hard and we
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  Speaker 2: don't let them look at anything ever until they're twenty nine,
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  Speaker 2: or we kind of just go, oh, they'll be fine,
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  Speaker 2: and back off a little too much. What's the nice,
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  Speaker 2: healthy middle ground for us to find good balance in
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  Speaker 2: helping children navigate this whole social media world in a
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  Speaker 2: safe way.
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  Speaker 1: There's a model that I think is helpful for most parents,
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  Speaker 1: and that is that when children are young, we need
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  Speaker 1: to cocoon them. We want to bubble wrap them, fairy
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  Speaker 1: floss them, you know, keep them safe. And everyone says, oh,
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  Speaker 1: we don't need these bubble wrapped kids, but when they're little,
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  Speaker 1: we actually do need bubble wrapped kids. We want to
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  Speaker 1: make sure that they feel that the world is safe
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  Speaker 1: and secure, and that means that we ensure that they're
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  Speaker 1: not exposed to content that could be damaging, that could
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  Speaker 1: create trauma, that could make them feel like the world
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  Speaker 1: is not a safe place. That's healthy. Now, it's important
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  Speaker 1: as they grow that we start to explain why we're
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  Speaker 1: doing what we're doing and give them opportunities to stretch
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  Speaker 1: their wings where they can. So that might mean that
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  Speaker 1: we're not going to give you kids access unfettered to Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter,
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  Speaker 1: because you're eight or you're four, or whatever it might be.
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  Speaker 1: But what it does mean is that we can say, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: of course, you guys can play on screens and devices
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  Speaker 1: in ways that we're going to work with you on
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  Speaker 1: to make sure that you're feeling safe. As they get older, though,
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  Speaker 1: we move from cocooning them into that reason cocooning, where
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  Speaker 1: we're explaining why we're cocooning them, and then we move
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  Speaker 1: into something called pre arming, and pre arming basically means
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  Speaker 1: pretty soon you're going to be old enough to do
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  Speaker 1: this stuff. You know you're nine or ten or eleven
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  Speaker 1: years old, and you know that Instagram is coming, You
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  Speaker 1: know that the opportunity to be on social media is
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  Speaker 1: nearly here. We need to pre arm you. We need
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  Speaker 1: to talk to you about what it's going to be
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  Speaker 1: like and what the rules are and why those rules exist,
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  Speaker 1: and how we're going to continue to monitor and look
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  Speaker 1: after your safety once they're on these social platforms, let's
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  Speaker 1: say from age thirteen, which is probably about the age
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  Speaker 1: that most involved parents say Okay, finally you're allowed to
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  Speaker 1: because of that United States law about collecting data about
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  Speaker 1: young people once they're on we still need to be
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  Speaker 1: involved in both cocooning, reasoned cocooning and pre arming conversations.
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  Speaker 1: For example, it might be okay for your children to
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  Speaker 1: be on Instagram, but you're going to cocoon them from
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  Speaker 1: a whole lot of influences by saying to them it's
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  Speaker 1: okay to be here, but not to follow X, Y,
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  Speaker 1: and Z. You're only allowed to follow people that you know.
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  Speaker 1: You're only so we're still cocooning them with lots of reasoning,
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  Speaker 1: and we're pre arming them by saying, why don't you
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  Speaker 1: make some decisions and we can have a conversation about
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  Speaker 1: why you want to follow these people, or you know,
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  Speaker 1: as you get older, we're going to let you start
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  Speaker 1: to use TikTok or Snapchat or maybe some of the
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  Speaker 1: other things that are for kids who are older. Again,
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  Speaker 1: we need to make sure that you're prepared for that
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  Speaker 1: by being pre armed. But then we move, once they're
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  Speaker 1: around fourteen or so into what we call reasoned deference.
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  Speaker 1: That is, the kids come to us and they say
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  Speaker 1: I want to do this, and we say, well, you're
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  Speaker 1: only a few years off being an adult. Now what
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  Speaker 1: do you think is the best thing to do? And
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  Speaker 1: they say, well, I think I should be allowed to
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  Speaker 1: do this, and you say, well, let's talk about that.
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  Speaker 1: For a bit, So you go through a reasoned process
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  Speaker 1: where you're deferring to them until finally they're around seventeen
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  Speaker 1: eighteen years of age and you defer to them, you say, well,
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  Speaker 1: guess what, you're a grown up. Now you get to choose.
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  Speaker 1: We're here if you want to talk about it. So
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  Speaker 1: that model, i think, is the model that we might
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  Speaker 1: use when it comes to kids and their access to
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  Speaker 1: what's happening on screens and social media. Do we need
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  Speaker 1: to be cocooning them, do we need to be pre
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  Speaker 1: arming them, or are we able to start to defer
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  Speaker 1: to them and their judgment.
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  Speaker 3: And yet, strangely, under any of those comments justin you
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  Speaker 3: never said under my house, it's my rules. I'm just
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  Speaker 3: really really shocked by that. I'll let you respond to
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  Speaker 3: my quip because I can see you want to well.
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  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 1: Last week, after this thing went viral, the Prime Minister
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  Speaker 1: commented that parents should be removing devices from their children.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm not going to be political about this. I
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  Speaker 1: have no political blood in me at all. I'm not
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  Speaker 1: interested in political conversations. What I am interested in is
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  Speaker 1: what's going to give us the best outcome for our children.
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  Speaker 1: And while I'm sure that the Prime Minister had the
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  Speaker 1: very best of intentions. When we start saying to our children,
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  Speaker 1: you disobey my rules and I take the phone off you,
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  Speaker 1: what happens is they start to say, well, I'll just
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  Speaker 1: make sure that you don't catch me disobeying the rules.
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  Speaker 1: I'll follow your rules on my device, But when I'm
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  Speaker 1: hanging out at my friend's house, when I'm on the
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  Speaker 1: school bus, when i'm in the school playground, that's when
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  Speaker 1: I do whatever I want, and I'll use their devices
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  Speaker 1: so you can't catch me.
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  Speaker 3: So on the top of that, it says that if
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  Speaker 3: ever I do do the wrong thing, I'm not going
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  Speaker 3: to fess up to it because you're going to take
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  Speaker 3: the device, so I'm going to hide it as much
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  Speaker 3: as i can spot on.
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  Speaker 1: So that approach that my house, my rules, my way
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  Speaker 1: of a high way approach. It kind of makes sense,
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  Speaker 1: especially when parents are in fight or flight mode. They're
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  Speaker 1: freaking out. They've heard on the news that this traumatic
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  Speaker 1: incident has been streamed on all kinds of social media platforms,
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  Speaker 1: and they want to protect their children. Therefore, they say,
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  Speaker 1: you need to delete the app, you need to hand
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  Speaker 1: in your device. Not going to work because even if
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  Speaker 1: they do, all that happens is that they start to
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  Speaker 1: resent us and they get so curious about what they're
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  Speaker 1: missing out on, and they might even go and look
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  Speaker 1: for it in a place that's not so safe. So
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  Speaker 1: I think as parents, we've got the responsibility to say, hey,
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  Speaker 1: let's have a sit down, gentle conversation. Let's work out
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  Speaker 1: the best way forward so that we can all feel
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  Speaker 1: good about the decisions you're going to make.
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  Speaker 3: In this whole scenario that we're referring to, the Prime
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  Speaker 3: Minister's got involved because there was an incident. There was
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  Speaker 3: a moment and many of us as parents are freaking out, going, Okay,
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  Speaker 3: we don't want to draw attention to it if our
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  Speaker 3: kids don't have their attention already drawn to it. And
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  Speaker 3: yet we don't want to assume that because they haven't
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  Speaker 3: said anything, that they haven't had attention drawn to it,
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  Speaker 3: and we don't want to leave it's a chance that
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  Speaker 3: they can accidentally see it, even if I think they
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  Speaker 3: haven't accidentally seen it. And so, as you can tell
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  Speaker 3: by my just rambling there in our heads, there was
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  Speaker 3: a whole lot of we can try and do the
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  Speaker 3: right thing, but feel like we've done the wrong thing.
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  Speaker 3: How do we navigate that space where there's a strong
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  Speaker 3: possibility but we don't know for sure whether they've been exposed.
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  Speaker 1: I can almost hear the fear and the exasperation and
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  Speaker 1: the frustration in your comment, Luke, It's like, but what
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  Speaker 1: I'm supposed to do? We can't win either way. If
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  Speaker 1: we don't say anything, they might be exposed and then
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  Speaker 1: we won't know. But if we do say something, they
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  Speaker 1: might go and find it and be exposed to this.
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  Speaker 1: But the responses as follows, there is consistently always scary, horrible, terrible,
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  Speaker 1: no good, very bad things on the Internet, and especially
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  Speaker 1: on social media platforms. There are people with horrible motivations
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  Speaker 1: who get access to this content and even hide and
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  Speaker 1: embed the content in otherwise innocent, pure good places. It's
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  Speaker 1: just it's devastating, it's frankly, it's disgusting. It appalls me.
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  Speaker 1: But this is the world that we live in. And
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  Speaker 1: to threaten your children and say, you know what, you
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  Speaker 1: can't have social media because of it, that means that
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  Speaker 1: they do miss out on all of the things that
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  Speaker 1: really do matter to them, which means that we may
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  Speaker 1: end up turning them against us and having them not
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  Speaker 1: listen to us at all, because the reality is many, many,
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  Speaker 1: many children have not been exposed to this traumatic issue,
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  Speaker 1: and had there not been such a big media brew haha,
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  Speaker 1: viewer again would have been exposed to it. So it
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  Speaker 1: really is just such a such a tricky thing. I
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  Speaker 1: really think that the best thing to do, Luke is
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  Speaker 1: have a gentle conversation with the kids and say I'm
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  Speaker 1: worried and as a result, we need to come up
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  Speaker 1: with a solution that's going to work, and sometimes we
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  Speaker 1: need to put protective measures in place if we don't.
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  Speaker 1: And I heard this analogy just recently on another podcast,
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  Speaker 1: and I thought, I've got to use that. That is
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  Speaker 1: so good. If we don't do this, if we don't
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  Speaker 1: sit down with our kids and talk to them about
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  Speaker 1: establishing boundaries that work, it's like saying to them, you know,
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  Speaker 1: when we go for driving the car this afternoon, we're
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  Speaker 1: going to put our seat belts on, but we're not
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  Speaker 1: going to ask you to put yours on. You don't
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  Speaker 1: need to wear one because you'll be fine. Now, we
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't do that in a car, and we shouldn't be
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  Speaker 1: doing that on social media.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, love it. I sat down with them by the way,
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  Speaker 3: and I went okay, and I just put a little
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  Speaker 3: feeler out there to say, you know, there's something I've
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  Speaker 3: been going around on the internet. Have you heard about it?
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  Speaker 3: And they all said yes, they had that had conversations
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  Speaker 3: at school. They said, we haven't seen anything. We haven't
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  Speaker 3: seen what it's about. We talked about the fact that
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  Speaker 3: without highlighting what was in it, we just went, you know,
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  Speaker 3: it's probably something that no human, no adult or child
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  Speaker 3: should be watching or be exposed too, because it could
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  Speaker 3: be very upsetting and I don't want you to be upset.
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  Speaker 3: So we talked about what the response would be, and
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  Speaker 3: our decision together was, as they watch a YouTube video
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  Speaker 3: or something that is approved by mummy or Daddy, which
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  Speaker 3: all their channels are, then we'll just make sure we
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  Speaker 3: don't click on anything that we don't know, and we
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  Speaker 3: don't allow it to roll into a video or someone
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  Speaker 3: that we don't know. Let's just protect ourselves from accidentally
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  Speaker 3: seeing something that we don't want to see.
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  Speaker 1: You guys are fortunate your children are under the age
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  Speaker 1: of ten, right, so once you get to around that
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  Speaker 1: twelve thirteen mark, there can be a shift and a
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  Speaker 1: lot surprised that you had a good experience with that,
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  Speaker 1: because that's how kids are pretty I know some people
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  Speaker 1: are thinking my children aren't compliant, they're out to ten.
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  Speaker 1: But as a general rule, as a parent, you can
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  Speaker 1: kind of say, well, this is what I want you
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  Speaker 1: to do and they say and you say, well you
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: will because I'm your parent, and they kind of they're
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: more likely to be compliant there, Whereas once they get
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  Speaker 1: to about eleven, twelve, thirteen, all of a sudden, it's
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  Speaker 1: like they wake up on morning they're like no, and
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  Speaker 1: you say no, I'm the parent, and you will, and
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  Speaker 1: they say no, no, I won't, and I reckon if
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: you've got older kids, there's a couple of things to
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: quickly bear in mind. And I know that our time
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  Speaker 1: is short now, so let's wrap this up. First of all,
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  Speaker 1: children are seeing it. I'm hearing far too many stories,
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  Speaker 1: and they are being traumatized by this kind of content.
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  Speaker 1: There's been this kind of content before. It will happen again.
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  Speaker 1: Our job is to do our best to help them
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  Speaker 1: to stay away from it because it is affecting them.
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  Speaker 1: They are also showing it to one another because they
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  Speaker 1: get some sort of social capital out of it. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I'm the cool kid. Look what I found, and now
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to show everyone else as well. We want
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  Speaker 1: to connect them to humanity, We want to connect them
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  Speaker 1: to empathy. There's nothing hilarious about it. Something very very
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  Speaker 1: sad and tragic about it. Nothing hilarious though, and so
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  Speaker 1: our job then becomes, Let's imagine for a minute that
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  Speaker 1: we're related to the person involved in this live stream.
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  Speaker 1: Let's imagine for a minute what life must be like
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: for them. Let's imagine for a minute how we would
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: be talking about this if it happened to somebody that
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: we know. Would we be sing it? Would we be
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: talking about how funny it is? And I reckon most
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: kids in those circumstances are going to go pretty quiet
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  Speaker 1: and recognize yeah, no, probably not. We want to help
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  Speaker 1: them to have that empathy, and then we can probably
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: have some more sensible conversations about ways to keep everybody
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  Speaker 1: safe online.
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  Speaker 2: Beautiful doctor Justin Colson, thanks for having this chat with us.
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  Speaker 2: It's pretty tough stuff to try and navigate, but we
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  Speaker 2: appreciate that you're there to support us and guide us
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  Speaker 2: through it.
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  Speaker 1: Or thank you so much, Thanks Susie, Thanks Luke. Well,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: it's a tough topic. But thanks so much for listening.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: If you've enjoyed the podcast, or if you know somebody
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: who might find it helpful, please share it with them.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: You can share it out of the app in which
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: you're listening, or you can go to Apple Podcasts and
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: leave a rating and review. We love getting all your
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: five star reviews, and we've had sufficient that Apple has
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: taken notice of us and started to share the podcast
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a bit more widely, So thank you. If you're a
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: new listener, by the way, thanks and welcome. It's great
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to have you here. If you have not yet left
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: a rating and review, could you visit Apple Podcasts for me.
• 11:56
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• 11:58
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• 12:00
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• 12:03
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• 12:06
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• 12:12
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• 12:14
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• 12:17
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• 12:25
  Speaker 1: on something and send your energy and focus there, it
• 12:28
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• 12:30
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• 12:32
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• 12:35
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• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Happy Families dot com dot Au, or you can visit
• 12:41
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