Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #532 Australia, We Have a Smacking Problem

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#532 Australia, We Have a Smacking Problem · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: The time poor parent who just wants answers now.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Professor Higgins said Australian states and territories should follow the
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: lead of sixty two other countries and close defense loopholes
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: making it legal for parents to hit their kids if
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: they use quote reasonable force.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: And now here's the scars of our show, My mum.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: And dad today on the Happy Families Podcast, a conversation
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: about something that really gets people going. It's a tough
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: one to talk about. We're going to do it respectfully,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: but we do need to talk about smacking. Hello. This
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: is doctor Justin Coulson. I'm the founder of Happy Families
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: dot com dot iu, the author of seven books about
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: how our families can be happier, and the parenting expert
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: and co host on Channel nine's Parental Guidance. I'm here
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: with Kylie, mum to our six kids, and my parenting
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: podcast partner, and we're going to talk about an article
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: that appeared in the paper just a couple of days ago.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: This is a two minute read. I'm going to read
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: the whole thing Kylie, and then we're going to discuss
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: the issue of smacking. I did media interviews up to
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: my eyeballs last week about it once it showed up
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: in the paper, and there's just so much to talk about.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: So it was written by Susie O'Brien. We've had her
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: on the podcast before. She writes for The Herald's Son
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: in Victoria, although sometimes her articles end up nationwide, and
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: she wrote that really great book about how we should
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: just ease off a little bit with our parenting. Here's
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: what she writes. Six in ten Australians. Sorry, young Australians
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: have been smacked repeatedly by their parents and are nearly
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: twice as likely to develop anxiety and depression as other
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: teens and adults, according to new research. The shocking findings
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: of a national study of eight and a half thousand
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Australians have led to calls for the removal of the
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: legal defense of quote reasonable chastisement in Victoria, which allows
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: parents to use physical violence on their children. Children is
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: of equal protection against physical violence as adults. One of
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: the lead researchers, Australian Catholic University professor DARRYL Higgins, said,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: in Australia right now, you have better protection from violence
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: as a female adult or a pet than you do
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: as a child. He said, if you want to reduce
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: population level anxiety for women and men, don't hit them
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: as children. There is a very real connection between corporal
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: punishment and current and lifelong experience of mental ill health.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Professor Higgins from the Institute of Child Protection Studies said
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: the findings come as other Australian studies are found fifty
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: to eighty percent of parents admit to smaking their child,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: with many uncertain about where to draw the line or
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: what constitutes abuse. The preliminary results from the Australian Child
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Male Treatment Study shows sixty one percent of Australians aged
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: sixteen to twenty four experience corporal punishment from their parents
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: on more than three occasions as a disciplinary strategy while
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: growing up. That was sixty one percent. Initial findings to
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: be presented at the Australian Institute of Family Studies conference
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: on Thursday show females who experienced corporal punishment from their
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: parents were one point eight times more likely to have
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: a major depressive disorder in their lifetime and two point
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: one times more likely to experience generalized anxiety. Males were
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: one point six one point seven times more likely to
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: develop anxiety and depression, respectively. Let me wrap up here
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: with the last couple of things that this article highlights.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Professor Higgins said Australian states and territories should follow the
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: lead of sixty two other countries and close defense loopholes
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: making it legal for parents to hit their kids if
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: they use quote reasonable force close quote during discipline. And then,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: because this is in the Herald Sun, she goes straight
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: to Victoria and says Victoria does not have specific legislation
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: regarding parents using physical punishment on their children. Common law
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: offers parents and caretakers and defense for parental use of
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: physical punishment. Meanwhile, in New South Wales, it is illegal
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: for parents and guardians to strike children on the head
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: or neck. A child's pain should not last longer than
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: a short period if a parent hits them anywhere else
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: on their body. Queensland's domestic discipline legislation states both teachers
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: and parents can use force that is reasonable under the circumstances,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: but doesn't provide further detail. Professor Higgins said the current
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: survey also shows attitudes of violence are changing. The study
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: shows support for corporal punishment as a form of discipline
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: for children dropped from thirty seven point nine percent among
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: those aged over sixty five to fourteen point eight percent
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: for those age sixteen to twenty four. Isn't it interesting
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: the older generation is all for hitting, the only generations
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: not so much. Professor Higgins said violence cannot be excused
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: as a one off or just one hit, because the
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: study showed it had a negative impact. The only benefit,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: he says, is immediate compliance. But we know it's clearly
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: linked to long term harm. Parents and caregivers need to
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: be using positive pairing techniques rather than outmoded forms of
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: discipline that cause harm and are associated with other forms
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: of abuse. So that's the article. I know there's a
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: fair bit in there, but I think that we need
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: to unpack this and spend some time on it. Because
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Australia still doesn't make smacking illegal. Australian parents are still
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: allowed to hit their kids up. By the way, Sweden
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: was the first country in the world about law all
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: forms of corporal punishment, including in the home. That was
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: back in nineteen seventy nine and Kylie sixty two countries,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: like I said, have followed suit since then. The Republic
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: of Korea and Columbia of the latest nations to ban
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: physical punishment for kids. They did that last year, and
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: in Spain, where parents are also banned from smacking, corporal
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: punishment hitting your kids actually falls under the country's definition
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: of violence against children. It'd seen as domestic abuse. So
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: strong words, strong language, important article. So, Kylie, where do
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: you want to start with this?
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: This is this is a really really hard conversation to have.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: I've watched you as I'm reading this, and I'm watching
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: you slouch in the chair. Your composure, your demeanor, everything's
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: changed since we began, Like this is a topic that
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: really affects you.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Having grown up in a home where there was quite
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: a heavy hand of discipline dished out, the argument that
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it never did me any harm doesn't wash very well
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: with me at all. This conversation is really grating on
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I guess memories and experiences that I had as a child,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: and without painting my parents as being these awful people,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: because I know that they were doing the very best
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that they knew how to do with the skill set.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: That they had. And your parents are good people.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And they are good people, and they loved me. Yeah,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: but it was still it was still a really really
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: difficult upbringing coming out of it at the other end,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and I guess moving forward being the parent who having
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: been raised in that regard, finding herself in the same
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: position multiple times over the years with our children, where
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: impulse takes over and you find yourself, you know, doing
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: things that you never wanted to do or never thought
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: that you had the capacity to do because you're at
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: your limit, or you're at your wits end. You have
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: you don't know what other options are available.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: So we've never claimed that we're perfect parents. And as
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: much as we hate to admit it, the whole reason
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: that I do what I do is because I lost
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: it with our three year old one day and I
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: walloped her. I mean I was by definition I was
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: violent towards her. I was physically violent. I whacked her,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: and I whacked her again, and then I whacked her
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: again because she wouldn't go to sleep, as if she
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: was going to go to sleep when I was hitting her.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I've written about that. As much as I hate to
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: talk about it, I hated to write about her. I
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: wrote about that in the introduction of twenty one Days
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: to a Happier Family because I didn't want our family
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: to be like that anymore. That's why I went back
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: to school and spent the next eight and a half
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: years studying and became an academic and do the work
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: that I do now. But we do need to talk
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: about it. Grateful that you've shared what you've shared. What
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: about after the break we talk about the common reasons
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: that people say that kids need to be hit, and
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: bit by bit, I'll pull that apart and highlight that
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: there is a better way. That's next on The Happy
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Family's podcast.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: poor parent who just wants answers now, And today we're
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: having a difficult conversation about smacking. It's come up again.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Countries around the world are banning it as a form
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: of discipline for children.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: And Australia's staying firm in their right to abuse children,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: or to hit children, or to be six times larger
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: than your kid and to hit them anyway, which is
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: I guess I'm being a bit provocative when I say that.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: But I think the reality is that most parents who
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: would utilize smacking as a parental tool would never suggest
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: that they never feel that they're being abusive. You're exactly right,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and would acknowledge it's just a tap or do you
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? I don't. I think that the
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: majority of smackers wouldn't be what we would consider your
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: heavy handed corporal punishment, no parental force if we had
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: grown up with when you.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Think about that time, and it's not the only time, unfortunately,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: but when you think about the times where we've whacked
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: one of our kids, people wouldn't have looked at us
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: even back then and gone, oh my goodness, those people
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: are so horrible to their children. I mean, we were
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: a loving family. We treated the kids with love and
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: kindness and respect all the time, except those few occasions
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: when can rom everything. We lost the plot and flew
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: off our handlers. They were flying off theirs. So let's
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: talk about the main reasons that people defend smacking. I
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: think that that's probably the best way for us to
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: move forward here.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I think the number one is you get immediate compliance.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: You smack your child, they stopped doing what they're doing immediately,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: whether it be out of fear, whether it be out
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: of shock factor, because all of a sudden they're now
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: you know they've been hit, and there's pain, but there's
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: instant compliance.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: So when we look at research on that. Believe it
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: or not. A study was published maybe six or seven
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: years ago by a guy called George Holden. He's one
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: of the world's foremost discipline researchers, and he is a
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: pure academic. I love the way he does his research.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: He went into people's homes with cameras and recording devices
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: and literally recorded what happened when kids were smacked. And
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: here's what he found. In seventy three percent of cases,
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: when children were smacked, they were back at the same
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: or other challenging behavior in less than ten minutes. So
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: even that idea that you get that instant compliance, it's
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: a furfy. It's not completely true. The kids will start
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: to rebel, start to play up, start to do something
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: else challenging within ten minutes in seventy three percent of cases. Therefore,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: that argument, while it makes sense intuitively, while it feels
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: right the evident, suggests that it's not right.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: The argument to that, which I've heard numerous times, do
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: you clearly and smack them hard enough?
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I mean that's awful, isn't it? What an
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: awful thing to do? Oh, it didn't work, so you
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: should do more of it And do it harder. We
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: can be better than that. I think you can tell
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: a lot about a society by the way they treat
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: their children, and right now there's an area that we're failing.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: What's another argument for smacking.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Well, you can't reason with children.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: This is one of my favorites. I'm cutting you off
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: straight away because I love it when somebody says this,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: because it's so easy to debunk. The way that I
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: debunk this argument you can't reason with children, so therefore
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: you need to hit them is you can't reason with
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: somebody with Alzheimer's or dementia. So does that mean that
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: we should start hitting people in retirement homes? The thought
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: is just repulsive. It's so earth shatteringly wrong. Nobody would
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: even consider that we would be hitting elderly people because
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: of their inability to reason, because they've lost their thinking capacity.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: And yet we make the same argument and think that
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: it's acceptable. We let it flow for our one, two, three,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: four five year olds. It's just not an argument. What's
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: the third reason that we've come up with for why
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: people justify smacking their kids.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Well, it's the only thing that works.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, except it doesn't work, and we've kind of
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: talked about that already. The other thing is, when we
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: look at the research evidence, there are so many positive
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: parenting techniques, so many gentle techniques, so many understanding. Yeh.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: But I talk and I talk and I talk at
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: my kids and they just don't listen.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's not about you talking to them. I love
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: that story from Stephen Covey where he says a man
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: approached him after a seminar and said, I can't understand
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: my son. He won't listen to me. And Covey responded,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: let me say that back to you. You can't understand
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: your son because he won't listen to you, and the said, yeah,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: that's right. He said, no, no, no, let me say it again.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: You can't understand your son because your son won't listen
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: to you. And the man agreed again, to which Stephen
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Covey said, I thought, for you to understand someone, you
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: need to listen to them. What's the next reason that
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: people say smacking is useful?
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: It never did me any hum.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to link in the show notes. We
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: don't have time for the whole debunking here, but I'm
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: going to link in the show notes to an article
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: that I wrote that was published in The New York
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Times a couple of years ago. It was about the
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: eye turned out fine fallacy, This idea that because I
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: was hit as a child, I turned out fine. The
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: reality is you can't know if you turned out fine
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: or how you might have turned out differently had you
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: not been smacked. And when we look at the research
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: that's been cited from the Australian Catholic University and Darryl Higgins,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: what we're seeing is that the data shows quite clearly
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: that there is a correlation between being hit as a
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: child and mental health outcomes throughout childhood and adulthood. I
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: don't think that we can mount a credible argument that
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: we turned out fine, and even if we did turn
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: out fine, it's fine. The baseline is that the benchmark.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: I want my kids to turn out wonderfully. I don't
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: want them to be fine. I want them to be fabulous.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: So it just doesn't wash for me that these arguments
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: are still used to defend and are practice that does
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: not do anything redeeming anything positive for our kids at all.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Well for the time, poor parent, it's just quick and easy.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah it is. It is quick and easy, but it
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: undermines everything else. And there's something that I've been teaching
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: for years and years and years, and that is that
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: fast is slow, and slow as fast, you go for
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: the quick fix, but you pay for it down the road.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: If you spend the time now, it works out. So
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: let's talk about five reasons really quickly that we don't
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: want to smack our kids, given that they're the arguments
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: that people use for smacking, and I hope that I've
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: debunked them reasonably well. My first idea for why we
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: shouldn't smack kids is that corporal punishment is violence, and
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: teaching our kid violence begins a cycle where children learn
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: to express their anger through violence towards themselves or others.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: I think that's a strong argument. My second argument is
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: that when we hit our children, we treat their bodies
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: as not their own. We teach them that other people
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: are allowed to enter their body space with ill intent,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: and if that person is bigger, they can use their
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: size to exert power over them. And I want my
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: kids to know that their body is theirs and that
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: they're in control. My job as a parent is to
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: elevate and amplify that control, not take it away, and
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: My third instinct is to point towards smacking as something
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: that weakens kids psychologically. If they feel unsafe with their parents,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: the psychological overflow is that they may end up feeling
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: that they're unworthy. It may lead some of our kids
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: to feel so much shame that they feel like they're
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: bad or dangerous or untrustworthy, and it sows the seeds
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: of insecurity that could last a lifetime. Our job as
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: parents is to help our kids feel safer and stronger,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: not weaker and more insecure. My fourth reason for not
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: smacking kids is that there's fifty five years of smacking
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: research that shows no positive effects. Fifty five years of research.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: We're not talking about abuse research, we're talking about what
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Americans of course, spanking. And my fifth one is really simple,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: because we feel crappy. We feel like we're lousy parents
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: when we whack our kids. No parent has ever given
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: their kids a good whack and too well, job done.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Now back to it, I nailed that. Got that's so right,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: it's not what we say. We walk away and we
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: feel so awful for having done it because we know
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: that that's not what our relationship is supposed to be
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: built on. Any final comments.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: When I think about the relationship that I have with
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: my children, I want them to see me as a
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: safe place, not a place to be feared, not someone
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: that they want to, you know, kind of hide from.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And I can't be that place if smacking is in
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: my toolkit, because I become for all intents and purposes,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I become the perpetrator. I become a violator of everything
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: that I actually hold safe and sacred.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad you said that this didn't end up
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: being the podcast I thought it would be. I thought
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: we'd have a light conversation about something that needs to change.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: But it's really affected me, and I can tell that
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: it's really affected you. So we're going to wrap it
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: up there. For everyone who's participated and listened to this podcast,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: thank you for being here today. If you have any
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: stories about this topic that you would like to share
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: with us, we would love for you to send us
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: a voice memo, keep it short, and send it to
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: podcasts at Happy Families dot com dot you. Just open
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: up your phone, record yourself talking into your voice memo app,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: and then send that voice memo to podcasts at Happy
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Families dot com dot you. This is a conversation that
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: needs to continue until we see some real change. The
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and if you'd like
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: more info about making your family happier, please visit us
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: at happy families dot com dot you, where you will
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: find endless solutions for how to stop smacking your kids
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: and start loving them all