Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #250 From the Doctor's Desk

Transcript

#250 From the Doctor's Desk · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now, we've got to be able to equip parents with
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  Speaker 2: better strategies because they literally, genuinely, unquestionably are harming the
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  Speaker 2: wellbeing of their children.
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
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  Speaker 1: and dad.
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  Speaker 2: Gooday. This is doctor Justin Colson, the author of a
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  Speaker 2: whole bunch of books about raising happy families and the
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  Speaker 2: founder of happy families dot com dot au. Here with Kylie,
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  Speaker 2: my wife and podcast partner, Mum to our six kids.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking today about something called from the Doctor's Desk.
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  Speaker 2: If you haven't heard us talk about this before, it's
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  Speaker 2: really simple. A bunch of studies come across my desk
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  Speaker 2: pretty frequently, and every now and again I do what
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  Speaker 2: I can to communicate what's coming out of the research
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  Speaker 2: to you, mum's, dad's, parents, caregivers, because academics sometimes don't
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  Speaker 2: do the best job in getting their research out there.
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  Speaker 2: And I love research. I love to geek out my
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  Speaker 2: fun space.
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  Speaker 3: I'm just gonna let you geek out.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, good on you. The first of the
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  Speaker 2: studies that have come across my desk that I really
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  Speaker 2: want to emphasize today comes from the University of South Australia.
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  Speaker 2: This is some Aussie research and it's highlighting this. Too
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  Speaker 2: much screen time delays school readiness. This is a really
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  Speaker 2: big issue because when children show up at school, they're
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  Speaker 2: supposed to be able to do a handful of things.
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  Speaker 2: You used to be in early childcare. So before we
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  Speaker 2: talk about screens and how that's impacting on school readiness,
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  Speaker 2: your career was getting kids ready for school in some ways.
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  Speaker 2: I mean you were looking after young children, toddlers, preschoolers
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  Speaker 2: before they headed off to the big school. What is
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  Speaker 2: it that makes a child ready for school?
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  Speaker 3: Well, social interactions is a huge one. You know that
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  Speaker 3: children are able to kind of navigate a social space.
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  Speaker 3: There's obviously going to be hiccups all along the way,
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  Speaker 3: but an opportunity for them to initiate play, to accept
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  Speaker 3: invitations to be part of play, to play alongside people,
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  Speaker 3: to be able to work independently. Then you've got the
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  Speaker 3: whole bodily functions. They need to be able to toilet themselves.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, this is a really hard space for kids
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  Speaker 3: to navigate if they're not ready.
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  Speaker 2: It's interesting you raise that because we've got a friend
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  Speaker 2: who teaches kids in their first year of school. Every
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  Speaker 2: state calls it's something different. Some states call it prep,
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  Speaker 2: some call it kindergarten, some call it reception. Here in
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  Speaker 2: Queensland it's prep. And we have a friend who's a
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  Speaker 2: prep teacher. She's currently dealing with a couple of kids
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  Speaker 2: in her class who do not have any basic school readiness,
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  Speaker 2: including the ability to toilet themselves. So where a term
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  Speaker 2: at least into this school year and she's still dealing
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  Speaker 2: with daily. I don't want to call them accidents because
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  Speaker 2: this is not an accident. The child simply hasn't been
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  Speaker 2: taught by his parents to use the toilet. He doesn't
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  Speaker 2: wein happies. He just makes a mess everywhere, and school
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  Speaker 2: teachers are dealing with this kind of stuff. The research
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  Speaker 2: that came out of UNISA highlighted that twenty two percent
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  Speaker 2: twenty two Like to me, that's enormous. Twenty two percent
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  Speaker 2: of children are considered to be developmentally vulnerable. And what
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  Speaker 2: the research is are Doctor Kobe Boshoff was the principal
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  Speaker 2: researcher here. What Kobe and her colleagues have highlighted is
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  Speaker 2: that nearly twenty two percent of these kids are displaying
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  Speaker 2: lower than average ability in things like physical health, their
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  Speaker 2: ability to regulate their behavior, their emotional maturity, so they're
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  Speaker 2: having big spontaneous emotional outbursts, and their language and communication
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  Speaker 2: is also reduced. And as a result, when we get
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  Speaker 2: these kinds of outcomes, that means that we have to
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  Speaker 2: bring in the speech therapists and the occupational therapists and
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  Speaker 2: the physiotherapists, we have to bring in extra teachers' aids
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  Speaker 2: because the children aren't ready to be at school. Now,
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  Speaker 2: there's a broader argument about whether we're pushing children into
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  Speaker 2: school too early, but what's particularly important about this study
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  Speaker 2: is it showing that these kids are not keeping up
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  Speaker 2: with basic developmental miles zones that all of their peers
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  Speaker 2: are twenty two percent in this particular sample.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think there's actually some great news that comes
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  Speaker 3: out of this because there is actually a very simple fix.
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  Speaker 2: Turn off the screens. And that's literally what they're saying
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  Speaker 2: that they're looking at this research and saying if the
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  Speaker 2: kids would, just if parents would stop over using screens
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  Speaker 2: as babysitter. I don't want to say using, because we all,
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  Speaker 2: every single one of us is guilty of using a
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  Speaker 2: screen as a babysitter from time to time. You just
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  Speaker 2: want to go to the bathroom in piece. You want
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  Speaker 2: to have a shower now and then and be left alone.
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  Speaker 2: You want to be able to cook dinner from time
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  Speaker 2: to time and not have a child underfoot. But the
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  Speaker 2: overuse of screens seems to be the big issue. Anyway,
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  Speaker 2: I cut you off. What's your easy solution where you just.
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  Speaker 3: Said it, I stole your thunder It's still my thunder god,
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  Speaker 3: But I think it's really important to just highlight again.
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  Speaker 3: But two to five year olds, we're talking about screen
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  Speaker 3: time of up to an hour maximum in any given day,
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  Speaker 3: and that can be I guess where we come unstuck.
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  Speaker 3: Because if a child's going to sit and watch a movie,
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  Speaker 3: that's an hour and a half instantly, yeah, yeah, And
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  Speaker 3: then they get on and they might do some reading, eggs,
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  Speaker 3: or you know, do another activity or something, or you
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  Speaker 3: sit down and you're going to cook dinner, and they
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  Speaker 3: do whatever else they do on their screen.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm going to say something really provocative here. I
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  Speaker 2: would rather the kids sit down and watch an hour
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  Speaker 2: of TV than spend an hour playing mindless stupid games
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  Speaker 2: on an iPad tell me more. Well, if the kids
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  Speaker 2: are sitting down in front of the ABC and watching
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  Speaker 2: high quality children's programming, they're going to learn more. They're
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  Speaker 2: going to have.
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  Speaker 3: You're talking about like play school.
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  Speaker 2: Play school Sessames Street, Bluey. Those kinds of shows are
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  Speaker 2: going to do more for a child than having them
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  Speaker 2: watch mindless drivel or be involved in pointless silly games
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  Speaker 2: on a screen.
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  Speaker 3: So my suggestion is that there isn't actually enough of
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  Speaker 3: that kind of TV.
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  Speaker 2: We've got, and it's going down. It's going down of.
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  Speaker 3: The other type of TV where our kids are just
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  Speaker 3: watching frivolous, mindless junk.
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  Speaker 2: There's no other word for it, it's junk. So that's
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  Speaker 2: the big thing. The other thing that Kobe highlights is
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  Speaker 2: not just that there's an over use of screens without
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  Speaker 2: two to five year olds that's impacting their school readiness.
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  Speaker 2: But they're supposed to be outside. Like kids don't know
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  Speaker 2: how to ride a scooter, kids don't know how to
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  Speaker 2: hang off the monkey bars. We had that conversation with
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  Speaker 2: Madonna King a few weeks ago about her book Tenager
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  Speaker 2: and how few ten year olds are actually able to
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  Speaker 2: hang on monkey bars, like actually hold their body way.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, So I'm not going to pick on the ten
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  Speaker 3: year olds because I probably couldn't hang off a monkey Barry.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, come on, you could have. But I think there's
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  Speaker 2: the broader conversation of our children need to be outside,
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  Speaker 2: they need to be climbing trees. I'm going to sound
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  Speaker 2: all nostalgic and say how good it was back in
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  Speaker 2: the olden days. Not that I was alive in the
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  Speaker 2: olden days. That was back in my dad's generation. But
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  Speaker 2: the over reliance on screens is measurably now having an
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  Speaker 2: impact on children's school readiness. This line from the research
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  Speaker 2: acutely important for all families and children, especially so for
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  Speaker 2: families living in rural and low socio economic areas where
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  Speaker 2: the risk of developmental delay is known to be statistically higher.
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  Speaker 2: We need to help these children reduce their time on television,
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  Speaker 2: computers and smart devices. From the Doctor's Desk returns in
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  Speaker 2: just a second. It's the Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 4: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having
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  Speaker 4: to feel bad or in trouble. The do's and don'ts
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  Speaker 4: of discipline as a webinar to help parents set limits
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  Speaker 4: with love, compassion, and humanity. Find it now at happyfamilies
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  Speaker 4: dot com dot au slash shop.
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  Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
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  Speaker 3: poor parent who just wants answers now. And today we
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  Speaker 3: are coming from the doctor's desk.
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  Speaker 2: There's a study that has just been published that really,
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  Speaker 2: I don't know how else to say it. It kind
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  Speaker 2: of blew me away. It's the first of its kind.
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  Speaker 2: And what this research is showing is that harsh parenting
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  Speaker 2: in childhood leads to smaller brains. It has a huge
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  Speaker 2: impact on children's brain development. Researchers at the University of
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  Speaker 2: Montreal found that repeatedly getting angry, hitting or shaking or
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  Speaker 2: even just yelling at children is linked with smaller brain
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  Speaker 2: structures and adolescents.
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  Speaker 3: I think what's interesting about this is that I think
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  Speaker 3: that society in general recognizes the social and emotional challenges
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  Speaker 3: that present as a result of this form of parenting,
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  Speaker 3: but to recognize that this literally alters the structure of
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  Speaker 3: our children's brain.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So we've always known, I shouldn't say always, for decades now,
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  Speaker 2: we've known that serious abuse has a really strong link
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  Speaker 2: to anxiety and depression for children, for adolescents, and then
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  Speaker 2: into adulthood that casts that long shadow right throughout their lives.
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  Speaker 2: We've known that abuse does that, but this is a
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  Speaker 2: really fascinating study because these children have been followed from
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  Speaker 2: birth through the first nine years of life, and then
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  Speaker 2: follow up studies have found that so basically the kids
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  Speaker 2: are divided into groups based on the persistent kind of
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  Speaker 2: parenting they experience and the parents who are harsh. Now,
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  Speaker 2: let me just redefine harsh for you, okay, because we're
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  Speaker 2: not talking about abusive parenting here. We're talking about harsh.
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  Speaker 2: That is parents who are saying, damn it, do it
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  Speaker 2: my way. I'm going to yell at you, I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to get angry at you, I'm going to be persistently
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  Speaker 2: high level when it comes to my authoritarian parenting. That's
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  Speaker 2: really what we're talking about. Parents who are harsh my
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  Speaker 2: way of the highway, angry hitting kind of parents, the shouting, yelling,
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  Speaker 2: hitting kind of.
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  Speaker 3: Stuff, which, regardless of what your take on it, is
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  Speaker 3: acceptable behavior in society.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that there's still a fairly general agreement that, well,
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  Speaker 2: while it's idea that we don't do that, there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of people say, yeah, you've got to yell at
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  Speaker 2: your kids now and there. Now, you've got to smack
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  Speaker 2: your kids otherwise they're going to run right and they're
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  Speaker 2: going to rule the roost. So the my way of
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  Speaker 2: high way, I'm the parent, my house, my rules approach
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  Speaker 2: is consistent with a harsh parenting style. Now, obviously the
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  Speaker 2: more serious the harshness, the greater the impact on our
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  Speaker 2: children's brains. But this research from the University of Montreal
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  Speaker 2: basically says the harsh parenting is associated with a genuine
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  Speaker 2: anatomical difference. The kid's brains are smaller in two key areas,
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  Speaker 2: the emotional center of the brain and the prefrontal cortex,
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  Speaker 2: which is the thinking part of the brain. What we
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  Speaker 2: do is we actually suppress the development of the brain
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  Speaker 2: areas that are going to be most important for our
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  Speaker 2: children to be highly functioning adults. If we're harsh and punitive.
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  Speaker 3: That intrigues me as well, because I think that when
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  Speaker 3: we're in those spaces where we are being threatened or
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  Speaker 3: we feel attacked, we stop thinking. You know, you just
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  Speaker 3: think about as an adult, if you're in those positions,
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  Speaker 3: you actually stop thinking rationally. So this really makes sense
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  Speaker 3: to me that this would have such, you know, significant
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  Speaker 3: impact on our children as their brains are developing.
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  Speaker 2: They're significant findings. They're also fairly in you at the
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  Speaker 2: first time. Like I said that harsh parenting practices that
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  Speaker 2: fall short of serious abuse have been linked to this
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  Speaker 2: decreased brain structure size. But the decrease in brain structure
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  Speaker 2: size for kids who are not being abused is actually
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  Speaker 2: corresponding to kids who have been abused. In short, harsh
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  Speaker 2: parenting practices like yelling and shouting and threatening and being
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  Speaker 2: consistently angry and hitting literally affecting the very structure of
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  Speaker 2: children's brains. We've got to be able to equip parents
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  Speaker 2: with better strategies so they don't do that because they literally, genuinely,
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  Speaker 2: unquestionably are harming the well being of their children.
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  Speaker 3: These are some really tricky conversations, but I think they're
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  Speaker 3: so important for us to have if we're going to
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  Speaker 3: continue to improve and make positive changes in our children's world.
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  Speaker 2: Well from the doctor's desk, it happens about once a month.
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  Speaker 2: From the Happy Famili's podcast, probably not the most pleasant
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  Speaker 2: news today, but worth summarizing and helping parents to be
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  Speaker 2: aware of it. Number One, keep screen used to a
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  Speaker 2: minimum because it does seem to be impacting school readiness,
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  Speaker 2: primarily because it's displacing children's opportunities to use their bodies
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  Speaker 2: to increase their perception and to get that social and
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  Speaker 2: emotional development that they need by living whole balanced childhoods.
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  Speaker 2: And number two, minimize that harsh parenting because it actually
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  Speaker 2: changes the structure of children's brains, increases their risk of
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  Speaker 2: mental health issues, particularly anxiety and depression throughout adolescence and adulthood.
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  Speaker 2: And just treat them with love and respect and be
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  Speaker 2: there for them. Goodness me, a parenting really hasn't changed
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  Speaker 2: that much when you look at what we've always known
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  Speaker 2: parenting should be about. Hopefully you enjoyed the podcast. It's
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  Speaker 2: been helpful and you can be a better parent as
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  Speaker 2: a result of it. If so, we love it when
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: you leave those five star ratings and reviews at Apple Podcasts.
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  Speaker 2: When you do that, it helps other people to find
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  Speaker 2: out about the podcast and make their families happier. We
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  Speaker 2: appreciate the work of Justin Rulan from Bridge Media. He's
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  Speaker 2: our producer. Our executive producer is Craig Bruce. Appreciate you too, Craig,
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  Speaker 2: Thanks for all that you do. If you'd like more,
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  Speaker 2: information about making your family happier. You can visit happyfamilies
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  Speaker 2: dot com dot au