Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Has Screen-Use Crossed the Line in Your Home? — With Dr Brad Marshall

Transcript

Has Screen-Use Crossed the Line in Your Home? — With Dr Brad Marshall · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:06
Speaker 1: We keep on hearing about internet gaming disorder, that our
0:09
Speaker 1: kids are using their smartphones way too much, and of
0:11
Speaker 1: course that it's having some kind of a developmental impact
0:14
Speaker 1: that's negative in their lives. And yet, for some reason,
0:17
Speaker 1: the conversation keeps on happening, and for many of us
0:20
Speaker 1: as parents, it almost feels like we throw up the
0:22
Speaker 1: white flag, throw up the white flag, raise the white flag,
0:25
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and start to wonder is
0:27
Speaker 1: it even worth it? Is it that big of a deal.
0:29
Speaker 1: Everybody else is doing it. It's just the world today.
0:32
Speaker 1: I'm tired. And apart from that, we kind of like
0:35
Speaker 1: our own Instagram feeds as well. It's pretty easy to
0:38
Speaker 1: settle into that. Today, a big conversation about Internet gaming
0:43
Speaker 1: disorder and smartphone overuse in Australian primary and secondary school kids.
0:50
Speaker 1: I'm so excited for this conversation. It will be practical,
0:52
Speaker 1: it will be helpful, and it will set you on
0:54
Speaker 1: the path for where we want to go in helping
0:57
Speaker 1: our children to flourish and maybe live a little more
1:01
Speaker 1: screen free. Ish Stay with us. Hello and welcome to
1:07
Speaker 1: the Happy Families podcast, Real parenting Solutions every day on
1:10
Speaker 1: Australia's most downloaded Parenting podcast. My name is doctor Justin Colson,
1:13
Speaker 1: and today I am joined by a frequent contributor to
1:17
Speaker 1: the pod and somebody who iss becoming a wonderful friend
1:20
Speaker 1: and wise guy to talk to around all these kinds
1:24
Speaker 1: of things. Doctor, it's official now the PhD has completed.
1:27
Speaker 1: Doctor Brad Marshall, the chief Research officer of the all
1:30
Speaker 1: new Control Shift, also known as the Unplugged Psychologist, and
1:34
Speaker 1: a researcher at mcquarie University. Brad, thanks for being with me.
1:38
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me again, Justin, it's good to be back.
1:41
Speaker 1: So you've published a brand new article with Wayne Warburton,
1:43
Speaker 1: who we recently had on the pod, talking about some
1:45
Speaker 1: more of these kinds of topics. The name of the
1:48
Speaker 1: article is Internet Gaming Disorder and Smartphone overuse in Australian
1:50
Speaker 1: primary school and secondary children prevalence and developmental impacts. Now,
1:53
Speaker 1: I know that most people who will listening to this
1:55
Speaker 1: don't like the academic jargon, the dent academic speak. Walk
2:00
Speaker 1: us through this one, because almost every single person who's
2:02
Speaker 1: listened to this pod has a child who is either
2:04
Speaker 1: in primary school or secondary school. They are in front
2:07
Speaker 1: of screens devices, they are playing games. They do often
2:10
Speaker 1: own their own smartphone. How prevalent is the reality that
2:14
Speaker 1: they've got them? But more than that, how prevalent is
2:17
Speaker 1: this smartphone overused? How do you even define that? What
2:21
Speaker 1: is it? Let's hear all the details.
2:23
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so I think we need to start with
2:26
Speaker 2: When myself and my research colleagues set out with this study,
2:31
Speaker 2: it was very much designed around We have two major
2:34
Speaker 2: studies in Australia, one by Professor Daniel King in Adelaide
2:40
Speaker 2: and the other was by my research partner, Professor Wayne Warburton,
2:44
Speaker 2: who have done prevalence, which for those at home parents,
2:46
Speaker 2: it basically just means what's the percentage of kids that
2:49
Speaker 2: have an issue with Internet gaming disorder or gaming issues
2:53
Speaker 2: or smartphone addiction or smartphone overuse. So we only have
2:57
Speaker 2: two studies to date and they were both pre COVID, Justine.
3:00
Speaker 2: So the question then always that God asked in the
3:03
Speaker 2: clinic and when I was speaking at schools and other places,
3:05
Speaker 2: was has this gone up over COVID or Usually parents
3:09
Speaker 2: were just saying it's definitely gone up, and we weren't
3:12
Speaker 2: sure about that. So we did this study in twenty
3:14
Speaker 2: twenty three. Now, what we did was we went to
3:18
Speaker 2: schools and we asked them if we could survey kids
3:22
Speaker 2: within schools. And first of all, I should note that
3:27
Speaker 2: one of the limitations here is we could only use
3:29
Speaker 2: independent schools. If any of you remember two years ago,
3:32
Speaker 2: there was a freeze on research in Catholic schools and
3:36
Speaker 2: public schools at the time, so this is only independent schools.
3:40
Speaker 2: But what we were trying to achieve is number one,
3:42
Speaker 2: the biggest sample to date in Australian populations, and number two,
3:47
Speaker 2: we wanted a wider variety of ages because one of
3:50
Speaker 2: the things I were critical of in previous research is
3:53
Speaker 2: that it focused on this sort of teenage fifteen, sixteen,
3:57
Speaker 2: seventeen year olds. But I was seeing in the clinic
4:00
Speaker 2: kids age eight, ten, twelve, so I wanted to go younger.
4:04
Speaker 2: I took what you might call the more difficult path
4:07
Speaker 2: in this because I wanted the younger sample kids. So
4:11
Speaker 2: year forty year eight is what these kids are now.
4:14
Speaker 2: I will acknowledge as well, there are not as many
4:16
Speaker 2: primary school age kids as I would have liked in
4:18
Speaker 2: this sample. It's still high school heavy. But as far
4:22
Speaker 2: as what the prevalence is, the numbers that we actually
4:24
Speaker 2: found the pertinent numbers are. First of all, the amount
4:29
Speaker 2: of hours on a recreational screens that our kids are
4:32
Speaker 2: spending is about nine hours a day for our high
4:38
Speaker 2: school kids year seven, year eight, and about six hours,
4:41
Speaker 2: just over six hours for our primary school kids.
4:44
Speaker 1: All right, So I've got to interrupt you here. This
4:46
Speaker 1: is critical that we make this distinction between what you
4:50
Speaker 1: might call or consider necessary use and what you've called
4:53
Speaker 1: recreational use. So can we just get a quick definition here,
4:56
Speaker 1: nine hours or six hours depending on the age on
4:59
Speaker 1: average worth highlighting as well, on average means that fifty
5:02
Speaker 1: percent are above that and fifty percent below, right, that's
5:05
Speaker 1: what the average is. So there are fifty percent of
5:07
Speaker 1: kids who are getting more than nine hours per day
5:10
Speaker 1: on their screens. And yeah, high school kids, and it's
5:14
Speaker 1: recreational use that we're talking about here, So just break
5:16
Speaker 1: that down for me.
5:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so again, there's no perfect way to
5:20
Speaker 2: measure this. The only perfect way to measure this would
5:23
Speaker 2: be to literally install tracking devices on your kid's devices, right,
5:27
Speaker 2: which is not possible. So what this is it's asking
5:30
Speaker 2: kids to break down how many hours in the last
5:33
Speaker 2: few weeks, how many hours per day are you spending
5:36
Speaker 2: on a console. How many hours on your phone? How
5:38
Speaker 2: many hours on your you know, home devices, gaming, laptop,
5:42
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, iPad. Now, some of this may
5:46
Speaker 2: be a little bit confused with school time, and that's
5:49
Speaker 2: one of the difficulties in measuring this because obviously if
5:53
Speaker 2: you get a ten twelve year old kid, they may
5:56
Speaker 2: interpret that read the question quickly. But ultimately, Lee, we
6:00
Speaker 2: were not targeting your use of PowerPoint in a history
6:05
Speaker 2: lesson in year seven. That's not what we were asking there.
6:08
Speaker 2: In fact, one of the limitations of this is the reverse.
6:12
Speaker 2: If you ask most kids these days how many kids
6:15
Speaker 2: in class are actually gaining or on YouTube in class,
6:18
Speaker 2: they will say that a fair amount of them are,
6:20
Speaker 2: And we were ruling that stuff out as well, right,
6:22
Speaker 2: So we were talking about outside of school hours, so
6:26
Speaker 2: those hours of six and nine hours for primary and
6:29
Speaker 2: high school kids. I think what's really important to note
6:32
Speaker 2: here is that I gave this testimony to the Australian
6:35
Speaker 2: Parliament last year in the Social Media inquiries, and that
6:39
Speaker 2: is distinctly different to what the E Safety Commissioner reported.
6:43
Speaker 2: The E Safety Commissioner told that inquiry that their research
6:48
Speaker 2: indicates what was the equivalent of about two hours a
6:51
Speaker 2: day of recreational screen use. It's nowhere even close to
6:56
Speaker 2: what we found. So I'll also point out that our
7:00
Speaker 2: data is very consistent and the amount of hours to
7:03
Speaker 2: the OECD statistics that came out in May twenty twenty five.
7:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked about that when it came out on
7:10
Speaker 1: the podcast. These numbers are big, not nine hours of
7:14
Speaker 1: recreational screen use every day. So let's say a teenager.
7:18
Speaker 1: I know that you're highlighting primary versus high school, so
7:20
Speaker 1: let's stick with the high schools for a moment. Let's
7:22
Speaker 1: say that the average teenager should be getting even if
7:25
Speaker 1: we call it nine hours of sleep a night, right,
7:28
Speaker 1: that's we'd like them to be a little bit more
7:30
Speaker 1: than that, but let's call it nine hours. Then they've
7:32
Speaker 1: got to go to school and all the travel and
7:34
Speaker 1: all the stuff around that, so we've got at least
7:37
Speaker 1: another seven to eight hours. I'm not really good at
7:39
Speaker 1: live maths, but that tells me that we're somewhere around
7:42
Speaker 1: about sixteen seventeen eighteen hours of the day is kind
7:45
Speaker 1: of gone, and then we've got to find nine hours
7:47
Speaker 1: for screen They're supposed to have a hoo many of
7:49
Speaker 1: them have jobs, they've got relationships, they're involved in structured
7:52
Speaker 1: activities outside of school. It doesn't fit, which means that
7:55
Speaker 1: stuff that matters is going by the bye so that
7:58
Speaker 1: they can stare at their screens, play game, look at Instagram, TikTok,
8:01
Speaker 1: that kind of thing.
8:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, spot on, And that's exactly why in this study,
8:06
Speaker 2: myself and my colleagues at Macquarie University developed what we
8:11
Speaker 2: call the Screen Developmental Impact QUESTIONNAI. We wanted a way
8:16
Speaker 2: to measure what the developmental impacts are on children and
8:20
Speaker 2: teenagers in a variety of different areas, so education, social development,
8:27
Speaker 2: physical health, emotional and behavior. Now keep in mind, these
8:33
Speaker 2: are students that are responding to these questionnaires, so this
8:36
Speaker 2: is not a parent's view. This is what students are
8:38
Speaker 2: telling us. And we did find in this study that
8:42
Speaker 2: there are significant impacts in all of those areas of
8:47
Speaker 2: development when you get into these high levels of either
8:51
Speaker 2: smartphone overuse or gaming.
8:53
Speaker 1: So, Brad, this is the crux of the study, and
8:54
Speaker 1: this is really why I wanted to talk to you,
8:56
Speaker 1: because it's one thing to say, all right, kids are
8:58
Speaker 1: using their devices a lot. We've got smartphone over use,
9:01
Speaker 1: we've got a lot of activity happening on screens and
9:03
Speaker 1: it comes to you and I stand up in front
9:05
Speaker 1: of groups all day, every day and say, our children's
9:08
Speaker 1: well being is being undermined by screens. And there are
9:12
Speaker 1: plenty of adults who all point to the things that
9:16
Speaker 1: they're concerned about. But when we hear it in their words,
9:19
Speaker 1: and when we've got something that actually measures what the
9:22
Speaker 1: impact is, then there's more heft, there's more thunk. I guess,
9:28
Speaker 1: you know, like you're dropping a big book on the
9:30
Speaker 1: table rather than a pamphlet, and it's like, Okay, there's
9:33
Speaker 1: something weighty here, So walk me through. What did these
9:36
Speaker 1: young people themselves identify when it comes to the impact
9:41
Speaker 1: of their use of screens.
9:46
Speaker 2: I think what we actually have to do is just
9:47
Speaker 2: take one step backwards here, if I may justin, because
9:50
Speaker 2: we've missed here a key part around the prevalence. So
9:53
Speaker 2: not only did we measure the amount of hours, but
9:56
Speaker 2: we also measured how many kids have what we would
9:59
Speaker 2: call Internet gay disorder, the diagnostic term on a screening tool.
10:03
Speaker 2: It's not diagnostic because you've not done a clinical interview,
10:05
Speaker 2: but it's a screening tool, which is a common tool,
10:08
Speaker 2: and how many have a smartphone addiction. So we found
10:11
Speaker 2: that four percent of Australian kids have a either subclinical
10:17
Speaker 2: or clinical gaming disorder and about nine point nine percent
10:23
Speaker 2: of Australian kids have medium to high levels of smartphone
10:27
Speaker 2: addiction or overuse. Now, if we just extrapolate those numbers,
10:32
Speaker 2: and I know I've talked to you about these numbers
10:34
Speaker 2: roughly on the podcast before, right, but we're talking about
10:37
Speaker 2: about one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand Australian
10:40
Speaker 2: kids with gaming disorder and about four hundred thousand with
10:43
Speaker 2: a smartphone overuse or addiction. The key element here being
10:49
Speaker 2: in this study, this was the first arm of a
10:53
Speaker 2: trial and the second arm was a follow up where
10:55
Speaker 2: we were actually going to invite parents into a parent
10:59
Speaker 2: intervention TREA control, So that is a fancy term for
11:02
Speaker 2: those parents at home of we're going to help the
11:04
Speaker 2: parents in the second TROL. So in order to do that,
11:07
Speaker 2: the ethics board of Macquari univer University said, hey, you
11:10
Speaker 2: really need to tell these kids that you're going to
11:12
Speaker 2: tell their parents if their use is high. So we did.
11:16
Speaker 2: You can imagine how many kids aged ten to fourteen
11:20
Speaker 2: are going to read that and go there's no way,
11:23
Speaker 2: I'm answering this accurately. So those numbers that I've just
11:26
Speaker 2: quoted you, the hours and the percentages, they're probably understating
11:30
Speaker 2: the issue.
11:31
Speaker 1: So now that we've got these prevalence data and we
11:34
Speaker 1: understand that, I'm going to forgive me for being imprecise
11:38
Speaker 1: and rounding, but it's just easy to remember round numbers.
11:41
Speaker 1: Let's say about five percent of kids are showing up
11:44
Speaker 1: with a subclinical or clinical gaming disorder, and about ten
11:47
Speaker 1: percent ish are showing up with medium to high smartphone
11:50
Speaker 1: addiction or over use. How they seeing the impacts? What
11:56
Speaker 1: does this mean at a practical level in their daily lives.
11:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, one of the most practical things out of
12:01
Speaker 2: this study is that we didn't actually find any notable
12:05
Speaker 2: differences in those prevalence rates between primary school and high school.
12:10
Speaker 2: So what that tells us is that both of these
12:12
Speaker 2: phenomena gaming disorder and smartphone overuse start in primary school.
12:19
Speaker 1: The great rewiring of the adolescent brain begins around about
12:22
Speaker 1: the age of seven or eight, once these could start
12:24
Speaker 1: to really invest in these screens.
12:26
Speaker 2: Correct, But I think what you're getting out obviously is
12:29
Speaker 2: the developmental impacts, and that's sort of what I'm excited
12:33
Speaker 2: about as well, excited and scared at the same time,
12:35
Speaker 2: of course. But we had these five main categories, and
12:40
Speaker 2: what our investigations found is that there was probably more
12:43
Speaker 2: indicative of four categories, and so the emotional impacts, the social,
12:48
Speaker 2: and physical were tied together in our exploratory factor analysis.
12:51
Speaker 2: For those at home that don't know what that is,
12:53
Speaker 2: don't worry, it's just sort of fancy stuff. That's a
12:55
Speaker 2: little bit researchy, behavioral impacts, and education. We had a
13:01
Speaker 2: list of questions that we asked them in different domains.
13:04
Speaker 2: So for example, with education impact, there would have been
13:08
Speaker 2: a question or there was a question there around have
13:11
Speaker 2: screens or gaming ever gotten in the way of you
13:14
Speaker 2: handing in an assessment or getting your homework in? So
13:17
Speaker 2: that is an example of a question or an item
13:20
Speaker 2: that was in measuring the educational impacts. Now, what we
13:25
Speaker 2: found for all four of these areas is all four
13:28
Speaker 2: were significant in the research. But what we also found
13:33
Speaker 2: is that there are no real impacts for kids that
13:36
Speaker 2: didn't meet criteria the internet, gaming disorder, or smartphone of use.
13:41
Speaker 2: Then we have a step up to the impacts that
13:45
Speaker 2: were there in developmental domains for kids that had smartphone
13:48
Speaker 2: of use or addiction, then a step up again in
13:51
Speaker 2: developmental impacts for subclinical gaming disorder, and then a step
13:55
Speaker 2: up again for kids with clinical gaming disorder. So what
13:59
Speaker 2: that tells us us is that the developmental impacts on
14:02
Speaker 2: our children and teenagers is greatest for gaming disorder, and
14:07
Speaker 2: then significant for smartphone addiction you are overuse, and then
14:11
Speaker 2: down to the normal quote unquote sample at the bottom.
14:22
Speaker 1: All right, So, Brad, now that we've gone through the study,
14:24
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of practical implications that every parent wants
14:27
Speaker 1: to know the answer to. And these things I think
14:29
Speaker 1: are just vitally important for us to discuss. First off,
14:33
Speaker 1: I want to clarify something, and I think this really
14:35
Speaker 1: requires some It just requires a minute or soel of elaboration.
14:40
Speaker 1: Gaming per se, there's a values question. Are you okay
14:45
Speaker 1: with your child playing first person shooter games or having
14:47
Speaker 1: the sound on and lots of strangers in your living
14:50
Speaker 1: room who are swearing and using inappropriate slurs and epithets
14:53
Speaker 1: and so on. But let's say that you've got your
14:55
Speaker 1: values sorted out and the kids know which games are
14:57
Speaker 1: okay from a values perspective and which games are not.
15:01
Speaker 1: The research evidence seems to indicate that playing games, so
15:06
Speaker 1: long as it's not at an excessive level, at a
15:08
Speaker 1: high level, playing too much, that is Internet gaming disorder,
15:12
Speaker 1: playing it pathologically and not being able to survive without
15:14
Speaker 1: the game, does have a whole lot of benefits. It
15:18
Speaker 1: seems to be really good for the kids socially, It
15:19
Speaker 1: seems to be quite good for them emotionally and even cognitively.
15:24
Speaker 1: The thing that I see in the data. No matter
15:26
Speaker 1: how many studies I look at, and no matter how
15:28
Speaker 1: much I try to find an argument to just say
15:30
Speaker 1: let's get the kids off games, I'm not finding an
15:33
Speaker 1: argument that says that it's bad for them until it
15:36
Speaker 1: reaches an unsafe or unhealthy level. Fundamentally, gaming is a
15:40
Speaker 1: whole lot of fun for a whole lot of people,
15:41
Speaker 1: and they don't have any negative effects. Tell me where
15:44
Speaker 1: I'm wrong or still mans the argument that I'm making
15:47
Speaker 1: So parents can go okay, I can breathe a little
15:49
Speaker 1: safely here.
15:50
Speaker 2: There are opportunities and risks that come with gaming, and
15:55
Speaker 2: so I certainly should acknowledge the opportunities here with social
15:59
Speaker 2: connection with mastery. There is research and evidence that suggests
16:04
Speaker 2: there are benefits in smallish doses. The problem is that
16:09
Speaker 2: it's different for every child as to when that dose
16:12
Speaker 2: becomes too much, and so you know, that could be
16:16
Speaker 2: thirty minutes a day for one pial, that could be
16:18
Speaker 2: two hours for another child. And that's why we developed
16:21
Speaker 2: the Developmental Impact Scale because we really wanted to know
16:27
Speaker 2: and have parents understand what are the areas of red
16:30
Speaker 2: flags that you can look out for. And all of
16:32
Speaker 2: this is public knowledge. You'll see in this paper that
16:35
Speaker 2: we list all of the domains in the supplementaries as well.
16:39
Speaker 2: But I guess to sort of come back to your
16:42
Speaker 2: question of of that opportunity versus that risk, what I
16:48
Speaker 2: struggle with as a researcher and a clinician is that
16:52
Speaker 2: many of the research articles and papers and information we
16:55
Speaker 2: get about the benefits of gaming have seignificant conflicts of interests.
17:01
Speaker 1: They're funded by the industry, they are.
17:04
Speaker 2: And so it is very difficult. So I'm not sitting
17:06
Speaker 2: here saying that every single piece of evidence is that way,
17:09
Speaker 2: but a lot of it is. And that becomes really
17:12
Speaker 2: difficult because if you have a researcher that is funded
17:16
Speaker 2: by the industry, either directly or indirectly, and they are
17:19
Speaker 2: publishing beneficial data around this. We've seen that before, Justine.
17:24
Speaker 2: We've seen that in smoking, we've seen that in sugar,
17:26
Speaker 2: we've seen that in the fact. We've seen this play before,
17:30
Speaker 2: and so we have to look at both sides. And
17:34
Speaker 2: what we're saying is that when overused in gaming becomes
17:40
Speaker 2: an issue, the developmental impacts are fairly significant. Now, what
17:45
Speaker 2: that all boils down to for me, if I just
17:47
Speaker 2: sort of summarize my own thoughts on this, is that
17:51
Speaker 2: I firmly believe that this is a decision for individual
17:55
Speaker 2: parents to make about their own child's gaining. So I'm
17:59
Speaker 2: not advocating banning gaming. That's not what I'm saying. Okay,
18:03
Speaker 2: what I am saying is how do we as a government,
18:08
Speaker 2: as health policy, as researchers allow parents to actually set
18:12
Speaker 2: limits in parental controls for their child, because at the
18:16
Speaker 2: moment they don't have that. Most parental controls are just
18:20
Speaker 2: we've talked about this before on the last episode, ayway,
18:23
Speaker 2: most parental controls are easy to get around, and so
18:26
Speaker 2: I believe we should be letting parents make the decision
18:28
Speaker 2: and actually apply that at the moment they can't.
18:31
Speaker 1: Brad, let's talk practical. People have listened to the study
18:35
Speaker 1: that you've done. They've heard that we've got pretty hygh percentages. Really,
18:41
Speaker 1: I mean, I think concerningly hYP percentages of kids who
18:44
Speaker 1: are using their devices in an overuse or compulsive way.
18:47
Speaker 1: That there's gaming disorder at a level that is really
18:51
Speaker 1: concerning any family who's going through it. They know of
18:54
Speaker 1: the just the psychological and emotional earthquakes that happen every
18:58
Speaker 1: single time there's a quest to get off the screen.
19:01
Speaker 1: It's time to eat, it's time to go to bed,
19:03
Speaker 1: it's time to go to school. They're dealing with some
19:06
Speaker 1: really really big challenges. But if I've got a child
19:08
Speaker 1: and I'm just concerned that they're using their screens too much,
19:10
Speaker 1: what are your three don't do this responses? What are
19:15
Speaker 1: the three things that you just don't cross this line?
19:17
Speaker 1: Don't do this with the kids, It's going to blow up.
19:19
Speaker 1: There are better things to do. What are the three
19:20
Speaker 1: things the most common mistakes parents make here?
19:23
Speaker 2: I like that you frame that question in what do
19:25
Speaker 2: you don't do? Instead of what do you do? Oh,
19:27
Speaker 2: we're going to get really makes me think he look,
19:31
Speaker 2: my first don't do is certainly around parents that go
19:36
Speaker 2: down the path of criticizing what their kids do online.
19:40
Speaker 2: If you found yourself in a position where you know
19:43
Speaker 2: you're sitting there going that game is such a waste
19:45
Speaker 2: of time. It's going to rock your brain, and that
19:48
Speaker 2: social media is creating You're always in there with that phone,
19:51
Speaker 2: and as soon as we do that, it becomes combative
19:54
Speaker 2: and your child is going to switch off. Sorry, not
19:59
Speaker 2: the screens, I mean witch off to you and what
20:01
Speaker 2: you're saying. Right, So, yeah, wrong, switch that's my Yeah,
20:04
Speaker 2: that's my first one, and I guess my other don't
20:07
Speaker 2: if I just sort of flip this if I use two.
20:10
Speaker 2: We have to be really careful about the access level
20:13
Speaker 2: that we give, especially around sleep. You've heard me talk
20:15
Speaker 2: about this before, justin sleep is one of the primary
20:19
Speaker 2: factors here in my clinical experience where things can go downhill.
20:22
Speaker 2: So in all of those developmental domains in that study,
20:26
Speaker 2: what I have found clinically is that if your child
20:29
Speaker 2: is in a sleep deficit because they're up late at
20:32
Speaker 2: night grabbing a phone because you let them have a
20:35
Speaker 2: phone in their room to you know, listen to music
20:38
Speaker 2: on Spotify to help them get to sleep, which is
20:40
Speaker 2: the classic one. Yeah, but you know you find them
20:43
Speaker 2: on something else that will snowball on everything else quickly,
20:47
Speaker 2: on all these other developmental domains quickly. So you know,
20:51
Speaker 2: don't even if you find yourself relaxing rules at other
20:55
Speaker 2: times because the horse has already bolted, don't relax those
20:58
Speaker 2: rules at night. Has to be number one. And don't
21:02
Speaker 2: go down this path with just endlessly criticizing what they're
21:05
Speaker 2: doing online.
21:06
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to add one if I can, because
21:08
Speaker 1: I said three and you've hit us with two. Your
21:11
Speaker 1: reactions are welcome if you disagree with me. I think
21:13
Speaker 1: that when we see our kids on screens and we've
21:16
Speaker 1: asked them to get off, or we've had this conversation
21:18
Speaker 1: seven thousand times, like this is a perennial issue, right
21:21
Speaker 1: you just you never stop talking about screens. Once they've
21:24
Speaker 1: got one, it fundamentally becomes the center of their world
21:26
Speaker 1: and it changes your relationship with them forever once they've
21:28
Speaker 1: got it. My big don't is don't have the screen
21:33
Speaker 1: conversation when they're on a screen, or when you've got
21:37
Speaker 1: when you've got a head full of steam because they're
21:39
Speaker 1: on a screen, like high emotions, low intelligence, it's just
21:42
Speaker 1: not the time for it. You've got to pick your time,
21:44
Speaker 1: usually on a nice, quiet Saturday or Sunday morning where
21:47
Speaker 1: everyone's relaxed and calm, and you can give them a
21:49
Speaker 1: chocolate milkshake or go down to the local cafe and
21:51
Speaker 1: get some wedges in sour cream and say, hey, I
21:53
Speaker 1: want to have a tricky conversation with you about that
21:55
Speaker 1: thing that's drive me up the wall. If you do
21:57
Speaker 1: it in the moment, you just create World War three
22:00
Speaker 1: in your living room.
22:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I couldn't agree more justin and I expand
22:04
Speaker 2: on that further to say, you know, when your kids
22:07
Speaker 2: are coming off screens, if you've said, right, your hours up,
22:10
Speaker 2: come off now, don't give them a terrible thing to
22:13
Speaker 2: go to. If you transition them to now it's time
22:16
Speaker 2: to do your maths homework, you are probably going to
22:18
Speaker 2: end in tears.
22:19
Speaker 1: Right, Brad, I reckon you and I could talk for
22:23
Speaker 1: about seventy seven hours about this and still still not
22:26
Speaker 1: exhaust our things to share. There's so much more that
22:30
Speaker 1: I want to ask you, so much more that we
22:31
Speaker 1: could talk about and play around with ideas around. You've
22:33
Speaker 1: been extremely generous with your time, though, and there's no way,
22:37
Speaker 1: there's no way that any parent could have listened to
22:39
Speaker 1: this and not have some really great parenting solutions to
22:44
Speaker 1: help them with their challenges. Thanks so much for your time.
22:47
Speaker 1: It's been an absolute delight, and hopefully when there's some
22:50
Speaker 1: more research that comes out that's just hot to try
22:53
Speaker 1: and perfect for parents, we can chat again.
22:55
Speaker 2: Thanks Justin.
22:56
Speaker 1: Dr Brad Marshall is mcquarie University academic. He is the
23:01
Speaker 1: Unplugged Psychologist and he is now most recently appointed as
23:04
Speaker 1: the Chief Research Officer at Control Shift. He's written books,
23:09
Speaker 1: he's a speaker and clearly you can hear he knows
23:12
Speaker 1: his stuff. Thank you so much for listening. We hope,
23:15
Speaker 1: hope so much that this has been a useful conversation
23:17
Speaker 1: for you. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
23:20
Speaker 1: Ruland from Bridge Media. If you'd like more information and
23:23
Speaker 1: more resources to make your family happier, check the show
23:26
Speaker 1: notes for Brad's resources and the studies that we've talked
23:29
Speaker 1: about and our previous podcasts, or just visit happyfamilies dot
23:33
Speaker 1: com dot a