Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #959 Someone to Talk To

Transcript

#959 Someone to Talk To · 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 wants answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson.
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  Speaker 2: So delighted to have a special guest with me on
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  Speaker 2: the Happy Families Podcast today, doctor Katrina Lyons. Katrina is
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  Speaker 2: the CEO of Act for Kids, a charity that helps
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  Speaker 2: keep kids safe, heal from trauma, and lead happy lives.
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  Speaker 2: Katrina is also a registered psychologist. And the rest I'm
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  Speaker 2: talking with Katrina today is a recent survey that was
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  Speaker 2: conducted by Acts for Kids caught my attention. I thought
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  Speaker 2: it was absolutely fascinating and it's something that every single parent.
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  Speaker 1: Needs to hear.
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  Speaker 2: The report or the campaign is called get Comfy Switching
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  Speaker 2: on by switching off. Doctor Lynes, It's so good to
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  Speaker 2: have you on the Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me.
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  Speaker 2: What was the number one eye opening finding from this
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  Speaker 2: research that you did with Australian families Australian.
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  Speaker 3: Children, Hi, Justin, were the most worrying finding? Was it?
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  Speaker 3: Forty percent of kids age fourteen to eighteen don't actually
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  Speaker 3: speak to anyone if they're worried, So they don't talk
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  Speaker 3: to anyone, which is really concerning.
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  Speaker 2: So when I hear you say that nearly half of
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  Speaker 2: kids who are in their mid to eighteens, they're just
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  Speaker 2: shutting the world out. I think of the sullen, cranky, withdrawn, terrified,
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  Speaker 2: worried teen who just goes into their room and stairs
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  Speaker 2: to screen, rather than engaging with life, engaging with parents,
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  Speaker 2: engaging with a school counsel or a teacher or somebody
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  Speaker 2: that they can lean on. Am I getting that right?
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  Speaker 2: What are they doing if they're experiencing challenges in their
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  Speaker 2: life and they're not talking to somebody.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that they don't talk to anybody, and that that's
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  Speaker 3: actually really scary, as you say, because they're bottling up
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  Speaker 3: all of those emotions, all their worries, and they're making
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  Speaker 3: everything bigger in their head. As you know, if you
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  Speaker 3: don't talk to somebody and you know, try and get
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  Speaker 3: out those worries and it all amplifiers in your head.
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  Speaker 3: And so our concern is that they're you know, they're
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  Speaker 3: brewing mental health problems down the track. That's really what's happening.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: So you've worked as a rich psyche for plenty of years,
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  Speaker 2: how often would you see this in a clinical setting?
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  Speaker 2: So someone comes in, they're really struggling and you just
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  Speaker 2: find out that they've got no one to talk to,
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  Speaker 2: or rather maybe it's that they've chosen not to talk
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  Speaker 2: to anyone.
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  Speaker 3: It's actually really common in the clinical setting if somebody
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  Speaker 3: ends up coming through the door, it's usually precipitated by
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  Speaker 3: you know, a crisis or someone said to them, you
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  Speaker 3: need to go and talk to somebody, or something's happened,
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  Speaker 3: because they'll have you spent a long time sitting ruminating
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  Speaker 3: on something. So it is quite common.
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  Speaker 2: And this is that thing where they're ruminating and it
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  Speaker 2: kind of turns into a catastrophe, doesn't it. There's there's
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  Speaker 2: so much build up, so much, so much angst, so much.
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  Speaker 1: Unknown going on.
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  Speaker 3: Well, and that's has for young people as well. They've
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  Speaker 3: got all these pressures of you know, school and friends
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  Speaker 3: and social media and a whole host of things happening.
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  Speaker 3: And so there may be something small and solvable or
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  Speaker 3: some emotions that they're feeling that if they talk to
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  Speaker 3: somebody and their emotions are acknowledged, then the feelings go away.
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  Speaker 3: They can help, you know, an adult can help them
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  Speaker 3: manage it. But they're bottling all that up. Then it does,
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  Speaker 3: it becomes big in their head.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So here's a really tough question.
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  Speaker 2: The forty percent of kids who are talking to no one,
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  Speaker 2: no one at all. How many of them have somebody
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  Speaker 2: to talk to but they're choosing not to talk to them.
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  Speaker 2: And how many of them just don't have someone they
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  Speaker 2: feel that they can talk to. They feel like their
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  Speaker 2: parents will shrug their shoulders and say, I'll get over it.
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  Speaker 1: Stop being silly, You'll be fine.
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  Speaker 2: This is all in your head, so they're concerned about
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  Speaker 2: criticism from their parents. How many of them are in
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  Speaker 2: those two different situations, So.
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  Speaker 3: There's nearly ten percent of them who say they have
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  Speaker 3: no close adult to talk to at all. Well of
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  Speaker 3: the whole sample. And the problem and where we came
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  Speaker 3: up with the campaign switching off to switch on for
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  Speaker 3: kids is because most kids say they don't listen. They're
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  Speaker 3: close adult doesn't listen. So sixty percent of them say
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  Speaker 3: that they sometimes or maybe listen. Only thirty percent of
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  Speaker 3: kids say they're at their close adult always listens to them.
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  Speaker 3: So that's the trick. They probably have a close adult.
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  Speaker 3: And the kids who do talk to someone, the first
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  Speaker 3: person they talk to, sixty five percent of them say
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  Speaker 3: their friends. Then sixty four percent of them say their
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  Speaker 3: parents or their careers, and then thirty three percent say
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  Speaker 3: their sibling. So they do talk to their parents like
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  Speaker 3: it's almost the same percentage as friends, But there's a
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  Speaker 3: percentage of kids who don't believe their close adult listens
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  Speaker 3: to them, and so they give up. I think, what's.
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  Speaker 2: The outcome when children believe that either that close adult
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  Speaker 2: either A isn't there at all, or B is there
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  Speaker 2: but just doesn't listen and therefore doesn't care. What sort
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  Speaker 2: of out comes do we see from a research point
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  Speaker 2: of view, and what sort of outcomes do you see
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  Speaker 2: act for kids when those adults are not perceived as available.
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  Speaker 3: Well, kids feel unloved or uncard for. They don't feel
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  Speaker 3: like they're worthy of someone listening to them and their problems.
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  Speaker 3: They end up with those problems amplified in their heads,
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  Speaker 3: and so they do end up with depression and anxiety.
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  Speaker 3: And we're seeing significant increases in young people in our
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  Speaker 3: services with depression, anxiety, and just general stress and worry
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  Speaker 3: since COVID, like it increased in COVID and it hasn't
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  Speaker 3: gone away.
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  Speaker 2: I wrote a report just the other day, and I
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  Speaker 2: can't remember the name of the research that I lent on.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish I had access to it right as
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  Speaker 1: we're talking.
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  Speaker 2: But while I was doing this research for this report,
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  Speaker 2: it indicated that prior to COVID, around about fifteen percent
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  Speaker 2: of adolescents were showing up with anxiety disorders and anxiety challenges.
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  Speaker 2: Since COVID, we've seen that escalate to somewhere around twenty
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  Speaker 2: to twenty five percent for boys and as much as
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  Speaker 2: forty to forty two percent for girls. Like, the numbers
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  Speaker 2: are just astonishingly high over the last couple of years.
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  Speaker 2: When I'm listening to what you're saying, Katrina, it also
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  Speaker 2: reminded me of the classic Emmy Werner studies, the sociologist
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  Speaker 2: who went to that Hawaiian island and studied everybody in
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  Speaker 2: a certain community for about forty years, and the number
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  Speaker 2: one finding that she uncovered as she did all of
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  Speaker 2: her research was at the very core of resilience, at
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  Speaker 2: the very core of avoiding maladaptive coping strategies. The stuff
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  Speaker 2: that kept kids in school, the stuff that kept kids
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  Speaker 2: in good relationships, the stuff that kept them out of
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  Speaker 2: jail and off drugs. The stuff that mattered the most
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  Speaker 2: was that they had a close, significant adult that they
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  Speaker 2: could talk to.
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  Speaker 1: Whether it was a parent or.
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  Speaker 2: A swim coach, or a church leader, or a school
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  Speaker 2: teacher or counselor, or a neighbor or a grandpa or
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  Speaker 2: an arti or an uncle.
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  Speaker 1: They just had to have a close adult that they
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  Speaker 1: could talk to.
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  Speaker 2: I'm hearing in your research that we've got nearly half
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  Speaker 2: of Australian children, at least half the kids in the sample,
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  Speaker 2: a representative Australian sample that are saying I can't talk
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  Speaker 2: to anyone.
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  Speaker 1: They're not present for me. Am I getting that.
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  Speaker 3: Right, absolutely, And that's why we were really really worried
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  Speaker 3: because we're seeing those increased rates in all of our
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  Speaker 3: services of anxiety and stress and and very interested in
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  Speaker 3: what supports children and young people have. And you know,
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  Speaker 3: to have forty percent of kids saying they don't talk
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  Speaker 3: to anybody is really really concerning because down the track
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  Speaker 3: they could end up with significant mental health issues. And
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  Speaker 3: certainly they're you know, they must be struggling, sleeping and
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  Speaker 3: you know, just going through their day and coping in
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  Speaker 3: and so having that close ad of is someone who
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  Speaker 3: helps you learn to cope and co regulates your emotions
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  Speaker 3: and you know, the problem shared is a problem halved
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  Speaker 3: is actually a really true saying. You know, just talking
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  Speaker 3: about it and having it out in the open, you realize, oh,
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  Speaker 3: this maybe not as big as I thought it was.
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  Speaker 3: If somebody acknowledges it and your feelings.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, I've got a couple of questions for you to
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  Speaker 2: get really practical around this. The first one is a
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  Speaker 2: lot of parents will be listening to this and saying, oh,
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  Speaker 2: I try, I'm there, Like I asked the kids, what's
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  Speaker 2: going on?
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  Speaker 1: Can they talk to me? And they just shut me out.
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  Speaker 2: As as a psychologist, what's your advice to parents who
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  Speaker 2: have kids who don't seem to be willing to communicate
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  Speaker 2: even though the parent is present, available and wanting, begging
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  Speaker 2: for that conversation.
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  Speaker 3: That's really hard, especially if you're going to start with
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  Speaker 3: a pointed question, oh is everything okay? Because you know
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  Speaker 3: kids are just going to go yep, T no worries
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  Speaker 3: at all. What we've been advocating for is to people
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  Speaker 3: to start with small talk, because if you start with
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  Speaker 3: small talk and you build it into every day, incidental,
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  Speaker 3: side by side things, So in the car when you're
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  Speaker 3: getting dinner ready together, you're you know, making lunches you
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  Speaker 3: all that kind of thing, so they're not the deer
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  Speaker 3: in the headlights and you're pinning them with the question.
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  Speaker 3: You know. So the more you do that and actually
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  Speaker 3: show that you're listening to them, so you're not on
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  Speaker 3: your phone, you're not answering the email, you're not thinking
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  Speaker 3: five days ahead to what's for dinner or where who's
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  Speaker 3: going when you know all of those things, because kids
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  Speaker 3: can tell when you're not listening. So it's those incidental
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  Speaker 3: things and connecting in with them. And so kids are
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  Speaker 3: on their devices all the time now, so you can
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  Speaker 3: just check in with them and go, you know, how
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  Speaker 3: you going just thinking of you just a simple text
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  Speaker 3: or a mean that shows them that you're thinking of
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  Speaker 3: them and just trying to build that small talk connection.
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  Speaker 3: Because if you've built the small talk connection and you
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  Speaker 3: do things with them, then if there's a big talk
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  Speaker 3: that needs to happen, the kids will feel like you're
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  Speaker 3: listening to them and will actually talk to you.
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  Speaker 1: I've got one more question for you.
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  Speaker 2: In the survey, you asked a question about how much
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  Speaker 2: time these fourteen to eighteen year olds want to spend
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  Speaker 2: each day with the adults in their lives.
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  Speaker 1: Can you just talk about that for a moment.
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  Speaker 3: I know this blew us away one to two hours
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  Speaker 3: per day.
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  Speaker 2: So what were their options. They could choose from zero
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  Speaker 2: up to a certain number of like four or five, six,
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  Speaker 2: seven hours.
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  Speaker 3: It was less than half half an hour, one to
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  Speaker 3: two hours, more than two hours, and none. So twenty
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  Speaker 3: eight percent of kids said more than two hours. The
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  Speaker 3: majority of kids said one to two hours, and hardly
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  Speaker 3: any kid said none or less than half an hour.
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  Speaker 3: That just blew us away, because so they're really craving time,
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  Speaker 3: and the time they said that they wanted to spend
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  Speaker 3: was just hanging out together or chatting in the car,
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  Speaker 3: or chatting while we're doing things. We gave them a
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  Speaker 3: list of options about when they would want their adult
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  Speaker 3: to listen to them, so they're really clear they just
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  Speaker 3: want to hang out with the close adult and have
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  Speaker 3: the opportunity for that person to listen to them.
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  Speaker 1: I love this finding.
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  Speaker 2: I mean it flies in the face of everything that
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  Speaker 2: people have always said about teenagers. They're moody, they're someone
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  Speaker 2: they don't want to hang out with the adults they're
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  Speaker 2: supposed to separate from their parents, And here we've got
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  Speaker 2: fourteen to eighteen year olds saying if I could spend
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  Speaker 2: one or two hours every day with my parents, I'd
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  Speaker 2: be spoked.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Quarter of them, more than a quarter them want
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  Speaker 3: more than two hours. Yeah, which is just outstanding. Wow. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: but I mean they don't want you to sit and
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  Speaker 3: you know.
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  Speaker 1: Not looking for the meaningful conversation.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. They doesn't want that. They just want
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  Speaker 3: to be able to do stuff together.
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  Speaker 2: Doctor Katrina Lyons is the CEO of Act for Kids,
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  Speaker 2: charity that helps keep kids safe, heal from trauma, and
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  Speaker 2: lead happy lives. The new report the new campaign get
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  Speaker 2: Comfy Switching on by switching off. We'll link to it
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  Speaker 2: in the show notes. Katrina, what a delightful conversation. We
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  Speaker 2: so appreciate you spending some time with us on the
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  Speaker 2: Happy Families podcast to talk about something that I think
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  Speaker 2: we'll give a whole lot of parents of adolescents a
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  Speaker 2: whole lot of hope.
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  Speaker 3: Thanks Justin.
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  Speaker 2: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
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  Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer and for
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  Speaker 2: more andfol about making your family happier, check out the
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  Speaker 2: show notes for the details of Act for Kids, or
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  Speaker 2: visit us at Happy families, dot com, dot au,