Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #592 Parenting in the Age of Social Media
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
- 0:07Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Now, I say all the time to parents when I'm
- 0:12Speaker 2: talking about social media. You can fence the pool, but
- 0:13Speaker 2: you can't fence the ocean. The difficulty, of course, is
- 0:16Speaker 2: that putting a swimming pool fence around your swimming pool
- 0:19Speaker 2: will only protect your children while they're at your swimming pool. Therefore,
- 0:22Speaker 2: they can get themselves into trouble. You've got to teach
- 0:25Speaker 2: them to swim.
- 0:26Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
- 0:29Speaker 1: and dad.
- 0:30Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson, the founder of Happy
- 0:32Speaker 2: Families dot com. Today you I'm here with Kylie, my
- 0:34Speaker 2: wife from Under our six kids. Kyle, it's Monday. Was
- 0:36Speaker 2: supposed to be excited about a new week. How excited
- 0:38Speaker 2: are you?
- 0:40Speaker 3: I am actually excited.
- 0:41Speaker 4: We're getting closer and closer to school holidays and I'm
- 0:44Speaker 4: on the countdown.
- 0:44Speaker 2: Yeah, fair call, Okay, we need to have a conversation
- 0:48Speaker 2: about something quite serious today. We are going to talk
- 0:51Speaker 2: about social media. This is in the wake of a
- 0:55Speaker 2: week ago, week and a half ago, some private Sydney schoolboys,
- 1:00Speaker 2: one of the more elite schools, on the in the
- 1:02Speaker 2: northern suburbs of Sydney were sprung with a whole lot
- 1:07Speaker 2: of just breathtakingly horrendously, awfully, rottenly bad, appalling, abysmal, disgraceful,
- 1:15Speaker 2: scandalous content online.
- 1:17Speaker 3: Someone's been say, you really feel about it? Huh? Well?
- 1:19Speaker 2: I wrote an article in The Daily Telegraph the day
- 1:22Speaker 2: after the news broke about what's going on and what
- 1:25Speaker 2: why boys keep on getting caught up in this kind
- 1:27Speaker 2: of behavior. But there's a conversation that needs to be
- 1:31Speaker 2: had because if you're a parent, you've got kids who
- 1:33Speaker 2: are of social media usage age or begging for it,
- 1:38Speaker 2: even though they're not quite old enough yet. We need
- 1:41Speaker 2: to know how to keep our kids safe and keep
- 1:42Speaker 2: them away from this kind of just rubbish, junk, horrible stuff.
- 1:48Speaker 2: I mean, it's just awful. So that's what I want
- 1:50Speaker 2: to talk about today in the podcast.
- 1:52Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting that this news story has come up
- 1:55Speaker 4: because just recently in an article on Forbes dot com,
- 2:00Speaker 4: they talked about the results of thirty two studies and
- 2:04Speaker 4: what it teaches us about parenting in the age of
- 2:06Speaker 4: social media. And what I found really interesting was it
- 2:11Speaker 4: acknowledged that it is possible for parents to put guardrails
- 2:16Speaker 4: in place to help reduce the preteen and adolescent anxiety
- 2:21Speaker 4: and depression that is often resulting from an overexposure to
- 2:25Speaker 4: social media.
- 2:26Speaker 2: It's not just anxiety and depression, though, when you look
- 2:28Speaker 2: at the behavior of these particular boys and so many
- 2:32Speaker 2: others like them, it's completely inappropriate.
- 2:36Speaker 4: When I read that, it reminded me of that analogy
- 2:39Speaker 4: that you've talked about before about the pool. You know,
- 2:42Speaker 4: we're talking about guardrails, we're talking about putting parameters in
- 2:44Speaker 4: place for our children. And I really love that analogy
- 2:47Speaker 4: you share about the pool and the pool fans.
- 2:49Speaker 2: So as soon as you said guardrails, I thought I
- 2:51Speaker 2: should share that metaphor. So essentially, I say all the
- 2:54Speaker 2: time to parents when I'm talking about social media, you
- 2:56Speaker 2: can fence the pool, but you can't fence the ocean.
- 2:58Speaker 2: In other words, a lot of parents will say, well,
- 2:59Speaker 2: we're fine, we've got it under control because we've got
- 3:01Speaker 2: our internet filters and we've got our screen time set
- 3:04Speaker 2: up and all that sort of thing. Our kids are
- 3:06Speaker 2: going to be okay, and we monitor, then we know
- 3:07Speaker 2: what's happening. The difficulty, of course, is that putting a
- 3:11Speaker 2: swimming pool. Fence around your swimming pool will only protect
- 3:14Speaker 2: your children while they're at your swimming pool, But as
- 3:16Speaker 2: soon as they go to somebody else's house, they go
- 3:17Speaker 2: to the lake or the beach, or they go to
- 3:19Speaker 2: the I don't know, the stream or the river, or
- 3:21Speaker 2: you're camping, whatever it is. There's no fences at those places,
- 3:25Speaker 2: and therefore they can get themselves into trouble. You've got
- 3:28Speaker 2: to teach them to swim. So fencing the pool is
- 3:31Speaker 2: like having your filters and you're monitoring and all that
- 3:33Speaker 2: sort of stuff. I know some parents who want it
- 3:35Speaker 2: to their children's keystrokes on their phones and on their computers,
- 3:39Speaker 2: which is just so excessive, and it's still actually unhelpful
- 3:42Speaker 2: because the job is not to monitor so much as
- 3:45Speaker 2: it is to teach and then work with your children.
- 3:48Speaker 2: And so that's the metaphor, and hopefully that's in harmony
- 3:52Speaker 2: with what you found in that article.
- 3:54Speaker 4: I think it's really important for us as parents to
- 3:56Speaker 4: understand that putting the fence around the pool at an
- 3:59Speaker 4: early age is an important part of the process. It's
- 4:02Speaker 4: age and developmentally appropriate.
- 4:04Speaker 3: A nice point. Yes, that we put.
- 4:05Speaker 4: A fence around the pole, but if we're not able
- 4:08Speaker 4: to adequately teach and inform and educate our children. One
- 4:13Speaker 4: day they will find themselves in the open ocean and
- 4:17Speaker 4: they won't have the skill sets necessary to navigate.
- 4:19Speaker 2: So I'm the researcher, but let's hear what you've discovered.
- 4:22Speaker 2: What are these what was it? Thirty two studies? Are
- 4:25Speaker 2: the thirty one?
- 4:26Speaker 4: They didn't make me read all thirty three thirty two studies?
- 4:29Speaker 4: And it really actually was just a really helpful article
- 4:33Speaker 4: and gave three recommendations that were as parents can do
- 4:36Speaker 4: to help navigate these challenges.
- 4:38Speaker 2: Willing to it in the show notes. Why don't you
- 4:40Speaker 2: walk us through it though, and I'll add some commentary
- 4:41Speaker 2: along the way.
- 4:42Speaker 4: So the first recommendation was to know the different styles
- 4:45Speaker 4: of social media parenting. When I first read it, I
- 4:49Speaker 4: actually thought it was like I need to know everything
- 4:51Speaker 4: about social media. I didn't see the parenting underneath, okay,
- 4:55Speaker 4: and so I was like, oh my gosh, that's just
- 4:57Speaker 4: like such a big long list of things I've got
- 4:59Speaker 4: to work out and apps I've got to understand.
- 5:01Speaker 2: You've got to get across discord, you've got to no TikTok,
- 5:03Speaker 2: you got it.
- 5:03Speaker 3: Yeah, my mind was boggling.
- 5:05Speaker 4: Until I kind of read the next line. I went, oh, oh,
- 5:07Speaker 4: I can do this. There's only four, right. So they
- 5:10Speaker 4: talk about autonomy supportive parenting.
- 5:12Speaker 3: Oh well, this is my favorite article in the whole
- 5:14Speaker 3: world world.
- 5:15Speaker 4: Then they talk about autonomy, restrictive parenting. Sure, yep, they
- 5:19Speaker 4: talk about inconsistent parenting, and they talk about permissive parenting.
- 5:24Speaker 4: And as I read the descriptions of each of them,
- 5:26Speaker 4: I have to admit that you and I have literally
- 5:28Speaker 4: been through all four of those at different stages with
- 5:31Speaker 4: our kids around social media.
- 5:34Speaker 3: All right, so let's talk about all four of them.
- 5:35Speaker 3: Where do you want to start?
- 5:36Speaker 4: Well, I think we actually start with actually number three
- 5:39Speaker 4: and four, inconsistent and permissive, because I think that that's
- 5:41Speaker 4: often where we find ourselves, Okay, when we're navigating uncharted waters.
- 5:45Speaker 2: So permissive means you kind of don't give any restrictions,
- 5:49Speaker 2: you don't give any rules, there's no limitations.
- 5:51Speaker 3: Hey, kiddo, I'm.
- 5:52Speaker 4: Going to suggest it's actually avoiding conflict. Yeah, maybe for
- 5:56Speaker 4: most parents. I think when we become permissive, it's actually
- 5:59Speaker 4: about avoiding conflict. We want to we want to continue
- 6:03Speaker 4: to keep connection with our child, and therefore we think
- 6:09Speaker 4: that by not giving restrictions to their behavior that will
- 6:15Speaker 4: actually continue to keep that connection.
- 6:18Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 6:18Speaker 2: Most sense also is that there's probably permissiveness because a
- 6:21Speaker 2: lot of parents are like, I don't know what to say,
- 6:22Speaker 2: I don't know what to do, I don't know how
- 6:23Speaker 2: I'm supposed to do this.
- 6:24Speaker 3: It's just easy to go with the flow.
- 6:27Speaker 4: Well, they don't even know what's really bad, yeah.
- 6:29Speaker 3: Or even what's going on.
- 6:30Speaker 2: So permissiveness is just avoiding the conversations, avoiding the limits,
- 6:34Speaker 2: avoiding the boundaries, and letting the kids figure it out
- 6:37Speaker 2: for themselves. Not effective, Not effective at all when it
- 6:40Speaker 2: comes to helping kids to stay out of trouble.
- 6:43Speaker 3: Those kids that got in trouble.
- 6:45Speaker 2: Recently at that school and ended up being suspended, I
- 6:47Speaker 2: would venture, well, I haven't had conversations. I think that
- 6:50Speaker 2: it would be reasonable to predict that most of them
- 6:53Speaker 2: had parents who were fairly permissive in terms of monitoring,
- 6:58Speaker 2: being across, knowing what's going on. Weren't there they were absent.
- 7:01Speaker 4: Well, and then you look at inconsistent where you would
- 7:04Speaker 4: probably acknowledge that there would be a random variation of strictness, permissiveness,
- 7:12Speaker 4: and autonomy supportive in there, because it's just it's just
- 7:16Speaker 4: this random mix. Sometimes we're vigilant and we're right on
- 7:20Speaker 4: the ball, and other times we just drop everything.
- 7:22Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm not supposed to say this, but this
- 7:24Speaker 2: is me when I'm tired, or when I've been away
- 7:26Speaker 2: for a few days and i walk in and I
- 7:27Speaker 2: see the kids on the devices and I'm just like, right,
- 7:30Speaker 2: that's it, I've had enough, get off, I'm done. And
- 7:35Speaker 2: we get cranky at the kids, or I get crank
- 7:36Speaker 2: at the kids and say, get off the screens.
- 7:38Speaker 3: I can't believe yourself on the screens.
- 7:39Speaker 2: And then two seconds later you walk in and say, actually,
- 7:41Speaker 2: they haven't been on their screens, or they have been
- 7:43Speaker 2: monitoring it really well, and I've just given them permission
- 7:47Speaker 2: to use their screens. And so there's that inconsistency between parents.
- 7:50Speaker 2: But also if we're having the conversations and if the
- 7:53Speaker 2: rules are firmly established, then we're not going to have
- 7:55Speaker 2: to worry about those kinds of explosions. But sometimes, okay,
- 7:58Speaker 2: sometimes it's not.
- 7:59Speaker 3: The kids get come fused.
- 8:01Speaker 4: So the last two are obviously at opposite ends of
- 8:04Speaker 4: the spectrum. We're talking about autonomy supportive parenting, but then
- 8:07Speaker 4: there's also autonomy restrictive.
- 8:09Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 8:10Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's start with autonomic restrictive parenting. So this
- 8:13Speaker 2: is where there's no consideration of what the kids want,
- 8:17Speaker 2: no consideration.
- 8:18Speaker 4: How would you consider that autonomy then, because they're not
- 8:20Speaker 4: able to use their autonomy.
- 8:21Speaker 2: Well, it's controlling autonomy restrictive. It's just a fancy way
- 8:24Speaker 2: of saying controlling. Yeah, okay, So you've got permissive, which
- 8:26Speaker 2: is zero control. You've got inconsistent, which is sometimes controlling
- 8:29Speaker 2: and sometimes las a fair permissive to do whatever you want.
- 8:32Speaker 2: But then you've got autonomy restrictive, which is essentially a
- 8:35Speaker 2: fancy way of saying. These are parents who say, hey,
- 8:37Speaker 2: my way of the highway. You do as you're told.
- 8:40Speaker 2: You don't have social media. You've got to be off
- 8:42Speaker 2: screens by eight o'clock. You've only got an alpha homework.
- 8:45Speaker 2: It's really really controlling, and that will work until you're
- 8:48Speaker 2: not present after the break. Let's talk about autonomy supportive parenting.
- 8:55Speaker 2: Your daughter just walked by, eyes glued to her phone,
- 8:58Speaker 2: expression unreadable.
- 9:00Speaker 3: Her to put it down, but she balks.
- 9:02Speaker 2: You know it's not good for her, but you're not
- 9:04Speaker 2: sure why or how to support better choices in the
- 9:08Speaker 2: webinar pixel perfect I joined with psychologists and teen tech
- 9:11Speaker 2: expert Jocelyn Brewer to discuss how to set screen boundaries
- 9:15Speaker 2: that work for you and your daughter. Check out pixel
- 9:18Speaker 2: perfect now on the Happy Family's webshop.
- 9:22Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
- 9:24Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers Now, and you made
- 9:28Speaker 4: a promise We're going to talk about autonomy supportive parenting
- 9:30Speaker 4: in relation to this social media.
- 9:32Speaker 2: Yeah, so any article that talks about autonomy supportive parenting
- 9:35Speaker 2: I'm a huge fan of. There's a whole lot of
- 9:36Speaker 2: different parenting styles that are out there. I'm writing a
- 9:38Speaker 2: book at the moment, and the book is all about
- 9:41Speaker 2: parenting styles, and the one that I'm making the biggest
- 9:43Speaker 2: deal about is autonomy supportive parenting.
- 9:45Speaker 4: So Sanctor, read the book now, you told me all
- 9:47Speaker 4: about it.
- 9:48Speaker 2: Astonomy Supportive parenting basically says I want to understand the word.
- 9:51Speaker 3: Through your eyes.
- 9:52Speaker 2: I want you to have a voice in determining the direction,
- 9:56Speaker 2: but I'm going to be present and involved and work
- 9:59Speaker 2: with you on creating appropriate structures so that you can
- 10:03Speaker 2: be safe and healthy and make wise decisions. Or Tommy
- 10:05Speaker 2: supportive parenting basically says, let's collaborate, let's figure this out together,
- 10:09Speaker 2: because I'm the parent and I know stuff you don't,
- 10:12Speaker 2: and I've got a duty to help you to be safe.
- 10:15Speaker 2: But to the extent that I can, I'm going to
- 10:17Speaker 2: give you as much flexibility in determining the rules as
- 10:20Speaker 2: I possibly can while we work it out and talk
- 10:22Speaker 2: it through. That's autmomy supportive parenting. It's vastly superior.
- 10:26Speaker 3: To all the other styles, and it's also much harder.
- 10:30Speaker 4: So I literally just had one of these social media
- 10:33Speaker 4: conversations with one of our children the other day. She
- 10:36Speaker 4: is in her first year of high school, and she
- 10:38Speaker 4: is feeling extremely hard done by because in her mind,
- 10:42Speaker 4: she is the only child in the world who doesn't
- 10:45Speaker 4: have a mobile phone at her age. And so she
- 10:47Speaker 4: actually wrote me a letter and was very articulate about
- 10:51Speaker 4: how unkind I was being to her in relation to this,
- 10:54Speaker 4: because she felt really left out.
- 10:56Speaker 3: I'm so glad that I wasn't part of.
- 10:57Speaker 4: This, and so when I first read the letter, I
- 11:01Speaker 4: kind of really got quite frustrated by it until I
- 11:04Speaker 4: realized that I just needed to take a step back.
- 11:06Speaker 4: This actually wasn't about me, This was about her, and
- 11:09Speaker 4: I needed her to know that I understood where she
- 11:11Speaker 4: was coming from. So after taking maybe more than two
- 11:14Speaker 4: or three deep breaths, I was able to have this
- 11:16Speaker 4: beautiful conversation with her where I kind of said, let's
- 11:19Speaker 4: talk about this. I said, you're acknowledging that you're feeling
- 11:22Speaker 4: really hard done by because you're being treated differently to
- 11:25Speaker 4: everybody else, especially your four older sisters. So let's just
- 11:29Speaker 4: take a step back and talk about when each of
- 11:31Speaker 4: your sisters received a mobile phone and how their interactions
- 11:36Speaker 4: with social media came about. And as we went through
- 11:38Speaker 4: that process, and I kind of went through each of
- 11:40Speaker 4: her sisters and I articulated when they got a phone,
- 11:43Speaker 4: and when they started paying for a phone and all
- 11:45Speaker 4: of those kinds of things, it became very clear to
- 11:47Speaker 4: her that most of her sisters it wasn't until they
- 11:51Speaker 4: were nearly fifteen where they actually got their own phone.
- 11:54Speaker 4: She's a grade seven, but her mind, what she's seeing
- 11:58Speaker 4: in front of her is that everyone else has one
- 12:01Speaker 4: and I don't. And so as I sat there and
- 12:04Speaker 4: we talked about it, and I said, okay, so if
- 12:05Speaker 4: the tables were to be turned right now, I said,
- 12:08Speaker 4: and you had your eleven year old daughter sitting in
- 12:11Speaker 4: front of you, and she had this dilemma, and you
- 12:14Speaker 4: understood what I now understand. What would you say to her?
- 12:18Speaker 4: And she said, well, frankly, I would tell her that
- 12:21Speaker 4: if she would wait till she was thirteen, she could
- 12:23Speaker 4: have a phone. So we've got a thirteenth birthday coming
- 12:26Speaker 4: up in about nine months.
- 12:28Speaker 3: Yeah, you've said that she's eleven. Well she's twelve.
- 12:30Speaker 2: Yes, you're struggling with that, but we know what you're saying.
- 12:34Speaker 2: In the next felve months, you're going to have a
- 12:35Speaker 2: thirteenth birthday.
- 12:36Speaker 4: And so I just I said to her, so are
- 12:38Speaker 4: you saying suggesting that you would be willing to wait
- 12:40Speaker 4: till you're thirteen? And she said, ah huh, And I said, okay,
- 12:45Speaker 4: well we can definitely have a conversation about that.
- 12:47Speaker 3: And we left the.
- 12:48Speaker 4: Conversation with her feeling heard, her feeling valued, and her
- 12:51Speaker 4: feeling seen. I left her with hope that we could
- 12:54Speaker 4: continue the conversation in the future.
- 12:56Speaker 2: Three things involvement, structure, autonomy, support That's what you're doing
- 13:02Speaker 2: as you guide her through the discussion, and that's why
- 13:05Speaker 2: it didn't end up in an instremendous war. So autonomy,
- 13:08Speaker 2: supportive parenting is definitely the best way to go when
- 13:10Speaker 2: it comes to the kids and their apps and their
- 13:12Speaker 2: usage of devices.
- 13:13Speaker 3: And being involved in their lives. Are we involved?
- 13:16Speaker 2: Are we setting up structures that we can all comply
- 13:18Speaker 2: with so that the kids know what's safe, what's healthy,
- 13:20Speaker 2: what's not and they buy into it because they're the
- 13:23Speaker 2: ones who are making the choice. That's recommendation number one.
- 13:26Speaker 2: Get your autonomy. Supportive parenting style on baby.
- 13:29Speaker 4: Number two and three are actually quite short. It's just
- 13:32Speaker 4: they're suggesting that a stricter approach may be better.
- 13:35Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly. This sounds like a
- 13:37Speaker 3: really good article.
- 13:39Speaker 4: Well, they just kind of said suggested that the more
- 13:41Speaker 4: active approaches lead to better outcomes and that it means
- 13:45Speaker 4: parents use active mediation. So the conversation I had with
- 13:49Speaker 4: our twelve year old, I get it right this time
- 13:51Speaker 4: web is an ongoing conversation. It's not a one off,
- 13:56Speaker 4: and for the time poor parent it may feel like
- 13:59Speaker 4: it's a little bit exhausting, but the outcomes are so
- 14:03Speaker 4: much more superior so long as it's a.
- 14:05Speaker 3: Collaborai of conversation.
- 14:06Speaker 2: So there was a study that was published a few
- 14:08Speaker 2: years ago in Frontiers in psychology, and that found that
- 14:12Speaker 2: the more restrictive you are on social media, the more
- 14:15Speaker 2: likely is that your kids are going to show up
- 14:16Speaker 2: with some sort of I'm going to use the word
- 14:18Speaker 2: addiction quite loosely here, some sort of a social media addiction.
- 14:21Speaker 3: And that's because force creates resistance, and when you're being.
- 14:23Speaker 2: Really authoritarian and really full on, that works against you.
- 14:27Speaker 2: But permissiveness will do the same thing as well. So
- 14:32Speaker 2: it really is about being actively involved in the conversations,
- 14:34Speaker 2: monitoring what's going on, having regular interaction with your kids
- 14:37Speaker 2: about it. The more that you do that, the more
- 14:41Speaker 2: you can set those boundaries together. And I totally agree
- 14:44Speaker 2: be strict kids. You can't use it until at least
- 14:46Speaker 2: thirteen social media. That's the rules thirteen plus. We want
- 14:49Speaker 2: to minimize your access to it. We want to be monitoring.
- 14:51Speaker 2: We want to make sure you're only friends with people
- 14:53Speaker 2: that you know, that you're only following people that you know.
- 14:55Speaker 2: We need to keep you safe, delay delay, delay, and
- 14:58Speaker 2: safety safety safety.
- 15:00Speaker 4: And the last one was to stay informed. We need
- 15:02Speaker 4: to we need to be involved with the technology. We
- 15:05Speaker 4: need to understand how it works and be able to
- 15:10Speaker 4: offer guidance.
- 15:11Speaker 2: Which which really sucks. So I was looking at an
- 15:13Speaker 2: app the other day called be Real. It's the latest
- 15:15Speaker 2: thing that everyone's going on about. It's kind of like this.
- 15:17Speaker 2: It's like Instagram, except it's real. There's no filters. You
- 15:21Speaker 2: get a message. I think it's once a day. Once
- 15:24Speaker 2: a day, you get a message, and you have to
- 15:25Speaker 2: take a photo and post it to the app. And
- 15:28Speaker 2: it's a a bi directional photo. So you know how
- 15:30Speaker 2: phones have got a front camera and a back camera,
- 15:32Speaker 2: So you hold it up, you take a photo of
- 15:34Speaker 2: yourself and it also takes a photo of what's happening
- 15:36Speaker 2: in front of you, so it's a selfie plus view
- 15:38Speaker 2: of what's happening in front of you. And the idea
- 15:41Speaker 2: is it's being real because it's saying, well, here's where
- 15:43Speaker 2: I am, and here's what I'm doing, and here's what
- 15:45Speaker 2: my life is. I mean, I can't think of anything
- 15:47Speaker 2: more stupid. And yet, as parents, we need to stay
- 15:50Speaker 2: across the apps. We've got to stay across TikTok and
- 15:53Speaker 2: I don't want to drag my brain through the gutter
- 15:55Speaker 2: of TikTok so that I can know what my kids
- 15:57Speaker 2: are doing. And Instagram and Snapchat and the list goes
- 15:59Speaker 2: on and on discoord, like how many parents really want
- 16:01Speaker 2: to get into a discord and start goofing off in
- 16:03Speaker 2: these messaging chats that are just so toxic. But the
- 16:08Speaker 2: more we know about social media, the more we can
- 16:12Speaker 2: have informed conversations with our kids about what they're doing.
- 16:16Speaker 2: When you don't know what discord is, when you don't
- 16:19Speaker 2: know what be real is, when you don't know what
- 16:20Speaker 2: TikTok is, when you let's go back ten years when
- 16:22Speaker 2: you didn't know what snapchat was, you can't have a
- 16:25Speaker 2: conversation with the kids about it other and say.
- 16:26Speaker 3: Well, what all look out of that?
- 16:28Speaker 2: And the kids don't care what because they know that
- 16:30Speaker 2: you don't know. So we've got to be having intelligent,
- 16:33Speaker 2: informed conversation, which means that we've actually got to at
- 16:37Speaker 2: least read the apps or watch your YouTube clip where
- 16:40Speaker 2: somebody's teaching you about the apps, so that you know
- 16:42Speaker 2: what you're talking about and you can have useful conversations
- 16:45Speaker 2: with the kids.
- 16:45Speaker 4: So I guess in wrapping up, the three clear points
- 16:49Speaker 4: are autonomy. Supportive parenting is going to one hundred percent
- 16:53Speaker 4: allow you to have better communication with your kids as
- 16:56Speaker 4: you collaborate together. And while it might take a little
- 17:00Speaker 4: bit more extra time, your relationship is going to flourish
- 17:02Speaker 4: as a result. Number two is that a stricter approach
- 17:06Speaker 4: may be better. Yep, it's just so important that we
- 17:08Speaker 4: stick to our guns as parents, work through the process
- 17:11Speaker 4: with our children and we'll definitely get better outcomes again.
- 17:14Speaker 4: And then the last one is stay informed. We just
- 17:16Speaker 4: need to be across. We don't need to fully involve ourselves,
- 17:19Speaker 4: but we just need to be across what's going on
- 17:22Speaker 4: in their worlds around social media.
- 17:24Speaker 3: I'm going to make one final point.
- 17:26Speaker 2: Social media can be a paradise but can also be
- 17:31Speaker 2: a sewer. And as parents, we've got to be able
- 17:33Speaker 2: to have those conversations with our kids from a young
- 17:35Speaker 2: age because they want to be there, their friends are there,
- 17:39Speaker 2: and they need to know that we're across it and
- 17:40Speaker 2: that we're involved and that we care about them. So
- 17:43Speaker 2: we really hope that this podcast episode today has been
- 17:45Speaker 2: helpful as you navigate parenting in the age of social media.
- 17:51Speaker 2: During the next week, we've got some really big podcasts
- 17:53Speaker 2: coming up, including tomorrow A twelve year old that keeps
- 17:56Speaker 2: on pushing the boundaries. What do parents do when they've
- 17:58Speaker 2: tried to explore they've tried to explain them, tried to
- 18:00Speaker 2: empower and everything's backfiring. That's a listener dilemma that will
- 18:03Speaker 2: respond to tomorrow on Wednesday, a conversation about birth trauma,
- 18:08Speaker 2: and Thursday, Kylie, you know my Doctor's Desk episodes that
- 18:11Speaker 2: you roll your eyes about and grown about. We got
- 18:13Speaker 2: feedback via podcasts at happy families dot com. Do a
- 18:16Speaker 2: you the other day and somebody.
- 18:17Speaker 4: Said, what's that one feedback?
- 18:18Speaker 3: It's this person just putting out there.
- 18:21Speaker 2: One Shanna is her name, and Shanna said, the Doctor's
- 18:23Speaker 2: Desk episodes are my favorite, and we've got one coming
- 18:26Speaker 2: up this Thursday. It's all to come this week on
- 18:28Speaker 2: the Happy Families Podcast. Thanks so much to JR. Justin
- 18:31Speaker 2: raw On, our producer from Bridge Media, for making the
- 18:33Speaker 2: podcast sound the way it does, and Craig Bruce, our
- 18:35Speaker 2: executive producer. If you'd like more information about making your
- 18:37Speaker 2: family happy at check out the show notes or visit
- 18:40Speaker 2: us at happy families dot com.
- 18:41Speaker 4: Doda you