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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. Now.

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Speaker 2: I don't like the phrase we're going to hold them back.

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Speaker 2: I don't like holding them back. I don't think we're

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Speaker 2: holding them back at all.

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Speaker 3: Gifted her another year of childhood.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mom

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson. I'm the dad to

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Speaker 2: six daughters and the author of six books.

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Speaker 4: About how to help your family to be happy.

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Speaker 2: And I'm here with my Happy Missus, Happy Families, my

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Speaker 2: wife Kylie. We're going to talk today about the geeky stuff.

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Speaker 2: This is one of my favorite episodes. I only get

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Speaker 2: to do it once a month because you don't like

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Speaker 2: it that much.

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Speaker 1: Like that.

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Speaker 4: We have to do this one really from the doctor's desk.

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Speaker 2: This is where I get to talk to you about

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Speaker 2: what the latest science is telling us about raising children.

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Speaker 4: This is important stuff.

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Speaker 3: It is important, I will give you that.

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Speaker 2: So I've been perusing the various studies that come across

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Speaker 2: my desk from time to time, and three have caught

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Speaker 2: my eye. I think that in some ways a lot

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Speaker 2: of research into parenting kind of comes from the University

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Speaker 2: of dir Like, we know a lot about parenting and

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Speaker 2: it doesn't change very much. Nevertheless, there are some really

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Speaker 2: important reminders and some important conversations to be had about

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Speaker 2: these topics.

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Speaker 4: We've got three to talk about.

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Speaker 2: One of them is about breastfeeding, one is about learning

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Speaker 2: disorders with kids and how old they are at school,

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Speaker 2: and the other one is about psychological control on how

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Speaker 2: much parents are kind of writing their kids psychologically.

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Speaker 4: Which one do you want to talk about first?

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Speaker 3: I reckon, we talk about kids at school.

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Speaker 2: Okay, let's talk about this one. So a recent study,

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Speaker 2: this came from a Finish study, as in finish, not

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Speaker 2: as in at the end of the race, but finish

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Speaker 2: as in from Finland. How low do everyone in Finland?

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Speaker 2: I'm so sorry if that was a bad joke. This

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Speaker 2: is a brand new study published in March twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 2: And what these researchers did We're talking about three hundred

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Speaker 2: and eighty eight thousand, six hundred fifty children, all born.

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Speaker 2: No twins in this one, just single child births born

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Speaker 2: in May three hundred and eighty eight and a half

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Speaker 2: thousand born from nineteen ninety six to two thousand and two.

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Speaker 4: It's pretty much every child born in Finland.

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Speaker 3: So it's pretty this is this is pretty good.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a big study.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's very well done because it's what we

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Speaker 2: call a prospective study. In other words, we're getting the data.

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Speaker 2: We're not asking people to fill in a survey and say, hey,

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Speaker 2: can you remember back to when this happened. We're not

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Speaker 2: asking for people to self report what they recall. Perspective

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Speaker 2: means we get the data as it happens, so we're

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Speaker 2: getting data as the children are born, and then we're

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Speaker 2: following them across time. It's a big longitudinal study. This

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Speaker 2: is this is a really high quality study. And what

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Speaker 2: they're looking at is which kids get diagnosed with learning

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Speaker 2: disorders and can we find anything in this that might

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Speaker 2: tell us something about how we do psychology and how

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Speaker 2: we work out who does and who doesn't have a

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Speaker 2: learning disorder? Is really controversial, it's really provocative, but we've

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Speaker 2: known this sort of stuff for a number of years now.

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Speaker 2: There's a bunch of studies that have come out over

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Speaker 2: the last handful of years that have highlighted that if

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Speaker 2: you're the youngest child in your class, or if you're

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Speaker 2: in the younger cohort. In that class, you're far more

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Speaker 2: likely to be diagnosed with ADHD.

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Speaker 3: Does that go across boys and girls?

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Speaker 2: It does, it does, but boys are still much more

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Speaker 2: likely than girls to get that diagnosis. Now, this doesn't mean,

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Speaker 2: by the way, that if you're the youngest in the

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Speaker 2: class that you will be diagnosed. What it highlights, though,

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Speaker 2: and many thoughtful researchers have said it far more eloquently

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Speaker 2: than I'm going to say it, But what it essentially

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Speaker 2: says is we are labeling immaturity and a lack of

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Speaker 2: development as a psychological abnormality.

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Speaker 3: Well, this goes back to that conversation that we had

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Speaker 3: with Maggie.

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Speaker 4: A little bit in a couple of days ago.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, just the acknowledgment that we are expecting our boys

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Speaker 5: to do things that they're not developmentally ready to do. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: and you know, this study is really kind of highlighting

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Speaker 5: that in a different way.

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Speaker 4: Well, that's not actually what they found.

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Speaker 2: They've acknowledged that this is what researchers have found previously,

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Speaker 2: and so they've followed across nine to ten years. These

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Speaker 2: are children that have been followed for the first decade

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Speaker 2: of life. And what the researchers were looking at was

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Speaker 2: not ADHD. They were looking at learning disorders. And this

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Speaker 2: is the conclusion that they reach, and I'm going to

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Speaker 2: quote relatively younger children in Finnish schools were more likely

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Speaker 2: to be diagnosed with a specific learning disorder by the

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Speaker 2: age of ten. And what they're arguing is that increased

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Speaker 2: awareness of how relative age differences affect the likelihood for

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Speaker 2: children to be diagnosed with specific learning disorders is really

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Speaker 2: important for us to get our head around as parents,

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Speaker 2: as clinicians and as teachers. And what it's basically saying

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Speaker 2: is we need to widen the net. It's not just ADHD,

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Speaker 2: it's learning disorders generally. One of the things that we've

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Speaker 2: battled with, and we've talked about this a number of

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Speaker 2: times over the years, is and parents at this time

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Speaker 2: of the year, parents are saying, when I send my

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Speaker 2: kids to school, I've got a four year old, or

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Speaker 2: my child's going to be four in the early part

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Speaker 2: of next year, they're old enough.

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Speaker 4: To go to school. We know that in Tasmania, in

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Speaker 4: Western Australia.

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Speaker 2: Here in Australia at least, there's increasing emphasis and even state.

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Speaker 4: Laws where they cut off date.

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Speaker 2: You're basically sending your kids to school at younger and

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Speaker 2: younger ages, and a lot of parents for many other

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Speaker 2: reasons like childcare costs or the fact that they've got

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Speaker 2: to get back to work, especially if you're living in Sydney.

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Speaker 2: In the cost of a house at the moment median

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Speaker 2: house price I think is about forty three million dollars

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Speaker 2: a year now to live in Sydney, like it's off

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Speaker 2: the scale. That's an exaggeration, of course, but there's a

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Speaker 2: lot of pressure on parents to get their children back

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Speaker 2: into school. But when we're sending them early, what happens

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Speaker 2: is that they don't have the maturity, they don't have

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Speaker 2: the social skills, they don't have the capacity to regulate

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Speaker 2: their emotions, and the teachers, with the very best of

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Speaker 2: intentions say to parents, your kids are really struggling. And

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Speaker 2: so then they go off and they get diagnosed with

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Speaker 2: the doctor or with the psychologists, or with the counselor

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Speaker 2: whoever they go to see the occupation or therapist, and

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Speaker 2: over and over and over again, we're seeing this data

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Speaker 2: come out that highlights that these diagnoses are associated with

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Speaker 2: the age, and if you're younger in your cohort, you're

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Speaker 2: significantly more likely to get the diagnosis. And I think

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Speaker 2: that this means that we've really got to be careful

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Speaker 2: about what we're doing when it comes to sending our

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Speaker 2: kids to school.

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Speaker 3: You know, we've gone through this process a couple of times.

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Speaker 5: Because we have two children who actually celebrate their birthdays

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Speaker 5: in April, which put them at the cut off point

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Speaker 5: to actually attend school before they turned five. And with

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Speaker 5: our first daughter, we actually chose to send her off

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Speaker 5: because she's one of five children, and she was smart, intelligent,

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Speaker 5: and very capable.

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Speaker 2: And everyone at preschool said, oh, she's ready, you'll be fine.

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Speaker 2: Not only will she be fine, she's thriving here, she's

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Speaker 2: going to be bored if you give her another year

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Speaker 2: of play based fun at preschool.

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Speaker 4: You need to send her off to school, get her going.

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Speaker 3: And so we did.

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Speaker 5: And it's not it wasn't so obvious at the beginning, No,

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Speaker 5: not at all, But as she has moved up the

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Speaker 5: grades in school, we are noticing the fact.

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Speaker 3: That she just struggles a little bit socially.

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Speaker 5: She's doing well academically, but socially is probably her biggest thing.

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Speaker 5: And just being that little bit younger than all of

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Speaker 5: her peers has had such an impact on the way

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Speaker 5: she sees the world and the way others see her

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Speaker 5: as a result.

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Speaker 4: And her confidence.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because she's smaller and she's not quite as mature

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Speaker 2: like you can, really it's measurable. Whereas the other child

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Speaker 2: born in the same month. We decided, because I'd finally

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Speaker 2: finished the PhD and done a whole lot more learning

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Speaker 2: and reading and investigating, we decided that I don't like

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Speaker 2: the phrase we were going to hold them back. I

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Speaker 2: don't like holding them back. I don't think we're holding

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Speaker 2: them back at all.

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Speaker 3: Gifted her another year of childhood.

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Speaker 2: I think that's a much better way to say it.

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Speaker 2: And this child has thrived, she's mature, she's a leader

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Speaker 2: of the pack.

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Speaker 4: She's doing really well.

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Speaker 2: And I think that that extra year of being able

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Speaker 2: to play and grow up before she went into the

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Speaker 2: pressured environment that school is increasingly becoming at the lower grades,

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Speaker 2: it's been really good for her. So that's the first

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Speaker 2: study that I wanted to share. We'll share a link

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Speaker 2: to that study in the show notes so that you

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Speaker 2: can see it if you're interested in it, and we

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Speaker 2: will come back after the break and talk about our

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Speaker 2: other two studies about breastfeeding and psychological control.

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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 6: Our Screens Creating Tension at Home, tweens, teens and Screens

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Speaker 6: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.

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Speaker 6: Bye today at happyfamilies dot com dot au slash shop.

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Speaker 5: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time

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Speaker 5: poor parent who just wants answers now. And today we

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Speaker 5: are coming from the doctor's desk. This is Justin's geek

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Speaker 5: out session. He gets to share all of the awesome

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Speaker 5: research that's come past his desk in the last few weeks.

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Speaker 4: What are you going to do next? Do you want

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Speaker 4: to do the breastfeeding one or do you want to do.

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Speaker 3: They to do breastfeeding?

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Speaker 2: Okay, So again, as a quick before we begin kind

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Speaker 2: of disclaimer, we recognize and understand that for any number

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Speaker 2: of reasons, many mums either can't or have not had

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Speaker 2: the capacity or the opportunity to breastfeed. And so what

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Speaker 2: we're going to share Sometimes people get really triggered and

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Speaker 2: upset because we're saying breastfeeding is healthy and a new

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Speaker 2: study has come out to tell us that, but it

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Speaker 2: can be hard for mums to be able to breastfeed

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Speaker 2: and many want to, and there's no shame or guilt

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Speaker 2: if it hasn't worked out for you. So this is

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Speaker 2: a brand new study that's appeared on my desk. It

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Speaker 2: was in the Frontiers in Public Health, and the researchers

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Speaker 2: are looking at the relationship between breastfeeding and how long

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Speaker 2: mums are able to breastfeed and the cognitive performance of

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Speaker 2: their nine and ten year old children. So this is

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Speaker 2: a longitudinal study. We've got kids coming in as brand

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Speaker 2: new newborn babies with their mums and providing this baseline data,

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Speaker 2: and then the children were basically put into a couple

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Speaker 2: of different groups as they aged based on the number

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Speaker 2: of months of breastfeeding that they received. Zero was group one,

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Speaker 2: six x months was group two, seven to twelve months

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Speaker 2: was group three, and more than twelve months was group four.

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Speaker 4: Okay, so we've got.

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Speaker 2: Different levels of breastfeeding experience and what the research basically found.

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Speaker 2: There was a whole lot of stuff that they did,

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Speaker 2: but the research is essentially found that intelligence tests at

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Speaker 2: the age of nine or ten showed that the children

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Speaker 2: who were breastfed the longest did best on the intelligence tests.

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Speaker 2: In other words, this is pretty strong data showing an

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Speaker 2: association between length of time breastfeeding and IQ.

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Speaker 5: It'd be interesting to me to know whether or not

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Speaker 5: it is predominantly because of the breastfeeding or because of

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Speaker 5: the relationship between the maternal relationship that's developed between parent

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Speaker 5: and child in that process. I think that that has

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Speaker 5: to come into play in how our children respond and

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Speaker 5: grow and develop.

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Speaker 2: One of the challenges with studies like this is we

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Speaker 2: don't actually know what's causing what This is a association

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Speaker 2: or correlation. It's not saying breastfeeding causes higher IQ. And

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Speaker 2: the reason we can't know that for sure is because

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Speaker 2: we don't We can't always tease apart the socioeconomic status

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Speaker 2: of the family.

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Speaker 4: It may be that.

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Speaker 2: People who have greater wealth breastfeed for longer, maybe because

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Speaker 2: mum can afford to stay at home longer and be

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Speaker 2: more hands on. Or it may be that people who

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Speaker 2: are in intact families are able to have mum at

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Speaker 2: home while there's a primary bread winner who goes out

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Speaker 2: and earns the money. Whereas if you're a single mum,

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Speaker 2: you've fallen pregnant, had a child, and now dad's not around,

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Speaker 2: you can't breastfeed because you've got to provide for your family.

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Speaker 2: So there's all these other variables that could confuse the issue.

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Speaker 2: And then of course what you were talking about.

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Speaker 5: It interests me because often, you know, a milestone for

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Speaker 5: a bottle fed child is that they can hold their

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Speaker 5: own bottle, And there's lots of hacks all over facebook

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Speaker 5: of different ways that you can prop the bottle up

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Speaker 5: so that you don't have to hold the baby's bottle,

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Speaker 5: and therefore that child is not getting that hands on touch.

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Speaker 3: Feel connection with mum.

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Speaker 5: That a breastfeed baby gets purely because of the delivery

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Speaker 5: of milk.

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Speaker 3: And so I just, yeah, I'd be really interested to know.

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Speaker 4: Anyway.

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Speaker 2: I think that it's a really interesting study just to

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Speaker 2: remind parents or soon to be parents, or people that

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Speaker 2: you know who are thinking about, oh, do I or

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Speaker 2: don't I if you've got the capacity to And of

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Speaker 2: course there's no judgment because some people simply can't, but

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Speaker 2: if you've got the capacity, the research is really really

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Speaker 2: clear children do better when they're breastfed IQ and maybe

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Speaker 2: even attachment like you were talking about before.

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Speaker 4: So the third study, this.

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Speaker 2: Is the one that I actually am the most excited about,

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Speaker 2: the one that I find most compelling. This is a

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Speaker 2: study that's published in the prestigious Parenting Science and Practice Journal.

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Speaker 2: I really really like this journal. The editor of this

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Speaker 2: journal is just top shelf and the papers that make

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Speaker 2: it and here are usually very very good, and it

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Speaker 2: tells a really compelling story about the way we control

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Speaker 2: our kids. It's been done in a sample of Chinese adolescents,

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Speaker 2: but the results are consistent with what we find across

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Speaker 2: pretty much every culture in the world, so I think

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Speaker 2: that it's definitely worth talking about.

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Speaker 4: Here. We've got a bunch of adolescent Chinese kids aged.

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Speaker 2: Around about eleven and a half on average. Their mums

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Speaker 2: are in their mid to late thirties. And what we're

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Speaker 2: looking at is a couple of things. We're looking at

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Speaker 2: how controlling mum is. We're looking at the quality of

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Speaker 2: the mother child relationship. And we're looking at the extent

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Speaker 2: to which that adolescent has depression and other internalizing problems.

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Speaker 2: So depression, anxiety, the sort of stuff that kids bury

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Speaker 2: deep inside themselves and makes them sad and angry. And

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Speaker 2: in this study, what the research has found is that

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Speaker 2: when mum is controlling, that is when the and this

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Speaker 2: isn't the child saying mum's controlling, this is mum filling

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Speaker 2: in a survey saying, these are the things that I

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Speaker 2: do that are control when mum self identifies as being

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Speaker 2: higher on control. The teenager is filling in a survey

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Speaker 2: about the quality of the relationship with mum. And there's

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Speaker 2: a negative association here that is, as control goes up,

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Speaker 2: relationship quality goes down. The more mum perceives, yeah, I

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Speaker 2: am actually pretty controlling, the more the child says I

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Speaker 2: don't like my relationship with my mum, and the more

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Speaker 2: likely it is that the child is going to report

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Speaker 2: having internalizing problems like depression and anxiety. Big takeo message here,

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Speaker 2: don't control your kids, stay off their back. The three

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Speaker 2: e's of effective discipline are the answer when your child's

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Speaker 2: doing something and you feel like you need to step

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Speaker 2: into me. Be controlling, Explore what's going on, Explain what

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Speaker 2: you expect, and then empower them. Give the autonomy, volition,

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Speaker 2: the opportunity to make their own decisions. That is what

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Speaker 2: we call high quality parenting and that's what leads to

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Speaker 2: the best outcomes. So the take home message from our

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Speaker 2: first study, we know that it's probably best if it's

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Speaker 2: possible for you to let your kids extend their childhood

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Speaker 2: for another year before they go to school, if state

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Speaker 2: laws allow, and if your personal circumstances allow.

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Speaker 4: That's the first TAKEO message.

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Speaker 5: Second TAKEO message, breastfed babies are going to do better.

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Speaker 2: And again we know that circumstances don't always allow it,

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Speaker 2: but to the extent that you can encourage new young mums,

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Speaker 2: people who are raising infants to breastfeed to the extent

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Speaker 2: that they possibly can. And the third TAKEO message, as

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Speaker 2: I mentioned, to the extent that you can try to

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Speaker 2: lay off the control, try to give your kids autonomy.

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Speaker 4: They're going to do better. So that wasn't that hard,

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Speaker 4: was it. No, it wasn't.

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Speaker 5: But that's because I'm sitting on this side of the

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Speaker 5: desk and you get to interpret everything that's coming through

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Speaker 5: the computer.

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Speaker 2: Well, the site says we can be great parents, and

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Speaker 2: hopefully that's been helpful. If you do enjoy the podcast,

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Speaker 2: we'd love it if you could leave a rating and

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Speaker 2: review and tell others about it so that they can

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Speaker 2: find out how to make.

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Speaker 4: Their families happier. Tomorrow, I'll do better tomorrow.

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Speaker 2: This is our favorite episode of the week, and it

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Speaker 2: seems to be a listen in the favorite as well,

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Speaker 2: we're going to talk about what went well this week,

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Speaker 2: maybe what didn't.

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Speaker 4: I'm looking forward to finding out how your week's gone.

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Speaker 2: Missus Happy Families Please, if you would like more information

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Speaker 2: about how you can make your family happier, visit happyfamilies

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Speaker 2: dot com dot au