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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just answers.

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Speaker 3: Now, we've got a really big podcast episode today, Kylie.

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Speaker 3: Two things that really need a lot of attention. The

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Speaker 3: first one we're going to get to in a sect,

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Speaker 3: but just a quick highlight. When we as a society

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Speaker 3: say we don't accept this behavior anymore, then we can

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Speaker 3: offer support. We can step in and say hey, we

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Speaker 3: can help you to do things better because there are

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Speaker 3: better ways. A current affair last Thursday night I had

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Speaker 3: like a I don't know, seven minute interview with them.

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Speaker 3: We're going to talk all about that in a sect.

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Speaker 3: Smacking kids making it legal in Australia. There's a lot

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Speaker 3: of noise being made about it again and rightly, so

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Speaker 3: we'll talk about that in a sect. But first tonight

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Speaker 3: a webinar for anyone who wants to join in. Happy

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Speaker 3: Families members get it included in their membership. If you're

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Speaker 3: not a Happy Family's member, that's okay. You can buy

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Speaker 3: the webinar have access to it for the rest of

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Speaker 3: your life. It's all about autism. We've got Chris Bonello.

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Speaker 3: Chris Banello is autistic. He's a schoolteacher, in the UK,

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Speaker 3: he gives talks about autism. He's got a stepchild, so

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Speaker 3: the guy plays the role of dad. He also works

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Speaker 3: as a teacher and especially spends a lot of time

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Speaker 3: with kids who have additional needs. He's presenting It's not me, Kylie,

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Speaker 3: I'm not the one talking about autism tonight. It's Chris

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Speaker 3: and that's part of the Happy Families membership, or you

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Speaker 3: can buy the webinar just by going to our Facebook

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Speaker 3: page or Happy Families dot com dot AU.

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Speaker 2: I think as a parent, when you have a child

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Speaker 2: who has additional needs or is neurodivergent, there's that fear

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Speaker 2: within us that maybe they won't live life to the fullest,

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Speaker 2: that they won't have opportunities available to them. And what

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Speaker 2: I love about the fact that Chris is going to

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Speaker 2: be speaking with you tonight is just here's somebody who's

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Speaker 2: living with autism and having a fullness of life and

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Speaker 2: doing a great Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, all right, let's talk. Well, that's enough about that.

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Speaker 3: We need to talk about a current affair conversation that

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Speaker 3: I have with a journalist. Here's how it went.

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Speaker 1: Smacking your child has become a bit of a taboo.

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Speaker 1: Is it necessary discipline or should it be illegal? Well,

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Speaker 1: there's now a push to make smacking a criminal offense

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Speaker 1: in Australia, and someone who believes it absolutely should be

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Speaker 1: illegal is doctor Justin Coulson, a parenting expert and star

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Speaker 1: of nine program Parental Guidance. I spoke with him late

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Speaker 1: today justin thank you for joining us. Parents have been

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Speaker 1: smacking their kids for really centuries. Why does that have

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Speaker 1: to change?

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Speaker 3: Well, there's not a shred of credible evidence to support

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Speaker 3: its use. It's an ineffective way of disciplining. There are

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Speaker 3: far better disciplinary strategies that are out there. But the

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Speaker 3: message that it conveys is what I'm most concerned about. Essentially,

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Speaker 3: it says I love you, but I'm going to hurt you.

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Speaker 3: We hear that in a range of other context where

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Speaker 3: that's inappropriate, domestic and family violence being the most obvious

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Speaker 3: and provocative one.

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Speaker 4: We can do better.

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Speaker 3: Our children deserve better, and smacking is linked to a

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Speaker 3: host of negative outcomes in children.

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Speaker 1: Well, most of us were smacked as kids. I certainly was,

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Speaker 1: and every time I was smacked, I deserved it.

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Speaker 4: I turned out okay, I hit that a lot.

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Speaker 3: I was smacked as a child, and I turned out okay,

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Speaker 3: a couple of things on this. First off, we don't

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Speaker 3: really know how we would have turned out if we

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Speaker 3: weren't smacked. We were The research evidence shows frequent smacking doubles,

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Speaker 3: if not more, doubles, the risk of anxiety and depression

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Speaker 3: in adulthood. It's associated with impacts on social relationships, ruptures

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Speaker 3: the relationship between parent and child. There's no justification for violence.

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Speaker 3: I can't say this any more emphatically, and I'm astounded, Chris.

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Speaker 3: I'm just astounded at how hard Australians will fight for

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Speaker 3: their right to hit a child. If I hit my

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Speaker 3: wife because she quote unquote deserved it, and let's face it,

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Speaker 3: we all have a different threshold for what deserving this

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Speaker 3: is when it comes to violence. If I hit my wife,

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Speaker 3: I will be taken to court and charged because of

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Speaker 3: family and domestic violence. If I hit you in the

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Speaker 3: shops or down at the park or at the beach

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Speaker 3: because you do something that I find offensive, you can

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Speaker 3: and probably will take me to court and have me

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Speaker 3: charged with assault. If I kick my dog because it's

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Speaker 3: barking too much, I'll be charged with the animal cruelty.

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Speaker 3: And yet here I am let's say, I've got a

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Speaker 3: toddler two years old. I'm more than double my toddler's height.

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Speaker 3: I'm probably six to ten times my toddler's weight, and

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Speaker 3: it's perfectly legal for me to hit my child because

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Speaker 3: they quote unquote deserved it.

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Speaker 4: Nobody, nobody deserves to be hit. What an outrage, what

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Speaker 4: an absolute But justin hang on a second. Rejected, But

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Speaker 4: we're not to mentally rejected. We're not talking about child abuse.

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Speaker 1: So my wife and I have.

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Speaker 4: Talked about we're not we're talking about hitting.

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Speaker 1: We've got a young son. He's a bit young for this,

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Speaker 1: but we've talked about circumstances in which he might put

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Speaker 1: his hand in a boiling pot of water or put

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Speaker 1: a knife into a toaster. Are you really saying that

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Speaker 1: a smack on the back of the hand is off limits,

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Speaker 1: should be made illegal.

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Speaker 3: I don't understand why we have this fascination with hitting

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Speaker 3: when our children are in danger. If your child's running

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Speaker 3: towards the road, you don't hit them. You pick them

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Speaker 3: up and move them away from the road. Kids see

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Speaker 3: what we do. They follow it. If we keep hitting

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Speaker 3: our kids, they're going to keep on saying I was

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Speaker 3: hit as a child and I turned out fine.

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Speaker 4: And they're going to keep hitting their kids.

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Speaker 3: But we have better solutions, and the research shows that

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Speaker 3: those better solutions aren't just better in the moment, they're

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Speaker 3: better for the rest of our children's lives. They do

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Speaker 3: better at school, they do better in their relationships, they

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Speaker 3: do better when it comes to mental health, the absence

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Speaker 3: of mental illness. Across the board, children who are not

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Speaker 3: hit do better. They're less likely to end up in jail,

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Speaker 3: they're less likely to do alcohol and other drugs, they're more.

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Speaker 4: Likely to behave pro socially.

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Speaker 3: There just isn't the evidence to support it, and there's

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Speaker 3: warehouses full of evidence for other forms of parental discipline

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Speaker 3: where we teach and guide and instruct our children to

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Speaker 3: live in better ways.

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Speaker 1: Seriously, saying, a parent who gives a light slap on

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Speaker 1: the back of a hand to a child who's about

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Speaker 1: to do something dangerous, that parent should be investigated by

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Speaker 1: the police because smacking should be made illegal.

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Speaker 3: We're not suggesting here that we should remove children from

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Speaker 3: their parents or remove parents from their children. We're not

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Speaker 3: suggesting that parents should be put into jail because they've

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Speaker 3: given their child a slap. What we're suggesting is that

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Speaker 3: when we as a society say we don't accept this

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Speaker 3: behavior anymore, then we can offer support. We can offer intervention,

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Speaker 3: We can step in and say, hey, we can help

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Speaker 3: you to do things better because there are better ways.

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Speaker 1: You have six daughters yourself. Have you ever smacked any

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Speaker 1: of those?

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Speaker 4: I'm sorry to say that I have.

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Speaker 3: In fact, after one smacking episode, I quit my career

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Speaker 3: as a former radio announcer for one of Australia's biggest

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Speaker 3: radio stations. I went back to school and I studied

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Speaker 3: psychology for eight and a half years so that I

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Speaker 3: could learn how to be a better dad, because I

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Speaker 3: saw what it was doing to me, to my wife

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Speaker 3: and my family. That one decision has fundamentally changed my

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Speaker 3: life course and brought my family together.

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Speaker 4: We don't hit, We don't need to.

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Speaker 3: There are far better things to do, and it makes

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Speaker 3: families stronger, It makes our kids stronger, It makes our

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Speaker 3: society stronger when we don't use violence.

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Speaker 1: One of the real concerns here, though, I think as

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Speaker 1: a society, is are we heading down the path of

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Speaker 1: just raising kids wrapping them in cotton wool.

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Speaker 3: This is not namby pamby parenting. This is not cotton

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Speaker 3: wooling and molly coddling. We're raising an incredible generation who

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Speaker 3: are doing amazing things.

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Speaker 4: Are there some bad eggs? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: There are, But you know what, there's a whole lot

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Speaker 3: of boomers, and a whole lot of Gen x's, and

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Speaker 3: a whole lot of gen wires, and even a handful

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Speaker 3: of millennials that are kind of getting a whole lot

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Speaker 3: wrong as well. Over time, though, are we improving as

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Speaker 3: a whole? I think the answer has to be yes.

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Speaker 3: And this is one more step in that direction.

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Speaker 1: If smacking's out of the question and it is made illegal,

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Speaker 1: what do you say to parents to stop bad and

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Speaker 1: dangerous behavior or prevent bad and dangerous behavior.

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Speaker 3: What we're actually saying here is you don't have to

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Speaker 3: hit your kids to get really great result. It's on

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Speaker 3: ass to provide an environment with the kids where the

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Speaker 3: kids are going to do well. But yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 3: if they're drowning their sister in the pool, or if

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Speaker 3: they're running out in the road with their scooter and

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Speaker 3: doing silly things, then you go and you pick them

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Speaker 3: up and you move them. You switch the toaster off

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Speaker 3: and you put it away, You remove the knives, you

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Speaker 3: do the things that you need to do to provide

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Speaker 3: a safe environment, you just do it without violence.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Justin Coulson. It is certainly a controversial topic. We

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Speaker 1: really appreciate your time.

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Speaker 4: Good on your thanks, Chris.

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Speaker 2: Why, as you can imagine, this caused a significant stir

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Speaker 2: across the nation, across the nation and within our home

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Speaker 2: so on.

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Speaker 3: A current affair on their Facebook page, I think it've

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Speaker 3: got like one point eight million followers. Frighteningly, staggeringly, astoundingly,

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Speaker 3: the vast majority of them were up in arms about

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Speaker 3: what I had to say. I wasn't very popular, but

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Speaker 3: I got an email through a contact form on the

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Speaker 3: website that I want.

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Speaker 4: To read to you.

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Speaker 3: And just before I do, just a content warning. This

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Speaker 3: is an email that you might just want to skip

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Speaker 3: passed if you've got young kids listening. It's going to

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Speaker 3: take about sixty seconds to work through it. But I

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Speaker 3: really want to read it to you because at highlights,

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Speaker 3: just why this conversation matters so much. It's from somebody

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Speaker 3: whose name is John, and I'm going to read it

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Speaker 3: to you. It says, Hi, Justin, my son, aged twenty one,

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Speaker 3: passed away about seven weeks ago due to substance abuse.

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Speaker 3: I stopped hitting him when he was about six, but

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Speaker 3: by then the damage had been done. I didn't know

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Speaker 3: how to parent, was highly stressed and used negative reinforcement

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Speaker 3: in the form of smacking as it was all I knew.

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Speaker 3: Hunter was born at twenty eight weeks. It was touch

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Speaker 3: and go many times in the first few months of

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Speaker 3: his life.

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Speaker 4: This hard for me to read.

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Speaker 3: I thought when he started flourishing in high school, we

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Speaker 3: were passed the hard times. But as I said, the

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Speaker 3: damage had been done. In his mid teens he developed depression,

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Speaker 3: then it grew into bipolar, and then in his late

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Speaker 3: teens other mental health issues, which ultimately led to substance abuse,

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Speaker 3: and Hunter died on the nineteenth of Augus.

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Speaker 4: Hunter's risk of.

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Speaker 3: These mental illnesses was much higher due to his premature birth,

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Speaker 3: but if I hadn't smacked him so much and so

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Speaker 3: often in his first few years of life, he might

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Speaker 3: have just had one mental illness to deal with, rather

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Speaker 3: than all of them. It's a hard thing to live

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Speaker 3: with knowing that your action is more than fifteen years ago,

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Speaker 3: or probably a big part of the reason why your

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Speaker 3: son died. There's nothing I can do to get back

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Speaker 3: there and change my own behavior.

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Speaker 4: But it's a good thing that you're doing. Try to

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Speaker 4: change how we parent.

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Speaker 3: It just might save some other father from having to

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Speaker 3: bury their son or daughter. Now, I'm not going to

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Speaker 3: argue for a moment that's smacking is what led to

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Speaker 3: this good man's son's passing. It's impossible to draw a

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Speaker 3: straight line from a child being hit to all of

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Speaker 3: these issues and challenges. But we do have research that

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Speaker 3: says that the risks increase when they're smacking. I read

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Speaker 3: a note like that, and I think of all the

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Speaker 3: conversations that I've had with parents who smacked or kids

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Speaker 3: who were smacked, the interviews that I've done in the media,

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Speaker 3: the constant barrage of emails that I get from people

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Speaker 3: who want to get past this, and my heart just breaks.

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Speaker 3: It breaks because of the pain that so many people

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Speaker 3: feel because they're violent towards their kids. And I just

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Speaker 3: I got to keep doing it. I've got to keep

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Speaker 3: talking about it. I've got to keep arguing that this

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Speaker 3: is not in anyone's best interest for hitting kids to

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Speaker 3: be allowed, even if it's just a tap, because they're

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Speaker 3: doing something stupid.

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Speaker 2: Well, the reality is, while we see it is just

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Speaker 2: a tap, when you look at the physicality, the size,

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Speaker 2: the structure, the stature of you against your younger child.

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Speaker 2: Your definition of a tap could very much be what

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Speaker 2: they see as a slab or even more, and the

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Speaker 2: effects that that has and the way they see you.

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Speaker 2: It's devastating.

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Speaker 3: Back in two thousand and four, I wrote about an

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Speaker 3: article that was written an empirical article in a peer

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Speaker 3: reviewed journal by Terry Dobbs and Judith Duncan called Children's

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Speaker 3: Perspectives on Physical Discipline. They interviewed a whole lot of

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Speaker 3: kids and essentially they found that when kids get hit, they.

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Speaker 4: Feel like it hurts. They feel like it hurts.

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Speaker 3: That's completely at odds with adult assumptions on the use

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Speaker 3: of physical discipline, but these kids feel like it hurts.

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Speaker 3: Judith Duncan is a researcher at the Children's Issue Center

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Speaker 3: at the University of Otago in New Zealand. And it's

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Speaker 3: just a beautiful, a really really elegant little piece of research.

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Speaker 3: The feedback that I got from a bunch of people

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Speaker 3: was really positive, and I wanted to share that. But

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Speaker 3: I also got feedback like this from a guy called

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Speaker 3: Craig Willis, who said, justin I just watched current affair.

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Speaker 3: You are a complete I can't actually use the word

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Speaker 3: that he called me. Young people are absolute. I can't

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Speaker 3: use the word that he called them either. These days,

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Speaker 3: and you think it's fine. I cannot believe how many

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Speaker 3: children and younger adults swear at teachers who cannot punish

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Speaker 3: them anymore. He got a lot of typos in here.

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Speaker 3: They still and disobey law enforcement as there are no consequences.

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Speaker 3: Young people should be scared of doing unlawful and unsolvable things,

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Speaker 3: but without punishment, we are creating a horrible wood. It

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Speaker 3: should be world with no respect. I can't believe they

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Speaker 3: let you on a TV show with a can not

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Speaker 3: do wrong church type mentality. The world is going mad.

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Speaker 3: I happen to respond to Craig and say said, Craig,

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Speaker 3: you're a shining loight of goodness yourself, budd. It is

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Speaker 3: obviously not just kids that struggle with respect.

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Speaker 4: Check your mirror. But I don't know if I should

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Speaker 4: have said that or not.

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Speaker 3: But the overwhelming majority of people who responded to a

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Speaker 3: current Affair unfortunately had attitudes like that. And that's the

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Speaker 3: kind of feedback that actually motivates me to keep on going.

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Speaker 4: Because we have a lot of work to do.

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Speaker 2: This is a topic that I'm really uncomfortable talking about

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Speaker 2: because of the implications it's had in my own personal

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Speaker 2: life as a child.

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Speaker 3: We're all humans, like I know, some parents have actually

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Speaker 3: never hit their kids. We started off on the wrong foot,

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Speaker 3: and we struggled with it for a long time, and

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Speaker 3: we don't claim to be perfect and never have, but

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Speaker 3: my goodness, we are so much better than we ever

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Speaker 3: were because of these conversations.

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Speaker 2: I think the thing that really stands out to me is,

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Speaker 2: in spite of my shortcomings as a mum, at no

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Speaker 2: point would I ever be rallying for the right to

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Speaker 2: hurt my child. Every time I've placed myself in that position,

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Speaker 2: it has just left me so devastated to think that

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Speaker 2: this child that I am responsible for and have lovingly

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Speaker 2: brought into this world would be scared of me because

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Speaker 2: of my inability to check my own anger and find

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Speaker 2: more appropriate ways to lovingly guide them.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I said it in the interview. I don't

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Speaker 3: think this made it into the final cut, but in

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Speaker 3: my interview with him something that must have been edited out.

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Speaker 4: I made the point no parent.

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Speaker 3: Ever goes and wacks their kids and walks away going. Sure,

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Speaker 3: nail that bes parent ever.

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Speaker 2: But not even that, like if I did that to

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Speaker 2: someone else's child, If I did that to someone else's child,

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Speaker 2: I would be arrested, like I literally we just had

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Speaker 2: a conversation about this about a man in his jocks

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Speaker 2: running out and.

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Speaker 4: That's right Matthew Vanderpolver cyclist, he got.

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Speaker 2: Charged, which just had this conversation. Yeah, yeah, and they

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Speaker 2: were those those kids were downright disrespectful and doing the

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Speaker 2: wrong thing.

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Speaker 3: But he's still not allowed to go and hit him.

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Speaker 3: And rightly so, absolutely rightly so.

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Speaker 2: But as a parent, if that was my child and

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Speaker 2: I chose to hit them.

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Speaker 4: Now it's okay, it's okay. Yeah, yeah. Now.

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Speaker 3: Now we are not sharing this because we want to

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Speaker 3: shame anyone. We're sharing this because we want to elevate

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Speaker 3: the conversation. We want to continue the conversation and help

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Speaker 3: parents recognize that there are better things to do. A

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Speaker 3: bunch of people have said, well, what are we supposed

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Speaker 3: to do instead? I've got this podcast. You're listening to it, like,

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Speaker 3: there's six hundred episodes of free material to tell you

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Speaker 3: what you can do instead of hitting your kids. Listen

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Speaker 3: to the podcast. Listen to a couple of them a day.

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Speaker 3: They're short, they're easy to hear, and there's so much

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Speaker 3: stuff there my blog. There are like four or five

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Speaker 3: six hundred articles on my blog.

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Speaker 4: They're free.

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Speaker 3: There's so much information there to help you to do

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Speaker 3: stuff other than hit your kids. We have the Happy

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Speaker 3: Families membership. It costs a little bit. It's eighteen bucks

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Speaker 3: a month or one hundred and eighty bucks a year.

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Speaker 3: But I'll tell you what would you pay one hundred

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Speaker 3: and eighty bucks a year to not hit your kids again?

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Speaker 4: This why do what I do?

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Speaker 3: I mean I literally do what I do because when

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Speaker 3: we had a three year old, I lost the plot

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Speaker 3: and I blew it and I knew that I had

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Speaker 3: to change. That's literally why I do and why we

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Speaker 3: do what we do. So a current affair came out

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Speaker 3: like an attack dog when at me. I don't know

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Speaker 3: what everyone else thought of the interview, but you've heard

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Speaker 3: it now and hopefully it's given you some food for thought.

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Speaker 3: There's been some big reactions from one extreme to the other,

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Speaker 3: and some of them are heartbreaking for heartbreaking reasons. And

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Speaker 3: some of them are heartbreaking because people just won't listen.

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Speaker 3: They won't be told, But that's the conversation, no matter how.

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Speaker 2: Many times we have this conversation, though, the only point

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Speaker 2: that the opposing side has is that I was smacked

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Speaker 2: as a kid and I turned out. Okay, that's the

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Speaker 2: number one argument for being allowed to smack our children.

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Speaker 3: But do you know how you would have turned out

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Speaker 3: if you weren't smacked?

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Speaker 2: When I talk to you know the multitudes of friendships

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Speaker 2: and relationships I've had over the years, the relationships they

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Speaker 2: have with their parents are different to the relationships that

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Speaker 2: I'm striving to build with my children, so.

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Speaker 3: Beautifully said, yeah, the research actually shows that as well.

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Speaker 3: The research actually shows that kids who are smacked have

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Speaker 3: a different quality of relationship with their parents than the

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Speaker 3: kids who weren't.

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Speaker 2: The way we choose to parent doesn't give us the

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Speaker 2: quick fix or the quick response that a good slap

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Speaker 2: around the years or you know, the backside or the

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Speaker 2: backside would give. But the relationship, trust and building that

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Speaker 2: is entrenched in our children, that's what's so important.

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Speaker 3: The research also shows that if you wack your kids,

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Speaker 3: seventy three percent of them will be back at some

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Speaker 3: sort of troublesome behavior within ten minutes. Fascinating research from

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Speaker 3: George Holden a few years ago where they went into

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Speaker 3: homes and recorded what was happening, so they didn't have

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Speaker 3: to sit there and watch, but they just set up

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Speaker 3: cameras and tape recorders or whatever and recorded the audio.

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Speaker 4: And they found that within.

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Speaker 3: Ten minutes the parents were like, I'm going to have

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Speaker 3: to you're again. In seventy three percent of cases, it

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Speaker 3: doesn't work. There are better options. They're all over the website,

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Speaker 3: they're all over our Facebook page, they're all over the podcast,

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Speaker 3: they're all over everything. They're free or become a Happy

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Speaker 3: Family's member and join us tonight for the autism webinar

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Speaker 3: as well. That should be great. Kylie, thanks for having

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Speaker 3: the conversation. I know that you don't like having this conversation.

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Speaker 3: I don't either, but we need to keep having it

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Speaker 3: because we need to get the message across. The Happy

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Speaker 3: Family's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media.

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Speaker 3: Craig Bruce is our executive producer. For more information about

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Speaker 3: making your family happier, check out the blog Happy Families

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Speaker 3: dot com dot you, or our Facebook page Doctor Justin

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Speaker 3: Colson's Happy Families