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Speaker 1: It's The Happy Family's Podcast.

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

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Speaker 2: once answers me ow.

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Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to the Happy Family's Podcast. My name is

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Speaker 1: doctor Justin Colson. Every Wednesday we bring you an interview

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Speaker 1: with somebody who knows stuff that you need to know

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Speaker 1: so that you can make your family happier. Today, an

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Speaker 1: interview with an author, in fact, the world's leading most

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Speaker 1: recognized academic thinker. I would have loved to have had

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Speaker 1: him with me to have this conversation, but some people

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Speaker 1: are just a bit too hard to get a hold of.

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Speaker 1: And so what I've done today is lent heavily on

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Speaker 1: a podcast interview that Professor Jonathan Hate from New York

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Speaker 1: University had with Barry Weiss on The Honesty Podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: going to just share a couple of quick snippets of

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Speaker 1: what he had to say, share a few of my

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Speaker 1: own ideas around that as well, and hopefully have a

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Speaker 1: really constructive conversation that sounds like an interview based on

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Speaker 1: his brand new book, The Anxious Generation. So let me

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Speaker 1: tell you a bit about who Jonathan Hate is. Many

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Speaker 1: years ago I read one of his first books. I

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Speaker 1: think it might have even been his first book, it

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Speaker 1: was called The Happiness Hypothesis. It remains to this day

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Speaker 1: my favorite book about well being and happiness. The guy

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Speaker 1: is just a phenomenal thinker and such a clear communicator.

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Speaker 1: You might also have heard of Jonathan Height in his

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Speaker 1: book The Righteous Mind or The Coddling of the American Mind.

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Speaker 1: The new book is called The Anxious Generation. I've pre

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Speaker 1: ordered mine. The book has now come out. I still

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Speaker 1: haven't received my pre ordered one. That's one of the

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Speaker 1: disadvantages sometimes when you do a preorder, you missed out.

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Speaker 1: But Professor Hyde has been absolutely blitzing podcasts and media

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Speaker 1: writer around the world and has reached so many people.

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Speaker 1: He also has a free sub stack called after Babel.

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Speaker 1: You can subscribe and support the work that he does.

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Speaker 1: I recommend it. It's absolutely brilliant. So let's get onto

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Speaker 1: the conversation that he had with Barry Weiss of the

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Speaker 1: Honestly podcast. Honestly with Barry Weiss, part of the Free Press.

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Speaker 1: This is what he had to say when Barry Wisse

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Speaker 1: asked him, Jonathan, where is the anxiety with this Anxious

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Speaker 1: Generation coming from?

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Speaker 2: It's all the little small stuff that was unpleasant as

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Speaker 2: a child, so it's being excluded. It's vital that kids

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Speaker 2: be excluded. Can you imagine? So, I'm sorry, your daughter

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Speaker 2: is what howled douth two? Three? Yeah, she's less than two. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: we're not at the excluding mean girls phase yet. Okay,

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Speaker 2: but Barry, so supposed we'll get there. That's right, you will.

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Speaker 2: And so given that she's going to get there, if

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Speaker 2: I gave you the option, I said, if you sign

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Speaker 2: this deal, I can guarantee you that she will never

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Speaker 2: face exclusion before her eighteenth birthday. Would you sign it? No? Right,

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Speaker 2: because we know intuitively that they have to experience it

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Speaker 2: otherwise it's going to be devastating when they're eighteen. And

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Speaker 2: it's the same thing for let's say losing. It's very

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Speaker 2: important that children lose a lot in competitive games. Now.

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Speaker 2: I remember when my kids were young. It was very

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Speaker 2: painful for them to lose. They sometimes upset, but after

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Speaker 2: a while then they just you know, then they get

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Speaker 2: used to it. And now you can have a lot

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Speaker 2: more fun because they know, you know, we're going to

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Speaker 2: play twenty games and I'm going to lose a bunch

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Speaker 2: of them and win a bunch of them. So winning

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Speaker 2: and losing being excluded certainly, you know, falling down and

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Speaker 2: getting hurt, and then getting hurt when there's no adult around,

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Speaker 2: so you know, like I remember crashing on my basicle

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Speaker 2: and you have to kind of limp home and maybe

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Speaker 2: the peddle is bent, but you get home and then

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Speaker 2: you realize, oh, I can do that, I can get home.

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Speaker 1: I really love this conversation. The idea that there are

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Speaker 1: healthy stresses in the environment. Now, we've got pretty good

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Speaker 1: research that shows that if we experience way too much

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Speaker 1: stress at a developmentally inappropriate age or just in an

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Speaker 1: inappropriate way, that stress can lead to negative outcomes. But

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Speaker 1: that's not what he's talking about here. And what people

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Speaker 1: like me and obviously Jonathan Hyde and many others who

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Speaker 1: do this kind of work have seen is it increasingly,

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Speaker 1: as we invest more and more into our children, that

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Speaker 1: parental investment is very much oriented towards protecting our children

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Speaker 1: from these stresses, the kind of stresses that build resilience

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Speaker 1: and reduce anxiety. In fact, not in that part of

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Speaker 1: the interview, but certainly in research that I've read, there

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Speaker 1: is good data that shows that when our children are

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Speaker 1: exposed to appropriate, developmentally appropriate and healthy stresses, they do

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Speaker 1: better they're less likely to experience anxiety disorders, they're more

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Speaker 1: likely to thrive. There's a metaphor and analogy that I

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Speaker 1: use when I'm giving my presentations on resilience in schools

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Speaker 1: and in organizations, and I use the idea of a

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Speaker 1: balance beam. So when your children are walking through life, metaphorically,

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Speaker 1: they're walking across a balance beam. Some parents, when they

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Speaker 1: see their child start to overbalance, maybe lean a little

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Speaker 1: too far to the left or right, they kind of

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Speaker 1: stand back and say, well, you're going to figure this out, kiddo,

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Speaker 1: And sometimes their kids fall and they hit the ground.

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Speaker 1: The difficulty with that, I'm going to call it the

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Speaker 1: tough enouugh princess approach to building resilience is research shows

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Speaker 1: that doesn't work. Sometimes that fall is too far, developmentally inappropriate,

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Speaker 1: too hard, And it's so important that as parents were

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Speaker 1: discerning enough to recognize that it's not going to be

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Speaker 1: in our kid's best interest to keep on falling off

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Speaker 1: the balance beam of life. Don't see that happening as

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Speaker 1: much as it used to. What I see happening a

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Speaker 1: lot more now is that parents will get up onto

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Speaker 1: the balance beam with their kids and carry them across.

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Speaker 1: But you cannot carry your kids through life, and that's

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Speaker 1: why it's just so important. In fact, that creates something

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Speaker 1: called the cycle of in confidence, which we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about in just a sec What I encourage parents

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Speaker 1: to do is to walk alongside their children as they're

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Speaker 1: up on that beam, and as their child starts to overbalance,

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Speaker 1: it's completely appropriate to put your hand up on their leg,

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Speaker 1: on their thigh and say, hey, just lean on me

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Speaker 1: for a second while you regain your bearings, regain your balance,

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Speaker 1: Let's work out how you can take the next step

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Speaker 1: on your own. Then you take your hand away, and

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Speaker 1: your kids take those steps on their own with a supportive, loving,

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Speaker 1: compassionate adult beside them. All the very best work on

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Speaker 1: resilience shows that the kids who are most resilient the

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Speaker 1: ones who have at least one significant supportive adult in

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Speaker 1: their lives. But those adults don't do the work for them.

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Speaker 1: They also just make sure that they don't fall and crash,

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Speaker 1: or if they do that it's not too hard that

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Speaker 1: there's something supporting that landing. I think it's so important

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Speaker 1: if we want to move away from raising an anxious generation,

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Speaker 1: that we get the balance ride. If you're pardon the pun. Now.

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Speaker 1: The second highlight from the conversation that Jonathan Hight had

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Speaker 1: with the Honestly Podcast and Barry Weiss related to a

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Speaker 1: concept called anti fragility. There's a book called Anti Fragile.

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Speaker 1: It's on my bookshelf. It's by Nasim Nicholas Taylor, and

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Speaker 1: the idea of anti fragile goes like this. We often

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Speaker 1: think that the opposite of resilience is fragility, but that's

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Speaker 1: not entirely true. See resilience, if we look at it

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Speaker 1: from an engineering perspective, you build a resilient house, a

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Speaker 1: resilient bridge, a resilience stadium or road. And what that

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Speaker 1: means is that when the traffic or the weight, or

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Speaker 1: the rain or the floods or whatever it is, when

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Speaker 1: those things hit it, it stays firm. Fragile means that

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Speaker 1: when adversity strikes you break down. Now, staying firm is

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Speaker 1: not the opposite of breaking down. Getting stronger is the

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Speaker 1: opposite of breaking down. But we don't have a word

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Speaker 1: for it in English, and so tailored Nasim Taylor calls

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Speaker 1: it anti fragility, being anti fragile, And that's what this

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Speaker 1: second clip is all about. How we help our kids

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Speaker 1: to be anti fragile.

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Speaker 2: So because we came to see our children as vulnerable

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Speaker 2: or fragile rather than anti fragile. If you see your

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Speaker 2: because it's anti fragile, say go out and play. And

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Speaker 2: if they say you know, it's called that you said,

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Speaker 2: you know, tough it out, or you know, if they

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Speaker 2: fall and say you know, you're okay, go back. So

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Speaker 2: that's what you would do if you think kids are

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Speaker 2: anti fragile. But if you think kids are fragile, you're

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Speaker 2: going to never leave them in supervise, which means they

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Speaker 2: never learn to work things out for themselves, and you're

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Speaker 2: going to swoop in at this first sign of trouble.

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Speaker 2: And so what happens if you assume that they're incompetent

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Speaker 2: and fragile, then they don't have the experience that would

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Speaker 2: make them competent and non fragile. So you're actually making

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Speaker 2: them incompetent and fragile. And then you look at these competent,

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Speaker 2: fragile fifth graders and then you say, well, how can

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Speaker 2: we trust you? You know, I can't let you, I can

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Speaker 2: let you walk to the store. What if you get lost?

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Speaker 2: It's a sacred it's a vicious sacle and so that's

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Speaker 2: what we have to break.

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Speaker 1: So I really love a handful of elements in here.

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Speaker 1: One of the central things that I'd highlight is what

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Speaker 1: we've got is one of the world's leading thinkers saying

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Speaker 1: a little bit of tough love is okay for your kids. Now,

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Speaker 1: this isn't any kind of neglectful or abusive or aggressive

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Speaker 1: tough love. Rather, it's acknowledging that the everyday bumps and

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Speaker 1: scrapes of life can be gotten over by our children,

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Speaker 1: and we shouldn't make too big a deal of them.

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Speaker 1: The more we make their emotions king, and the more

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Speaker 1: we make their discomfort a problem that needs to be fixed,

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Speaker 1: the less anti fragile, the more fragile they become, and

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Speaker 1: the more we perpetuate that cycle of incompetence. We need

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Speaker 1: to get comfortable with our kids being uncomfortable in an understanding, appropriate, caring,

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Speaker 1: compassionate way. But we still need to say, and I

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Speaker 1: do this all the time, when my kids and they've

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Speaker 1: hurt themselves, I'll say, oh, kiddo, that looks like it

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Speaker 1: really hurt. Come and give me a hug. I'll give

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Speaker 1: them a hug, and then I'll say all right off

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Speaker 1: you go. It looks like you'll be okay now, so

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Speaker 1: they can still be that kindness and that warmth, that nurture,

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Speaker 1: that relatedness, the mattering and belonging. That's all part of it.

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Speaker 1: But ultimately we're saying, I have faith in your ability

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Speaker 1: to figure this out and to move ahead with it.

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Speaker 1: As we encourage our kids to become more competent, they

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Speaker 1: get out of that cycle. But we need to understand

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Speaker 1: why we are uncomfortable. What is it in us that's

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Speaker 1: causing us to be so uncomfortable with our children experiencing hardship, difficulty, challenge.

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Speaker 1: As we get comfortable with them having that difficulty and

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Speaker 1: having that growth, they're much more likely to figure this out.

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Speaker 1: In just a second, we're going to talk about how

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Speaker 1: the adolescent brain changes during the teen years and the

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Speaker 1: impact of social media on those changes. It's the Happy

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Speaker 1: Famili's podcasts. It's the Happy Families Podcast with me doctor

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Speaker 1: Justin Coulson, and some snippets from an interview with Professor

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Hyte from New York University, the author of The

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Speaker 1: Anxious Generation, talking with the Free Presses Barry Weiss on

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Speaker 1: The Honestly with Barry Weiss podcast. Everybody knows that the

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Speaker 1: adolescent brain changes so much during those teen years, but

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Speaker 1: what's the impact of social media on those changes. Jonathan

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Speaker 1: Hate explains this to Barry Weiss in the Honestly podcast.

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Speaker 2: The brain grows very quickly in the first few years

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Speaker 2: of life, and then it actually slows down a lot,

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Speaker 2: and from then on it's not so much growth. It's

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Speaker 2: more it's rewiring. It's neurons connecting, its synapses forming, it's

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Speaker 2: neurons feeding away, you know, if they're not used. So

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of rewiring going on, and that speeds

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Speaker 2: up during puberty. There was especially early puberty around each

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Speaker 2: eleven or twelve to around fifteen sixty, and there's a

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Speaker 2: huge amount of change as the brain basically, you know,

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Speaker 2: sort of like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. You

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Speaker 2: have the young form of a human brain kind of rewires.

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Speaker 2: Now that it's learned culture, it sort of rewires to

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Speaker 2: lock down into the format of an American or a

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Speaker 2: suite or whatever. And this is exactly the period, unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: when we put our kids on social media and let

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Speaker 2: random weirdness on the Internet control how their brain is rewiring.

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Speaker 2: One of the main things that is happening is in

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Speaker 2: the prefrontal cortex. That's the last part to really go

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Speaker 2: through the change, which is the seat of executive function.

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Speaker 2: That is the ability to formulate a goal, figure out

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Speaker 2: the means to achieve the goal, and then execute the

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Speaker 2: plan to achieve the goal. So if you want to

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Speaker 2: do your homework, you know, I know, I want to

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Speaker 2: watch this TV show at ten o'clock tonight, so I

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Speaker 2: an hour. I better do my homework. I have one hour.

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Speaker 2: You know, kids struggle to do that, especially if you

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Speaker 2: don't love doing your homework. It's going to take concentration

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Speaker 2: and willpower to stay on task. But what happens you

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Speaker 2: have an infinite number of really fun digital experiences just

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Speaker 2: waiting for you if you touch the right buttons. But

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Speaker 2: it's much more than that, because you don't have to

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Speaker 2: touch the right buttons. The pop ups are going to

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Speaker 2: be popping up saying come play, come out, come, look

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Speaker 2: what someone just said about you. So they're getting I

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Speaker 2: think on average now, two hundred and fifty notifications a

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Speaker 2: day is what American teens now get. That's two hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty times a day that their attention is interrupted.

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Speaker 2: Most of them don't put it on a focus mode.

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Speaker 2: They just take it as normal that any company that

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Speaker 2: wants to take some of their attention can just take it.

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Speaker 2: So it was always hard for teens to focus and

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Speaker 2: do their homework or do anything, but doing that gives

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Speaker 2: you practice in doing it, and if you do it repeatedly,

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Speaker 2: you're actually helping your brain to develop good executive function.

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Speaker 2: So what would happen if you have a teen who

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Speaker 2: never gets to practice that, They literally never get an

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Speaker 2: hour without interruption. I think it could lead to permanent

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Speaker 2: decrements in their ability to function as an adult.

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Speaker 1: I think that it's important to highlight that we don't

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Speaker 1: know yet. It's still too early, but it's a reasonable

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Speaker 1: supposition that Jonathan Hyde identifies here two hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: notifications a day. I've watched my kids and how much

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Speaker 1: their funds doing, and my kids pretty light on compared

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Speaker 1: to what I see in other places. This point about

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Speaker 1: practicing ignoring helping kids to recognize that they don't have

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Speaker 1: to respond to every message the second it comes through.

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Speaker 1: That they can leave things on read or even on

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Speaker 1: unread for more than five or ten minutes, In fact,

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Speaker 1: for an hour or two letting them sit with that,

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Speaker 1: letting them learn how to do that is such a

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Speaker 1: vital skill and it will be good for their wellbeing.

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Speaker 1: So the last thing that I'm going to share with

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Speaker 1: you is we wrap up this really important conversation from

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Hight and what's going on in his book The

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Speaker 1: Anxious Generation, Why our kids are struggling so much. We're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about this idea of social media addiction.

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Speaker 1: When I wrote my book Ten Things Every Parent Needs

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Speaker 1: to Know, I made it really clear that addiction is

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Speaker 1: a bit of a funny word in psychological terms, and

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Speaker 1: most of the time researchers try to avoid it unless

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Speaker 1: they're genuinely talking about addiction. The more appropriate term, which

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Speaker 1: I hate will mentioned just to se is problematic internet use.

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Speaker 1: And I wrote an entire chapter about this idea and

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Speaker 1: even included, with the permission of the author of the scale,

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Speaker 1: a way of measuring whether or not your child is

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Speaker 1: experiencing problematic Internet use. But he's Jonathan had from his

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Speaker 1: conversation with Barry Weiss and the Honestly podcast talking about

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Speaker 1: social media addiction and whether it's the thing.

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Speaker 2: The better term to use is what they call problematic use.

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Speaker 2: So you know, if you're spending four hours a day

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Speaker 2: on Instagram, but you're still seeing your friends, you're still

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Speaker 2: getting good grades in class, you know it's a time suck,

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Speaker 2: but you can't say that it's interfering with basically love

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Speaker 2: and work, the two areas that psychologists look at love

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Speaker 2: and work basically relationships and either you know, work or

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Speaker 2: school work. So if you're doing fine on those, well, okay,

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Speaker 2: you know that's maybe it's your choice. But wherever we look,

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Speaker 2: the numbers come up between five and fifteen percent as

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Speaker 2: having problematic use. So video games are tremendous fun. You know,

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Speaker 2: boys really defend them and they don't want them taken away,

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Speaker 2: But it turns out about five to fifteen percent have

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Speaker 2: problematic use where they can't stop. They're surly with their parents.

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Speaker 2: If they're deprived for a day or two, they' to

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Speaker 2: get really surly and maybe even aggressive. It's interfering with

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Speaker 2: their school work, with their ability to function with friends.

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Speaker 2: So people say, oh, you know, my kids are fine,

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Speaker 2: or you know most kids are doing okay, sure most are,

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Speaker 2: but can you think of any consumer product in the

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Speaker 2: world where if there was a one to ten chance

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Speaker 2: that your kid uses it they're going to get hooked

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Speaker 2: and have problematic behavior to the point where it's going

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Speaker 2: to interfere with other life domains. And if they do

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Speaker 2: it for two or three hours a day over many years,

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Speaker 2: it could change the brain development. Is there any other

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Speaker 2: product that we would ever let our kids use? So

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Speaker 2: that's the way I think about it.

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Speaker 1: It's such a great communicator that final point brings at home.

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Speaker 1: That's one thing to say there's five or ten percent

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Speaker 1: of kids who have this challenge, But when you talk

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Speaker 1: about creating a product and allowing them to use it,

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Speaker 1: knowing that, it really shifts the conversation. I think this

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Speaker 1: book is going to be one of the most important

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Speaker 1: books to be published this year. If you haven't ordered already,

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Speaker 1: it's called The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Hyte. I would

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Speaker 1: encourage you to check it out because it's been so topical.

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Speaker 1: I really wanted to bring you those snippets and create

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Speaker 1: the conversation for you in your home with your kids

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Speaker 1: around such a challenging idea. The Happy Families podcast is

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Speaker 1: produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. For more information

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Speaker 1: about making your family happier, please visit us at happy

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Speaker 1: families dot com. Dot au