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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 answers.

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Speaker 2: Now, the more you are on screens as a parent,

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Speaker 2: and the more your kids are on screens alone, the

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Speaker 2: worse the outcomes are for their verbal fluency, for their

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Speaker 2: capacity to develop language and communicate effectively.

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

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 2: You're in the middle of reading a book, that Sugar book,

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Speaker 2: based on that Sugar movie, or maybe the precursor to

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Speaker 2: that Sugar movie. And you've been making some intentional choices

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Speaker 2: to reduce the amount of sugar in your life.

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Speaker 3: How you doing.

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Speaker 4: I'm really struggling. I actually don't use the word addiction lightly,

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Speaker 4: but I am addicted to sugar. Yeah, And the impact

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Speaker 4: that it's having on my capacity to podcast.

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Speaker 3: It's really having an impact, isn't it.

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Speaker 4: It's really hard.

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Speaker 2: I'm missing my fruit juice in the morning. I'm really

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Speaker 2: missing my fruit juice.

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Speaker 3: I love. See.

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Speaker 4: I'm not missing anything specifically.

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Speaker 3: I'm you're just missing sugar.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I push. I can't even put my words together.

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Speaker 4: I'm missing that surge of energy that comes, you know,

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Speaker 4: that spike.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, every fifteen minutes when you have another piece of chocolate. Well,

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Speaker 2: we're not going to be talking too much about sugar today,

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Speaker 2: but this is the Doctor's Desk episode and we are

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Speaker 2: talking about another kind of fix quite a bit. We're

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Speaker 2: going to be talking about screens. Three different studies, all

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Speaker 2: screen related. The reason being is that so many parents

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Speaker 2: are still struggling with screens, and frankly, can I just

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Speaker 2: say this, we're making it up as we go along.

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Speaker 4: I think that our first study actually highlights that really well.

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Speaker 2: So let's dive into this. The first study that I

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Speaker 2: want to talk about is a study that's based here.

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Speaker 2: It came out of Australia. It's by a research by

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Speaker 2: the name of Sumudu Malorachi.

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Speaker 3: What are you laughing at? You can't laugh at somebody's name.

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Speaker 4: I'm not laughing at their name. I'm just laughing at

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Speaker 4: you think you've even closely got it right.

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Speaker 3: It faced so much.

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Speaker 2: This is a tricky name to say, a double L

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Speaker 2: a W, double a rachi. So I'm going to say

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Speaker 2: Malimorachie and smoodoo. If you've heard me say this and

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Speaker 2: I've got it wrong, you can tweet me and let

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Speaker 2: me know. And if you give me the phonetic spelling.

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Speaker 2: I will remedy it the best that I can. And

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Speaker 2: a couple of other researchers as well, working with smoodoo.

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Speaker 2: We've got Merilyn Hooley, Wendy Sullivan Smith, and Sharon Hollwood.

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Speaker 2: The article I love the name of this article, You're

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Speaker 2: damned if you do, You're damned if you don't. It's

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Speaker 2: a qualitative exploration of parent motives for provision of mobile

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Speaker 2: screen devices in early childhood.

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Speaker 4: I kind of feel like that's the case with most parenting.

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Speaker 2: So this is a study out of Deacon University and

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Speaker 2: it's really to me quite interesting looking at why parents

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Speaker 2: are giving their toddlers and young children screens and the

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Speaker 2: judgment and the cognitive dissonance that is, I know that

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Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be better than this, but I need

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Speaker 2: my child to have screen. It's that gap that we're

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Speaker 2: trying to bridge in terms of keeping our kids living

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Speaker 2: a great life and keeping them away from screens and

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Speaker 2: yet recognizing that screens.

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Speaker 3: Are part of the architecture, They're part of the furniture.

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Speaker 3: I loved reading it.

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Speaker 2: It's a qualitative study, which means a whole bunch of

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Speaker 2: interviews with parents who are grappling with this right now,

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Speaker 2: And there were five themes that are worth unpacking really

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Speaker 2: briefly to help understand why parents are giving their kids

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Speaker 2: screens and what it actually means for.

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Speaker 3: Us as a society.

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Speaker 4: Well, number one is convenience.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And there's some really positive attitudes that a

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Speaker 2: lot of parents have towards screens. They recognize that the

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Speaker 2: screen is convenient and also can provide learning experiences and connection.

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Speaker 2: So there's a quote from one parent who said, we've

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Speaker 2: always had grandparents that lived a decent distance away, so

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Speaker 2: she wouldn't have a relationship with them if she couldn't FaceTime.

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Speaker 2: And I hear that, I think, yeah, we would not

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Speaker 2: our heads to that and say, one hundred percent.

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Speaker 4: We've obviously done this move at the beginning of the year,

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Speaker 4: and our eight year old has been able to keep

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Speaker 4: in contact with two of her close his friends, yes,

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Speaker 4: via FaceTime, And it's so nice to recognize and see

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Speaker 4: that those relationships can continue because they've got that visual.

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Speaker 3: Once upon a time, you moved house and that was it.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you might have a pen pal, but let's

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Speaker 2: be honest, most of us never had the discipline to

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Speaker 2: do that, or our parents just kept forgetting to buy

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Speaker 2: the stamp to post the letter. And so there's that aspect,

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Speaker 2: and I love how you've drawn in it's not just

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Speaker 2: about grandparents and relatives, it's friends. As some other parents

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Speaker 2: said around the positivity of the learning and the connection.

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Speaker 2: One parent, a mother of a two year old with

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Speaker 2: four kids, said this, I think we're better off for

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Speaker 2: having them. He's not that interested in writing or drawing.

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Speaker 2: Using an app gives him that opportunity to be interactive

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Speaker 2: with his learning, and that's a real positive.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 2: There are questions about the educational value and content of

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Speaker 2: a lot of apps, and they've justified their important questions. Nevertheless,

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Speaker 2: if you've got your child being productive on an app

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Speaker 2: and doing something that is at least almost seemingly potentially education,

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Speaker 2: oh that's way better than having them to stare passively

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Speaker 2: at a television.

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Speaker 3: Isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And so there's these positive attitudes. Another mom said,

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Speaker 2: but like learning to use iPads in kindy, if a

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Speaker 2: one year old can learn to use it in a

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Speaker 2: couple of days, I don't think a seven, eight, nine,

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Speaker 2: ten year old is going to have any trouble with it.

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Speaker 2: If my nearly ninety year old Grandma can figure out

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Speaker 2: how to use an iPad. I don't know why you

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Speaker 2: need to learn how to do it. In kindy, just

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Speaker 2: this this idea that using a device at an early

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Speaker 2: age isn't particularly advantageous. So they're saying, yeah, there are positives,

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Speaker 2: but we don't need to make a big deal about it.

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Speaker 2: But there's just a general positive attitude. We're playing together,

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Speaker 2: we're interacting it.

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Speaker 3: All times of the day.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes it's useful, it's good for connection, it's good for learning.

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Speaker 2: Those kinds of ideas were there. The second theme, though,

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Speaker 2: highlights where this dissonance comes in. Parents are really concerned

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Speaker 2: about devices supplanting real social interactions and opportunities for family bonding.

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Speaker 2: So a mother of a four year old said, the

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Speaker 2: worst bit is when you hand them your phone and

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Speaker 2: then you're like, well, now I've got nothing.

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Speaker 3: To do either. Not that that's really happened with us

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Speaker 3: very often.

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Speaker 2: There's usually something else to do, but every now and

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Speaker 2: again you're like, okay, well we were here to do

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Speaker 2: this thing together and now you've got a device.

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Speaker 3: So there's that.

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Speaker 2: The The implications of look out the window, said a dad,

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Speaker 2: a dad to a five year old, look out the window.

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Speaker 2: There's all these other activities, coloring in books, that's what

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Speaker 2: we use for stimulation, and we play games in the car,

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Speaker 2: like ey Spy. So let's try to stay off the screen,

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Speaker 2: so let's use our imaginations. There's a whole lot of

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Speaker 2: negative connotations around it, and the idea that screens are

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Speaker 2: displacing life. That was a second big theme. Like I said,

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Speaker 2: that's where the dissonance really comes in. There's all these positives,

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Speaker 2: but there's all these drawbacks.

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Speaker 4: So number three is a really good one, I think

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Speaker 4: because I have experienced so many times this idea of

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Speaker 4: influence of society. And you talk about damned if you

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Speaker 4: do damned if you don't think about all of the

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Speaker 4: times where I've taken small children into places that really

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Speaker 4: you know, the doctor's surgery for instance, or a restaurant

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Speaker 4: or a restaurant. Yeah, for sure, you know these places

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Speaker 4: where you kind of it's quiet, people are there for

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Speaker 4: specific reasons, and you're taking a child that doesn't want

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Speaker 4: to be there. They want to be moving, they want

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Speaker 4: to be and so.

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Speaker 2: The child doesn't want to be there, and the people

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Speaker 2: don't want the child there either.

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Speaker 4: That's right, So you give them a device. So that

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Speaker 4: they stay nice and quiet. But then you've got the

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Speaker 4: judgment because your child's on a device. But if your

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Speaker 4: child wasn't on a device, they'd be climbing the walls,

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Speaker 4: and then you'd have judgment as well. Exactly, very very

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Speaker 4: there is no win.

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Speaker 2: Mother of a one year old said, I felt really embarrassed.

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Speaker 2: I sat in the restaurant and apologized the whole way

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Speaker 2: through the meal. I couldn't so I gave him my phone.

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Speaker 2: Like there's just that. Yeah, I'm getting judged for giving

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Speaker 2: the phone, but I'm getting judged if I don't give.

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Speaker 3: Him the phone.

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Speaker 2: And a mum of a three year old said, I

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Speaker 2: don't really let him use it in public, more so

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Speaker 2: because I'm worried about people judging me, which sounds really awful.

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Speaker 2: Say from my parents, they were like, oh what are

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Speaker 2: you doing? We never had phones when we were kids.

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Speaker 2: So that was the third theme. And again there's that

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Speaker 2: dissonance that comes.

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Speaker 3: Up, that challenge what about number four? So this is a.

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Speaker 2: Theme that came out of the interviews that I think

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Speaker 2: is really curious, the idea of trying to manage and

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Speaker 2: achieve a balance. And so we have parents saying things

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Speaker 2: like I know that they're going to use the device,

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Speaker 2: but I'm trying to minimize it. I'm trying to get

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Speaker 2: the balance right. One parent, a mum with three kids

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Speaker 2: forty five years old, talking about the four year old.

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Speaker 2: Me and my husband. We've got pass codes on our phone,

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Speaker 2: so they can't access them without that.

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Speaker 4: At the most, you've got an eight year old who

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Speaker 4: literally every single time we changed them, she works it out.

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Speaker 4: How does she do that?

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Speaker 3: She gets it.

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Speaker 4: The big kids can't work it out, but within minutes

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Speaker 4: she's decoded.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this mum said, at the moment, the WiFi is

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Speaker 2: also disconnected, but we've just found that the kids find

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Speaker 2: other ways to access the internet regardless. And I like

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Speaker 2: this one as well. This was really clever. A mother

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Speaker 2: of a three year old thirty six years old said,

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Speaker 2: I let it almost run out, and I don't charge

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Speaker 2: it if a battery runs out because she's only had

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Speaker 2: twenty percent and that's all I bothered to charge it.

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Speaker 2: Oh sorry, darling, there's no more right pad, which I

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Speaker 2: think is great. So that was the fourth area where

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Speaker 2: there's that dissonance where I don't want them to have it.

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Speaker 3: They kind of need to have it, And how am

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Speaker 3: I going to manage it.

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Speaker 4: And number five is this idea of external challenges.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think the easiest way to describe this

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Speaker 2: is to share what the researchers said. They said parents

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Speaker 2: discussed several perceived external barriers to appropriately providing a device

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Speaker 2: and effectively managing healthy mobile screen habits. The most noteworthy

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Speaker 2: barrier was simply the reality of life. So this is

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Speaker 2: that thing where you've got the ideal and then you've

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Speaker 2: got the reality, And that theme has permeated this whole

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Speaker 2: conversation around kids.

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Speaker 4: So the ideal is if my child, especially my young child,

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Speaker 4: is on a device, that I actually would be there

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Speaker 4: with them, But we often.

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Speaker 2: Or that they wouldn't be on one at all because

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Speaker 2: we want them to be living a whole and full

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Speaker 2: and fulfilled.

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Speaker 3: Life, and instead they're starting a screen.

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Speaker 4: But we will often put our children in front of

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Speaker 4: a screen or give them a device so that we

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Speaker 4: have the capacity to do the myriad of things that

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Speaker 4: need to be done in a day.

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Speaker 3: With our own peace, without a child attached.

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Speaker 2: Kl Lim Yeah, there is sarch Is say for most parents'

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Speaker 2: life is busy and messy, and similar to things such

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Speaker 2: as their child's eating and sleeping, routines. Screen time was

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Speaker 2: another part of parenting that did not.

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Speaker 3: Go the way they thought that it would.

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Speaker 2: I love this quote from a mother of a two

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Speaker 2: year old who says, before you have children, you go, oh, no,

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to let my children play on screens

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Speaker 2: and have access to my phone. Then you get their

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Speaker 2: holy crap, giving him my phone for five minutes while

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Speaker 2: I'm at the doctor's appointment so he's quite not screaming.

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Speaker 3: My face is actually really handy.

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Speaker 2: Going through it has definitely changed my idea of what's

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Speaker 2: okay and what's realistic. And so the study ultimately what

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Speaker 2: it's basically said, and I love the way they've done it.

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Speaker 2: I love the conversations, the way they've brought the quotes

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Speaker 2: from these qualitative interviews into The study basically finds that

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Speaker 2: parents are experiencing this really big dissonance, this really big

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Speaker 2: tension between their attitudes and their behavior, primarily because they

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Speaker 2: want to keep the kids away from devices as much

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Speaker 2: as possible and give them this beautiful childhood. And the

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Speaker 2: reality is that it's really hard to live life, and

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Speaker 2: the device gives us a way to make things manageable.

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Speaker 2: It works, it's so much better in so many ways

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to I mean, we've got podcasts and

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Speaker 2: we've got web webinars and all kinds of resources about screens.

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Speaker 2: If you really want to get my take on it,

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Speaker 2: grab a copy of my book Ten Things Every Parent

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Speaker 2: Needs to Know and have a look at the list

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Speaker 2: that I've got in the screen time chapter about just

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Speaker 2: saying to the kids, I know you want the screen,

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Speaker 2: and if you've done all these things, you can do it.

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Speaker 2: And there's a big list of all the things that

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Speaker 2: kids need to do before they're on the screen. It's

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Speaker 2: a healthier approach, and it's also a bit more realistic,

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Speaker 2: and let's recognize sometimes you do need to go to

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Speaker 2: bathroom or the doctor, or or restaurant in peace and

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Speaker 2: every now and again the screen's going.

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Speaker 3: To be okay. So that's our first study.

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Speaker 2: We spend a lot of time on it, but I

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Speaker 2: think that it's really worth spending that time on it

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Speaker 2: because so many parents struggle with the dissonance associated with

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Speaker 2: screen time.

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Speaker 4: My second study look at social media and how it's

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Speaker 4: linked to body image issues that our children are having,

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Speaker 4: and this urge for platforms to actually take some responsibility.

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Speaker 2: This is a really important piece of writing, and I'm

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Speaker 2: just going to share a couple of paragraphs and then

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Speaker 2: we'll move on to our third study because time will

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Speaker 2: get the better of us. We've linked to all of

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Speaker 2: the studies that I'm talking about in the show notes.

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Speaker 2: So this is a new article published in the journal

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Speaker 2: Body Image. A team of psychology researchers outline a mountain

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Speaker 2: of evidence the links social media use to body image issues,

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Speaker 2: and the researchers essentially describe how algorithms are probably, well

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Speaker 2: not probably, are intensifying the link between social media and

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Speaker 2: body image challenges, and they're saying, as a social media corporation,

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Speaker 2: you need to take action. So appearance based social media

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Speaker 2: platforms like Instagram and TikTok seem to be the most

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Speaker 2: harmful to use as body image. On platforms like this,

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Speaker 2: the team and not just in ages, all of us

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Speaker 2: are exposed to continually exposed to filtered and edited content

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Speaker 2: that presents literally unrealistic body standards, and the evidence shows

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Speaker 2: that this distorted environment increases users risk of body dissatisfaction

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Speaker 2: and harmful conditions like body dysmorphia and eating disorders. So

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Speaker 2: I think that's probably enough to highlight social media platforms

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Speaker 2: are aware of this. We've had whistleblower cases come out

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Speaker 2: of a couple of different places now, including Facebook, showing

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Speaker 2: that they know this is happening, but they're not doing

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Speaker 2: anything about it because they need to have attention. They

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Speaker 2: need people to be listening or watching or viewing and

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Speaker 2: giving their focus.

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Speaker 3: So it's just horrible.

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Speaker 2: The article is called the Dangers of the rabbit Hole,

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Speaker 2: reflections on social media as a portal into a distorted

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Speaker 2: world of edits and bodies and eating disorder, risk and

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Speaker 2: the role of algorithms.

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Speaker 4: T Number three looks at the amount of screen time

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Speaker 4: a children have and the link between that and language

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Speaker 4: development and our young kids.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so we started by talking about the long study

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Speaker 2: talking about kids and their access to devices, little kids, preschoolers, toddlers.

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Speaker 2: Then we went to body image, so we're talking about teenagers.

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Speaker 2: But now we're going back to the beginning with little

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Speaker 2: kids again. This is from the University of Helsinki in Finland,

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Speaker 2: and what the research has found is.

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Speaker 3: And I can summarize this just in a couple of sentences.

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Speaker 2: They looked at the extent to which kids are using screen

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Speaker 2: time alone, the extent which their mum is on a

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Speaker 2: screen and the extent which they're having combined joint screen

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Speaker 2: time and in a nutshell, the researchers found that the

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Speaker 2: connections between children's and mother's screen time and children's language skills.

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Speaker 2: The more the children use screen time alone or the

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Speaker 2: greater the amount of the mother's screen time, the weaker

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Speaker 2: the children's lexical and general language abilities were. After taking

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Speaker 2: into account the child's age, how well educated the mum was,

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Speaker 2: and even birth order, and what they essentially found is

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Speaker 2: that there's a cumulative negative association cumulative meaning there's a

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Speaker 2: dose response. The more screen time there is, the stronger

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Speaker 2: the effect is found to be. So there's a cumulative

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Speaker 2: negative association between kids lexical and general language abilities when

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Speaker 2: they're amount of screen time alone and the amount of

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Speaker 2: the mother's screen time is simultaneously included in the statistical models.

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Speaker 2: So the more you are on screens as a parent,

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Speaker 2: and the more your kids are on screens alone, the

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Speaker 2: worse the outcomes are for their verbal fluency, for their

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Speaker 2: capacity to develop language and communicate effectively.

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Speaker 4: It seems so logical because what's happening is the screens

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Speaker 4: are displacing that physical element of communication.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, the engagement, the interaction, the looking into one

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Speaker 2: another's eyes, watching each other's mouth.

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Speaker 4: And I remember there was a study and I think

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Speaker 4: we may have even shared it on the podcast around

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Speaker 4: children's screen time as in TV watching and the impact

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Speaker 4: that that has on their linguistic development. Right, And at

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Speaker 4: that point in time, it actually blew me away and

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Speaker 4: blew others away because they're listening to people talk. They're

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Speaker 4: actually it's actually filled with dialogue, but it's a.

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Speaker 2: Passive, right, And it's so funny ussumption because I was

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Speaker 2: going to say the high quality communication is active. Yes, yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's a critical thing. So that's our doctor's desk for today.

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Speaker 2: It's really all about screens with a reminder. Yes they're ubiquitous,

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Speaker 2: they're everywhere, and they're in aescapable and that's not always

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Speaker 2: a bad thing, but we've really got to monitor the

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Speaker 2: extent which they're pulling us in and pulling our kids in,

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Speaker 2: because the research consistently highlights that there are issues with

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Speaker 2: being on screens too much, whether the kids a little

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Speaker 2: or whether they're big, and whether we are on screens

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Speaker 2: too much as well. It all has an impact as

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Speaker 2: we move towards the summer holidays, only a few weeks away.

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Speaker 2: Now there is a risk that the kid's going to

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Speaker 2: be on their screens a whole lot, and to the

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Speaker 2: extent that we can, we want to have healthy parameters

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Speaker 2: around screen involvement. And that's it for today's podcast episode.

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Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening.

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Speaker 3: We hope that you've.

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Speaker 2: Enjoyed it and found it helpful and curiosity provoking. We

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Speaker 2: love that you love the podcast. If you do love

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Speaker 2: it as much as we hope, can you go to

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Speaker 2: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rowlan from

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Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. For more

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Speaker 2: and follow about making your family happier, please visit us

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Speaker 2: at Happyfamilies dot com dot au.