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Speaker 1: It's their Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent. They just once answers mew okay, Kylie.

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Speaker 1: So you know how last week we had a chat

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Speaker 1: about the doctor's desk. We went through some really great

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Speaker 1: scientific studies, some stuff that relates to parents and how

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Speaker 1: it can be better parents. You remember that, I do

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Speaker 1: you know how we do that? Once a month.

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Speaker 2: I feel like you're about to tell me you're going

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Speaker 2: to cheat.

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Speaker 1: Just two studies have popped up on my desk, but

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Speaker 1: I don't want to wait to talk about They're just

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Speaker 1: too good.

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Speaker 2: But they're all going to squeeze another doctor's Desk in.

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Speaker 1: It's not actually a doctor's Desk episode. We're going to

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Speaker 1: talk though about how screens are ruining our lives. Mah, sorry,

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Speaker 1: that was a lot, wasn't it. I know that I

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Speaker 1: make a lot of noise about screens and kids, and

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Speaker 1: we've got this great website, Unplugged childhood dot org, where

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Speaker 1: we're encouraging every parent to get on there sign the

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Speaker 1: pledge keep kids off social media until the end of

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Speaker 1: primary school or a minimum delay their access to smartphones.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much there Unpluged Childhood dot Org

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Speaker 1: we'll linked to that in the show notes. But these

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Speaker 1: two studies are highlighting a couple of other really important

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Speaker 1: things about kids and their executive function, and the kids

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Speaker 1: and their emotional regulation, and just the way we're using

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Speaker 1: screens in our family. So it's it's a doctor's desk,

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Speaker 1: but it's not. It's really a conversation about why we

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Speaker 1: need to be better with our screens, and I'm leaning

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Speaker 1: on two new studies to do that. Is that okay?

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Speaker 1: But before we do that, I wanted to share something

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Speaker 1: with you because it's something It's just it grabbed me,

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Speaker 1: It captured me, and I thought, oh my goodness. Every family,

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Speaker 1: every family needs to teach this to their kids. This

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Speaker 1: was a TikTok that showed up sorry at Instagram, that

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Speaker 1: showed up from always Dot upper Dot Elementary. This is

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Speaker 1: a school teacher in the United States talking with her

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Speaker 1: elementary school class about the way we respond to people's

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Speaker 1: physical appearance, and she absolutely nails it. Half listen to this.

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Speaker 3: If somebody can't change something about themselves in thirty seconds

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Speaker 3: or then you shouldn't be mentioning.

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Speaker 2: It to them.

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Speaker 3: If you say, hey, your shoes untied, or hey, you

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Speaker 3: have a little fuzzy on your shirt there, or if

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Speaker 3: you say, hey, your pants are unsicked. I wanted to

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Speaker 3: tell you privately because I didn't want you to feel embarrassed.

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Speaker 3: But it happens to all of us. If you tell

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Speaker 3: someone something like that, they can change those things in

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Speaker 3: thirty seconds or less. But if you comment if someone

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Speaker 3: with's hair color or hair texture, or hairstyle or body,

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Speaker 3: they cannot change that in thirty seconds or less about themselves.

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Speaker 3: Your words have power. If you say something that someone

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Speaker 3: can't change in thirty seconds or less, you say those things,

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Speaker 3: try to fix it. You try to apologize, You tried

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Speaker 3: to take the words back, take it back, take it back,

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Speaker 3: takeet back, and you try to undo what you said,

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Speaker 3: undo what you did. But it's something they couldn't change

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Speaker 3: about themselves, and so it's very messy. You can't totally

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Speaker 3: take those words back. You can't totally fix it. Your

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Speaker 3: words have power. Your words matter. If you walk out

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Speaker 3: of this room spreading kindness to the people around you,

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Speaker 3: it's spreading love to the people around you. That is

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Speaker 3: what truly makes the difference.

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Speaker 1: No, isn't that great?

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Speaker 2: I love that. I love that, And what everyone else

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Speaker 2: doesn't see is the visual of when she talks about

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Speaker 2: when you say all of these things that people can't change,

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Speaker 2: She's using a toothpaste and she's squeezing it out as

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Speaker 2: she talks about all of the different things you might

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Speaker 2: say to somebody. And then when she talked about it

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Speaker 2: being messy, it was like trying to you know.

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Speaker 1: That you yeah, yeah, so, I just I know it's

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Speaker 1: got nothing to do with what we're about to talk about,

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Speaker 1: but it was so done good that I had to

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Speaker 1: share it.

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Speaker 2: It does from a social media point.

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Speaker 1: Of view, Oh, I guess, so, okay.

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Speaker 2: We're constantly bombarded with things that are so harmful and

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Speaker 2: hurtful to people, and in most cases you probably wouldn't

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Speaker 2: even think to say it in person.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: I had a realization the other day when it comes

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Speaker 1: to social media, and as you know, I've been off

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Speaker 1: socials now for a couple of months, like just not

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Speaker 1: even touching it. Don't even have the apps anymore, don't

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Speaker 1: log in, don't know how to log in anymore, lost

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Speaker 1: my login and it's perfect, I'm not going to do it.

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Speaker 1: But I was thinking about the way socials work, and

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Speaker 1: what I realized is that if somebody says something really inflammatory,

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Speaker 1: outlandish kind of whooh, crazy cuckoo, and we're at a barbecue,

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Speaker 1: or we're down at the beach hanging out with family

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Speaker 1: and friends or whatever it is, or you're at a

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Speaker 1: school function wherever, at work, if somebody says something really outlandish,

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Speaker 1: everyone looks at them funny and goes, hm, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to avoid that person, like weird, not okay, just not okay.

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Speaker 1: Maybe somebody might quietly try to pull them back into

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Speaker 1: line in an appropriate way when people aren't watching or something.

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Speaker 1: But when you do that on social media, the exact

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Speaker 1: opposite happens when you say that outlandish crazy thing, But.

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Speaker 2: You're not at a barbecue with your friends. And that's

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Speaker 2: the difference. Well, once you're on social media, you're opening

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Speaker 2: yourselves up to groups of people that you wouldn't normally

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Speaker 2: choose to hang out with.

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Speaker 1: Beyond that, though, the algorithm amplifies those voices. It draws

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Speaker 1: everyone in and people feel compelled to get involved and

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Speaker 1: have their opinions and blow up. And I think that's

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Speaker 1: part of a loss of civility. It's just it's messy anyway.

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Speaker 1: So it's toothpaste coming out of tube, So it's saying

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Speaker 1: things about people's appearance that they can't change in thirty seconds.

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Speaker 1: I just think it is a great rule. So when

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Speaker 1: I see somebody, the last thing I want to say

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Speaker 1: is that you look great or haven't you done something like?

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Speaker 1: Commenting on people's appearance is just not what we do anymore.

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Speaker 1: Right in twenty twenty four, we know better. And that's

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Speaker 1: a perfect analogy as to why unless they can fix

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Speaker 1: it in thirty seconds because they've got some letters in

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Speaker 1: their teeth, don't say it. Don't say it.

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Speaker 2: Are you serious?

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Speaker 1: What do you mean?

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Speaker 2: You have to tell them if they've got letus in.

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Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. If they've got that, then let

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Speaker 1: them know because they can fix that in thirty seconds

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Speaker 1: or less. That's what a caring person does. But if

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Speaker 1: they've gained weight, you don't say, well, you're looking healthy,

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Speaker 1: like that's just let's move on. What I want to

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Speaker 1: talk about with our non doctor's desk doctor's desk episode

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Speaker 1: is a couple of studies that have come out that

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Speaker 1: really really grab me. Brand new study research is in

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Speaker 1: Canada and Hungary set out to examine the impact of

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Speaker 1: what happens when you provide children a digital device or

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Speaker 1: distraction so that they can so that you can avoid

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Speaker 1: their big outbursts. Maybe it's in a shopping center or

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Speaker 1: a restaurant, or even at home, like a digital pacifier,

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Speaker 1: a digital dummy to stick in their mouth, so to speak.

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Speaker 1: Researchers were looking at what happens with their emotion regulation

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Speaker 1: over time, and.

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Speaker 2: The works amazing in the moment.

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Speaker 1: And that's why everyone does it right, like kids screaming

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Speaker 1: give them the.

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Speaker 2: iPad would say, it works amazing in the moment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what these researchers found. This was a research from

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Speaker 1: eot Voss laurun University. They said this leads to more

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Speaker 1: severe emotion regulation problems, specifically anger management problems later in life.

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Speaker 1: Tantrums cannot be cured by digital devices. Children have to

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Speaker 1: learn how to manage their negative emotions for themselves. They

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Speaker 1: need the help of parents during this learning process, not

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Speaker 1: the help a digital device.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a really intense form of distraction right when

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Speaker 2: our kids are little. One of the best tools we've

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Speaker 2: used in the past has been to distract them when

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Speaker 2: you can see that things are starting to build before

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Speaker 2: they've got to that extent. But this actually marries up

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Speaker 2: beautifully with the conversation we had the other day in

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Speaker 2: relation to emotion regulation.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, regulated versus just regulated kids just a couple of

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Speaker 1: days ago.

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Speaker 2: They need us to model what it looks like to

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Speaker 2: actually be able to regulate our emotions when we're feeling

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Speaker 2: big emotions.

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Speaker 1: Let me tell you what they didn't study. They had

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Speaker 1: about three hundred parents with kids between two and five

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Speaker 1: complete a child behavior questionnaire. They did it once in

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Speaker 1: their initial period, somewhere around about mid twenty twenty, and

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Speaker 1: then in mid twenty twenty one, the parents were surveyed again,

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Speaker 1: and the final analysis pretty much said this digital emotion regulation.

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Speaker 1: When you give the kids the device a year later,

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Speaker 1: they display worse anger and frustration management skills. So within

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Speaker 1: twelve months, if that's our standard way of doing things,

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Speaker 1: they become more disregulated, not better regulated. You get the

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Speaker 1: quick fix, but you don't get the long term results.

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Speaker 1: And that's because the kids aren't learning. They're not learning

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Speaker 1: to switch on their executive function part of their brain.

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Speaker 1: They're not learning things like delayed gratification, they're not learning

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Speaker 1: how to tolerate frustration.

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Speaker 2: So the conversation we had that the other day was literally,

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Speaker 2: parents are saying more and more that their children are disregulated,

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Speaker 2: and based on what we're talking about today, I kind

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Speaker 2: of feel like there's a pretty significant correlation between the

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Speaker 2: increase of screen usage and homes and children's emotion regulation.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty hard to deny that. I think. The other

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Speaker 1: thing is that as parents, we're struggling a lot with

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Speaker 1: what I would call tolerable discomfort. So when our children

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Speaker 1: become uncomfortable, we're not teaching them how to tolerate that

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Speaker 1: limited amount of discomfort that they're experiencing, but also we're

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Speaker 1: uncomfortable with the discomfort. So this idea of tolerable discomfort

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Speaker 1: is something that This is why people have ice baths, right,

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Speaker 1: This is why people go out and exercise and push

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Speaker 1: themselves because they make themselves uncomfortable to a tolerable degree

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Speaker 1: and it builds your resilience. It helps you to manage

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Speaker 1: difficult situations better. We know that there's all kinds of

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Speaker 1: positive effects from doing these kinds of things, but it's

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Speaker 1: not just physiological. It's also psychological.

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Speaker 2: But I think this is all a result of social

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Speaker 2: media again as well. Where as parents, we're literally watching

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Speaker 2: the show real of people's lives and seeing what we

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Speaker 2: would call perfection in the making, and then we've got

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Speaker 2: to try and copy that. We've got to try and

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Speaker 2: meet that standard, and no one can.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's funny about that. You talk to everybody,

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Speaker 1: it literally everybody says, yeah, no, it's not real. I

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Speaker 1: know it's a highlight's real. I know that it's a filtered,

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Speaker 1: curated version of people's lives. Everyone gets that, and yet

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Speaker 1: we still aspire toward it. There's something in our brain,

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Speaker 1: something in our psychology that says, but I still want it,

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Speaker 1: but it's still achievable, but it's still doable, and that's

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Speaker 1: the great challenge. Anyway. That's the first study. I find

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Speaker 1: it absolutely compelling, really really interesting. It was published in

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Speaker 1: Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry just recently, and basically,

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Speaker 1: children who are given devices more often when they have

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Speaker 1: negative emotions and they're struggling with tantrums, they show less effort,

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Speaker 1: full control definers, their ability to choose a deliberate response

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Speaker 1: over an automatic one when they have subsequent negative or

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Speaker 1: blow up kind of emotions. Just so compelling, so fascinating,

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Speaker 1: so important. If your kids are having a hard time,

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Speaker 1: don't give them a smartphone, don't give them a tablet,

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Speaker 1: don't give them the TV remote, don't hand them the laptop. Instead,

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Speaker 1: you could give them a hug. And if they don't

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Speaker 1: want to hug because they're too cranky, say all right,

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Speaker 1: well while you're experiencing right now is called tolerable discomfort.

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Speaker 1: I can tolerate it, and you can too. When you

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Speaker 1: feel like a hug, come get one.

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Speaker 2: And every kid says, thanks dad for explaining that to me.

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Speaker 1: Those two words though, tolerable discomfort, they're really really important,

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Speaker 1: and they help kids to recon eyes that what they're

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Speaker 1: going through as an emotion, and emotions come and they

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Speaker 1: go just like waves on the beach, they come up,

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Speaker 1: they roll back out. I just love that study.

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Speaker 2: So what's the second set of you want to talk

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Speaker 2: about today?

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Speaker 1: So this one is some of your research that shows

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Speaker 1: why a very very common approach to screen time may backfire.

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Speaker 1: Number One, our screen time and our kids screen time

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Speaker 1: is linked. That is, the more time you spend on advice,

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Speaker 1: the more likely it is that your kids will spend

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Speaker 1: a similar amount or more on their device. Secondly, and

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Speaker 1: this is the critical thing that came out of this study.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to share all the results first and then

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Speaker 1: talk a bit more about it. Using screens for rewards

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Speaker 1: or punishment is associated with kids using screens more. And lastly,

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Speaker 1: the research has found that when we have much more

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Speaker 1: thoughtful conversations around screens, kids set better priorities around their

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Speaker 1: screen use. I just think it's fascinating. So this whole thing.

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Speaker 1: If you don't clean up your room, you can't have

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Speaker 1: a screen. If you don't do that thing, then there

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Speaker 1: won't be an iPad, there won't be any gaming allowed

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Speaker 1: when you do that. If you get a good grade

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Speaker 1: on your homework, you can have more time on the

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Speaker 1: iPad When you have these conversations with their kids. This

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Speaker 1: recent study basically says yet backfiring and going exactly the

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Speaker 1: opposite direction that you want. There's a researcher at the

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Speaker 1: University of California in San Francisco, Jason Nagata. He and

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Speaker 1: his colleagues looked at a data set of over ten

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Speaker 1: thousand twelve and thirteen year olds and their parents to

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Speaker 1: have a look at the link between how we use

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Speaker 1: our screens, how kids use their screens, and what's going

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Speaker 1: on with the whole reward thing. And what they found

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Speaker 1: was the following number one. A couple of key parental

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Speaker 1: factors were linked to tweens and teens being on screens

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Speaker 1: more and using screens in problematic ways. These factors included

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Speaker 1: number one, how much parents were on screens, Number two,

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Speaker 1: how much parents use screens at bedtime and at meals,

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Speaker 1: and number three how much parents use screens to control

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Speaker 1: kids behavior. Isn't that interesting? The more you're on a screen,

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Speaker 1: the more you have screens in bed or at meals,

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Speaker 1: the more your kids use their devices and use them

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Speaker 1: in unhelpful ways. But the third one is the one

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Speaker 1: that I want to focus on, and that is just

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Speaker 1: using screens to control behavior is problematic.

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Speaker 2: Why is it that if you're going to use a

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Speaker 2: screen as a reward, that would lead to more screen usage.

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Speaker 1: I think the best way to describe it is there's

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Speaker 1: a you know, Alfie Cohne, he wrote Punish by Rewards.

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Speaker 1: He's one of the most influential people in my life

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Speaker 1: in terms of having an impact on my early studies

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Speaker 1: in psychology, and he describes it thus, he says, when

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Speaker 1: we use rewards and punishment, what we're essentially saying is

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Speaker 1: if you do this, you'll get that. Do this and

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Speaker 1: you'll get that and it's the same whether it's a

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Speaker 1: reward or a punishment.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a positive reinforcement or a negative reinforcement.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I can say do this again and you'll get that,

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Speaker 1: or I can say if you do this, you'll get that.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly the same thing. And then he asked the

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Speaker 1: question when when you say do this and you'll get that,

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Speaker 1: what are people thinking about? Are they thinking about the

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Speaker 1: this or are they thinking about the that that?

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Speaker 2: It's that exactly the emphasis is on that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So if I say tidy up your bedroom and

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Speaker 1: you can have a mccappy meal, the kids aren't thinking

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Speaker 1: about the bedroom, which is the valued activity, They're thinking

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Speaker 1: about the mcappy meal. Why. Well, because that's the thing that.

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Speaker 2: We've just placed more value we on that item.

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Speaker 1: Correct, We've elevated the value of the reward over and

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Speaker 1: above the value of the thing that is is actually valuable.

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Speaker 1: And so it's the same thing with screens. Whenever we're

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Speaker 1: saying get good grades and you can have screens, a

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Speaker 1: tidy room and you can X, y or z. The

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Speaker 1: more that we make screens the reward, the more we

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Speaker 1: increase the perceived value of that activity. And we already

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Speaker 1: know from a psychological point of view, the way that

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Speaker 1: screens are designed and engineered, all the psychological factors that

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Speaker 1: go into it. They're already insanely compelling, they're already overwhelmingly rewarding.

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Speaker 1: They're already the ultimate dope, mean dump. And now we

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Speaker 1: go on at another layer by putting it on a

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Speaker 1: pedestal and making it the whole to value activity that

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Speaker 1: they can have once they've done all the other things,

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Speaker 1: that suddenly don't mean anything at all.

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Speaker 2: So what about the family though, that literally uses it

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Speaker 2: as a reward and it is only used very sparingly.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that there's any family that does that.

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Speaker 1: I just don't think that that's realistic in twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine that there's a scenario where the screen

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Speaker 1: is a valued reward and it barely ever comes out.

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Speaker 1: The screens are ubiquitous, they're everywhere. I'm not sure that

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Speaker 1: that's happening. Can you think of a time or a

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Speaker 1: place where that's relevant.

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Speaker 2: We did an episode a while back now and Jalo

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Speaker 2: said that she only allowed her kids to use their

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Speaker 2: screens on Fridays, that was their day.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I vaguely remember that, And so what happens is

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Speaker 1: the kids hang out all week for their screen I mean,

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Speaker 1: they get on with things, do whatever it is. But

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Speaker 1: I bet your boots that on that Friday or the

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Speaker 1: Sunday or whatever day it is, that Jalo and her

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Speaker 1: kids get to hang out on screens. That's all they do.

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Speaker 1: Like the kids would just be going, oh my goodness,

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Speaker 1: I finally get it, and they're going to use a

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Speaker 1: week's worth of screen time in a day. But more

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Speaker 1: than that, I mean, just just from a practical point

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Speaker 1: of view, if you were to sit down with your

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Speaker 1: kids and say, hey, what's your favorite memory of the

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Speaker 1: past seven days. What's the thing that you've enjoyed the

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Speaker 1: very most in the last seven days. No kids going

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Speaker 1: to look at you and say, oh, when we got

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Speaker 1: to have that hour watching YouTube. Oh, when I was

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Speaker 1: allowed to stay up until eight thirty playing games, that

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Speaker 1: was the best day of my life.

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Speaker 2: I reckon some of them would, It's pretty unlikely.

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Speaker 1: Research basically shows that when we use screens to reward,

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Speaker 1: When we use screens to reward kids, they use screens more.

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Speaker 1: We will link to that in the show notes, as

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Speaker 1: well as the other study. I guess the take home

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Speaker 1: message from this conversation is kids do much better when

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Speaker 1: they have minimal involvement with screens, when screens are not

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Speaker 1: used as rewards and punishments, and when they're not used

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Speaker 1: as pacifiers. The most important app quote unquote app in

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Speaker 1: our kids' lives is us, you and me as parents

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Speaker 1: being present and involved, and the more that they can

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Speaker 1: have us reading them rather than TikTok reading them. Like

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Speaker 1: I don't know if this is true or not, but

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Speaker 1: I read the other day that TikTok actually gathers facial

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Speaker 1: expressions as you're using the app to select which is

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Speaker 1: going to be the next thing that shows up in

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Speaker 1: the in the in the TikTok feed Like this, the

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Speaker 1: technology is just insane. We need to be reading them

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Speaker 1: more than TikTok is reading them, and they're going to

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Speaker 1: have much better lives as a result. I hope you've

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Speaker 1: enjoyed this conversation that's a bit of a heavy one,

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Speaker 1: really important one about minimizing screens in our kids' lives.

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Speaker 1: Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.

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Speaker 1: For more information about making your family happier, you can

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Speaker 1: find us at happy families dot com dot au.