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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 once answers.

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Speaker 2: Now, if we as parents can make sure that the

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Speaker 2: kids are spending time in books, in reading with us

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Speaker 2: and on their own, all of the evidence is definitely

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Speaker 2: going to support a much healthier approach to reading and

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Speaker 2: much better outcomes.

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Speaker 1: There and now here's the stars of our show, My

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Speaker 1: mum and dad.

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Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor justin Colesli'm here with Kylie, my wife,

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Speaker 2: mom to our six daughters from grade one through too marriage,

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Speaker 2: moved out of home. And today the episode that I

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Speaker 2: look forward to every month the most, the Doctor's desk.

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Speaker 3: Why no I give you a hard time about this

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Speaker 3: bird today? Today's studies are actually quite intriguing. I'm looking

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Speaker 3: forward to the conversation we're going to have here.

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Speaker 2: I've picked some crackers, one about smacking kids, one about

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Speaker 2: screen usage and reading in little children, and another one

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Speaker 2: for every parent comparing which country has the most burnt

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Speaker 2: out parents? Forty two nation investigation of parental burnout? Where

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Speaker 2: do you want to start, hunt, I.

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Speaker 3: Think we do it in that order. Let's get let's

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Speaker 3: get punishment out of the road.

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Speaker 2: You know what I'd like to get that one gone

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Speaker 2: as well, because as important as it is, it's also

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Speaker 2: one of those topics.

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Speaker 4: That's like, oh gosh, it's heavy.

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Speaker 2: But we need to talk about it again and again

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Speaker 2: and again, because statistically we know that more than half

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Speaker 2: of Australian parents have smacked their kids in the last

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Speaker 2: week or so, like, it's a really common disciplinary practice.

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Speaker 3: Still, what new information came out of this study?

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Speaker 2: Not much that's new. In fact, everything that we've already

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Speaker 2: known about spanking has just been emphasized again in this study.

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Speaker 2: But there's a couple of important things about this one.

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Speaker 2: So it was published in the Lancet. It's a very

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Speaker 2: fancy medical journal, and it's called Physical Punishment Child Outcomes,

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Speaker 2: a Narrative Review of Prospective Studies. So this is the

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Speaker 2: big thing with this, Kylie. So if I want to

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Speaker 2: do a study, the gold standard is where I get

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Speaker 2: a bunch of people and I randomly put them into groups.

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Speaker 2: The group should be about even in terms of all

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Speaker 2: of the different characteristics of the people in those groups.

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Speaker 2: And I get one group to do one thing and

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Speaker 2: the other group doesn't do it. That's what we call

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Speaker 2: a randomized controlled trial. The idea here would be that

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Speaker 2: I get a bunch of parents to start smacking their

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Speaker 2: kids and a bunch of people to not smack their kids,

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Speaker 2: and we see what happens to the kids. But ethically,

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Speaker 2: there's some issues with that when we're not supposed to

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Speaker 2: tell people to don't make their kids. But that's not

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Speaker 2: good and so what we have to do instead is

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Speaker 2: we have to do longitudinal studies, and we want to

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Speaker 2: do them prospectively. In other words, we don't want to

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Speaker 2: ask people to reflect back on what was happening. We

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Speaker 2: want to study it as it happens over time and

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Speaker 2: see what happens.

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Speaker 3: So how many families did they actually use for this

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Speaker 3: particular study?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a really big study.

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Speaker 2: Instead of talking about the number of families overall, there

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Speaker 2: were sixty nine studies incorporated into one. So this is

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Speaker 2: what we call a meta analysis.

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Speaker 4: And it looks at a whole lot.

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Speaker 2: It's a big review of sixty nine prospective longitudinal studies.

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Speaker 2: It's about as close to gold standard as you can get,

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Speaker 2: given that you can't ethically put people into groups and

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Speaker 2: make them start hitting each other or not.

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Speaker 3: So what did they actually find? I mean, that's a

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Speaker 3: big number. There's a lot of studies going on here,

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Speaker 3: So what did they actually find.

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Speaker 2: I'm actually surprised that there are still that many studies

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Speaker 2: on spanking occurring because we've known, we've got fifty years

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Speaker 2: of evidence that supports what this particular piece of research highlighted.

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Speaker 3: But interestingly, with all of that research, we've got still

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Speaker 3: got so many parents who believe that this is the

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Speaker 3: right thing to do.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's be really clear. We don't want to

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Speaker 2: make parents switch off the podcast and.

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Speaker 4: Say, ah, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm

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Speaker 4: going to whack my kids if I want to. That's

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Speaker 4: not our goal here.

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Speaker 2: We don't want anyone to feel ashamed, but we do

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Speaker 2: want you to feel a little bit of guilt, because

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Speaker 2: guilt means that you recognizing that maybe there's something that

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Speaker 2: you could do that's better, and that is critically important

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Speaker 2: for what we try to do on the podcast and

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Speaker 2: at Happy Families dot com dot you here are. There

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Speaker 2: were seven outcomes to discuss from this research. The first one,

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Speaker 2: physical punishment consistently predicts increases in child behavior problems over time.

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Speaker 3: That's interesting because we all feel like if we give

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Speaker 3: our kids a good smack, they'll stop doing the behavior

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Speaker 3: that we caught them doing, and they'll be less likely

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Speaker 3: to do it in the future.

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Speaker 2: That's kind of the logic behind it, isn't it Parents say,

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Speaker 2: I'm doing it to teach my kids a lesson. I'm

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Speaker 2: going to pull you up on one word. You said,

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Speaker 2: we all. I don't think that we all do. In fact,

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Speaker 2: we mostly know now that it's not healthy. But what

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Speaker 2: happens is because we get instant compliance, a lot of

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Speaker 2: parents think, well, I fix the behavior problem. The issue

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Speaker 2: is you fix the problem right here, right now, but

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Speaker 2: you don't solve anything over time. And that's what this

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Speaker 2: start is really highlighting. Over time, child behavior problems actually

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Speaker 2: increase because we're using force to require a certain behavior

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Speaker 2: that is not intrinsic, and it's an unhealthy way to

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Speaker 2: do it. Here's the second finding. Physical punishment is not

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Speaker 2: associated with positive outcomes over time, and this has been

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Speaker 2: found a number of times, like so many studies now,

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Speaker 2: no matter what variables we look at, kids don't improve.

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Speaker 4: When they get smacked.

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Speaker 2: Third, physical punishment increases the risk of involvement with child

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Speaker 2: protective services. It's probably worth pausing on that one for

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Speaker 2: just a second, saying we're not saying and this research

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Speaker 2: isn't saying that if you hit your kids, you're going

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Speaker 2: to end up being picked up by child protection. What

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Speaker 2: it's saying is that there is an association between smacking

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Speaker 2: and being involved with these government organizations. And that's because

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Speaker 2: the more you smack, the more likely it is that

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Speaker 2: somebody is going to have to get involved at some point.

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Speaker 4: A lot of parents.

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Speaker 2: Will never get there, but there is that association that's

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Speaker 2: been reported in the data.

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Speaker 3: My suggestion is that in many of those cases, smacking

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Speaker 3: is the catalyst, but it's the rupture in the relationship

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Speaker 3: that takes place that means others have to get involved.

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Speaker 2: Sure, but ultimately, if people see parents hitting kids, they're

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Speaker 2: going to put phone calls through. Things are going to

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Speaker 2: be reported. Teaches a mandatory reporter. This stuff does get reported.

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Speaker 2: Now here's the fourth one. The only evidence of children

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Speaker 2: eliciting physical punishment is for externalizing behavior. In other words,

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Speaker 2: the kids who act out are the ones that get hit.

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Speaker 2: It's not the quiet kids. It's not the one that

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Speaker 2: have got depression and anxiety and that are hiding out

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Speaker 2: in the room. It's what we call externalizing lashing out behavior.

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Speaker 2: That's what's most likely to elicit the banking or the smacking. Fifth,

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Speaker 2: physical punishment predicts worsening behavior over time in what we

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Speaker 2: call quasi experimental studies. These are basically as close as

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Speaker 2: you can get to doing an experiment without actually doing it,

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Speaker 2: And there are two more outcomes. Associations between physical punishment

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Speaker 2: and detrimental child outcomes are what the researchers call robust

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Speaker 2: across child and parent characteristics. In other words, when you

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Speaker 2: smack your kids, the more that happens, the more likely

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Speaker 2: it is that they're going to exhibit detrimental outcomes rather

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Speaker 2: than optimal outcomes. The study is going to be shared

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Speaker 2: in our show notes after the break. We're going to

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Speaker 2: talk about these other two kids looking at screens and

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Speaker 2: missing out on reading perhaps, and what's happening with parents

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Speaker 2: being burnt out around the world.

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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Famili's podcast.

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Speaker 3: For a happier family, h a Happy Families membership, because

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Speaker 3: a happy family doesn't just happen.

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Speaker 5: Details at happyfamilies dot com dot au.

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Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time

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Speaker 3: poor parent who just wants answers now. And today we

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Speaker 3: are coming straight from the doctor's desk and we have

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Speaker 3: been talking about physical punishment and the negative impact that

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Speaker 3: has on our children, and we're now going to jump

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Speaker 3: right into screen use and the impact that it's having

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Speaker 3: on our children's literacy skills, specifically reading.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we'll just spend a minute or two on

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Speaker 2: this one. And it's pretty simple, really nice study. It's

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Speaker 2: come out of Canada in the journal Pediatrics, very high

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Speaker 2: profile journal, and i'd just say, and it's looking at

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Speaker 2: the longest chournel associations of screen use and reading in

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Speaker 2: preschool age kids. So basically we've got nearly twenty five

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Speaker 2: hundred Canadian families and the kids being looked at at

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Speaker 2: age twenty four months, thirty six months, and sixty months.

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Speaker 2: So at two, three and five, parents write down how

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Speaker 2: much screen use they're getting and how much reading time

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Speaker 2: the getting. What do you reckon, Kylie? I think there's

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Speaker 2: a relationship between the two. I mean, does this come

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Speaker 2: from the University of Duh.

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Speaker 3: My suggestion is that it's pretty obvious that if our

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Speaker 3: kids are watching a whole heap of screens and not

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Speaker 3: being involved in the written word, that that is going

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Speaker 3: to impact their reading. But my question to you really is,

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Speaker 3: at two years of age, do I need to be

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Speaker 3: making sure my child is beginning reading.

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Speaker 4: Oh a great question.

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Speaker 2: So you've got an early childhood backround, so let's talk

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Speaker 2: about that in just a second. But first off, yeah,

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Speaker 2: we've got two years from the age of two to three.

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Speaker 2: What happened was that the more the kids were on screens,

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Speaker 2: the less they read. And then from the age of

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Speaker 2: three to five, the less they read, the more they

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Speaker 2: were on screens. So there's this reciprocal relationship going on.

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Speaker 2: And like I said, University of Duh, of course that's

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Speaker 2: going to happen. The question really is do kids have

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Speaker 2: to be in books at the age of two.

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Speaker 4: I mean, we've got really good.

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Speaker 2: Evidence from around the world that kids can start reading

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Speaker 2: as late as six and seven, like they do in

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Speaker 2: the Scandinavian countries, and they still thrive.

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Speaker 4: They in fact.

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Speaker 2: Usually read better by the age of eleven than kids

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Speaker 2: here in Australia or in the US who are learning

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Speaker 2: to read from four and five.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'd be really interested to know with that same

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Speaker 3: study how much time parents spent reading with their children

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Speaker 3: in relation to this, because the reality is our children

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Speaker 3: can watch screens, but reading at those ages. That comes

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Speaker 3: down to me, am I spending time reading with my child,

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Speaker 3: not so much have they spent three hours in front

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Speaker 3: of the TV. We know that excessive screen news has

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Speaker 3: a huge impact on our children's.

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Speaker 4: Development, especially when they're young.

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Speaker 3: But when I listen to a study like this, just

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Speaker 3: I kind of get a little bit frustrated, because, especially

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Speaker 3: right now, when we've got lockdowns all over the place

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Speaker 3: and parents are stretched to the limits, the last thing

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Speaker 3: we need them to do is feel like they're a

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Speaker 3: bad parent because their kids in front of a screen

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Speaker 3: for more hours than they would like to even admit.

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Speaker 3: The reality is, if we want our children to have

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Speaker 3: good literacy skills, then it's about spending that time together

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Speaker 3: with them in books, yes, yes, yes, and not about

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Speaker 3: how much time they've watched the TV.

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Speaker 2: So this is where it gets really interesting, and I'm

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Speaker 2: so glad you raised that, because ultimately we are the

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Speaker 2: ones that decide whether the kids, to a very large extent,

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Speaker 2: are going to love reading or not.

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Speaker 4: And the younger we start them and the.

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Speaker 2: More involved they are with those books, the more likely

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Speaker 2: is that they'll love it the more we're reading with them.

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Speaker 2: And so what this is really kind of doing is

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Speaker 2: it's looking at this displacement hypothesis. What do screens get

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Speaker 2: in the way of And it's the screens getting the

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Speaker 2: way of reading. If we as parents can make sure

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Speaker 2: that the kids are spending time in books, in reading

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Speaker 2: with us and on their own, all of the evidence

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Speaker 2: outside of that particular study is definitely going to support

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Speaker 2: a much healthier approach to reading and much better outcomes.

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Speaker 4: There.

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Speaker 3: We're going to add that study to the show notes.

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Speaker 3: But let's get into number three, parental burnout. And I

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Speaker 3: think this is actually probably the most interesting one for

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Speaker 3: me anyway.

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Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by this study. This is a big study.

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Speaker 2: I cannot count the number of researchers that are involved

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Speaker 2: in this one. There are actually I can because I've

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Speaker 2: got I've got the number in front of you. There

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Speaker 2: are one hundred authors of this study. Wow, because we're

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Speaker 2: talking about a handful of people in each of the

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Speaker 2: forty two countries that were studied here looking at parental burnout.

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Speaker 2: This is parents who are just over it, They're wrecked.

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Speaker 2: Seventy one percent of them were mothers. There were seventeen

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Speaker 2: and a half thousand parents. Average age of the parents

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Speaker 2: thirty nine. Okay, so let me read through the list

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Speaker 2: of those with the highest levels of parental burnout actually

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Speaker 2: direct and you can guess, have a guess.

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Speaker 5: Oh it's got a pit. The United States of America.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it is.

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Speaker 5: Is the biggest and the best, aren't they?

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Speaker 4: Who else would you say? Is right up there?

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Speaker 5: I reckon Australia is up there.

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Speaker 2: Unfortunately, you're right, we're in probably the top five for

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Speaker 2: parental burnout. Now, by the way, they haven't listed it

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Speaker 2: in order. I'm looking at a very complicated figure to

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Speaker 2: get those details. But yeah, Australia is in the top five.

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Speaker 2: So the US is number one. Who were Japan? Japan

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Speaker 2: was actually surprisingly low. They're in the bottom thirty percent.

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Speaker 5: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got really big burnout for the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany.

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Speaker 2: They're the top countries in terms of who is the

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Speaker 2: most stressed out.

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Speaker 3: Well, I want to know who's the least stressed out

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Speaker 3: because I think we're moving.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I don't know if you want to move

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Speaker 2: to Pakistan or Columbia or Ecuador or Costa Rica or Peru,

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Speaker 2: or Vietnam or China or Thailand. But they were the

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Speaker 2: bottom ten in terms of parental burnout.

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Speaker 3: So that evokes two questions that I have. Number one,

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Speaker 3: how do we assess parental burnout?

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Speaker 2: So we measure burnout by something called the Parental Burnout Questionnaire,

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Speaker 2: And basically it's a scale from zero.

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Speaker 5: Scientists, you're so.

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Speaker 4: We want it to be easy to understand.

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Speaker 2: This is why we do science to help people know

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Speaker 2: creativity whatsoever. It's called the PBA. So zero on this

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Speaker 2: means never, okay. One means a few times a year,

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Speaker 2: Two means once a month or less. Three is a

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Speaker 2: few times a week, Four is once a week, five

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Speaker 2: is a few times a week, and six is every day.

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Speaker 2: And there's three kind of scales in this questionnaire. The

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Speaker 2: first one is all about emotional exhaustion. The second one

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Speaker 2: is about how you are now compared with how you

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Speaker 2: used to be as a parent, And the third one

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Speaker 2: is about the loss of pleasure that you feel in

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Speaker 2: your parental role. Oh sorry, there is a fourth one

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Speaker 2: as well, and that's having distance from your kids. So

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Speaker 2: let me give you an example of these, and you

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Speaker 2: give me a score from zero to six, and it's

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Speaker 2: about how often you feel this, okay. The first one,

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Speaker 2: this is emotional exhaustion. I feel completely run down by

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Speaker 2: my role.

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Speaker 4: As a parent.

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Speaker 5: That'd be maybe a two.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so a few times a year. Yeah, okay, next one,

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Speaker 2: we're talking about that contrast of who you used to

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Speaker 2: be as a parent. We call it your previous parental self.

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Speaker 2: I tell myself, I'm no longer the parent I used

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Speaker 2: to be. How often do you do that? I think

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Speaker 2: that's a two two two two two two one was

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Speaker 2: a race horse two two was one two one one

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Speaker 2: race one day two two one one two kilds you

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Speaker 2: used to love thee I said that. The next one,

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Speaker 2: loss of pleasure in one's parential role. I do not

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Speaker 2: enjoy being with my children.

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Speaker 5: That would be a one.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I'm really grateful that you've said that.

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Speaker 2: Everyone's going, oh, you're so good now, Kylie. I am

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Speaker 2: no longer able to show my children that I love them.

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Speaker 2: There's that emotional distance.

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Speaker 5: That's a zero.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm so glad that you said that.

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Speaker 2: However, in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia our

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Speaker 2: top five countries for parental burnout. That's not what's coming

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Speaker 2: through now. You said you had two questions.

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Speaker 4: That's one of them. What was the other one?

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Speaker 3: Did the study give us any clues as to what

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Speaker 3: we could do to navigate and minimize parental burnout.

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Speaker 4: No, it didn't.

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Speaker 2: But I reckon, if we look at what's really going

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Speaker 2: on here, we can probably come up with some solutions ourselves,

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Speaker 2: because the researchers were just investigating it, they weren't coming

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Speaker 2: up with solutions to solve it. Here's what they've really said.

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Speaker 2: Here they've said analysis of cultural values revealed that individualistic

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Speaker 2: cultures in particular, displayed a noticeably higher prevalence and.

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Speaker 4: Average level of parental burnout.

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Speaker 2: Like, individualism is playing a larger role in parental burnout

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Speaker 2: than economic inequality or any other individual or family characteristic

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Speaker 2: that they examined. And I haven't talked about all of

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Speaker 2: the detail that went into this, Like there's a whole

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Speaker 2: lot of stats that we haven't talked about. Where they're

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Speaker 2: trying to work out is that this is it that

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Speaker 2: they're basically saying. No, it seems like cultural values in

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Speaker 2: Western countries are putting parents under excessive stress. So if

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Speaker 2: we can move away from the rampant individualism that our

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Speaker 2: society evokes and promotes, we're probably going to have healthier

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Speaker 2: parents and therefore healthier kids. That's that's the real upshot

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Speaker 2: of that entire study. So the long and the short

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Speaker 2: of everything we've talked about today is number one, there's

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Speaker 2: no evidence for smacking kids being helpful at all.

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Speaker 4: Please don't smack your kids. Number two, try to read. Read,

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Speaker 4: Read to them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, kids are going to watch screens, we get that,

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Speaker 2: but read to them and get them to fall in

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Speaker 2: love with reading. The younger the better. And number three,

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Speaker 2: let's all move to Peru, live in a village, raise

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Speaker 2: the kids there, no more stress.

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Speaker 3: You know what, As much as that sounds really nice,

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Speaker 3: I think just create.

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Speaker 5: The village here. Just take care of each other.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, wouldn't that be nice?

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Speaker 2: Easier said than done, but definitely definitely food for thought.

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Speaker 2: Have we really hope that you've enjoyed the Happy Families

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Speaker 2: in love with reading to them, you can find it

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