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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 wants answers.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: The more time toddlers and preschoolers spend on smartphones and iPads,

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Speaker 3: the greater the risk of negative impacts on their social, emotional,

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Speaker 3: and cognitive development.

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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 3: Oh my goodness. Just lately the children and their screens.

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Speaker 3: I know that where I'm the parenting expert and we're

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Speaker 3: supposed to get this perfectly right all the time, But

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Speaker 3: just lately, I actually had a moment last night where

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Speaker 3: I stormed into the room and said, that's it. I've

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Speaker 3: had enough, and I took the screens, I took the iPad,

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Speaker 3: I took the phone. I said, you're never having them again.

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Speaker 3: We're just we're done with screens for the rest of

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Speaker 3: the school term, at which point the kids started saying, yeah,

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Speaker 3: but we need them for homework. We're need them for homework,

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Speaker 3: and that kind of meant that I had to backtrack

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Speaker 3: a little bit and figure out another solution. By the way,

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Speaker 3: I should introduce this, I'm Justin Coilson. I'm the founder

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Speaker 3: of Happy Families dot com, dot you, and I'm a

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Speaker 3: little bit stressed about screen time here with my wife, Kylie,

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Speaker 3: mom to our six daughters. Is it bothering you as

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Speaker 3: much as bothering me?

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Speaker 4: I think the challenge is number one, we have five

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Speaker 4: children still living at home and we have multiple devices.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the number of devices is out of control.

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Speaker 4: And it's really really hard at times to kind of

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Speaker 4: just keep check of it all.

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Speaker 3: I don't think that we're doing it wrong though, either,

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Speaker 3: Like we've been really clear, you don't have a phone

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Speaker 3: till you can pay for it yourself. Then the iPads

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Speaker 3: their school requirements.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, wouldn't you just love it if schools took that back.

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Speaker 3: I think they should. I reckon, especially with kids in

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Speaker 3: primary school. If the primary school wants my kids to

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Speaker 3: have a device, it stays at school, stop sending at

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Speaker 3: home because it creates so much drama. And then there's

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Speaker 3: the then the kids that We've got a couple of

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Speaker 3: kids that have to have laptops for school as well.

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Speaker 3: So and then there's your computer, my computer. We've both

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Speaker 3: got our phones, Like, seriously, so many phones, so many screens.

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Speaker 3: It's unbelievable.

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Speaker 4: Well, speaking about screens, I could not believe the headlines

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Speaker 4: that I've just recently read an eight year old Fortnight player.

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Speaker 3: Say eight or eighteen?

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Speaker 4: Eight?

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Speaker 3: Eight year old Fortnite.

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Speaker 4: Isn't Fortnite like M fifteen plus?

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Speaker 3: No, no, no, But it's thirteen plus. It's a game that's

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Speaker 3: on phones and you're not supposed to have it to

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Speaker 3: at least thirteen plus. It's got a lot of violent

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Speaker 3: first person shooter sort of stuff.

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Speaker 4: So he was given thirty three thousand dollars and a

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Speaker 4: five thousand dollar PC for turning pro. Wow, as an

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Speaker 4: eight year.

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Speaker 3: Old thirty three grand I wouldn't mind that gig Wow.

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Speaker 3: How old was he when he started playing?

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Speaker 4: Four years old?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: So, I mean, I've got to say that that sounds

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Speaker 3: really cool if you love Fortnite and you wish that

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Speaker 3: you were that good. But I think the parents have

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Speaker 3: got an obligation to look after their kids. And giving

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Speaker 3: a four year old a computer and saying here, play

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Speaker 3: Fortnite and getting him four years of practice so he

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Speaker 3: turns pro at Fortnite when he's eight, I'm.

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Speaker 4: Going to suggest that it was never their intention that

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Speaker 4: he would turn pro. But my understanding also, when you

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Speaker 4: think about the amount of hours that goes into becoming

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Speaker 4: pro at anything, Yeah, would suggest that his daily green

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Speaker 4: time would be through the roof.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So Fortnite is a game that's not meant to

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Speaker 3: be played by people younger than teens, although we've heard

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Speaker 3: stories of Fortnite parties with eight nine year olds ongoingly.

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Speaker 3: But these age ratings are not really deterrent to kids,

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Speaker 3: and obviously this kid's parents don't mind so much. I

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Speaker 3: want to highlight some research that I came across in

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Speaker 3: the last couple of weeks. This is a brand new

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Speaker 3: research that's just come out of an Australian university, out

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Speaker 3: of Deacon University. It came out in just at the

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Speaker 3: start of the month in early April, and what these

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Speaker 3: researchers found was that young children who spend large amounts

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Speaker 3: of time on mobile screens are more likely to have

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Speaker 3: problems sleeping and managing their emotions and behavior. Now, we

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Speaker 3: don't know anything about this professional Fortnite eight year old

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Speaker 3: and his sleep habits or his behavior habits, but the

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Speaker 3: data is telling us a really interesting story. So I'm

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Speaker 3: pretty big on saying let's relax about screens, let's stop

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Speaker 3: getting stressed out about them. But I don't feel like

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Speaker 3: that when it comes to our little kids get so

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Speaker 3: many inquiries, so many emails, podcasts at happy families dot

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Speaker 3: com dot so many emails from people who are saying,

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Speaker 3: how do I get the kids off the screens? Is

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Speaker 3: screen time? Okay? What are we doing with children staring

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Speaker 3: at all these screens. There's a PhD researcher who is

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Speaker 3: behind this research at Deacon Uni, Samudu Malawachi and doctor

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Speaker 3: Sharon Hallwood from the School of Psychology at Deacon and

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Speaker 3: they found this and I quote, the more time toddlers

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Speaker 3: and preschoolers spend on smartphones and iPads, the greater the

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Speaker 3: risk of negative impacts on their social, emotional, and cognitive

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Speaker 3: development and sleep quality and quantity.

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Speaker 4: We talked about this last week in our episode from

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Speaker 4: the Doctor's Desk, and the research that had been found

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Speaker 4: that children who have too much screen time are less

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Speaker 4: likely to be school ready.

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Speaker 3: Yes, that's right. We were talking about getting kids up

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Speaker 3: to scratch and they're falling behind there. So this is

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Speaker 3: a different study again, but it just adds to this

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Speaker 3: ongoing evidence. I mean, it's a really provocative topic, it's

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Speaker 3: really controversial, and as children get older, I think that

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Speaker 3: we can justifiably say the research is not as compelling.

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Speaker 3: But when we're talking about little kids, kids under the

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Speaker 3: age of five, there is so many developmental factors that

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Speaker 3: are impacted by the use of screens during early childhood

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Speaker 3: that I just don't think that we can let them

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Speaker 3: do it. I think that just looking at this research

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Speaker 3: and finding what it tells us, doctor Hall would said,

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Speaker 3: we know that at least half of all toddlers and

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Speaker 3: preschools who use mobile screens use them on their own,

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Speaker 3: so they're not learning how to manage them. There's no

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Speaker 3: limits necessarily on how those kids are using their screens,

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Speaker 3: and the negative findings are really worrying. Given the wide

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Speaker 3: use of the so called educational apps that are available

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Speaker 3: and that are supposedly considered beneficial for young children, they're not.

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Speaker 3: There's so little research out there that would support that idea.

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Speaker 3: But until we've got better understanding of the impacts, I

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Speaker 3: think parents have got to err on the side of

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Speaker 3: caution when it comes to early childhood screen use, especially

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Speaker 3: given how much brain development is occurring with our little people.

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Speaker 3: It's a really big issue. Let's talk about my three

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Speaker 3: c's of screen use right after the break.

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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 2: Are screens creating tension at home. Tweens, teens and Screens

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Speaker 2: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.

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Speaker 2: Bye Today at happyfamilies dot com dot au slash.

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Speaker 4: Shop, it's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for a

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Speaker 4: time poor parent who just wants answers now, and today

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Speaker 4: we are tackling the topic of screen time.

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Speaker 3: There is increasing evidence that children under the age of five,

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Speaker 3: especially while there's so much neurological development occurring, should have

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Speaker 3: screen time minimized, and brand new research out of Deacon

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Speaker 3: University really points strongly in that direction, particularly in the

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Speaker 3: context of this conversation we're having about this eight year

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Speaker 3: old Fortnite player from California who is given like thirty

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Speaker 3: grand and a five thousand dollars PCAs pro he'd been

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Speaker 3: playing Fortnite from the age of four, four years of practice,

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Speaker 3: and he's a professional Fortnite player.

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Speaker 4: You suggested before the break that you had three seeds.

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Speaker 4: You teased us a little bit. You said there were

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Speaker 4: three cs that we could use for effective screen use.

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Speaker 3: Right, And this gets away from the conversation about how

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Speaker 3: much screen use and instead shifts it towards what kind

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Speaker 3: of screen use. That's a much more useful way to

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Speaker 3: look at the way the kids are on screens because

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Speaker 3: they're part of the fabric of who we are and

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Speaker 3: what we do now. They're everywhere. So the three c's

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Speaker 3: are based on our active or passive use of technology.

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Speaker 3: Active use means that we're creating or we're connecting. The

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Speaker 3: more we create and the more we connect, the more

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Speaker 3: it seems that screens actually are quite beneficial in our lives.

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Speaker 3: They're good for us to help to stay in touch

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Speaker 3: with others. They're good for us to use our brains,

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Speaker 3: our creativity. Unfortunately, so much of what happens on screens

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Speaker 3: is closed rather than open. When you sit down with

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Speaker 3: Lego or with those magnetic toys, or with a pile

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Speaker 3: of blocks, your open ended in scope. You can create

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Speaker 3: whatever you want. When you're playing on a screen, it's

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Speaker 3: usually really closed. There's only so many things that you

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Speaker 3: can do in so many different ways. It's a closed

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Speaker 3: environment rather than a wide open environment that the real

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Speaker 3: world gives you. And so if we're going to talk

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Speaker 3: about creativity on screens, we want to make sure that

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Speaker 3: children genuinely can create. We want to make sure that

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Speaker 3: they genuinely can connect. There are active forms of screen use.

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Speaker 3: Our passive forms of screen use are basically built around consumption.

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Speaker 3: That's where you sit there and your fed stuff. You

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Speaker 3: can have information given to you, you can watch TV,

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Speaker 3: you can watch YouTube, you can listen to whatever. And

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Speaker 3: most of the consumption that happens on screens is passive

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Speaker 3: and unhealthy for our children. So those are the ways

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Speaker 3: that screens are used, and we just look at it

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Speaker 3: as consumption, connection, and creation. They're the three c's, and

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Speaker 3: they're a much better way of measuring or identifying whether

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Speaker 3: screens are being used in healthy unhealthy ways, especially important

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Speaker 3: for our little ones.

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Speaker 4: So when we talk about screen time, we often talk

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Speaker 4: about mobile devices and you know, being on the computer,

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Speaker 4: But what about TV? Where does that fit into the picture?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, amazingly, I just read a study the other day

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Speaker 3: that highlighted that watching good quality educational children's programming like

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Speaker 3: Bluie for example, or preschool Play School, Sorry, is going

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Speaker 3: to be much better for our children in terms of

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Speaker 3: the way that they're consuming media than holding their handheld

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Speaker 3: devices and gaming or whizzing through some garbage that's on

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Speaker 3: the internet. High quality children's programming is going to be

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Speaker 3: better for them. So I would say stick them in

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Speaker 3: front of the ABC on television before you before you go,

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Speaker 3: and give them a screen. It's going to be better

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Speaker 3: for them.

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Speaker 4: So the take home message today.

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Speaker 3: Is consumption, passive screen use bad for kids, regardless of

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Speaker 3: their age, but particularly for our children under five, and

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Speaker 3: also for your old don't need to be playing Fortnite

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Speaker 3: and eight year old's. Honestly, they shouldn't be turning pro

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Speaker 3: I've got a genuine moral issue with this. I don't

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Speaker 3: think that it's in any child's best interest that they're

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Speaker 3: playing Fortnite as a professional at the age of eight.

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Speaker 3: The content, the stuff that's happening on Fortnite, the language

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Speaker 3: is being used by the other players, all that sort

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Speaker 3: of stuff and more tells me that no eight year

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Speaker 3: old should be doing this. I think that it's really concerning.

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Speaker 3: So minimize consumption, minimize gaming, and focus on creation and connection.

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Speaker 3: If screens are going to be used, or watch high

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Speaker 3: quality children's program on the Telly, keep the screens, the devices,

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Speaker 3: the laptops of the iPads, the tablets, whatever, out of

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Speaker 3: kid's hands.

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Speaker 4: Well that's a great reminder. Let's wrap this up.

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Speaker 3: Okay, the happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland

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Speaker 3: from Bridge Media, and our executive producer is Craig Bruce.

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Speaker 3: We've got an upcoming summit that you might like to

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Speaker 3: know about little people, big feelings. All the details at

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Speaker 3: our Facebook page Doctor Justin Colson's Happy Families, and if

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Speaker 3: you'd like more info about making your family happy, such

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Speaker 3: as with our ongoing monthly memberships, you can get all

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Speaker 3: the de taales at happy families dot com dot au

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Speaker 3: MHM