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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, I say all the time to parents when I'm

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Speaker 2: talking about social media. You can fence the pool, but

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Speaker 2: you can't fence the ocean. The difficulty, of course, is

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Speaker 2: that putting a swimming pool fence around your swimming pool

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Speaker 2: will only protect your children while they're at your swimming pool. Therefore,

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Speaker 2: they can get themselves into trouble. You've got to teach

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Speaker 2: them to swim.

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

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson, the founder of Happy

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Speaker 2: Families dot com. Today you I'm here with Kylie, my

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Speaker 2: wife from Under our six kids. Kyle, it's Monday. Was

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Speaker 2: supposed to be excited about a new week. How excited

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Speaker 2: are you?

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Speaker 3: I am actually excited.

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Speaker 4: We're getting closer and closer to school holidays and I'm

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Speaker 4: on the countdown.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, fair call, Okay, we need to have a conversation

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Speaker 2: about something quite serious today. We are going to talk

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Speaker 2: about social media. This is in the wake of a

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Speaker 2: week ago, week and a half ago, some private Sydney schoolboys,

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Speaker 2: one of the more elite schools, on the in the

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Speaker 2: northern suburbs of Sydney were sprung with a whole lot

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Speaker 2: of just breathtakingly horrendously, awfully, rottenly bad, appalling, abysmal, disgraceful,

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Speaker 2: scandalous content online.

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Speaker 3: Someone's been say, you really feel about it? Huh? Well?

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Speaker 2: I wrote an article in The Daily Telegraph the day

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Speaker 2: after the news broke about what's going on and what

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Speaker 2: why boys keep on getting caught up in this kind

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Speaker 2: of behavior. But there's a conversation that needs to be

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Speaker 2: had because if you're a parent, you've got kids who

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Speaker 2: are of social media usage age or begging for it,

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Speaker 2: even though they're not quite old enough yet. We need

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Speaker 2: to know how to keep our kids safe and keep

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Speaker 2: them away from this kind of just rubbish, junk, horrible stuff.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's just awful. So that's what I want

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Speaker 2: to talk about today in the podcast.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting that this news story has come up

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Speaker 4: because just recently in an article on Forbes dot com,

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Speaker 4: they talked about the results of thirty two studies and

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Speaker 4: what it teaches us about parenting in the age of

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Speaker 4: social media. And what I found really interesting was it

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Speaker 4: acknowledged that it is possible for parents to put guardrails

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Speaker 4: in place to help reduce the preteen and adolescent anxiety

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Speaker 4: and depression that is often resulting from an overexposure to

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Speaker 4: social media.

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Speaker 2: It's not just anxiety and depression, though, when you look

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Speaker 2: at the behavior of these particular boys and so many

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Speaker 2: others like them, it's completely inappropriate.

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Speaker 4: When I read that, it reminded me of that analogy

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Speaker 4: that you've talked about before about the pool. You know,

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Speaker 4: we're talking about guardrails, we're talking about putting parameters in

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Speaker 4: place for our children. And I really love that analogy

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Speaker 4: you share about the pool and the pool fans.

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Speaker 2: So as soon as you said guardrails, I thought I

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Speaker 2: should share that metaphor. So essentially, I say all the

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Speaker 2: time to parents when I'm talking about social media, you

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Speaker 2: can fence the pool, but you can't fence the ocean.

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Speaker 2: In other words, a lot of parents will say, well,

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Speaker 2: we're fine, we've got it under control because we've got

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Speaker 2: our internet filters and we've got our screen time set

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Speaker 2: up and all that sort of thing. Our kids are

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Speaker 2: going to be okay, and we monitor, then we know

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Speaker 2: what's happening. The difficulty, of course, is that putting a

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Speaker 2: swimming pool. Fence around your swimming pool will only protect

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Speaker 2: your children while they're at your swimming pool, But as

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Speaker 2: soon as they go to somebody else's house, they go

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Speaker 2: to the lake or the beach, or they go to

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Speaker 2: the I don't know, the stream or the river, or

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Speaker 2: you're camping, whatever it is. There's no fences at those places,

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Speaker 2: and therefore they can get themselves into trouble. You've got

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Speaker 2: to teach them to swim. So fencing the pool is

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Speaker 2: like having your filters and you're monitoring and all that

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Speaker 2: sort of stuff. I know some parents who want it

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Speaker 2: to their children's keystrokes on their phones and on their computers,

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Speaker 2: which is just so excessive, and it's still actually unhelpful

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Speaker 2: because the job is not to monitor so much as

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Speaker 2: it is to teach and then work with your children.

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Speaker 2: And so that's the metaphor, and hopefully that's in harmony

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Speaker 2: with what you found in that article.

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Speaker 4: I think it's really important for us as parents to

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Speaker 4: understand that putting the fence around the pool at an

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Speaker 4: early age is an important part of the process. It's

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Speaker 4: age and developmentally appropriate.

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Speaker 3: A nice point. Yes, that we put.

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Speaker 4: A fence around the pole, but if we're not able

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Speaker 4: to adequately teach and inform and educate our children. One

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Speaker 4: day they will find themselves in the open ocean and

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Speaker 4: they won't have the skill sets necessary to navigate.

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Speaker 2: So I'm the researcher, but let's hear what you've discovered.

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Speaker 2: What are these what was it? Thirty two studies? Are

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Speaker 2: the thirty one?

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Speaker 4: They didn't make me read all thirty three thirty two studies?

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Speaker 4: And it really actually was just a really helpful article

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Speaker 4: and gave three recommendations that were as parents can do

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Speaker 4: to help navigate these challenges.

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Speaker 2: Willing to it in the show notes. Why don't you

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Speaker 2: walk us through it though, and I'll add some commentary

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Speaker 2: along the way.

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Speaker 4: So the first recommendation was to know the different styles

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Speaker 4: of social media parenting. When I first read it, I

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Speaker 4: actually thought it was like I need to know everything

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Speaker 4: about social media. I didn't see the parenting underneath, okay,

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Speaker 4: and so I was like, oh my gosh, that's just

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Speaker 4: like such a big long list of things I've got

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Speaker 4: to work out and apps I've got to understand.

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Speaker 2: You've got to get across discord, you've got to no TikTok,

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Speaker 2: you got it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, my mind was boggling.

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Speaker 4: Until I kind of read the next line. I went, oh, oh,

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Speaker 4: I can do this. There's only four, right. So they

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Speaker 4: talk about autonomy supportive parenting.

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Speaker 3: Oh well, this is my favorite article in the whole

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Speaker 3: world world.

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Speaker 4: Then they talk about autonomy, restrictive parenting. Sure, yep, they

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Speaker 4: talk about inconsistent parenting, and they talk about permissive parenting.

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Speaker 4: And as I read the descriptions of each of them,

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Speaker 4: I have to admit that you and I have literally

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Speaker 4: been through all four of those at different stages with

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Speaker 4: our kids around social media.

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Speaker 3: All right, so let's talk about all four of them.

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Speaker 3: Where do you want to start?

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Speaker 4: Well, I think we actually start with actually number three

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Speaker 4: and four, inconsistent and permissive, because I think that that's

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Speaker 4: often where we find ourselves, Okay, when we're navigating uncharted waters.

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Speaker 2: So permissive means you kind of don't give any restrictions,

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Speaker 2: you don't give any rules, there's no limitations.

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Speaker 3: Hey, kiddo, I'm.

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Speaker 4: Going to suggest it's actually avoiding conflict. Yeah, maybe for

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Speaker 4: most parents. I think when we become permissive, it's actually

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Speaker 4: about avoiding conflict. We want to we want to continue

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Speaker 4: to keep connection with our child, and therefore we think

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Speaker 4: that by not giving restrictions to their behavior that will

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Speaker 4: actually continue to keep that connection.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Most sense also is that there's probably permissiveness because a

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Speaker 2: lot of parents are like, I don't know what to say,

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Speaker 2: I don't know what to do, I don't know how

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Speaker 2: I'm supposed to do this.

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Speaker 3: It's just easy to go with the flow.

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Speaker 4: Well, they don't even know what's really bad, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Or even what's going on.

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Speaker 2: So permissiveness is just avoiding the conversations, avoiding the limits,

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Speaker 2: avoiding the boundaries, and letting the kids figure it out

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Speaker 2: for themselves. Not effective, Not effective at all when it

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Speaker 2: comes to helping kids to stay out of trouble.

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Speaker 3: Those kids that got in trouble.

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Speaker 2: Recently at that school and ended up being suspended, I

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Speaker 2: would venture, well, I haven't had conversations. I think that

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Speaker 2: it would be reasonable to predict that most of them

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Speaker 2: had parents who were fairly permissive in terms of monitoring,

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Speaker 2: being across, knowing what's going on. Weren't there they were absent.

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Speaker 4: Well, and then you look at inconsistent where you would

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Speaker 4: probably acknowledge that there would be a random variation of strictness, permissiveness,

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Speaker 4: and autonomy supportive in there, because it's just it's just

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Speaker 4: this random mix. Sometimes we're vigilant and we're right on

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Speaker 4: the ball, and other times we just drop everything.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm not supposed to say this, but this

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Speaker 2: is me when I'm tired, or when I've been away

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Speaker 2: for a few days and i walk in and I

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Speaker 2: see the kids on the devices and I'm just like, right,

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Speaker 2: that's it, I've had enough, get off, I'm done. And

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Speaker 2: we get cranky at the kids, or I get crank

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Speaker 2: at the kids and say, get off the screens.

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Speaker 3: I can't believe yourself on the screens.

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Speaker 2: And then two seconds later you walk in and say, actually,

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Speaker 2: they haven't been on their screens, or they have been

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Speaker 2: monitoring it really well, and I've just given them permission

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Speaker 2: to use their screens. And so there's that inconsistency between parents.

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Speaker 2: But also if we're having the conversations and if the

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Speaker 2: rules are firmly established, then we're not going to have

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Speaker 2: to worry about those kinds of explosions. But sometimes, okay,

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Speaker 2: sometimes it's not.

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Speaker 3: The kids get come fused.

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Speaker 4: So the last two are obviously at opposite ends of

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Speaker 4: the spectrum. We're talking about autonomy supportive parenting, but then

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Speaker 4: there's also autonomy restrictive.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's start with autonomic restrictive parenting. So this

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Speaker 2: is where there's no consideration of what the kids want,

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Speaker 2: no consideration.

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Speaker 4: How would you consider that autonomy then, because they're not

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Speaker 4: able to use their autonomy.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's controlling autonomy restrictive. It's just a fancy way

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Speaker 2: of saying controlling. Yeah, okay, So you've got permissive, which

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Speaker 2: is zero control. You've got inconsistent, which is sometimes controlling

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Speaker 2: and sometimes las a fair permissive to do whatever you want.

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Speaker 2: But then you've got autonomy restrictive, which is essentially a

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Speaker 2: fancy way of saying. These are parents who say, hey,

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Speaker 2: my way of the highway. You do as you're told.

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Speaker 2: You don't have social media. You've got to be off

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Speaker 2: screens by eight o'clock. You've only got an alpha homework.

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Speaker 2: It's really really controlling, and that will work until you're

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Speaker 2: not present after the break. Let's talk about autonomy supportive parenting.

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Speaker 2: Your daughter just walked by, eyes glued to her phone,

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Speaker 2: expression unreadable.

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Speaker 3: Her to put it down, but she balks.

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Speaker 2: You know it's not good for her, but you're not

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Speaker 2: sure why or how to support better choices in the

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Speaker 2: webinar pixel perfect I joined with psychologists and teen tech

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Speaker 2: expert Jocelyn Brewer to discuss how to set screen boundaries

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Speaker 2: that work for you and your daughter. Check out pixel

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Speaker 2: perfect now on the Happy Family's webshop.

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Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time

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Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers Now, and you made

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Speaker 4: a promise We're going to talk about autonomy supportive parenting

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Speaker 4: in relation to this social media.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so any article that talks about autonomy supportive parenting

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Speaker 2: I'm a huge fan of. There's a whole lot of

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Speaker 2: different parenting styles that are out there. I'm writing a

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Speaker 2: book at the moment, and the book is all about

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Speaker 2: parenting styles, and the one that I'm making the biggest

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Speaker 2: deal about is autonomy supportive parenting.

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Speaker 4: So Sanctor, read the book now, you told me all

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Speaker 4: about it.

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Speaker 2: Astonomy Supportive parenting basically says I want to understand the word.

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Speaker 3: Through your eyes.

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Speaker 2: I want you to have a voice in determining the direction,

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Speaker 2: but I'm going to be present and involved and work

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Speaker 2: with you on creating appropriate structures so that you can

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Speaker 2: be safe and healthy and make wise decisions. Or Tommy

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Speaker 2: supportive parenting basically says, let's collaborate, let's figure this out together,

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Speaker 2: because I'm the parent and I know stuff you don't,

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Speaker 2: and I've got a duty to help you to be safe.

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Speaker 2: But to the extent that I can, I'm going to

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Speaker 2: give you as much flexibility in determining the rules as

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Speaker 2: I possibly can while we work it out and talk

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Speaker 2: it through. That's autmomy supportive parenting. It's vastly superior.

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Speaker 3: To all the other styles, and it's also much harder.

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Speaker 4: So I literally just had one of these social media

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Speaker 4: conversations with one of our children the other day. She

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Speaker 4: is in her first year of high school, and she

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Speaker 4: is feeling extremely hard done by because in her mind,

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Speaker 4: she is the only child in the world who doesn't

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Speaker 4: have a mobile phone at her age. And so she

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Speaker 4: actually wrote me a letter and was very articulate about

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Speaker 4: how unkind I was being to her in relation to this,

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Speaker 4: because she felt really left out.

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Speaker 3: I'm so glad that I wasn't part of.

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Speaker 4: This, and so when I first read the letter, I

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Speaker 4: kind of really got quite frustrated by it until I

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Speaker 4: realized that I just needed to take a step back.

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Speaker 4: This actually wasn't about me, This was about her, and

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Speaker 4: I needed her to know that I understood where she

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Speaker 4: was coming from. So after taking maybe more than two

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Speaker 4: or three deep breaths, I was able to have this

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Speaker 4: beautiful conversation with her where I kind of said, let's

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Speaker 4: talk about this. I said, you're acknowledging that you're feeling

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Speaker 4: really hard done by because you're being treated differently to

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Speaker 4: everybody else, especially your four older sisters. So let's just

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Speaker 4: take a step back and talk about when each of

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Speaker 4: your sisters received a mobile phone and how their interactions

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Speaker 4: with social media came about. And as we went through

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Speaker 4: that process, and I kind of went through each of

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Speaker 4: her sisters and I articulated when they got a phone,

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Speaker 4: and when they started paying for a phone and all

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Speaker 4: of those kinds of things, it became very clear to

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Speaker 4: her that most of her sisters it wasn't until they

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Speaker 4: were nearly fifteen where they actually got their own phone.

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Speaker 4: She's a grade seven, but her mind, what she's seeing

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Speaker 4: in front of her is that everyone else has one

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Speaker 4: and I don't. And so as I sat there and

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Speaker 4: we talked about it, and I said, okay, so if

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Speaker 4: the tables were to be turned right now, I said,

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Speaker 4: and you had your eleven year old daughter sitting in

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Speaker 4: front of you, and she had this dilemma, and you

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Speaker 4: understood what I now understand. What would you say to her?

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Speaker 4: And she said, well, frankly, I would tell her that

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Speaker 4: if she would wait till she was thirteen, she could

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Speaker 4: have a phone. So we've got a thirteenth birthday coming

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Speaker 4: up in about nine months.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you've said that she's eleven. Well she's twelve.

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Speaker 2: Yes, you're struggling with that, but we know what you're saying.

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Speaker 2: In the next felve months, you're going to have a

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Speaker 2: thirteenth birthday.

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Speaker 4: And so I just I said to her, so are

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Speaker 4: you saying suggesting that you would be willing to wait

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Speaker 4: till you're thirteen? And she said, ah huh, And I said, okay,

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Speaker 4: well we can definitely have a conversation about that.

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Speaker 3: And we left the.

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Speaker 4: Conversation with her feeling heard, her feeling valued, and her

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Speaker 4: feeling seen. I left her with hope that we could

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Speaker 4: continue the conversation in the future.

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Speaker 2: Three things involvement, structure, autonomy, support That's what you're doing

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Speaker 2: as you guide her through the discussion, and that's why

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Speaker 2: it didn't end up in an instremendous war. So autonomy,

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Speaker 2: supportive parenting is definitely the best way to go when

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Speaker 2: it comes to the kids and their apps and their

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Speaker 2: usage of devices.

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Speaker 3: And being involved in their lives. Are we involved?

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Speaker 2: Are we setting up structures that we can all comply

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Speaker 2: with so that the kids know what's safe, what's healthy,

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Speaker 2: what's not and they buy into it because they're the

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Speaker 2: ones who are making the choice. That's recommendation number one.

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Speaker 2: Get your autonomy. Supportive parenting style on baby.

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Speaker 4: Number two and three are actually quite short. It's just

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Speaker 4: they're suggesting that a stricter approach may be better.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly. This sounds like a

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Speaker 3: really good article.

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Speaker 4: Well, they just kind of said suggested that the more

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Speaker 4: active approaches lead to better outcomes and that it means

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Speaker 4: parents use active mediation. So the conversation I had with

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Speaker 4: our twelve year old, I get it right this time

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Speaker 4: web is an ongoing conversation. It's not a one off,

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Speaker 4: and for the time poor parent it may feel like

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Speaker 4: it's a little bit exhausting, but the outcomes are so

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Speaker 4: much more superior so long as it's a.

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Speaker 3: Collaborai of conversation.

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Speaker 2: So there was a study that was published a few

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Speaker 2: years ago in Frontiers in psychology, and that found that

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Speaker 2: the more restrictive you are on social media, the more

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Speaker 2: likely is that your kids are going to show up

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Speaker 2: with some sort of I'm going to use the word

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Speaker 2: addiction quite loosely here, some sort of a social media addiction.

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Speaker 3: And that's because force creates resistance, and when you're being.

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Speaker 2: Really authoritarian and really full on, that works against you.

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Speaker 2: But permissiveness will do the same thing as well. So

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Speaker 2: it really is about being actively involved in the conversations,

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Speaker 2: monitoring what's going on, having regular interaction with your kids

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Speaker 2: about it. The more that you do that, the more

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Speaker 2: you can set those boundaries together. And I totally agree

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Speaker 2: be strict kids. You can't use it until at least

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Speaker 2: thirteen social media. That's the rules thirteen plus. We want

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Speaker 2: to minimize your access to it. We want to be monitoring.

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Speaker 2: We want to make sure you're only friends with people

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Speaker 2: that you know, that you're only following people that you know.

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Speaker 2: We need to keep you safe, delay delay, delay, and

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Speaker 2: safety safety safety.

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Speaker 4: And the last one was to stay informed. We need

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Speaker 4: to we need to be involved with the technology. We

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Speaker 4: need to understand how it works and be able to

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Speaker 4: offer guidance.

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Speaker 2: Which which really sucks. So I was looking at an

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Speaker 2: app the other day called be Real. It's the latest

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Speaker 2: thing that everyone's going on about. It's kind of like this.

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Speaker 2: It's like Instagram, except it's real. There's no filters. You

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Speaker 2: get a message. I think it's once a day. Once

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Speaker 2: a day, you get a message, and you have to

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Speaker 2: take a photo and post it to the app. And

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Speaker 2: it's a a bi directional photo. So you know how

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Speaker 2: phones have got a front camera and a back camera,

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Speaker 2: So you hold it up, you take a photo of

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Speaker 2: yourself and it also takes a photo of what's happening

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Speaker 2: in front of you, so it's a selfie plus view

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Speaker 2: of what's happening in front of you. And the idea

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Speaker 2: is it's being real because it's saying, well, here's where

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Speaker 2: I am, and here's what I'm doing, and here's what

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Speaker 2: my life is. I mean, I can't think of anything

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Speaker 2: more stupid. And yet, as parents, we need to stay

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Speaker 2: across the apps. We've got to stay across TikTok and

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Speaker 2: I don't want to drag my brain through the gutter

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Speaker 2: of TikTok so that I can know what my kids

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Speaker 2: are doing. And Instagram and Snapchat and the list goes

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Speaker 2: on and on discoord, like how many parents really want

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Speaker 2: to get into a discord and start goofing off in

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Speaker 2: these messaging chats that are just so toxic. But the

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Speaker 2: more we know about social media, the more we can

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Speaker 2: have informed conversations with our kids about what they're doing.

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Speaker 2: When you don't know what discord is, when you don't

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Speaker 2: know what be real is, when you don't know what

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Speaker 2: TikTok is, when you let's go back ten years when

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Speaker 2: you didn't know what snapchat was, you can't have a

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Speaker 2: conversation with the kids about it other and say.

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Speaker 3: Well, what all look out of that?

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Speaker 2: And the kids don't care what because they know that

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Speaker 2: you don't know. So we've got to be having intelligent,

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Speaker 2: informed conversation, which means that we've actually got to at

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Speaker 2: least read the apps or watch your YouTube clip where

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Speaker 2: somebody's teaching you about the apps, so that you know

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Speaker 2: what you're talking about and you can have useful conversations

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Speaker 2: with the kids.

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Speaker 4: So I guess in wrapping up, the three clear points

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Speaker 4: are autonomy. Supportive parenting is going to one hundred percent

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Speaker 4: allow you to have better communication with your kids as

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Speaker 4: you collaborate together. And while it might take a little

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Speaker 4: bit more extra time, your relationship is going to flourish

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Speaker 4: as a result. Number two is that a stricter approach

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Speaker 4: may be better. Yep, it's just so important that we

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Speaker 4: stick to our guns as parents, work through the process

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Speaker 4: with our children and we'll definitely get better outcomes again.

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Speaker 4: And then the last one is stay informed. We just

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Speaker 4: need to be across. We don't need to fully involve ourselves,

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Speaker 4: but we just need to be across what's going on

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Speaker 4: in their worlds around social media.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to make one final point.

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Speaker 2: Social media can be a paradise but can also be

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Speaker 2: a sewer. And as parents, we've got to be able

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Speaker 2: to have those conversations with our kids from a young

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Speaker 2: age because they want to be there, their friends are there,

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Speaker 2: and they need to know that we're across it and

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Speaker 2: that we're involved and that we care about them. So

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Speaker 2: we really hope that this podcast episode today has been

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Speaker 2: helpful as you navigate parenting in the age of social media.

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Speaker 2: During the next week, we've got some really big podcasts

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Speaker 2: coming up, including tomorrow A twelve year old that keeps

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Speaker 2: on pushing the boundaries. What do parents do when they've

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Speaker 2: tried to explore they've tried to explain them, tried to

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Speaker 2: empower and everything's backfiring. That's a listener dilemma that will

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Speaker 2: respond to tomorrow on Wednesday, a conversation about birth trauma,

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Speaker 2: and Thursday, Kylie, you know my Doctor's Desk episodes that

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Speaker 2: you roll your eyes about and grown about. We got

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Speaker 2: feedback via podcasts at happy families dot com. Do a

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Speaker 2: you the other day and somebody.

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Speaker 4: Said, what's that one feedback?

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Speaker 3: It's this person just putting out there.

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Speaker 2: One Shanna is her name, and Shanna said, the Doctor's

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Speaker 2: Desk episodes are my favorite, and we've got one coming

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Speaker 2: up this Thursday. It's all to come this week on

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Speaker 2: the Happy Families Podcast. Thanks so much to JR. Justin

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Speaker 2: raw On, our producer from Bridge Media, for making the

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Speaker 2: podcast sound the way it does, and Craig Bruce, our

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Speaker 2: executive producer. If you'd like more information about making your

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Speaker 2: family happy at check out the show notes or visit

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Speaker 2: us at happy families dot com.

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Speaker 4: Doda you