September 1, 2025 • 15 mins
“Everyone else has one!” If you’ve ever heard this plea from your tween about getting a smartphone, you’re not alone. In today’s Q&A episode, Justin and Kylie unpack one dad’s dilemma: a 12-year-old desperate for a phone, parents holding out until Year 8, and the daily battles in between. You’ll hear why one big conversation won’t work, how to keep your child engaged without caving, and three practical strategies to hold the line without losing connection.
KEY POINTS
- Why no single conversation will “solve” the phone debate
- The 3 E’s of effective discipline (Explore, Explain, Empower)
- How to use outside voices (content creators, school assignments) to make the case
- Why it helps to talk with other parents — your child isn’t always “the only one”
- The ongoing reality: even once they get a phone, the battles don’t stop
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“You don’t just get compliance when kids understand your decision — you get buy-in.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- The Parenting Revolution by Dr Justin Coulson
- Content creators: Jonathan Haidt, Official Herd, Dr Brad Marshall (“The Unplugged Psychologist”), Freya India
- [Study] Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being
- The Heads Up Alliance - Australian families delaying social media and smartphones for children, together
- Wait Until 8th
- Rebecca Sparrow's FREE download "Beginner Phones for Tweens and Teens"
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Keep the conversations ongoing — not one-and-done.
- Use external voices and resources to reinforce your message.
- Encourage your child to research and present arguments for and against screens.
- Connect with other parents to reality-check the “everyone else has one” claim.
- Focus on understanding and buy-in, not just rules.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Every single day. She's begging for a phone. She says
she's the only one without one. Sound familiar. Hello and
welcome to the Happy Families podcast. Real parenting Solutions every
day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast and Melbourne dad
sent us a voice note about his twelve year old
daughter who's in her first year of high school, desperately
wanting a smartphone. She's almost made it to the end
(00:26):
of the year. He and his wife are holding the
line until year eight with research and conviction about the risks,
but facing daily battles and the classic everyone else has
one argument. His question, are there any resources pitched at
preteens that might help them understand the risks of having
a supercomputer in their pocket. Here's the thing. While those
resources might not exist, there are proven strategies to help
(00:50):
your child understand your decision and even get on board
with it. Stay with us, Hi, and Welcome to the
Happy Families podcast. Repairing Solutions every single day. We are
Justin and Kylie Colson Tricky Questions Edition Every Tuesday. Your
Tricky Questions are answered. If you want to be featured
on the pod, send us a voice note. Podcasts at
(01:11):
happyfamilies dot com. You or go to happy families dot com.
You scroll down to podcasts, click the record button and
start talking. Here's today's from Nick.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Hi Nick from Melbourne. Our daughter is twelve. She's in
her first year of high school. We're desperately holding back
the tide on giving her a smartphone until at least
year eight. She has a smart watch, so she still
has social connection with her friends and the ability to
contact us when needed, just no social media camera or
web browser, which is exactly how we want it for now.
(01:44):
But the watch is small and friddly, so nowhere near
as enticing as a smartphone. Every single day she's begging
us for a phone. She says she's the only one
of her peers without a phone. Apparently, We've dedicated considerable
time to researching the issues around teens and smartphones and
have conviction in our views. But are there any resources
or podcasts available that have pitched more towards preteens that
(02:07):
might help them understand the risks to them having a
supercomputer in their pocket?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
So kytie, I love how articulate Nick is and how
thoughtful he is in both what he's already done and
the way he's asked the question, what's your initial reaction?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Is he our first dad?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, he's our first dad. We don't get a lot
of male voices on the pod. That's great, Yeah, that
is great.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Like you said, I love how articulate he's been, and
I love how invested he is and his daughter's well being.
The more pre armed we are as parents, the more
we're able to scaffold our children through this tricky period
of time. But I kind of feel like, even if
there are resources, most of our kids, I can think
(02:49):
of hundreds of conversations we've had with our children over
the years where they have literally looked at us and gone, yeah,
but that won't be me.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Like yesus of the reward outweighs any risks that are associated.
The risks will only have to people. Oh yeah, I'll
say yes whenever you ask me to hand the phone,
and I'll do exactly what you say. They will say
anything anything. So I'm writing this book about boys, and
one of my early readers, we've got a group of
beta readers. They're sort of going through those first drafts
(03:18):
for me and providing feedback, And one of the beta
readers said, we need a boys book. For boys like
I need you to do this for my teenage son,
like this book, except a teenage version of it, because
my son won't read this one. And one of the
other BEATA readers on a conference call said, well, why
don't we just do a chapter at the end of
the book and so you can read the book and
then hand the book to your son and say, just
(03:39):
read this last chapter. This one's for you. And my
response was, what teenage boy is going to say, Well,
since you've got a great relationship with doctor Justin, you've
read this whole book, let me read the last chapter.
I'm all in. They don't want to hear it, especially
if it comes from us. And even if you're handing
them the resource and saying, hey, this is not actually
from me, it's from somebody else and they've done the resources,
(04:00):
they're seeking it themselves, there's going to be a lack
of motivation. You're shove it in front of their nose,
put it over their ears, it's still likely to backfire.
And frankly, nick, I don't know of any resources that
have been built, especially for young people, where they're going
to get the questions answered and they're going to get
the stuff preached to them that you once preached to them.
(04:22):
So I'm going to share instead, or we're going to
share today in our conversation with you, a couple of strategies.
I think we'll share three strategies that will make a
difference in moving the needle on this bearing in mind
that we may never ever get to complete satisfaction with
our kids around this topic. This is perennial. It just
(04:43):
keeps ongoing. My first one, and it's something that if
you're a long time listener of the podcast you'll be
familiar with is lots of conversations using the three is
of effective discipline.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I think that's so often as parents, we think that
we can have a one off conversation, hit the and
move on, and when we find ourselves back in that
same place where we're having another conversation about the same thing,
we think that our approach isn't working. I don't know
what the research says on this, but I have experienced it,
(05:15):
even with you in our marriage.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
With me, pray tell.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
The amount of times that we have a conversation and
we come back and revisit it and it's like I'd
never have said that before.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, Or alternatively, I'll have the idea myself, or you'll have.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
A conversation with your mum after we've had the conversation,
and all of a sudden, it's a really good idea,
but it wasn't a great idea when I brought it up.
As humans, we actually often, especially with ideas or concepts
that challenge us, we have to hear it multiple times.
(05:54):
We have to we have to understand.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
You're going to be able to process it, That's exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And sometimes it's got nothing to do with who said
it to you, but where your mindset is in that moment,
and all of a sudden, it's like this light bulb
goes on and you go, oh, that makes so much sense.
Why haven't I ever thought of that?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, I hear it once and I dismiss it. I
hear it a second time, I'll consider it. I hear
it the third time, I'm like, oh, okay, this makes sense.
So I mean, you had to bring my mum into
it and those conversations, and I'm a little bit defensive
and upset about that. But basically, Nick, when you're having
these conversations with your kids, it's just never won and done.
And if you're thinking that you can sit down and
(06:32):
have a twenty minute conversation and get to a solution
and have everyone fisz, pump, high five, shake hands, hug, whatever,
and that everything will be fine, especially around a topic
is divisive as technology, it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Well, it's so emotionally charged for her as well.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Her life will be in that phone as far as
she's concerned, which is why you're concerned.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
And often another challenge that we experience is our child
comes home and says I'm the only one, and we
take that at face value because they're the ones who
are experienced thinks this on a day to day basis.
But I found that it's really handy if we can
actually infiltrate the community path and start to have some
conversations with other parents, and you'll find out really quickly
(07:12):
that your daughter isn't the only one. Maybe she's the
only one within her social group, but she won't be
the only one all right.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So we need to get to the break, but very quickly.
For those who are new to the POD or haven't
read The Parenting Revolution, let me step through what the
three is of effective discipline are. Just to make sure
that This is absolutely plain as day number one. Explore,
Explore what's going on for your child. Acknowledge her concerns seriously,
really listen, listen, listen, listen, Understand why this matters to her. Next,
(07:39):
explain the reasoning behind your decision. So don't just explain
the rule. Explain the reasoning and the rationale behind it.
Make sure that the conversations are continuing and that her
concerns are You want to position this is thoughtful parenting,
not arbitrary power. It's not I'm doing this because on
the parent it's because I'm listening to and I'm trying
to understand where you're coming from and empower as much
as you can. So I've written a couple of things
(08:01):
on my notes here. My first question is why grade eight?
Is there something magical that happens at the age of
fourteen or fifteen. I love that there's phone but no connectivity,
but I wonder if she could have a phone and
not have connectivity ongoingly, I want to make sure that
you're ex exploring, exploring as much as you can so
(08:22):
that you're not just having this arbitrary Oh, we think
grade eight's the right age, so therefore it is I
know that there's a whole lot of noise out there
in the media about it, and there are plenty of
people who have got movements going with grade eight being
where they've landed. But it's not necessarily right for your kids.
I actually think that some kids need a phone in
grade five or grade six. They're unusual, it's exceptional, and
we really want to limit what they've got access to.
(08:43):
But I think that there are good arguments to be
made in some cases. I also think that most kids
don't need a phone until they're fifteen, sixteen, maybe even
seventeen or eighteen, and so understanding the context matters. There
are two more really important things we need to talk about,
and they will help to answer next question about where
to go to get good information to have these conversations
(09:04):
stay with us. Okay, Kylie, let's run through a couple
of other ideas that are going to help Nick from
Melbourne with his daughter, who is the only one who
doesn't have a phone out of everybody that has a phone.
I've found that it's really useful to use content creators
(09:25):
who discuss phone addiction and mental health impacts, and you
can get your child to follow them on their social
media platforms if they're willing to so. One of my
favorites is Jonathan Hate. Another one is called Official Herd.
They're both on Instagram. And even people like doctor Brad
Marshall are the unplugged psychologist, people who have strong academic
(09:47):
backgrounds and who are sharing really thoughtful content. Now you
might not tell them to follow them, but you might say, hey,
once a week, we're going to sit down and just
have a look at what other people are saying, and
we're going to discuss these issues and see how you
feel about it. That can be really helpful. I'd be
looking for young people who are talking about their own
struggles with technology. There's plenty of them. One of my
favorites is Freyer India, who is so good Freya Freyer India.
(10:12):
There's just something about how the message lands when it
comes from somebody other than a parent. I mean, our
kids are much more likely to listen to anybody but us,
in spite of the fact that we are the quote
unquote and maybe because, but I think most of all,
just say hey, here's the information. What do you think like?
Show respect for her intelligence by inviting her into the
(10:32):
conversations rather than lecturing at her.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
What's your third strategy?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
We had this experience with our year ten daughter and
it was just so perfect. There was a school assignment
that was given out that was very well timed, extremely helpful,
and it was basically engage with. The assignment was that
our daughter had to engage with the argument that screens
are causing harm to young people and she had to
write an essay or do a report or something like
(10:57):
that talking about the and cons for screens for kids.
And she just engaged with that differently because it was
the school assignment rather than us telling her no or
preaching at her. So when the school makes it easy
for you by giving you an assignment or giving your
daughter an assignment, that's great because she becomes the expert.
You can even ask her to present the information of
the family. If the school isn't doing it, maybe you
(11:19):
can create some informal research opportunities at home and invite
her to put together a powerboak presentation making the arguments
for and against.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Because Lily goes to an industry school, so she's been
in placement for the last five weeks, she hasn't yet
experienced the new rules that have come in for this term,
but when she arrives at school next Monday, she has
to hand a phone in from age thirty to three.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, And state schools around the country
now have all got that rule.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
And I love that schools are starting to recognize the
immense distraction and challenge that having a phone in your
pocket all day, every day is having on our kids,
and specifically on their learning experience.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
All right, let's wrap this up, Nick. I think you're
doing the right thing. We think you're doing the right thing.
This is valuable, it's important. It's also worth the struggle
on the pot. A couple of months ago, we talked
about a recent study showing people using phones without the
internet improve their well being over a two week period.
We shared that with our fifteen year old daughter, and
that research evidence shifted her. It may or may not
work for anyone else, but it worked for our daughter.
(12:28):
It's not about keeping her offline forever. It's about reducing
access to the most addictive elements during these crucial stages
of development. And I think that so long as so
long as buying happens, you're much more likely to get
positive outcomes. When she understands the decision, you get good outcomes.
If she doesn't understand the decision, you just get rebellion,
(12:52):
you get resentment, you get a NonStop relationship breakdown. It's
just such hard work. So we're really trying to build
understand over time. One last thing that I'll say, and Kylie,
I'm sure that you'll have something to add to this.
It never goes away. Like once she has the phone,
the arguments continue, but now the argument isn't about whether
or not she wants one and can have one. Now
(13:14):
the argument is you need to get off the device.
You're on it too much, so you get to pick
your pain.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
I think about so many of the conversations we've had
with the children with a desirable outcome in mind, and
yet as we've worked with our children and they've come
to us with their concerns, with their you know, kind
of thinking outside the box solutions, we've found ourselves agreeing
with them or acquiescing on the hard line that we
(13:43):
may have wanted to hold because they've actually been really
wise in their response, and it hasn't been about arguing
their case. It's been about having this really wonderful, enlightening
conversation where we get to work together come up with
a solution that actually feels good for both of us.
(14:04):
But the reality is, even though you might have that experience,
you're still going to revisit that conversation.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I was going to say, you open up the box though,
and it's just enduring. It is an enduring conversation. I
really hope there's been a helpful conversation for you, though, Nick,
and good luck as you continue to fight the good fight.
If you have a tricky question for us and want
to be featured on the pod Happy families dot com
dot you go to podcasts, click the button start talking,
or send us a voice notes to podcasts at happy
(14:30):
families dot com dot au. The Happy Families podcast is
produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Mimhammonds provides research,
admin and other support. If you would like to make
your family happier, and if you would like more information
about how to have these conversations, specifically, check out The
Parenting Revolution. It's available wherever you buy your books, or
(14:52):
visit us at happy families dot com. A
Every single day. She's begging for a phone. She says
she's the only one without one. Sound familiar. Hello and
welcome to the Happy Families podcast. Real parenting Solutions every
day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast and Melbourne dad
sent us a voice note about his twelve year old
daughter who's in her first year of high school, desperately
wanting a smartphone. She's almost made it to the end
(00:26):
of the year. He and his wife are holding the
line until year eight with research and conviction about the risks,
but facing daily battles and the classic everyone else has
one argument. His question, are there any resources pitched at
preteens that might help them understand the risks of having
a supercomputer in their pocket. Here's the thing. While those
resources might not exist, there are proven strategies to help
(00:50):
your child understand your decision and even get on board
with it. Stay with us, Hi, and Welcome to the
Happy Families podcast. Repairing Solutions every single day. We are
Justin and Kylie Colson Tricky Questions Edition Every Tuesday. Your
Tricky Questions are answered. If you want to be featured
on the pod, send us a voice note. Podcasts at
(01:11):
happyfamilies dot com. You or go to happy families dot com.
You scroll down to podcasts, click the record button and
start talking. Here's today's from Nick.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Hi Nick from Melbourne. Our daughter is twelve. She's in
her first year of high school. We're desperately holding back
the tide on giving her a smartphone until at least
year eight. She has a smart watch, so she still
has social connection with her friends and the ability to
contact us when needed, just no social media camera or
web browser, which is exactly how we want it for now.
(01:44):
But the watch is small and friddly, so nowhere near
as enticing as a smartphone. Every single day she's begging
us for a phone. She says she's the only one
of her peers without a phone. Apparently, We've dedicated considerable
time to researching the issues around teens and smartphones and
have conviction in our views. But are there any resources
or podcasts available that have pitched more towards preteens that
(02:07):
might help them understand the risks to them having a
supercomputer in their pocket?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
So kytie, I love how articulate Nick is and how
thoughtful he is in both what he's already done and
the way he's asked the question, what's your initial reaction?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Is he our first dad?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, he's our first dad. We don't get a lot
of male voices on the pod. That's great, Yeah, that
is great.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Like you said, I love how articulate he's been, and
I love how invested he is and his daughter's well being.
The more pre armed we are as parents, the more
we're able to scaffold our children through this tricky period
of time. But I kind of feel like, even if
there are resources, most of our kids, I can think
(02:49):
of hundreds of conversations we've had with our children over
the years where they have literally looked at us and gone, yeah,
but that won't be me.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Like yesus of the reward outweighs any risks that are associated.
The risks will only have to people. Oh yeah, I'll
say yes whenever you ask me to hand the phone,
and I'll do exactly what you say. They will say
anything anything. So I'm writing this book about boys, and
one of my early readers, we've got a group of
beta readers. They're sort of going through those first drafts
(03:18):
for me and providing feedback, And one of the beta
readers said, we need a boys book. For boys like
I need you to do this for my teenage son,
like this book, except a teenage version of it, because
my son won't read this one. And one of the
other BEATA readers on a conference call said, well, why
don't we just do a chapter at the end of
the book and so you can read the book and
then hand the book to your son and say, just
(03:39):
read this last chapter. This one's for you. And my
response was, what teenage boy is going to say, Well,
since you've got a great relationship with doctor Justin, you've
read this whole book, let me read the last chapter.
I'm all in. They don't want to hear it, especially
if it comes from us. And even if you're handing
them the resource and saying, hey, this is not actually
from me, it's from somebody else and they've done the resources,
(04:00):
they're seeking it themselves, there's going to be a lack
of motivation. You're shove it in front of their nose,
put it over their ears, it's still likely to backfire.
And frankly, nick, I don't know of any resources that
have been built, especially for young people, where they're going
to get the questions answered and they're going to get
the stuff preached to them that you once preached to them.
(04:22):
So I'm going to share instead, or we're going to
share today in our conversation with you, a couple of strategies.
I think we'll share three strategies that will make a
difference in moving the needle on this bearing in mind
that we may never ever get to complete satisfaction with
our kids around this topic. This is perennial. It just
(04:43):
keeps ongoing. My first one, and it's something that if
you're a long time listener of the podcast you'll be
familiar with is lots of conversations using the three is
of effective discipline.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I think that's so often as parents, we think that
we can have a one off conversation, hit the and
move on, and when we find ourselves back in that
same place where we're having another conversation about the same thing,
we think that our approach isn't working. I don't know
what the research says on this, but I have experienced it,
(05:15):
even with you in our marriage.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
With me, pray tell.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
The amount of times that we have a conversation and
we come back and revisit it and it's like I'd
never have said that before.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, Or alternatively, I'll have the idea myself, or you'll have.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
A conversation with your mum after we've had the conversation,
and all of a sudden, it's a really good idea,
but it wasn't a great idea when I brought it up.
As humans, we actually often, especially with ideas or concepts
that challenge us, we have to hear it multiple times.
(05:54):
We have to we have to understand.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
You're going to be able to process it, That's exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And sometimes it's got nothing to do with who said
it to you, but where your mindset is in that moment,
and all of a sudden, it's like this light bulb
goes on and you go, oh, that makes so much sense.
Why haven't I ever thought of that?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, I hear it once and I dismiss it. I
hear it a second time, I'll consider it. I hear
it the third time, I'm like, oh, okay, this makes sense.
So I mean, you had to bring my mum into
it and those conversations, and I'm a little bit defensive
and upset about that. But basically, Nick, when you're having
these conversations with your kids, it's just never won and done.
And if you're thinking that you can sit down and
(06:32):
have a twenty minute conversation and get to a solution
and have everyone fisz, pump, high five, shake hands, hug, whatever,
and that everything will be fine, especially around a topic
is divisive as technology, it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Well, it's so emotionally charged for her as well.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Her life will be in that phone as far as
she's concerned, which is why you're concerned.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
And often another challenge that we experience is our child
comes home and says I'm the only one, and we
take that at face value because they're the ones who
are experienced thinks this on a day to day basis.
But I found that it's really handy if we can
actually infiltrate the community path and start to have some
conversations with other parents, and you'll find out really quickly
(07:12):
that your daughter isn't the only one. Maybe she's the
only one within her social group, but she won't be
the only one all right.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So we need to get to the break, but very quickly.
For those who are new to the POD or haven't
read The Parenting Revolution, let me step through what the
three is of effective discipline are. Just to make sure
that This is absolutely plain as day number one. Explore,
Explore what's going on for your child. Acknowledge her concerns seriously,
really listen, listen, listen, listen, Understand why this matters to her. Next,
(07:39):
explain the reasoning behind your decision. So don't just explain
the rule. Explain the reasoning and the rationale behind it.
Make sure that the conversations are continuing and that her
concerns are You want to position this is thoughtful parenting,
not arbitrary power. It's not I'm doing this because on
the parent it's because I'm listening to and I'm trying
to understand where you're coming from and empower as much
as you can. So I've written a couple of things
(08:01):
on my notes here. My first question is why grade eight?
Is there something magical that happens at the age of
fourteen or fifteen. I love that there's phone but no connectivity,
but I wonder if she could have a phone and
not have connectivity ongoingly, I want to make sure that
you're ex exploring, exploring as much as you can so
(08:22):
that you're not just having this arbitrary Oh, we think
grade eight's the right age, so therefore it is I
know that there's a whole lot of noise out there
in the media about it, and there are plenty of
people who have got movements going with grade eight being
where they've landed. But it's not necessarily right for your kids.
I actually think that some kids need a phone in
grade five or grade six. They're unusual, it's exceptional, and
we really want to limit what they've got access to.
(08:43):
But I think that there are good arguments to be
made in some cases. I also think that most kids
don't need a phone until they're fifteen, sixteen, maybe even
seventeen or eighteen, and so understanding the context matters. There
are two more really important things we need to talk about,
and they will help to answer next question about where
to go to get good information to have these conversations
(09:04):
stay with us. Okay, Kylie, let's run through a couple
of other ideas that are going to help Nick from
Melbourne with his daughter, who is the only one who
doesn't have a phone out of everybody that has a phone.
I've found that it's really useful to use content creators
(09:25):
who discuss phone addiction and mental health impacts, and you
can get your child to follow them on their social
media platforms if they're willing to so. One of my
favorites is Jonathan Hate. Another one is called Official Herd.
They're both on Instagram. And even people like doctor Brad
Marshall are the unplugged psychologist, people who have strong academic
(09:47):
backgrounds and who are sharing really thoughtful content. Now you
might not tell them to follow them, but you might say, hey,
once a week, we're going to sit down and just
have a look at what other people are saying, and
we're going to discuss these issues and see how you
feel about it. That can be really helpful. I'd be
looking for young people who are talking about their own
struggles with technology. There's plenty of them. One of my
favorites is Freyer India, who is so good Freya Freyer India.
(10:12):
There's just something about how the message lands when it
comes from somebody other than a parent. I mean, our
kids are much more likely to listen to anybody but us,
in spite of the fact that we are the quote
unquote and maybe because, but I think most of all,
just say hey, here's the information. What do you think like?
Show respect for her intelligence by inviting her into the
(10:32):
conversations rather than lecturing at her.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
What's your third strategy?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
We had this experience with our year ten daughter and
it was just so perfect. There was a school assignment
that was given out that was very well timed, extremely helpful,
and it was basically engage with. The assignment was that
our daughter had to engage with the argument that screens
are causing harm to young people and she had to
write an essay or do a report or something like
(10:57):
that talking about the and cons for screens for kids.
And she just engaged with that differently because it was
the school assignment rather than us telling her no or
preaching at her. So when the school makes it easy
for you by giving you an assignment or giving your
daughter an assignment, that's great because she becomes the expert.
You can even ask her to present the information of
the family. If the school isn't doing it, maybe you
(11:19):
can create some informal research opportunities at home and invite
her to put together a powerboak presentation making the arguments
for and against.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Because Lily goes to an industry school, so she's been
in placement for the last five weeks, she hasn't yet
experienced the new rules that have come in for this term,
but when she arrives at school next Monday, she has
to hand a phone in from age thirty to three.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, And state schools around the country
now have all got that rule.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
And I love that schools are starting to recognize the
immense distraction and challenge that having a phone in your
pocket all day, every day is having on our kids,
and specifically on their learning experience.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
All right, let's wrap this up, Nick. I think you're
doing the right thing. We think you're doing the right thing.
This is valuable, it's important. It's also worth the struggle
on the pot. A couple of months ago, we talked
about a recent study showing people using phones without the
internet improve their well being over a two week period.
We shared that with our fifteen year old daughter, and
that research evidence shifted her. It may or may not
work for anyone else, but it worked for our daughter.
(12:28):
It's not about keeping her offline forever. It's about reducing
access to the most addictive elements during these crucial stages
of development. And I think that so long as so
long as buying happens, you're much more likely to get
positive outcomes. When she understands the decision, you get good outcomes.
If she doesn't understand the decision, you just get rebellion,
(12:52):
you get resentment, you get a NonStop relationship breakdown. It's
just such hard work. So we're really trying to build
understand over time. One last thing that I'll say, and Kylie,
I'm sure that you'll have something to add to this.
It never goes away. Like once she has the phone,
the arguments continue, but now the argument isn't about whether
or not she wants one and can have one. Now
(13:14):
the argument is you need to get off the device.
You're on it too much, so you get to pick
your pain.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
I think about so many of the conversations we've had
with the children with a desirable outcome in mind, and
yet as we've worked with our children and they've come
to us with their concerns, with their you know, kind
of thinking outside the box solutions, we've found ourselves agreeing
with them or acquiescing on the hard line that we
(13:43):
may have wanted to hold because they've actually been really
wise in their response, and it hasn't been about arguing
their case. It's been about having this really wonderful, enlightening
conversation where we get to work together come up with
a solution that actually feels good for both of us.
(14:04):
But the reality is, even though you might have that experience,
you're still going to revisit that conversation.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I was going to say, you open up the box though,
and it's just enduring. It is an enduring conversation. I
really hope there's been a helpful conversation for you, though, Nick,
and good luck as you continue to fight the good fight.
If you have a tricky question for us and want
to be featured on the pod Happy families dot com
dot you go to podcasts, click the button start talking,
or send us a voice notes to podcasts at happy
(14:30):
families dot com dot au. The Happy Families podcast is
produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Mimhammonds provides research,
admin and other support. If you would like to make
your family happier, and if you would like more information
about how to have these conversations, specifically, check out The
Parenting Revolution. It's available wherever you buy your books, or
(14:52):
visit us at happy families dot com. A
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