De-Stress For Success with Isabella Ferguson
This podcast is about finding calm. I talk to the experts and bring you evidence-based practical methods to help you destress and live purposefully. In my early 40’s, I bowed out of a 20 year legal career “to spend more time with the kids”. However it was more than that. Decades of running on high anxiety and drinking to cope had had its toll on my nervous system and I was burnt out. I didn’t know it at the time, but from there I started years of recovery and ultimately stepped into a new way of living. I went to rehab, retrained as a counsellor and coach, created a successful counselling practice, became a motivational & corporate wellness speaker, took up painting and now support others to destress for success.
https://isabellaferguson.com.au
De-Stress For Success with Isabella Ferguson
Being Seen Beyond the Screen: Master Parenting in the Digital Age with Professor Selena Bartlett
Professor Selena Bartlett and I talks about her latest book Being Seen, a parenting survival guide for all of us trying to limit the impact that screen time has on our children's mental health, safety and future in the digital age, based on fostering connection, resilience and the management of tech in our homes.
We discuss how young minds are silently suffering. Self-harm, eating disorders, extortion, brain health, impulsivity and future connections are exacerbated by the online landscape and how we need to act now to change how we allow screens to show up in our households and beyond. This does start from the top down and is a call to parenting networks to openly discuss the negative impacts of smart phone use on the brain health of our children and to feel empowered to create family tech plans that limit tech use.
It's about reclaiming the narrative on tech safety and empowering connections, ensuring that as parents, you're equipped to guide our children safely through the complexities of their online world. So, let's rally the parent network and transform our approach to digital parenting, one real conversation at a time.
PROFESSOR SELENA BARTLETT
Website: https://www.profselenabartlett.com
Being Seen can be purchased online and at all good book stores
Being Seen Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/being-seen-master-parenting-in-the-digital-age/id1728554657
ISABELLA FERGUSON
Free resource : "AM I DRINKING TOO MUCH?" FREE 5-DAY VIDEO SERIES
My web: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
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instagram: @alcoholandstresswithisabella
linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/isabella-ferguson-52022b242
self-harming eating disorders are on the rise, but they become more violent because social media is showing people how to do it.
Speaker 2:It's frightening, selena. So there are three things that there I was sort of thinking well, it's about exploitation of them by third parties, but in fact that's one of the very important limits also impact their brain health, their reward systems. I guess how that's going to impact, having tracked and connect everyday life in respect of those three limbs, what's kind of standing out for you as the most important thing that we really need to handle on as parents?
Speaker 1:Wake up and smell, and smell the reality and have this conversation with each other.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the D stress for success podcast. Did you know that we inherit our stress response from our parents or carers or generations before? But we can also train our brain to respond to stress differently. It's all about brain health. I'm Isabella Ferguson and I'm here to deliver to you the most up to date, evidence based methodologies on how to find some car.
Speaker 2:In my early 40s I bowed out of a 20 year legal career. Decades of running on high anxiety and drinking alcohol to cope had taken its toll on my nervous system and I was burnt out. Now, as a 48 year old corporate speaker, counsellor, coach and alcohol free woman, I'll interview the experts, ask the questions you wish you had the time to ask and I'll deliver some practical tips to you. I'm glad you tuned in. Now let's de stress. Hello everybody. We are welcoming back to D stress for success Professor Selena Bartlett, neuroscientist, speaker, author of several books and most recently, author of a groundbreaking and very important book called being seen, which we're going to talk all about. I know that you all love having her as a guest on the podcast. The downloads were off the charts when she came on earlier to talk about phone addiction and with a particular focus on our youth and their habits around phone use, and we're going to delve even more into that. A big, heartfelt welcome to you, professor Bartlett.
Speaker 1:Thank you, isabella. It's so great to be back again and I really appreciate the time, the opportunity you've given me to talk to your audience, so thank you.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. This is a topic we all need to hear about. Look, I start off with the question what are you doing right now that really works for you to de stress?
Speaker 1:I would say the best tool I have up my sleeve is a panoramic view and being in nature, so that allows me so much opportunity to expand a very de stress mind. I've had been through quite a lot, as I alluded to before we came on. In the last year or so I've done a lot of elder care and my father in law passed a few weeks ago and we had his funeral in the UK, so I had to invoke many strategies. So I say one of them was running around a beautiful field every day, that, and it's a beautiful field in nature actually, and it was not minus five as well, so I got that cold exposure that I talk about all the time. So I think that really helped me navigate a very stressful time for the family.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. A panoramic view, nature, win, win. Okay, let's, let's get into this book. You've released this book after a lot of research, a lot of talking to other parents and really digging in deep to what our kids are being exposed to in the digital era. As the parent, as a mum of two boys and a stepmother it's always there in the back of my mind. I'm always thinking I need to get them off that screen, I need to monitor more. Oh no, they're old enough. And then I kind of park it, move on. But I'm beginning to learn that I shouldn't look. Your book, just as a very quick recap, is really going to guide us through how to navigate this digital era. You're offering parents science backed, practical guide to nurture the children's brain health, manage stress, foster resilience, and it's not about shaming parents, it's about giving a skills, and I think we're crying out for this. Would you mind just telling our audience what is it that you have found out there in your research around parents and their kids and their access to the digital world?
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for that question. So I was writing a book called thriving minds for parents and carers which is based on 30 years of my work around trying to understand why my sister had a mental illness and that it discovered why, and it is about the parent child connection and the being seen is actually about how to see your children for the unique, authentic individual they are, and it's an action verb. But in the progress of doing that research, I got woken up big time by experts in the field telling me that Everyone is asleep at the wheel. Selena, you need to update your knowledge to 2023. Because, as you know, I study a lot about adverse childhood experiences and how that leads to depression, anxiety later in life.
Speaker 1:And then he alluded me his name is Conrad Townsend from project paradigm.
Speaker 1:Highly recommend you look him up to the fact that what's happening online is actually a modern adversity that no one's taking any notice of.
Speaker 1:So when I really delved into that and it really sunk in my brain, I actually had to stop what I was writing and rewrite and do all the research. And then it became so alarming to me about what's actually really going on and no one's protecting children that I decided that I had to dedicate this year to activating the parent network because at the moment, currently there is no one able to keep kids safe because of lots of reasons which we might go into right now. I talk about that in my book, but just know everyone listening, if you're a parent of any child, you need to know that right now, in 2024, there is no safety online for children for lots of reasons, not just the social media, which the papers are just now coming out in JAMA pediatrics demonstrating the impact of social media on the reward system of a children's brain but on another flip side of that is the exploitation that's happening that people are not aware of and they're too ashamed to talk about it.
Speaker 1:And, as you know, I'm a mother and a neuroscientist and I have also five children between 22 and 33 and often you'll hear parents reflect back to me oh I'm glad my kids aren't having to deal with this and I'm like, but their kids are going to have it 10 times worse unless we do something like let's talk about it, let's stop putting it as difficult conversations, horrible to talk about. The more we talk about, the more we bring it out, the more we can help parents. It is on the parents and I hate to say this because I hate throwing things on parents because they're so busy and stressed but that's where it's taking place. It's taking place at home.
Speaker 2:Can I ask you this? Just to put in a practical scene, just for the listeners? So I would say that I have a pretty average monitoring of my kids Snapchat's limited to two minutes that don't have access to anything other than WhatsApp and messages Screens have to be out of their bedrooms. They've got to be off by 6pm. I think they're pretty well adjusted, they're pretty creative. They're not gamers and I'm thinking you know one's about turned 16, one's 15. Is that enough? Should I be worried?
Speaker 1:Well, I would say the advice I've been given is that you are far better off thinking it is happening to them than it's not in 2024. So it hit exponential numbers in August of 2023. Most parents think it's everyone else's children. Only 3% of parents think it's happening to their own children, when we know it's happening to probably 60 or 70% of children in Australia, where the leading country, the police, have been trying to do something about this, but can't stay on top of the caseloads too large now. So it's not just about that. It's about our wealth means children are being neglected and they have access to cash.
Speaker 1:So all the criminal gang networks around the world have worked this out, and so that's why we're being targeted, basically. But that's just one major aspect. But the other major aspect is our brains and children's brains. Between the zero and 18 and for boys it goes to the 25, when they fully develop the brains aren't tuned for this level of information that's coming at them, and it's also become hyper sexualized, and so it's become the new norm. So that's and the third thing, which you can see why I'm so passionate about making this activate the parent network is self harming. Eating disorders are on the rise, but they've become more violent because social media is showing people how to do it.
Speaker 2:It's frightening, selena. So there are three things that there I was sort of thinking well, it's about exploitation of them by third parties, but in fact that's one of a very important limits also impact their brain health, their reward systems. I guess how that's going to impact having tracked and connect in everyday life In respect of those three limbs, what's kind of standing out for you as the most important thing that we really need to handle on as parents?
Speaker 1:Wake up and smell and smell the reality and have this conversation with each other. So I've got this really difficult problem. Everyone I'm being turned off by all the networks because I'm coming out saying things that people don't want to hear, and so why I rewrote the book and made it very targeted on master parenting in the digital age, who is seeing your child really? Is it a parent or is it a fine or a fine? Who is really seeing your kids If they're on the phone for a few hours a day? Their brain's been changed by that. It's not passive, it's active, it's changing the way the brain is expressing itself. We need face-to-face interactions. We need very much. We're a social species, so that's a major issue. But for me which is what I was writing the book about but then when I discovered what I learned through Madonna King's new book Saving Our Kids, where she outlines the problem in Australia and then understanding the impact, I know that that has, how adverse childhood experiences and trauma impact the brain, and knowing that this is then rewiring a child's brain because that's all that they pay attention to for hours on a day it turns out Then immediately you're just like well, what can we do about that? So if I know.
Speaker 1:For example, I know organisations that have been talking to governments for this for seven years. We now know Congress just stood up. Mark Zuckerberg, made him turn around and apologise to parents. We know that they've known about this for a long time and, as Alan Kohler says, it's a $7 trillion industry. So who's left to look after the children? Parents it's just the parents, isn't it? Well, that's what it came down to in my mind, and I know how hard that a message it is, because they always.
Speaker 1:It's already hard being a 21st century parent with mortgages, living costs I mean, I am one I had, as you know, I was a parent with a career while I had little kids. I've lived in San Francisco. I did all of the things that we do and I did the best I could, which is also limited. But this new element and the reason 2024 is so bad is because and this is horrible five-year-olds in Australia are on porn sites. Oh gosh, that just breaks my heart.
Speaker 1:And it's because smart devices have become everywhere, yeah, which means now unlike, say, my children or whatever. My son only came into Facebook when he was 13, right, and he's now 26. But what's happening now is it's become the new normal to be out in a park and have every parent on the phone while the kids are in the playground. But the kids are trying to get their attention at the parents or in cafes where we don't like screaming children, which we used to have where you just run around the park and be fine. Now they're on phones to be quiet. Or you can be in restaurants and see so many kids on screens and they are dead quiet, yeah, and so it makes sense and I understand it from a parent point of view, because it's exhausting being a parent.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely the hardest thing I've ever done and it's exhausting. And I'm not against parents. I'm just wanting to help keep your children safe. That's all I'm trying to do is to with my book. It really is. Don't bother reading it. Just know that children are not safe online right now. Even if you just get that message, yeah, that will be enough for me to at least tell everyone, tell all your friends, that right now, having a smart device in a five year old's hand is worse than smoking a cigarette. Smoking a cigarette is safer for a five year old than a smart device in their hand.
Speaker 1:So anything we can do to spread that message word to word, mouth to mouth, one to one, I don't care, you don't need to come out and talk about it, just please pass the word. Because I trust the parent network, because I know they care about their children.
Speaker 2:Yes, the parent network is strong. And, look, I want to thank you for this message because and I want to talk also just about what you might offer up as a solution in a second but at the very least it reinforces and empowers us mums and dads that if we've got the inkling or concerns that we're just letting something go on under our roof that's out of our control, then yes, we've heard it here. You've got really good cause to enter into that battle and restrict and limit access.
Speaker 1:Yes exactly.
Speaker 2:And the consequences, the fight, the frustration which is the withdrawal from an addictive device. It will go, it will fade with time as they get used to living without it. But can I just ask this question? Selena, Just say you've managed to get through the exploitation limb, You've managed to do that. But what are the downsides to this generation that we're creating if you let them have open access to these devices? What are we raising? What are they going to come as teenagers and adults? So the first paper that just got released.
Speaker 1:last year in JAMA, Pediatrics did a longitudinal study of just the checking alone. So they did 10 to 12 year olds. They followed them for two years and they did brain imaging of their brains and demonstrated that people that were checking every hour their device for Snapchat or for whatever even messaging their friends or whatever it is change their amygdala, which is the bottom part of the brain, which we talk about a lot. That's the area they focused on and they demonstrate a complete different activation of that brain area compared to children that aren't checking their phone. So just the checking behavior itself, because of the way it changes the addictive part of the brain, is leading to more impulsivity phone or a podcast or whatever it is that we're doing. It's really hard to just sit still now. Can you imagine young brains that have been on these devices since even their mothers are on their phones while breastfeeding now?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thinking that that's okay too, but it's not because we know that's changing the hormones of the baby's brain, because baby brains are really, really, really active. Yeah, so it's just this world where no one's set any regulations or rules. The tech companies came in and they're making a bomb and the younger they're on, the better, because they're on more, they're checking more. Yeah, so that's one aspect. So that's the checking. Just the checking does something to the reward punishment part of the brain and that's been shown in a paper in Jamie pediatrics. What you'll see in my research lab is now starting studies in this area.
Speaker 1:Because of the mental health component of eating disorders self-harm I've joined the board of the Sunlight Center, which is office free counseling to kids that are self-harming, and the self-harming is becoming more violent because they're being shown how to do it online. Lots of parents understand this will resonate, but no one wants to talk about it because they feel ashamed, which I understand, yes, which is why my sister suffered her mental illness because my family didn't want to talk about it and it was considered bad. Now I understand that was incorrect. That's why I do all my work was in that space, but this new space of online has amplified that. So I understand why you don't want to talk about it. I probably wouldn't want to if I had this happen, but I probably would because of my nature, because I don't want other people to suffer. But just know that right now, the only thing you can do right now that would have the most biggest impact is just please tell people that there are no safe places online for children in 2024, that they've worked out how to get to all children through either calculator apps. You think it's a calculator? No, it's a pornographic site in the dark web.
Speaker 1:Jeez, they've worked out well. If there's money to be made, they know how to make it. They're making more money out of this than drugs. There's Google Docs messaging. There's Discord on the gaming devices. So it's not just Instagram and the traditional places. They're probably standard places. There's all these other places that kids can access that they're way beyond our understanding because they're not using it like we use it. Yeah, and they're so smart so they're doing things, and I write about this in my book. I write about all of these things that's actually happening in real life. So they're changing time zones to get around parental controls. There's just a whole lot of different things to apply like they're safe, but I'm telling you it's not safe.
Speaker 2:So there's a bit of acceptance here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just not safe. And then people say to you oh, but my kids are so smart, it's different. I've taught them all the languages and everything. I can tell you. Many children and parents have come to me and said to me but I thought he was so smart and we talk about everything. And then I discover he's lying in bed, doesn't want to get out of bed, and it's only that I could keep talking to him that I discover that he shared an image and then they extorted him for money and now he's feeling shamed.
Speaker 1:And this is in a private school. You know wealthy family because they have access to cash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So, it's not just one, it's not just. You know, people think in these spaces oh well, it's only going to be happening here, it can't be happening over here, because we have all of this education, we have all of this access to different tutors and tools and you know, schools and everything, but it's actually all children, and unfortunately, yes, kids that are most disadvantaged are getting the worst targeting. That's really sad.
Speaker 2:Look. It's a brutal but timely and important wake-up call and I'm grateful to receive it and it's all. It's already made me think I can't wait for my kids to come home so I can kind of step in a bit more. So it made us more. Changes and I imagine it's a top, top, yes, down approach of role modeling how we use our tech.
Speaker 1:I write a lot of. What can we do? Yes, I love your practical guidance here. Family tech plan Yep. So at dinner you set a plan for the whole family together and each of you are talking about what the rules are and each of you have to stick to the rules. Yeah, and so not all everyone has access to a family Situation. But if you do, and you and you do eat dinner together or start eating dinner together and no devices, have a basket for the devices and start having real face-to-face Conversations and start not asking them about the device, not asking about what they're on, none of that, avoid all those conversations. Have real conversations like how was school today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know, like open-ended conversations where you actually you know this socratic method. If there's lawyers listening, you're asking questions to bring answers, as you would in court To draw people out. You know how to do this. If your audience is mainly lawyers, then they know exactly how to do this really well. And that's where you start. And it's not inquisition, it's Parents wanting to be close to their children, to work out who they are. What have they been doing? Just re establishing that connection. So that's why it's called being seen. It means an action, make your child feel like they're being seen for who they really are. It will build their brain health and resilience. It will allow that social connection. It will allow face-to-face interactions and we now know through neuroscience of two this new area of research that just opened up through Dr Joy Hirsch's work at Yale that basically we've shown face-to-face interact. She's shown face-to-face Interactions allow interbrain synchrony and connection, whereas if we're online it's the brain's not activated in the same way, so you lose the dorsal stream activation of your body.
Speaker 1:And so when you're at this dinner table, through food or driving side by side, you offer opportunities just to have really, we just don't want any policing or because then that will just drive underground, yeah, and, and you know that doesn't work. So it's about Awareness and then tiny little strategies when they they start to feel like, oh, they actually want to know About what's happening in my life, or, yeah, it's that reconnection, it's being seen. That is the fundamental nature of the idea I was writing about anyway, about how, when you really see and connect with your child for who that person actually is and not your idolized version of what you'd like that child to be, it will totally change their brain health and then they won't need have the need for likes and followers and they won't have the same need. And then we, and then that connection builds so much power because then you find all these opportunities to reconnect to new ways, like new activities new that are away from screens and all of that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So it's a follow-on activity, but I say that one feels to me like a very natural place to begin, where it's not threatening to anybody and it just you know what I mean. It just starts yeah.
Speaker 2:And have you noticed that there's a bit of a A withdrawal period where you're kind of cutting the the circuitry there for the impulsivity Reach and grab? I mean I do it, yeah, but I imagine it's good for everybody. Yeah, who's that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got it. That's it's actually with all for sure. Yeah, and there's also these other strategies now where you can have Places for charging. No, but the next major thing, if people are listening, if you really want to something, make sure the phones and screens are not in Bedrooms and bathrooms, because that's where most of it's happening. It's red alert. Yeah, red alert. That one is should be a ban from bathrooms in bedrooms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can I thank you for coming on this podcast, so just talking so openly about this, this important message has to be heard, as we spoke just a little bit before we hit record. You know, we've got cigarettes, we've got vaping, but we've actually got this big silent elephant and it literally is silent which is our kids in their rooms, on their screens and with all those three pillars that we spoke about In terms of negative impacts. But this can only you know this. This family tech plan can only be of benefit for the entire unit and I guess it's never too late to start.
Speaker 1:Selena you know, never do you think? It's just think it's just as he said to me Selena, make sure you let them all know, just pretend it is happening to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and that way you'll put everything in place when it won't happen to them. Or if it is happening to them, you're going to find out early, or if it's, if it has happened to them, you're going to find out, and then you can put in all the protective factors to so they're not dealing with it on their own, and all sorts of other things. All of those things are beautiful for your children.
Speaker 2:Thank you, selena. Being seen, it's the book that every parent needs to have. Uh, it's not about shaming or making your life harder. It's actually going to be harder in the long run unless you nip it in the bud early. It's about how to make your children feel truly sane by you, how this visibility can lay the groundwork for their well-being. So now, where can the people jump and grab this book?
Speaker 1:Well, so it's on everywhere. It's, uh, everywhere. It's like amazon kindle. I've just made it's on my website, which you put the link on, uh, professor's profselina Bartlett com. It's going to be available in bookshops if you ask for it. It'll be distributed to bookshops around Australia. I'll be running events wherever I can. I really want to activate the parent network, so Anyone that will have me speak, please Reach out to me, because we it's a really urgent Emergency alarm that we need to set off in Australia. So we're not the leading country for exploitation of our children.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful. Thanks again, selena. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed the content, please don't forget to rate, subscribe or leave a review about this podcast. These three things really help to get this podcast out to people that might need to hear it. You can find me at wwwisabellafergussoncomau. Jump on my website. Check out all the resources I've got there about alcohol, stress and burnout. You can also book in a free introductory call. It's a 30 minute confidential chat. If you are looking for a counselor or a coach to support you to drink less or to manage your stress, I'm always here to chat. If you've got a question, please do not hesitate to reach out. I hope you have a really good day. See you later.
