It's their Happy Families podcast.

It's their Happy Families podcast.

It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just wants answers Now.

It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just wants answers Now.

A few months ago, on The Happy Family's podcast, we talked about the proposed social media bands for children under the age of sixteen. If you missed the news on Friday, those bands were rushed through federal Parliament with bipartisan support. The opposition joined with the government to make sure that the bands, or the legislation for the bands would be carried it has been. Now I want to highlight at the outset this legislation. I think has been rushed. There are definitely some concerns with it, so much so that the National Children's Commissioner, Ann Hollands has written publicly about those concerns. Nevertheless, nevertheless, I think that they've done the right thing. Those other concerns can be sorted out in the wake in the aftermath of this. I know that there are concerns about government overreach. They've got to make sure they get this right so that adults are not penalized. We've got to be protecting children anyway. Like I said a little while ago, we discussed the proposed social media bands on the podcast, it's still relevant everything that I said I still agree with and I wanted to replay that episode for you to help you to consider how those new laws are going to affect your family. Twelve months till it all kicks off, but this will give you a good idea of what we're now in for. Australian kids are going to be blocked from social media until they reach a certain age under a national plant. It's target growing concerns around its impacts on young minds. Today, our conversation on the Happy Families podcast is about what the olben Ezy government is committing to in terms of legislation on social media age limits. This stems from South Australia's Peter Melanascus I hope he said said his name correctly making a lot of noise about this recently, there's been a lot of campaigns. I've been pushing it pretty hard myself and today on the podcast a conversation about this. There are some people who have compared potential restrictions on the technology to cigarettes and alcohol, because we're seeing more and more evidence that as social media is harmful to children. I was on a Current Affair with Ali Langdon and a bunch of other people last Tuesday night, and I want to share with you some clips from that as we go through this. But first off, a couple of things around this. We already do have social media age limits. It's supposed to be thirteen and up. The thing is nobody's keeping it. Nobody's well, I shouldn't say nobody. The overwhelming majority of people are not sticking with those age limits. I had a dad recently who had a seven year old on TikTok, and dad said, is that okay? Or should I get them off? I was like, no, no, no, they need to be off. There is a reason that thirteen is the minimum age for access to these social platforms. And unfortunately that reason, while it's thirteen is better than seven, it's got nothing to do with your children's well being. It's got nothing to do with your children's cognitive or psychological or emotional capacity to deal with what's happening on social media. If we were taking those things into consideration, a lot of adults would not be allowed on social media. So why the age of thirteen as it now exists. Let's start there. Back in the late nineteen nineties, before social media was a thing, the tech companies were lobbying the United States Congress. Most of the tech companies, of course, are based in the United States. They were lobbying Congress because the US Congress is where the legislative requirements for what they do are centered around what the age of Internet maturity should be. And Congress basically said, well, what are you asking for, And they said, well, we're going to be collecting personal data about the people who are using our products when they're using them on the Internet, on this new world Wide Web thing that's been developed. Congress said, well, age of a data collection for personal private details should probably be somewhere between sixteen and eighteen. And the lobbyists, because they have deep pockets and because not all politicians are focused primarily on what is the common good, Well, the lobbyists one and the age of twelve was decided, so twelve and under not allowed to collect data. Thirteen and up. Tech companies collect data. That's the only reason at thirteen is the number that's been selected. Of course, over time we've seen massive changes in technology and social media is at the very core of this conversation. What's cure is to me around this is that we've decided, thanks to people like Jonathan Hate who wrote The Anxious Generation, and many other people who have been waving the flag and saying this is bad for our kids. We've decided that that age needs to be lifted, but we don't really have great information, We don't have great evidence for what it should be. The federal government has bipartisan support on raising the age. That is Anthony Alberenzi and the Labor Party have Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party on board. That's fantastic, right. It means that whoever gets voted in next year, we're going to start to see some changes around this regardless. And on an issue like this, this shouldn't come down to politics. This should come down to the safety of our children. So well done to both the major parties on this particular issue. The issue though, becomes what a is going to be the legal requirement, and that has not been identified. Neither the opposition nor the government have told us that, but the whispers are that it's going to be somewhere around about sixteen. Now. Our experience in our happy families family with me and Kylie and our six daughters has told us that this is a thing. We can look at data all day long and darted certainly points in the direction that some children really do struggle and suffer as a result of social media. But when we've watched what happens with our children, I think that's been the big thing. I said this on a current affair. The American thinker and writer and academic Jonathan Hayite wrote a book called The Anxious Generation, and in that book he talks about how, over the last couple of decades, we've moved from what you would call a play based childhood to a screen based childhood, and what, unfortunately we see across our young people is a decline in well being because they really truly believe that they're getting their needs met by being on that screen. It's a hollow imitation, but it makes them feel so good in the moment, and so any parent who's trying to have some sort of boundaries and limits around this will come up against tremendous opposition because to the kids, it just feels so so good. What we've seen in our family and in the families of those that we're close to, is that kids get less sleep. They're sleep deprived, so they're more moody and irritable. They're more likely to be withdrawn. They're less likely to be social and engaged with the family or even with their friends. The connections that they have online are shallow and hollow relative to the connections that we have face to face and in real life rather than in the virtual world. There's academic outcomes, there's an academic slide when kids are focused on their screen. And every parent that I talk to, literally every parent says, yeah, attitude changes when the kids have been on screens too long. When they go outside and they get some nature into their lives, they suddenly become nicer people. I think that I would sum it up by saying, there is an urgency around protecting young minds, and that's why this legislation matters. I feel like we've lost the generation. Does it discriminate or is everybody affected you there's a huge amount of discrimination. What research seems to show, and it's fairly fledgling research, it's quite nascent, but research seems to show that kids who have a really strong, positive, healthy life outside the screen seem to do reasonably well when they're on screens as well. But kids who have any kinds of offscreen struggles, they retreat to their screens and that only amplifies and exacerbates the offscreen struggles, but it also invites a whole lot of other challenges because they're so embedded in their screen life, their social media life. Yeah, a lot of people, and this was one of the things that came up on a current affair. I want to play you this snippet. Well, I'd love to bring in Gabby and Matilda here. I want you to explain to me your relationship with social media and your phone.

A few months ago, on The Happy Family's podcast, we talked about the proposed social media bands for children under the age of sixteen. If you missed the news on Friday, those bands were rushed through federal Parliament with bipartisan support. The opposition joined with the government to make sure that the bands, or the legislation for the bands would be carried it has been. Now I want to highlight at the outset this legislation. I think has been rushed. There are definitely some concerns with it, so much so that the National Children's Commissioner, Ann Hollands has written publicly about those concerns. Nevertheless, nevertheless, I think that they've done the right thing. Those other concerns can be sorted out in the wake in the aftermath of this. I know that there are concerns about government overreach. They've got to make sure they get this right so that adults are not penalized. We've got to be protecting children anyway. Like I said a little while ago, we discussed the proposed social media bands on the podcast, it's still relevant everything that I said I still agree with and I wanted to replay that episode for you to help you to consider how those new laws are going to affect your family. Twelve months till it all kicks off, but this will give you a good idea of what we're now in for. Australian kids are going to be blocked from social media until they reach a certain age under a national plant. It's target growing concerns around its impacts on young minds. Today, our conversation on the Happy Families podcast is about what the olben Ezy government is committing to in terms of legislation on social media age limits. This stems from South Australia's Peter Melanascus I hope he said said his name correctly making a lot of noise about this recently, there's been a lot of campaigns. I've been pushing it pretty hard myself and today on the podcast a conversation about this. There are some people who have compared potential restrictions on the technology to cigarettes and alcohol, because we're seeing more and more evidence that as social media is harmful to children. I was on a Current Affair with Ali Langdon and a bunch of other people last Tuesday night, and I want to share with you some clips from that as we go through this. But first off, a couple of things around this. We already do have social media age limits. It's supposed to be thirteen and up. The thing is nobody's keeping it. Nobody's well, I shouldn't say nobody. The overwhelming majority of people are not sticking with those age limits. I had a dad recently who had a seven year old on TikTok, and dad said, is that okay? Or should I get them off? I was like, no, no, no, they need to be off. There is a reason that thirteen is the minimum age for access to these social platforms. And unfortunately that reason, while it's thirteen is better than seven, it's got nothing to do with your children's well being. It's got nothing to do with your children's cognitive or psychological or emotional capacity to deal with what's happening on social media. If we were taking those things into consideration, a lot of adults would not be allowed on social media. So why the age of thirteen as it now exists. Let's start there. Back in the late nineteen nineties, before social media was a thing, the tech companies were lobbying the United States Congress. Most of the tech companies, of course, are based in the United States. They were lobbying Congress because the US Congress is where the legislative requirements for what they do are centered around what the age of Internet maturity should be. And Congress basically said, well, what are you asking for, And they said, well, we're going to be collecting personal data about the people who are using our products when they're using them on the Internet, on this new world Wide Web thing that's been developed. Congress said, well, age of a data collection for personal private details should probably be somewhere between sixteen and eighteen. And the lobbyists, because they have deep pockets and because not all politicians are focused primarily on what is the common good, Well, the lobbyists one and the age of twelve was decided, so twelve and under not allowed to collect data. Thirteen and up. Tech companies collect data. That's the only reason at thirteen is the number that's been selected. Of course, over time we've seen massive changes in technology and social media is at the very core of this conversation. What's cure is to me around this is that we've decided, thanks to people like Jonathan Hate who wrote The Anxious Generation, and many other people who have been waving the flag and saying this is bad for our kids. We've decided that that age needs to be lifted, but we don't really have great information, We don't have great evidence for what it should be. The federal government has bipartisan support on raising the age. That is Anthony Alberenzi and the Labor Party have Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party on board. That's fantastic, right. It means that whoever gets voted in next year, we're going to start to see some changes around this regardless. And on an issue like this, this shouldn't come down to politics. This should come down to the safety of our children. So well done to both the major parties on this particular issue. The issue though, becomes what a is going to be the legal requirement, and that has not been identified. Neither the opposition nor the government have told us that, but the whispers are that it's going to be somewhere around about sixteen. Now. Our experience in our happy families family with me and Kylie and our six daughters has told us that this is a thing. We can look at data all day long and darted certainly points in the direction that some children really do struggle and suffer as a result of social media. But when we've watched what happens with our children, I think that's been the big thing. I said this on a current affair. The American thinker and writer and academic Jonathan Hayite wrote a book called The Anxious Generation, and in that book he talks about how, over the last couple of decades, we've moved from what you would call a play based childhood to a screen based childhood, and what, unfortunately we see across our young people is a decline in well being because they really truly believe that they're getting their needs met by being on that screen. It's a hollow imitation, but it makes them feel so good in the moment, and so any parent who's trying to have some sort of boundaries and limits around this will come up against tremendous opposition because to the kids, it just feels so so good. What we've seen in our family and in the families of those that we're close to, is that kids get less sleep. They're sleep deprived, so they're more moody and irritable. They're more likely to be withdrawn. They're less likely to be social and engaged with the family or even with their friends. The connections that they have online are shallow and hollow relative to the connections that we have face to face and in real life rather than in the virtual world. There's academic outcomes, there's an academic slide when kids are focused on their screen. And every parent that I talk to, literally every parent says, yeah, attitude changes when the kids have been on screens too long. When they go outside and they get some nature into their lives, they suddenly become nicer people. I think that I would sum it up by saying, there is an urgency around protecting young minds, and that's why this legislation matters. I feel like we've lost the generation. Does it discriminate or is everybody affected you there's a huge amount of discrimination. What research seems to show, and it's fairly fledgling research, it's quite nascent, but research seems to show that kids who have a really strong, positive, healthy life outside the screen seem to do reasonably well when they're on screens as well. But kids who have any kinds of offscreen struggles, they retreat to their screens and that only amplifies and exacerbates the offscreen struggles, but it also invites a whole lot of other challenges because they're so embedded in their screen life, their social media life. Yeah, a lot of people, and this was one of the things that came up on a current affair. I want to play you this snippet. Well, I'd love to bring in Gabby and Matilda here. I want you to explain to me your relationship with social media and your phone.

I think, honestly, I'm pretty good relationship with social media on my phone. Obviously, it is a big part of my life, as it is a lot of other young people. But I think the main use that I use it for is connecting with my friends and family, and I think that it allows me to have that connection even if I'm not physically there with them.

I think, honestly, I'm pretty good relationship with social media on my phone. Obviously, it is a big part of my life, as it is a lot of other young people. But I think the main use that I use it for is connecting with my friends and family, and I think that it allows me to have that connection even if I'm not physically there with them.

So, Gabby, do you think you have a healthy relationship with social media.

So, Gabby, do you think you have a healthy relationship with social media.

I think it's fairly healthy. I do use my phone quite a bit, but I do set limits on there as well, because I know I need to try to regulate myself. I mean, every now and then I do find myself in that dreaded doom scroll and just scrolling and only just that, but I think it's mostly healthy. Yeah, I'm mostly just talking to friends having a good time.

I think it's fairly healthy. I do use my phone quite a bit, but I do set limits on there as well, because I know I need to try to regulate myself. I mean, every now and then I do find myself in that dreaded doom scroll and just scrolling and only just that, but I think it's mostly healthy. Yeah, I'm mostly just talking to friends having a good time.

Now.

Now.

When I listen to those two wonderful girls, what I hear stories of self regulation. I hear examples of self awareness and a willingness to pause, think about the way that these tools and technologies are being used, and then be intentional moving forward. They're really good examples of why this ban or why this change might be problematic. And I want to, like, I'm really upfront about it. I don't think that this is necessary for everybody, in the same way that I don't think that gambling laws are necessary for everybody, or alcohol laws are necessary for everybody. Why because there's plenty of people that honestly, they love to gamble. I mean, I think gambling it's not for me. I've never even put a dollar into the Poky's or had a punt on the Melbourne Cup. I'm not a gambler. I've got other things that I would rather do with my cash. But I know several people who gamble. They love it, and they don't have a problem with it. There's no there's no hiding, there's no huge financial loss. They really they set aside some money and they go to the casino or they go to the races and they have fun and it makes it more fun for them. I get that. I don't endorse it, I don't encourage it, but I get it. And it's the same with alcohol. In spite of that, though, we still have laws around that. Why because we know that harm is done to too great a percentage of the population if we don't have laws. An obstacle to the laws is that many people can do it safely and it's unfair for them. I get that when it's well used, it makes sense, but we've got to draw a line in the sand. And when we draw that line in the sand, it gives parents the power to say to their kids, I know you want this, I know it matters to you, but guess what the government said, No, it's actually against the law. Another obstacle is that big tech are probably going to mount legal challenges to it. The technology is everywhere, it's pervasive, so it's going to be really hard to get people off. It's to be it's going to be one of those things that's a really big challenge, and parents are going to have to be responsible, I mean, enforceability on this is going to be very, very tricky. I believe that what's really going to be necessary is that technology will need to be developed once the legislation is passed, where there's some sort of neutral third party so that we're not giving our personal details to the tech platforms, but there's a government built technology third party platform that communicates with the tech platforms. So we prove our identity through the government platform, and then the government sends through the little blue tick or the little green tick to the tech platform that says this person is who they say they are and they are of age to me. That's what I think the tech will needs to be. That's going to take years to develop, which means that we still have to deal with this stuff at home in our living rooms with our kids until this gets sorted out. The thing is this matters. I mean, this really matters for the well being of our children and young people. This matters. Social media is the new smoking, and just like it took decades for all the data to be collected so that we could really look at this and say smoking is killing people, this is bad for you, It's going to take a while yet before we have all the data that we need to move in this direction, but I throw a big haymaker on a current affair. This is what I had to say about what the tech company is responsible for. I can't help but think that Zuckerberg and the CEOs, the titans of social media industry, are responsible for more human suffering among our young people today than pretty much at any point in human history. I just don't think that there's been any kind of technology that's created this level of suffering in our youth. It's absolutely abysmal. And if I can say this a little bit directly, our feckless politicians who have allowed this to happen at a global level have got a lot of it, a lot to answer for as well the lack of legislation around this. We're just going to introduce this thing and will find proof of harm later. I think that we need to be able to prove that there's a good here before we let people just go for it. And these stories, especially Kim's story, highlight what so many parents are telling me, and that is that social media as a general issue is absolutely at the heart out of so much sleep deprivation, so much conflict, so much school avoidance, so much bullying, so much mental health challenge, and the list goes on and on and on. Jonathan Hate says this best when he describes in his book The Anxious Generation that we've moved from a play based childhood to a screen based childhood, and obviously I emphasize that on a current affair as well. Beyond this, though, there are a couple of other things that we need to consider, and I really hope the government are going to do this. They've indicated that they want to hold tech companies accountable for the full spectrum of harm that happens on social media platforms because they facilitate and allow scams and fake news and body shaming and other harmful practices that I won't go into in this podcast. I want to keep it reasonably light. I know it's a very policy discussion today. It's a bit wonky from a policy perspective, but the government is doing the right thing here. I don't really like government interference. Really think that people should be left to make up their own mind about most things and make their own decisions as much as possible. But I also recognize that there is a need for government intervention and if companies cannot adhere to appropriate practices, that consider the well being of our population. We need to make sure that there are rules for those who are going to conduct business in Australia. They're going to take responsibility for the social and the commercial damage that they cause, the emotional, the psychological damage that they cause. I just think this matters so much. So what do we do right now? Is there anything else that I need to bring up and talk about? Just two things beyond those age limits, which is what I've just talked about. What I would encourage you to do as a parent is to jump online and send an email, like literally a three line email to your government representative and just say I heard this on a podcast, I read it in the news. I just want to say I'm right behind this. I want to see this happen for the safety of my kids and for the safety of our society's kids. If you just send them that email, it will take you about two minutes to do it. Just that will make a difference. Why because it raises their awareness of what their constituency wants. In addition, though, because this will take a while, it's got to be legislated. The legislation has got to be built, it's got to be put together. Well, there's going to be challenges to it. Once it finally gets through, technology is going to have to be developed. This will not be a quick thing. This is going to take a few years a few years to get off the ground. In the meantime, we've got to protect our kids, which means that while we need government to do the heavy lifting around the legislative challenges, we've actually got to put it into place in our homes. That tells me that if you've got a seven year old that wants to be on TikTok, you need to say no, or if you've got a twelve year old, say no. I've got a website where I'm not trying to sell you anything. It's literally just a website that says we need to unplugged childhood. The website's called Unplugged Childhood dot org. I'll link to it in the show notes. Unplug childhood dot org. A couple of really simple principles that are there. Number One, we want to remember that kids don't need smart phones, they need smart parents, and smart parents give their kids dumb phones. Your children don't need to be on social media, they don't need to have all of the functionality and accessibility of a supercomputer in their pocket. They just need a dumb phone if you're concerned for their safety or you want them to be able to contact you if something's going on and they're not going to be in your presence. Number two, keep kids off social media for as long as you can. I would recommend that you just practice the delayed principle. Talk to them about the things that I've talked about on the podcast today and let them know you want them to wait until they're at least thirteen, but you prefer it to be fourteen or fifteen or sixteen, and you might even come up with some incentives in some ways that you can help them to do that and still feel like they're not missing out, because that fear of missing out is massive, Which brings me to the third and final point. The easiest way to do that is to build a great community with the other parents that are involved, the parents who are the parents of kids You're children are friends with. Gee I said that in a challenging way. Let me try that again. Your kids' friends. Talk to their parents, create some community, get to know them, send them texts, arrange for the kids to get together, send them down to the park, make sure that everybody knows where they are, give them some freedom, let them go back to a play based childhood for as long as possible. That's what I was trying to say. More information is available at Unplugged childhood dot org. Look, this is a good news story. It's going to take a while. I don't think anything's going to happen in a hurry. But we've got a government who is finally saying we will stand up to technology companies. We will legislate, We're going to stop being feckless. We're going to stop cow telling to the big tech and start doing something to protect children and young people. There will be people who are opposed to it, and they'll make good arguments, many of which I'm sympathetic to. But ultimately I think that the greater good, the common good of our children, needs to come first. And that's where we're up to right now. In terms of this news. Tomorrow on the Pod school Readiness how to prep your kids for big school if you've got a little one who is off for their first year of school next year, we're talking with Zoe Rag. Zoe Rags, an educator who specializes in this very thing. That's on the Happy Families podcast, which is produced by Justin Rulin from Bridge Media.

When I listen to those two wonderful girls, what I hear stories of self regulation. I hear examples of self awareness and a willingness to pause, think about the way that these tools and technologies are being used, and then be intentional moving forward. They're really good examples of why this ban or why this change might be problematic. And I want to, like, I'm really upfront about it. I don't think that this is necessary for everybody, in the same way that I don't think that gambling laws are necessary for everybody, or alcohol laws are necessary for everybody. Why because there's plenty of people that honestly, they love to gamble. I mean, I think gambling it's not for me. I've never even put a dollar into the Poky's or had a punt on the Melbourne Cup. I'm not a gambler. I've got other things that I would rather do with my cash. But I know several people who gamble. They love it, and they don't have a problem with it. There's no there's no hiding, there's no huge financial loss. They really they set aside some money and they go to the casino or they go to the races and they have fun and it makes it more fun for them. I get that. I don't endorse it, I don't encourage it, but I get it. And it's the same with alcohol. In spite of that, though, we still have laws around that. Why because we know that harm is done to too great a percentage of the population if we don't have laws. An obstacle to the laws is that many people can do it safely and it's unfair for them. I get that when it's well used, it makes sense, but we've got to draw a line in the sand. And when we draw that line in the sand, it gives parents the power to say to their kids, I know you want this, I know it matters to you, but guess what the government said, No, it's actually against the law. Another obstacle is that big tech are probably going to mount legal challenges to it. The technology is everywhere, it's pervasive, so it's going to be really hard to get people off. It's to be it's going to be one of those things that's a really big challenge, and parents are going to have to be responsible, I mean, enforceability on this is going to be very, very tricky. I believe that what's really going to be necessary is that technology will need to be developed once the legislation is passed, where there's some sort of neutral third party so that we're not giving our personal details to the tech platforms, but there's a government built technology third party platform that communicates with the tech platforms. So we prove our identity through the government platform, and then the government sends through the little blue tick or the little green tick to the tech platform that says this person is who they say they are and they are of age to me. That's what I think the tech will needs to be. That's going to take years to develop, which means that we still have to deal with this stuff at home in our living rooms with our kids until this gets sorted out. The thing is this matters. I mean, this really matters for the well being of our children and young people. This matters. Social media is the new smoking, and just like it took decades for all the data to be collected so that we could really look at this and say smoking is killing people, this is bad for you, It's going to take a while yet before we have all the data that we need to move in this direction, but I throw a big haymaker on a current affair. This is what I had to say about what the tech company is responsible for. I can't help but think that Zuckerberg and the CEOs, the titans of social media industry, are responsible for more human suffering among our young people today than pretty much at any point in human history. I just don't think that there's been any kind of technology that's created this level of suffering in our youth. It's absolutely abysmal. And if I can say this a little bit directly, our feckless politicians who have allowed this to happen at a global level have got a lot of it, a lot to answer for as well the lack of legislation around this. We're just going to introduce this thing and will find proof of harm later. I think that we need to be able to prove that there's a good here before we let people just go for it. And these stories, especially Kim's story, highlight what so many parents are telling me, and that is that social media as a general issue is absolutely at the heart out of so much sleep deprivation, so much conflict, so much school avoidance, so much bullying, so much mental health challenge, and the list goes on and on and on. Jonathan Hate says this best when he describes in his book The Anxious Generation that we've moved from a play based childhood to a screen based childhood, and obviously I emphasize that on a current affair as well. Beyond this, though, there are a couple of other things that we need to consider, and I really hope the government are going to do this. They've indicated that they want to hold tech companies accountable for the full spectrum of harm that happens on social media platforms because they facilitate and allow scams and fake news and body shaming and other harmful practices that I won't go into in this podcast. I want to keep it reasonably light. I know it's a very policy discussion today. It's a bit wonky from a policy perspective, but the government is doing the right thing here. I don't really like government interference. Really think that people should be left to make up their own mind about most things and make their own decisions as much as possible. But I also recognize that there is a need for government intervention and if companies cannot adhere to appropriate practices, that consider the well being of our population. We need to make sure that there are rules for those who are going to conduct business in Australia. They're going to take responsibility for the social and the commercial damage that they cause, the emotional, the psychological damage that they cause. I just think this matters so much. So what do we do right now? Is there anything else that I need to bring up and talk about? Just two things beyond those age limits, which is what I've just talked about. What I would encourage you to do as a parent is to jump online and send an email, like literally a three line email to your government representative and just say I heard this on a podcast, I read it in the news. I just want to say I'm right behind this. I want to see this happen for the safety of my kids and for the safety of our society's kids. If you just send them that email, it will take you about two minutes to do it. Just that will make a difference. Why because it raises their awareness of what their constituency wants. In addition, though, because this will take a while, it's got to be legislated. The legislation has got to be built, it's got to be put together. Well, there's going to be challenges to it. Once it finally gets through, technology is going to have to be developed. This will not be a quick thing. This is going to take a few years a few years to get off the ground. In the meantime, we've got to protect our kids, which means that while we need government to do the heavy lifting around the legislative challenges, we've actually got to put it into place in our homes. That tells me that if you've got a seven year old that wants to be on TikTok, you need to say no, or if you've got a twelve year old, say no. I've got a website where I'm not trying to sell you anything. It's literally just a website that says we need to unplugged childhood. The website's called Unplugged Childhood dot org. I'll link to it in the show notes. Unplug childhood dot org. A couple of really simple principles that are there. Number One, we want to remember that kids don't need smart phones, they need smart parents, and smart parents give their kids dumb phones. Your children don't need to be on social media, they don't need to have all of the functionality and accessibility of a supercomputer in their pocket. They just need a dumb phone if you're concerned for their safety or you want them to be able to contact you if something's going on and they're not going to be in your presence. Number two, keep kids off social media for as long as you can. I would recommend that you just practice the delayed principle. Talk to them about the things that I've talked about on the podcast today and let them know you want them to wait until they're at least thirteen, but you prefer it to be fourteen or fifteen or sixteen, and you might even come up with some incentives in some ways that you can help them to do that and still feel like they're not missing out, because that fear of missing out is massive, Which brings me to the third and final point. The easiest way to do that is to build a great community with the other parents that are involved, the parents who are the parents of kids You're children are friends with. Gee I said that in a challenging way. Let me try that again. Your kids' friends. Talk to their parents, create some community, get to know them, send them texts, arrange for the kids to get together, send them down to the park, make sure that everybody knows where they are, give them some freedom, let them go back to a play based childhood for as long as possible. That's what I was trying to say. More information is available at Unplugged childhood dot org. Look, this is a good news story. It's going to take a while. I don't think anything's going to happen in a hurry. But we've got a government who is finally saying we will stand up to technology companies. We will legislate, We're going to stop being feckless. We're going to stop cow telling to the big tech and start doing something to protect children and young people. There will be people who are opposed to it, and they'll make good arguments, many of which I'm sympathetic to. But ultimately I think that the greater good, the common good of our children, needs to come first. And that's where we're up to right now. In terms of this news. Tomorrow on the Pod school Readiness how to prep your kids for big school if you've got a little one who is off for their first year of school next year, we're talking with Zoe Rag. Zoe Rags, an educator who specializes in this very thing. That's on the Happy Families podcast, which is produced by Justin Rulin from Bridge Media.