Transcript for
When is the right time? Navigating smartphone use with children

VO (00:02):

Welcome to the Emerging Minds Families podcast.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (00:05):

Hi, I am Nadia Rossi and you’re listening to an Emerging Minds Families podcast. Before we start today’s episode, we would like to pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We also pay respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their ancestors and elders past, present, and emerging from the different First Nations across Australia.

(00:34):

When is the right time to give your child a smartphone? This is a question that a lot of parents ask themselves and something that has been widely debated amongst researchers, health practitioners, educators, and politicians. Research now shows us that children under the age of 13 with access to their own smartphone, with social media can show higher rates of mental health difficulties. But for parents, delaying our children’s access to these devices can be easier said than done.

(01:04):

In today’s episode, I’m speaking with Dany Elachi, founder of the Heads Up Alliance, a grassroots organisation supporting parents who want to delay smartphones and social media for their children. Dany is here to help us wade through the complex issue of smartphone use in our children and young people. And we are going to talk about how building a supportive community can help parents navigate some of these challenges.

(01:29):

Welcome, Dany. It is great to speak with you today. Thanks for joining us.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (01:33):

Thank you, Nadia. It’s a pleasure to be with you,

Nadia Rossi (Host) (01:35):

Dany, at Emerging Minds Families, we acknowledge that families come in many forms. So I was wondering if we could start today’s conversation by you telling us a bit about who makes up your family.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (01:46):

Well, my immediate family is a family of seven, my wife and our five children. Our eldest is turning 16 next month actually.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (01:54):

Wow.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (01:55):

And our youngest is only eight.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (01:57):

It’s a big family.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (01:58):

Yeah, we had our children in quick succession.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (02:01):

Yeah, I can imagine what an amazing household you would have with all of the kids and everything.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (02:06):

Chaotic and crazy, but as you know, children are an absolute blessing and we try not to take for granted the beauty and the chaos.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (02:14):

Absolutely. That’s it. It’s the beauty and the chaos. I love that. I did want to talk about your family because I feel like the beginning of your story with the Heads Up Alliance does start with one of your family members, your daughter, Alia, is really where this all began. So if you can take us through the journey of her receiving her first phone and what happened after that.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (02:36):

Sure. So the story is not going to be extraordinary. Sometimes people tell me it’s amazing. I think it happens in nearly every home in the world when your child reaches an age. In our case, it was at the age of 10 when she really, really starts insisting that it’s time for her to have her first smartphone. And using those dreaded words, “I’m the only one in my class who doesn’t.” And they’re the words that really push parents into giving smartphones or access to social media perhaps earlier than we would ordinarily like.

(03:08):

So she did use those magic words with my wife and I. And even though we had some reservations after a few weeks of her really pleading, pleading her case very well I have to say, but that argument of, “Well, I’m the only one and if I don’t get a phone, I’ll be left out and I won’t have any friends.” It’s hard. And so despite our better judgement , we did give her a smartphone. We all have smartphones lying around, so it’s not a difficult thing to do, is it? You just, there’s one in a drawer somewhere that has been lying there for a while and you just think, “Well, okay, here you go.”

(03:39):

And we had those conversations, of course. “We don’t want you using it in your bedroom. We don’t want you using it unless your homework’s done. We don’t want it stopping you from having relationships with your siblings.” And we didn’t even let her have any social media. I mean, that was one of the main rules was there’s not going to be any social media. So we laid down all those rules and whatnot. But of course these gadgets, they’re designed to suck up every spare moment of your day. They certainly do that with me. Many adults I know, but somehow my wife and I thought, “Well, maybe Alia is going to do better than what we can.” It was quite optimistic thinking in hindsight.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (04:17):

Understandable.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (04:18):

So we handed over to her and then within the space of a few weeks, it didn’t take very long for her to playing less with her siblings, to spend more time in her bedroom with her phone of course. And so we’d be constantly dragging her out, “Come and join the rest of the family. Mum’s got something that she’d like you to help with. Or why don’t you come outside and kick the ball around with your siblings?”

(04:41):

She used to be such an avid reader. And in those very few weeks we quickly saw that the books can’t compete with a shiny smartphone. And this is without having Instagram or TikTok. It was enough that she had Duolingo or just messaging apps. Messaging apps alone was a big problem. Fortunately for my wife and either phone malfunctioned and it was about a couple of months after we had given her the phone. And so obviously we then had to face the question, do we buy her a new one or do we take the opportunity to reverse course?

(05:14):

And so we took the hard road and decided, “No, this is a blessing. Her phone has now malfunctioned. We’re going to use this opportunity to have a conversation and say that we’ve seen enough. That this little gadget is just, it’s not your fault.” It wasn’t her fault. “It’s just how it’s designed. It’s meant to addict you and we don’t want your childhood spent on a smartphone.” And as difficult as that conversation was, and she did cry herself to sleep for many, many nights. And my wife and I were this close to giving in and getting her that new smartphone. But we stuck with it.

(05:50):

We said, the line I share with people now is that we preferred a few nights of tears now to perhaps a lifetime of tears later. And it’s a slight exaggeration perhaps, but not in some cases. In some cases when having early access to a smartphone leads to very serious consequences, it’s not an exaggeration. So that was the line we took.

(06:12):

But we also, I mean obviously we’re parents and watching or hearing your daughter being so upset is not an easy thing for us to listen to. So my wife and I just thought, “Why don’t we reach out to other families in her grade and ask them if they also wanted to delay smartphones with us so that she doesn’t feel like she was the only one in the world?” Because that’s what was making her so upset? She thought, “Everybody else is having so much fun on these apps, sharing pictures, sharing stories, organising things, and I’m not privy to it.” And I think that was the real difficult thing for her to feel that she was missing out.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (06:51):

And isn’t that interesting? You’ve got these devices or these apps that at their crux were invented to bring connection together, to connect us, but actually what they’re doing is separating us?

Dany Elachi (Guest) (07:00):

I absolutely agree. I mean, it is called social media. And it’s got the veneer of connectedness, but it really is anti-social media because it certainly disconnects you from the people that matter the most, and that is your family and your close friends. And it does this to us adults as well. And it gives us the impression that it’s connecting us to the world, but it’s really isolating us. But it’s hard for adults to see that. It’s almost impossible for a child to see that deeply into what’s actually happening.

(07:29):

But you’re right, it is ultimately disconnection. And it’s that disconnection that at a crucial time of a child development when really, they should be more connected than ever. There are statistics now stuff that breaks your heart that Australian teens or teens generally in the world, that age group now is more lonely than even elderly people. You might expect that elderly people who may have lost some friends along life’s journey and are no longer in the workforce, whatever, might be the loneliest cohort. And they used to be, but in fact even lonelier than them now are our teens. And that’s not how life should be.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (08:05):

No.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (08:06):

Your teens should be the fullest, most enjoyable, most optimistic period of any person’s life. And somehow we’ve flipped that on its head. And if that alone isn’t cause for us to sit up and listen, I don’t know what is. But yeah, you’re right. It certainly disconnected her from us as her parents, and it gave her less time to connect with her own siblings and with neighbours.

(08:27):

We are fortunate. We live very close to a park. And one of the most wonderful things I’ve been lucky to observe as a parent is the neighbourhood children and our children sharing those spaces. And we quickly saw that if we continued down this path, that she was not going to enjoy that aspect of her childhood as much as she was previously.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (08:47):

I was going to ask, what changes did you see in her? I mean, once you got through the tears at night, I think you said it perfectly that you’d rather go through a few nights of toughness for a better outcome in the long run. It reminded me of when I was taking the dummy away from my daughter, and it was a very similar thing. And you don’t want to minimise it, but my husband and I made that decision.

(09:05):

It’s like, “We’re going to go through a couple of nights where this is going to be rough, but in the long run it’s going to better her.” And I guess a message for parents out there is that you can actually do that and you can get through it and come out the other side. And I guess I was wondering what you would say to parents now listening to you thinking they want to have these conversations. What would your advice be?

Dany Elachi (Guest) (09:26):

Look, I certainly don’t encourage parents to do what we did, which was give your child a phone and then try to roll that back. That’s making your life more difficult than it needs to be. We would encourage, and we do encourage now through the group that my wife and I founded, the Heads Up Alliance, my encouragement to parents is don’t wait until your child is 10 years of age or until your child is on the cusp of high school when almost everybody around them is going to get a smartphone until you form that community of people who are going to hold out with you together.

(09:59):

Get in early when your children are still in year two or year three. And even if you want to get in earlier than that, why not? When I say get in earlier, I mean have the conversations with other parents, not necessarily your children. And you don’t have to tell them that, “At the end of year six, we’re not going to be giving you a smartphone.” But have the conversation with other parents and prepare the groundwork with other families in your community where you can join hands together at that early stage before anyone has given any of their children a smartphone or access to social media. You can start sharing articles, information. We know more now in 2025 than we knew in 2020 and certainly more than what we knew in 2010 or 2015 because even the last five years since the Heads Up Alliance was created, the conversation has shifted significantly.

(10:47):

And a lot of parents now are already aware of the issues, but there are some who aren’t. So it’s good to have the conversations for those parents who don’t really understand perhaps what early exposure to social media or smartphones is doing to their children’s mental health or to their sleep or to so many aspects of their life.

(11:06):

So if you can get a group of parents, say in grade three that all say, “Yep, we all are on board with this notion that we shouldn’t be putting smartphones in the hands of our children in the next few years and we want to hold out together.” And in the Heads Up Alliance, we encourage families to delay holding out until at least the end of year eight. Not an overwhelmingly difficult commitment, but it is a challenge because most people do give their children by the end of primary school coming into high school.

(11:33):

So if you can make that commitment together and you build that community and that community isn’t just signing a pledge once off and just walking away. It’s making that commitment to each other and then doing things together over the coming years to show your children that life is about getting out for a walk in the local national park or meeting together the local playground or going to watch the footy together or organising a trip to the theatre together, whatever the case may be. Build a community that is centred around real life experience and hold off on those phones together.

(12:07):

And if you do that and we know that there are many, many communities across the country who have formed those alliances and done that, then it’s certainly a lot easier to withhold the smartphone when your child says to you, “Well, I’m the only one.” You can say, “Well, actually you are not.” We’ve built a community, a beautiful community who’ve all agreed that they love their children way too much than to let them lose their childhood to a device. So that’s my advice to parents. Of course, it can be done. It can be done even better in community.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (12:39):

That’s so wonderful, bringing it back to community and having those conversations. And yes, I think as parents, you want to please your children and make them happy. And when you’re feeling that pressure that they are wanting something that all the other kids have and you can’t give that to them or you’ve decided not to, it’s so much easier when you have a community around you who have all agreed to or understand that this is the path that we’re going to go.

(13:06):

And then like you said, then you have those changes in behaviour and you start connecting again. And I wanted to ask you about when you made that decision in your home, what change in behaviour did you see? And also how did it affect the other siblings in your home?

Dany Elachi (Guest) (13:22):

So yes, she’s the eldest. Unfortunately, she was our test little test dummy. So we didn’t make the mistake with number two or three or four in terms of giving them the phone and then trying to dial it back. And it’s so helpful for the siblings who’ve come after, because our number two is 14 years of age. She’ll be 15 next year. And James after that, he’s 12. So of course they’re all at the age where they want smartphones too, but they know what we do now in our family.

(13:49):

And it’s not even a conversation that we need to have persistently anymore. They just get it. And they often say, “Oh, when I turn 16, well, Dad, do you think we might be able to get a phone that looks like this or a phone like that?” So the conversation has just shifted from, “When do I get a smartphone?” to, “Well, this is the type of phone I’d like when the time comes for me to get a smartphone.”

(14:10):

And they all know that it’s not going to happen. Certainly not until at least the age of 16. And with a bit of luck, I think we might even be able to get them to the end of school without smartphones. I mean, that’s our aim. The world didn’t end. Alia still has lots of friends. She still has a very full social life. She plays sports, she plays music, she’s got really good friendships. All those fears that perhaps were in the back of our mind that might eventuate, it didn’t.

(14:37):

So that’s the other thing I’d like parents to know is that the sun will get up the next day and life goes on. And in fact, life probably goes on in a better way. I look back now and I think, oh my goodness, some of the mistakes I’ve made as a parent, we all have. But withholding that smartphone is not one of, that’s one of the ones that I am so proud of. I think I got that one right. She had a fuller child.

(14:59):

And now there’s not to say that we also have an iPad lying around the house somewhere that they’re always trying to get a hold of. Especially in high school, they’ve got laptops for this schoolwork. And I’ve got no doubt that they’re spending more time on YouTube than I’d like them to and all these things. So it is not as though we’ve got things perfect.

(15:16):

It’s always going to be a struggle. Screens are everywhere. Technology is everywhere. And technology in the right time and in the right place is fantastic. We want our children, of course, to be part of the world and to know how to use technology intentionally as a tool, but we just don’t want it overwhelming, particularly their childhoods. So that struggle is always going to be there. But removing the smartphone out of the equation .so that when we jump in a car and we go somewhere as a family, we know that we’re present with each other or certainly the children are. I’m probably on my phone more than I’d like to.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (15:46):

I was going to say it’s so hard. That’s another thing I think coming from a parent as well. It’s, “Do as I say, not as I do,” but you don’t want that to be the case. And you go, “Oh, gosh.”

Dany Elachi (Guest) (15:55):

What am I modelling?

Nadia Rossi (Host) (15:56):

Yes, what am I modelling? Because they are going to model your behaviour. And my daughter is seven and already asking, “Can I play on your phone? That was broken. That doesn’t work.” But she just wants the phone to play with. And so we have the blanket rule of not having them at the dinner table. But I do catch myself hearing, “Mom, mom, mom.” And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’m on my phone and I’m ignoring you. But I also have told you that you can’t have a phone because we want you to be present.” So it’s such a delicate balance that we have. And the best that we can do is model to our children, but also we are, like you said, parents have the best of intentions, and we just do our best.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (16:31):

We do our best. So the challenges are always going to be there, and we’re not going to get it right every single day all the time. But my point is that when we remove the smartphone from the equation and if we remove social media. And now thankfully, laws are coming into effect later this year so that we can all hopefully say to our children, “Well, it’s against the law, so please don’t ask me to sign you up for TikTok because I’m not going to try to do that for you. And guess what? Most of your friends are off TikTok too, because most of them are also complying voluntarily.”

Nadia Rossi (Host) (16:58):

And also that helps sometimes when you tell your children something, they’re like, “Yeah, Mom and Dad, whatever.” But if you have the back, I mean especially of the law, but I think as well other parents, it helps you get through to the children. And I wanted to ask, when you were having these initial conversations with the parents in your community, what were their main concerns? Were they coming to you with similar concerns of their children?

Dany Elachi (Guest) (17:20):

Yes. So it took my wife and I to start the conversation. It was a message on WhatsApp from memory. And the message was something along the lines of, “Is anybody else struggling with this whole question of giving your children smartphones? We gave it to our daughter, Alia. We’re trying to dial it back. We’re looking for partners on this journey to see if anyone will join with us so that we can create a bit of a buffer for our children.”

(17:44):

And yes, the responses came in thick and fast. Everybody’s worried about addiction, everybody’s worried about sleeplessness. Everybody’s worried about some of the content that the children are accessing. The internet, it doesn’t have age ratings like television used to. Things could only be shown after 8 PM or 9 PM when children are in bed. But the internet is a wild west. So our kids are being exposed to things that some of the things that they’re being exposed to adults. The famous child psychologist, Justin Coulson, recently said that, “Our kids are accessing things on the internet that a couple of generations ago was illegal for adults to access.”

(18:19):

So parents had a whole tonne of concern. And that’s not even touching on child predation. That’s not even touching on the sexual exploitation, the sextortion that’s happening with a lot of our young boys, and to a lesser extent girls. The body image concerns, what are our girls being bombarded with? I remember growing up there was a conversation about those fake magazine covers of impossibly beautiful women, but that’s not the reality. They’ve all been airbrushed to the nth degree. And the conversation was, “Well, what is that doing to our daughters perceptions of their own bodies?”

(18:50):

And I look back at that, I think, “Oh, that’s so quaint that we were worried about magazine covers,” because now we’ve just bombarding our daughters with hundreds of images every day, and they’re mostly airbrushed as well. So these are the concerns of parents. And we only started off as a little group in a small school in Sydney. We didn’t intend to create a national movement.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (19:11):

But it was there. The need was there, obviously.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (19:13):

The need was there. And we just started sharing our story with other people. And we were lucky that our local member is now the premier of New South Wales. So he heard about what we were doing and he gave us a little bit of a push. And then over the years it became the Heads Up Alliance. It was only meant to try to dry my daughter’s tears, but we hope that over some time that we’ve helped a whole bunch of other children along the way.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (19:36):

Can we talk a bit about that? Like you said, it was this grassroots movement that started and build up steam and grow into the Heads Up Alliance. Can we talk a bit about what your main recommendations are as the Heads Up Alliance?

Dany Elachi (Guest) (19:49):

So we still are a grassroots movement and we’re still volunteer run. And we don’t make money and we don’t seek money, and it’s fully done on the volunteer basis. And the main thing we want parents to know is that we’ve not been told the full truth over the last 10, 15 years because if we listen to social media companies, they would have you convinced that if you only use this particular feature of their app and if you only put this protection on your child’s phone and everything is going to be okay. And every few months they’ll put out a new feature to try to convince you that we’re keeping your children safe.

(20:22):

They’re not. And unfortunately, a lot of cyber safety educators have been singing the same tune of big tech companies and giving parents, I believe, the false confidence that their children can be safe if only they bought this book or listened to this seminar and followed this set of rules. And the reality is the problem’s been getting worse, not better.

(20:44):

Nobody has been, or very people have been upfront about delaying, delaying in community. That’s our message. You don’t have to buy your 10-year-old the smartphone at the age of 10. You don’t have to sign them up to social media at the age of 12 prior to this legislation, just because the social media companies themselves set 13 is the okay age. You don’t have to listen to any of that. We’re parents, and we know very intimately what this has done to our children. And we have the power to say no in community and to encourage each other to do that.

(21:18):

So our message is we’ve got a resource called the Local Alliance Starter Guide, and anybody who emails us at the [email protected], we’re happy to give them that guide. It’s a step-by-step guide on how they can build a community in their own school to hold out and delay smartphone and social media.

(21:35):

And we just wish that more and more people put that option on the table for parents, delaying in community, because it’s not very common that we hear that from experts or cyber safety educators. Certainly not going to hear it from the social media companies because they want to hook our kids as early as possible, but it’s a grassroots movement of parents saying, “No, our children are not for sale. We can do something about this. There is no inevitability about losing our children to social media and smartphones.”

Nadia Rossi (Host) (22:04):

And I love that you’ve got that document that parents can actually read and go step by step through what they can do and how they can have conversations. I remember my daughter in reception, we had a parent teacher interview and her teacher said to me, “Please do not give your daughter a phone until she’s 16. Please don’t.”

(22:21):

And I was shocked because I was like, “She’s only five. Of course I’m not going to give her a phone. Why are we having this conversation?” And now two years later, the conversation has started with her. And I love that her teacher reached out and said that, but it’s also as a parent, how do we do this? How do we have those conversations? So we’ll definitely put your link in our show notes for parents to access, because I think that’s such a wonderful thing for you to provide actually some practical tips and strategies that parents can take into the home.

(22:49):

I wanted to go back to if we’re having the conversation about, we’re trying to delay smartphones until they’re 16. We’ve had the hard conversation. We’ve got the community around us, we are connected. We’re finding those times to get together and we’re really finding the benefits. And hopefully, that is giving the children the groundwork and other avenues to exist in this world and not rely on the phone once they get the phone. What are your recommendations there?

Dany Elachi (Guest) (23:14):

So we recommend to families, in fact, they don’t even have to wait until their children are 16. I know some families feel like, “My daughter or my son is catching a train to school and I want to be able to contact them.” And so we’re all for parents giving their children if they feel like they have to, a phone that only makes phone calls and text messages because we recognise that for a lot of families that is a tool. And for a lot of children, it can be used as a tool and a lot easier to manage than a full blown smartphone.

(23:40):

So that’s my first point is that if you have to give your child a phone, you can in fact still be a Heads Up Alliance family and give your 12-year-old a phone who’s going to high school next year and they’re about to jump on public transport. That’s fine. We have very few stories of parents saying, “My child is addicted to text messaging.” And if they want to call their friends, that’s the other thing. I mean, I think that’s a great thing. I mean calling your friends and even-

Nadia Rossi (Host) (24:03):

We all did it on the landlines. Yeah.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (24:05):

That’s wonderful. It’s all the other nonsense that gets them into trouble. So the first point is, yeah, basic phones, sure. We’re all okay with that if you want to give your children that. When they do get a phone, of course, if you are giving your child a smartphone at the age of say, 14 or 15, just be aware that there are laws coming in very, very soon that say that, “You cannot allow your child to access social media.”

(24:26):

Now there are no penalties against parents if that does happen. All the penalties are on the social media companies. It’s the onus is on them to ensure that they don’t have any underage users and they’re working out how to do that at the moment. The onus is on social media companies, but as parents, I don’t think we should be encouraging our children to download apps that the law says is not appropriate for children.

(24:49):

The third really important point, and this doesn’t come from me, it comes from having spoken to many child psychologists and other experts in this space. They say, “If there’s one rule that you can enforce at home, allow devices in bedrooms.” So don’t allow them in bedrooms and in those private spaces, be aware of what your children are doing. And I would say the same thing with gaming as well.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (25:11):

Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that as well. “We’re keeping the family computer or that in a public space,” because it is, I mean it’s not-

Dany Elachi (Guest) (25:18):

It’s hard though.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (25:19):

It is hard, but also I don’t think it’s off topic either because it is all linked to this usage. I think there are amazing tips for parents to think about when your child does get a phone. Because yeah, there is a safety behind wanting to know that your child has arrived to their location safely, if they need to be picked up, if they’re feeling unsafe and they want you to come and collect them. Having that kind of open communication when they’re getting into their early teens, later teens years, and they’re being physically more independent and away from you. So there is a way of doing it and coming down to those, what they’re called dumb phones or the non-smart phones, but still having that connection I think is a great middle ground.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (25:56):

Yes, absolutely. And the good news for parents is that I know that companies have seen a space in the market for those types of phones. And I think over the next few months you’re going to see… Because at the moment to buy a flip phone, it literally looks like a flip phone or a basic phone. So there are phones now being developed that look more like a smartphone that really only have the functionality of a basic phone so the children don’t get too embarrassed carrying one around.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (26:18):

Isn’t that interesting?

Dany Elachi (Guest) (26:19):

So there’s good things on the horizon for parents like us.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (26:21):

Yeah. Dany, I wanted to ask, I feel like we’ve touched on this, but I wanted to have a more pointed conversation about how you’ve seen delaying smartphones in children has supported their mental health and wellbeing.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (26:34):

Wow, that’s a big question. That’s a really big question, Nadia, but let’s just take a very small example. If we can agree that smartphones are taking up too many hours of our children’s day and that it’s impacting their sleep, and I think everybody agrees with that. In fact, the statistics show that the average teen is not sleeping, getting the full nine hours or 10 hours that they might need. They’re sleeping less. And that’s predominantly due to, because we all get lost on our reels. So if all smartphones were doing was robbing our children of an hour of sleep every night, and on average it’s probably doing more, then that alone has an impact on mental health.

(27:10):

Okay, let’s take another example. If you are a 12-year-old boy and you are being fed pornographic images. You’ve never held a girl’s hand before, you’re only just discovering the opposite sex or discovering the world of love, but suddenly you’ve been confronted with images of stuff that really is not meant for children’s eyes. Then I was speaking to a young man last week who’s in his mid-20s now, who said to me in a very, very sad way, he said, “It traumatised me.” He said, “I only realise that now, but I saw porn for the first time at the age of 11, and I didn’t know what to do with those images.”

(27:44):

And a lot of that porn is now coming through social media, believe it or not, it’s not coming through necessarily porn sites. Although that’s an issue, and hopefully the government is dealing with that as well. But a lot of it-

Nadia Rossi (Host) (27:54):

Is slipping through.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (27:55):

… most of it I think is coming through social media. So our young children who are being bombarded and the violence that they’re sending. Some of our children are accessing beheading videos and just stuff that adults shouldn’t really ever see. So yes, of course, it’s traumatising them in so many different ways, and of course that’s having an effect on their mental health.

(28:13):

Now, we may not have the ultimate definitive study that proves without any shadow of a doubt all these links because that, as you know, science takes time. And there was a time when smoking wasn’t proven to be damaging for your health, but we had a sneaking suspicion. And so we said, “Well, let’s err on the side of caution and not give kids cigarettes.”

(28:34):

And I think we’re in the same stage here. I think we’ve seen enough to know this is not helpful for our children. And if you are one of those who thinks that the science isn’t absolutely settled on the question, can we at least apply the precautionary principle and say, “Childhood is too precious. There’s enough evidence that we can see just in our daily living that this is not absolutely helping them flourish that perhaps we should take a step back”?

Nadia Rossi (Host) (29:01):

I’m wondering, what do we see in children when they have delayed this? Have you seen any examples or have families given you any examples of, “We’ve delayed it and we find that we are going to the park more, or their change in behaviour has been they’re happier or they’re not so critical on themselves”? Or self-talks shift in the children in your family or the families that you’ve spoken to you?

Dany Elachi (Guest) (29:25):

So most of the families in the Heads Up Alliance didn’t do what my wife and I did and give our children a phone and then pull it back. Most of them, thankfully, were a little smarter than my wife and I and said, “We’re not going to go down that path at all.” So in those families, we hear stories like, “We were told that our children are going to be and they were going to become outsiders, and it didn’t happen.”

(29:44):

In fact, my son’s teacher last week singled him out as, “A young man who can actually look me in the eye and hold a conversation with me.” A lot of children, unfortunately, are losing those skills. So we hear a lot of those stories, of course. And of one of the most alarming statistics I’ve come across in the last few months was a study that came out from Macquarie University here in Sydney that showed that average teens were spending nine hours on their screens.

(30:06):

And so on average nine hours, if you give the space for those hours to be returned to the child, then of course, they’re going to be bored and they’re going to go out and play and they’re going to read a book. And this is just pretty common sense stuff that if you overwhelm childhood… I mean, I always use the example, if my child was doing anything for nine hours a day, if they were reading Shakespeare for nine hours a day, I would say that’s unhealthy. After a week, I’d say, “You better lay off that Shakespeare. Go out and do something else.” You can’t do screens for nine hours a day in childhood. That’s when you are learning and growing and your brain is exploding, should be.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (30:43):

And there’s wonderful opportunities in boredom. I think we forget that, that what comes out of boredom can be so much fun and they can play and create.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (30:51):

Yeah, boredom is like the soil of creativity. And I often wonder if Mozart had been given a smartphone at the age of eight or nine, would we have had Mozart or would we have had wonderful artists? I do wonder how many artists is the world losing? How many scientists is the world losing? Because instead of spending a childhood chasing a passion or a dream, they’ve been distracted through no fault of their own. It’s a question we’ll never know the answer to, but I’m sure we’ve lost a few at least.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (31:19):

I never ever thought of it like that. What you can do in those nine hours as a child. I mean, even as an adult, I’m thinking about my screen usage now and going, “I’m going to put that phone away and maybe do something else with my time.” Because you do, you look at your screen time and you go, “Oh, I could probably be doing something a little bit more productive or creative.” And again, modelling back to our children as well.

(31:39):

Dany, I wanted to finish up our conversation today and ask you, we always like to leave our listeners with just one or two things that they can take away from our conversation. So if you could leave our listeners with one or two thoughts or things to do or a few takeaways from our conversation, what would they be?

Dany Elachi (Guest) (31:57):

I think if I’m speaking directly to parents, I would say back yourselves, back, your instinct. Nobody loves your children more than you love your children. And if you know that something is no good for your children, then don’t be swayed too much about what other people suggest to you. Back yourself. Find like-minded families. Form a strong community and do what you’ve got to do for your children together.

(32:18):

And hopefully, when they come out on the other side, as many children have now done, they look back on their childhood and they actually thank their parents. So you might be the mean parent for a little while, but I think ultimately your children, when they hit their 20s, will look back and say, “Thank you for giving me the gift of childhood.”

Nadia Rossi (Host) (32:37):

That’s wonderful. I love that. Back yourself and give your children the gift of childhood. I think that’s such a great takeaway for all parents and carers listening. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dany. It’s been such a wonderful conversation. And I’ve definitely got a lot to think about and take into our family home from hearing from you. And we will put links to the Heads Up Alliance in our show notes. So thank you so much.

Dany Elachi (Guest) (32:59):

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (33:02):

And thank you to our listeners for joining us. If you would like to keep up to date with our latest conversations, we’d love it if you like and subscribe to our Emerging Minds Families podcast channel. You can also find us on Instagram, @emergingmindsau, or on Facebook at Emerging Minds Families.

VO (33:19):

Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au/families for a wide range of free information and resources to help support child and family mental health. Emerging Minds leads the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. The centre is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Programme.