E103 - Evidence-Based Parenting (w/ Matilda Gosling)

Matilda Gosling is an author, social scientist and researcher, with two books that cover parenting, development and mental health. Evidence-Based Parenting came out in January 2024, and Teenagers: The Evidence Base will be published in the new year. 

Her latest book uses evidence from social and experimental psychology, neuroscience, family systems and adolescent development (among others) to examine parent-teenager relationships, the online world and other connections, mood and maturity, mental health and resilience, risk, and the building blocks needed to become a healthy adult. 

Today we discuss both of her books, including topics such as different parenting styles, the psychological function of adolesence, how to guide teenagers with regards to drugs and alcohol, supporting children in terms of their life path, the problem of social contagion amongst teenagers and much more.

You can find out more about Matilda's work here:
https://www.matildagosling.com/

Interviewed by Dr. Alex Curmi, consultant psychiatrist and a UKCP registered psychotherapist in-training.

If you would like to invite Alex to speak at your organisation please email thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com with "Speaking Enquiry" in the subject line. 

If you would like to enquire about an online psychotherapy appointment with Dr. Alex, you can email - alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com.

Give feedback here - thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com -  
Follow us here: Twitter @thinkingmindpod Instagram @thinkingmindpodcast

Transcript

 Adolescents are excessively egoistic, regarding themselves as the center of the universe and the sole object of interest. And yet, at no time in later life are they capable of so much self-sacrifice and devotion. They form the most passionate love relations, only to break them off as abruptly as they began them. On the one hand, they throw themselves enthusiastically into the life of the community, and on the other hand, they have an overpowering longing for solitude. They're selfish and materially minded and at the same time full of lofty idealism. At times their behaviour to other people is rough and inconsiderate. Yet they themselves are extremely touchy. Their mood sphere between light hearted optimism and the blackest pessimism sometimes that they will work with indefatigable enthusiasm, and at other times they are sluggish and apathetic. Welcome back to the podcast. My name is Alex. I'm a consultant psychiatrist. I hope everyone's doing well as we get closer to the holidays. The opening quote you just heard was today's guest, Matilda Gosling, quoting Anna Freud about teenagers. Today's episode is all about parenting. It's the first episode we've ever made about parenting. Matilda Gosling is an author, social scientist, and researcher. She's written two books published by Swift Press, both about parenting. The first one, Evidence Based Parenting, came out last January and is all about parenting from toddlerhood to pre-teens, and her second book is coming out this January, coming, and it's called Teenagers The Evidence Base. In her latest book, Matilda uses evidence from social and experimental psychology, neuroscience, family systems and adolescent development to examine the parent teenager relationship, the online world, mood and maturity, mental health and resilience, and the building blocks needed for an adolescent to become a healthy adult. So today we discuss both of Matilda's books, including what it's like to parent pre-teens and teens, what the evidence says about different parenting styles, what the stage of adolescence is actually about, what function it serves psychologically, the problem of social contagion amongst teenagers when it comes to things like self-harm, eating disorders and gender dysphoria. Some guidance and parenting adolescents around drugs and alcohol, how to support one's children and choosing their life path, and many other topics. This is the Thinking Mind Podcast, a podcast all about psychiatry, psychology, self-development and other topics. Thank you very much for listening. And now here's today's interview with Matilda Gosling. Matilda, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me. Before we get started, we're going to talk all about parenting today. Pre-teens, but also teens. Maybe you could tell us a bit about your bio, your research interests and how you got to this point in your career. Yes. Of course. Thank you. So I'm a social researcher, and that means that I work for a variety of, um, mainly charities, but also, uh, governments and some companies as well, doing research projects that really focus on, um, social impact. And I've tended to specialise in the past in, uh, issues relating to education and skills, um, and also some areas that touch on social psychology as well. Um, and I first came to looking at the research on parenting, uh, during the pandemic, because I was looking for a book that summarised the evidence base that would help me out, and I couldn't find one, and I could find a couple that kind of touched on particular aspects, but nothing that synthesized everything that was out there and cut across different disciplines as well. So I wanted to see something that really looked at what the evidence says as opposed to taking a philosophical approach. So really looking at what works when it comes to things like, um, happiness and well-being and physical health and behavior, learning and play, that kind of thing. And then, um, I was approached by or sorry, I, my agent approached, um, a swift press and they gave me a second book as well, looking at teenagers. Um, and that book on teenagers comes out in January, and that focuses, um, a little bit more, more broadly than parenting. So I'm hoping it should be relevant to psychotherapists and teachers as well. But it really summarizes what the evidence says about, um, teenagers development relationships, online connections, mental health, that kind of thing. So these two books both really came out of your own need and challenges that you are experiencing in your own life? Yes, very much so. Um, I think one of the one of the drivers for, uh, doing the research was that I was, um, slightly at sea with everything and really wanted to, to understand what the evidence said in a way that I could apply it to my own situations. And obviously everybody's different in their situations are different. And I think the research probably applies slightly differently to, um, individual families, uh, younger children, teenagers, but at the same time, understanding what it says and what what actually is successful in the majority of times I've found to be helpful for myself. Um, and then hopefully it's helpful to other parents as well. So I'd love to explore some of the main messages that you wanted to communicate in your first book, which covers really toddlerhood to pre-teen is my understanding. And what are the main misconceptions? Having reviewed the evidence yourself, what are some of the main misconceptions people have about parenting? Um, I think. Probably the most important one is that there is one right way to approach it. And I think the research really makes clear that that's not the case. Um, and that different situations, different approaches work, um, for different families at different times. What works at one moment might not work in six months time when everything's changed. But actually having a list of evidence based ideas can then be helpful to meet those different challenges head on. Um, I think there has been over the last, uh, 20 years or so, there's been a lot of faddish ness with parenting. So it's moved very much from one, um, kind of mainstream approach to the next. And quite often they contradict each other. And I think there are useful elements that you can take out of each one, but there's a kind of thread that runs through all of it, which is that, um, actually parents having, uh, their own wellbeing and needs looked after and also having confidence Dence in their own abilities and decisions, and having that kind of sense of authority and knowledge is probably going to be the most important thing. So it's not actually about having a written list of instructions for dealing with, um, younger children and teenagers. It's about having enough kind of knowledge, confidence and authority to be able to make effective decisions and also to ensure that if parents are kind of getting their own health needs met, um, and they've got time, whether that's if they're, um, kind of struggling for, for time with, um, or they're not, they don't have a partner who can help them out, then perhaps calling on friends or, um, I know there's a lot of controversy over screen time, but I think sometimes screen time can be quite useful for parents just to claw back a little bit of time to be able to get on top of things themselves. Because one of the biggest predictors of good outcomes for children is, um, parents own, um, mental health and other needs being looked after. So it's a bit more of a parent centric view than you might normally find. And do you think that perhaps in the 90s and the 2000, we were it was a bit too much of a child centric view that we were taking? I think it still is. Um, I think there is an awful lot of pressure on parents to lead with their children in, in terms of, um, the kind of prevailing zeitgeist is that, uh, children know exactly who they are, what they need. Uh, they're able to kind of dictate what their parents should be doing around them. This is leading to a whole cohort of parents who are run quite ragged because they are, um, ferrying their children to all of these different events. They are kind of cooking exactly what their children would like to eat. And I'm sure this is very, very lovely for the children involved in the short term. Maybe in the medium to long term, it's not necessarily creating an environment that allows them to build, um, resilience and to understand that actually the world isn't perfectly structured around them because I think one of the, um, potential knock on effects when you get into adolescence and then early adulthood is if the world has been perfectly created around you, you suddenly realise that actually that doesn't last. And that can be quite a hard lesson to have to learn if you don't have the early practice. And it's really, really hard for parents as well. Um, I don't think anyone has the resources to be able to provide that level of, um, kind of wraparound care for a child in a way that is sustainable for them and sustainable for the family. So I think that, um, that that's still very much going on. And I think that's something that I would probably challenge. Yeah. So I guess picking up on what you're saying, the challenge of parenting, as I see it and I don't have children, just full disclosure, but the challenge of parenting as I see it, particularly from my psychotherapy experience, is you need to strike this balance between, on the one hand, providing a protective bubble for your child as they're still developing, but then, on the other hand, slowly introducing them to the challenges of the world, to the idea that not everything is going to go their way. Because ultimately that's the best preparation for adulthood. And it seems to me like the younger child is the more they need that protective bubble, the older they get, the more they need to be exposed to those challenges. So if you take an infant, for example, a newborn, you know you're in full protective mode at that stage of their lives. You're basically just responding to their needs as and when they come up. And then as the child gets older, I suppose the challenge for the parent is to slowly let go of providing that protection. And I suppose a lot of parents really identify with being that protector and almost a child savior in some sense. And the parent has to let go of that and slowly start to let them deal with their own problems, which I'm sure can be mentally challenging for a lot of parents. Definitely. But I think it's, um, it's about having the the warmth to go alongside it. So if you've got your, um, edges in the form of boundaries. So you're saying to your child, okay, I'm always going to be your safe haven and the person that you can talk to and you can rely on to meet all of your kind of basic needs. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I meet everything that you want alongside it. So I think it's probably quite important to differentiate between needs and wants. And obviously you you would like to be able a lot of the time to give the child what they want as well as what they need, but I'm not sure in every situation that's, um, that's important. But if you meet that with warmth, I think at all ages. That is the the kind of perfect. That's the sweet spot where you're not going to be creating that kind of harsh, authoritarian environment that can also create its own problems over the longer term. So having warmth with boundaries, which is um, known known in the research literature as authoritative parenting, which I'm sure, um, most of your listeners will be, uh, familiar with, that seems to be the most successful approach in terms of long term outcomes. And it kind of contrasts with permissive parenting, which would be if you don't have the you've got the warmth, but you don't have the boundaries. Authoritarian parenting, which is where you don't where you have boundaries, but you don't have, uh, warmth. And then in probably the the least favorable climate would be where you, um, you don't have boundaries and you don't have warmth, so you don't have any kind of real structure around the child and what you, what you're trying to build up is that structure. But alongside, um, warmth, love, affection, care so that the child knows that they are, no matter what they do. Um, and their behavior, you might, uh, kind of respond to their behavior in a, in an appropriate way. For example, if they're, um, hitting a sibling, you might remove them from the room to make sure that the hitting doesn't continue, but your child is aware that you will still love them, um, regardless of of their behavior. So you're not making your love contingent, but you are making your response to their behavior contingent and making sure that the world isn't entirely structured around their desires. Yeah. So those are some interesting distinctions. I think it's really important for people to understand that there's at least, you know, two levels that were communicating that there's the content, the information, the logic of what you're communicating and the emotional tone. And you can. There are those two can contradict. I think a lot of people feel they need to be confident with each other. But actually you can tell someone, listen, I disapprove of this specific behavior that you're doing right now, but underneath this, underneath that, there's still a bedrock of unconditional love. And I think it's really useful for parents to know that, that they can do that. Yeah, definitely. And I think that might be returning to what we were talking about a little bit earlier. I think that might be slightly what's been lost in the kind of expert parenting narratives of the last kind of 15, 20 years or so that actually is possible to, um, respond to your child and you're not going to damage them forever if you don't give them everything that they're seeking, necessarily. And in saying that, I'm not saying that you should kind of never, never give them what you want, what they want. That's absolutely not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that kind of sometimes there will be situations in which the needs of other members of the family need to be taken into consideration, or where it's just, um, not something that is kind of possible to give them. They want to, I don't know, uh, eat ice cream for five hours on Friday night and then have a kind of all night bouncing party when actually people need to go to sleep and be rested for Saturday and whatever. So I think there are lots of different factors to take into account, but it's okay to say no if it's being done with love and warmth. Yes. And I think that distinction between needs and wants is so important because obviously there are many of us in the UK who are still living in quite deprived situations, but there are also many of us who live in a world of ones where our needs are pretty guaranteed, and so many children are being raised almost to to see their wants as needs like my. My want is a need, but they don't even understand that they're being raised in a world of luxury. That's basically unprecedented. Yeah. And there's also something, um, about learning how to deal with small levels of stress that's quite important for long term development as well. So in order to build resilience, you have to have experience of being able to deal with slightly unfavourable conditions on the way. And then what you learn from one tricky situation, you can then apply to other situations going forward, and then that acts as a kind of point of growth, and it reassures you that you can deal with those situations going forward. And if you have a kind of perfectly untrammelled path with no obstacles in the way, they're all removed by your parents, then you don't ever get get those points of healthy stress that then help you to be able to deal with other moments. Because we all deal with difficult situations every single day. But you need practice at doing that, and you need practice within a kind of safe, structured environment. Otherwise it can feel very, very, um, overwhelming. If you end up as a young adult in situations where you've you've never really practiced the skills of being able to apply, um, what you've learned from other situations to new challenges. Um, and having had that support, supportive or stress through supported environments I think can be, uh, quite useful in resilience building. So in your work, would you have come across the research of someone like Jonathan Haidt, who talks a lot about this, talks about the importance of allowing your child or your children to confront stress quite forthrightly so that they can develop these new capacities. Yeah, very much so. And he talks about, um, the he talks about safety ism as a big theme, which is the idea that children need wrapping in cotton wool and protecting at all costs from difficult experiences. Um, and his analogy that he uses, which I think is quite a nice one, it's the he talks about a biosphere that was, um, uh, used, I think it was in the 1980s. And it was this experiment. They were trying to develop this perfect environment where, um, it would be a self-sustaining, uh, area where trees would then provide the oxygen for humans to be able to coexist. Um, and they grew a whole load of trees in the biosphere that all fell over when they reached adulthood, because they had never experienced desert wind, so they hadn't developed the root structures that allowed them to, um, kind of become healthy adult trees. And that that's the analogy. One of the analogies that he uses in his book, The Anxious Generation. Um, and he also talks about the importance of, uh, helping children to develop independence and to have, um, to take risks and to, um, spend time away from adults, uh, not being overseen by adults in a way that then allows them to negotiate with other children, um, to be able to get bored. And I think all of that stuff's really good. I'm not sure. I don't entirely agree with his analysis about, um, screens and social media, but I think where all of the research that he summarizes on, um, kind of the importance of independence and risk and what he terms anti fragility, I think is really solid. How do you think we got to this point of safety ism again, probably in the 90s in the early 2000, late 2000 where probably peaked. How did we get to that point. Mhm. That's a very big question. Um, I think uh, part of it was about, um, the, uh, narratives of stranger danger that were, um, played up during the 1970s, the 1980s. And there's, there's when you get, um, alarm over one thing, there's almost a kind of equally strong counter reaction in the other direction. Um, and actually, if you look at the evidence on risk, the risk from strangers is absolutely minimal. And the risk of not letting children have any independence to kind of go to the park by themselves or with friends or to travel into town at relatively young age, those the risks of not letting your child do that kind of seem to count away the stranger danger. So I think that that narrative probably had something to do with it. I think, um, and this is probably slightly more theoretical, but I think in universities, the the rise of kind of post-structuralism and the idea that everything is, um, done on, on. Everything is defined on the basis of perception and personal experience potentially has something to do with it as well, because then at that point everyone becomes the expert on their own, um, environment and development, including in that conceptualization, children. So if children are the experts, then adults have to listen to them and have to kind of create this perfect environment that allows them to flourish into adults without perhaps realizing what the, um, what the research says about long term development, mental health resilience, um, and that actually having this, these perfectly, um, un unchallenged childhoods, um, can create adults that haven't had the experiences that then allowed allow them to thrive later. So it might be something slightly more, um, short termist as well, and maybe not connecting all of those different pieces. What do you think? Have he. And I think that. There's many things. I think if I had to speculate on how we got to the point of safety ism. We do. Human beings do have a problem holding conflicting ideas in their head. So this conflicting idea, what's more important? Is it safety or is it exposing a child to challenge? And as we've discussed, you know, it's this fine tension of both. You always need to be calibrating it according to the situation. And being able to figure that out on a moment to moment basis is very difficult and very cognitively expensive. And most people might never it might never even occur to them. That's the thing to do. So there's that. I think talking about the stranger danger narrative you mentioned is very interesting, and I think people tend to react much more to potentially catastrophic, rare risks than to low grade, constant risk. So the risk of a stranger doing something or to your child, it's low, but it's catastrophic if it happens. Whereas the sort of constant low grade risk of your child not getting the exposure to the challenge that they need, I think that's a lot less scary to us and a lot less apparent as a real threat. I think what you said about post-modernism and post-structuralism is really interesting, because I suppose those philosophical ideas challenge authority and expertise per se. They challenge authority in our society and our institutions. So I've never thought about it along the lines that you mentioned, but I guess it makes sense that such philosophical positions would also degrade or be skeptical of the parental authority that a parent might know better than a child. And funnily enough, it has seem it does seem like we've gotten to that point. That's for a parent to assume that they know best for their child seems to be taboo in some circles, and it's strange that we got to that place, and it does seem to be it's almost like a pendulum swing. So you move from one fad and then in order to counter to weight, it swings far too far in the other direction. And we want that kind of middle path ideally that that draws in, um, the two sides. So obviously you don't want your child entirely exposed to risk and you don't want to remove those kind of warm protective structures from around them. But the risk is that we've moved so far in the direction of safety ism, and evidence is emerging all the time of the impacts of this, that the pendulum then swings back again too far in the other direction. So I think it would be really good if going forward, we could, um, if the public narrative can stay in the the nuanced shades of gray that draw all of these different factors in together, I think that would be quite positive, because I think everything, all of the the parenting fads have really swung from one extreme to another. And we're in quite a kind of far point of, of one extreme at the moment. And I think it will swing back at one point, but it'd be good if it, yes, stays somewhere moderate rather than going to the other extreme. And before we talk about your second book, which is upcoming, um, I'm curious, what's the feedback been to your first book, and have you received any pushback to some of the ideas that you outlined in that book? Um, very little actually. Um, I'm expecting more pushback with the second book because I cover gender identity, and I'm sure that that will, um, create, uh, create pushback, as it always does in that area. But no, I think the first book, because it's actually I'm not coming forward and saying I have a particular set of beliefs. Instead, I'm saying this is what the evidence says. Um, so I think there's there's actually relatively little that can be challenged with that. I think, um, what potentially actually one, one area of challenge links back to this point about authority, because if you have too much in the way of parenting books or people talking about what parents should be doing, then you are challenging, um, the idea of parental authority and that actually parents know best for what's going to be best for their own families and what's going to work for for them and for their children. And having too much, um, in the way of, yes, texts, conversations, uh, potentially undermines that. What I would say and challenge to that is that I think parents absolutely have that authority. But there are some parents like me, who like to understand what the evidence says before they start to make decisions about, um, what is going to be best for their families. Yeah. I mean, I think everyone would agree that parenting is an extremely difficult endeavor. Perhaps one of the most difficult, perhaps the most difficult endeavor you'll embark on in your lifetime. And who would say it's a bad idea to look up information about that, about other ways people have tried it, about what the evidence says? Like you wouldn't do anything in your life, or you would never think it's a bad idea to start a new project, to start a new career, to try and get in shape without reading a book about it that can maybe outline some useful tips that other people have learned. So you don't have to make the same mistakes. But I see your point that I suppose when it comes to very personal decisions like how to raise your children, it can really challenge people's egos, their narratives about themselves, that it can really challenge notions about how good they are as a person. So I can see that parents could be very easily threatened by this kind of thing. Yeah. And I think for that reason, I've been, um, not just for that reason, but also because I don't think it's the right way to approach things. I've been very careful just to say, this is what the evidence says. It's not going to work this way for everyone. And here's a set of ideas rather than here is what parents should do, because I don't think there is one. As I was saying earlier, I don't think there's one set of ideas that parents should be doing without consideration of, um, how that works at an individual level and different ideas will work for different situations. So I've just kind of set out, uh, suggestions really, rather than recommendations. And before we move on to the second book, I'm really curious whether any studies that you review that really surprised you and that really opened your eyes to something you weren't previously aware of. One thing that surprised me actually was about, um, sleep training, because when my children were young enough, uh, that sleep training conversations were relevant to me. Um, this was quite a long time before I started looking at the the books or at the evidence reviews that sat behind them. Um. Gina Ford was very fashionable, uh, when my, um, oldest daughter was very small, and there was quite a lot of pushback to what she was saying in, in so her recommendation was that you, uh, minute every single um, sorry, you diaries, every single minute of a baby's life throughout the day and you sleep train them for a certain and and you, they sleep for a certain amount of time. And it's down to the exact minute. Um, I do not think that that is a successful way of approaching things, but I think that had the push back to what she was suggesting, had suggested to me that sleep training might be damaging over the medium term, because in the short term, it raises cortisol levels in babies. Um, and then actually, if you look at the what the evidence says, it looks as though it has it's successful. It's a successful strategy in the short term, although not dramatically so. So I think one of the studies showed something like it gets children sleep an extra nine minutes a night or something. So you may decide that the pain of going through sleep training isn't worth it. But there have been a few longitudinal Attitudinal studies, which, um, where they look at, uh, attachment to the parents, but also, um, kind of long term mental health. Compare a group of children who've been sleep trained with a group of children that haven't been sleep trained, and see if there are any differences to try to test, whether there are long term negative effects. And none, none that I have seen in the evidence reviews that I've looked at have been found. So it looks as though, um, sleep training, even though it might lead to kind of short term spikes in cortisol, doesn't seem to have long term negative effects. But as I said, it's the improvements aren't dramatic. So parents may decide it's not not quite worth it. So sleep training may not be worth it. And are there any other approaches to sleep with their child that maybe parents could take into consideration? Uh, routines seem to be the one of the most important things. So just having a nighttime routine that is the same every night, even if it's really boring, it's just got the same order. Whether that's a, um, a kind of glass of milk and a story and brushing teeth or maybe some, um. Singing together or whatever it is that works with the family, but it's just a it's about the steps that then primes the children to know that it's time to go to bed, and also avoiding being in the rooms with them as well as they're falling asleep, if it's possible to do so. So it seems to be that children can lose about an hour's sleep at night if their parents are in the room with them as they're falling asleep. Mhm. I mean, nighttime routine is what I prescribe to adults to get to sleep because I talk to adults, have problems sleeping all the time and sleep is just it's a rhythm. It's a routine that you need to get into. I need to establish cuz that's what it gets your body and mind to fall asleep. And obviously the intuitive ones like having dimmer light, doing something relaxing rather than stimulating. Mhm. So not having any screens consistent. Not having screens. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And there's one of the studies uh was saying that actually even, even if they're not used, just having screens in the bedroom can affect sleep. Whether that's just because children are aware that they're there. Um, but keeping screens downstairs if, if you have an upstairs or if you're on the same level, just making sure that they're they're kept out of sleeping areas seems to be, um, good for sleep as well. Great. And now moving on to your second book, which is focused on adolescence. And did you say it's coming out next month? Yes, it's coming out on the 30th of January. And similarly, was this a book that he needed to write to to deal with the on your own challenges, which you're facing? Yes, very much so. Um, so I did the research, um, when my one, one of my daughters was already a teenager, and the other one was kind of moving rapidly towards being a teenager, and I think it gave me, um, a sense of security to know what the evidence actually says and also to understand when I need to worry as well. Um, so I think a lot of the time, uh, teenage, a lot of what people might see as being alarming teenage behavior is actually very normal. And understanding what is normal and where it becomes abnormal is. Very useful. It was very useful for me as a parent, and I hope it might be for others as well. Um, so the the kind of natural separation of children from their parents and what that means in terms of, uh, I don't know, teenagers going up to their bedrooms and, uh, not really wanting to chat and share information in the same way that they used to, that could feel very personal. Or if you see other parents who've still got an incredibly close relationship with their children, it might make you think there's though something's wrong, and there are other things that you could be doing that you're not. But actually, if you look at the evidence that is entirely normal, it's entirely natural. And understanding that is, um, is helpful, as is, I think, getting an understanding of risk and where it's appropriate to take risks. Um, what risks the normal to take and where parents need to start worrying as well. And where, um, perhaps some kind of tighter boundaries need to be. Put down. Yeah. So I guess what I would want people to understand the most about adolescence would be it's a stage of life where people are forming their own identities. And as you implied, they're learning to distinguish themselves from their family. And so rebelliousness is a part of that. So when when parents complain about their child's rebelliousness as though it's a bug, I suppose what they need to understand, as you're saying, there's actually it's a feature. It's a mandatory part of becoming a teenager and getting that it's that bridge to adulthood. And actually, you wouldn't want a teenager who is not rebellious at all. Yeah. I think if you've got a compliant teenager who wants to spend all their time in your company, perhaps things aren't quite right either. Did you in your research at all, did he have did they did you have a look at psychoanalytic writings like Freud and people along those lines? Because they had a lot to say about what it's like for, for a teenager to grow up and the dangers of excessive attachment and the Oedipal. Oedipal mother and things like that. Yeah. And actually, um, so there's quite a nice quote from Anna Freud that I've included in the book, and she describes, uh, adolescence and what the, the kind of the downsides and the upsides and the, the light and the darker. And actually, one of the amazing things about the quote, I think she wrote it in the 1930s and it's almost perfect for today. Um, so there's, there's this kind of really lovely mirroring from something that was written almost a hundred years ago. And obviously our our knowledge and understanding has moved on quite considerably from that time. But at the same time, I think there's quite a lot that we can still learn. I've got it here. Would you like me to read it? Yeah. Uh, adolescents are excessively egoistic regarding themselves as the center of the universe and the sole object of interest. And yet, at no time in later life are they capable of so much self-sacrifice and devotion. They form the most passionate love relations only to break them off as abruptly as they began them. On the one hand, they throw themselves enthusiastically into the life of the community and on the other hand, they have an overpowering longing for solitude. They're selfish and materially minded and at the same time full of lofty idealism. At times their behaviour to other people is rough and inconsiderate. Yet they themselves are extremely touchy. Their mood sphere between light hearted optimism and the blackest pessimism sometimes that they will work with indefatigable enthusiasm, and at other times they are sluggish and apathetic. And so I think it's maybe a slightly more negative lens than I would place on teenagers, but I think there's a lot in there that I recognize. And I think one of the the other points that I drew out in that particular section is that it risks seeing teenagers as a uniform group, and obviously they're all kind of complete individuals and nobody is going to follow that exact pathway. But at the same time, I think there's, um, there's quite a lot that parents might recognize, even if they don't recognize the whole quote of their own children. Okay. So we've established that adolescents need to be rebellious. It's part of part of the process. As a parent, how should one orient themselves towards that rebelliousness? Should they be indifferent? Should they be encouraging? What's are there? Are there any general approaches which are which are advised? I think it very much depends on on what the rebellion is. And I think that requires developing an understanding of risk and where risks become too great. Um, I think in terms of, uh, ideas, encouraging rebellion of ideas is always for the good. So what you ideally want is your child not to be seeing the world in the same way as you do. And if they have a if they take a different political lens or they, um, view kind of issues where that cause social faultlines, um, in society in a, in a different way from you. I think that's really positive shows that they're developing their own minds. It means that you can have interesting conversations and debates. And I don't think, um, I don't think there's anything to be gained from trying to shift a child's point of view towards your own. Although I think it's important to express your own point of view why you believe what you do and that actually it's. Great if people have different perspectives and and what that gives to society. I suppose where rebellion might get more worrying is if you're moving into the area of, uh, drink, drugs, sex risks that might have a health short term or longer term health consequences. Um, and at that point, I mean, that I've got a few, um, ideas in, in the chapter about how, uh, those can be, um, kind of discussed and managed. But I think a lot of it is about keeping lines of dialogue going. So it's it's about having that warmth and not coming down. If, if a teenager takes risks that that in your opinion, go too far, not making the consequences so great that they're not going to tell you if they get into a tricky situation in future. So you want to make sure that the lines of dialogue are kept open, that a teenager knows that you will be there to help them pick up the pieces if they get into trouble. And there are, um, there's somebody, uh, called, uh, Fiona margolis. Babs. I think she's called. Who? Um. She was. She was a parent, uh, whose, um, child, uh, had a drug overdose. And I've quoted from her a little bit in the chapter on risk as well. So her recommendation, based on quite a lot of work that she's done with parents and with teenagers, is, for example, if if a teenager goes to a, um, festival to be really upfront about what the risks are of taking drugs, but also what to do if you get into a difficult situation. So I think quite a lot of festivals now have, um, drug testing tents. So, um, and it might be that the conversation happens. This is you frame it along the lines of, this is what I would recommend you do if one of your friends gets into a difficult situation. So you're not saying to your child that you're expecting them to do it, because even setting up that expectation might make it more likely that they do something. But if if your if your your friends does something and gets into this situation, these are the adults that you need to do to get in touch with. These are the danger signs and this is who you call. This is what you do. So you're kind of you're giving them a framework, uh, to work within. That's realistic, but is not setting them up to believe that you're going to expect that they take those risks necessarily themselves, but they still know what to do. Um, and also probably keeping that expectation in your own head that, um, even if it does end up, uh, being some of their friends that are at risk, your child will probably be at risk as well, because, uh, teenagers tend to do things together. It's not necessarily going to be that your child is the angel, which I think is sometimes, uh, what parents can imagine, not necessarily accurately. And we'll talk we'll talk about that a bit later on as well, but specifically with alcohol. I'm really curious. Is there any evidence that introducing your child, rather your teenager, to alcohol in a small way in the home is useful? Letting them have half a glass of wine when they're 17, say, which I believe is legal in the UK. Is there any evidence that's that's a useful thing to do for for kids? This is one of the ones where one of the pieces of research, where it goes against what my instinct would be, and I'm, I'm not particularly keen on the findings, so my instinct would be that it's much better for, um, teenagers to try alcohol within a, um, small, safe, contained environment at home. Uh, what the research says is that if parents, um, either model drinking themselves or they introduce they, they make make it clear to their teenagers that they believe it's okay by offering them small quantities, those teenagers are much more likely to drink to a more excessive level later. So the evidence says not a good idea about your own personal intuition. Maybe it could be useful. Yeah. I mean, I'm much more likely to go with what the research says than what my own intuition said before. Um, but yes, it does go against what I would have done naturally, I think. And then similarly, when it comes to drugs, I'm sure many parents have had their own transgressions with using substances when they were young, and perhaps they're terrified of their kids going down the same path. But is there any evidence that might support a parent sharing some personal stories from their own youth to say, listen, you know, I used cannabis when I was young or I did this, that and the other, and there were negative consequences. Is there any evidence to support that? So interestingly, I haven't seen any research papers on this, but I have spoken to a clinical psychologist who's been looking into this with her own, um, kind of patient cohorts. And her view is, um, and she works very closely with both parents and teenagers. Uh, and her view on it is, is that you keep any stories away from the personal. So no matter what your own experiences with drugs in the past, any anecdotes might be about a kind of different distant friend or cousin, not about your own. Because at that point you're modeling, um, a behavior and perhaps creating an expectation that your child will do similarly in future. And they probably will anyway at some point. But at the same time, you want to push that point maybe into the future so that they're not too young, and so that if they do get to that point, their brains are as fully developed as it's possible for them to be, because I think, um, early interference with, uh, developing brains, um, with substances that shouldn't necessarily be in the body can, um, be more, more damaging than when the brain is further on in its development, as it will be kind of if, if they're trying, um, substances when they're at university, for example, as opposed to when they're still at school. One thing I want to ask about, obviously, a, a lot of what's happening in adolescence is. A person is starting to choose their life path. What they might study in detail at sixth form university, what kind of career they might start to forge for themselves. A lot of parents seem to be very caught up. I mean, I speak to a lot of patients and clients of mine whose parents had very rigid expectations of them, like they should be a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer or things along those lines. How do you think a parent should approach their child, starting to forge their area of study or their career? Should it be a relatively open process where they figure it out for themselves? Do guidelines work? How should we approach this? I think that depends very much on, uh, family culture. Um, so I think in, in some families, um, there will be a culture of, uh, academic and professional expectation, and that's fine. In other families, it will really work for the teenagers to kind of lead the process, perhaps with some, um, gentle guidance from their parents in the background. I think probably what, what parents need to be most mindful of is not letting their child, um, cut off potential pathways that they might later on decide would have been useful. So, for example, with A-level choices, just thinking a little bit further down the line, is that then going to prevent them studying something when they're 18 that they might they've spoken in the past that they might want to do, for example. So um, if they wanted to study a social science at university, are there particular A-levels that they would need to study in order to do it? Natural science. You're almost certainly going to have to study at least, uh, two natural sciences at university. Um, so I think the the boring answer is that it's down to personal choice, um, kind of individual family circumstances, culture. And also I think what the, uh, teenagers are like themselves. I think some will really appreciate having, uh, parental involvement, involvement, and others will be quite keen if their parents could keep a great distance from what they're going to be choosing to do when they get there. Yeah, I think I think everything you're saying makes sense, helping them think a bit more long term. And to see a bit further down the line, I think that could be really useful. I'm going to throw in my own $0.02, which is one of the areas I really like to think about is personality. And I think the best model of personality we have is the big five model of personality. I would really recommend parents familiarize themselves with that model, and when they're raising their kids, just figure out where roughly does my child lie? What is their personality? Because that's going to have a huge impact on what they're interested in, what they're most likely to succeed at, what their talents are, but also what their weaknesses are and what's going to stand out to them as preferable in terms of an area of study or a career choice. Uh, it's going to be very hard, for example, to get someone who's low in trait openness to be an artist. Similarly, if someone's very, very high in trait openness, they're going to have a huge impulse to be creative and they're going to be quite they're going to have quite difficult lives if they have no creative outlet whatsoever. So telling them you can't be an artist and you have to be an accountant and not even in your spare time, can you pursue art. That's going to be a very difficult proposition for them. So understanding that. And then whatever, wherever they happen to lie. Encouraging some meta skills like critical thinking, like work ethic, like consistency, which in itself does that is also a personality trait. But you can train that still such that if, for example, my child wants to be an artist, I might say, okay, go ahead, but you're going to work. Really work really hard at it. Be consistent, show up for it and develop it. You know, like your life depends on it. So whatever their predisposition is, they can at least make the most of it. And I think that there are other things other than guiding choices. There are other things that parents can do. So I think your example about critical thinking is really, really important. And I think that's one area, um, that perhaps we haven't quite got right at the moment. So there is um, there's quite there's a common thread of there is one way to look at the world and actually having challenged that and that actually having a multiplicity of views is really helpful. And trying to think through what the, um, what other perspectives might be. If you look at a particular area, what the counter points might be to a particular argument, having discussions, watching, um, interesting programs that help open up teenagers minds to other ideas and points of view, I think can be really helpful. Um, there's something as well, I think, about, uh, helping teenagers who don't necessarily fit within easily within the model of the kind of, for example, the academic school day that requires quite an early start time. There are some that naturally work quite well later in the day, and that it might not be working for them brilliantly at the moment, but pointing out that there will be lots of careers that they can do that make the most of their strengths and skills and um. Oh, and what directs them to work well. So if they work well at night, then you can be a video game coder or something that he's working independently. It doesn't. You don't necessarily anymore have to fit within the very strict edges of a of a 9 to 5 job and helping them to to realize those. And I think another thing that's quite important is, um, steering teenagers, if possible, towards, uh, part time jobs. Um, and it seems to be in the research, there's a sweet spot, um, between not working more than about 20 hours a week, ideally, probably quite a lot less than that. So it doesn't interfere with studies. But at the same time, having jobs can really help teenagers to practice some of those skills, and it'll be helpful for them when they're, um, making, uh, academic or later career choices as well. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Uh, I'd like to talk a bit about the problem of social contagion. And you, you alluded briefly, briefly to the problem of gender identity, which I suspect is wrapped up in social contagion. For people who don't know what is this issue of social contagion and what are the implications of it? Um, social contagion is where you have either mental or physical health symptoms that are transmitted not through a kind of organic basis, so that it's not being transmitted through, um, a virus or a bacteria, but it's being transmitted through interpersonal connections. Um, and actually something that's shifted over the last few years is that you're getting social contagions that are happening online. So traditionally, social contagion only ever happened. Um, through face to face contact. And it would be, um, uh, I mean, there are quite a lot of, of early ones that people might be, um, familiar with. Uh, so the kind of idea about, um, Victorian hysteria, there is some argument there that that was social contagion. Uh, there were these early dancing manias, dancing plagues where people would start to dance and others would then join them eventually to the point where some people actually died because they were exhausted and ran out of nutrition. Um, and some people have made a counterargument to those that those weren't kind of pure social contagions, that they were religious festivities or others. But there is an argument, at least to be made, that it was social contagions. You get outbreaks in schools, you get outbreaks in workplaces, um, with, uh, kind of symptoms ranging from, uh, fits through to, um, kind of feelings that you can't breathe through to fainting. Um, and some, some of the ones online at the moment, there's, uh, spread of Tourette's. Like symptoms online. And that was a particular, uh, feature of the pandemic when teenagers were spending a lot of time obviously online and, and not in, um, face to face contact with each other. And, uh, they would watch videos of people who had Tourette's like tics and then start to develop tics themselves. And that's still happening, although I think, um, the, the, the peak of it has passed now that the, the time of the pandemic is over. Um, uh, dissociative identity disorder, there's quite a lot of evidence just that that's been spreading online. Um, and then there's also quite a lot of emerging evidence to suggest that, um, anxiety and depression, uh, not in all cases at all, but certainly in some cases, um, anxiety and depression are passing between people in general, but particularly among teenagers. So, um, teenagers in general seem to be, uh, susceptible to social contagions and particularly, uh, teenage girls. Mhm. And is there evidence that gender dysphoria as well is likely to be a socially contagious phenomenon in in my reading of the evidence, yes. There are lots of people who would disagree with that. Um, but there have been, um, that there are quite a lot of reports from teachers and in some research papers as well, of having clusters of, uh, teenagers who've got, um, gender distress, who believe that they have a trans identity and those, those, um, uh, identifications cluster in friendship groups and within schools as well. And actually sometimes you get get clusters within cities, um, and different regions. Um, one of the problems is that the there haven't been any really big population level studies that would give us certainty that that's what's been going on. But there are smaller studies that certainly point to that being quite likely. So there was one, for example, uh, that looked at, uh, homophobic name calling within schools, and then it tracked forward to see what happened with gender identity a few months later. And, um, teenagers who'd been at the receiving end of homophobic name calling were more likely to have a trans identity several months later. Um, and there are other studies that are similar. So there are there are certainly indications. Um, and I think it's very likely that, um, there, there is at least an element of social contagion to that. And the profile of the teenagers who are vulnerable is very similar to the profile of those who have experienced contagion in, in other places in times as well. So it's certainly for teenagers, uh, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is much more likely if you have underlying anxiety and depression, if you are female. Um, and if you are, um, kind of. Within that adolescent cohort as well. And that maps onto the profile of, uh, people who've been vulnerable in, in previous contagions and I guess two big social contagions. We haven't mentioned, uh, eating disorders and self-harm as well, which are known to spread among that similar profile. Yeah. And there's there's a lot of evidence to suggest that they're now spreading online as well. So a lot of the big, um, social media companies now have quite tight policies on not showing content relating to eating disorders and self-harm in order to prevent that contagious element. But there are a few studies that are showing that even positive, like what's meant to be positive content is leading to spread of some of these disorders. So if you've got anti anorexia content, for example, that's meant to be about body positivity. Even just mentioning it as an idea then seems to be spreading some of these ideas and behaviors. So I think it's something where we need to be really aware and and quite cautious about the messages that are attached to any, any containment efforts. And when it comes to social media in general, it was interesting. A few days ago, Australia actually announced that they're banning social media for under 16 seconds. Mhm. Do you, do you, do you uh blame social media for a lot of these problems. Do you think that its use should be heavily regulated among adolescents, or do you think perhaps that this problem is being overhyped? I'm cautious. I think that there certainly is a role of social media in some problems. I think it's also been overstated at a population level. So I think for some teenagers it's incredibly harmful. I think for others it can be quite helpful, particularly where it helps them to if they feel isolated in real life. For some, it will help them to kind of find a sense of community, um, to find other people who've got similar interests. In some cases, it helps facilitate, uh, real life friendships. So it will. People can. Teenagers can kind of go online and arrange to meet in the park on Saturday afternoon or whatever. So I think we need to be careful about writing off everything. I think the idea of a ban is interesting, and I think it would be quite helpful to parents because a lot of the time parents are having to deal with, um, everybody else has got social media, so I need to have social media as well. So it's quite hard for parents who want to hold a line on social media to be able to do so, and having a ban would be helpful for them, but I think everything needs to be weighed up first quite carefully. And what's been raised as potential issues with what's proposed in Australia is that without that kind of careful consideration and making sure that it's done in the right way, you risk having a potential backlash and shifting teenagers off known platforms to unknown platforms where they might be even less safe. Um, so I think we need to be quite careful with how it's managed. Yes, I suppose ultimately it's about the ratio, you know, if, if a if a if a teenager uses Instagram for an hour and that helps them to communicate with their friends who they then see in person for three hours, then you can imagine that would be really helpful. But if I suppose the issue is. If social media is a teenager's entire social world, and it's becoming the entire social world of a lot of adults as well, and that should be pointed out, then that can be a huge problem. Like I like to draw the analogy between information and food. So just with food you have food that's nutritious that we know is really good for you. Uh, like you can eat as much salad as you want. There probably aren't going to be negative consequences. But then there's junk food. And it's not that someone can't eat junk food entirely. They can have some junk food and it's okay. But if their diet is all junk food, that's a problem. And I think similarly with information and socializing, the best socializing is in person. Getting that real bond with the person, getting to spend some time with them. Social media as a kind of high stimulating, junky kind of socializing can be useful. It can be fun, but you wouldn't want it to be the whole the bedrock of that person's social life. Absolutely. And I think it it with with some teenagers, they're able to use it quite lightly to pick it up and put it down, and others find it absolutely impossible. And that's where they need adults to be. They're kind of supporting them so that they can actually either steer away from it altogether or, um, learn how to use it in a healthy way. And that's another thing that makes me slightly cautious about a blanket ban without any kind of careful approach, actually, because I don't think we've currently got a solution to what happens when a teenager hits 16. Um, and if you look at, to use your junk food analogy, if you look at research studies about restricting parental restriction of food, um, if parents have too many rules around food, then children don't learn how to regulate themselves, and they're much more likely to have an unhealthy diet later than if parents are slightly more relaxed about it. And I worry slightly that if we're not as careful, something similar might be going to happen with social media. So you have if you have 16, for example, as being the point at which social media is fine, if there's been nothing that then supports teenagers to learn to know how to use it in a way that's healthy, then the kind of flip flip point at 16 might be worse than if he had approached that point more gradually and actually kind of structured for them how it gets used in a healthy way. I think just having that kind of black, white, you're either totally out of it or you're totally in, it might not be the right way to go, but I'm not. I don't know what the solution is to that. Um, and as you're speaking, I'm also wondering. Are we making a mistake by putting all the focus on how social media is bad, and none of the focus on how important in-person socializing is? So rather than demonizing and banning social media, should we really be promoting and creating a culture of easy, in-person socializing and making that as frictionless as possible for kids? I'm making that as fun and as attractive an option as possible. I think that would be brilliant if we could do it. I mean, all of the research points to having that real life community as being absolutely essential and having a sense of belonging as well. Um, and if you have have isolated teenagers who are sitting in their bedrooms who aren't able to develop that kind of real world sense of belonging, then they're not going to be able to kind of cope with other with negative aspects of their life in the same way as if they've got that social web. Real world social web that's holding them up. Absolutely. We're out of time. But, Matilda, thank you so much for coming on. I have way more questions, so we're going to have to have you back on at some point in the future, maybe once your second book is out. I'd love that. Thank you. Where would people where should people go if they'd like to know more about your work? Uh, they can go to my website, which is, um, Matilda gosling.com. Uh, they can get either of my books. Uh, so evidence based parenting, which is already out. And then teenagers, the evidence base, um, is available to pre-order um, now. And I'm also on social media at Matilda Gosling. Perfect. We'll put a link to your website in the description. Thanks very much for coming on. Thank you for having me.