Screens are part of everyday life, but knowing how to manage them while protecting our kids’ mental health can feel like a constant challenge.

In this episode, Dr Renee White sits down with Professor Selena Bartlett, a neuroscientist, author, and mum who’s dedicated her career to making brain science practical for everyday families. Drawing on decades of research into neuroplasticity, stress, and mental health, Selena shares actionable tools to help parents manage screen time, nurture resilience, strengthen connection, and safeguard their children’s mental wellbeing in the digital age.

Whether you’re introducing your child’s first device, battling constant requests for more screen time, or simply wanting to foster a calmer, more connected home, this conversation is packed with useful, doable advice.

You’ll hear about:

• How neuroplasticity can help you and your child build resilience
• Practical tips for setting and keeping screen time boundaries
• The impact of technology on kids’ mental health
• How to reduce stress and boost connection as a family
• Everyday changes to support your child’s wellbeing

It’s not about avoiding technology altogether, but about using it mindfully to protect what matters most.

Resources and Links

📲 Connect with Renee on Instagram: @fillyourcup_

🌐 Learn more about Dr Renee White and explore Fill Your Cup Doula services

🍪 Treat yourself with our Chocolate + Goji lactation cookies

🌿 Connect with Professor Selena Bartlett:

Website: profselenabartlett.com | Instagram: @prof_selena_bartlett

🎧 Listen to Selena’s podcast Thriving Minds and explore her work at womenrise.com.au

If this episode gives you fresh ideas for tackling screen time and protecting your child’s mental health, share it with another mum who could use the same support. And don’t forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode of The Science of Motherhood.

Disclaimer: The information on this podcast presented by the Fill Your Cup is not a substitute for independent professional advice.

Nothing contained in this podcast is intended to be used as medical advice and it is not intended to be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, nor should it be used for therapeutic purposes or as a substitute for your own health professional's advice.

[00:00:30] Dr Renee White: Hello and welcome to episode 188 of The Science of Motherhood. I'm your host, Dr. Renee White, and this episode is proudly brought to you by Fill Your Cup Doulas, which is the amazing doula [00:00:45] village that I lead the charge at here in Australia. We have been looking after overwhelmed and sleep deprived mamas since 2020, and boy oh boy, has it been an absolute ride for [00:01:00] all those playing at home.

[00:01:39] Dr Renee White: What really sets us apart is the fact that, I've got over 16 years of health and [00:01:45] medical education and with that we really understand how to replenish, restore, and support mamas in the thick of motherhood. We've got doulas across Australia, including Melbourne, Hobart, Sydney, [00:02:00] Geelong, Newcastle, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast.

[00:02:26] Dr Renee White: Paris, who we had as a mama a couple of years [00:02:30] ago. She said, I don't think I could have made it out the other side without it, which, it's just so beautiful and we're so lucky to walk alongside her. Rachel said, I'll be recommending this service to everyone I know. Jen, [00:02:45] who was supported by our gorgeous doer, Amanda in Melbourne.

[00:03:51] Dr Renee White: Alright, let's jump in today's podcast. Today on the Science of Motherhood, we have got the amazing [00:04:00] Professor Selena Bartlett. Now I have to say, I think I made an error in the first part when I introduced her, I think I called her Dr. Selena Bartlett. That is not the case. She's a Professor.

[00:04:43] Dr Renee White: And as soon as I saw [00:04:45] her, um, on the screen. I, I got home, I emailed, uh, Hailey and I said, can I please have Selena's details? I need to speak to this woman because she put this amazing image up on [00:05:00] the screen and she showed the MRI brain scans of a child who had had consistent love, connection, communication with an adult and one that does [00:05:15] not.

[00:05:43] Dr Renee White: Selena's got the data. She's [00:05:45] read the research and she's very, very passionate about this. You'll hear that she started in a field of pharmacy and due to a very personal experience, she transitioned over to [00:06:00] neuroscience, looking at neuroplasticity, stress and most importantly, mental health. So Selena is on a mission, and you'll hear this, to help people rewire their brains for resilience and joy.

[00:06:49] Dr Renee White: But I want to say, and you'll hear this by the end of the podcast, is that whilst it is a bit dire, there are so many things that we can do. And I think [00:07:00] as long as you go into this understanding that when it comes to the brain, it is neuroplastic, which means whilst things have been wired, we have the opportunity and we [00:07:15] have the ability to rewire the brain.

[00:07:48] Dr Renee White: It's possible. It really is and so whilst you listen to this podcast, you might feel a little bit down because of the results of the, of these studies. [00:08:00] But we can make a difference and it can start today. And it's not, it, it's not an opportunity to lose hope because we, we can start to see and make a change.

[00:08:24] Prof. Selena Bartlett: I'm great. How are you?

[00:08:38] Dr Renee White: We're gonna be talking about screen time, and I, we've just been quickly talking offline and I was like, oh my [00:08:45] God, we need to hit record because there's so much that we are going to actually chat about in this episode. I'm so, so excited. But before we dive down that rabbit hole, Selena, can we just get a little bit of background for the listeners about who you are, [00:09:00] what your research is kind of about in a bit of a nutshell?

[00:09:17] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Absolutely. So, hi everyone. I am, uh, Professor Selena Bartlett. I run a research lab in Brisbane and I got into science because, uh, my sister had a mental illness in Brisbane in [00:09:30] 1989 and I was a pharmacist at the time.

[00:09:47] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And I was in that with her in and out 'cause she was made a ward of the state and we couldn't do anything about it. So my mum and I went there for three weeks and I was in the middle of my honors year looking at why people buy cough and cold medications [00:10:00] in a pharmacy. And I was gonna open pharmacies for women a cooperative anyway, but in that moment when my sister was sitting there catatonic, um, and they said, well, she's probably gonna have this forever and there's nothing we can do about it.

[00:10:33] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And then I traveled to the US and ran my own research lab there for nearly 20 years. And in that space I was developing drugs and I was really getting into trying to understand the brain at a deep level. Mm-hmm. And I really thought if I [00:10:45] just developed the next best thing and understood the brain, and you'll understand this, Renee as a biochemist.

[00:11:11] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Mm-hmm. And I got a wake up call and it led me [00:11:15] into, and I won't go into the details, but re led me into neuroplasticity. Mm-hmm. And it also led me into understanding exactly why my sister got a mental illness. Mm-hmm. And I was in the total wrong pathway. And it's not that there's one pathway, it's, there's a middle way here.

[00:11:46] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:57] Prof. Selena Bartlett: The impact of, and we'll get into that soon, [00:12:00] but really, what, what are the mechanisms that drive neuroplasticity, right? Our ability to change and heal, using the brain's amazing capacity for this, and also understanding the truth, the facts, what drives mental health and without. Marrying [00:12:15] those two areas, then we're gonna just keep, pick treating symptoms, labeling people, and uh, and, and that's, there's some value in that.

[00:12:43] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Uh, and that's what I am very [00:12:45] passionate about and that's why I have come on your podcast where I have books and have my own podcast. And I do a lot as a hobby outside my QT role. I have as a hobby, a lot of my books and work in education, the public. [00:13:00] And that's where the documentary film comes in. That's the next step because people aren't reading books anymore. They're watching films. So that's where the Seen, and we can go into how that all came about, which is,

[00:13:13] Prof. Selena Bartlett: beautiful 'cause people are reacting [00:13:15] to that in a way that's both scary but also wonderful. And we can talk about both of those opportunities.

[00:13:45] Dr Renee White: I need to speak to Selena straight away about this. And I contacted Hailey and I was like, I need her details please. I, I wanna ask so, you know, obviously the movie is about, you know, four [00:14:00] parents and they share their experience as a parent, but we talk a lot about, and you could see from, from that movie, the own, their own imprints of their childhood.

[00:14:28] Prof. Selena Bartlett: You're gonna love this, Renee. [00:14:30] 'cause it's total biochemist. Yes.

[00:14:35] Prof. Selena Bartlett: So, and, and that's the beauty of where we are scientifically, right? Yeah. So science, everyday science advances. So what we thought we knew in the past changes every day, but [00:14:45] we get stuck in what we knew in the past, right? Mm-hmm. So, so why is this happening? So what. What drives this imprint. Mm-hmm. And this is so cool because it takes us to 1953 science. Then it takes us to 2000 [00:15:00] advances in science, and then it takes us right through now to 2020 advances.

[00:15:15] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:26] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:28] Dr Renee White: Mm.

[00:15:37] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:43] Prof. Selena Bartlett: So now we can sequence [00:15:45] every cell in our body, right? Yeah. And in the brain too, we can sequence every neuron in the brain. So that's step one. Step two, when I became a neuroscientist, I got really lucky Renee, because guess what? They discovered how to see inside the living [00:16:00] brain. Mm-hmm. Using, using, uh, flu fluorescent markers.

[00:16:20] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:16:34] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:52] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:22] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Now this is the work of epigenetics, right? Mm-hmm. So we have our hardware, which is the genes, but then we have our experiences, [00:17:30] our life experiences, which then modify the way those genes are expressed. Mm-hmm. It's called epigenetics, but there's obviously more to it than that even. Yeah. Um, and we won't go down that pathway 'cause that's called transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. Yeah. That's a whole new field.

[00:17:47] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yeah, exactly. Um, and so, so what are we, what are we saying here? Well, so now we can see inside the human brain, we now know what causes, how the circuits are interacting. It's a living, living [00:18:00] system.

[00:18:00] Prof. Selena Bartlett: It's not a static system. So that's how experiences. Your environment. That's how the, the love and care and attention you get. That's how even before you are born, before the sperm and [00:18:15] egg come into play, they've already been living in an experience themselves, right? Mm-hmm. And they're coming from, as you know, because of genetics.

[00:18:54] Prof. Selena Bartlett: That's how big this is, and that's why it's such a cool future. Mm-hmm. Okay. So [00:19:00] then what happened? So now, uh, since COVID. Amazing joy who discovered functional MRI guess what she did during COVID

[00:19:15] Prof. Selena Bartlett: for her lab. She did it for her lab. So her lab, she's at Yale and she came from Columbia 'cause her husband won a Nobel Prize and they were recruiting her with him 'cause she's amazing. And they gave her this huge pot of money. So she dedicated that pot of research money to, [00:19:30] to saying, so I've done all the fr, you know, I've done all the functional MRI and I've been studying the brain as a single thing because you put one brain into a scanner and you study it.

[00:20:10] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:30] Prof. Selena Bartlett: This is the 1953 moment for neuroscience.

[00:20:33] Prof. Selena Bartlett: But also the science in general because we can now measure bioelectric fields around organs and things like that, which makes a lot of sense for how things grow so quickly. Mm-hmm. And on repeat patterns. Yeah. So that's [00:20:45] a whole new area that's really going to be the way for the next 50 years of science.

[00:21:03] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:21:11] Prof. Selena Bartlett: This, this impact is so direct, right? It's so [00:21:15] direct. Our mood, our whole being, the environment because of how well we feeling impacts, how well we create the environment that we're living in. Mm-hmm. And that environment massively impacts the way the brain develops, especially [00:21:30] between the first cell being born, which is a brain cell right through all of time, but specifically big time between zero first brain cell.

[00:21:44] Prof. Selena Bartlett: [00:21:45] Zero. I call that to definitely hugely the first 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 years of age. And, and then obviously we know that the brain for a man is not fully developed till 20 [00:22:00] male, till 25 and 22 for female. That's the really top part of the brain that allows us to sit back and make whole space or not overreact to, you know how we react really fast.

[00:22:14] Prof. Selena Bartlett: That's because we [00:22:15] don't have a fully formed prefrontal cortex or, and other things. Right. So this, because of what we just discussed, scientifically understanding this

[00:22:26] Prof. Selena Bartlett: That's why I could go to that film with confidence. Yeah. Because I've been doing this [00:22:30] for so long and, and understanding all of the scientific advances.

[00:22:35] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And then people bringing their lived experience that just, they're coming in at it different ways. Yeah. And I think that's what Haley was trying to show. But what I would like to see is a whole [00:22:45] updating of all of the textbooks and training manuals so that people having aren't having to go on journeys to discover the facts.

[00:22:56] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:23:06] Dr Renee White: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:23:08] Prof. Selena Bartlett: That that's the frustrating part as a scientist is that people will say, finally, the science is catching up. Well, if it had caught [00:23:15] up, why are you having to do 10 journeys to get the facts that, do you know what I mean? Like Yeah. If the facts were in the textbooks and training manuals and common knowledge, there wouldn't be 4,000 journeys to get to the same facts.

[00:23:27] Prof. Selena Bartlett: That's, that's just how I would like to see the [00:23:30] change and I see it coming.

[00:23:31] Prof. Selena Bartlett: But I've already been trying for 14 years teaching in these spaces. It's just because we're so tied to our identity, we don't like to think the brain can be taked out. Like, we don't like to think that you can take this thing and put it over here for a bit [00:23:45] and train it like you go to the gym.

[00:24:04] Prof. Selena Bartlett: she the first child.

[00:24:33] Dr Renee White: Like I loved the science of it all, but I remember when I was reading passages in it and he was talking about neuroplasticity and he was talking about the fact that, and I almost was like, uh, [00:24:45] is this like a quote unquote parenting book, which is actually disguised as, you know, a book where it's okay everyone, we realized that you probably haven't dealt with your own childhood, [00:25:00] but he was like, it's okay because the brain's neuroplastic and so you can kind of go back and do the work and rewire and things like that.

[00:25:24] Prof. Selena Bartlett: But imagine if you didn't have to work that out.

[00:25:28] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Imagine if you were shown that like as you are [00:25:30] working with all these amazing new parents and Yes. People. Yes. Imagine if you were given that instead of just learning how to breastfeed and get organic milk and healthy lunchboxes. Yeah. And if you were shown that early life experiences have a dramatic of, uh, other number one thing [00:25:45] that if you modify, have the long-term mental wellness strategy in at hand.

[00:25:51] Prof. Selena Bartlett: 'cause the food doesn't matter unless you do this piece basically.

[00:26:06] Prof. Selena Bartlett: I think that the documentary partly was to do that in a way, just to do it in a film way.

[00:26:28] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:34] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yeah. So why does it happen under stress? That's the key, right? So you're trying your best. Every parent, every parent of a new child comes in saying, I'm not going to [00:26:45] do this and I'm not going to do that. And I am you. I'm a parent, and I did exactly what you did. My son was about three. I remember the moment exactly, and I'm only learning this with time and practice.

[00:27:10] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:27:21] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Mm-hmm. That's what the brain is designed to do. That's it. Mm. Or the mirror neuron system. It's called the attention [00:27:30] network system. If I were to strip back and show you what a baby's brain is, looks like, and it, imagine if we could do this too to young parents to show them what their capable of, this is the only thing their capable of, and this is what their brain is only [00:27:45] designed to do between this and this age because it's so important for their survival.

[00:28:03] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:07] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah,

[00:28:38] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:53] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:59] Dr Renee White: Right.

[00:29:15] Prof. Selena Bartlett: It's a big deal. Yes. And so that speaks to answering that question. Yeah. So when we're under stress, the only, even though we wanna not be our parents in a moment, like we don't wanna smack our kids, we don't wanna do what we saw or whatever the situation [00:29:30] that's you are hearing for you listening. Mm-hmm.

[00:29:42] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:29:58] Prof. Selena Bartlett: So that crying [00:30:00] is natural reaction for us to go offline 'cause we wanna soothe. We don't want them to feel that way, right? It's mm-hmm. We can't sit with it and let them feel that way either, right? As a strategy to, so they can work out that they're safe and you know, all of those mechanisms in their brain [00:30:15] immediately.

[00:30:39] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Mm-hmm. A one second pause loop. And that's talked about by Terry in the film and I [00:30:45] love his consciousness.

[00:30:47] Prof. Selena Bartlett: He's great. And that's a really cool thing. That's a really cool strategy that he talks about how to build that, I call it just a brain pause. Mm-hmm. I like to think of the brain as a muscle.

[00:31:22] Prof. Selena Bartlett: That was your survival strategy. Mm-hmm. So there's just these other tools that I'd like to see introduced for people to understand that this is all our brains, it's [00:31:30] evolution. We're actually incredibly powerful people that we've survived millions of years of like, we're amazing, aren't we?

[00:31:36] Prof. Selena Bartlett: You and I could be sitting here in a podcast after billions of years of evolution. Yeah. Lots of chances of us being here.

[00:31:44] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And we [00:31:45] are in the icing sugar of life in Australia. Yeah. We have a pretty fortunate place and I think we lose that because we only see the icing sugar. We don't see,

[00:31:55] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yeah. My husband and I say that to each other all the time that we are dancing in the icing sugar of [00:32:00] life. But, but you get so caught up in the icing sugar that you don't recognise there's a whole sponge cake underneath you. Yeah. And, and then we start thinking we've got it hard 'cause we only see. What stuck around us.

[00:32:21] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah. I wanna talk about this excessive screen time. Yes a bit because you know, I,

[00:32:33] Dr Renee White: Yeah. I mean, we see

[00:32:35] Dr Renee White: Yeah. We see like some, I don't know, like I kind of look at both things. I mean, we hear people who are like, it's okay for your kids to have some screen [00:32:45] time. And then there's other people who are like hard, no. Like, you know, I know some people who are just like, there's no tv, there's no iPads, there's no devices in the house at all.

[00:33:20] Dr Renee White: So like, what is excessive screen time versus what's a healthy version of screen time? Does that actually exist?

[00:33:36] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:33:40] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yep. Social media and the mobile phone usage only [00:33:45] escalated after 2010. Right. And combined with COVID, so the screen time hockey sticked after 2010, so a lot of the research is still coming. And so this paper I'm just about to describe to you is out of New Zealand, and they did a longitudinal [00:34:00] study actually measuring exactly that question.

[00:34:23] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yeah, absolutely. And there's an amazing graph on there, and every single parameter [00:34:30] decreases as you increase the amount of screen time.

[00:34:34] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And it just make, like, all you have to do is think about how you feel when you're on a screen for too long. Yes. Now, apply that to a baby's brain that requires face to face [00:34:45] attention from a healthy adult to have healthy brain development. Remember what I said? The key, the key factor is a healthy adult presence to signal safety and security.

[00:34:59] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And [00:35:00] I think in the film, um, Vanessa calls it that relationships like air and she describes experiments that show it's the same as food to baby brain.

[00:35:29] Prof. Selena Bartlett: We're all [00:35:30] addicted. So then how can we then say to our children not to use it? Yeah. How can we think that this is bad for us? Yeah. That's, that's where we are. Like smoking was. Mm-hmm. We were all smoking. You won't remember this, but I do. We wear, we're smoking every [00:35:45] building, every space. Ev, doctors, hospitals, everyone.

[00:35:57] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:36:07] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yeah. Kids running around, you know, all of these kind of things. And, and, and it, it's a big game changing shift that happened. Mm-hmm. [00:36:15] Slowly, it was just kind of a somewhat a slow burn that then sped up because of COVID. Yeah. So at the moment, Renee, the average, the average global screen time of adults is eight to nine hours a day.

[00:36:40] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Well, it's, it's, the kids are increasing by the month. [00:36:45] Yeah. And it's, and it's speeding up fast and it's got really young. Yeah. So it used to be like 10, but what they're seeing in schools now is that 10-year-old behavior like hypersexualized behavior. We've got seven year olds going into eating disorder [00:37:00] clinics. Mm-hmm. So everything's moving down to younger and younger ages. Yeah. Because we are not addressing this fast enough.

[00:37:07] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Because we are having these conversations rather than belief around, I mean, it's just intuitive.

[00:37:32] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:38:01] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:38:26] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yeah. 'cause we don't that as the we we always looking around. [00:38:30] This, but imagine if you and I, and that's why we have to start with the adults. Mm-hmm. Because the adults have to do it first. Yes. Kids are just copying us. So then you don't have to do anything with the kids. Mm-hmm. Because then if you're doing it yourself, then you've got that extra hour to take them into the [00:38:45] park.

[00:38:46] Prof. Selena Bartlett: You know what I mean? And drop everything and say, Hey guys, get off your things with, and you turn it all off and you say, we're going for a walk in the park.

[00:38:53] Prof. Selena Bartlett: cause now you've created the space for yourself. Yeah. So it's all about the adults. The adults are the team. They're the leader of the, [00:39:00] of the sports team.

[00:39:17] Dr Renee White: Yes. Because the

[00:39:22] Dr Renee White: Yeah. And because I think about. And you're absolutely right because I was gonna ask you about some, you know, some tangible things that [00:39:30] people can integrate. Yeah. But I look at the,

[00:39:34] Dr Renee White: I, I, I'd, I wanna do that, but I, I look at the way that, you know, school has transitioned, you know, I, I, I'm [00:39:45] 40, so, you know, I was at school from in the nineties and two thousands.

[00:40:18] Dr Renee White: Lots of stuff is on there. And so I'm kind of. I'm in these, I'm in these two thoughts where I see some families who are like, no iPads, no TVs, no devices. And I [00:40:30] think to myself, that's fine. But also how do we teach our kids how to use one and interact on one?

[00:40:42] Dr Renee White: Education systems, like you have to do all your tests on here.[00:40:45]

[00:41:00] Dr Renee White: Yeah

[00:41:16] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:41:21] Prof. Selena Bartlett: They could pick stuff up and they're really good at it. So, but do we want them scrolling and showing us how to scroll really fast? No, but that's what they're doing. They're snapping each other, they're [00:41:30] sending, uh, naked photos to each other very, very young. Our, our devices in Australia are the most unsafe in the world.

[00:42:01] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Mm-hmm. Because there's devices fill in gaps where adults can't handle the behavior anymore. They speed things up. They mean less humans to pay for and support, like think about it. [00:42:15] That's why I keep saying, and I'll keep coming back to this over and over again. If we just look at the screen first and think about if we remove that from nought to five, or let's say let's ring fence childhood.[00:42:30]

[00:42:45] Dr Renee White: yeah.

[00:42:52] Prof. Selena Bartlett: It's not, it's not on them either. They're, they're under so much pressure that I've never seen before because they have to deliver all this [00:43:00] content that they're babies, what we're talk delivering content to. Mm, when they should be just sitting in the garden, playing with the mud, getting to learn how to fail, how to interact.

[00:43:26] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:51] Prof. Selena Bartlett: So I think there's many things that we have to do, but I think unlocking childhood is a huge one.

[00:43:57] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And I interviewed someone about this who's an [00:44:00] expert educated, and she was saying, stop stuffing the duck. Like we keep stuffing the duck. If we just provide more information to these children and, and now we're stuffing to the, to the point where now we need to give them mindfulness training to get over all their anxiety that's [00:44:15] been given to them from many generations of stuffing the duck with curriculum and performance.

[00:44:37] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:48] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yeah. Um, there is no safety. Yeah. And so there's initiatives right now. So on the happy side, um, which I like is that there's always a happy side to this, and that's having these [00:45:00] conversations and stimulating energetically people listening. There'll be people listening here that will do something. So there's a initiative at Pymble Ladies College.

[00:45:19] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:24] Dr Renee White: Mm.

[00:45:32] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And this phone follows them through their whole, from starting in year four. And it follows them through their whole journey. The kids get to decorate them.

[00:45:41] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And then they get a license. As they demonstrate responsibility, [00:45:45] then they have no cameras. And so it's all controlled behind the scenes by the school, and then they get to access different parts, but it's guaranteed safe tech.

[00:45:55] Prof. Selena Bartlett: So you as a parent, know. That they're not being targeted through [00:46:00] Roblox messaging apps, through discord, through penguin games, through, you know, because every place on the internet now, every app has a chat bot or, and it's AI algorithm driven, so it's not like it used to be. Yeah. We think you have control.

[00:46:14] Prof. Selena Bartlett: It's, [00:46:15] all of us have been driven algorithmically by this big data networks that know us better than we know what we are liking and doing. They, yeah. We become what we think. We are choosing.

[00:46:27] Prof. Selena Bartlett: But then you look back and go, Ooh, no I [00:46:30] didn't. Oh, I didn't really mean to think like that. You know? I mean, and this is happening to really, and so kids are doing this.

[00:46:41] Dr Renee White: Wow.

[00:47:02] Prof. Selena Bartlett: He created that film, and it's happening here too, because of this nature of how this, that what we're consuming content wise is actually changing. Right. Our brain. Yeah. That's how we [00:47:15] learn. Yeah. How, and, and you, you know how plastic those little brains are.

[00:47:19] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Take it in far

[00:47:24] Dr Renee White: Yes. And then that's what, because the phone, like the algorithm goes, oh, you wanna know more about [00:47:30] that? Okay. Yes. And you just get that for two weeks or more.

[00:47:33] Dr Renee White: And it's just in, in front of you and you're just like, what the heck? That,

[00:47:40] Dr Renee White: Yeah. I'm not on TikTok for very good reason, but yes, I do know

[00:47:46] Dr Renee White: Yes. Yeah. I,

[00:47:57] Dr Renee White: pretty dire.

[00:48:08] Prof. Selena Bartlett: It used to be 13, now it's 10. Now it's eight. Because the ubiquitous, you see, it's [00:48:15] ubiquitous. It's so ubiquitous that we don't think we shouldn't do it.

[00:48:38] Dr Renee White: Don't sit on your phone. Yeah. I have to ask, what about a Kindle? Is a Kindle different? [00:48:45]

[00:48:46] Dr Renee White: no. It's still a device.

[00:49:01] Dr Renee White: Gotcha.

[00:49:06] Dr Renee White: recognise if it's safe around

[00:49:21] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Mm-hmm. And where is it gonna learn that? Yeah. If it's sleeping in a cot or it's sleeping in a pram. When is the most active time? When is the brain [00:49:30] biggest developing? Right. Yeah. You know how fast they get to sit up from that. Yes. Like, can you imagine what's happening and why they sleep so much? Why do you think they're sleeping so much?

[00:49:57] Dr Renee White: well, the other thing is that we are told by [00:50:00] some quote unquote professionals, you know, if you know when you're putting your baby to sleep, don't make eye contact with them because you'll make them more alert and then they're less likely to go to sleep.

[00:50:22] Prof. Selena Bartlett: I just think we've had so many things like that, but we didn't have the ability. This is the bit Renee, that we need to finish on the hope and the [00:50:30] beauty, and this is a science meeting intuition and practical common sense. Like just be intuitive. You know who you have in front of you. Mm-hmm. You are designed to do this. You're beautiful people. You're all doing the best. You absolutely [00:50:45] can. We are just here to help you see that there's some small things you can put in place and just experiment because each person is coming with a different set of situations and circumstances into this.

[00:51:22] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Mm-hmm. Having children is really hard. There are no manuals out there, but there are some simple things that you can do that [00:51:30] will go a long way to protecting their brain health that will give them lifelong mental wellness. So even if you're stressed, 'cause you wanna get them dinner and bath and read and, and then you've gotta do your, you know, get up again and do it all over again.

[00:51:58] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:08] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yeah. Seen that's why the film's called Seen.

[00:52:12] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And, and you know, that attention, that [00:52:15] face to face presence is hugely impactful. And the second major thing that you can try to do is what I like to call protect your children from the peanut gallery of what people are saying. You have to have your [00:52:30] children become

[00:52:31] Prof. Selena Bartlett: You dunno who you have in front of you, but if you can just grow to step back and just watch, they are someone that's quite unique in many ways. And if you can learn to love yourself enough [00:52:45] so that you can love that person for whatever they become. Mm-hmm. Because it's not necessarily what you think it might be, but when someone truly sees you, supports you for exactly the person you are.

[00:53:00] Prof. Selena Bartlett: That's massive. Yeah. And, and that's free. Yeah. And that's, it's not available to all of us. 'cause most of us didn't get it. Yeah. As children, we had to be something. We had to, we had a lot of expectations. We talk about that in the film as well. But I just wanna [00:53:15] circle back as we close out to say the film's called Seen.

[00:53:40] Prof. Selena Bartlett: What's the difference? And many people say that to me 'cause we're all from the same family. They say, well, [00:53:45] they have, you have the same parents, you have the same home. How can that be?

[00:53:48] Prof. Selena Bartlett: But this brings us back to the beginning about genetics. There's the genetic susceptibility that we each have, but then there's the environment.

[00:54:14] Prof. Selena Bartlett: [00:54:15] But my grandmother who owned that hotel, rocked me to sleep. And she called me, seen, it's my nickname. And um, and so that followed me my whole life. And, uh, she loved me like that. And she called me [00:54:30] seen, uh, her whole life. And no one knows that. Very few people would know that about me, and that's why I called my book being seen because my sister Francesca, who I love, uh, I run past her house every day.

[00:55:06] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Um, but it led to her becoming the clumsy one. So it's a roll on effect that we don't touch on a lot. [00:55:15] It's touched on the film, but not like this, not in a direct way, because we always look at and think about trauma or early life as something big. Mm-hmm. But it's also something not. That didn't happen. And we never look at that as something that impacts the way the [00:55:30] brain develops.

[00:55:31] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And that's what I learned in my 20 year plus journey in 2013, that I didn't know when my sister took her life in 2006.

[00:55:40] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Um, but I now know, and that's why I do all these podcasts and do a lot of education [00:55:45] and to know that we can change that, can't we, Renee? Yeah. Through this knowledge, through this education, that's where science meets spirituality or science meets the opposite of science or medicine, where there's a middle way that we're creating for people [00:56:00] to see that we're holistic human beings, that we can't just label something and hope for a better outcome. That if we just apply medicine only to that situation, or if we only apply spirituality to that situation, then that everything will be solved.

[00:56:36] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yeah. I would call it, and I think that's why you and I met, and podcasts a beautiful way of spreading that 'cause as someone [00:56:45] listens, they can access this information for free. Yeah. People don't like to hear that, but that's true that education and knowledge raises all boats.

[00:57:23] Prof. Selena Bartlett: well see, I, I only went in not to become a Professor, but to understand why people were being treated like they were.

[00:57:52] Prof. Selena Bartlett: My sister would've been the medicine person in the ancient cultures and treated with enormous respect. Mm-hmm. Um, but in our culture, she [00:58:00] is locked up and thrown away basically. And that's pace ba basically why she ended up, um, passing away at 36 because she ended up in that system of more and more medicine in and out of hospital.

[00:58:31] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:58:40] Dr Renee White: Well, thanks for sharing that. We're, if you're happy to, we have a set of rapid [00:58:45] fire questions that we all ask all of our guests at the end. Oh, great. It's, it's only three questions.

[00:58:54] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Love and attention being seen. Uh, so the top tip is, but first of all, you [00:59:00] have to see yourself and recognise that even if, the hardest tip I would say is Michael Meaney's research, which shows that if you were never hugged, then you dunno how to hug your pups, which was me and I had to reteach [00:59:15] myself love at, when my daughter's 14 and my son was 17.

[00:59:32] Dr Renee White: Did you have a go-to resource or would, what would be your go-to resource for, you know, mums ? And it can be, it can be a workshop, it can be a book, it can be a [00:59:45] poem, it could be a quote, it could be anything.

[01:00:11] Dr Renee White: Oh.

[01:00:29] Prof. Selena Bartlett: [01:00:30] And I, I went through a divorce and I've been through a lot of stuff and yeah. All sorts of things like that. So I put this card deck together and I pull one of these cards and I give them out to everybody. I see.

[01:00:41] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Um, on behalf of my mother, because she was a very powerful [01:00:45] woman. Yeah. As you all are listening, so that resource and, and just know you're doing your best and the fact you're listening to this podcast or you're trying your best.

[01:00:55] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And just reach out. The biggest thing is support. You need help. Mm-hmm. This is not [01:01:00] easy. You cannot do this on your own. Life is a team sport and you need help. And I, and I said that in the film, if there's one thing I could go back and change is I'd recognise I have to ask for help.

[01:01:17] Dr Renee White: And I got asked, you know, a question around, you know, building that village and things like that. And I was, I was the same. I was that classic a type personality, thought I could do it all, all by [01:01:30] myself 'cause that's what I'd always been rewarded for. Right?

[01:01:33] Dr Renee White: And then I, then I like, you know, that, that classic like, oh, I can't actually do this for myself and this is not actually fun at all.

[01:02:01] Prof. Selena Bartlett: but they want to be involved too.

[01:02:08] Prof. Selena Bartlett: But also renee, the grandparent link here is critical. Yeah. Because of the [01:02:15] wisdom and experience that young people are rejecting. But need,

[01:02:25] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Yes.

[01:02:30] Prof. Selena Bartlett: I have, oh, this is gonna be a bit out there, but I have, I have my sister, I have three statues, one's my mum, one's my sister, and one's my other sister, and one's my daughter. So [01:02:45] they're those beautiful angel like statues.

[01:02:48] Prof. Selena Bartlett: I also have a small vial of my mum's ashes right now as I'm working out where I'm, I've, I've given her, we did a little thing on the Gold Coast where she lived for a while, but I've kept [01:03:00] some, so I have, I think about my sister all the time, but now I also have my mum and uh, also my daughter is doing kind of brain sciencey research this year as well. Okay. Just, she [01:03:15] didn't want to, she was going in to do an honors degree in cardiovascular research, but they said to her, we need, she's doing preterm. Oh, this will be relevant to you. Yeah. Just preterm birth. Right. Just see if they can improve outcomes for [01:03:30] babies that are born preterm.

[01:03:32] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Working at the Royal Brisbane Hospital in the ni, near the nicu. Yeah. They're doing piglet, obviously models. Yeah. They said to her, we need you to do the brain project.

[01:03:48] Prof. Selena Bartlett: No, they didn't know about me.

[01:03:50] Prof. Selena Bartlett: No, she, they had no idea This was all on her own.

[01:04:03] Dr Renee White: Ah,

[01:04:22] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[01:04:36] Dr Renee White: Yes. Yes.

[01:04:42] Prof. Selena Bartlett: I had huge funding. Working with all the drug [01:04:45] companies was really successful in the US Right. In terms of being on Good Morning America for my discoveries. Mm-hmm. But soon as I moved into this other space of actually recognizing what it is that we need to do's, just no funding, hardly. Which is so interesting to me.

[01:05:09] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:21] Prof. Selena Bartlett: It's about, your legacy is about giving back your house and your cars and all of that to your children. Because as we just [01:05:30] talked about at the beginning, it's all about love and attention. And that that time that you give is lifelong mental wellness.

[01:05:39] Prof. Selena Bartlett: And it stays in their brain for three generations that they pass on to the next generations.

[01:05:53] Dr Renee White: Oh, Selena, thank you so much for, um, coming on the podcast. I have thoroughly enjoyed the chat and I [01:06:00] knew, as I said, we're gonna run out of topic, uh, a time before topics, but this is gonna be a really, I think, thought provoking episode for people to listen to.

[01:06:16] Prof. Selena Bartlett: You can find them on my website at. Selena Bartlettt.com. But also I have a website called women rise.com au. Beautiful. And I'm creating a whole movement around circles of [01:06:30] bringing, as we said, bringing community of people together to have these lovely conversations together and recognise we're in this together.

[01:06:43] Dr Renee White: Yeah, of course, of [01:06:45] course.

[01:07:02] Prof. Selena Bartlett: Mm-hmm. But even though it was hard for me, I wasn't allowed, I had to kind of pretend I wasn't a woman in a way, but through raising my children. But now my children get to have the next phase. Yeah. And [01:07:15] it all started with these amazing people. Mm-hmm. And sometimes we always look at the bad side of childhood, but there's also this other beautiful side that we give our children, you know, these opportunities and yeah.

[01:07:37] Dr Renee White: yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Well thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. I really do appreciate it.

[01:07:46] Dr Renee White: Lovely to meet you,

[01:07:48] Dr Renee White: Yes, please get in touch if you ever head down to Tassie. Um, it's getting cold, so bring you winter woollies.

[01:07:55] Dr Renee White: Yeah, look at me. I know, I know. I'm very [01:08:00] jealous. Um, alright everyone, until next time, we'll see you.

[01:08:49] Dr Renee White: Until next time, bye.