When our kids enter the tween years (roughly 9-12), a very peculiar phenomenon occurs in which they stop listening to the wisdom of their elders. The Latin name for this phenomenon is Respectus Interruptus, which translates roughly to, ‘the time when a child first decides that their parents are useless lumps with absolutely no valuable insights ever.’ The onset typically occurs at around eight years but researchers have also documented the behaviour of children as young as three nodding vaguely at their parents’ advice about their latest sandpit showdown while they mentally rehearse TikTok dances. 

Are we joking? ONLY SORT OF. 

The fact is, kids are much more inclined to listen to other kids, especially when it comes to subjects to do with the experience of being a tween today, like peer pressure, body-shaming, grooming, bullying and navigating social media and life online. Enter Rachel Downie, QLD’s Australian of the Year in 2020, founder of Stymie (a website that allows kids to anonymously report harmful behaviour amongst their peers), ParentTV Expert and…Survivor Australia 2021 contestant! We’ll be watching closely but we’re already pretty sure she’s a shoo-in to win. Who understands human behaviour more than an anti-bullying educator with decades of experience in Australian schools? For most of us, our experience of school is a fundamental part of who we become as adults, and Rachel’s had a front row seat with a clear view of how schools can both shape us and break us as kids. 

We’ve got a lot of great stuff from Rachel on the PTV site already, but her latest work enters into some new territory that we’re especially excited about, because it solves a particular problem we alluded to earlier: How do we help our kids receive the information they need to keep them safe when they don’t want to hear it from us? Through other kids, of course! In this new video series, Rachel turns what could be a lecture into a discussion, with real-life kids sharing their real-life experiences, understanding and concerns. Rachel tells them some things they didn’t know and they share their stories that she couldn’t have known, either. There’s no judgement and no preaching. It’s not a class, but it is educational. It’s not a meeting of friends but it is a meeting of equals. Most of all, it’s an important conversation, and one that our kids probably wouldn’t have with us. While there might not be a cure for Respectus Interruptus, there is an antidote, and this series is it.

Here’s why it’s important.

Bullying is rife among this age group, and the emergence of more and more online spaces for kids to engage with each other only increases the likelihood that they’ll experience bullying in some form, either as a victim or perpetrator. They’ll also likely be confronted with inappropriate content in some form, and they’ll almost certainly encounter people behaving inappropriately towards them. They’ll probably make some choices that aren’t safe and meet some people who aren’t safe either. The problem is, all of these things may happen well before your child has the capacity to respond to them effectively and stop them progressing into even more dangerous territory. This isn’t to do with your parenting, how smart they are, how controlled their device use is or how strict their school is. It’s to do with the world they live in, and how different it is to the one we grew up in. To be safe in their world, our kids need a whole different set of skills than we did, and they need them now.

Have we convinced you yet?

In case you still needed more reasons to sit down with your tween to watch this series this weekend, here are some important numbers to wrap our head around, courtesy of Rachel Downie, Stymie and the Australian Government’s Office of the e-Safety Commissioner:

100, 000

This is the number of Australian students that stay at home each day because they feel unsafe at school.

25

This is the percentage of Australian kids bullied at school every day.

87

This is the percentage of bullying harm cases that occur in the presence of onlookers.

57

This is the percentage of our kids that have seen real violence online that disturbed them.

Just under 50

This is the percentage of Australian kids between the ages of 9-16 who experience regular exposure to sexual images.

43

This is the percentage of Australian kids that will not tell an adult when they’re being bullied online.

38

This is the percentage of young people in Australia that chat to strangers online.

1 in 4

This is how many young people have been contacted by someone they don’t know online.

1 in 5

This is how many young people admit to behaving in a negative way to a peer online.

90

This is the percentage of those 1 in 5 kids who had negative experiences online themselves.

These numbers can’t be ignored.