Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps17 Jul 2025

PREMIUM: "How to Raise an Awesome Kid (and be an Awesome Grown-Up)" with Dr Billy Garvey

It's one of the most persistent, perplexing and provocative questions to plague our culture: What explains the explosion in ADHD, anxiety and autism in kids? Is it too much Instagram? Not enough Ritalin? Or are one-of-a-kind kids being failed by a one-size-fits-all model of schooling and parenting?

Dr Billy Garvey is one of Australia's leading developmental paediatricians. He's a senior specialist at one of Australia's largest university paediatric hospitals, where he works with kids struggling with behavioural issues just like he did. His clinic has a waiting list that's years-long.

Billy and Josh debate masculinity, permissive parenting, rigid schools, the over-diagnosis of mental "diseases" in kids, and whether kids are coddled these days. Josh wants to understand why the Greatest Generation was able to win WWII without the high rates of clinical anxiety and depression that supposedly afflict today's snowflakes. Billy says that's exactly the wrong way to look at it.

Billy also hosts the #1 parenting podcast in Australia, Pop Culture Parenting, and is the founder of Guiding Growing Minds, a social enterprise that helps children to live meaningful lives. His book is Ten Things I Wish You Knew About Your Child’s Mental Health.

Josh walked out of this conversation feeling like he'd received a bracing, mind-expanding free therapy session. Unleash your inner twelve-year-old and take a seat.

Watch this conversation on YouTube. And you’re missing out on our best ad-free content if you haven’t popped over to the Uncomfy Convos Substack page.

http://twitter.com/joshzepps

http://instagram.com/joshszeps/

http://tiktok.com/@uncomfyconversations

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(493)

JUST JOSH: The Unlearned Lesson of 9/11

It's a quarter-century since 9/11. What do we need to understand about its legacy, so as to handle the next quarter-century better? Josh was a college student visiting the World Trade Towers the summe...

10 Sep 2h 39min

Jewish Comedy at the Bondi Attack

Has a secret in your ancestry ever changed who you are? Imagine being a non-Jewish comedian who suddenly finds out he's Jewish. What do you do? You put on a comedy show on the site of the worst antise...

7 Sep 1h 20min

Are Men Toxic?

A sex scandal involving star players for the Sydney Swans has rocked Australia. Coinciding with a spate of violence against women, the country is revisiting its all-too-familiar conversation about how...

3 Sep 26min

What is Elon Up To?: An Idiot’s Guide to Space and Why You Need to Pay Attention

You may not realise it, but humankind is on the cusp of an extraordinary space race. Are we about to become a multi-planetary civilisation? Do we really need a super-fuel-tanker floating in space? Jus...

31 Aug 1h 53min

Glenn Loury: Are we censoring ourselves to death?

In this recording of a live event at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Josh hosts a one-on-one conversation with the legendary American intellectual, Glenn Loury. Loury is one of America's most infl...

27 Aug 26min

Jason Arday, Suey Park & the Identity Hunger Games

Josh has been reflecting on what the tragedy of Cambridge University's youngest-ever Black professor reveals about the high-stakes identity game we've all been enlisted into. In this solo episode, he ...

24 Aug 30min

How the Public Shaming Machine was Built with Jon Ronson

What should we make of the public shaming machine we have built? Following the death of the Cambridge academic Jason Arday, Josh checks in with the godfather of public shaming, Jon Ronson. His 2015 bo...

20 Aug 22min

The Case Against Israel with Peter Beinart

Peter Beinart is arguably the world’s most influential Jewish anti-Zionist. He’s a journalist and a professor of journalism and political science. But in American and Jewish cultural life, he’s far ...

17 Aug 1h 35min