Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / 2025 - The Highs, Lows & Lessons Learned

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2025 - The Highs, Lows & Lessons Learned · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:06
Speaker 1: Today is the last Happy Families podcast of the year.
0:09
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening this year. That's all
0:12
Speaker 1: we've got, No, I'm just kidding, there's a little bit
0:13
Speaker 1: more than that. We've got to do our usual thing.
0:15
Speaker 1: I'll do better tomorrow, but but can you believe it?
0:18
Speaker 1: Christmas next week. The countdown is really on. The anticipation
0:23
Speaker 1: is building and hopefully there's mostly good vibes wherever you
0:27
Speaker 1: are and whatever you're doing. In just a sec, Kylie
0:29
Speaker 1: and I are going to share with you our highlights
0:31
Speaker 1: of the year and the stuff that we've picked up
0:33
Speaker 1: this week that we think is going to help you
0:35
Speaker 1: to make Christmas and the New Year celebration and the
0:37
Speaker 1: whole break so much better and make your family so
0:40
Speaker 1: much happier. That's all coming up in just a sec. Hello,
0:46
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, Real parenting solutions every
0:48
Speaker 1: single day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. Before we
0:53
Speaker 1: talk about Old Better Tomorrow and highlights of twenty twenty
0:55
Speaker 1: five and what to look forward to in twenty twenty
0:57
Speaker 1: six and so on, Kylie, I'm just going to take
0:59
Speaker 1: a moment and reflect on I mean, Older Better Tomorrow
1:03
Speaker 1: was about talking about what worked this week, what didn't,
1:05
Speaker 1: how we can be better tomorrow. I want to take
1:07
Speaker 1: a moment reflect on the families who have suffered over
1:10
Speaker 1: the last week. Something has happened that is profound and
1:14
Speaker 1: in so many ways almost indescribable, and in Australia's history,
1:19
Speaker 1: certainly in the time that I've been alive, other than
1:22
Speaker 1: the Port Arthur Masca that happened when I was I
1:25
Speaker 1: don't know, sort of finishing high school. The scenes, the carnage,
1:31
Speaker 1: the traumatic awfulness of what happened at Bondi in the
1:35
Speaker 1: last week is still reverberating around our country. It's still
1:38
Speaker 1: on the front page of every paper. It's still I mean,
1:42
Speaker 1: it's going around the world as you would expect something
1:46
Speaker 1: like this to do. For an older Better Tomorrow podcast,
1:50
Speaker 1: I just want to reflect on some of the things
1:52
Speaker 1: that I've been talking about in the news, because obviously
1:54
Speaker 1: I get phone calls from radio stations and press and
1:58
Speaker 1: TV stations when tragedy is a cur and people want
2:00
Speaker 1: to know what to do about it. From an older
2:04
Speaker 1: about it, to my ow perspective, I want to emphasize
2:07
Speaker 1: a couple of things. Number One, as a parent, it's
2:11
Speaker 1: so vitally important that hold your kids close, that you
2:14
Speaker 1: let them know that you love them, that you cherish
2:17
Speaker 1: every moment that your present, that you're intentional. I mean,
2:19
Speaker 1: it sounds so tried, and it sounds so almost contrived,
2:23
Speaker 1: and yet when it all comes I had this conversation
2:26
Speaker 1: Kylie on the weekend just gone, and I was talking
2:30
Speaker 1: to a dad who just shrugged his sholder and said, look,
2:32
Speaker 1: I don't care anymore. I'm just over it. I'm so tired.
2:34
Speaker 1: In fact, I was talking to another dad about four
2:36
Speaker 1: weeks ago who said the same thing. He's struggling with
2:38
Speaker 1: his fourteen year old teenage daughter, and he said, that's it.
2:40
Speaker 1: I'm sick of it. I'm tired of being angry. I'm
2:42
Speaker 1: just done, Like I don't care anymore. And as I
2:45
Speaker 1: listened to both of them, and specifically on the weekend,
2:47
Speaker 1: as I spoke to this friend of mine who was
2:49
Speaker 1: saying that he's kind of given up and he doesn't care.
2:53
Speaker 1: In some ways, I feel the same way. Like we've
2:55
Speaker 1: raised six kids, we're raising our fifth fifteen year old
2:57
Speaker 1: right now, we've got an eleven year old turning twenty
3:00
Speaker 1: one year old. I mean, it's a cliche, but we're
3:02
Speaker 1: going through it again. I'm just kind of like, I'm
3:04
Speaker 1: so over this card they just raise themselves. I'm done.
3:07
Speaker 1: Although for the most part our kids have been pretty
3:10
Speaker 1: amazing lately, we're a couple of little challenges. But when
3:14
Speaker 1: those challenges pop up, I kind of want to slide
3:16
Speaker 1: into apthy and shrug and go, oh jeez, I'm done.
3:18
Speaker 1: I don't care, do what you want. I'm over it.
3:20
Speaker 1: I'm just over it. But then you just stop and
3:23
Speaker 1: reflect and you think about those parents who have lost
3:27
Speaker 1: or those children who have lost parents, And I kind
3:31
Speaker 1: of think, what kind of entitled thing do we have
3:39
Speaker 1: that makes us think that we can say I don't
3:40
Speaker 1: care whatever? And I actually bonda. I hadn't happened when
3:44
Speaker 1: I had this conversation with this guy on Sunday, but
3:47
Speaker 1: I said to him, you've got to care, because caring
3:50
Speaker 1: is actually all you've got. Our relationships are everything. If
3:56
Speaker 1: you don't care, if you let go of the relationship,
3:59
Speaker 1: you've lost the only stuff that matters. What do you
4:02
Speaker 1: care about, like staring? If I'm playing a game and
4:06
Speaker 1: so my older better tomorrow. If I bring all this together,
4:09
Speaker 1: is just that you've got a care and caring hurts,
4:12
Speaker 1: and caring means that sometimes you'll be terrified, And caring
4:15
Speaker 1: means that every now and again you're going to be
4:16
Speaker 1: really frustrated or disappointed because the kids are going to
4:19
Speaker 1: let you down, or because something horrible is going to happen.
4:22
Speaker 1: But it's caring that makes us so uniquely human and
4:26
Speaker 1: makes life so rich. So that's kind of my older
4:30
Speaker 1: better tomorrow. I just I'm heartbroken when I think about
4:33
Speaker 1: what's happened. And the second thing that I was going
4:36
Speaker 1: to say is just I wrote a post about looking
4:39
Speaker 1: for the good. There's that great Fred Rogers quote where
4:42
Speaker 1: he says, look for the helpers. His mum always taught
4:44
Speaker 1: him to look for the helpers in the face of tragedy.
4:46
Speaker 1: And oh, my goodness, of the newspaper's been full of
4:48
Speaker 1: stories of people who have just been extraordinary in their
4:52
Speaker 1: desire to serve. Many literally many who lost their lives
4:56
Speaker 1: on the weekend because they tried to disarm gunman or
5:00
Speaker 1: they tried to lead the gunman to shoot in their direction.
5:04
Speaker 1: Some other people could get away. Look for their helpers,
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Speaker 1: and especially those who pay a high price so that
5:10
Speaker 1: they can help. My heart's broken, and yet at the
5:13
Speaker 1: same time, I'm so inspired by the goodness of people,
5:18
Speaker 1: and this has been a week where I just wanted
5:21
Speaker 1: to hold people close to me. So that's my older
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Speaker 1: better Tomorrow. It's a little bit of a I don't know.
5:25
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a down or an up,
5:27
Speaker 1: or maybe just a reflection on what the week was.
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Speaker 1: But I felt inclined to share that that's my older
5:31
Speaker 1: better tomorrow. Not very Christmasy, not very celebratory, but I
5:36
Speaker 1: guess with a week that has been what it is,
5:39
Speaker 1: they're my older better tomorrow reflections.
5:42
Speaker 2: As I've been listening to you, I was actually planning
5:45
Speaker 2: on sharing something else, but I was thinking about a
5:48
Speaker 2: conversation I had with one of our daughters on our
5:51
Speaker 2: bike ride recently, and she did not struggle with this
5:56
Speaker 2: feat at all. It wasn't hard for her.
5:58
Speaker 1: So for those who missed the memo, we had a
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Speaker 1: week New Zealand, rode one hundred and fifty two k's
6:01
Speaker 1: with the kids across four days on rail trails, gravel roads,
6:05
Speaker 1: just riding a bike across New Zealand.
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Speaker 2: About day three, she kind of rode up next to
6:11
Speaker 2: me and she said, Mum, is this actually supposed to
6:14
Speaker 2: be hard? And she wasn't being cheeky, and she wasn't
6:17
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, like saying, look at me, this
6:19
Speaker 2: is so easy. She was really genuinely wanting to know
6:23
Speaker 2: because she'd watched her sisters or falling apart at different
6:26
Speaker 2: times along the track, and she was kind of just going,
6:29
Speaker 2: is this supposed to be hard like or is it
6:31
Speaker 2: actually easy? And they've just been a bit soft. And
6:35
Speaker 2: I said to her, I said, well, actually, I said no,
6:37
Speaker 2: in essence, no, it's not actually hard. What's hard about
6:41
Speaker 2: it is that we have to do this day in
6:43
Speaker 2: day out. Firstly, there's an endurance element to it. We
6:48
Speaker 2: can ride a bike for an hour, but now we're
6:50
Speaker 2: asking you to ride it for three or four hours,
6:53
Speaker 2: and then you're going to wake up tomorrow morning you're
6:55
Speaker 2: going to do it again, and then you're going to
6:56
Speaker 2: do it again, and you're going to be hit with
6:58
Speaker 2: wind and rain, and I kind of I'm thinking about
7:03
Speaker 2: the conversations that you've had recently and the feeling that
7:06
Speaker 2: we specifically you and I have so many times when
7:10
Speaker 2: we're hit with another challenge that our kids have kind
7:13
Speaker 2: of placed in our laps, and thinking, I don't know
7:16
Speaker 2: if I've got what it takes to keep moving.
7:20
Speaker 1: Forward, and they don't stop coming, they don't seriously.
7:23
Speaker 2: But three things stand out to me. Number One, We're
7:26
Speaker 2: in this for the long haul. There isn't a short
7:29
Speaker 2: or a quick fix to parenting. Number Two, somehow we
7:35
Speaker 2: managed to dig deep when we set these like crazy
7:39
Speaker 2: goals like I'm going to do a triathlon, for instance,
7:42
Speaker 2: we find the energy, the excitement, the you know, the
7:46
Speaker 2: drive to achieve something big because it's actually not a
7:52
Speaker 2: long game. We've got it in the moment and it's
7:55
Speaker 2: it's something that energizes us and kind of, you know,
7:57
Speaker 2: spurs us on. But the challenge for us as parents
8:01
Speaker 2: is the recognition that we actually need to dig deep
8:04
Speaker 2: when we're dealing with the day to day mundane. Our
8:08
Speaker 2: kids need us so desperately to care and we've got
8:14
Speaker 2: to find something in us to just keep plodding along
8:20
Speaker 2: to let them know that they matter more than anything.
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Speaker 2: Because I never ever, ever thought that we would be
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Speaker 2: experiencing what we've experienced this last week as a nation.
8:32
Speaker 2: That was never in my wildest dreams with Australia not
8:37
Speaker 2: be you know where we are right now, and the
8:42
Speaker 2: world just needs more tolerance. The world needs more love.
8:44
Speaker 2: The world needs more grace, patience, understanding. We need, we
8:50
Speaker 2: need to rally together, and our kids more than anything,
8:53
Speaker 2: need us to be the best we can be for them.
8:57
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, care care, care care. After the break, we are
9:01
Speaker 1: going to just wrap up the year. We'll only take
9:03
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes because our time is more or
9:05
Speaker 1: less up anyway. But I think that it's been a
9:08
Speaker 1: heavy week, There's no way around it. But we do
9:11
Speaker 1: need to sort of change gears a little bit and
9:13
Speaker 1: prepare for what should be a to the degree that
9:16
Speaker 1: we can, and hopefully we really can pull ourselves away
9:20
Speaker 1: from the screens and the sadness and step into what
9:24
Speaker 1: we hope will be a wonderful and festive and connected
9:28
Speaker 1: week with the people that we love most. We're going
9:30
Speaker 1: to wrap up the year right after this. We're back.
9:44
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. If you're enjoying the podcast,
9:46
Speaker 1: please share it with your friends, neighbors, kids, whoever, so
9:49
Speaker 1: that you can make their families happier as well, or
9:51
Speaker 1: make your family happy by sharing the joy and the
9:54
Speaker 1: multiplicity of what we do here. Kylie, just really quickly
9:57
Speaker 1: as we wrap up the podcast for the year, highlights
10:01
Speaker 1: highlights for you this year?
10:02
Speaker 2: Well, I'm thinking, if you've been with us since the
10:05
Speaker 2: beginning of the year, you have been through so many
10:08
Speaker 2: ups and downs with us as a family. We have
10:12
Speaker 2: experienced so much joy, yeah, so much hardship, yeah, and
10:17
Speaker 2: so much challenge, But challenge came so much growth. So
10:22
Speaker 2: the highlights for me would be welcoming a daughter home
10:27
Speaker 2: after being away for eighteen months.
10:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we had a daughter come back from Canada
10:31
Speaker 1: after eighty months away. That was definitely a highlight.
10:33
Speaker 2: Having two of our daughters start.
10:35
Speaker 1: UNI and one finished high school and one finished a
10:39
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago. How good was that?
10:40
Speaker 2: Another year of homeschool down and we survived.
10:43
Speaker 1: You know. One of my highlights was I wrote my book.
10:46
Speaker 1: I wrote a book about boys. I mean, it's taken
10:47
Speaker 1: me three and a half years, but I wrote a
10:48
Speaker 1: book about boys. It's written. Well, are you finishing it?
10:51
Speaker 1: I've not finished the book yet. Can I call it al?
10:53
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's been a highlight. I feel so
10:55
Speaker 1: good that it's done. But I just realized, I'm like,
10:57
Speaker 1: I'm kind of I'm going to be working right through
10:59
Speaker 1: the summer break, working for the next two or three
11:01
Speaker 1: weeks because the final manuscript has just come back from
11:03
Speaker 1: the publisher, so that I can make all my final changes,
11:05
Speaker 1: because then it really is sett in concrete, it's really done.
11:10
Speaker 1: I'm feeling really good about it. I've been going through
11:12
Speaker 1: the first couple of chapters and I really like this book.
11:15
Speaker 1: So it is a highlight. It's not actually done. It's
11:17
Speaker 1: going to be published middle of the year coming up.
11:20
Speaker 1: So if you've got tween or teen boys, this is
11:22
Speaker 1: the one that you're going to be wanting. It's going
11:23
Speaker 1: to be such a cracking book. But yeah, I'm calling
11:26
Speaker 1: that a highlight. I'm probably jumping early. I might make
11:29
Speaker 1: it a highlight again next year. I'm going to get
11:31
Speaker 1: to for the price of one.
11:33
Speaker 2: I think the Crowning Glory was definitely our family holiday.
11:36
Speaker 1: My fiftieth birthday bike ride across the South. Yes, yes, yeah,
11:42
Speaker 1: taking ten people to do that was a real treat. Okay,
11:46
Speaker 1: so our time is all but up. Is there anything
11:49
Speaker 1: that we need to sort of wrap up with as
11:51
Speaker 1: we step into the weekend just before we hit Christmas?
11:56
Speaker 1: Anything else that you want to say?
11:58
Speaker 2: We talk about beginnings. Ending's mattering, and usually at the
12:03
Speaker 2: beginning of the year we're full of energy. It's really palmed.
12:07
Speaker 2: We set all of these great goals and.
12:10
Speaker 1: We got this across the line. Seriously, So here's a
12:14
Speaker 1: little bit of inside baseball for you. I don't want
12:15
Speaker 1: to get into the nitty gritty of how this podcast
12:17
Speaker 1: is produced too much. But normally we record the podcast
12:21
Speaker 1: maybe two or three days ahead. Maybe maybe if I'm traveling,
12:25
Speaker 1: we might even be a week ahead. Right, So the
12:27
Speaker 1: only thing that we do close to the day consistently
12:30
Speaker 1: is I'll do better tomorrow because we want to talk
12:32
Speaker 1: about the week that was. We never ever ever record
12:37
Speaker 1: this close to the podcast dropping. What is it. It's
12:40
Speaker 1: nine to thirty on Thursday, ninety eighteenth Jr. Our podcast producer.
12:46
Speaker 2: It's got his tooth picks in his eyes.
12:49
Speaker 1: As long as it's done by nine to thirty. It's
12:51
Speaker 1: now nine twenty six, so like we are crawling over
12:54
Speaker 1: the line. We've been flat strap our house, the kids
12:58
Speaker 1: just so yeah, you talk about starting the year bright
13:02
Speaker 1: eyed and bushy tawtl like we're gonna have the best
13:04
Speaker 1: year ever, and we are just like, please please make
13:08
Speaker 1: it up.
13:11
Speaker 2: But one of the things that we have been really
13:13
Speaker 2: good at doing in the past, and we haven't done
13:15
Speaker 2: for a long time is have a quarterly gatway. Yes,
13:19
Speaker 2: and we've actually just come back from that and we've
13:21
Speaker 2: been able to kind of just reflect on some of
13:25
Speaker 2: the goodness that's in our lives and look at the
13:28
Speaker 2: new year coming up and what we want to achieve.
13:33
Speaker 1: So for those who have missed what the quarterly getaway is.
13:36
Speaker 1: Several years ago before it kind of got really tricky
13:38
Speaker 1: for us. We used to go away every term, like
13:41
Speaker 1: once every twelve weeks, once every three months, once every
13:43
Speaker 1: quarter because a lot of people have a business meeting
13:45
Speaker 1: every quarter to get focused on their business, and we
13:48
Speaker 1: kind of all strategies, Yeah, it create strategies for the
13:50
Speaker 1: next quarter.
13:51
Speaker 2: On the same page, our.
13:52
Speaker 1: Family kind of matters more than the business. We should
13:54
Speaker 1: do this as a couple for our family, and we
13:56
Speaker 1: haven't done it for a couple of years. But we've
13:58
Speaker 1: just come back from like a quarterly getaway getting ready
14:01
Speaker 1: for next year, and we wanted to have some fun.
14:05
Speaker 1: We wanted to spend time enjoying being together. Seriously, like
14:10
Speaker 1: we do, worked very very hard. We were doing twelve
14:12
Speaker 1: hour days for the two days, and we didn't get
14:14
Speaker 1: it all done. There's so much going on. It's so exhausting.
14:18
Speaker 2: But if you're like us and you're dragging yourself to
14:21
Speaker 2: the finish line, yeah, can I encourage you to just
14:24
Speaker 2: take a few moments together with your significant other, your partner,
14:28
Speaker 2: your love of your life, whoever it is, and just
14:31
Speaker 2: reflect on the goodness that you've experienced this year. Even
14:34
Speaker 2: reflecting on the challenges that you've had and the growth
14:36
Speaker 2: that's come from them is really powerful and it's such
14:40
Speaker 2: a beautiful way to finish off what has hopefully been
14:44
Speaker 2: a year full of ups and downs, highs and lows,
14:48
Speaker 2: but so many great, beautiful experiences that have helped you
14:54
Speaker 2: to grow and develop. Yeah.
14:55
Speaker 1: And if it hasn't been a great year for reasons
14:58
Speaker 1: that would be personal, or maybe you've been caught up
15:01
Speaker 1: in the horrific events of the last week and you're
15:04
Speaker 1: kind of thinking, no, this has possibly been the worst
15:06
Speaker 1: year of my life. I mean, we had one of
15:08
Speaker 1: those years a couple of years ago. It can still
15:11
Speaker 1: be a year of growth and a year of learning.
15:13
Speaker 1: It can be a year of grace and a year
15:16
Speaker 1: of introspection and empathy and compassion and enlargement because of
15:22
Speaker 1: the difficulties, So hopefully it's been more of the former
15:27
Speaker 1: and less of the latter, but either way, we just
15:30
Speaker 1: are so grateful that you choose to spend fifteen minutes
15:33
Speaker 1: or ten minutes or even twenty minutes sometimes when we
15:35
Speaker 1: go over time each day, spending that with us listening
15:39
Speaker 1: to the Happy Families Podcast. The podcast is what it
15:41
Speaker 1: is because of you, because of your interest in making
15:44
Speaker 1: your family happier. And we hope that this Christmas season,
15:48
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing, wherever you are and whoever you're with,
15:50
Speaker 1: that it really is festive, that it really is merry,
15:54
Speaker 1: that it really is connected, and that it really is meaningful.
15:58
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening in twenty twenty five. We'll
16:01
Speaker 1: talk to you again in twenty twenty six when we
16:05
Speaker 1: return with the Happy Families Podcast, which is produced by
16:08
Speaker 1: Justin Rulan from Bridge Media Champion Jr. Thanks for staying
16:11
Speaker 1: up late, and Mim Hammond supervides all the research admin
16:16
Speaker 1: and another support. I'm not sure if she's going to
16:17
Speaker 1: provide any research admin or other support for this final
16:20
Speaker 1: episode because I think Mim is done, But thank you
16:23
Speaker 1: Mim for all you do. Have a wonderful Christmas, have
16:26
Speaker 1: the most joyous New Year, and we'll see you in
16:29
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six,