Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Why Trying to Fix Your Child Backfires [a listener Q&A]

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Why Trying to Fix Your Child Backfires [a listener Q&A] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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Speaker 1: Gooday. This is the Happy Families Podcast. Every Tuesday on
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Speaker 1: the pod we answer your tricky questions and today, oh
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Speaker 1: my goodness, we've got to doozye. What do you do
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Speaker 1: when you got a child who's just got such a negative,
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Speaker 1: miserable attitude, when they don't want to play along with
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Speaker 1: all the good stuff you're trying to do, when they
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Speaker 1: can't find the good in their life? How are you
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Speaker 1: supposed to navigate it? Kids are supposed to light up,
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Speaker 1: they're supposed to be excited, and yet in spite of
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Speaker 1: everything you do, it's not working. What do we do
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Speaker 1: about a positivity program? Is it even the right idea?
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Speaker 2: What works?
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Speaker 1: That's what we're answering. Next, stay with us. Hello, Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the Happy Families Podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every Day,
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Speaker 1: Australia's most downloaded parenting podcasts, where Justin and Kylie Colson,
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Speaker 1: parents have six children who are not gonna lie, exhaust us,
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Speaker 1: drain this and sometimes have us wondering how we're going
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Speaker 1: to help them to do well in life when they
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Speaker 1: won't talk to us about anything, and it seems, Kylie,
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Speaker 1: that we're not the only ones. Today's question comes to
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Speaker 1: us from Julia who asks the following.
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Speaker 3: Hi, justin. My name is Julia and I have eleven
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Speaker 3: year old twin daughters. One of our girls is glass
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Speaker 3: half empty and she really struggles to look on the
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Speaker 3: bright side. If we announce we are going on a holiday,
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Speaker 3: the first response will be I really hate going on
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Speaker 3: a plane. We have tried different strategies over the years.
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Speaker 3: We role model a growth mindset, express gratitude, and at
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Speaker 3: dinner time we ask her to tell us first about
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Speaker 3: what went well. But we can't seem to shift the negativity.
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Speaker 3: We want to make sure we acknowledge all of her feelings,
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Speaker 3: including when she's frustrated, annoyed, and worried. But how can
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Speaker 3: we help train her brain to still find the positive
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Speaker 3: in life?
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Speaker 2: So do you remember that children's TV show? I'm pretty
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Speaker 2: sure it was Mister Squigle, missus Quick.
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Speaker 1: Mister Squiggle? Was it with Miss Jane.
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Speaker 2: The blackboard that used to come in with the Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Because blackboard got written all over all the time and
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Speaker 1: got rubbed out.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel a little bit like the blackboard today,
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Speaker 2: A tough day with Miss twelve.
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Speaker 1: This is about Julian, not us. I can't believe you're
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Speaker 1: using our podcast for your therapy.
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Speaker 2: No, I'm nervous that it might flow over into the
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Speaker 2: way I respond saying you get it, I totally get it.
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Speaker 2: I totally get it. And it is exhausting, and sometimes
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Speaker 2: I wonder whether as parents, part of the exhaustion comes
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Speaker 2: from our desires, good natured as they are, to try
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Speaker 2: and change our children.
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Speaker 1: So interesting that you've gone there, because the first thing
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Speaker 1: I wanted to highlight was what research shows about children,
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Speaker 1: and that is that we can help them with values,
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Speaker 1: we can help them with decisions that they might make
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Speaker 1: in life, but we cannot change their temperament, and we
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Speaker 1: do not change their personality.
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Speaker 2: And the challenge for this twin is she's a twin,
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Speaker 2: and clearly her sister, who is exactly the same age
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Speaker 2: as her, was literally conceived and growing at the same time. Different.
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Speaker 1: So this is another element that I hadn't thought of too.
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Speaker 1: You said it, But twins sort of they carve their
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Speaker 1: own niche, they make their own space. So if one
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Speaker 1: child has the sunny disposition the other ones like my mom,
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Speaker 1: I can't be sony like her because otherwise we'll be
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Speaker 1: the same. I've got to be different, and the easiest
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Speaker 1: way to be different is to be the opposite. There's
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Speaker 1: a couple of things that I want to touch on
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Speaker 1: here as we just crack straight into the answer for you, Julia,
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Speaker 1: I don't know necessarily that her negativity is the problem,
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Speaker 1: but the campaign against it definitely is. The campaign against
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Speaker 1: the negativity is a bigger problem than the negativity itself.
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Speaker 1: Is what I mean by that? What do I mean?
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Speaker 1: Let's say you're doing all the textbook stuff, growth, mindset, gratitude,
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Speaker 1: what went well, that kind of thing. Maybe the problem
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Speaker 1: is the textbook for this particular child because of her personality,
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Speaker 1: her temperament, the way that she seems to be responding
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Speaker 1: a little bit provocative. It kind of runs counter to
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Speaker 1: a lot of the messaging that we usually share on
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Speaker 1: the podcast. But this kind of comes down to, let's
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Speaker 1: talk about the sentence I hate planes. This is the
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Speaker 1: kind of sentence where, well, let me get personal. We
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Speaker 1: have my brother's living in New Zealand. So Emily's cousins
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Speaker 1: are in New Zealand in Queenstown. That's where they're living, Queenstown,
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Speaker 1: And we've said, what about we save up and we
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Speaker 1: might shoot across there for four or five days, and
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Speaker 1: you can see your cousins and we can hang out
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Speaker 1: in Queenstown, which I can see this no might be
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Speaker 1: the coolest place on the planet, Like it's just so great.
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Speaker 1: And she didn't give us the I hate plane, she said,
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Speaker 1: I don't want to go anywhere. I like being at home.
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Speaker 1: Same sort of situation, same context, essentially, So bear in
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Speaker 1: mind this is not necessarily pessimism, This is not necessarily
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Speaker 1: bad attitude. This is just information. So what's the information. Well,
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Speaker 1: maybe there's some anxiety about changing the environment. Maybe there's
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Speaker 1: a sense of loss of control, maybe there's a threat
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Speaker 1: assessment out loud. I don't like planes because they can
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Speaker 1: be scary, or because I might have to sit next
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Speaker 1: to someone smelly, or because what if something goes wrong
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Speaker 1: on the plane.
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Speaker 2: I know with our youngest she hated getting another people's cars.
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Speaker 2: I was so confused by that because they were like
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Speaker 2: her best friends or her auntie or her cousin. And
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Speaker 2: I couldn't wrap my head around it. And what it
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Speaker 2: came down to was she didn't like the smell of
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Speaker 2: other people's cars.
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Speaker 1: Our car smelt so good, but it was familiar to her.
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Speaker 2: Right, And we look at our children and often because
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Speaker 2: they are growing so quickly and in lots of ways
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Speaker 2: can handle things with such maturity. We attribute more maturity
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Speaker 2: to them than they actually are ready for. She's eleven
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Speaker 2: and she's almost a teenager, and so sometimes because we
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Speaker 2: can have these beautifully intelligent conversations, we expect that she's
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Speaker 2: going to be more emotionally intelligent, more mature, more capable
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Speaker 2: of dealing with the world around her, and she actually isn't.
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Speaker 2: She's eleven.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and temperament and growth and development are all factoring in.
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Speaker 1: There's something in psychology research called defensive pessimism. Defensive pessimism,
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Speaker 1: it's basically you rehearse what could go wrong out loud
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Speaker 1: as a functional strategy. It kind of helps you to say,
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Speaker 1: all right, well this is what could go wrong, and
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Speaker 1: now I'm ready for it. It helps you to get
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Speaker 1: into that headspace. Forcing optimism on somebody who is defensively
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Speaker 1: pessimistic could actually backfire. It could make things way worse
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Speaker 1: because then they get defensive about it. They dig in,
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Speaker 1: they batten down the hatches and say, oh, yeah, well,
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Speaker 1: here's what else could happen.
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Speaker 2: As I was listening to Julia's chaer that the one
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Speaker 2: tool that kind of came up for me was give
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Speaker 2: your daughter and fantasy what she can't have the idea
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Speaker 2: that she hates planes. So she's not saying she hates
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Speaker 2: going on holiday, she hates the plane, and so the
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Speaker 2: conversation actually could turn into a little bit of a
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Speaker 2: fun game if it worked for her. You just wish
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Speaker 2: that we could stay home all day, or you just
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Speaker 2: wish that we could catch the train and take the
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Speaker 2: long road, or whatever it is that you think kind
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Speaker 2: of is what she would like. Just build on that
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Speaker 2: and kind of create this fantasy world of what it
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Speaker 2: could be like to lighten her mood. And the reality
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Speaker 2: is we can't have everything we want, but it shows
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Speaker 2: her that you have the ability to take her perspective.
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Speaker 1: For me, the biggest issue that's coming up here from
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Speaker 1: Julia is the question is kind of how do we
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Speaker 1: fix her? How do we fix her? And that's not
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Speaker 1: the question to be asking. I think a more productive
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Speaker 1: question is what is my daughter's negativity doing for her
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Speaker 1: versus what is my positivity projects doing to her? So
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Speaker 1: after the break, I want to unpack that a little
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Speaker 1: bit more and talk about how we can support her
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Speaker 1: autonomy and help her to feel okay about things even
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Speaker 1: though it seems like she doesn't feel like things are okay.
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Speaker 1: Stay with us, that's next. We're back. This is the
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Speaker 1: Happy Families Podcast. I want to run something by you, Kylie.
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Speaker 1: Kids are only going to internalize a value, whether it's
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Speaker 1: optimism or gratitude or positivity, whatever value it is that
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Speaker 1: you're trying to instill in a child when they have
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Speaker 1: a sense of choice in it, when they buy the rationale,
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Speaker 1: when they go, oh yeah, okay, I consider that makes
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Speaker 1: sense and I'm on board. So that means that requiring
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Speaker 1: them to be on board with positivity or with whatever
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Speaker 1: value it is is In some ways this sounds strongly worded,
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Speaker 1: but it's a violation of their autonomy. And so what
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Speaker 1: you end up getting is they'll perform what you're asking,
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Speaker 1: but they won't transform because of what you're asking.
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Speaker 2: So I'm really stuck on the twin thing here because
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Speaker 2: I think that it's playing a huge part in the
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Speaker 2: way Mum and Dad are able to deal with it,
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Speaker 2: because it's so like, there's such a stark contract.
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Speaker 1: Why can't you be more like your sister?
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Speaker 2: Don't you say that, don't say that you have actually
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Speaker 2: lived this. You have two sets of twin sisters, and
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Speaker 2: when I look at them, I see a similar pattern.
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Speaker 2: What was it like growing up with twin sisters? And
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Speaker 2: what was the dynamic?
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Speaker 1: This is going to sound remarkably lacking in insight, but
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Speaker 1: I was their older brother. I was four years older
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Speaker 1: than the first set of twins and fourteen or fifteen
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Speaker 1: years old and the second set of twins, And I
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Speaker 1: don't know because I didn't care. I didn't want to
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Speaker 1: know about them. I just lived my own life. So
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Speaker 1: that sounds really glib and dismissive.
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Speaker 2: No, but I'm listening to Julia, right, and she's kind
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Speaker 2: of basically described your two sets of twin sisters. There
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Speaker 2: was this one positive, bubbly one who was outgoing and
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Speaker 2: did everything, and then you had another sister that was
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Speaker 2: kind of just a little bit more reserved.
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Speaker 1: A lot quieter and introverted.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I was Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Same number one and number two in each they followed
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Speaker 1: that pattern. Yeah, yep.
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Speaker 2: And I wonder if that twin dynamic actually plays something
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Speaker 2: more significant.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it could, but there's nothing that you can really
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Speaker 1: do about that other than encouraging your child to be
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Speaker 1: who she is. I've got a couple of ideas that
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Speaker 1: will help to build a sense of autonomy in spite
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Speaker 1: of the twin dynamic, or maybe even be facilitated a
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Speaker 1: little bit because of the twin dynamic. The first is
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Speaker 1: when it comes to we do this around the table,
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Speaker 1: right like we have what went well today or grateful things.
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Speaker 1: We have a conversation point each night. Sometimes it's where
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Speaker 1: did you see somebody being kind or helping? We just
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Speaker 1: pick values that matter to us and we discuss them.
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Speaker 1: But every now and again we've got a child who says,
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Speaker 1: we don't want to do it, we don't want to
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Speaker 1: say anything, And so what we do is we say, Okay,
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Speaker 1: well you don't have to, which is really hard for
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Speaker 1: us because we desperately want them to be finding these
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Speaker 1: good things in their lives, these gold flecks, these moments
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Speaker 1: of beauty and goodness. But what matters most to us
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Speaker 1: is that we model it, not that we demand it. Again,
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Speaker 1: we're not looking for our children to perform. We're looking
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Speaker 1: for the experience to transform. And when you demand it,
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Speaker 1: when you require it, there's no transformation. So I think
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Speaker 1: that's the first thing. You don't have to if you
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Speaker 1: don't want to. This is what we're talking about tonight.
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Speaker 1: You're welcome to just listen if that's what you prefer.
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Speaker 1: There's no pressure, or you might like to tell us
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Speaker 1: something else about your day. We're fine with that too.
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Speaker 1: Second thing, I want to be careful about the whole
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Speaker 1: gentle parenting thing, and I'm not sure that that's coming
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Speaker 1: out in Julia's statements, but there's there was a recognition
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Speaker 1: in what Julia said that they're really big on acknowledging
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Speaker 1: how their kids are feeling and working with them on
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Speaker 1: their feelings. I think it's good to acknowledge, but I
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Speaker 1: don't think it's good to do therapy. Don't hover on
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Speaker 1: the feelings for too long.
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Speaker 2: So well, the more you focus on something, the er
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Speaker 2: guess exactly.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, I know, plans your least favorite part.
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Speaker 2: And that's why I think that kind of whole given
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Speaker 2: fantasy what they can't have cystal strategy. It acknowledges how
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Speaker 2: she's feeling, but then it kind of just is able
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Speaker 2: to lighten things and move her through it.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yes, yeah, And this is it's a delicate balance
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Speaker 1: because when you argue with feelings they did, so you
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Speaker 1: do want to receive and acknowledge the feeling, but if
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Speaker 1: you do it too much, you also make it bigger
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Speaker 1: that you create it both ways.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if part of this it's so hard
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Speaker 2: when we get, you know, a two minute voice message.
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Speaker 2: So I apologize if this is going in a different
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Speaker 2: direction to and it's not helpful Julia, but maybe somebody
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Speaker 2: needs to hear it today. When our kids are struggling,
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Speaker 2: I think often it has a lot to do with
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Speaker 2: their identity and trying to work out who they are,
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Speaker 2: and I think in a twin dynamic it's even harder.
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Speaker 2: But I know, growing up in a household of three girls,
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Speaker 2: my sisters always felt like they were in my shadow.
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Speaker 2: I'm the eldest, and in their minds, I was so accomplished,
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Speaker 2: everything was done so easily, everybody loved me, and so
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Speaker 2: they constantly felt like they had to do something spectacular
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Speaker 2: to be seen. And maybe this is just a little
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Speaker 2: girl who's feeling a little bit un scene because her
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Speaker 2: other's sister is so capable and she's so positive and
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Speaker 2: everybody loves her because it's easy to be around her.
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Speaker 2: And one of the things I loved that your mum
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Speaker 2: and dad did with the dynamic with your sisters was
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Speaker 2: they actually spent time with them one on one. So
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Speaker 2: your dad would take one twin and your mum would
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Speaker 2: take another twin and they would have date night, and
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Speaker 2: each of your parents got one of the twins better
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Speaker 2: than the other, and so they really developed a relationship
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Speaker 2: with that particular twin and built rituals around their time together.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, when did to wrap it up there, Julia? I
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Speaker 1: hope that there's some useful answers there. There's one more
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Speaker 1: thing that popped in my head as you were talking
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Speaker 1: about that, Kylie. It's tangential. It's not directly related, but
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Speaker 1: kind of brings this whole thing together. I feel like,
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Speaker 1: more than anything, we want to be encouraging some choice,
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Speaker 1: some volition, some autonomy. In this situation, I feel like
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Speaker 1: the more you push for positivity, the worse it's going
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Speaker 1: to be. That might be the paradox behind all of this.
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Speaker 1: The fastest way to have a more positive child is
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Speaker 1: making peace with the negative one. Like optimism will eventually
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Speaker 1: arrive that she is only eleven, but when it does,
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Speaker 1: you need it to be hers. It can't have been
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Speaker 1: a manufactured performance. It needs to be something intrinsic to her,
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Speaker 1: because that's the only kind that's going to last really
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Speaker 1: appreciate the question, Julia, thanks so much for sending in
14:26
Speaker 1: that voice note. Voice notes can be sent to podcasts
14:28
Speaker 1: at happy families dot com dot you. If you have
14:30
Speaker 1: a tricky question. Alternately, go to happy families dot com
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14:35
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14:38
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14:41
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