Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #944 Raising Kids, Not Grass

Transcript

#944 Raising Kids, Not Grass · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for.
0:07
Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers.
0:10
Speaker 1: Now this week. I'm not sure if you saw this
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Speaker 1: in the news missus Happy Families, but a moon landing occurred.
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Speaker 1: The United States for the first time since the nineteen sixties,
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Speaker 1: has sent a probe up to the Moon. No people
0:23
Speaker 1: this time, but there's probe on the moon. A moon
0:26
Speaker 1: landing has occurred. We're getting images from the Moon. I
0:29
Speaker 1: think this is fascinating. I think it's amazing that this
0:31
Speaker 1: is happening. Did you know I was googling. Do you
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Speaker 1: know that Australia is wider than the Moon.
0:37
Speaker 2: Australia is wider.
0:39
Speaker 1: Wider than the Moon.
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Speaker 2: So if the Moon was here and was sitting on
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Speaker 2: top of Australia, Australia would still be bigger.
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Speaker 1: That's an exact that's a great way to picture it. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I can imagine the Moon literally landing on Australia and
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Speaker 1: there would be space on either end of Australia where
0:55
Speaker 1: you could sort of look up at the Moon from
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Speaker 1: the east to the west coast. I found this. The
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Speaker 1: Moon sits at three thousand, four hundred kilometers in diameter.
1:05
Speaker 1: If you were to pass a skewer all the way
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Speaker 1: through the Moon from one end to the other through
1:08
Speaker 1: out of space, you would need to have a three thousand,
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Speaker 1: four hundred kilometer long wooden skewer to push it through
1:14
Speaker 1: the Moon.
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Speaker 2: You could go east to west on this barbecue of.
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Speaker 1: The Australian continent. It would take four thousand kilometers four
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Speaker 1: thousand kilometers versus thirty four hundred k's. Australia is wider
1:27
Speaker 1: than the Moon. I found that on the We are
1:29
Speaker 1: Teachers Weird fun Facts. You know another fun fact. I
1:32
Speaker 1: know that this is not what our podcast is about today. Headphones.
1:35
Speaker 1: Headphones can increase the bacteria in your ears. Wearing headphones
1:40
Speaker 1: for just an hour could increase the bacteria in your
1:42
Speaker 1: ears by seven hundred times.
1:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. When I with those little earbuds, my ears get
1:47
Speaker 2: really hot and they almost like sweaty.
1:50
Speaker 1: Do you need to get like cotton tips after you've
1:52
Speaker 1: been at all?
1:53
Speaker 2: Yeah?
1:54
Speaker 1: Anyway, today we digress.
1:56
Speaker 2: Seriously, I do not know where your head goes. Sometimes
1:59
Speaker 2: it's so hard to follow.
2:00
Speaker 1: You, ADHD. That's just four letters, ADHD. Hey, let's dive
2:06
Speaker 1: into today's podcast, Kylie. Every Friday we talk about the
2:09
Speaker 1: things that we've done right or things that we've done wrong.
2:11
Speaker 1: In aid of intentional parenting. We're trying to be better.
2:14
Speaker 1: It's called I'll do better tomorrow. Here's a fun fact
2:17
Speaker 1: for you. I've been traveling so much and speaking so
2:19
Speaker 1: much that I'm barely home and I'm trying to write
2:20
Speaker 1: a book at the same time. So I'm kind of
2:22
Speaker 1: doing either not home at all or fourteen fifteen hour
2:25
Speaker 1: days kind of stuff.
2:27
Speaker 2: You know that adage that you once a parent, always
2:29
Speaker 2: a parent.
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Speaker 1: No, Yeah, I know what you're saying. Yeah, I'm supposed
2:36
Speaker 1: so I'm going to struggle with older better tomorrow today.
2:39
Speaker 1: So what I'd like you to do is go first.
2:40
Speaker 1: I can try to think of something to talk about.
2:42
Speaker 1: Have you had a win, have you had a loss
2:43
Speaker 1: of things going right? Are things going wrong? What can
2:45
Speaker 1: we learn about the parenting that you've engaged with this week?
2:48
Speaker 1: Kylie calson missus Happy Families.
2:51
Speaker 2: A couple of days ago, we reached out to our
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Speaker 2: Facebook following and asked them to share with us the
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Speaker 2: best parenting advice they've ever.
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Speaker 1: Received, Very very best.
3:01
Speaker 2: And I don't want to give too much away because
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Speaker 2: we are actually going to share the best of the
3:04
Speaker 2: best next week on Monday. One of the pieces of
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Speaker 2: advice that was given and shared really just struck a
3:12
Speaker 2: chord with me. It's not you. I've heard it before,
3:15
Speaker 2: and you and I have actually spoken about it, but
3:18
Speaker 2: it was never let go of your child first. When
3:22
Speaker 2: you embrace.
3:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, when you hug, hold on until they let go.
3:28
Speaker 2: And I've noticed over the last few weeks that one
3:30
Speaker 2: of our children, who is not particularly huggy, has been
3:34
Speaker 2: wanting hugs a lot, and because she's not particularly huggy,
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Speaker 2: I've kind of just been pressing into her and then
3:40
Speaker 2: kind of moving on, but she's been holding on. And
3:44
Speaker 2: so when I read that, it just reminded me how
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Speaker 2: important that time is, and so I've been really focusing
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Speaker 2: on spending that time and just making sure that she's
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Speaker 2: the one who lets go first.
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Speaker 1: So good, so good.
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Speaker 2: As part of that, we have a weekly phone call
4:01
Speaker 2: with our daughter Abby, who is volunteering over in England
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Speaker 2: at the moment, and we're not able to call her
4:09
Speaker 2: throughout the week, so this is the one time we
4:12
Speaker 2: get to catch up with her, and usually were FaceTime
4:15
Speaker 2: and most of the times, because of the time difference,
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Speaker 2: she's calling me right in the middle of dinner time.
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Speaker 2: There's lots going on. I'm taking kids here and there,
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Speaker 2: and I'm trying to get dinner on the table, and
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Speaker 2: so more times than not, I'm not actually fully focused
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Speaker 2: on her. I'm going about doing my things. We're having
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Speaker 2: a conversation, but I clearly miss a lot of the
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Speaker 2: facial dynamics that take place. And at one point this
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Speaker 2: week when we were talking there was a lull in
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Speaker 2: the conversation. I just decided to sit down and really
4:49
Speaker 2: kind of check in and focus on her for a
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Speaker 2: few moments, and she just had this massive grin on
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Speaker 2: her face. And I looked at her and I said,
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Speaker 2: why are you Grinny's so much like what's going on?
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Speaker 2: And she said, I just love you, mom. And if
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Speaker 2: I'm perfectly honest, I was feeling really flat that day,
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Speaker 2: and I'd had a really really big weekend, just lots
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Speaker 2: of different challenges to deal with, and I wasn't feeling
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Speaker 2: really the best. And to just have that beautiful moment
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Speaker 2: of connection where eyes do you know, I to eye
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Speaker 2: contact and just that acknowledgment that in spite of the
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Speaker 2: fact that she knows how busy things are, and that
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Speaker 2: I wasn't able to be fully present for her in
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Speaker 2: that moment. There was just this joy in her eyes
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Speaker 2: that I saw and in her voice that just said,
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Speaker 2: I know that what I'm asking of you right now
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Speaker 2: is hard. I'm just so grate for you here with
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Speaker 2: me right now. And I thought about just the challenges
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Speaker 2: that I had growing up with my mum, and just
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Speaker 2: this acknowledgment that often we become what we've observed our
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Speaker 2: whole lives. The relationship I've strived to build with our
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Speaker 2: girls is very different to the relationship I had growing up.
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Speaker 2: It's not what I observed, it's not what I experienced.
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Speaker 2: So for me, it was just this beautiful reminder of
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Speaker 2: how important being intentional with our children is. Having not
6:13
Speaker 2: experienced the level of relationship that I have with my children,
6:18
Speaker 2: it would be really easy to revert back to those
6:21
Speaker 2: kind of old ways of doing things. And yet, in
6:25
Speaker 2: spite of my own shortcomings as a mum and as
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Speaker 2: an individual, I have really worked hard to build those
6:33
Speaker 2: relationships and those little moments of time. It just feels
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Speaker 2: like it's been worth it.
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Speaker 1: It reminds me of the Goldfleck story. There's the story
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Speaker 1: of the young prospect. It goes off to the gold rush,
6:45
Speaker 1: sits down by the river panning for gold, desperate to
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Speaker 1: find heaps of gold is there until he's completely destituted
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Speaker 1: and broke it, collects a big pile of rocks beside him.
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Speaker 1: While he's doing all this panning, keeps on pulling rocks
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Speaker 1: out of the river, but no gold nuggets. And when
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Speaker 1: he's about to go home with no money left, about
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Speaker 1: to head back to the big city and ask his
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Speaker 1: parents to take him back in, a wise and wealthy
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Speaker 1: prospector walks past and kicks at the pile of rocks
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Speaker 1: and says, looks like you've got a big pile of
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Speaker 1: rocks there, And the young man's cranky pout and he says, ah,
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Speaker 1: I've been here for months and I've spent all my savings,
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Speaker 1: so I'm looking for gold flecks. I want nuggets like
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Speaker 1: you've got in your pouch, and I've got nothing, just
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Speaker 1: nothing but a pile of rocks. The prospector stops and says,
7:24
Speaker 1: I think that you're missing something here, and he reaches down,
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Speaker 1: picks up one of those rocks, sort of cracks it
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Speaker 1: on the tin and crumbles it in his hand and
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Speaker 1: holds it out to the young man, and in amongst
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Speaker 1: all the rocks there are these tiny little flecks of gold.
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Speaker 1: And the young man says, no, no, no, no, I don't
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Speaker 1: want flecks of gold. I know they're in the rocks.
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Speaker 1: I want nuggets like you've got in your pouch. Second
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Speaker 1: time he said it, the old man opens up his
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Speaker 1: pouch and says, take a look. The young man looks
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Speaker 1: into the pouch and sees that rather than a whole
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Speaker 1: lot of gold nuggets, there's just thousands and thousands of
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Speaker 1: these tiny flecks of gold. And that's when the old
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Speaker 1: man says, just the greatest line, he says, young man,
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Speaker 1: is the steady accumulation, the steady accumulation of these flecks
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Speaker 1: of gold that has made me wealthy. I reckon. When
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Speaker 1: it comes to family life, it's the same principle that applies.
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Speaker 1: Family life is rocky and bumpy and dirty and messy
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Speaker 1: and wet. Like it's sometimes family life is just gross
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Speaker 1: and hard, and it leaves you feeling a.
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Speaker 2: Most big pile of rocks.
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Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. Literally, you look around the house sometimes
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Speaker 1: and you feel like, emotionally you're carrying a bag of rocks.
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Speaker 1: But if we are wise, we will discover that each
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Speaker 1: one of those rocks is full of gold flecks. We've
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Speaker 1: just got to be willing to do the hard work
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Speaker 1: and look for them and collect them. And if we
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Speaker 1: collect enough of them, I mean, there's thousands of the
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Speaker 1: rolling down the river of family life every single day,
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Speaker 1: and if we're willing to do the hard work and
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Speaker 1: collect them, they will make us rich. I love that story.
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Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you shared it. I have thought
8:55
Speaker 1: of something that I can share while I've been listening
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Speaker 1: to you. Think about how nice it is kids to
9:00
Speaker 1: actually love you. It's one thing for us to love
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Speaker 1: our kids. It's another thing entirely for us to like them.
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Speaker 1: And I really like our kids, and I love hearing
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Speaker 1: a story like that. My older better tomorrow. Well it's
9:13
Speaker 1: only kind of a little bit mine, but this is
9:15
Speaker 1: this is a big shift for me. So you've just
9:17
Speaker 1: gotta just let me do it anyway. My mum has
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Speaker 1: this habit of sending us stuff, usually unwanted, usually stuff
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Speaker 1: that we end up giving away ourselves. It doesn't even
9:28
Speaker 1: get unpacked. Quite often. She just wants to give all
9:30
Speaker 1: the time. It's a wonderful, wonderful flaw in her character.
9:34
Speaker 1: Because she's constantly giving us stuff that we don't want it.
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Speaker 2: She is a giving person, but also comes from that
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Speaker 2: whole waste not want not mentalities. She hates throwing things out,
9:46
Speaker 2: but she also recognizes she doesn't need it, so she's
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Speaker 2: not a hoarderup. No, she just likes to pass on.
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Speaker 1: That's exactly what it is. Like. So she gave me,
9:54
Speaker 1: she gave me my grandfather's pocket watch, Like it's got
9:58
Speaker 1: the chain and it's got the watch. It's this, it's
10:01
Speaker 1: a family heirloom, right, But she said, do you think
10:03
Speaker 1: you'll use this? What sort of a question is that?
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Speaker 1: Will let me get my pocket watch? You out of
10:07
Speaker 1: my suit pocket? Anyway, she picks stuff up secondhand all
10:11
Speaker 1: the time as well, so it's not that she's just
10:13
Speaker 1: passing things along that she happens to have. If she
10:16
Speaker 1: sees a bargain at a garage sale, like she's at.
10:20
Speaker 2: A friend's place and they're like, do you know anyone
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Speaker 2: who needs this, she'll say, I do.
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Speaker 1: We'll give it to Justin and Kylie. So the other
10:27
Speaker 1: day she scored one of those I don't I don't
10:31
Speaker 1: know the backstory. I haven't even asked, but she scores
10:33
Speaker 1: one of those. There's some sort of fancy backyard player
10:36
Speaker 1: equipment thing. They're called a VOOLI. I think that's the
10:39
Speaker 1: name of the brand. It's not sponsored. I have no
10:40
Speaker 1: idea what it really is. All I know is it's
10:42
Speaker 1: in an expensive backyard play set. Like it's kind of
10:46
Speaker 1: like a swing set, monkey bar, climbing rope, all that
10:49
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. She scores this vully, but to get
10:53
Speaker 1: it to us, she's gonna have to pay an inordinate
10:56
Speaker 1: amount of money, and so she makes Dad get in
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Speaker 1: a truck and from the New South Wales Central Coast
11:02
Speaker 1: more than a thousand k's north to the Sunshine Coast.
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Speaker 1: He literally walks into the yard, drops it off and
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Speaker 1: gets in the gets in the little drug to it
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Speaker 1: and drives back to the Central Coast. And I'm looking
11:12
Speaker 1: at this thing going There's no way I can assemble it.
11:14
Speaker 1: Fortunately she paid someone to come and assemble it, because
11:17
Speaker 1: this thing has pieces everywhere. But as it's going up,
11:20
Speaker 1: I'm like, this thing's five meters by five meters, it's
11:23
Speaker 1: got a sunshade, it's got all this stuff all over it.
11:26
Speaker 1: It's definitely in secondhand condition, but hey whatever, but I'm
11:29
Speaker 1: looking at going and this is the big this is
11:32
Speaker 1: the big thing, Kylie. I have got the best lawn
11:36
Speaker 1: in our suburb.
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Speaker 2: Like well, I was just thinking, you've spent the last
11:41
Speaker 2: two years getting our lawn. Oh my absolutely perfect.
11:45
Speaker 1: I love a perfect lawn. And now there is this
11:49
Speaker 1: great big plaything. There's great big five meter by five.
11:52
Speaker 2: Meter have you counted out me poles?
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Speaker 1: You with all of these whip holes in the ground. Well,
11:56
Speaker 1: I had to whip snip around it just the other
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Speaker 1: day and and I'm looking, I'm thinking, this is killing
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Speaker 1: my grass. I've got the best, lashious, most beautiful, perfect grass,
12:05
Speaker 1: and this is going to do. And it's added at
12:08
Speaker 1: least thirty minutes at least thirty minutes every single time
12:11
Speaker 1: I'm ow the lawn because I've got to whip a
12:13
Speaker 1: snip around all these poles, and then I've got to
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Speaker 1: mow in and out and sideways and backwards and upside.
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Speaker 2: Like it is sure gee whiz.
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Speaker 1: And I'm getting so frustrated about it. But guess what,
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Speaker 1: we're keeping it. We're keeping it. That's my older better tomorrow.
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Speaker 2: That's your right.
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Speaker 1: My mom provided us with some secondhand vooley thing that
12:30
Speaker 1: we didn't ask for and that we don't want, and
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Speaker 1: I'm keeping it. And do you know why we're keeping it?
12:34
Speaker 1: Because there's a quote. Actually, when I was thinking about
12:37
Speaker 1: what to talk about, I just did a quick google.
12:38
Speaker 1: There's this form of baseball player apparently by the name
12:41
Speaker 1: of Harmon killer Brew. Don't know anything about baseball, don't
12:43
Speaker 1: know anything about Harmon killer Brew, don't even know if
12:45
Speaker 1: it's a true story, but apparently Harmon killer Brew. He
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Speaker 1: goes on to become a professional baseball player, but when
12:50
Speaker 1: he's a kid, his parents are having an argument in
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Speaker 1: the kitchen one night because the kids are out in
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Speaker 1: the yard and they're tearing up the grass, playing football
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Speaker 1: and baseball and billy carts and just making a mess
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Speaker 1: of the backyard, and the mum in the backyard she says,
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Speaker 1: the kids are ruining the backyard, and the dad turns
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Speaker 1: around and says the most brilliant response. He says, we're
13:10
Speaker 1: not raising grass. We're raising Oh I'm gonna get weepy.
13:14
Speaker 1: We're not raising grass, We're raising boys. And I just
13:19
Speaker 1: love it. I love it so much that I'm going
13:21
Speaker 1: to get some more playground equipment and totally grass. Our
13:24
Speaker 1: kids can't listen to what's about to be said. Okay,
13:26
Speaker 1: so if you're in the car listening back to this,
13:28
Speaker 1: you need to not let them hear this. We're buying
13:30
Speaker 1: a trampoline for one of their birthdays. Trampolines will destroy
13:32
Speaker 1: my grass even more, but there's just enough space for it.
13:35
Speaker 1: The kids need to be outside and active, and since
13:37
Speaker 1: that thing has gone in, as much as I hate
13:40
Speaker 1: to say it, the kids keep going out there and
13:42
Speaker 1: swinging on those monkey bars and playing on that swing
13:44
Speaker 1: set and climbing that rope and doing little exercises on
13:48
Speaker 1: the side bits like they are fully in. They're absolutely
13:51
Speaker 1: doing it. I'm just thinking. We try to have a
13:54
Speaker 1: display home, but a house is meant to be lived in.
13:57
Speaker 1: We want the car to be spotless. Kids got to
14:00
Speaker 1: sit in the back and actually get through the long
14:03
Speaker 1: drives that we're doing. We're raising kids that have big
14:08
Speaker 1: opinions and they talk back, but of course they're going
14:11
Speaker 1: to be clumsy while they learn the art and the
14:13
Speaker 1: craft of responding with their ideas. I love my kids
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Speaker 1: and I want them to have opportunities to use their
14:19
Speaker 1: bodies and grow and be strong. And my mum was right.
14:24
Speaker 1: I hate saying it, but my mum was right, and
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Speaker 1: my older better tomorrow. Is it's worth having the stuff
14:30
Speaker 1: that the kids can play with, even if it makes
14:32
Speaker 1: a mess, and even if it does our heads in
14:33
Speaker 1: Because there aren't the kids for such a short time,
14:37
Speaker 1: such a short time, we need to let them be little.
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Speaker 2: I had no idea where you were going with this.
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Speaker 2: Because you have you definitely cannot take credit for any that.
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Speaker 1: Oh come on, but I've changed my attitude. That's the
14:50
Speaker 1: change gratitude, except when I have to mow around it.
14:53
Speaker 2: There was never going to be a trampoline in our yard.
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Speaker 1: The Happy Family podcast is produced by Justin Rule from
15:00
Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. We really
15:03
Speaker 1: hope that you've got something out of our conversation today
15:05
Speaker 1: about how to make your family happier and how to
15:06
Speaker 1: help your kids to absolutely flourish. Give them a great
15:10
Speaker 1: big hug, let them be little. They are just so wonderful.
15:15
Speaker 1: Have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday with
15:17
Speaker 1: the very best parenting advice that you have ever heard.