Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #140 Life After Year 12

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#140 Life After Year 12 · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's not about getting your kids through UNI. It's about
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  Speaker 1: getting university through your kids. It's the Happy Families podcast,
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  Speaker 1: the podcast for the time poor parent who just wants
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  Speaker 1: answers Now. Hello, my name is doctor Justin Colsonan joined
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  Speaker 1: with my wife, joined by my wife I should say,
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  Speaker 1: and co host missus Happy Families, Kylie, and we are
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  Speaker 1: the parents of six daughters. I've written six books about
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  Speaker 1: raising happy families. I think we're doing okay trying to
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  Speaker 1: raise a happy family.
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  Speaker 2: I think I think we're doing okay.
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  Speaker 3: I think we're doing the best we can.
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  Speaker 2: Fair call, we are doing the best we can.
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  Speaker 3: Well. Last week, Justin you posted something on our social
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  Speaker 3: media accounts, Facebook and Instagram which got a pretty big
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  Speaker 3: response from our communities. Our second daughter had her formal
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  Speaker 3: You're twelve formal her year twelve.
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  Speaker 1: Is our second child finishing high school.
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  Speaker 3: That's right, but that wasn't actually what got the response,
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  Speaker 3: even though she was beautiful, and we got lots of
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  Speaker 3: responses about her dress.
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  Speaker 2: Ye where'd you buy the dress? I well, I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: I couldn't remember the shop we brought it from. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: the key response.
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  Speaker 3: Was people were really interested with the approach that we've
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  Speaker 3: taken with her studies this year, specifically allowing her a
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  Speaker 3: bit of breathing space and taking away pressure from having
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  Speaker 3: to perform to a certain standard.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So, basically in the social media post, what I basically
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  Speaker 1: said was, we've got this kid. We think she's just adorable,
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  Speaker 1: and we know we're her biggest fans, which is what
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  Speaker 1: parents are supposed to say, right, we love our kids
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  Speaker 1: and we really want to celebrate them. But then I
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  Speaker 1: highlighted not just the importance of milestones and celebrations, but
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  Speaker 1: I said this, she's decided that at this point, university
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  Speaker 1: is not where she wants to be, which has meant
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  Speaker 1: that this year we have not had any pressure. She's
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  Speaker 1: going to do a trainee ship next year and get
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  Speaker 1: a qualification, a certificate qualification, and use the experience to
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  Speaker 1: help guide her decisions into the future. I highly recommend
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  Speaker 1: this approach to parents of children who are not clear
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  Speaker 1: on what they want to do for university.
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  Speaker 2: Perhaps we'll talk about that in the future.
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  Speaker 1: So I figured we should maybe talk about it today
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  Speaker 1: because the comments pretty much went off.
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  Speaker 3: I think that you know, in general, our seniors are
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  Speaker 3: under an enormous amount of pressure. We seem to think
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  Speaker 3: that there's only one pathway to success.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the educational pathway. In fact, I was
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  Speaker 1: having a chat with the school principal just the other day,
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  Speaker 1: and they've got what they might call advanced classes or
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  Speaker 1: an advanced placement course that goes from one grade to
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  Speaker 1: the next, to the next to the next.
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  Speaker 2: This is a public high school.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason they've done that is because there's some
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  Speaker 1: kids that really are I guess you'd call them high achievers,
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  Speaker 1: and they want to be on a university pathway. And
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  Speaker 1: sometimes when they're in classes with kids that don't have
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  Speaker 1: the same educational goals, the class can be a little
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  Speaker 1: bit challenging for them because they want to learn and
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  Speaker 1: some kids are perhaps a little bit less interested in
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  Speaker 1: pursuing those learning aspirations. But what this school principle said
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  Speaker 1: to me was the kids have picked up this idea
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  Speaker 1: that they're somehow superior, there's somehow better people because their
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  Speaker 1: career trajectory, their educational career trajectory is aligned with the
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  Speaker 1: university path And so how do we teach them that
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  Speaker 1: it's actually not about your career, it's about your character.
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  Speaker 1: I thought that was really important and a lot of parents.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we've got this aspiration that we will see
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  Speaker 1: our children maybe go to university and have the high
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  Speaker 1: flying career and that kind of thing. And I can't
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  Speaker 1: tell you how many parents, and how many students, and
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  Speaker 1: how many school principles, and how many counselors and psychologists
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  Speaker 1: I've talked to who are saying this experience of year
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  Speaker 1: eleven and twelve, particularly year twelve, is so taxing, so
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  Speaker 1: very very taxing on our students.
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  Speaker 3: We've had a couple of experience in our own home
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  Speaker 3: as we watch you, who for all intents and purposes,
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  Speaker 3: was pretty much a high school dropout, go through your
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  Speaker 3: own metamorphosis as you started as a radio announcer and
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  Speaker 3: thoroughly enjoyed that career for some years before deciding that
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  Speaker 3: you actually really wanted to go to university and explore
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  Speaker 3: learning and growth in a totally different area.
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  Speaker 1: There's this saying that I have, and that is that
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  Speaker 1: your kids don't belong at university. So once I finished
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  Speaker 1: my radio career, For those of you who haven't heard
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  Speaker 1: the story, here's the ten second version. I dropped out
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  Speaker 1: of radio, went back to school. I'd had a very
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  Speaker 1: successful radio career. I ended up at one of the
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  Speaker 1: biggest radio stations in the country, spent nearly a decade
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  Speaker 1: as a student full time with all of our kids,
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  Speaker 1: and then became a university lecturer. I was working there
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  Speaker 1: under contract and teaching these classes, and these kids would
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  Speaker 1: come from year twelve straight into university to study psychology.
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  Speaker 1: And I can't say it more clearly, kids, just don't
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  Speaker 1: send your kids to university.
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  Speaker 2: They don't belong there.
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  Speaker 1: University is not for kids, it's for adults. The number
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  Speaker 1: of times that I had these kids come to me
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  Speaker 1: and say, I don't even know why I'm here. I
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  Speaker 1: hate doing this, and my university bills getting bigger and
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  Speaker 1: bigger and bigger, and I'm not interested in anything, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm just here.
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  Speaker 2: Because I have to be. If you're an adult, or if.
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  Speaker 1: You're a young person who knows what you want to do,
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  Speaker 1: then go to university one hundred percent and give it everything.
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  Speaker 1: But it's not about getting your kids through UNI. It's
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  Speaker 1: about getting university through your kids. And if they're not
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  Speaker 1: at a point where university is going to go through
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  Speaker 1: them and change them, then they shouldn't be there. And
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  Speaker 1: we realize that with our second daughter, we learned a
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  Speaker 1: lot with our first daughter. You make all the mistakes
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  Speaker 1: with the first one. I'm so sorry, kidd oh. If
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  Speaker 1: she's listening, we love her, but we made that mistake
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  Speaker 1: of really demanding forcing her go to university.
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  Speaker 2: She didn't get the grades she wanted.
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  Speaker 3: She didn't and then she actually started university, and of
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  Speaker 3: course that she was really very interested in. She was, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: but bombed out in one of her exams and I.
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  Speaker 1: Don't think she even passed first semester.
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  Speaker 3: On reflection, No, I think you're right. And as a
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  Speaker 3: result of that, just her passion and drive just disintegrated overnight.
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  Speaker 1: But really she shouldn't have been there. She was still
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  Speaker 1: a kid, and she didn't really know why she was
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  Speaker 1: there or what she.
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  Speaker 3: Was doing, and so she decided she was not going back.
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  Speaker 3: She pulled out. She when got herself a full time job.
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  Speaker 3: Because in our house, we have a rule that once
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  Speaker 3: you leave high school, you're either learning or you're earning.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that in some level of detail. My
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  Speaker 1: name's doctor Justin Coulson. I'm here with my wife, missus.
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  Speaker 1: Happy family is Kylie Coulson. We're talking about how to
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  Speaker 1: have the conversation about what to do after year twelve
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  Speaker 1: with your children, especially if they're perhaps not quite ready
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  Speaker 1: to be on a university track. And we were I
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  Speaker 1: guess just summarizing, you know, when you've got this year
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  Speaker 1: twelve daughter who's now gone to university, it hasn't worked out.
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  Speaker 1: She pretty much said to us, I'm just going to
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  Speaker 1: work at the cafe fifteen hours a week, hang out
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  Speaker 1: with some friends, have a gap year, and I'll think
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  Speaker 1: about what to do after that. And her response, well,
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  Speaker 1: you used the phrase and we stole it from Premier
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  Speaker 1: Peter Betty from back.
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  Speaker 2: When he was the Queensland you need to be earning
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  Speaker 2: or learning. She looked at us, like, what do you mean.
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  Speaker 3: She wasn't happy with the response.
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  Speaker 1: Was she So the rule is full time if we
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  Speaker 1: love our kids, but we've also let them know that
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  Speaker 1: once they turn eighteen, technically we don't really have a
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  Speaker 1: financial responsibility to them. They need to make their own
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  Speaker 1: way in the world. That means learning hard lessons, but
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  Speaker 1: we figure it's much easier to learn those lessons when
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  Speaker 1: you're eighteen or nineteen than when you're thirty four.
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  Speaker 3: Well, and to learn them in the safety of your
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  Speaker 3: home with us there to guide and direct them. But
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  Speaker 3: we also want them to learn to be independent and
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  Speaker 3: recognize and value the things that come with adult living
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  Speaker 3: in life.
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  Speaker 1: So we should talk about this in another podcast. This
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  Speaker 1: idea that once our kids get a job, we charge
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  Speaker 1: them board and that's a certain percentage of their income.
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  Speaker 1: We can talk about that later, but we said to Chanel,
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  Speaker 1: if you want to quit university, that's your choice. We
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  Speaker 1: actually recognize that it was probably the right decision, and
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  Speaker 1: so we were very comfortable with her making that choice,
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  Speaker 1: but said, you're not working at the cafe down the road.
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  Speaker 1: You're going to have a full time job, or you're
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  Speaker 1: going to study full time doing something else, maybe a
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  Speaker 1: tape qualification or something like that, but it's full time
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  Speaker 1: earning or full time learning.
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  Speaker 3: And in her defense, she actually did that. She went
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  Speaker 3: out and got herself a full time job. She had
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  Speaker 3: Doney's Bit first, a good paying job. She's been working
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  Speaker 3: full time. But after about eighteen months of working in
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  Speaker 3: this full time job, she realized that this was probably
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  Speaker 3: not where she wanted to be and definitely not long term.
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  Speaker 3: Like I said, she was already enrolled in a course
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  Speaker 3: that she actually was really interested in loved It's a
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  Speaker 3: passion of hers. And has been since she was a
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  Speaker 3: little girl.
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  Speaker 1: And let's be honest, the job that she got was
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  Speaker 1: a low skill and therefore, and I don't say this
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  Speaker 1: with any disrespect, but it's a low paid, low status
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  Speaker 1: job because when you don't have any skills, you don't
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  Speaker 1: usually get paid particularly well and you don't get a
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  Speaker 1: whole lot of status from it. We're not particularly interested,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, in whether or not she's got high
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  Speaker 1: pay or low pay, or.
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  Speaker 2: High status or low status.
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  Speaker 1: What we're interested in is whether or not the job
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  Speaker 1: enlarges our children as people.
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  Speaker 3: Life satisfaction.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and are they growing?
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  Speaker 1: And it's the kind of job where there's not a
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  Speaker 1: whole lot of growth opportunity. You show up, you do
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  Speaker 1: the same thing, you go home, that kind of thing.
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  Speaker 1: So we would always encourage our kids to be trying
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  Speaker 1: to find work where they're serving, making a difference, making
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  Speaker 1: a contribution and growing as people. And so eighteen months
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  Speaker 1: in and she's turned around and gone.
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  Speaker 3: She did, and it was probably a big highlight for
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  Speaker 3: us as parents, having watched her go through this process
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  Speaker 3: and to get to her own space where she decided
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  Speaker 3: and felt like this was actually an avenue she wanted
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  Speaker 3: to pursue. So she originally went to university because we
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  Speaker 3: told her she needed to. And she's come out of that,
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  Speaker 3: gone into the real big world and tried living, you know,
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  Speaker 3: adult life, working day in day out, smashing herself, and
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  Speaker 3: started to recognize that she actually wants to tap into
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  Speaker 3: these skills that she has and this passion that she has.
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  Speaker 3: And she started back at TAFE this time, decided to
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  Speaker 3: go hands on.
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  Speaker 1: And unis in the future. That's her intention. And I
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  Speaker 1: think the moral of the story is when we force
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  Speaker 1: our kids, it often doesn't work out so well. There's
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  Speaker 1: a couple of other points that we should make in
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  Speaker 1: wrapping up, and the first point is that life changes
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  Speaker 1: when you leave school. So when I used to run
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  Speaker 1: workshops before COVID happened, and I'd have a room full
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  Speaker 1: of adults and I'd be talking to year twelve parents,
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  Speaker 1: I'd ask them, how many of you are still doing
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  Speaker 1: the same job that you thought you'd be doing, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the one that you went and studied for, the one
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  Speaker 1: that you qualified for at university. How many of you
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  Speaker 1: are using your university degree every day? And there's normally
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  Speaker 1: about twenty five percent of people who say yes. The
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  Speaker 1: other seventy five percent. Like, yeah, and I've changed careers.
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  Speaker 1: Life has taken a very different trajectory to what I
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  Speaker 1: was expecting. Go one O the days, we've got a
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  Speaker 1: job for a life. The other thing that's worth highlighting
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  Speaker 1: from my point of view, and I know you've got
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  Speaker 1: a couple of take home messages as well, But the
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  Speaker 1: other thing that I really want to highlight is I
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  Speaker 1: can't tell you how many people I know now who
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  Speaker 1: have gone back to school in the late twenties, their thirties,
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  Speaker 1: their forties as mature age students found alternative pathways into
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  Speaker 1: school and university has gone through them and they've gone
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  Speaker 1: on to become medical doctors, or they've gotten their PhDs,
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  Speaker 1: or they've gone and gotten the master's and become a
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  Speaker 1: psychologist or whatever it might be. But it's kind of
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  Speaker 1: never too late. And if your child's not ready, they're
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  Speaker 1: not ready, don't put the pressure on them. Let them
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  Speaker 1: enjoy year twelve.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that that's my take home from all
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  Speaker 3: of this is just giving our children the time and
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  Speaker 3: space they need to grow to work out what it
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  Speaker 3: is that they actually want to do. Our daughter in
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  Speaker 3: year ten actually had a conversation with a teacher just
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  Speaker 3: recently as she was starting to prepare for year eleven,
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  Speaker 3: and her teacher actually told her at that point, if
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  Speaker 3: she didn't know what she wanted to do after she
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  Speaker 3: left school, then she was really a lost cause. No,
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  Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it at sixteen years of age.
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  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, how I have a conversation. I need to
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  Speaker 2: a workshop at that school.
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  Speaker 3: It sounds like guess. So that was one of my
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  Speaker 3: take homes, And then my last one is just that
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  Speaker 3: year twelve is so much easier when we just take
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  Speaker 3: the pressure of our children's need to perform and just
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  Speaker 3: allow them to space, to be and to work through
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  Speaker 3: that process at their own pace. If we're so focused
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  Speaker 3: on grades, if we're so focused on outcomes, then we
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  Speaker 3: probably are going to miss some of the most important
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  Speaker 3: factors in our children's well being overall.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, great stuff. We really hope that you've enjoyed the podcast.
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  Speaker 1: If you do enjoy the podcast, please visit Apple Podcasts
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen and leave a rating and review.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Take to you probably about two or three minutes, but
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: my goodness, it makes a difference. The reviews and the
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: ratings are what helped people to find the podcast and
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: have Happier Families. If you'd like more information, you can
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: find us on Instagram. You can find us on Facebook
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: at doctor Justin Colson's Happy Families and please join us
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: at Happy Families dot com dot au for the Happy
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Families memberships. More and more people signing up for those
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  Speaker 1: memberships every single day.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Family keeps on getting bigger.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I guess you could say and remember, with a Happy
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Families membership, we've got them, because happy families don't just
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: happen