Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1233 - Hurried (Not Curried) Child Syndrome

Transcript

#1233 - Hurried (Not Curried) Child Syndrome · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: A few years ago, we made a promise and pretty
0:08
Speaker 1: much everybody that Kylie and I know has broken that promise.
0:14
Speaker 1: Promise to our families that hasn't quite played out the
0:17
Speaker 1: way we thought that it would. Today we unpacked that
0:20
Speaker 1: promise and explore why your child feels hurried.
0:27
Speaker 2: I'm a laughing at I'm looking.
0:30
Speaker 3: At the notes that you've passed across the dable here
0:32
Speaker 3: and I was trying to work out why we were
0:34
Speaker 3: talking about curried children.
0:36
Speaker 2: Show me the notes.
0:37
Speaker 3: Well, I've changed it now.
0:40
Speaker 1: That doesn't look like, Oh I am a doctor.
0:44
Speaker 2: Doctors can't. I'm not that kind of doctor.
0:46
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna Welcome to the Happy Family's podcast, Real
0:49
Speaker 1: Parenting Solutions every Day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast
0:53
Speaker 1: were when You're we adjustin and Kylie Coulson and today
0:56
Speaker 1: we are not talking about curried child syndrome. That sounds really,
1:01
Speaker 1: really damagingly bad. That sounds cannibalistic. So they were talking
1:05
Speaker 1: about hurried child syndrome, the broken promise.
1:08
Speaker 2: Let's talk about that.
1:09
Speaker 1: During COVID, everyone said, my goodness, as much as we
1:13
Speaker 1: recognize that COVID has brought with it many hardships we
1:17
Speaker 1: like slow life. I mean that was the overwhelming conversation
1:20
Speaker 1: that everyone was having. It's so nice to not have
1:22
Speaker 1: to be driving everywhere doing so much.
1:25
Speaker 2: Life is good.
1:26
Speaker 1: We're never going back to our overscheduled lives, said every family,
1:31
Speaker 1: and even.
1:31
Speaker 3: From a connection point of view, while we missed connection,
1:35
Speaker 3: I think sometimes there is so much connection in our
1:38
Speaker 3: lives that it was really nice to take a back
1:41
Speaker 3: seat with all of that.
1:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you not have to.
1:45
Speaker 1: Not everybody feels the same way about COVID, but most
1:48
Speaker 1: people that we've spoken to have said it was so
1:50
Speaker 1: so nice. Unfortunately, we have pretty much all broken the
1:54
Speaker 1: promise we've all gone back to.
1:56
Speaker 2: Research shows that parents.
1:57
Speaker 1: Are more stressed, burnt out, worried, anxious than ever before.
2:00
Speaker 1: Kids are following suit. Kids' mental health is declining. They're
2:06
Speaker 1: not doing as well because at least in part, there
2:08
Speaker 1: is so much going on.
2:10
Speaker 3: So a little bit of a sidetrack. But I'm wondering
2:13
Speaker 3: whether or not everybody felt like that about COVID, because
2:18
Speaker 3: it's kind of like a holiday, right, you get to
2:21
Speaker 3: have a break from your real life. But the reality
2:23
Speaker 3: is you wouldn't actually choose to live.
2:25
Speaker 2: Like that forever.
2:26
Speaker 1: I don't know, we've made an intentional decision to try,
2:31
Speaker 1: and for the last couple of years we've been homeschooling
2:33
Speaker 1: well two kids and then and now just one child, and.
2:36
Speaker 2: I feel like we got a lot.
2:38
Speaker 1: Well maybe you and I haven't, because we are still
2:40
Speaker 1: extremely busy, but our daughter is unhurried. So our homeschooling
2:45
Speaker 1: daughter has slowed her life for right down and we've
2:48
Speaker 1: seen commensurate with that an increase in well being, confidence, resilience,
2:54
Speaker 1: this delightful child who was really going downhill before we
2:57
Speaker 1: made the call to do it. Not that today's podcast
2:59
Speaker 1: is an advertisement for homeschooling, that's not what it's about,
3:02
Speaker 1: but rather slowing things down.
3:05
Speaker 2: Let me tell you about hurried child syndrome.
3:08
Speaker 1: There's a guy called Dr David Elkind, and he came
3:11
Speaker 1: up with the concept quite a long time ago. Key
3:13
Speaker 1: characteristics kids being pushed to behave like many adults, Accelerated
3:17
Speaker 1: academic expectations, overscheduled activity calendars, exposure, early exposure to adult issues.
3:26
Speaker 1: So kids are growing up way too fast, often because
3:28
Speaker 1: parents aren't present and kids are on screens or doing
3:31
Speaker 1: a whole lot of things that we're not around to
3:34
Speaker 1: help them to stretch out and slow down their childhoods, and.
3:37
Speaker 3: I guess the flow and effect of that is that
3:39
Speaker 3: they start behaving like little adults.
3:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, which kind of works out reasonably well
3:44
Speaker 1: for us, because the less we have to supervise them,
3:46
Speaker 1: the happier we are, because we've got so much going
3:48
Speaker 1: on ourselves, because we're so hurried and flustered. But the
3:52
Speaker 1: little bit of research that I've been able to scrounge
3:54
Speaker 1: up around this highlights that if our children are experiencing
3:58
Speaker 1: a hurried childhood, and it's not just about being busy,
4:02
Speaker 1: it's about early exposure, it's about high expectations. You've got
4:05
Speaker 1: to be a little adult because you're walking and talking
4:08
Speaker 1: and we can communicate now. Physical and mental health impacts,
4:12
Speaker 1: sleep deprivation or eating habits, anxiety, depression.
4:16
Speaker 2: Less resilience.
4:17
Speaker 1: The one that worries me the most that I found
4:19
Speaker 1: was feeling unworthy when failing to meet expectations. In other words,
4:24
Speaker 1: a hurried childhood can make children feel like they're supposed
4:28
Speaker 1: to be perfect, and perfectionism is perhaps one of the
4:30
Speaker 1: most damaging forms of anxiety.
4:33
Speaker 3: You think about the comparison trap that nearly the entire
4:37
Speaker 3: human race falls into, at some point. And if you
4:41
Speaker 3: have children comparing their capacity, their achievements, their talents, their
4:47
Speaker 3: strengths against adults and the adult world, there's no competition.
4:53
Speaker 3: Of course, the adults are going to be better at
4:55
Speaker 3: those things. It's a really really tricky place for a
4:59
Speaker 3: child to be.
5:00
Speaker 1: And they're not just comparing themselves upwards, they're comparing themselves
5:04
Speaker 1: sideways as well. And I think this is part of
5:05
Speaker 1: the reason we've returned to the rush, because when our
5:08
Speaker 1: child's not doing so well, they feel like they're failing,
5:10
Speaker 1: but we also feel like we're failing. And when our
5:12
Speaker 1: child has lots of successes, we feel like we're winning,
5:15
Speaker 1: like we're great parents because our children are doing well
5:17
Speaker 1: as well. I want to talk about why we return
5:20
Speaker 1: to the rush, and I reckon it's partly because there's
5:24
Speaker 1: this competitive parenting culture that's only accelerating. I don't think
5:28
Speaker 1: that it existed nearly the way that it does today,
5:31
Speaker 1: even ten or fifteen years ago.
5:33
Speaker 2: I feel as though.
5:34
Speaker 1: There is this competitive parenting culture that I'm seeing when
5:37
Speaker 1: I'm in and out of schools and in and out
5:39
Speaker 1: of workplaces and giving talks. Parents really really really understandably
5:43
Speaker 1: want their children to fulfill their potential.
5:46
Speaker 3: And it starts as babies.
5:47
Speaker 1: Of course it does, because the conversations are, well, my
5:50
Speaker 1: child's doing this earlier than yours, my child's walking, my
5:52
Speaker 1: child's making sounds with their mouths. Whatever it is, it's
5:57
Speaker 1: not fair on parents. It's not fair on the kids.
6:00
Speaker 1: We're really concerned about our kids falling behind academically or socially. Again,
6:04
Speaker 1: not fair, not healthy. I'll tell you why. Because schools
6:06
Speaker 1: are not the best environments for everybody to be learning,
6:09
Speaker 1: and some kids just hate it. There doesn't mean that
6:12
Speaker 1: they can't live successful lives. I fail at high school,
6:15
Speaker 1: like I scored on the bottom fifteen percent of the state.
6:17
Speaker 1: We've got a PhD, I've written ten books, I've got
6:20
Speaker 1: a TV show in Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We
6:24
Speaker 1: know at least three people who essentially failed high school
6:28
Speaker 1: and then went on to become medical doctors. Like they
6:32
Speaker 1: managed to get back into UNI when they're in their
6:34
Speaker 1: mid twenties or early thirties and now they're practicing doctors.
6:37
Speaker 1: And it's got nothing to do with intelligence. Failing school
6:40
Speaker 1: it's got everything to do with motivation. This is not
6:42
Speaker 1: an ability thing. The addictive nature of business is a
6:46
Speaker 1: status symbol. I think that we're doing all of these things,
6:49
Speaker 1: and again not to push the homeschool barrow too hard,
6:53
Speaker 1: but by making the choice to homeschool our kids, we
6:56
Speaker 1: kind of stepped out of all of that. There's no
6:57
Speaker 1: competition from a parenting point of view. There's no worry
7:00
Speaker 1: about falling behind academically or socially because you just teach
7:03
Speaker 1: your kids at home and they work it out, and
7:05
Speaker 1: if they don't, you come back to the lesson again
7:07
Speaker 1: tomorrow and you just keep doing the same less until
7:09
Speaker 1: they've got it. It changes the game and it slows
7:12
Speaker 1: down their childhood. After the break, we're going to share
7:14
Speaker 1: three solutions that can help you to slow childhood down
7:18
Speaker 1: and remove the hurried child syndrome from your child's life.
7:31
Speaker 2: Okay, Kylie. Three things.
7:32
Speaker 1: We've chewed up a lot of time already, so we're
7:34
Speaker 1: going to go through these fairly quickly. Three things that
7:37
Speaker 1: we can do to help our children feel less hurried
7:40
Speaker 1: in their lives. Let's kick it off.
7:42
Speaker 3: The first one is my favorite. It's play. This is
7:46
Speaker 3: really tricky for lots of parents because we grew up
7:49
Speaker 3: with parents who did not play with us and Therefore,
7:53
Speaker 3: it feels foreign for parents specifically to get involved with
7:58
Speaker 3: their child's play, facilitating opportunities for our children to have
8:03
Speaker 3: free play, no structure, no outcomes, just be able to
8:08
Speaker 3: be kids.
8:09
Speaker 1: So this is you talk about hurried child. Now I'm
8:11
Speaker 1: going to step into hurried adult. No one's got time,
8:15
Speaker 1: especially if you're working in a family where either you're
8:17
Speaker 1: a single parent so you're doing it all, or you're
8:19
Speaker 1: in a double income family where both parents are working
8:23
Speaker 1: full time. Because to really play in an unstructured way
8:26
Speaker 1: requires the one thing that nobody has time time. Yeah,
8:29
Speaker 1: you've got to be able to go down to the
8:30
Speaker 1: park and sit at the bench or sit on a
8:33
Speaker 1: rug and let the kids play with their friends. That
8:35
Speaker 1: means other families also need to have the time to
8:37
Speaker 1: show up at the park with you and let the
8:39
Speaker 1: kids go for it. And I'm talking kids from the
8:41
Speaker 1: age of eighteen months up to eighteen years. And if
8:45
Speaker 1: it's not the park, maybe it's the beach, or maybe
8:47
Speaker 1: it's the wherever you're just going and doing things where
8:51
Speaker 1: you sit and the children explore they play. Three benefits
8:56
Speaker 1: to play that need to be hammered home, like really
8:59
Speaker 1: really clearly ham at home.
9:00
Speaker 2: Number one the cognitive development.
9:02
Speaker 1: When children play in an open ended, unstructured way, they
9:05
Speaker 1: have to solve problems.
9:06
Speaker 2: They have to be creative.
9:07
Speaker 1: They come up with stuff and then they start to
9:09
Speaker 1: solve problems. They also have to get involved in really
9:13
Speaker 1: important socially.
9:15
Speaker 2: What's the word I'm looking for.
9:16
Speaker 3: It's negotiation, it's communication, it's collaboration. Like there is so
9:21
Speaker 3: much going on from a social point of view when
9:23
Speaker 3: our kids come together, and sometimes we shy away from
9:26
Speaker 3: it because it's like I don't want to have to
9:28
Speaker 3: deal with the drama. But we we actually don't have
9:32
Speaker 3: to deal with the drama. We have to allow the kids'
9:35
Speaker 3: space to work through this.
9:37
Speaker 1: And the third one is emotional development. This is where
9:39
Speaker 1: they learn to express their feelings in safe ways. They
9:41
Speaker 1: learn to understand other people's feelings, They learn to take perspectives,
9:44
Speaker 1: they understand empathy, They develop coping mechanisms because things don't
9:47
Speaker 1: always go their way that they would like them to.
9:49
Speaker 2: Go play play play play, play play play.
9:52
Speaker 1: The number one way to unhurry childhood is to literally
9:57
Speaker 1: slow it down so the kids can be playing a
9:59
Speaker 1: specially with other kids, especially in unstructured activities.
10:04
Speaker 3: Number two is about keeping our feet on the ground.
10:09
Speaker 3: It's really great to have goals, aspirations and desires for
10:14
Speaker 3: our children, but when it comes to the goals that
10:17
Speaker 3: we would set for our children specifically and the future
10:22
Speaker 3: that they might live, I think the key to this
10:25
Speaker 3: is it's not our goal, it's our kid's goal, and
10:29
Speaker 3: so working with them and helping them to tap into
10:33
Speaker 3: what's important to them, what are their strengths, what are
10:36
Speaker 3: the things that light them up, and moving forward in
10:40
Speaker 3: a positive trajectory in that way will make such a difference.
10:45
Speaker 3: Too many children are left feeling like I really want
10:48
Speaker 3: to be an artist, but my mum and dad want
10:50
Speaker 3: me to be a lawyer and I can't disappoint them.
10:52
Speaker 1: One of my favorite interviews ever on the Happy Families
10:55
Speaker 1: podcast was with Emma McKean, Australia's most decorated Olympic medal.
11:00
Speaker 1: Her father was a Commonwealth swimmer, a common Wealth Games medallist.
11:06
Speaker 1: Her parents owned a swim school, her mum was also
11:08
Speaker 1: a swimmer, so she's grown up in and her brother
11:10
Speaker 1: was also a swimmer, so she's grown up in this
11:12
Speaker 1: environment where swimming, swimming and swimming. And when I talked
11:15
Speaker 1: to her, I said like, how did that go for you?
11:19
Speaker 1: And she said, my parents let me set my own goals.
11:21
Speaker 1: And the other thing she said is I quit swimming
11:23
Speaker 1: several times, but I kept on going back because I
11:26
Speaker 1: liked the people and because I enjoyed.
11:29
Speaker 2: Being in the pool.
11:30
Speaker 1: But it was always self determined and as a result
11:34
Speaker 1: of that, she was able to achieve things that were
11:37
Speaker 1: important to her. Her parents were not saying this is
11:39
Speaker 1: important to us. It's just it's all on you, and
11:42
Speaker 1: she was able to self reflect, especially in the downtimes
11:45
Speaker 1: when she wasn't in the pool, to realize, hang on,
11:47
Speaker 1: this is something that I really like. And now I'm
11:49
Speaker 1: not sharing that so that we can all raise Olympians.
11:52
Speaker 1: I'm sharing it to highlight that we've got all these
11:55
Speaker 1: goals for our kids. The number of times I've spoken
11:57
Speaker 1: to parents who want their kids to be doctors or
11:58
Speaker 1: loyals or engineers or identists or whatever.
12:01
Speaker 3: But it's because it's money driven. Want our children to
12:04
Speaker 3: have financial success and therefore financial freedom.
12:07
Speaker 2: It just pushes the kids way too hard. Let them
12:10
Speaker 2: figure it out.
12:11
Speaker 1: Like I said, we know doctors who never planned to
12:13
Speaker 1: be doctors and even failed high school.
12:15
Speaker 3: Well, you never planned to do a university andw you are.
12:19
Speaker 1: Now that I would have a PhD was laughable.
12:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I just think that if we can recognize
12:26
Speaker 3: and understand that all learning is good learning, and our
12:29
Speaker 3: children are going to figure it out. And yes, it
12:31
Speaker 3: means that some of them are going to take the
12:32
Speaker 3: long way to get there, but the learning that takes
12:35
Speaker 3: place on that long journey, you can't. You can't buy that.
12:40
Speaker 1: So the first one, make sure that the kid's playing,
12:42
Speaker 1: playing a lot, unstructured play, playing with other kids.
12:45
Speaker 2: The second one.
12:47
Speaker 1: Goals and aspirations, like, don't worry about what your goals
12:50
Speaker 1: and aspirations are for your children, because it's not your life,
12:53
Speaker 1: it's theirs. Just support them and talk to them about
12:56
Speaker 1: what it is that they value and what it is
12:58
Speaker 1: that they're working towards.
13:00
Speaker 2: Third one, final one.
13:02
Speaker 3: This is when we all struggle with the most a
13:04
Speaker 3: balance schedule. When you think about hurried child syndrome, the
13:10
Speaker 3: one thing that most of us are lacking is a
13:12
Speaker 3: balance schedule. We're not getting enough sleep, we're not getting
13:16
Speaker 3: enough downtime, we're not getting enough connection, like real honest
13:19
Speaker 3: connection with people that matter in our lives. Those are
13:22
Speaker 3: the big rocks that literally transform a hurried life into
13:29
Speaker 3: one that feels balanced, real, and connective.
13:33
Speaker 1: In Season one of Parental Guidance, there was one family
13:37
Speaker 1: whose parenting style I won't mention, but they pushed their
13:39
Speaker 1: kids hard. They ate at least five meals per week
13:43
Speaker 1: in the car, firing the children from one activity to another. Now,
13:47
Speaker 1: it's great if your children want to be involved in
13:49
Speaker 1: lots of experts, not only.
13:51
Speaker 3: Where they in the car. They it wasn't the whole
13:53
Speaker 3: family's in the car, it's mums in one car and
13:55
Speaker 3: dad's in another car.
13:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I mean limit this is controversial, but limit
14:01
Speaker 1: extracurricular activities because unstructured is better. Of course, if the
14:06
Speaker 1: kids are saying I want this, I'm thriving with this,
14:08
Speaker 1: I'm oriented towards it, and it's their choice, and you've
14:11
Speaker 1: got the time and resources, then I'm I'm not going
14:14
Speaker 1: to push too hard against it.
14:15
Speaker 3: But I also think our kids are caught up in
14:17
Speaker 3: a trap of comparison and competition as well. They see
14:21
Speaker 3: all of their friends doing these things and they want
14:23
Speaker 3: to be like everybody else. I look at Emily. We've
14:26
Speaker 3: been away now for eighteen months out of school.
14:29
Speaker 2: That's more.
14:30
Speaker 3: And we wanted her to have extracurricular activities so that
14:37
Speaker 3: she was getting a rich, full education because she wasn't
14:40
Speaker 3: at school, and one by one she has literally taken
14:44
Speaker 3: them off her list. She loves the fact that her
14:48
Speaker 3: life is now.
14:50
Speaker 2: Slow, slow, unstructured.
14:52
Speaker 3: And every time I take her to another extracurricular activity,
14:56
Speaker 3: she feels hurried and harried.
14:58
Speaker 1: So we wanted not just un hurry our lives, We
15:01
Speaker 1: want to unharry our lives. If you know any harries,
15:03
Speaker 1: we clearly need to get ridden. Unstructured play goals that
15:08
Speaker 1: are directed and determined by your children, and a balanced schedule.
15:13
Speaker 2: Good luck.
15:13
Speaker 1: We know that this can help you to unhurry childhood.
15:16
Speaker 1: We know that it's good for their kids' mental health.
15:18
Speaker 1: We hope that this has been a helpful conversation. The
15:20
Speaker 1: Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruhlon from Bridge Media.
15:24
Speaker 1: More information and resources to make your family happier are
15:27
Speaker 1: available on happy families dot com dot au