Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #378 Teaching Perseverance

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#378 Teaching Perseverance · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers now.
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Speaker 2: Life on repeat groundhog Day, because that's where the skill
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Speaker 2: development comes, that's the confidence building, that's how you succeed
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Speaker 2: and achieve amazing things.
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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
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Speaker 1: and dad.
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Speaker 2: So we've received an email from one of our Happy
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Speaker 2: Families premium members who says, I've got a question for
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Speaker 2: you for a possible future podcast topic. Hey, Crystal, the
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Speaker 2: future is now. Do you like that? Do you like that?
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Speaker 2: I'm pretty excited about this where Justin and Kylie Colson,
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Speaker 2: parents are six kids and founder of Happy Families dot
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Speaker 2: com dot I you here's the question. Crystal says, I've
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Speaker 2: been realizing more and more with my kids, myself and
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Speaker 2: also other adults that I journey life with how there's
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Speaker 2: such a connection between success with life and the hurdle
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Speaker 2: of getting started and pushing through and doing so daily
0:55
Speaker 2: as a lifestyle. So she's highlighted how they've noticed getting
0:58
Speaker 2: started is really hard, pushing through was a big deal,
1:00
Speaker 2: and then she talks about with lockdown past one hundred
1:02
Speaker 2: plus days with our kids, little one's been learning to
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Speaker 2: read and write here with me at home, So it
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Speaker 2: doesn't say, but I'm guessing we're talking about a five
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Speaker 2: year old and he has needed to learn to push
1:13
Speaker 2: through this sort of daily feeling of helplessness. And once
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Speaker 2: he pushes through, he then reads beautifully and writes a
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Speaker 2: full page of really good quality writing. And then Chrystal
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Speaker 2: just says, Hey, how do we like? What research is there?
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Speaker 2: What ideas have you got about how we can help
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Speaker 2: our kids to make that first step get through that
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Speaker 2: kind of mentality of how do I even get started
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Speaker 2: and then keep things going along? And boy, a boy,
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Speaker 2: is that a great conversation for us to have.
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Speaker 3: One of the things that I think everybody struggles with
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Speaker 3: is learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable finding ourselves
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Speaker 3: in these situations where we're not comfortable with this feeling,
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Speaker 3: but just allowing the process to take place.
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Speaker 2: And it's even more important, I think, to be to
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Speaker 2: be comfortable with your children being uncomfortable. I mean, obviously
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Speaker 2: we're not talking about torturing our children and hurting them anyway,
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Speaker 2: but when your kids are struggling, this innate desire to
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Speaker 2: step in and relieve your child of that discomfort, say
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Speaker 2: hang on, I can fix this. I can make you
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Speaker 2: feel better about life. That's not the idea, right, You
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Speaker 2: don't grow unless you experience adversity.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's this mentality that if life is not easy,
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Speaker 3: then clearly we're doing something wrong. Yeah, but that's not
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Speaker 3: the case at all.
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Speaker 2: So you've got an amazing story to tell from a
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Speaker 2: few years ago when we experienced this kind of thing
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Speaker 2: with our kids. I'm looking forward to hearing you share
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Speaker 2: that story. But first I want to share some my
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Speaker 2: ideas about how the Space Shuttle can inform the way
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Speaker 2: we approach children and getting stuff done. In fact, it's
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Speaker 2: helpful for you and I as well, it's helpful for adults.
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Speaker 2: So Crystal, this is what I want to share. First
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Speaker 2: of all, for the Space Shuttle to get into orbit
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Speaker 2: and travel around the Earth, that is low Earth orbit,
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Speaker 2: Space Shuttle has to reach speeds of about seventeen thy
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Speaker 2: five hundred miles per hour. That is twenty eight thousand
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Speaker 2: kilometers an hour. Let me say that again, twenty eight
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Speaker 2: thousand kilometers an hour. This is I mean.
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Speaker 4: Compared to our hundred kilometers an hour on the freeway.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean I've I always wanted to go faster.
3:01
Speaker 2: But that's kind of taking it to a whole new level.
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Speaker 2: I mean, an aeroplane usually travels around about sort of
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Speaker 2: eight hundred to one thousand kilometers now, depending on whether
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Speaker 2: the wind's going with it and all that kind of thing.
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Speaker 2: We're talking twenty eight times faster than a commercial airplane.
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Speaker 2: I did read somewhere that it's about nine times faster
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Speaker 2: than a speeding bullet. Like Superman doesn't fly that fast.
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Speaker 2: We are talking really fast.
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Speaker 4: You know, Superman's not real.
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Speaker 2: Thank you appreciate that very much. And here's the other thing.
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Speaker 2: So it's about thirty seven meters tall, nearly the height
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Speaker 2: of an Olympic swimming pool. So we're talking I don't know,
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Speaker 2: seven eight nine stories high. This thing is huge. It weighs,
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Speaker 2: It weighs a lot. I can't remember the exact weight,
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Speaker 2: but it weways a lot. Put it this way, The
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Speaker 2: Space Shuttle is huge external tank. You know the great
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Speaker 2: big orange thing that's under the Space Shuttle with the
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Speaker 2: two white things on the side. If you've ever seen
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Speaker 2: a picture of the Space Shuttle, and you up the shuttle,
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Speaker 2: but then you've got these great big fuel tanks basically
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Speaker 2: underneath it. Five hundred thousand gallons of super cold liquid
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Speaker 2: oxygen and liquid hydrogen which they burned together. That's the
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Speaker 2: three main rocket engines. That's the fuel, rocket fuel, that's
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Speaker 2: what it's five hundred thousand gallons. This thing weighs. I
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Speaker 2: was gonna say it weighs a ton, but it obviously
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Speaker 2: weighs a lot more than that, and it's got to
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Speaker 2: get up against gravity twenty eight thousand k's an hour
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Speaker 2: to enter orbit. And what I've read as I've been
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Speaker 2: looking into how this happens is for the Space Shuttle
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Speaker 2: to leave the Earth in the first minute, it takes
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Speaker 2: one minute to get to about one hundred ks an
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Speaker 2: hour one minute, but it takes ten minutes until it's
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Speaker 2: doing twenty eight thousand k's. Once it's doing twenty eight
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Speaker 2: thousand k's and it's going into orbit, it drops those
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Speaker 2: huge fuel tanks, enters orbit, and it really doesn't need
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Speaker 2: very much fuel at all because it's not using it
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Speaker 2: when it's in orbit, and then it just needs a
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Speaker 2: little bit of fuel to get back into the Earth's
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Speaker 2: atmosphere and drop down to Earth. Now, for any rocket
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Speaker 2: scientists who are listening, if I've completely butchered that I'm
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Speaker 2: so sorry, but the principle behind it is really really simple.
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Speaker 2: Getting started is hard, and for the rocket ship to
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Speaker 2: get into orbit takes an enormous amount any for one
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Speaker 2: minute and then a significant amount of energy for the
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Speaker 2: next nine minutes. But after ten minutes, it's in orbit
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Speaker 2: and it doesn't require any energy at all. And I
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Speaker 2: think that's a great lesson for when it comes to
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Speaker 2: working with our kids and getting them started on stuff.
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Speaker 2: When they've got a school project, they're going to be
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Speaker 2: so hard, or when we've got to clean the house,
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Speaker 2: and cleaning the house, well, they're learning a new skill,
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Speaker 2: whatever is learning the piano with a clarinet or playing
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Speaker 2: a sport, and they're struggling with it. It's really really
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Speaker 2: hard to get things going. But if you can convince
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Speaker 2: your kids to just do one minute or ten minutes
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Speaker 2: would be better, but one minute just to get up
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Speaker 2: to one hundred k an hour, ten minutes to get
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Speaker 2: to twenty eight thousand k's an hour, and then they're
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Speaker 2: in orbit and they get into that thing that's called flow,
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Speaker 2: all of a sudden, things are much easier. It's like
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Speaker 2: we've got the momentum behind us. Now we're moving and
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Speaker 2: things just happen, so the central and I guess it
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Speaker 2: ties in with this basic psychological need that all humans have,
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Speaker 2: especially our children, that's a need for competence. Getting started
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Speaker 2: it always is really hard because you feel like you can't.
6:00
Speaker 2: It feels like you're incapable incompetent of doing it. But
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Speaker 2: once you've been going for a little bit, just a
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Speaker 2: few minutes, you start to pick up that momentum because
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Speaker 2: you're doing it, you're actually developing and demonstrating that competence
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Speaker 2: and that capability of the capacity, the mastery, and it
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Speaker 2: gets easier as a result of doing those things.
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Speaker 3: I remember one year we had one of our children's
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Speaker 3: start school and she was definitely, you know, not at
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Speaker 3: the bottom of the class, but she wasn't thriving. But
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Speaker 3: I wasn't concerned because she was young and I knew
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Speaker 3: that she'd kind of developed those skills. But lots of
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Speaker 3: parents in the grade were feeling very, very stressed out
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Speaker 3: about it. And I had a conversation with the teacher
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Speaker 3: to kind of just check in and see where this
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Speaker 3: child was, and she acknowledged that this particular year, literally
6:41
Speaker 3: nearly the entire class was just.
6:44
Speaker 4: Really kind of dragging the chain a little bit.
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Speaker 3: They were really struggling to kind of grasp these concepts,
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Speaker 3: and then they came back after mid semester break into
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Speaker 3: term three and all of a sudden, she said, it
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Speaker 3: was like a light bulb went on for the entire class,
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Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, they just got it. Taken
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Speaker 3: them all that time to learn the foundations to get
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Speaker 3: to that point where, like you said, they could feel flow.
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Speaker 2: I guess it's kind of like a tree. It puts
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Speaker 2: the roots down first, looks like it's not growing, and
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Speaker 2: then the next season there's the tree. Hey, I want
7:13
Speaker 2: to talk. I want to hear this amazing story that
7:15
Speaker 2: you've got for us about our kids doing hard things.
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Speaker 2: And there's a story about Antarctica that I think is
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Speaker 2: also relevant to Crystal's question. Plus we need to talk
7:26
Speaker 2: about the developmental appropriateness of all of this, so we'll
7:28
Speaker 2: do that right after the break.
7:30
Speaker 1: It's their Happy Families podcast for.
7:33
Speaker 3: A happier family, Try a Happy Families membership, because a
7:36
Speaker 3: happy family doesn't just happen. Details at happy families dot
7:40
Speaker 3: com dot au. It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast
7:44
Speaker 3: for the time poor parent who just wants answers now
7:46
Speaker 3: and today we are answering Crystal's.
7:49
Speaker 2: Question, how do you get the kids started on things
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Speaker 2: that are really hard that I don't want to do,
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Speaker 2: and how do you keep them going at things that
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Speaker 2: require a whole higher level of persistence than their previous demonstrated.
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Speaker 2: So we've talked about how the Space Shuttle is a
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Speaker 2: great example of just getting started. Just do ten minutes
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Speaker 2: of what's hard, and it's amazing what happens. But Kylie,
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Speaker 2: there's something else around persistence that we need to discuss.
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Speaker 3: So lots of years ago, lots of years ago, it
8:16
Speaker 3: feels like a lifetime ago, we had a child who just.
8:20
Speaker 4: Hated doing hard things.
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Speaker 3: As soon as things got slightly hard, she just pulled
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Speaker 3: the pin on it all.
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Speaker 2: And I've always had this saying, you gotta love the hills,
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Speaker 2: so right, that's my bike riding thing. If you love
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Speaker 2: riding the hills, then you can tell a lot about
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Speaker 2: a person's character by how they write up a hill.
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Speaker 2: And I'm always into you just get up that hill,
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Speaker 2: Just get up there. If you'll be worth it, just
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Speaker 2: keep on pushing.
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Speaker 3: And along with us, her teachers could see potential, but
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Speaker 3: she just pushed against all of the hard stuff. If
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Speaker 3: it was too hard, she just wasn't going there. And
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Speaker 3: so we decided as a family that we would do
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Speaker 3: something hard. We chose to climb Mount Kosiosco, highest mounted
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Speaker 3: in Australia. We were going to do it, and at
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Speaker 3: that stage we had four children. Youngest was about eighteen months.
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Speaker 2: Old, yeah, maybe two somewhere around that, yep.
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Speaker 3: And in order to do that, we had to work
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Speaker 3: out a pretty good schedule of training to help them
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Speaker 3: understand what it was going to take to actually climb
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Speaker 3: the six and a half kilometers to the summit after
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Speaker 3: we caught the ski lift.
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Speaker 4: Because we didn't start from the very bottom.
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Speaker 2: And so we and then six and a half k's back.
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Speaker 2: It was a thirteen k round trip at altitude, so
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Speaker 2: it was going to be a really big deal, very
9:27
Speaker 2: very hard. We started training, so.
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Speaker 3: We started just doing walks around the neighborhood to start with,
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Speaker 3: and then we moved from the neighborhood to the mountain
9:33
Speaker 3: so we were up a little bit higher. Our local
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Speaker 3: mountain there was a five k ring track. We figured
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Speaker 3: if we could get the kids doing five k's comfortably,
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Speaker 3: then the extra one and a half k's to the
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Speaker 3: top of the summit of Mount Kosiosco wasn't going to
9:44
Speaker 3: be too big a stretch. But then we also recognized
9:47
Speaker 3: the kids did better when they had friends, So we
9:49
Speaker 3: invited the cousins, and we invited the grandparents to come along.
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Speaker 3: And by the time we actually got to Mount Kosiosco
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Speaker 3: the day we climbed, it was one degree at the summer,
10:01
Speaker 3: it was pretty cold, but can I tell you, once
10:03
Speaker 3: we started walking, it was so hot we had to
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Speaker 3: take off our jumpers and a beanies.
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Speaker 4: We were really, really hot.
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Speaker 3: We got to the top of Mount Koziosco and the
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Speaker 3: feeling of accomplishment and elation that each of us felt
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Speaker 3: and reliefed except for.
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Speaker 2: The little one because she didn't really care at all.
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Speaker 4: And oh yes she did, because she was trapped to
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Speaker 4: your back.
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Speaker 2: Let's keep the developmental appropriateness of this in mind. So
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Speaker 2: we sometimes want our children to do hard things, the
10:29
Speaker 2: equivalent of climbing to the top of Mount Cosiosco for them,
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Speaker 2: even if it's not a big deal to us. To them,
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Speaker 2: it's a really big deal. But sometimes it's not appropriate
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Speaker 2: for them to do that. It was just not reasonable
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Speaker 2: that we would expect a two year old to do
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Speaker 2: a hike. That's thirteen kill me or six and a
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Speaker 2: half k's up and even get carried back down, and
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Speaker 2: even the four year.
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Speaker 4: Old, but she ended up having a piggyback for a
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Speaker 4: little bit of hiback.
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Speaker 2: I carried two children thirteen killing me. My mother helped.
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Speaker 2: She was amazing well. I carried two children a long way,
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Speaker 2: and then once it looked like I was going to collapse,
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Speaker 2: some people started helping to carry those children. But again
11:03
Speaker 2: the purpose of this was not for the little ones.
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Speaker 2: It wasn't for the two year old and the four
11:06
Speaker 2: year old or anything like that. It was actually for
11:08
Speaker 2: the big ones, the ones that were being wingy, whiny winging.
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Speaker 2: Wine is about doing hard things, and like you said,
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Speaker 2: the level of enthusiasm once they demonstrated their capacity to
11:19
Speaker 2: do it, they were elated, weren't they. They were just so
11:22
Speaker 2: so pleased, so thrilled to have done it well.
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Speaker 3: And what I loved about that was her difficulties weren't
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Speaker 3: around whether or not she could climb a mountain. They
11:29
Speaker 3: were very academically driven at the time, and if I
11:33
Speaker 3: had spent all of my energy and effort on trying
11:35
Speaker 3: to help with there, I don't know how far we
11:37
Speaker 3: would have got. But in teaching her the lesson of perseverance, dedication,
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Speaker 3: determination and all of those things, doing something that we
11:45
Speaker 3: could do all together that was going to require a
11:48
Speaker 3: team effort to get there meant that she got to
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Speaker 3: experience what it felt like to succeed in something that
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Speaker 3: she didn't ever think she would do. As we went
12:00
Speaker 3: through life moving forward from there, we were able to
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Speaker 3: go back to that experience time and time again and
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Speaker 3: help her to recognize what it took and how much
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Speaker 3: energy and effort that was put in to train and
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Speaker 3: understand and know what we needed to do in order
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Speaker 3: for us to actually achieve that, and then apply that
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Speaker 3: into her daily life.
12:19
Speaker 2: So, in wrapping up one quick story, rolled Amonson and
12:24
Speaker 2: Robert Falcon Scott, a Norwegian and an Englishman, one hundred
12:28
Speaker 2: and ten years ago, one hundred and eleven years ago,
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Speaker 2: back in about nineteen eleven. I think it was set
12:33
Speaker 2: off to reach the South Pole, separate teams. It's a race.
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Speaker 2: I mean one person was going to be the first
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Speaker 2: person to the poll and back. The other person was
12:41
Speaker 2: not going to be the first person of the poll,
12:42
Speaker 2: and that would be the loser. And they had different approaches,
12:47
Speaker 2: different tactics, different strategies as they headed off from the
12:51
Speaker 2: Antarctic port from which they departed. So Antarctica coldest, highest,
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Speaker 2: most inhabitable place, habital sorry place on the planet, and
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Speaker 2: these guys are trying to get to the South Pole
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Speaker 2: and back. It's three thousand kilometers. Robert Falcon Scott, the Englishman,
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Speaker 2: he's gopher broke, helpful leather, doing everything he can to
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Speaker 2: get his team there first. They're dropping food along the way,
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Speaker 2: They're doing all the they're just they're going for it.
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Speaker 2: Days that are clear, they're marching as many as thirty
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Speaker 2: forty even fifty miles in a day, like long long journeys.
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Speaker 2: When it's blizzards and wide out, they're pretty much hunkering
13:27
Speaker 2: down and trying to stay safe and recovering from the
13:31
Speaker 2: exhaustion of hiking and carrying everything that they needed at altitude. Amonson,
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Speaker 2: he and his team totally different approach. They've worked out,
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Speaker 2: we're going to do twenty miles a day, twenty miles
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Speaker 2: a day, thirty k's per day or thirty one thirty
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Speaker 2: two k's a day. That's it, regardless of the weather,
13:47
Speaker 2: regardless of anything. We just do that and then we stop.
13:50
Speaker 2: So for them it's about being consistent. Well, as it happens,
13:53
Speaker 2: Amonson gets to the pole first and gets back to
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Speaker 2: Port on exactly the day. In fact, a day earlier
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Speaker 2: than he thought he would, Robert Falcon Scott and his
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Speaker 2: team tragically perish in the snow in a blizzard. They
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Speaker 2: die just eleven miles from their nearest food drop, just
14:08
Speaker 2: couldn't make it back. And it's a terrible story of tragedy.
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Speaker 2: But the lesson, as it applies to Crystal's question, is
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Speaker 2: just do this unspectacular important thing every single day. Kids
14:18
Speaker 2: need to read, so just sit down and do it.
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Speaker 2: Five minutes every day or ten minutes every day. Make
14:21
Speaker 2: that your twenty mile march. Don't do more even if
14:25
Speaker 2: because like this is so much fun, let's keep going,
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Speaker 2: say no, no, we'll just do some more tomorrow. Just
14:29
Speaker 2: do the twenty miles every single day. Pick that thing
14:31
Speaker 2: and do it. So three big stories. Remember the Space
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Speaker 2: Shuttle to get started. Remember that kids can do amazing
14:37
Speaker 2: things if you do the training and teach them about
14:40
Speaker 2: perseverance and going uphill. And number three, do it again
14:45
Speaker 2: and again and again, life on repeat, Groundhog Day, because
14:49
Speaker 2: that's where the skill development comes. That's the confidence building. Oh,
14:53
Speaker 2: I mean, that's how you succeed and achieve amazing things.
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Speaker 3: Hey, Crystal, I hope that answers your question. Getting started
14:59
Speaker 3: is always the best guest hurdle to jump over. But
15:01
Speaker 3: if we can just remember our children are learning, and
15:04
Speaker 3: they're at yeah, and so if the goal is for
15:07
Speaker 3: them to learn to read and write, then maybe today
15:10
Speaker 3: the goalpost just changes a little bit. Immerse them in reading.
15:14
Speaker 3: That might mean that you read a page, they read
15:16
Speaker 3: a page. It might be you read a line, they
15:18
Speaker 3: read a line. It might seem so overwhelming to them
15:21
Speaker 3: in the moment, and so just enjoying the process of
15:24
Speaker 3: reading together is a step in the right direction.
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Speaker 2: And if they're only five, there's no hurry, right, there's
15:29
Speaker 2: plenty of time. We've got so much data from around
15:31
Speaker 2: the world that says, don't rush this stuff. It's okay,
15:34
Speaker 2: they'll figure it out. We really hope that you've enjoyed.
15:36
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