Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The Real Impact of Taking Kids Out of School to Travel [Q&A]

Transcript

The Real Impact of Taking Kids Out of School to Travel [Q&A] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: Every Tuesday on the Happy Families podcast, we ask your
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  Speaker 1: tricky questions. And today we've got a good problem to
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  Speaker 1: have from a mum in Victoria who's trying to work
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  Speaker 1: out the best time to have a gap year with
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  Speaker 1: the kids. Well, not a gap year, but pull the
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  Speaker 1: kids out, Like, how good would that be? Pull the
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  Speaker 1: kids out go travel?
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  Speaker 2: And we have talked about this so much time.
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  Speaker 1: We've always wanted to do it, and we've never done
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  Speaker 1: it for a whole bunch of very very good reasons.
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  Speaker 1: But wouldn't that be such a great thing to do?
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  Speaker 1: So if you've got a tricky question, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you. After the break, we're
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  Speaker 1: going to unpack this question and work out the best
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  Speaker 1: time to take the kids out of school so that
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  Speaker 1: you can show them the sights of the country, the world,
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  Speaker 1: and everything that's in it without impacting their potential, without
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  Speaker 1: impacting their schooling and their friendships too much. Stay with us,
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  Speaker 1: that's next. We love so much that you've joined us
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  Speaker 1: on the Happy Families podcast, where you get real parenting
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  Speaker 1: solutions every single day. Today, what do you do when
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  Speaker 1: you've got the option to travel and you're just not
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  Speaker 1: quite sure when you should do it, because it feels
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  Speaker 1: like every year matters for the kids. We are Justin
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  Speaker 1: and Kylie Colson. We're the parents of six kids. Haven't
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  Speaker 1: added the total number of years that they've all been
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  Speaker 1: alive for, but we've been parenting for nearly thirty years. Gosh,
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  Speaker 1: that makes us sound old. We are, thanks, so if
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  Speaker 1: you have a choice, out of the pod, we answer
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  Speaker 1: your tricky questions. If you've got a tricky question you'd
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  Speaker 1: like to ask us, it can be about anything at all.
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  Speaker 1: We'll check it in there. We'd love to talk about
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  Speaker 1: all sorts of things related to families and relationships, are
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  Speaker 1: well being, or just anything to do with how you
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  Speaker 1: run your home. Basically, submit your tricky questions via voice note.
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  Speaker 1: Just send us an email podcast at happy families dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot you with that voice note attached, or alternatively,
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  Speaker 1: go to happy families dot com dot i U, scroll
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  Speaker 1: down to podcasts, click the record button and start talking.
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  Speaker 1: Just like Ella from Victoria, who sent us this.
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  Speaker 3: Hi, Justin and Kylie. My name's Ella from Victoria. I
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  Speaker 3: was wondering if we're lucky enough financially, we're considering spending
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  Speaker 3: six to twelve months traveling abroad as a family, either
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  Speaker 3: learning via correspondence or maybe visiting some alternative international schools.
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  Speaker 3: The question is when here nine is notoriously a difficult year,
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  Speaker 3: particularly for girls with peakming girl activity. What are your
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  Speaker 3: thoughts about taking our daughter out of the traditional learning
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  Speaker 3: environment for all or part of this year. Would I
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  Speaker 3: be sparing her the unnecessary heartache and for length, or
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  Speaker 3: depriving her of the opportunity to build resilience and the
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  Speaker 3: life skills of dealing with difficult people. Our son would
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  Speaker 3: be Ingrade four at the time. Love to hear your thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, all right, KYLEI so I asked you what
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  Speaker 1: you thought when we listened to this earlier. You said,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not sharing my ideas with you because you're always
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  Speaker 1: you steal my ideas, like like I don't have a
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  Speaker 1: pH d in psychology and some ideas of my own,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to steal all of yours. Therefore, therefore, missus
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  Speaker 1: happy families.
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  Speaker 2: I don't believe you told everyone that Ella.
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  Speaker 1: Is going to get your advice first before I say
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  Speaker 1: a thing, because I don't want to steal any of
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  Speaker 1: your great ideas to help Ella.
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  Speaker 2: Can I say yes, yes, yes, right when we have
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  Speaker 2: an opportunity to give our children experiences that enlarge their lives. Yes,
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  Speaker 2: do it? Do it?
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  Speaker 1: Okay? Anything else? What about the resilience thing? And anything
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  Speaker 1: about grade nine? Do you want to talk about the
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  Speaker 1: grade four son? Where they should go? Do you want
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  Speaker 1: to jump in and troubles?
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  Speaker 2: No? I think that it's really important that families take
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  Speaker 2: into account their own personal situation and the type of
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  Speaker 2: child they have. Some kids love consistency and really need
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  Speaker 2: structure to kind of manage their day to day lives.
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  Speaker 2: And other kids are really happy to try new things
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  Speaker 2: and go and explore and stretch themselves. So it's not
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  Speaker 2: a blanket answer, But I think that as far as
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  Speaker 2: resilience goes, putting your kids into a new enviral, regardless
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  Speaker 2: of where you are, is creating opportunities for resilience. Taking
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  Speaker 2: them out of what would be notoriously known as one
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  Speaker 2: of the trickiest years, especially for girls. Having gone through
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  Speaker 2: that process nearly six times, right, having actually made that
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  Speaker 2: decision with child number five to pull her out was
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  Speaker 2: life altering for her.
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  Speaker 1: So yes, just yes, Okay, that was easy.
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  Speaker 3: So it was easy.
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  Speaker 1: So glad you shared all of your ideas. You're so
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  Speaker 1: bad thank you.
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  Speaker 2: You want me to ask you what you would say?
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  Speaker 1: Well, that would be the appropriate thing to do.
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  Speaker 2: Oh what would you like to share?
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  Speaker 1: You have to break Stay with us, We're back. This
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  Speaker 1: is the Happy Family's podcast. Answering your tricky questions, Well
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  Speaker 1: answer answering Ella's from Victoria's tricky question. Do you take
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  Speaker 1: the kids out of school? What great is the grade?
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  Speaker 1: Is it going to affect their resilience? Kylie, let me
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  Speaker 1: just add some color and some flavor to the things
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  Speaker 1: that you said, and feel free to push back or
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  Speaker 1: react to anything that I say. First thing that I'll
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  Speaker 1: say is, Ella, this is a great problem to have, Like,
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  Speaker 1: this is the best problem that you can have half
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  Speaker 1: your luck. I hope that you get to do it.
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  Speaker 1: That's the first thing, Kylie. You made the point and
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  Speaker 1: echoed Ella's suggestion that grade nine is sort of peak
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  Speaker 1: time for mean girl bullying sort of thing. The research
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  Speaker 1: doesn't actually bear that out. Year four is actually peak
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  Speaker 1: time for bullying. There's more bullying that happens in grade
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  Speaker 1: four grade five than what happens in grade nine. The
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  Speaker 1: circumstances around the grade nine bullying can be pretty harmful, though,
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  Speaker 1: And and I do have a saying that I've been
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  Speaker 1: using throughout the last fifteen years, and that is that
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  Speaker 1: if you can get through year nine, you can get
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  Speaker 1: through anything at all.
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  Speaker 2: So it goes against the research you've just shared. I'm
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  Speaker 2: just pointing that out.
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  Speaker 1: I think that there's greater concern around the social impact
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  Speaker 1: of it later, so there's more of it in the
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  Speaker 1: earlier years. But kids are certainly affected by it in
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  Speaker 1: those primary years, but they're affected by it differently. It
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  Speaker 1: feels like it's more pervasive. It feels like it's more
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  Speaker 1: identity crushing and soul destroying.
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  Speaker 2: Well, now with the addition of social media.
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  Speaker 1: Well not available in grade nine because you've got to
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  Speaker 1: be over sixteen, which means that because of the federal
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  Speaker 1: government's wonderful new minimum age social media legislation, under sixteens
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  Speaker 1: can't be on grade nine. What's that fourteen fifteen? They're safe.
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  Speaker 1: If finally, I could you hear the I didn't mean
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  Speaker 1: to sound quite so snid when I said it's so cynical. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: you're right. The social media aspect is certainly challenging. So
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  Speaker 1: a couple of things that I want to highlight. First off,
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  Speaker 1: social connections can be really tricky at this age, but
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  Speaker 1: even for your grade fourth. So like Kylie, we've we've
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  Speaker 1: moved into state and we had a daughter who was
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  Speaker 1: in grade nine when we did it, and that was
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  Speaker 1: in a word, I would go so far as to say, catastrophic,
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  Speaker 1: But she was really against the move.
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  Speaker 2: She was really against the move. And that's why I
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  Speaker 2: said in the beginning, there's a little bit of neurance here.
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  Speaker 2: You have to really kind of you know, I understand
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  Speaker 2: the dynamics and your own.
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  Speaker 1: Family, consider your personal circumstances.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So she was very much against it and very
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  Speaker 2: integrated into her school and the friendships that entailed.
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  Speaker 1: And so that brings me to the second thing that
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  Speaker 1: I was going to highlight, and that is that the
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  Speaker 1: most important thing around these decisions is that you've got
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  Speaker 1: buying from the kids. Like, if the kids are all in,
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  Speaker 1: then this is I was going to say a little
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  Speaker 1: bit snap, but it probably won't be. They'll still be
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  Speaker 1: trying and challenging moments, and reintegration when you come home
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  Speaker 1: will also be potentially difficult. But once again, giving them
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  Speaker 1: a voice, giving them a saying where are we going
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  Speaker 1: to live? What school do you want to go to?
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  Speaker 1: And why how are we going to re establish our
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  Speaker 1: lives once we've had our our year from heaven where
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  Speaker 1: we've gone and had all these incredible experiences and created
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  Speaker 1: these lifelong memories. That reintegration into Australian society or wherever
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  Speaker 1: it is that you decide to live is going to
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  Speaker 1: be a really big challenge. How do you land the
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  Speaker 1: plane after you've had that experien sperience?
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  Speaker 2: So I want to pull you up on that. So
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  Speaker 2: as a team husband and wife partners, you've decided that
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  Speaker 2: this is going to be the best thing for your family,
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  Speaker 2: but you're fourteen year old decides that she is actually
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  Speaker 2: not going adamant, this is not going to happen. She's
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  Speaker 2: not going to be a part of it. So is
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  Speaker 2: she supposed to make the decision like does she stop
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  Speaker 2: me from going? Because as a fourteen year old she's
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  Speaker 2: having a dummy spit?
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  Speaker 1: Now, this is that same thing where we bring the
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  Speaker 1: kids along on the journey. We make sure they understand
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  Speaker 1: the rationale, the narrative, the reasons why, and get them
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  Speaker 1: to a point where they maybe they don't say, oh
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  Speaker 1: my goodness, this is going to be life changing, this
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  Speaker 1: is going to be larging, this is going to be
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  Speaker 1: the best thing we've ever done. But maybe they say, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I get why we're doing it, and I'm willing to
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  Speaker 1: give it a go, or I can identify the value
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  Speaker 1: in this. So sure, I don't necessarily love it. I'm
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  Speaker 1: really nervous about what happens when I come home and
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  Speaker 1: we say, well, let's cross that bridge when you come
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  Speaker 1: to it, because we've got twelve months where you don't
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  Speaker 1: have to think about that and it's going to be awesome.
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  Speaker 1: And that I mean, the whole conversation is really around resilience'
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  Speaker 1: That's what started this discussion. And if you want your
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  Speaker 1: kids to be resilient, the re entry is actually where
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  Speaker 1: the resilience building happens. It's not pulling them out of school,
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  Speaker 1: it's not missing out on the horrible things that could
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  Speaker 1: happen at school. It's actually the reintegration. And I go
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  Speaker 1: back to the one thing that I say again and
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  Speaker 1: again and again on this podcast, and that is that
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  Speaker 1: resilience is relational. So kids don't get resilient because we
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  Speaker 1: stick them into a pressure cooker and say sink or swim.
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  Speaker 1: Kids get resilient because as they endure the everyday hardships
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  Speaker 1: and challenges of daily life or school life or traveling life.
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  Speaker 1: They have their adversities, their challenges, the trials and difficulties
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  Speaker 1: and the randomness of life hitting them, and they get
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  Speaker 1: to come back and lean on us and say this
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  Speaker 1: is hard, and we say, yeah, I know, I believe
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  Speaker 1: in you. I think there's going to be more resilience
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  Speaker 1: building opportunities with the travel then there would be going
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  Speaker 1: through grade nine at school. I really do, especially having
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  Speaker 1: to do a home school or some kind of on
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  Speaker 1: the road school while you're doing that's that's going to
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  Speaker 1: be hard yaker as well.
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  Speaker 2: Well. You're exposed to different cultures, different.
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  Speaker 1: Foods, life skills sorted, resilient skills sorted. That's what I'm
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  Speaker 1: reading there.
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  Speaker 2: Just go.
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  Speaker 1: You started there, I'm finishing there. Just go. I would
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  Speaker 1: just add this, there's no perfect time, like there's literally
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  Speaker 1: no perfect time to go away, especially for that length
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  Speaker 1: of time. There's going to be milestones, there's going to
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  Speaker 1: be developmental challenges, there's going to be schooling issues no
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  Speaker 1: matter when you go, the perfect time doesn't exist. So therefore,
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  Speaker 1: if it's on your bucket list, if it's something that
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  Speaker 1: you can do, my response is just go. That's my
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  Speaker 1: last word.
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  Speaker 2: The only other thing I would add is if she
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  Speaker 2: has good friends, it's really important that you find ways
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  Speaker 2: to support her to continue to maintain those friendships. So,
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  Speaker 2: depending on how far away you are, you might choose
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  Speaker 2: to kind of send her home for a week during
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  Speaker 2: a holiday period, or just to allow her to kind
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  Speaker 2: of send little packages.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, life friend over for a surprise for
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  Speaker 1: a birthday or something like that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like I just over the years, as we've done
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  Speaker 2: the moves that we've done, we've really strived to encourage
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  Speaker 2: our kids to maintain friendships even when they're not.
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  Speaker 1: Side by side and when it's not convenient.
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  Speaker 2: And that has been you used it inconvenient. At times
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  Speaker 2: we've driven for hours on end to meet up with
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  Speaker 2: the other family at the halfway point so that we
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  Speaker 2: could do a swapover for the holiday period, or we've
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  Speaker 2: flow on a child.
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  Speaker 1: Out in the state, like all over the place.
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  Speaker 2: But it has meant so much to them and their
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  Speaker 2: friendships have continued. It's helped them to recognize you don't
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  Speaker 2: have to be in each other's space twenty four to
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  Speaker 2: seven to have a good friendship. And for some of
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  Speaker 2: our kids, they have friends from their very youngest you
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  Speaker 2: know start of school that they've continued.
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  Speaker 1: To maintain despite multiple interstate moves from us and from
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  Speaker 1: their friends, And I just.
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  Speaker 2: That would be the one thing that I would add,
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  Speaker 2: find ways to support and sustain good friendships, because if
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  Speaker 2: you do, those friendships will sustain them.
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  Speaker 1: Elifant Victoria. We really hope that that's a useful answer
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  Speaker 1: and that it can guide some of your decision making.
• 12:12
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• 12:14
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• 12:17
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