Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #411 I'll Do Better Tomorrow

Transcript

#411 I'll Do Better Tomorrow · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers?
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Now I say it all the time, kids spell love.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: T I am And now here's the stars of our show,
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  Speaker 1: my mum and dad.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Hey can I tell you?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Joe?
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Shoot?
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  Speaker 2: Knock? Yeah? Hey, nong knock? Jokes? Don't you who's there?
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  Speaker 2: I've done it, I've done up. Who isn't that a
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: good jokes?
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  Speaker 4: So bad?
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  Speaker 2: It's such such a show, so juvenile.
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  Speaker 4: The kids love it, don't they can?
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  Speaker 3: I This is doctor Justin Cilson On, the author of
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  Speaker 3: six books about how to make families happy. Pooh jokes,
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  Speaker 3: Pooh jokes make families happy. Not mums, but everybody else.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: And I'm the founder of Happy Families dot com dot
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: I you who are you? Who am I?
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I know who you are? But tell everybody who you are.
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  Speaker 4: I'm Kylie.
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  Speaker 5: You call me missus Happy Families from time to time.
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  Speaker 5: I don't know how happy I am all the time.
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  Speaker 5: And I'm the mum to our six daughters.
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  Speaker 3: Today is I'll do better tomorrow. If you're new to
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: the podcast. Every Friday we talk about things that we've
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  Speaker 3: learned so that we can parent with better intention. Tomorrow
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  Speaker 3: so that we can be better parents. I don't know, tomorrow,
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  Speaker 3: next week, next time we get the opportunity to be parents.
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  Speaker 3: In five minutes, yeah, as soon as the podcast's over
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  Speaker 3: and were back with the kids again.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Do you want to go first today or you're on
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  Speaker 2: me too?
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  Speaker 5: Oh? Look, I have to share a little thing that
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: happened last weekend. Yeah, Saturday morning is our family cleanup.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: We spend some time cleaning up and at the.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Moment, don't the kids love it?
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  Speaker 4: By the way, yeah, that's a whole nother story.
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  Speaker 5: But anyway, we've had a lot of rain lately where
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: we live, and our garden is overgrown with weeds, and
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  Speaker 5: so the last few weekends in particular, we've spent some
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: time out in the garden. Miss seven burst into our
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  Speaker 5: bedroom at six am. I wasn't even oh I probably
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: was awake, only just, but I was still on my bed,
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  Speaker 5: and she said, Mummy, Mommy, have I missed weeding?
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  Speaker 4: It's like no, not at six o'clock in the morning.
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  Speaker 5: Yea, And she said, oh, few, that's my favorite.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 4: At least one of us likes weeding.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we love to get into the garden and weed.
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  Speaker 3: I think I'm going to have to buy some spray.
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  Speaker 3: I know that's bad for the environment, bad for everything,
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  Speaker 3: but I'm sick of spending my Saturday mornings weeding we had.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to go with older better tomorrow.
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  Speaker 3: First, I had just another reminder of how sometimes just
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: getting out one on one with the kids is hugely,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: hugely important. So one of the kids had a birthday
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  Speaker 3: just the other day. She turned eleven, very excited that
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: she's not a teenager and not a teenager anymore, but
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: she was having a kind of a so so day.
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  Speaker 2: I had stacks on.
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  Speaker 3: As much as I wanted to be fully available for
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  Speaker 3: her here, it just wasn't going to happen. You were
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: flooded with more to do than was possible. And it's
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  Speaker 3: one of those things, right, this is the reality of life.
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  Speaker 3: We're supposed to be available and attentive to our children.
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  Speaker 3: We're supposed to well you and I I'm like, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I'm the expert. We're supposed to absolutely get this right.
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  Speaker 3: And it just was working out for her. So she
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: came to me miserable, and I was so grateful that
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  Speaker 3: she did, and that she could put her arms around
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  Speaker 3: me and explain what was going on, and I said, okay,
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  Speaker 3: well after dinner, what about if I take you out?
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  Speaker 3: So he jumped in the car. I said, where do
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  Speaker 3: you want to go? She said, let's go get some
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  Speaker 3: ice cream. I said, okay, ice cream it is.
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  Speaker 2: We went to Cold Rock ice Creamery. And because I'm
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  Speaker 2: a bit stingy, I really.
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  Speaker 3: Don't like going to these ice cream shops where you
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  Speaker 3: kind of pay about eight bucks for a scoop of
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  Speaker 3: ice cream.
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  Speaker 4: Even if you can get a leader of ice cream for.
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  Speaker 3: That, that's right, you can too, of the high quality stuff.
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  Speaker 3: You can go and get the very best ice cream
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  Speaker 3: for about eight dollars for a leader. And here I
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  Speaker 3: am getting a scoop with a few mix ins, and
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  Speaker 3: so we've walked in. I ordered, actually, let me tell you,
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  Speaker 3: I ordered lemon sawbet with a raphae yellow white chocolate
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  Speaker 3: mixed into it and some passion fruit.
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  Speaker 2: It was amazing.
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  Speaker 5: She ordered this sounds like all of your favorite things, yes,
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  Speaker 5: into one little car.
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  Speaker 2: I was in heaven. Anyway.
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  Speaker 3: She ordered this bubblegum ice cream with all the sour
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  Speaker 3: and herds and all that sort of stuff, and she
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  Speaker 3: asked her she could try mine. I'm like, ah, it's
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  Speaker 3: lemon sawbet she's not gonna like that. She had one
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  Speaker 3: bite and her eyes lit up and she's like.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, can I have yours?
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  Speaker 3: No, So I had to share my ice cream with her.
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  Speaker 3: I gave her about half of my lemon saw bases.
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  Speaker 4: It's her birthday.
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  Speaker 2: It was her birthday.
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  Speaker 4: I'm guessing you didn't eat the rainbow and nerds.
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  Speaker 1: No.
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  Speaker 2: Then I ate half of hers.
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  Speaker 3: But what was so cool about it is there was
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  Speaker 3: just this beautiful genuineness. There was this sharing, and it
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  Speaker 3: reminded me again of I love these kids so much,
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  Speaker 3: And it reminded me again of why it's so important
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  Speaker 3: that we have that one on one time. I say
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  Speaker 3: it all the time, kids spelled love t im e
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  Speaker 3: dollars of the currency of our economy. Connection is the
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  Speaker 3: currency of our relationships. I walked out of her and thought,
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  Speaker 3: I really hated spending. I think it was seventeen bucks
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  Speaker 3: for two ice creams, Like I just killed me.
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  Speaker 2: I was like, no, who does this?
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  Speaker 3: And yet I reckon if it cost me seventeen a
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: week to have an experience like that once a week
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  Speaker 3: with each of the kids, I'd do it. I'd have
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: to work out a lot harder in the gym to
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: get over it.
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  Speaker 2: But I would do it.
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  Speaker 3: That's such a small price to pay for such beautiful connection.
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  Speaker 3: Don't need to have ice cream to make the connection,
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  Speaker 3: but just a really beautiful experience made me grateful for
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  Speaker 3: the kids, made me grateful to be a parent, and
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  Speaker 3: I thought, Yeah, next week, I've got to make sure
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  Speaker 3: that I do this with one of the other kids
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  Speaker 3: as well.
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  Speaker 2: It's special.
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  Speaker 5: Maybe this time you might go and do something active
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  Speaker 5: instead of scoffing down some ice cream.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe we can do both. Let's find out about your
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  Speaker 3: I'll do Better Tomorrow.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Next, it's the Happy Famili's podcast.
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  Speaker 2: For a happier family.
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: Try a Happy Families membership, because a happy family doesn't
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: just happen.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Details at happy families dot com dot au.
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for a time
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  Speaker 5: poor parent who just wants answers now. And today we
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  Speaker 5: are talking about reflections on our week.
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  Speaker 4: I'll do better tomorrow.
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  Speaker 3: How can we be better parents and learn from what's
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  Speaker 3: happened this week so that we can do more of
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  Speaker 3: the goods or less of the bad stuff. I've shared mine,
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: what's yours?
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  Speaker 5: Look, It's no secret I am one of those parents
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  Speaker 5: who often will just do everything myself because it's just easier.
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  Speaker 5: I don't have to go back and repeat what the
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  Speaker 5: kids have done because they haven't done a.
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  Speaker 4: Good enough job right. And then I'm left feeling.
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  Speaker 5: Frustrated because there's not enough hours in the day to
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  Speaker 5: do it all, not even close. And so the other
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  Speaker 5: day I was feeling a little bit swamped and there
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  Speaker 5: was a lot to do. There's a lot of bodies
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  Speaker 5: in the house, and so the house was just not
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  Speaker 5: up to scratch. But I had an appointment that I
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: had to go to, which meant that the kids, if
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: I left them to their own devices, would literally be
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  Speaker 5: on devices. And so I said to them, girls, today
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  Speaker 5: is a bit of a cleaning up day, and unfortunately
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  Speaker 5: I have an appointment to go to. But I've written
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  Speaker 5: a list of all the things that need to be done,
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  Speaker 5: and I would just love it if while I'm gone,
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  Speaker 5: you work on that list. So I didn't hand out
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  Speaker 5: any assignments. There was just a list to be done.
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  Speaker 5: I was actually really blow and away I came home.
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  Speaker 5: Not only was their absolute peace in the house. I
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  Speaker 5: couldn't believe they were all engaged in doing a job.
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  Speaker 3: Wow, Wow, they were all engaged.
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  Speaker 5: And when I asked our seven year old whether or
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  Speaker 5: not she'd been helpful, fully expecting that she would have
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  Speaker 5: just done her own thing, gone off and played in
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  Speaker 5: the garden, she said, no, I've been helping Annie. So
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  Speaker 5: Annie had been taking her around and actually helping her
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  Speaker 5: do jobs as part of the process.
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  Speaker 4: My list had gone.
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  Speaker 5: They'd probably done about a third of the things off
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  Speaker 5: the list, and I was just really proud of them.
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  Speaker 3: So what's to take home message? Go out more and
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  Speaker 3: leave the kids in charge. Is that what you're saying,
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  Speaker 3: because that's a bit of a one off. I don't
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  Speaker 3: remember that happening before.
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  Speaker 5: No, it doesn't happen very often at all. What it
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  Speaker 5: allowed me to reflect on is the fact that if
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  Speaker 5: we don't give our children opportunities to surprise us, they
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  Speaker 5: never will.
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  Speaker 2: Ah beautiful.
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  Speaker 3: And the other thing that I take from that is
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  Speaker 3: that it does get easier for any parents who are
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: listening in. Your parents have little kids, and you think thinking,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: oh my goodness, this is just driving me and say
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  Speaker 3: one of the kids to do anything. They actually start
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: to when you give them those opportunities, particularly as they
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  Speaker 3: get older. We really hope that you've enjoyed the Happy
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Families podcast and that it helps you to do things
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: in your family that will strengthen your family. We just
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: hope that it makes a difference. The Happy Family's podcast
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: is produced by Justin Ruland for Bridge Media.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Craig Bruce is our executive producer. Have a great weekend.