Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #376 I'll Do Better Tomorrow
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the.
- 0:07Speaker 2: Time poor parent who just once answers. Now, this is
- 0:10Speaker 2: why when kids look at you and say, what's a minute,
- 0:12Speaker 2: they don't know what a minute is, because to a parent,
- 0:14Speaker 2: a minute is sometime in the near ish future.
- 0:17Speaker 1: And now here's the scars of our show, my mom
- 0:20Speaker 1: and Dad. So we're just about record the podcast.
- 0:23Speaker 2: I'm trying to load the program that we record into
- 0:27Speaker 2: it's an Adobe program. And I say to Kylie, it's
- 0:31Speaker 2: a little bit slow to start up, will be there soon.
- 0:33Speaker 2: And Kylie says to me.
- 0:35Speaker 3: So are you. Sometimes it's all good.
- 0:37Speaker 2: A bit slow to start up. Actually really struggling today.
- 0:40Speaker 2: It's been an amazing week. Earlier this week I got
- 0:43Speaker 2: to talk to a live audience, no more webinars in
- 0:47Speaker 2: Southeast Queensland. I was able to stand in front of
- 0:49Speaker 2: an audience of real people instead of starring at a
- 0:51Speaker 2: screen or a camera, and talk to people for nearly
- 0:55Speaker 2: two hours on raising kids and dealing with anxiety in
- 0:58Speaker 2: your child.
- 0:59Speaker 1: It was amazing.
- 1:00Speaker 2: Down on the Gold Coasts Helensvale Library, fantastic auditorium, full house.
- 1:05Speaker 1: It just felt so good. I came alive.
- 1:08Speaker 2: I really really loved talking to real people rather than
- 1:11Speaker 2: talking to screens.
- 1:13Speaker 3: And you must have given them your life, because you've
- 1:15Speaker 3: waken up with a not very much life today.
- 1:18Speaker 4: No.
- 1:18Speaker 1: Well, and this is the thing. I gave it everything
- 1:20Speaker 1: and it felt so good.
- 1:21Speaker 2: But when I do live presentations in front of audiences,
- 1:25Speaker 2: it means that I have to travel to them and
- 1:27Speaker 2: then I get home later I'm staying in the hotels
- 1:28Speaker 2: or whatever. Obviously I came home because we live in Brisie.
- 1:30Speaker 2: It was only a drive back up the highway. The
- 1:33Speaker 2: thing is, when I got home, as you know, because
- 1:34Speaker 2: you waited up for me, I didn't want to go
- 1:36Speaker 2: to sleep.
- 1:37Speaker 1: I knew I was exhausted.
- 1:39Speaker 2: I'd been up early that morning and I had an
- 1:41Speaker 2: early start again the next morning, but I just didn't
- 1:44Speaker 2: want to go to sleep, and I knew I was
- 1:46Speaker 2: going to be tired, but I was so in the moment.
- 1:49Speaker 3: Well, you actually even said let's watch an episode of
- 1:51Speaker 3: our show. Yeah, And I was like, are you sure,
- 1:54Speaker 3: and You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're fine.
- 1:56Speaker 2: And what I was really saying was all at morning guy,
- 2:00Speaker 2: worry about that because I'm night guy and I'm okay.
- 2:03Speaker 2: Do you remember that, Jerry Seinfeld skit where he's talking
- 2:06Speaker 2: about morning Guy and night Guy we've played on the
- 2:08Speaker 2: podcast before.
- 2:09Speaker 4: You ever do this, like late at night and you're
- 2:11Speaker 4: watching TV and I stay up late because I'm night
- 2:14Speaker 4: guy getting up after five hour sleep.
- 2:16Speaker 1: That's morning Guy's problem. That's not my problem. I'm night guy,
- 2:21Speaker 1: night guy.
- 2:22Speaker 4: Night Guy always screws morning Gun because night guy has
- 2:28Speaker 4: control of when you go to sleep, Morning guy has
- 2:30Speaker 4: to get up. There's nothing Morning Guy can do to
- 2:32Speaker 4: get back at night Gun. The only thing morning Guy
- 2:36Speaker 4: could do is to try and oversleep enough times so
- 2:39Speaker 4: that day guy loses his job and a night guy
- 2:41Speaker 4: has no more money.
- 2:42Speaker 2: To go out.
- 2:42Speaker 1: I be guys, That's what I'm thinking.
- 2:44Speaker 2: Like, so right now I'm morning Guy and I hate
- 2:48Speaker 2: night Guy, and I'm trying to do a podcast and.
- 2:51Speaker 3: You know, only lasted five minutes of the episode.
- 2:53Speaker 2: Anyway, I remember, I distinctly remember you waking me up
- 3:00Speaker 2: because I was asleep on your shoulder trying to watch
- 3:02Speaker 2: whatever we were watching. I had no idea what was
- 3:04Speaker 2: going on. And you're like, I remember saying, should we
- 3:06Speaker 2: turn this off? And I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no,
- 3:08Speaker 2: keep watching it. This is good.
- 3:09Speaker 3: This guy is slowly close.
- 3:12Speaker 2: So this morning Morning guy, who hates night guy, But
- 3:15Speaker 2: can I just say it felt so good to be
- 3:18Speaker 2: able to present in front of a live audience. And
- 3:21Speaker 2: as we continue to see Australia opening up bit by bit,
- 3:25Speaker 2: the Act today has some new found freedoms. Victoria is
- 3:28Speaker 2: talking about getting closer. We've got new South Wales who
- 3:32Speaker 2: are again moving closer and closer to having the kids
- 3:34Speaker 2: back at school now that Freedom Day has arrived. And
- 3:38Speaker 2: in Queensland we've been living kind of normally ish for
- 3:41Speaker 2: some time. Same with South Australia and Western Australia and
- 3:44Speaker 2: the NT. But it feels so good to know that
- 3:46Speaker 2: pretty soon, as much as I hate leaving you, it's
- 3:49Speaker 2: going to be so nice to stand in front of
- 3:50Speaker 2: audiences again and give talks and watch people's faces. Oh
- 3:54Speaker 2: that's the other things.
- 3:56Speaker 3: I'm just going to say that to you. I'm talking
- 3:58Speaker 3: before these people, but you can't actually see their expression,
- 4:00Speaker 3: like she's a completely covering off.
- 4:02Speaker 2: I hope that they're smiling behind those masks, because it
- 4:04Speaker 2: feels like I said something really funny right then, but
- 4:07Speaker 2: you can hear the laughter at least, so it was
- 4:09Speaker 2: really nice anyway, We're Justin and Kylie Colson. I'm the
- 4:11Speaker 2: founder of happy Families dot com dot a U, the
- 4:13Speaker 2: author of six books about raising happy families, and together
- 4:15Speaker 2: we are the parents of six daughters, and every Friday
- 4:18Speaker 2: we have this conversation called I'll do Better Tomorrow and
- 4:21Speaker 2: my I'll do Better Tomorrow is not about going to
- 4:22Speaker 2: bed on time, although it probably could be, but this
- 4:25Speaker 2: is where we share highlights and low lights from the
- 4:27Speaker 2: week that was, the things that we got right, the
- 4:29Speaker 2: things that we got wrong, so that we can be
- 4:31Speaker 2: more reflective as parents, because this is how you improve.
- 4:34Speaker 2: This is how you do this stuff better by reflecting
- 4:36Speaker 2: on what happened and then making a commitment to being
- 4:39Speaker 2: more intentional. So Kylie, for older better tomorrow. Do you
- 4:43Speaker 2: want to go first today, ladies, before gentlemen.
- 4:46Speaker 3: Well, the other day I asked Emily if she would
- 4:49Speaker 3: go on tidy her room.
- 4:50Speaker 2: For those of you who areknew to the podcast, Emily
- 4:52Speaker 2: is our youngest of six daughters.
- 4:54Speaker 3: She is seven, and her room was a mess.
- 5:00Speaker 2: I think a mess is understating the danger that people
- 5:04Speaker 2: would experience if they walked in there, Like she's kind
- 5:06Speaker 2: of turned it upside down and inside out.
- 5:08Speaker 1: You really couldn't find the carpet.
- 5:10Speaker 3: Well, she has a dinosaur room and she has a
- 5:12Speaker 3: handful of fake plants. Well they were just like there
- 5:14Speaker 3: was a jungle. You couldn't even walk in the door.
- 5:17Speaker 2: Yeah, but she's got books everywhere and rocks, yeah, and
- 5:20Speaker 2: things that she's brought in from outside. Because she's got
- 5:23Speaker 2: a jungle room. She brings plants in from the garden.
- 5:26Speaker 3: So I had asked her if she would go and
- 5:28Speaker 3: do that, and I had a few bits and pieces
- 5:29Speaker 3: to do, and she said, well, I need you to
- 5:31Speaker 3: come and help me. And I said that's okay, if
- 5:34Speaker 3: you just get started, Mummy will come in and help
- 5:36Speaker 3: you very soon. Well about maybe half an hour had
- 5:39Speaker 3: gone past, and I passed her in the lound room.
- 5:42Speaker 3: She was nowhere near the bedroom, and I knew instinctively
- 5:45Speaker 3: that nothing had been done. And I said, Emily, I
- 5:47Speaker 3: need you to go and clean your room. And she
- 5:49Speaker 3: said I need your help. And I said, I promise
- 5:52Speaker 3: you I will come and help you. I just need
- 5:54Speaker 3: you to start. And she looked at me and she said.
- 5:55Speaker 2: But you just make it more fun, right, which might
- 5:59Speaker 2: be true or maybe she's just lazy.
- 6:03Speaker 1: But what I love.
- 6:03Speaker 3: About that is sometimes the job just feels so overwhelming,
- 6:07Speaker 3: especially for a seven year old, even if you're thirty
- 6:09Speaker 3: four or forty four, or I don't even know how
- 6:11Speaker 3: old I am, twenty.
- 6:13Speaker 1: One, let's go with thirty four. I like that.
- 6:17Speaker 3: And sometimes it's just nice to have somebody there. Yeah,
- 6:21Speaker 3: and she recognizes and knows that if Mum's in there,
- 6:25Speaker 3: I just make it a bit more bearable.
- 6:27Speaker 1: Can I throw something in?
- 6:28Speaker 2: That is so there's a really nice sound of that,
- 6:31Speaker 2: I'll do better tomorrow. But there's also a little bit
- 6:32Speaker 2: of a dark side to it, and that is that
- 6:34Speaker 2: you said go and get started and I'll be with
- 6:35Speaker 2: you shortly, and thirty minutes later you were still doing
- 6:37Speaker 2: what you were doing and she was playing in the
- 6:40Speaker 2: living room. We've got to remember that when we say
- 6:41Speaker 2: to the kids, I'll be there in a minute. This
- 6:44Speaker 2: is why when kids look at you and say, what's
- 6:45Speaker 2: a minute, they don't know what a minute is, because
- 6:47Speaker 2: to a parent, a minute is sometime in the near
- 6:50Speaker 2: ish future. It might be thirty seconds, or it might
- 6:52Speaker 2: be fifteen minutes.
- 6:53Speaker 3: And well, I was feeling good because she said I
- 6:55Speaker 3: made it fun. You're now making me look like the
- 6:58Speaker 3: bad ones.
- 6:59Speaker 1: The idea I'll do it to Sorry, I am going
- 7:01Speaker 1: to share my one right after break.
- 7:02Speaker 3: I will tell you that it did get cleaned and
- 7:05Speaker 3: we did have fun.
- 7:06Speaker 1: It's their Happy Families podcast.
- 7:09Speaker 5: Our Screens Creating Tension at Home, Tweens, teens and Screens
- 7:13Speaker 5: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.
- 7:18Speaker 5: Bye today at happyfamilies dot com dot au slash shop.
- 7:22Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
- 7:25Speaker 3: poor parent who just wants answers now, and today we're
- 7:27Speaker 3: sharing the lessons that we've learned from our week. Clearly
- 7:31Speaker 3: I have some lessons to learn because as much as
- 7:33Speaker 3: I am the fun parent, I left my child waiting
- 7:36Speaker 3: too long to get her room clean.
- 7:38Speaker 4: Well.
- 7:38Speaker 2: I got a phone call this morning, very very early,
- 7:41Speaker 2: very early. And by the way, when I say this morning,
- 7:43Speaker 2: obviously this is going to air on Friday. The podcast
- 7:45Speaker 2: drops on a Friday, we're recording it the day before.
- 7:47Speaker 2: So Thursday morning, I get this phone call from our
- 7:49Speaker 2: eldest daughter, moved out and married in her early twenties,
- 7:52Speaker 2: living life, going to UNI, working all that sort of stuff.
- 7:55Speaker 1: Pouring rain in Brisbane, some really torrential rain that we've
- 7:58Speaker 1: had over the.
- 7:58Speaker 2: Last little while, and she to say that I'm just
- 8:03Speaker 2: going to let you know how much I appreciate you
- 8:06Speaker 2: teaching me to drive, because she was driving through the
- 8:11Speaker 2: rain and people were driving dangerously and not very well,
- 8:14Speaker 2: and they didn't have.
- 8:14Speaker 3: Their lights on. They were slowing right down, which obviously
- 8:18Speaker 3: when you're on a freeway with a one hundred kilometer
- 8:21Speaker 3: speed limit, no one was using their lights or their
- 8:24Speaker 3: havard lights or anything. Just so dangerous. And she was like,
- 8:28Speaker 3: I'm completely comfortable. I know what I'm doing. I can
- 8:32Speaker 3: drive to the conditions.
- 8:33Speaker 1: Because my dad taught me.
- 8:34Speaker 3: And she was grateful, and oh gosh, I.
- 8:37Speaker 2: Don't know if I can say this without making I'm
- 8:40Speaker 2: not trying to shame you, I promise, But isn't it
- 8:42Speaker 2: good that I taught her? Because when you tried to
- 8:44Speaker 2: teach her, have we told the story about what happened?
- 8:46Speaker 3: You tried to We may have told this story.
- 8:49Speaker 1: If I tell it again for people who are new
- 8:51Speaker 1: to the podcast or missed it, Well, you.
- 8:53Speaker 3: Weren't even there, so I don't know how you can
- 8:54Speaker 3: tell the story.
- 8:57Speaker 2: Okay, all right, So here's the deal. Chanelle goes to
- 8:59Speaker 2: get HER's license she gets her l's. I've said to
- 9:02Speaker 2: Kylie that morning, you're not she goes before school, before school.
- 9:05Speaker 2: Just take us straight to school. I'll get her driving.
- 9:08Speaker 2: And I really want to be the dad that teaches
- 9:10Speaker 2: the kids to drive. I'll teach her. I'll give her
- 9:12Speaker 2: first lesson tonight. And you said no worries, except she
- 9:15Speaker 2: was so excited when she got her l's and passed
- 9:17Speaker 2: the test that on the way to school she said, Mama, Mama, Mom,
- 9:20Speaker 2: can I please just try driving just once?
- 9:23Speaker 1: And what did you say, honey?
- 9:25Speaker 2: Okay, just rolled over, just acquiesced. We had this conversation
- 9:29Speaker 2: and so well, you didn't give.
- 9:32Speaker 3: Me any reason why I shouldn't.
- 9:34Speaker 1: Rule number one. Always provide a very clear rationale.
- 9:37Speaker 3: I would do it after school.
- 9:40Speaker 2: I didn't provide that rationale for any request that I made,
- 9:42Speaker 2: And so you'd be like, yeah, I can teach her.
- 9:44Speaker 2: So anyway, you've pulled into a church car park and
- 9:47Speaker 2: it's completely empty. We've got a manual car and you're
- 9:50Speaker 2: trying to teach her how to pull the clutch in
- 9:53Speaker 2: and out and just move the car forward. The timing
- 9:55Speaker 2: right right, Yeah, get that little massage of the left
- 9:58Speaker 2: and right foot happening and had that go.
- 10:02Speaker 3: It was disastrous.
- 10:04Speaker 1: So after her demonstrating.
- 10:06Speaker 3: Smoke coming out the back not even bunny hops, there
- 10:10Speaker 3: was no bunny hops. There was just a holy of.
- 10:12Speaker 2: Smoke and engine revving, installing and installing. So, after she
- 10:16Speaker 2: demonstrated her utter and complete incompetence and incapacity for doing
- 10:20Speaker 2: anything without at least some more.
- 10:22Speaker 3: Help you, I told her it's time to go to school.
- 10:24Speaker 2: Right, You've said, let's swap seats, I'll drive, And she says, oh,
- 10:28Speaker 2: can I just try and pull the car out onto
- 10:30Speaker 2: the side of the road.
- 10:32Speaker 3: And you said, you know when when you say it
- 10:34Speaker 3: like that seriously, Yeah, but when.
- 10:38Speaker 1: You're in the moment, it felt like it was a
- 10:40Speaker 1: nice thing to do, right.
- 10:42Speaker 3: She was so excited, She was so excited, and I
- 10:46Speaker 3: just wanted to give her that feeling that she wanted.
- 10:49Speaker 3: So just a little bit of background here, though, she'd
- 10:52Speaker 3: been watching all of her friends who had got their
- 10:54Speaker 3: licenses or were preparing to get their learners driving automatic car.
- 11:02Speaker 2: Yeah, but even so, watching somebody drive is not the
- 11:04Speaker 2: same as drive.
- 11:05Speaker 3: But that's a huge thing. So she was watching her
- 11:08Speaker 3: friends in the car park drive and reverse back, and
- 11:11Speaker 3: then reverse into the car park, just this little you know,
- 11:14Speaker 3: inching out and they don't have to worry about any
- 11:17Speaker 3: clutches or anything like that. And so it looked very easy,
- 11:22Speaker 3: and in her mind, that's exactly what she thought was
- 11:24Speaker 3: going to happen.
- 11:25Speaker 2: So after fifteen minutes of her demonstrating that that's not
- 11:27Speaker 2: how it works, you decided to let her have a
- 11:29Speaker 2: go at driving on a real road.
- 11:31Speaker 1: You let her.
- 11:32Speaker 2: It was a quiet right, yeah, was it. Thank Goodness
- 11:35Speaker 2: for that. Thank Heavens for that. So the car edges
- 11:39Speaker 2: ever so slowly towards the you know where the curb
- 11:43Speaker 2: like the driveway dips down and then meets the road,
- 11:46Speaker 2: the front wheels of resting in that little divot there,
- 11:50Speaker 2: and you say, okay, release the clutch, let's accelerate a
- 11:53Speaker 2: little bit. Long story short, She accelerates like crazy. She
- 11:57Speaker 2: drops the clutch, the car speeds out into the middle
- 12:00Speaker 2: of the road. She grabs the wheel and turns it
- 12:02Speaker 2: to the left full lock. The car does like a
- 12:06Speaker 2: one eighty, spins around, and then she straightens up the
- 12:09Speaker 2: wheel and the car goes straight towards the gutter, bounces
- 12:12Speaker 2: up the gutter. She finally manages to find the brake,
- 12:16Speaker 2: skids across the grass, crashes into the wall of the church.
- 12:19Speaker 1: The air bags are deployed, the car is a right off.
- 12:23Speaker 2: The baby in the back seat, by the way, who
- 12:26Speaker 2: is unscathed, wearing a seat But everything was fine. Air
- 12:29Speaker 2: bags everywhere, noise everywhere, car horn blaring. And a few
- 12:32Speaker 2: minutes later you call me and say, Hey, just wondering
- 12:35Speaker 2: if you could come down to the church down the road.
- 12:36Speaker 2: I want to show you something. And I've said, did
- 12:40Speaker 2: you let Chanel drive? And you said ahh, And I'm like, okay.
- 12:44Speaker 2: I hung up the phone, didn't I didn't ask. I thought,
- 12:46Speaker 2: either Chanell is a natural or we need a new car.
- 12:50Speaker 2: And I was right, You're right about what both.
- 12:55Speaker 3: She's a natural.
- 12:56Speaker 2: She gave us the opportunity to get ourselves a new car.
- 13:00Speaker 2: And so Chanelle that night came out in another car
- 13:04Speaker 2: with me.
- 13:05Speaker 3: Well, no, no, no, no, no, let's put this again in context.
- 13:07Speaker 3: She literally did a runner. I couldn't find her for
- 13:10Speaker 3: about half an hour. She was hiding, and she swore
- 13:13Speaker 3: she would never get behind the wheel again.
- 13:16Speaker 2: And so I gave her a big hug. I cracked
- 13:18Speaker 2: up and said, this is one of the funniest things.
- 13:20Speaker 3: Take a photo.
- 13:21Speaker 2: Let's take some photos, and so I've got photos of
- 13:23Speaker 2: Chanel with her hand covering her face, with their babes deploying.
- 13:26Speaker 3: The car looking like a dead bug with its eyeballs
- 13:30Speaker 3: hanging out the side.
- 13:31Speaker 2: And that night I took her out of the car.
- 13:32Speaker 2: And I've taught all the kids drive since then and
- 13:35Speaker 2: it was a really good learning. I'll do better tomorrow
- 13:38Speaker 2: is that I don't teach that. You don't teach that.
- 13:41Speaker 2: I do the teaching of the driving. And she called
- 13:43Speaker 2: to say thanks because as a result, I.
- 13:45Speaker 3: Really calm, peaceful life. I don't have to worry about
- 13:49Speaker 3: dying behind the car. I'm completely in control.
- 13:53Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that is.
- 13:55Speaker 2: The take home message from all of this is number one.
- 13:59Speaker 2: If you're going to clean with the kids, going back
- 14:01Speaker 2: to Kylie's old, do better tomorrow. A spoonful of sugar
- 14:03Speaker 2: helps the medicine go down, Quitting Mary Poppins make it
- 14:07Speaker 2: fun and cleaning suddenly is not a burden. And the
- 14:11Speaker 2: take our message from my older better tomorrow is.
- 14:15Speaker 1: I don't know.
- 14:15Speaker 2: Actually, it was just really nice to get a phone
- 14:17Speaker 2: call from my daughter saying that she.
- 14:18Speaker 1: Appre Maybe that's what it is. She appreciated that.
- 14:23Speaker 2: I thought he to drive when we invest in things.
- 14:25Speaker 2: As our kids get older, they learn what appreciation is
- 14:28Speaker 2: and they call you now and then to make you
- 14:29Speaker 2: feel awesome as a parent.
- 14:32Speaker 3: Well, I think it's also just recognizing that we're going
- 14:35Speaker 3: to make mistakes, which clearly her and I both did
- 14:38Speaker 3: that day, but we grow through them, and if we're
- 14:42Speaker 3: able to recognize them for what they are, then we
- 14:45Speaker 3: give each other the opportunity to continue to learn.
- 14:48Speaker 1: I like that.
- 14:49Speaker 2: I like that, but ultimately I think my real old
- 14:51Speaker 2: do better tomorrow is go to bed on time. Don't
- 14:54Speaker 2: make morning guys suffer because night guy's an idiot. The
- 14:56Speaker 2: Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rulan from Bridge Media.
- 15:00Speaker 1: Hey Bruce is our executive producer.
- 15:01Speaker 2: Hey have a wonderful weekend, and next week we will
- 15:04Speaker 2: be back with some podcasts that you are going to love.
- 15:08Speaker 2: On Monday, we're having a conversation about toy guns. Is
- 15:13Speaker 2: it okay for your kids to play with toy guns?
- 15:17Speaker 1: Should we be worried?
- 15:18Speaker 2: In addition to that, we're going to talk with doctor
- 15:20Speaker 2: Amantha Imber about how the very best people in the world,
- 15:24Speaker 2: the very best minds in the world, on productivity and efficiency,
- 15:28Speaker 2: work to make their families better and my favorite episode
- 15:31Speaker 2: of the month, The Doctor's Desk, is coming up next
- 15:33Speaker 2: week as well. Can't wait to see they have a
- 15:35Speaker 2: great weekend everyone tomorrow. Info visit happy families dot com
- 15:38Speaker 2: dot au.