Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Raising Kids Who Can Handle Hard Things [with Ant Williams]

Transcript

Raising Kids Who Can Handle Hard Things [with Ant Williams] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I've just finished reading the most amazing book and I've
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  Speaker 1: reached out to the author and asked if he would
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  Speaker 1: come on my podcast and he said yes. The book
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  Speaker 1: is called Let It Be Tough. It's the story of
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  Speaker 1: Ant Williams, a two-time world record holder in ice diving.
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  Speaker 1: And when I say ice diving, I'm talking long breath
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  Speaker 1: holds diving 70 plus meters under the ice or swimming
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  Speaker 1: 180 plus meters under the ice. under an ice shelf.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this stuff is extreme.
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  Speaker 2: It's frightening.
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  Speaker 1: Let It Be Tough is about mental toughness. It's about resilience.
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  Speaker 1: It's gripping. Oh my goodness, I couldn't put it down.
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  Speaker 1: I read it in like two reading sessions and we're
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  Speaker 1: talking 280 pages of writing. This is a proper book
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  Speaker 1: and it just has so many great stories. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to talk to Ant next on the Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Stay with us.
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  Speaker 1: G'day, welcome to the Happy Families podcast where you get
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  Speaker 1: real parenting solutions every single day. This is Australia's Most
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Downloaded Parenting Podcast. My name's Dr. Justin Coulson, and today
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  Speaker 1: I'm joined by a good friend of mine, but also
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  Speaker 1: somebody that I have looked up to from the minute
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  Speaker 1: that I met him because of the extraordinary life that
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  Speaker 1: he's lived and the things that he's done. And now
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  Speaker 1: it's published in a memoir called Let It Be Tough.
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  Speaker 1: Aunt Williams, welcome to Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Justin. What an amazing introduction. It's an absolute
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  Speaker 2: pleasure to be here.
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  Speaker 1: There are some people who, when you spend time with them,
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  Speaker 1: they elevate you. They enlarge you. They just make you
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  Speaker 1: feel like you're a better person or you can be
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  Speaker 1: a better person than who you are. You're one of
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  Speaker 1: those people for me. I wish we got to spend
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  Speaker 1: more time together. I think you and I talk to
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  Speaker 1: each other maybe once or twice a year. We get
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  Speaker 1: together face-to-face once every five years. I'm really delighted to
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  Speaker 1: have you on the podcast. You've heard my introduction. You
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  Speaker 1: know how much I've raved about the book. Let's just
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  Speaker 1: crack straight into it i want to start with a
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  Speaker 1: question you've dived under the ice to 70 how many
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  Speaker 1: meters 70 uh 72 73 70 meters yeah something like
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  Speaker 1: 70 meters so that means that you've held your breath
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  Speaker 1: and swum 140 meters because you had to get down
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  Speaker 1: there and then you had to get back up and
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  Speaker 1: you had to get back up to the same hole
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  Speaker 1: that you went into because you're on an ice lake
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  Speaker 1: in the arctic circle And then you swam the longest
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  Speaker 1: distance ever swum under the ice, 182 meters, performed in
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  Speaker 1: total darkness in essentially as close to zero degree water
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  Speaker 1: as you can get. You've coached big wave surfers, moto
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  Speaker 1: GP riders, extreme sports competitors.
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  Speaker 2: Are you a thrill seeker? No, definitely not a thrill seeker. No.
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  Speaker 1: Sorry, everybody just spilled their coffee when you said no, right?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I can understand from the outside and looking at
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  Speaker 2: what I do and making that very quick assumption that
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  Speaker 2: I am a risk taker. Well, no, to use your
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  Speaker 2: words that I'm a thrill seeker, someone who's quite reckless.
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  Speaker 2: But actually, it couldn't be further from the truth. I
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  Speaker 2: see myself as someone who does take positive calculated risks.
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  Speaker 2: But what you don't see is just how controlled it is,
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  Speaker 2: how much preparation goes in. how many years of practice
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  Speaker 2: and training and development goes in to get to the
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  Speaker 2: point where you can progressively learn how to take on
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  Speaker 2: these types of challenges. And there's real magic in doing
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  Speaker 2: it once you get to that point. There are incredibly
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  Speaker 2: thrilling adventures to be able to go and have. And so, no,
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  Speaker 2: I don't see myself as someone who's a thrill seeker.
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  Speaker 2: I'm just someone who loves to put themselves into unique
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  Speaker 2: challenges and engineer everything around it so that I can
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  Speaker 2: perform at my best despite the pressures that I'm putting
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  Speaker 2: myself under.
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  Speaker 1: I look at the story of your life. You're a
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  Speaker 1: sports psychologist. You found yourself in the deep end coaching
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  Speaker 1: extreme sports people. In fact, you found yourself in a
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  Speaker 1: very deep end when you were literally put in front
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  Speaker 1: of a room of football players with no notice whatsoever
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  Speaker 1: and supposed to motivate them to get through a game
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  Speaker 1: that they were convinced they were going to lose, the
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  Speaker 1: high stakes game. The whole book, Let It Be Tough,
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  Speaker 1: is about performing under pressure. performing under pressure, in many cases,
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  Speaker 1: in life-threatening, death-defying situations. But right now, as a parenting expert,
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  Speaker 1: and this is the reason that I got you on here,
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  Speaker 1: we can talk about your extraordinary exploits. I just want
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  Speaker 1: people to read the book. It's so much fun. But
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  Speaker 1: the thing that I'm coming up against again and again
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  Speaker 1: and again, almost daily, is parents who say, my kids
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  Speaker 1: don't want to do hard things. My My kids, they
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  Speaker 1: feel a little bit of pressure and they shrink. They
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  Speaker 1: hide behind my legs and then they look at me
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  Speaker 1: with serious expressions and say things like, and I want
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  Speaker 1: my three-year-old to do better.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, but I think you're onto something here.
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  Speaker 1: Well, whether they're three or 13 or 23, parents are
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  Speaker 1: consistently saying that their kids are not resilient like we were. Now,
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  Speaker 1: There is some data to support that. I actually think
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  Speaker 1: that quite often we forget just how nervous we were
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  Speaker 1: when we were in certain situations and how much we
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  Speaker 1: didn't want to do things and how many things we
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  Speaker 1: probably bailed on. But consistently, I don't want to go
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  Speaker 1: to school. I don't want to go to school camp.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want to do the oral presentation. I don't
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  Speaker 1: want to do the exam. I don't want to try
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  Speaker 1: out for the team. I don't want to try out
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  Speaker 1: for the theater. This stuff comes up again and again
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  Speaker 1: and again. Using all of your psychology background, your sports psych,
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  Speaker 1: you're working with extreme athletes, your own under pressure performance requirements.
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  Speaker 1: What are one or two things that jump out at
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  Speaker 1: you as things that parents might do to help their
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  Speaker 1: kids when they're facing pressure and they're saying, I can't,
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  Speaker 1: I can't, it's too hard?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think the first thing is that as parents,
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  Speaker 2: we play such a vital role in shaping their response
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  Speaker 2: to pressure. I mean, we all want our kids to
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  Speaker 2: participate in things that they enjoy, And also encouraging through
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  Speaker 2: those moments of things when they start to get tough.
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  Speaker 2: So it might be the surf life-saving tournament where the
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  Speaker 2: waves are a little bit bigger today. It might be
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  Speaker 2: the exam where they just think, I'm no good at mathematics.
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  Speaker 2: In all these situations, how we respond is so critical.
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  Speaker 2: We want them to be able to cope in those
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  Speaker 2: moments and it's going to have such a big character
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  Speaker 2: building effect on them in that moment and through their lives.
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  Speaker 2: These are skills that they're going to take for the
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  Speaker 2: rest of their life. And so what we do in
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  Speaker 2: terms of how we work with them to participate, encourage
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  Speaker 2: and support them is huge. We want them to be
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  Speaker 2: able to make mistakes and errors, suffer losses and failures
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  Speaker 2: and normalize it. We want that to be okay. That's
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  Speaker 2: just part of life skills and learning how to cope
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  Speaker 2: when things don't go your way. And so we need
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  Speaker 2: to be there to support them and challenge them and
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  Speaker 2: encourage them. But we've got to get this balance right
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  Speaker 2: of to what extent we push them into things and
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  Speaker 2: versus take a backseat where it's more, my role is
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  Speaker 2: to encourage and to make sure that they're challenging themselves
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  Speaker 2: without overstepping their mark. So like I love the question
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  Speaker 2: you posed, so what do we do? So I think
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  Speaker 2: the first thing that we do is we need to
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  Speaker 2: get this balance right between challenging them and supporting them.
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  Speaker 2: So if you're a parent that always says, oh, you
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  Speaker 2: don't have to do it if this makes you feel uncomfortable,
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  Speaker 2: then our level of challenge is too low.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's kind of like the parent who says,
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  Speaker 1: your emotions should be what guides all of our decisions.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So if we're allowing the child to,
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  Speaker 2: their emotions to guide all the decisions, then what's the
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  Speaker 2: child learning in this? What's the child going to steer towards?
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  Speaker 2: It's going to steer towards you being the person who
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  Speaker 2: rescues them and comes in as a shield. But we
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  Speaker 2: don't want you as a shield. We want you as
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  Speaker 2: a safety net. If they're in there and things do
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  Speaker 2: go wrong, but we don't want you as a shield
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  Speaker 2: because the shield gets in the way. It's like you
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  Speaker 2: become the crush. You take over the responsibility if things
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  Speaker 2: are uncomfortable or I don't like them. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The analogy that I always use here is that there
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  Speaker 1: are dragons in everyone's lives and Our children have got
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  Speaker 1: to go and slay the dragon. And if we keep
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  Speaker 1: running forward with the shield and the sword and slaying
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  Speaker 1: the dragon for the kids, then they don't get... But they've,
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  Speaker 1: of course, got to decide that this is a dragon
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  Speaker 1: worth slaying as well, right? Like they're not going to
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  Speaker 1: go and fight a dragon that we've decided, we've picked
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  Speaker 1: for them. They've got to have some say in it.
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  Speaker 2: There's always the risk that as parents we... push our
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  Speaker 2: kids into the things that we love or that we
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  Speaker 2: were good at, right? Because we live vicariously through seeing
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  Speaker 2: them succeed in these things. But if they don't enjoy it,
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  Speaker 2: they're far less likely to be pushing through and being
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  Speaker 2: resilient in the moments where those things get tough. Whereas
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  Speaker 2: if it's something that they genuinely want to succeed at,
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  Speaker 2: want to get better at, the social group of other
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  Speaker 2: kids doing this thing is their people and they relate
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  Speaker 2: to them. They're far more likely without as much support
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  Speaker 2: from you. To learn all these lessons in a really favorable.
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  Speaker 1: Way, Hey, we need to take a quick break, but
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  Speaker 1: after the break, what I think might be the toughest
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  Speaker 1: question every parent will face when they're under pressure themselves
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  Speaker 1: and the kids are watching. That's next.
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  Speaker 2: Stay with us.
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  Speaker 1: We're back. It's the Happy Families podcast. I'm talking today
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  Speaker 1: to Ant Williams, the author of Let It Be Tough.
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  Speaker 1: And I want to hit you up with a couple
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  Speaker 1: of lightning round questions because these are my favorite interview questions.
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  Speaker 1: They're the ones where you really don't want to pick
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  Speaker 1: a side. You really want to come in with the,
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  Speaker 1: it depends and start to extrapolate.
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  Speaker 2: But you're not allowed.
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  Speaker 1: You've got like five seconds, as few words as possible
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  Speaker 1: to answer the question.
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  Speaker 2: I'm ready. Let's go.
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  Speaker 1: Your kid is melting down in the supermarket. Perform under
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  Speaker 1: pressure or quietly abandon the trolley and pretend you don't
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  Speaker 1: know them.
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  Speaker 2: Stay with them. Stay really present. but don't console to
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  Speaker 2: the point where they get away with it and find
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  Speaker 2: a chance later in a moment where the emotions have
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  Speaker 2: run down to be able to reflect on it with them.
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  Speaker 1: The next one, tricky one, but best pressure building experience
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  Speaker 1: that you can give a child that doesn't involve some
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  Speaker 1: sort of organized sport.
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  Speaker 2: Look, I think exposure to challenge in any area is
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  Speaker 2: going to be helpful as long as it's a manageable
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  Speaker 2: step for them. Kids need evidence to know that they
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  Speaker 2: can build their confidence, right? So they need evidence that
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  Speaker 2: things are working, that they can push through. So don't
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  Speaker 2: make it too tough too soon. Give them small steps
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  Speaker 2: and And let them see for themselves.
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  Speaker 1: Finish this sentence. The most underrated thing that parents can do,
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  Speaker 1: most underrated thing that parents can do to raise resilient
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  Speaker 1: kids is?
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  Speaker 2: Let them see you taking on challenges and staying calm
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  Speaker 2: and composed, but also sharing your real fears. So don't
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  Speaker 2: hide it. Actually say, well, actually think out loud for them. Well,
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  Speaker 2: this is terrifying. I'm going to give it a go anyway.
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  Speaker 1: A parent who wraps their kid in cotton wool. versus
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  Speaker 1: a parent who throws them in the deep end. Who's
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  Speaker 1: doing more damage?
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  Speaker 2: Long term, the person who wraps them in cotton wool.
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  Speaker 2: And I know that's controversial. Yeah, it is. Because the
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  Speaker 2: other obviously has the... We have a visceral reaction to
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  Speaker 2: the parent who pushes too hard on their kids. But
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  Speaker 2: if I were to pick between one of these for
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  Speaker 2: my kids, I would say I would rather push them
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  Speaker 2: a little bit too hard than wrap them in cotton
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  Speaker 2: wool and see them fail to learn the most vital
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  Speaker 2: lessons that life is going to challenge them on, on
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  Speaker 2: how to stay resilient and how to cope with anxiety.
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  Speaker 1: I love your response there.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: You and I could talk for days. In fact, when
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  Speaker 1: we get together, we definitely feel like we can talk
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  Speaker 1: for days. And the last question today, because this is
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  Speaker 1: our podcast for time poor parents who just want answers now,
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  Speaker 1: is this. Kids are always watching how we respond to pressure.
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  Speaker 1: You are the perform under pressure guy. You're the guy
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  Speaker 1: who says, let it be tough. What are some simple
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  Speaker 1: ways that parents can model a healthy response to challenge
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  Speaker 1: and setbacks? Because we all experience them every single day,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's getting cut off in traffic, which is minor,
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  Speaker 1: but sometimes when it happens, we act like it's not minor,
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  Speaker 1: it's major, through to either a diagnosis or the loss
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  Speaker 1: of a job or an inability to pay a mortgage
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  Speaker 1: or cost of living. It's just such a long list.
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  Speaker 1: What are the best ways that we can model healthy
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  Speaker 1: responses to these challenges and setbacks?
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  Speaker 2: Well, firstly, I think... I think just that mindset of
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  Speaker 2: knowing that we must stay composed when things go wrong.
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  Speaker 2: Our reaction becomes their template. So what we do is
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  Speaker 2: going to show up for them right throughout their lives.
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  Speaker 2: It's the reality. I work with leaders who still struggle.
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  Speaker 2: Like the number one thing I'm teaching leaders the last
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  Speaker 2: 15 years is how to have a difficult conversation without
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  Speaker 2: getting too emotional. It's how to give someone feedback on
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  Speaker 2: the performance without masking or hiding the things that you
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  Speaker 2: don't actually like about their performance. It's all these things, right?
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  Speaker 2: So we need to make sure that we have this
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  Speaker 2: sense of calm about us when we're going through those moments, right,
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  Speaker 2: for ourselves. So when we get cut off in traffic,
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  Speaker 2: that sort of thing. There's a couple of things that
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  Speaker 2: you can do. There's this really simple thing that I
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  Speaker 2: like to encourage people to do. When you know you
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  Speaker 2: face moments of stress, I'm going to stick with your example, Justin,
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  Speaker 2: so you You've got a 45-minute commute to drop the
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  Speaker 2: kids at school and then get to work. And you
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  Speaker 2: know that when someone cuts you off in traffic, it's
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  Speaker 2: a trigger for you, right? So what you do is
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  Speaker 2: at the start of that, you go, today, I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to be like a fish swimming in an ocean. And
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  Speaker 2: as I'm swimming through this ocean, there are going to
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  Speaker 2: be all these lines, fish lines coming down with hooks
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  Speaker 2: on them. And my job is to spot those fish
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  Speaker 2: hooks today when I'm driving through traffic. front of me
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  Speaker 2: without indicating. It'll be the guy who winds down his
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  Speaker 2: window and yells some abuse at me or the person
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  Speaker 2: who's right on my butt, tailgating me. And I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to go, that's a fishhook. And if I bite that,
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  Speaker 2: I'm out of the game. And my kids are going
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  Speaker 2: to go, oh, dad's someone who always flares up and
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  Speaker 2: gets angry. And maybe that's what we're supposed to do.
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  Speaker 2: So instead, I'm going to swim around those fishhooks. recognize
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  Speaker 2: those as fishhooks because I'm the one who's in control
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  Speaker 2: of my emotional reaction to what's happening around me. No
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  Speaker 2: one else can control that but me. And therefore, if
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  Speaker 2: I don't bite a fishhook, I get to the school
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  Speaker 2: drop-off and I feel great. I get to work and
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  Speaker 2: I feel relaxed. That is the outcome I want to
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  Speaker 2: start my day.
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  Speaker 1: Don't bite the hook.
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  Speaker 2: I love it. So simple. So simple.
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  Speaker 1: So simple. And it's also the kind of thing that
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  Speaker 1: you can teach kids when they're fighting with each other
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  Speaker 1: and squabbling and And thanks so much for being with
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  Speaker 1: me and for making my day by sharing your stories
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  Speaker 1: and your insights that can help parents on the Happy
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  Speaker 1: Families podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Justin. Thank you so much for your generous
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: praise about my stories and my book.
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  Speaker 1: We will link to Let It Be Tough by Ant
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  Speaker 1: Williams in the show notes.
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  Speaker 2: I recommend it highly.
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  Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rulon from
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Mim Hammonds provides our research and additional support.
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  Speaker 1: And if you would like more info about making your
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: family happier, visit happyfamilies.com.au.