Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #803 This Week In Parenting: Gentle Parenting Under the Microscope
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
- 0:05Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
- 0:09Speaker 2: wants answers Now.
- 0:10Speaker 3: Hello, this stops Justin coilson on, the founder of Happy
- 0:12Speaker 3: Families dot Com. Kylie had a big night last night.
- 0:19Speaker 3: I'm here with Kylie, my wife and mum to have
- 0:21Speaker 3: six kids. She's not doing so well.
- 0:25Speaker 4: It was such a big night. I watched about a
- 0:27Speaker 4: bajillion high schools sing and dance for way too long.
- 0:33Speaker 3: They do this stuff late, don't they.
- 0:35Speaker 4: I don't know how they stay hud I couldn't today.
- 0:41Speaker 3: You were going to get through this. You are going
- 0:43Speaker 3: to be strong. I believe in you. Our conversation today
- 0:47Speaker 3: is this week in parenting.
- 0:53Speaker 4: I am a little bit concerned and.
- 0:54Speaker 3: What are you concerned about?
- 0:56Speaker 4: Justin about where you're getting your parenting advice from lately?
- 1:00Speaker 4: Because why walked in the other day to the office
- 1:02Speaker 4: and I heard you listening to Kim Kardashian give parenting advice.
- 1:07Speaker 1: Parenting is the thing that has taught me the most
- 1:10Speaker 1: about myself. It has been the most challenging thing. There
- 1:14Speaker 1: are nights I cry myself to sleep, like what just happened?
- 1:19Speaker 1: You know, with all the moods and the personalities and
- 1:23Speaker 1: sometimes they're fighting and there's no one there, Like it's
- 1:26Speaker 1: me to play good cop and bad cops. So like
- 1:29Speaker 1: that is definitely a challenge when you know, something I'm
- 1:33Speaker 1: working on is being a little bit firmer. You know,
- 1:36Speaker 1: there's nothing that can prepare you anyone, any person that says,
- 1:40Speaker 1: oh we're waiting to have x amount of money in
- 1:44Speaker 1: the bank, Oh we're waiting to have a home before
- 1:46Speaker 1: we have kids. Oh I'm waiting for this job to
- 1:47Speaker 1: come in before we have kids. I don't care how
- 1:50Speaker 1: long you wait. I don't care what you're waiting for.
- 1:52Speaker 1: You are never prepared.
- 1:54Speaker 3: Ah, the wisdom, the wisdom of the Guru. Kim Kardashian.
- 2:00Speaker 4: I just want to know, right, you don't even like
- 2:03Speaker 4: the Kardashians. What were you doing listening to her?
- 2:05Speaker 3: I was just looking around at what was in the
- 2:07Speaker 3: news about parenting. I mean, okay, she's not exactly telling
- 2:13Speaker 3: us anything fascinating or deep or incredible. I just wanted
- 2:16Speaker 3: to hear what she was going to say. And I thought, hmm,
- 2:19Speaker 3: you can never be prepared. And the emotions, and so
- 2:22Speaker 3: I love the line. Sometimes I cry myself to sleep
- 2:25Speaker 3: and I'm thinking, is it about parenting or is this
- 2:26Speaker 3: just you because she lives such a hard life. I
- 2:30Speaker 3: just I have a think about the Kardashians, right, I mean,
- 2:32Speaker 3: I just can't stand any of it. But I don't know.
- 2:35Speaker 3: I saw a little bit of humanity in KK as
- 2:38Speaker 3: I listened to what she had to say about raising kids.
- 2:42Speaker 4: I just I think what stands out to me. I
- 2:45Speaker 4: don't believe I'm saying that.
- 2:47Speaker 3: Believe you're doing commentary on Kim Kardashian.
- 2:49Speaker 4: Neither parenting is just the perfect level? Yes, like it
- 2:54Speaker 4: just it doesn't matter how much money you have. It
- 2:56Speaker 4: doesn't matter how much experience you have. It doesn't matter
- 2:59Speaker 4: what your job is, it doesn't matter how old you are.
- 3:02Speaker 4: Parenting is just hard.
- 3:04Speaker 3: There's emotions, and you cry yourself to sleep, and you
- 3:06Speaker 3: learn about yourself and you can never be prepared. Look
- 3:10Speaker 3: at me, I've just become Kim Kardashian. Can we talk
- 3:14Speaker 3: about some real parenting?
- 3:15Speaker 4: I was gonna ask, is there anything anything of substance
- 3:18Speaker 4: in today's episode?
- 3:20Speaker 3: Yes, we need to talk once more about parental guidance.
- 3:24Speaker 4: Gentle parenting is about letting children be children and respecting
- 3:28Speaker 4: them as people.
- 3:29Speaker 3: Oh, it seems that the Gentle Parents Larissa Remarcus have
- 3:33Speaker 3: been under fire on social media, and Kelly Scott has
- 3:36Speaker 3: written a really nice article on the ABC website ABC
- 3:40Speaker 3: Everyday Perspective from Kelly Scott parental guidance. Viewers are slamming
- 3:45Speaker 3: gentle parenting, she says, and I'm confused, Kylie, as you
- 3:48Speaker 3: watched Larissa Remarcus our gentle parents, what was your experience
- 3:51Speaker 3: as you consider what challenges they went through and the
- 3:55Speaker 3: experience that they had on the show.
- 3:58Speaker 4: Well, I've seen some of they're not so nice comments
- 4:01Speaker 4: on social media, and I can imagine that what we're
- 4:04Speaker 4: dealing with is people who feel like they're probably quite
- 4:09Speaker 4: permissive in the way they interact with their kids. I
- 4:13Speaker 4: saw comments about the kids, you know, not acting their age,
- 4:16Speaker 4: they were quite immature, and things like that. And for
- 4:20Speaker 4: me watching the show and even last season with their
- 4:24Speaker 4: attachment parents, I felt the same way that in some
- 4:27Speaker 4: ways it's such a disadvantage to the rest of the
- 4:29Speaker 4: other parenting styles because it is based on dealing with
- 4:33Speaker 4: our children's emotions as they come and being supportive of
- 4:37Speaker 4: their needs as they arise.
- 4:39Speaker 3: Right, And so what you're seeing is a lot of
- 4:42Speaker 3: parenting styles are about getting a quick, fixed response, instant compliance,
- 4:45Speaker 3: whereas the Gentle Parents, the attachment style that we saw
- 4:48Speaker 3: in season one as well, is more about saying, you're
- 4:50Speaker 3: having an emotional moment and we're just going to allow
- 4:52Speaker 3: you to experience the emotion. And it doesn't look pretty,
- 4:54Speaker 3: does it.
- 4:55Speaker 4: It doesn't, and especially with young kids, it doesn't look
- 4:58Speaker 4: at all very messy and looks like the children at
- 5:01Speaker 4: times are ruling the roost.
- 5:03Speaker 3: This is what Kelly Scott had to say in her
- 5:05Speaker 3: perspective piece in ABC every Day. She said, I've seen
- 5:08Speaker 3: commenters accusing the parents of raising quote, self centered snowflakes,
- 5:12Speaker 3: close quote or admonishing children for needing to be disciplined,
- 5:16Speaker 3: to be prepared for the real world. And that's just
- 5:19Speaker 3: the tip of the iceberg. She has actually just shared
- 5:20Speaker 3: the plant ones because there were some pretty horrible stuff
- 5:22Speaker 3: that was said out there. And here's what she adds
- 5:25Speaker 3: in this piece, and we will link to this in
- 5:26Speaker 3: the show notes. It's so important. She says, some of
- 5:29Speaker 3: the participants on the show, along with the viewers, have
- 5:31Speaker 3: slammed the gentle parents for their softer techniques, making statements
- 5:34Speaker 3: like the children have no respect for their mum, or dad,
- 5:37Speaker 3: I get a quick quote here, co host Justin Coilson
- 5:39Speaker 3: and Australian Parenting XP but responded to the flat they've received.
- 5:42Speaker 3: Doctor Coulson wrote on Facebook that critics don't understand that
- 5:45Speaker 3: it's a long game of building a relationship of trust
- 5:47Speaker 3: that invests in the child's future. He also writes the
- 5:50Speaker 3: very few parenting styles like those featured on the show
- 5:53Speaker 3: are backed by science, but we know that aspects of
- 5:55Speaker 3: gentle parenting are, and then she shares this research have
- 5:58Speaker 3: listened to this eat up. I studied more than a
- 6:01Speaker 3: thousand pairs of children and mothers. Found children whose mothers
- 6:03Speaker 3: responded with sensitivity in the first three years of life
- 6:07Speaker 3: had better social skills at age fifteen and also perform
- 6:10Speaker 3: better academically.
- 6:11Speaker 4: I have two thoughts on this. The first, why are
- 6:13Speaker 4: we in such a hurry for our kids to grow up?
- 6:16Speaker 3: Yeah? And what are we so worried about this snowflaked anyway? Sorry?
- 6:19Speaker 3: What's your other thing?
- 6:20Speaker 4: Why do we have to introduce our kids to the
- 6:23Speaker 4: coldness of the world in our own homes in an
- 6:27Speaker 4: effort to prepare them for what might happen. I had
- 6:30Speaker 4: this really cool experience and it feels like it's a
- 6:32Speaker 4: little bit of a tangent, but it's not. I teach
- 6:34Speaker 4: a class for sixteen and seventeen year olds at church
- 6:37Speaker 4: on a Sunday, and I introduce them to devilish dilemmas.
- 6:41Speaker 4: It's a little card game, and it just gives them
- 6:44Speaker 4: this or that would you do this or that? The
- 6:46Speaker 4: question was, if you had a complete facial muscular malfunction,
- 6:51Speaker 4: would you choose to smile for the rest of your
- 6:54Speaker 4: life you could not not smile, or would you choose
- 6:59Speaker 4: to not smile forever? What would you choose?
- 7:02Speaker 3: You know me well enough to know exactly what I
- 7:04Speaker 3: would choose. What did you What do you think the
- 7:06Speaker 3: kids chose. I would imagine you're talking about sixteen and
- 7:10Speaker 3: seventeen year olds. I reckon there'd be a fifty to
- 7:13Speaker 3: fifty split. I think some would be very happy to smile,
- 7:16Speaker 3: but I can imagine that there would be some stick
- 7:17Speaker 3: in the mud to be like, yeah, I'm not going
- 7:19Speaker 3: to smile. I'm just going to tough it out.
- 7:21Speaker 4: The entire class, literally, I had nine kids in the class,
- 7:24Speaker 4: and every single one of them chose to not smile.
- 7:27Speaker 3: Wow. Wow.
- 7:29Speaker 4: They asked me for the rest of their lives, they
- 7:31Speaker 4: would choose not to smile. Now, if I had it
- 7:33Speaker 4: been doctor Justin Colson, I would have given them all
- 7:35Speaker 4: the psychological research, yes, that would tell them why choosing
- 7:39Speaker 4: that would have made them absolutely miserable.
- 7:41Speaker 3: I've just had a thought. Your name is Kylie. You
- 7:43Speaker 3: had to choose to be smiling. Smiley, Kylie? Is that
- 7:46Speaker 3: what you said? Did you say you'd be smiling?
- 7:47Speaker 4: I did say, Kyle.
- 7:49Speaker 3: Has anyone ever called you smiley? Kylie?
- 7:51Speaker 2: Yes?
- 7:51Speaker 3: Still?
- 7:51Speaker 4: My nan and Pop actually had a dog and he
- 7:54Speaker 4: had two teeth that stuck up so it made him
- 7:57Speaker 4: look like he had a smile, and they called him smiley. Right,
- 8:01Speaker 4: And so yes, I've been called smiley, Kylie Lantz.
- 8:03Speaker 3: I've never We've been married for twenty five and a
- 8:06Speaker 3: half years. I've never called you smiley.
- 8:08Speaker 4: I'm glad.
- 8:09Speaker 3: Okay, well I certainly won't start now. But you chose
- 8:11Speaker 3: to be smiling? And what was your rationale? And what
- 8:13Speaker 3: say got to do with gentle parenting? And Larissa Remarcus.
- 8:16Speaker 4: I chose to smile. And the comment was, so if
- 8:19Speaker 4: your mom died, you would choose to smile, And I
- 8:23Speaker 4: just said, you know what, if it's the choice between
- 8:26Speaker 4: smiling or not. I'm going to pick smiling every time
- 8:30Speaker 4: because I know that I feel better when I smile. Yes,
- 8:34Speaker 4: but other people feel better. And So if we go
- 8:37Speaker 4: back to what we were talking about, why is it
- 8:40Speaker 4: that I have to make my kids world miserable so
- 8:43Speaker 4: that they can accept and understand what's going to be
- 8:45Speaker 4: out there. Why would I not do everything I can
- 8:49Speaker 4: to provide them with an environment that is loving, supportive,
- 8:53Speaker 4: and compassionate and help them be the same to the world,
- 9:00Speaker 4: to the world. Why would I not want that for
- 9:01Speaker 4: my kids?
- 9:02Speaker 3: Well, I just I love what you're saying. And what
- 9:04Speaker 3: I also love is that Parental Guidance is still creating
- 9:07Speaker 3: conversations even a month after a month and a half
- 9:09Speaker 3: after it was on TV. The stuff that happened there
- 9:12Speaker 3: is so good. You can still see it on nine now.
- 9:13Speaker 3: By the way, the show is still available Parental Guidance
- 9:16Speaker 3: Season two on nine now, Kylie. The last thing that
- 9:22Speaker 3: I want to talk about today is something that came
- 9:25Speaker 3: off TikTok that has blown up, but jillions of people
- 9:28Speaker 3: have watched it and it involves a little bit of
- 9:30Speaker 3: mum shaming, but it is big news. It's incredible how
- 9:32Speaker 3: TikTok and social media have actually started to make news.
- 9:35Speaker 3: Like social media is so impactful. But there's this incident
- 9:40Speaker 3: that occurred. I'm going to play a fifty eight second
- 9:43Speaker 3: piece that comes from cat Stickler on TikTok. This piece
- 9:47Speaker 3: has generated fifty seven thousand comments fifty seven thousand comments
- 9:53Speaker 3: on TikTok. It has gone absolutely viral, and it has
- 9:56Speaker 3: made news headlines all over the place. One of the
- 9:59Speaker 3: things that I hated social media and TikTok is that
- 10:01Speaker 3: some people don't use their own voice. They use that
- 10:03Speaker 3: robot voice. And that's what she's done. She's recorded it
- 10:06Speaker 3: but then had the robot voice to it instead. But
- 10:09Speaker 3: let me play what happened if you can deal with
- 10:12Speaker 3: the robot voice. And I'm just gonna say this, No cake,
- 10:16Speaker 3: That's all I'm gonna say. No cake.
- 10:18Speaker 2: I'm going to mom shamed. Only people I've ever mom
- 10:20Speaker 2: shamed are myself and my own mother, but one other
- 10:24Speaker 2: mom is going to be added to the list. Actually,
- 10:26Speaker 2: I'm not even this is a question, am I entitled?
- 10:28Speaker 2: Or was this messed up? Two hours ago? Literally right now,
- 10:31Speaker 2: MK and I were at the park in my neighborhood
- 10:32Speaker 2: and it was us in this birthday group. Right, so
- 10:35Speaker 2: literally just us and this birthday group. These kids are
- 10:37Speaker 2: having their birthday party.
- 10:38Speaker 3: MP.
- 10:38Speaker 2: He's playing them for like what half an hour. They're
- 10:40Speaker 2: making friends.
- 10:41Speaker 4: It was nice.
- 10:41Speaker 2: It was actually very cute time to seeing happy birthday. Okay,
- 10:44Speaker 2: goes over. She's one of the group right now, all right,
- 10:46Speaker 2: they're welcoming her with open arms or so, I thought
- 10:49Speaker 2: I was wrong. Time to eat cake. I see MK,
- 10:52Speaker 2: I see her intention of grabbing a piece of cake,
- 10:54Speaker 2: so I like walk over to make sure it's okay.
- 10:57Speaker 2: As a formality. Honestly, I was like, obviously it's okay.
- 11:00Speaker 3: It's cake.
- 11:01Speaker 2: It's a massive cake. There's lots of back job in pieces.
- 11:03Speaker 2: The mother kicks the plate away from m can gets
- 11:06Speaker 2: down to her level, says, you cannot eat this cake. Okay,
- 11:09Speaker 2: this is not your birthday party. These are not your friends.
- 11:13Speaker 2: Where's your mother?
- 11:14Speaker 3: And that's the piece. So, in case that didn't quite
- 11:18Speaker 3: make sense because of the weird accent and the robotic voice,
- 11:21Speaker 3: you're at the park with your kiddo toddler and there's
- 11:24Speaker 3: a birthday party happening, and your toddler starts hanging out
- 11:26Speaker 3: with all the other toddlers and then they sing Happy birthday,
- 11:28Speaker 3: and the cake gets cut and your toddler's still there,
- 11:32Speaker 3: and then the mumm nails down in front of your
- 11:34Speaker 3: toppler and says, you can't have this cake. This is
- 11:36Speaker 3: not your cake, These are not your friends, It is
- 11:37Speaker 3: not your party. Where's your mum? Blows up on social media?
- 11:41Speaker 3: It makes the news. It's in national headlines everywhere. And
- 11:45Speaker 3: yet as much as I wanted to shake my head
- 11:47Speaker 3: and say this Cake Gates story is not news, it
- 11:51Speaker 3: kind of is. It's definitely paring news. It's one of
- 11:53Speaker 3: those parenting dilemmas that just goes nuts, and it's been
- 11:57Speaker 3: in parenting chat groups all over the place. So I
- 12:00Speaker 3: want to ask you, do you have an opinion on this?
- 12:02Speaker 3: Like when you hear that story, do you want to
- 12:04Speaker 3: get involved? Do you just roll your eyes and say, oh,
- 12:06Speaker 3: social media? Doing social media again? What's your response? And
- 12:10Speaker 3: in fairness to you, you have not heard this until
- 12:13Speaker 3: right now, So I'm really just as a mum who's
- 12:15Speaker 3: raised six kids and been in the park in plenty
- 12:17Speaker 3: of odd situations. I know I'm kind of putting you
- 12:20Speaker 3: on the spot with this, but what's your response?
- 12:23Speaker 4: I'm torn because I actually really hate how social media
- 12:27Speaker 4: blows things up and takes things out of context sometimes
- 12:32Speaker 4: and it creates I want to say hate, Like there's
- 12:36Speaker 4: just there is so much negativity that comes from this,
- 12:39Speaker 4: but there's also some really important conversations to be had.
- 12:43Speaker 4: So that's where I'm torn because I have watched this
- 12:46Speaker 4: play out in different ways over the years, sometimes with
- 12:50Speaker 4: our kids, sometimes just as a bystander, and it's heartbreaking
- 12:54Speaker 4: and it kind of goes back to that conversation would
- 12:56Speaker 4: you rather smile or not smile? It's the same pre
- 13:00Speaker 4: Do I want to be kind to the world and
- 13:03Speaker 4: the way I project myself into the world, or do
- 13:06Speaker 4: I want to teach kids that they can't always have
- 13:08Speaker 4: what they want?
- 13:10Speaker 3: Why?
- 13:11Speaker 4: Why some of my best friends I made at the
- 13:14Speaker 4: park because my kid hung out with their kid for
- 13:17Speaker 4: half an hour. Yeah, you know, you meet people, you
- 13:21Speaker 4: make a difference in the world, and even if it's
- 13:23Speaker 4: only for half an hour, I'd rather be that person.
- 13:26Speaker 3: So I've got a really quick hot take on this,
- 13:28Speaker 3: and it's as follows. As a parent, when you're in
- 13:30Speaker 3: the park and your kids are playing, it's if they
- 13:33Speaker 3: start playing with other people's kids, it's usually nice just
- 13:37Speaker 3: to say hi to the other parents, even if they're
- 13:39Speaker 3: in a group, just hey, my little one's playing with yours.
- 13:41Speaker 3: Is that okay? I know you guys are having a party,
- 13:43Speaker 3: So maybe mum might be a little bit more proactive
- 13:45Speaker 3: rather than doing the mum shame on the other parent. Like,
- 13:47Speaker 3: there is a level of personal responsibility here, and I
- 13:50Speaker 3: know it's not always going to work out that way,
- 13:52Speaker 3: but I'm I'm just saying it's nice to acknowledge the
- 13:54Speaker 3: other people when your kids are playing with their kids.
- 13:57Speaker 3: But there's a second element to this as well from
- 14:00Speaker 3: my point of view, and that is it's not that
- 14:02Speaker 3: hard to be nice to a three year old. And
- 14:05Speaker 3: even if even if she wanted to say, you can't
- 14:08Speaker 3: have any of the cake, kiddo, because this is just
- 14:11Speaker 3: for everyone who's at the party. The whole idea of
- 14:13Speaker 3: these are not your friends. This is not your cake.
- 14:15Speaker 3: Like you can reject somebody nicely or you can just
- 14:19Speaker 3: slam them, And it sounds like this mum is just
- 14:21Speaker 3: slammed this kid.
- 14:22Speaker 4: At the end of the day, I don't think we're
- 14:24Speaker 4: suggesting that you have to give someone cake if you
- 14:26Speaker 4: don't want to give them cake.
- 14:27Speaker 3: Oh, let the meat cake, Let the meat cake, come on.
- 14:30Speaker 4: But we can be kind in the way that we
- 14:33Speaker 4: excl You can't, that's not what it be.
- 14:37Speaker 3: But you can. You can actually say to somebody, oh,
- 14:40Speaker 3: let's just go and check with your mum. Let's take
- 14:42Speaker 3: you back to your mum because we're going to do
- 14:43Speaker 3: the cake now for everyone who's at the party, Like,
- 14:45Speaker 3: there are coind time to go back to mum. That's right,
- 14:48Speaker 3: there are kind and gentle ways to do this. So
- 14:50Speaker 3: I think, just give it a cake, let them let
- 14:53Speaker 3: me cake. Yeah, what's what's that hole that that saying?
- 14:56Speaker 3: My dad just say to me all the time, you
- 14:58Speaker 3: can't have your cake and eat it too, And I'd
- 14:59Speaker 3: be like, why not? Like I want my cake and
- 15:02Speaker 3: I want to eat it. What's the point of having
- 15:03Speaker 3: a cake if you don't eat the cake? Anyway? That's
- 15:06Speaker 3: this Week in Parenting. The Happy Family's podcast is produced
- 15:09Speaker 3: by Justin Roland for Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
- 15:11Speaker 3: executive producer. I think that the real solution to all
- 15:14Speaker 3: of this Week in Parenting stuff is just be nice,
- 15:16Speaker 3: just be kind, and remember, as Kim Kardashian.
- 15:19Speaker 1: Says, you are never prepared.
- 15:21Speaker 3: Thank you, Guru, Kim. More information about making your family
- 15:24Speaker 3: happy at Keeping Up with the Kardashians. No, I'm just kidding.
- 15:28Speaker 3: At The Happy Family's website, Happy families dot com, dot you,
- 15:30Speaker 3: or our Facebook page. Dr Justin Gilson's Happy Families