Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #44 Super Saturdays

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#44 Super Saturdays · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: This is the Happy Family's podcast with doctor Justin Coulson.
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  Speaker 1: We are Lukin Susie and this is the podcast for
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  Speaker 1: time poor parents who just want answers. Now.
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  Speaker 2: I've become increasingly where We've recently had a family holiday,
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  Speaker 2: and I've become increasingly aware of how seldom we actually
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  Speaker 2: have really quality all family together time, and it's it's
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  Speaker 2: made me think that maybe we need to talk about
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  Speaker 2: this with our parenting expert. We might need to kick
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  Speaker 2: up the butt, or we might just need to get
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  Speaker 2: our head around how do we manage quality time together
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  Speaker 2: because it's limited. I'm so aware of how limited it is.
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  Speaker 1: I guess the other side of the question is are
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  Speaker 1: you over emphasizing, like how important is some of this time?
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  Speaker 1: Is there too much pressure in your head about these
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  Speaker 1: little moments and how much does it matter?
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  Speaker 2: Doctor Justin Coulson, you have all the answers when it
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  Speaker 2: comes to getting our head around quality in the family home.
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  Speaker 3: Might be all the answers.
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  Speaker 1: Answers what the good news is, because even if you don't,
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  Speaker 1: you say it with confidence and it sounds like you do.
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  Speaker 2: What can you tell us about the importance of this time?
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  Speaker 2: Because I feel really aware of the fact that it's limited.
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  Speaker 3: Well it is.
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  Speaker 4: If you do the maths, from the time that your
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  Speaker 4: child is born until the time your child turns eighteen,
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  Speaker 4: there's fifty two saturdays in a year, eighteen years until
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  Speaker 4: they're you know, an adult.
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  Speaker 3: And they're gone.
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  Speaker 4: You know, you're not going to be able to tie
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  Speaker 4: them down on Saturdays anymore.
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  Speaker 3: Nine hundred and thirty six saturdays is all you've got.
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  Speaker 1: And even then, let's just look at a Saturday, because
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  Speaker 1: you take away, Saturdays don't really mean much until they're
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  Speaker 1: at school and like as in because every day is.
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  Speaker 4: Oh no, you can make saturdays. Saturdays are even better
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  Speaker 4: before school.
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  Speaker 1: Really well yeah, because to a kid who doesn't go
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  Speaker 1: to school, then how is Saturday different from Wednesday?
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  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I understand that point. Yeah, although a lot
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  Speaker 4: of kids are in some form of care. You know
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  Speaker 4: how our society is so busy and we're so reliant
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  Speaker 4: on economic drivers to you know, mum and dad have
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  Speaker 4: both got to be working with both parents both care
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  Speaker 4: give us lots of single parents who don't have that
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  Speaker 4: flexibility anyway, So children are in care. But nine hundred
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  Speaker 4: and thirty six Saturdays, I think that we've got to
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  Speaker 4: bear in mind that a lot of the time the
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  Speaker 4: kids are going to be involved in some sort of
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  Speaker 4: Saturday sports, so there goes part of your Saturday.
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  Speaker 3: And then of course once they turn.
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  Speaker 4: Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, they go and get a job, so
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  Speaker 4: there goes those Saturdays.
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  Speaker 1: And other kids' birthday parties are over like potentially three
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  Speaker 1: or four in one Saturday, right, And.
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  Speaker 3: I am saying Saturday.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, we've got weekends, so we've got nine hundred
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  Speaker 4: and thirty six weekends. But you know, weekends are complicated,
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  Speaker 4: I guess is what I'm saying. This is what we've
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  Speaker 4: done in our family to.
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  Speaker 3: Deal with it. We feel the same way you do, Susie.
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  Speaker 4: Kylie and I have sort of thought we want our
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  Speaker 4: children to have a childhood that is memorable. We want
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  Speaker 4: them to have experiences that are going to build memories
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  Speaker 4: and build a resilience foundation for them. And when you
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  Speaker 4: think about it, like when you think about your favorite
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  Speaker 4: times with your family, how often do you say, oh,
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  Speaker 4: that that Saturday morning where we all sat in the
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  Speaker 4: lounge room and played candy Crush and you know, stand
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  Speaker 4: at our phones and watched YouTube, that was the best.
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  Speaker 4: We need to do more of those Saturdays. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: nobody ever says that, but people talk about I remember
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  Speaker 4: that time where we actually got ourselves out of bed.
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  Speaker 4: We everyone complained about it, but we got ourselves out
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  Speaker 4: of bed and we went to that nearby mountain and
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  Speaker 4: we climbed to the top of it, and we took
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  Speaker 4: some drinks and some stuff, but we forgot to take
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  Speaker 4: this and we got rained on and there was you know, and.
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  Speaker 3: Everyone remembers that one forever true.
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  Speaker 4: And we have these memories that you know, it's actually
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  Speaker 4: going up and doing stuff that creates it. So to
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  Speaker 4: get back to your initial question, I think that we've
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  Speaker 4: got to be really intentional about how we spend our time.
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  Speaker 4: I think in our society generally, too many of us
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  Speaker 4: were so busy that when we don't have to be busy,
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  Speaker 4: we stop all intention and we just park it in
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  Speaker 4: front of the couch and we watch something stupid like
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  Speaker 4: master Chief on my Kitchen Rules or one of those
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  Speaker 4: you know, wife the Bachelory, let's swap spouses or partners
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  Speaker 4: or whatever, and we just get into this ridiculous situation
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  Speaker 4: where we don't think at all. We just go vegetative,
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  Speaker 4: and our children miss out and we miss out our
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  Speaker 4: families miss out.
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  Speaker 3: So as a family, we've decided to super Saturdays.
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  Speaker 4: We've been doing it for a few years now, and
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  Speaker 4: every Saturday morning.
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  Speaker 3: Not everybody can attend.
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  Speaker 4: I need to make it clear sometimes because we've got
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  Speaker 4: six kids across three decades, so it's really hard to
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  Speaker 4: get six children to always be available. But we get
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  Speaker 4: the whole family together and we say this Saturday, we're
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  Speaker 4: going to go and do this, and early in the
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  Speaker 4: morning we all wake up and we head out and
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  Speaker 4: we do that thing for at least two or three
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  Speaker 4: or four hours. Sometimes it's the whole day, sometimes it's
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  Speaker 4: half the day, sometimes it's a few hours. We make
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  Speaker 4: sure it's low cost or no cost, and we build memories,
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  Speaker 4: we take photos, and we we rejuvenate.
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  Speaker 3: Our family love that.
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  Speaker 1: So the Super Saturday thing, I can get my head
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  Speaker 1: around it. I love it how much though. The difference
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  Speaker 1: between recreating a new thing all the time versus say,
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  Speaker 1: for example, you know, going to the footy to follow
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  Speaker 1: a team with it and it's the same sort of thing,
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  Speaker 1: but you make a commitment to the kids, Like how
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  Speaker 1: important is it for it to be different versus consistent?
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  Speaker 4: Oh, I think that you just let your family do
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  Speaker 4: what the family feels inclined to do. I was talking
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  Speaker 4: to my dad about his favorite memories from growing up
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  Speaker 4: when he was a kid, and he actually said precisely
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  Speaker 4: what you just identified. He said, I remember every weekend
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  Speaker 4: my family would follow our favorite football team from one
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  Speaker 4: ground to another and we'd watch them play. We loved
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  Speaker 4: home games, obviously, but we went everywhere across.
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  Speaker 3: They were in Sydney.
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  Speaker 4: He was a follower of the Western Suburbs Magpies rugby
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  Speaker 4: league team and they went all over Sydney watching the
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  Speaker 4: team every weekend through the cold months.
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  Speaker 3: That was their family routine. That's what they did in
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  Speaker 3: the weekend.
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  Speaker 4: And he said some of the best memories just going
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  Speaker 4: to the footy with my parents or going fishing with
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  Speaker 4: my dad.
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  Speaker 3: So there was not a lot of variety in what
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  Speaker 3: they did, and.
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  Speaker 4: It was low cost. You can't go to the footy
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  Speaker 4: forlow cost anymore. I read an article in the paper
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  Speaker 4: recently that said that to go and watch a game
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  Speaker 4: of AFL in Melbourne now costs eighty seven bucks a pop.
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  Speaker 1: That's if you buy the food from the venue, not
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  Speaker 1: a cheap bad that's just one hot dog.
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  Speaker 4: And I don't know if that's what all the tickets cost.
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  Speaker 4: But but you know, you could do low costs and
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  Speaker 4: no costing. I'll give you a couple of examples. The
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  Speaker 4: very first Super Saturday that we did, we packed the
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  Speaker 4: kids into the car and we went to we were
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  Speaker 4: in the Illawarra around Woollongong and there's this climb called
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  Speaker 4: Sublime Point. So we parked at the bottom. We saw
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  Speaker 4: the sign that said no children aloud.
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  Speaker 3: Because it's too dangerous for the kids. And the kids
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  Speaker 3: were like, we're doing it. Well, let's go.
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  Speaker 5: So we went up there and there was leeches and
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  Speaker 5: it was pouring with rain, and we had to go
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  Speaker 5: up these crazy ladders and inclines and we got to
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  Speaker 5: the top so that we can enjoy these beautiful views
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  Speaker 5: across the Illaharra and visibility was about five.
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  Speaker 4: Meters and we got to the bottom and got back.
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  Speaker 3: In the car.
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  Speaker 4: We're all dripping wet and there was blood spots on
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  Speaker 4: people's legs from the leech and we said, oh, kids,
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  Speaker 4: how is that?
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  Speaker 3: And they were like, that.
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  Speaker 1: Was awesome, the best I ever had.
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  Speaker 3: That's great.
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  Speaker 4: And you know, sometimes we just go to the beach
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  Speaker 4: and we go to the same beach and we play
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  Speaker 4: in those rock pools and we do that same thing.
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  Speaker 3: And other times we go to.
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  Speaker 4: The park and we just throw the frisbee around, or
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  Speaker 4: we go for that bike ride that we've done a
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  Speaker 4: hundred times. But the point is we do Super Saturday,
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  Speaker 4: and a couple of times a month we try and
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  Speaker 4: find something a.
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  Speaker 3: Bit different and we do that and the kids relish it.
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  Speaker 4: They just look forward to it and we build memories
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  Speaker 4: and relationships with our families.
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  Speaker 3: Doesn't have to be Saturday, it's just got to be Super.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I love that.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's lots of different benefits that you can
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  Speaker 1: probably create a list on them. But what do you
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  Speaker 1: think is the most important benefit that the kids know
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  Speaker 1: that you are prioritizing them above anything else. Or is
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  Speaker 1: it the experience and the memory specific or what is
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  Speaker 1: it that makes this idea and these sorts of memories
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  Speaker 1: so important.
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  Speaker 4: There's a handful of things. The first thing I would
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  Speaker 4: say is this old. It's almost trite, it's almost easy.
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  Speaker 4: This quote that says to a child love is spelled
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  Speaker 4: t im, and I think more than anything, that's what
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  Speaker 4: it does. It says we love you, we care about you,
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  Speaker 4: we're investing in you. Matter number one, But there's a
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  Speaker 4: handful of other things as well, you know, And it's
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  Speaker 4: great to be outside. Nature is fuel for the soul,
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  Speaker 4: right and how much better is it to go for
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  Speaker 4: a high cup of local hill, or go play in
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  Speaker 4: the local lake or at the local beach, or go
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  Speaker 4: for a bike ride, then sit there and stare at
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  Speaker 4: a TV and say, oh, that was really nice.
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  Speaker 3: Family one. I'm not bagging.
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  Speaker 5: You know.
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  Speaker 4: It's sometimes nice to sit down with a pizza and
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  Speaker 4: a movie on a Friday night and just watch a
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  Speaker 4: fun movie together. That's great too, but you don't want
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  Speaker 4: that to make up the bulk of your family time.
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  Speaker 4: We live in we live in communities where so many
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  Speaker 4: of us now you know, we live on our four
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  Speaker 4: hundred square meter block or our five hundred square meter block.
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  Speaker 4: There's nowhere for the kids to go and nothing for
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  Speaker 4: the kids to do unless we become intentional and proactive
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  Speaker 4: about it. And so it gets the kids outside and
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  Speaker 4: against them moving. We get to have these shared experiences
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  Speaker 4: which build memories, which strengthen relationships, and like I said,
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  Speaker 4: for me, it all goes back to this idea that
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  Speaker 4: the kids know that they matter.
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  Speaker 2: Beautiful. I love everything about that Super Saturday's Luke You
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  Speaker 2: with Me Yes beautiful, that was happening. It's happening for
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  Speaker 2: the hold stock to Justin Coilson, Thanks so much for
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: your time pleasure. For more info in all of Justin's books, podcasts,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: and programs, you can jump online to Happy Families dot
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  Speaker 2: com dot au to find out how to have Justin
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: speak at your school, or you can come along to
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: your organization as well. Go to Justin Coulson dot com