Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #939 Running at a B+

Transcript

#939 Running at a B+ · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Time poor parent who just wants answers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Now another week has flown by. I cannot believe that
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: it's Friday again.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: You're saying it's Friday again, but we're actually halfway through
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: the school term. And I know that because I'm doing it.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I still think that thing normally. I don't have a clue.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: The homeschool journey for us has been a rocky road.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: It has been a really challenging thing to step into
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: homeschool and try to look after a Grade nine child
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and a Grade four child. And when I say it's
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: been a really hard thing for us, I mean it's
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: been a really hard thing for you. Because my calendar
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: has been pretty full, and I've been in Perth and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: in Adelaide and in Sydney and Melbourne and all over Queensland.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I haven't been around nearly as much as I wish
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: that I could be. But when I arrived home at
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the end of last week, so I flew in on
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Friday night, you and I finally got to have a
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: date night. On Saturday morning, I had to take one
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: of our kids to a sporting event. When I came back.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I went surfing while she was at that because the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: parents aren't welcome to stay, so I went for a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: quick surf for forty five minutes, came back with her,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: walked into the living room and I saw you doing
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: homeschool at eight am on a Saturday. What's with that?
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: You're stelling my story already? Oh?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Is this what you were going to talk about for
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Older Better Tomorrow.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I'm definitely going to talk about that.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: There's big Tea's Then we're going to find out how
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Kylie had our our nine year old daughter homeschooling at
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: eight am Saturday. Before we dive into Older Better tomorrow. Though,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: before we hear that story, which has completely intrigued me,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I thought it would be good to do a quick revision.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: At the start of the year, we discussed openly that
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: we were going to be really transparent about our word
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of the year. How things are going with the big word,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the thing that we're focused on for the entirety of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. I'm just wondering, can you even remember
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: what your word was?
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Of course they can. It was embrace. My word was
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: in brain.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: How's that going?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Well, We're going to talk a lot about that as
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: we go through my WII.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Oh so that's another tease. It it is, can you
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: give us a little bit of a snippet?
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: But I think for me, I feel like I'm actually
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: doing really really well. There has been so much change
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: in my year and we're well, we're only.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: In well halfway through term one.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah yah. And as a result, it has required a
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: lot of kind of flexibility on my end and ability
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: to kind of shift and move in ways that I
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: wouldn't normally or naturally want to go. And it hasn't
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: always looked pretty. And as a result, it would be
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: really really easy for me to just be really hard
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: on myself and pull myself to pieces and lose motivation
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: as a result. But because my word this year has
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: been embraced, it's just an acknowledgment that it looks really
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: messy right now. But this is where we're at and
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I just need to keep moving forward and keep getting curious.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: And as I do that, the arha moments are coming
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: and the experiences that we're having are a result of
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: me being able to sit in those harder places. So
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I think I'm actually doing really well.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I love hearing that my word, can you remember what
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: my word was.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Your word was present.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you remember that, because I've totally forgotten.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. I hadn't forgotten at all.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Can I have a lot of your presence in our
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: home at the moment. No.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: But that's why I wanted it to be my key word,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: because when I am here, I've got to be present.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I can't be distracted, because I know, with a calendar
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: that has me speaking all over the country so much,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: it's really important to me that I'm absolutely present. I'd
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: love to ask you, have you noticed anything about my
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: capacity to be present when I'm here?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, now you're putting me on the spree.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Did you feel like I'm doing okay? Am I doing
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: better than last year? Or is it just more of
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the same. No, we haven't rehearsed this. I have no
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I did what you're going to say about I could
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: be in a whole lot of trouble.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Being completely honest, I can't actually answer that because I
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: feel so run off my feet and pulled in so
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: many directions at the moment that even when you're at home,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: I'm not actually aware of what you're doing because my
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: load is so busy, so.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: You're not present. You're so busy embracing what you're doing.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I'm so present in the moment of what I'm doing
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: that I'm not aware of what anyone else is doing.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, here's what I have done. I don't know
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: if you've noticed. I've deleted all the games from my phone.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I have no games on my phone.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Are you sure?
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I'm one hundred percent sure it's gone. I did have
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: a game on there for a little while, and I
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: discovered that it was taking me away from being present,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and so I'm actually I'm giving myself a B plus
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: because I did have the game there and it took
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: me away, like incredibly. I've also deleted all of my
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: social media apps, so my team are now running all
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of our social media. I'm not involved in it at all,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and I'm finding that it's so I've decided to call
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: social media the great unhappiness machine, because it pulls us
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: away from the things that matter most.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I haven't done that entirely, but I deleted all
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: my games. Yes, and I have put a time limit
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: of fifteen minutes on my social media. I really like
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: to see my friend's faces, see their kids, and fifteen
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: minutes is enough. I don't actually need any more. But
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: if I have more time, you start to find myself scrolling.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: So I've really found that that's made a huge difference.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And I've activated screen time on my phone, which means
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I don't access any of my apps until eight am
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: each day and it goes to sleep by nine pm.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: So no screens from nine pm till eight am helps
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: you to be more present as well.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: It's crazy, I can't do anything with my phone, so
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: I don't use it.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, brilliant. I genuinely believe that it is the unhappiness machine.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I've deleted the apps made a really
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: big difference, but I sort of took a bit of
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: a dive and was in it for too long, So
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I'm giving myself a B plus. There's room for improvement.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I think that being present though, I'm feeling the difference,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: and I'm hoping that you'll start to notice the difference
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: when I am here that I'm being present. Let's talk.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I'll do better tomorrow. Tell us the story that you've
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: has hanging out for about why our nine year old
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: is doing her homeschool stuff on a Saturday morning. Was
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: she doing catch up because she did nothing during the week.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Is that what happened?
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Partly all right, partly. A couple of days ago, we
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: had a really, really tricky day. I had to leave
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: the house very early. She got left with her big sister.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: They had a bit of an altercation. I came home
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: and she was in a fareral mood. She was not
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: interested in anything I had to say. And she found
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: her lego and she started playing with that. I attempted
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: multiple times throughout the day to get her attention, and
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: we got nowhere. You came home, took one look at
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: it and said to me, has she done your school
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: work today? You said no, and I said no. But
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: what happened as the day progressed. What I saw was
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: she was able to emotionally regulate herself in her own time,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: in her own way. And by the time she got
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: to late afternoon, while I was finishing up some tiding
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: in the house and doing the dinner, she came and
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: asked me what she could do to be helpful, and
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: we completely blitzed her bedroom together. She had dinner with me,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: we read stories, and we went to bed and we
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: had this beautiful, calm night and I was just rethinking
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: about the experiences that we've had previously while she was
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: at school. I would have sent her off to school
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: on a day like that where she.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Was really disregulated.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: She would have gone to school, and one of two
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: things would have happened. I would have either got a
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: phone call from the school or an email to say,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Emily's had a pretty bad day today, this is what's happened,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: and we would have had to have a conversation, or
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: she would have kept it all in and by the
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: time she got home that afternoon, she would have unleashed
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: her wrap upon me and everybody else in her site,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: and we would have had a really, really challenging afternoon
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: and evening. And so from there I kind of just
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: recognized that this is the beauty that homeschool provides. While
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: it's really really challenging and hard, because every day at
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: the moment looks really different.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: And it requires your full presence, full present hundred percent
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: of the time, what it does.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Gift me and my child is the acknowledgment that not
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: every day looks the same. Firstly, I don't feel great
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: some days, and I don't want to do things some days,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: and that's okay right now, she's nine. As a result
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: of that, she had an excursion on Wednesday, which meant
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Monday Tuesday. Wednesday was no school. Thursday. We sat down
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: and we started to do some work, but we were
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: a whole week behind. We're starting on Thursday. So I
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: said to her, let's do a little bit this morning.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: And I said, and once we've had lunch and we've
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: spent some time with some friends, then we can do
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: some in the afternoon. And because I'd prepped her, I
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: told her what needed to happen. She was actually really
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: open to it. When we sat down, I said, okay,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: we're going to do English. She said, I don't want
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: to do English. And I said, okay, what do you
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: want to do? And she pulled up science. So I've
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: got this kid who I never realized. She is motivated
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: to do science and history of all things. She loves them.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: So I pulled up her science report.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I love this. I know I'm interrupting you, but this
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: is critical because what you're highlighting is motivation is high
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: when autonomy needs are supported.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: One hundred percent. So she pulled up a science report,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: she had to watch a video, we had to do
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: some things, and then she had to make a diorama
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: of a paper mache volcano. When I saw that, honestly,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: I rolled my eyes and I thought.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Oh no, my heart sinks. I'm thinking my mess. I'm
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: not going to see my dining table for three days.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: She said, Mum, can we do it? Can we do it?
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: She was so excited, unbelievable, miracle of miracles. We had
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: everything in the house that she needed, and so she
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: literally got started, literally just got started all by herself
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: and spent hours working on this thing. I showed her
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: how to make the paper mache glue. She thought it
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: was the best thing in the world. She absolutely had
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: a ball. Before I knew it, we actually had this
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: really cool looking volcano.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: So just on this there's obviously a handful of really
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: important advantages to traditional schooling, and there are also some
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: substantial disadvantages. Homeschooling offers its own variety of advantages and disadvantages.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: But what I'm hearing here with this homeschool situation is
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: we've got a child who is saying, I don't feel
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: like doing English, but I'll do science. There's autonomy in it,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: super excited about doing this task. And the critical thing
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: is she can spend hours on it. Hours she can monotask,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: get fully focused and do it for a day, two days,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: three days, if that's what she wants to do. Because
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: there's no set schedule, there's no bell going off and saying, well,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: we've got to go and do this thing now, we
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: don't have to worry about transitioning from A to B
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: to C. And at this point in her development, that's
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: appropriate and it's wonderful for her, and her motivation stays
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: high as a result.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: And that was one of the biggest struggles she had
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: at school, was that she would get involved in a
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: task and get pulled away, and then she'd get pulled away,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: which meant that each time she started a task, her
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: motivation was actually really low because she recognized that she
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: would never get to finish it. And so the struggle
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: that we were having in relation to that were pretty
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: big in the classroom. So Friday came along and I
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: woke up early, and there was just something that clicked
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: inside me. She gets up between six and six thirty
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: in the morning, and it's actually probably the time where
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: she's the most compliant. As the day wears on, she
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: gets a little bit harder to deal with Dhill and
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: I just looked at her when she walked in to
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: have a cuddle morning cuddles with me, and I said, em,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I've been thinking about it. We get up nice and
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: early in the morning and normally we go to the
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: chapel with your sisters and we'll do some Bible study together.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: I said, what would it look like if we started
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: the day was school work? I said, how would that work?
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: And she looked at me and she said, I love
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: it really And I said to okay, well, we don't
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: have bubble study today. Should we just start? This was
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: seven am on Friday morning. The other girls were having
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a sleeping and she said, I'll
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: go get the computer. So we sat in our bed.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: We started to do some English. I did some reading
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: with her. I pulled out her learning sheets where she
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: had to do some comprehension work. She literally just sat
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: there next to me while I read to her. We
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: talked about the book, we talked about the characters, and
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: we just sat there and we did it. And I
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: realized really quickly that I had tapped into something that
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I hadn't previously recognized, finding the moments where she's most
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: motivated to work is the key to everything. If I
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: can tap into those moments, then schooling is easy.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I love this story, and that obviously explains why on
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Saturday morning she was up early and happy to do
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: some more school work because she was motivated to do
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the volcano diorama and the art, and you were doing
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: maths and creative ways to do her timestables and division like.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: It was so awesome to watch, even if it was
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: a Saturday morning. There's a level of privilege associated with
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about. We're in a position where you're
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: able to not work and therefore take the time and
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: provide the capacity for our daughter to be homeschooled and
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: for you to spend that time with her. I wonder,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: if we move away from the homeschool situation and our specifics,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: what the take home message is or time poor parents
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: who just want answers now, who are hearing this and saying, oh,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: that's great for you, But what do I do because
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: my kid's going to school or my kids don't want
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: to get things done. What's the real I'll do better
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: tomorrow take home message here?
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: So if I was to kind of sum everything up
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: for me, what has taken place in the last few
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: days is literally a revolution in the way I'm homeschooling.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: But regardless of whether it's homeschooling or dealing with friendship challenges,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: or an exercise regime or eating better, a revolution takes time.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: And I know we talk about the time poor parent
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: all the time, and for all of us there is
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: this feeling that there just aren't enough hours in the day.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Whilever we focus on that, it's going to be really
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: hard for us to be intentional about what needs to
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: take place. What I've experienced over these last five weeks
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: with Emily specifically, is that actually has required me sitting
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: in being in the moment with her and finding the
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: time to know my child. There are children, we know
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: them better than anyone else, and yet for many of us,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: because we feel so stretched, we still don't know them.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: And it has literally been sitting in that space with
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: her and starting to see things that I do know,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: but connecting more dots to the things that I do know.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: That is helping me to be more intentional about how
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I meet her needs and the things that she is
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: desirous to do, and that allows me to know her better.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: As I know her better, then I'm able to utilize
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: my time better and the ways that I can serve
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: and support and help her. It's all about time. It
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: really is all about time.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: To a child. Love is spelled tea. I am. We
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed the Happy Families podcast today. It's produced
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: by Justin Rowlan from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: executive producer. For more information about how to make your
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: family happier, where at happy families dot com, dot a
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: U and on all the social platforms.