Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #821 The Gift of Your Presence

Transcript

#821 The Gift of Your Presence · 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 1: time poor parent who just wants answers now.
0:10
Speaker 2: And so even when my mum wasn't able to be
0:13
Speaker 2: there for me, there were always always adults in my
0:17
Speaker 2: life who just literally loved on me.
0:21
Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mom
0:24
Speaker 1: and dad.
0:24
Speaker 3: Every Tuesday on the Happy Families podcast, we discuss a
0:28
Speaker 3: listener question. You can send your questions through to podcasts
0:31
Speaker 3: at happyfamilies dot com dot a youda. This is justin Colson.
0:35
Speaker 3: I'm here with Kyleie, my wife and mum to our
0:37
Speaker 3: six kids. Hey, Kylie, you pointed this out to me.
0:40
Speaker 3: It's been a while since we've had a look at
0:42
Speaker 3: how things are going with our reviews on Apple Podcasts,
0:46
Speaker 3: and I've got to say there's been like nearly one
0:48
Speaker 3: hundred reviews pop up there that we haven't talked about.
0:51
Speaker 3: We don't blow our own trumpet a lot, but I
0:52
Speaker 3: think that we need to just today. Is it okay?
0:54
Speaker 3: Can I read just two the two latest reviews that
0:57
Speaker 3: have landed because people are giving us five stars and
1:00
Speaker 3: saying we're helping.
1:00
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear them.
1:02
Speaker 3: Okay, So this one comes from Mitch Polly z M,
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Speaker 3: who says game change of five stars. I'm so grateful
1:07
Speaker 3: we live in a time where we have so many
1:09
Speaker 3: resources for parenting, but it can be really daunting and
1:12
Speaker 3: challenging to navigate with all the complicting information. The Happy
1:15
Speaker 3: Families podcasts are humbling and insightful with expert advice and
1:19
Speaker 3: real family stories. It's relatable and evidence based. My husband
1:23
Speaker 3: and I are able to self reflect and back our
1:25
Speaker 3: parenting decisions with expert advice and feel less like headless chooks.
1:30
Speaker 3: I love that, making it less daunting and less alone
1:32
Speaker 3: on our parenting journey. I truly believe this podcast has
1:34
Speaker 3: helped our family become more intentional with our time together
1:37
Speaker 3: and feel like a true team.
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Speaker 2: That was awesome. That's the second one.
1:40
Speaker 3: Okay, the second one comes from somebody called Barbecue Tray
1:43
Speaker 3: BBQ Trey new Father five stars. This podcast has helped
1:47
Speaker 3: me immensely with becoming a new parent. It helps me
1:49
Speaker 3: feel confident in my ability to make good decisions when
1:52
Speaker 3: dealing with difficult situations. It's been an anchor that helps
1:55
Speaker 3: whether the storm's so good. I love that, so we
2:00
Speaker 3: would love to just get to six hundred. It's only
2:01
Speaker 3: eight more reviews. If you have not yet rated and
2:04
Speaker 3: reviewed this podcast, can you jump on Apple Podcasts and
2:06
Speaker 3: do that for us? Like literally, in the app you're on,
2:08
Speaker 3: all you've got to do is push the review button
2:10
Speaker 3: and it will give you the chance to give us
2:12
Speaker 3: five stars and say something nice about us. We might
2:14
Speaker 3: have mentioned you on the podcast sometime next year, because
2:16
Speaker 3: that's often I check it, but I'd love to get
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Speaker 3: to six hundred. I'm actually going to check every day
2:21
Speaker 3: for the next couple of days and see if we
2:22
Speaker 3: can get to six hundred. Now, as I mentioned at
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Speaker 3: the start, we always do a listener question on a Tuesday,
2:28
Speaker 3: and Kylie, the one that I'm going to share with
2:30
Speaker 3: you is a little bit complex, but it applies to
2:33
Speaker 3: so many people. I also need to highlight though with
2:35
Speaker 3: this particular episode. Some of the things that I'm going
2:38
Speaker 3: to say are going to touch on some saw points,
2:40
Speaker 3: some sensitivities, and I hate to say them. I hasten
2:44
Speaker 3: to add that I'm saying them only to be helpful
2:47
Speaker 3: and only because that's what the data tell us, not
2:50
Speaker 3: because this is how it is for every single person.
2:53
Speaker 3: So the question comes from somebody who would just like
2:55
Speaker 3: to be known as Cage. She's preferring to be anonymous,
2:57
Speaker 3: so we're just going to call her Kate and and
3:00
Speaker 3: she basically says, growing up, one of my parents had schizophrenia,
3:03
Speaker 3: which had a huge impact on my life. The question, though,
3:06
Speaker 3: was not about schizophrenia, and I'm not qualified to answer that.
3:08
Speaker 3: That's not my area of expertise. What she does ask, though,
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Speaker 3: is for those of us who had an absent parent
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Speaker 3: or lack of a parent figure, is there any research
3:19
Speaker 3: or observations on what key skills they may be missing
3:23
Speaker 3: and therefore needs lean into. Are their parenting or general
3:26
Speaker 3: skills that I'm not likely to struggle with and should
3:28
Speaker 3: be more aware of as I try to do better
3:30
Speaker 3: for my family. And I read that, and I thought,
3:33
Speaker 3: we've got to talk about this because you and I
3:34
Speaker 3: fortunately were raised by both of our biological parents. We
3:37
Speaker 3: were very lucky in that regard. But there are so
3:39
Speaker 3: many kids who are not being raised by both parents,
3:41
Speaker 3: and they've had disrupted family lives.
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Speaker 2: But I think the acknowledgment is that it's not so
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Speaker 2: much about whether or not you were raised with two parents.
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Speaker 2: There's an acknowledgment there that whether having an absent parent.
4:00
Speaker 2: So we can grow up in a house with two people,
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Speaker 2: but were they present in your life?
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Speaker 3: Well, that's right, because in this case.
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Speaker 2: The reality is that for every single one of us,
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Speaker 2: there will be a story. There will be deficits in
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Speaker 2: our lives because the big people in our space growing
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Speaker 2: up weren't able to meet our needs in specific ways.
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Speaker 2: And we can look at our own lives and see
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Speaker 2: those deficits and recognize that they impact our lives. But
4:32
Speaker 2: if that's where our focus is, I really think that
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Speaker 2: we're never ever going to feel whole. We're going to
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Speaker 2: feel less than I think the emphasis has to be
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Speaker 2: moving forward, what are my strengths, because we've all got them,
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Speaker 2: We're not going to be great at everything, and so
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Speaker 2: much of the deficits, the weakness in our lives. Some
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Speaker 2: of it will be just a result of who we
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Speaker 2: are as individuals. Some of it will be as a
4:59
Speaker 2: result of how we were brought up. But the reality is,
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Speaker 2: and the research You've told me this so many times,
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Speaker 2: the research highlights that the more we focus on our strengths,
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Speaker 2: the happier we are, the better we are as individuals,
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Speaker 2: and those deficits, those weaknesses, they kind of come along
5:15
Speaker 2: with us and as we focus on our strengths, we
5:19
Speaker 2: can actually strengthen those.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that we all have gaps, but we
5:22
Speaker 3: also all have strengths. While you were talking, I remembered
5:25
Speaker 3: a story and I've done a quick google on it
5:27
Speaker 3: because I want to share it. It comes from the
5:30
Speaker 3: Adam grant ted podcast called Rethinking with Adam Grant and
5:34
Speaker 3: he's talking with IBM CEO Ginny Rametti.
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Speaker 4: My father abandoned our family when I was young. I
5:42
Speaker 4: was sixteen, My brothers and sisters were younger, and I
5:45
Speaker 4: happened to walk into the garage and I heard the
5:47
Speaker 4: conversation just a coincidence. I heard him tell my mother
5:50
Speaker 4: could care less what happened to her or any of us,
5:52
Speaker 4: and she could work out on the street for all
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Speaker 4: he cared for me in my life. That set the
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Speaker 4: bar for bad, that nothing could ever be that bad again.
6:00
Speaker 4: So anything from here now looks really good to me.
6:03
Speaker 4: And that feeling is really freeing and liberating, because I
6:08
Speaker 4: would go on in life to do really hard things
6:10
Speaker 4: and in the moment think, oh my god, if this
6:12
Speaker 4: doesn't work, I would always remember, it's never as bad
6:15
Speaker 4: as that was.
6:16
Speaker 3: And then she says this card, this is the clincher.
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Speaker 3: CEO of IBM.
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Speaker 4: Part of my shield would be we could never cause
6:23
Speaker 4: my mom trouble. So we had a study. It's like,
6:25
Speaker 4: we can't cause her problems. Do your homework, you know,
6:28
Speaker 4: because she's got enough. And my sisters and brother are
6:31
Speaker 4: all very successful as well. My mom will go like,
6:34
Speaker 4: what did I ever do? And we learned hard work
6:39
Speaker 4: took you to a better place.
6:40
Speaker 3: So what's going on here is family structure not great,
6:46
Speaker 3: family function not great. But these kids of the situation said,
6:51
Speaker 3: we've got to be awesome. Now that's kind of bringing
6:55
Speaker 3: me around to the first mind thing that I wanted
6:56
Speaker 3: to say, and that is that individual difference does matter.
6:58
Speaker 3: And you kind of said that as well. It's me
7:00
Speaker 3: reemphasizing your point. It depends on who you are, It
7:03
Speaker 3: depends on who your kids are, as to where you
7:05
Speaker 3: go from here.
7:07
Speaker 2: Well, and I think it depends on the village that
7:09
Speaker 2: you have. You know, single parenthood doesn't have to be
7:15
Speaker 2: the devastation that we attribute to it.
7:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, now I just want to talk about that and
7:21
Speaker 3: then come back to the village. Okay, just for a second.
7:24
Speaker 3: I want to emphasize and this is not about there's
7:27
Speaker 3: no blaming or shaming or judging or anything here. But
7:29
Speaker 3: when we look at the data, there is absolutely no
7:33
Speaker 3: doubt that things are harder for kids who are raised
7:36
Speaker 3: in single parent families. We know that in terms of well,
7:39
Speaker 3: when you got.
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Speaker 2: Well, they've got the odds stacked up against them before
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Speaker 2: they've even walked out the door.
7:43
Speaker 3: If there are two parents, there's more parenting happening, assuming
7:46
Speaker 3: the family is functioning at a half decent level. Two
7:48
Speaker 3: parents means that there are more people to do parenting,
7:51
Speaker 3: and more parenting that will happen, But we know that
7:53
Speaker 3: there's fewer financial resources. The data shows pretty.
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Speaker 2: Time restraint that ye supervision income education.
8:03
Speaker 3: In fact, I've just found something from the Brookings Institute
8:07
Speaker 3: which says that children raised by single mothers are more
8:09
Speaker 3: likely to fare worse on a number of dimensions, including
8:11
Speaker 3: school achievement, social and emotional development, health, and success in
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Speaker 3: the labor market. They are at greater risk of parential
8:16
Speaker 3: abuse and neglect, especially from living boyfriends who are not
8:18
Speaker 3: their biological fathers. They're more likely to become teen parents,
8:21
Speaker 3: and less likely to graduate from high school or college.
8:24
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a pretty sorry story when you look
8:26
Speaker 3: at the data that says children who end up in
8:29
Speaker 3: single parent families as the result of death, though that is,
8:33
Speaker 3: the death of one of their parents, don't have the
8:35
Speaker 3: same poor outcomes as children who are raised by single
8:37
Speaker 3: parents due to a divorce or out of wedlock birth,
8:39
Speaker 3: maybe because death, unlike divorce or out of wedlock child wearing,
8:42
Speaker 3: is more likely to be a random event, not connected
8:46
Speaker 3: to the attributes or temperaments of the parents, and the
8:48
Speaker 3: Institute of Family Studies says for children who come from
8:51
Speaker 3: single parent families, the verbal environment consists of hearing roughly
8:55
Speaker 3: six hundred words an hour. In comparison, children in intact
8:59
Speaker 3: families might here more than an average of two thousand
9:02
Speaker 3: words roughly three and a half times more per hour.
9:06
Speaker 3: By the age of three, the cumulative vocabulary of the
9:09
Speaker 3: child living in the single parent family is five hundred words,
9:12
Speaker 3: far below the eleven hundred word cumulative vocabulary possessed by
9:16
Speaker 3: a child from an intact family. The effects of this
9:19
Speaker 3: difference cumulate, resulting in the thirty million word gap at
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Speaker 3: age five. This early gap of basic skills tends to
9:27
Speaker 3: persist through life, leading to economic inequality and social immobility.
9:30
Speaker 3: Like this, just one thing after another and again, I'm
9:33
Speaker 3: saying this with only looking at the data, not trying
9:36
Speaker 3: to be horrible at all, but I wanted to do
9:40
Speaker 3: this specifically to highlight the point that this really comes
9:43
Speaker 3: down to the stuff that we're going to talk about
9:45
Speaker 3: in the second half the podcast. So, if you are
9:50
Speaker 3: raising children and you've got an absent parent, whether they're
9:53
Speaker 3: in the home or not, whether there's mental health issues,
9:55
Speaker 3: whether it's alcohol or drug abuse, whether it's being a
10:00
Speaker 3: you're doing it on your own. There are certain things
10:02
Speaker 3: that you can do to make sure that your kids
10:05
Speaker 3: don't experience the risk factors, that the gap is closed,
10:08
Speaker 3: and that your children can thrive.
10:10
Speaker 2: It's all about the village.
10:11
Speaker 3: The village.
10:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it reminds me of that research that
10:16
Speaker 2: you talked about, the woman who followed the kids in Hawaii.
10:21
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
10:21
Speaker 3: So this is Emmy Werner. She's a sociologist. Started to
10:24
Speaker 3: study in the mid nineteen fifties, finished in the nineteen nineties.
10:26
Speaker 3: And there are a lot of kids there from socially
10:28
Speaker 3: disadvantaged homes, single parent homes, families where dad was in
10:33
Speaker 3: prison or sometimes even mum was in prison. There was
10:35
Speaker 3: alcohol and or drug use and abuse. There was all
10:39
Speaker 3: kinds of challenges, intergenerational poverty, blah blah blah. I mean,
10:42
Speaker 3: just a pretty rough story about a third of those
10:45
Speaker 3: kids thrived. The one third who thrived compared to the
10:47
Speaker 3: two thirds who just followed the same unhealthy patterns of
10:50
Speaker 3: their parents. Sorry, the one third who thrived had one
10:54
Speaker 3: single adult, one caring adult, one adult who was there
10:57
Speaker 3: for them no matter what. Often not a parent, off
11:00
Speaker 3: a school teacher or a church leader or a Scout
11:03
Speaker 3: master or one of the guys down at the local
11:06
Speaker 3: surf club, or a neighbor or an artie or an
11:09
Speaker 3: uncle or a grandparent, just somebody who was always there
11:13
Speaker 3: for them.
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Speaker 2: It's just so powerful. And so if we find ourselves
11:17
Speaker 2: with deficits, then building our village to find people who
11:22
Speaker 2: can support those deficits, who actually bring to the table
11:25
Speaker 2: their strengths that fill those gaps in beautiful, synergistic ways.
11:31
Speaker 3: I want to ask you a question. It's a hard question,
11:33
Speaker 3: and I should have asked you before we started recording.
11:36
Speaker 3: But if the podcast suddenly cuts out, everyone know that
11:39
Speaker 3: I'm going to ask you a different question instead. You
11:42
Speaker 3: were raised by a mum who has learned a lot
11:44
Speaker 3: and changed a lot over the years, but while you
11:46
Speaker 3: were being raised when you were a child, I think
11:48
Speaker 3: it might be fair to say that, because of the
11:50
Speaker 3: trauma from her childhood and the issues that she was
11:53
Speaker 3: working through, you were in some ways raised by a
11:56
Speaker 3: parent who kind of fits the description that Kate in
11:59
Speaker 3: the email has brought up, that is absent and dealing
12:02
Speaker 3: with all sorts of head stuff. Did this village idea?
12:07
Speaker 3: I mean, I partly know the answer because I'm part
12:09
Speaker 3: of your life, and so I know at least part
12:11
Speaker 3: of the answer is yes. But to what extent did
12:13
Speaker 3: this village village idea impact you?
12:17
Speaker 2: I've always felt like I've had a village. When I
12:21
Speaker 2: was really young, we lived in New Zealand, where my
12:24
Speaker 2: mom's from, and we had a lot of extended family,
12:27
Speaker 2: and I was the eldest and as a result, my
12:32
Speaker 2: grandparents definitely had favorites and I was one of them,
12:35
Speaker 2: which is nice, and I knew that and I felt
12:38
Speaker 2: valued and I felt seen, and I felt heard, and
12:41
Speaker 2: I felt validated all of those things. And so even
12:44
Speaker 2: when my mum wasn't able to be there for me,
12:48
Speaker 2: there were always always adults in my life who just
12:53
Speaker 2: literally loved on me. My great grandfather is one of
12:57
Speaker 2: my most favorite human beings of all time. And you
13:01
Speaker 2: talk about these soft eyes and making sure that when
13:06
Speaker 2: the kids walk in the room that your face lights up,
13:08
Speaker 2: And my great grandfather did that for me and every
13:11
Speaker 2: moment of his life. And even now as an adult,
13:15
Speaker 2: there are a handful of people in my life who
13:18
Speaker 2: I would consider parental figures.
13:21
Speaker 3: And well, I remember there was one lady that you
13:24
Speaker 3: used to just call mum. Yeah, Jill, you just called
13:28
Speaker 3: her mum.
13:28
Speaker 2: And even now there's a lady she's in her seventies.
13:33
Speaker 2: I show up on her doorstep and it's like I
13:35
Speaker 2: just made her a day. Her whole face lights up.
13:37
Speaker 2: She picks up the phone and there is so much
13:40
Speaker 2: joy in her voice because she's hearing from me, and
13:44
Speaker 2: she listens that she recognizes that that's the gift that
13:49
Speaker 2: she can give me, is just a place to drop
13:52
Speaker 2: my bundle for half an hour an hour and chat
13:54
Speaker 2: with her, and I love her for it.
13:57
Speaker 3: The importance of relationships outside of the home cannot be
14:01
Speaker 3: cannot be understated. It's O Kate. I hope that that's useful.
14:04
Speaker 3: The other thing to remember, though, is relationships inside the
14:07
Speaker 3: home are so important and the experience of Kate, and
14:11
Speaker 3: also your experience and the experience of so many people
14:14
Speaker 3: who have either been raised in a home where they
14:16
Speaker 3: were missing a parent, or the parent was present but
14:18
Speaker 3: not really emotionally available. The relationships that are happening inside
14:22
Speaker 3: the home, I think may be even more important than
14:26
Speaker 3: what you've just described. As a parent, the most important
14:30
Speaker 3: thing you can do is be there. Just be there,
14:34
Speaker 3: And I don't know that it needs a whole lot
14:35
Speaker 3: more conversation other than the ability to listen, the ability
14:39
Speaker 3: to be present, the ability to tack the kids in
14:41
Speaker 3: at night, the ability to give them the safety and
14:43
Speaker 3: the security that you feel like you are lacking.
14:45
Speaker 2: I think sometimes kids put us on a pedestal when
14:48
Speaker 2: they're young. They think that we have all the answers, right,
14:52
Speaker 2: and we kind of live into that mentality as the
14:55
Speaker 2: adults in the space. We think that we should have
14:58
Speaker 2: all the answers. Early days, we kind of can have
15:02
Speaker 2: most of the answers, but the problems get bigger as
15:06
Speaker 2: our little people grow, and the reality is we don't
15:10
Speaker 2: have all the answers. But what I have been learning,
15:14
Speaker 2: and we've been learning and discovering together, is that my
15:18
Speaker 2: job is actually not to have all the answers. My
15:21
Speaker 2: job isn't to fix it all. My job is just
15:26
Speaker 2: to listen and provide a safe space so that when
15:29
Speaker 2: my kids are struggling, they can literally just drop their bundle.
15:33
Speaker 2: They can bring it to me and say this is
15:34
Speaker 2: too happy to carry, and for a brief moment in time,
15:37
Speaker 2: we can just hold each other.
15:39
Speaker 3: Okay, we're going to leave it there. I don't know
15:41
Speaker 3: a better way to finish this podcast than to say
15:43
Speaker 3: that if you have questions that you would like to
15:46
Speaker 3: ask us, we're more than happy to answer them. Podcasts
15:48
Speaker 3: at happy families dot com dot au. We will do
15:50
Speaker 3: our very best to be useful, to make your family
15:52
Speaker 3: flourish and to make your family happier. The Happy Fami's
15:55
Speaker 3: podcast is produced by Justin Rulan from Bridge Media. Craig
15:58
Speaker 3: Bruce is our excitektive producer. Podcasts at happy Families dot
16:03
Speaker 3: com dot au. To get in touch or follow us
16:05
Speaker 3: on Facebook, Instagram or at happy families dot com dot
16:09
Speaker 3: au