Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #329 Tricky Behaviours with Andrew Fuller

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#329 Tricky Behaviours with Andrew Fuller · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
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Speaker 2: Now, So, the first thing that I think of parents
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Speaker 2: is that you don't have to show up to every
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Speaker 2: argument you're invited. True, that's a revelation for some parents,
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Speaker 2: because some cares have to manage everything.
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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My mom
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Speaker 1: and dad.
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Speaker 3: Gooday. This is doctor Justin Courson, the author of six
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Speaker 3: books about raising happy families. Here with Kylie, my wife
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Speaker 3: and mum to our six kids. Hey, Kylie. A couple
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Speaker 3: of weeks ago, we had a conversation with Andrew Fuller,
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Speaker 3: child and adolescent psychologist, author of twenty two books. We
0:36
Speaker 3: talked about his book The eight Is Out of Feelings.
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Speaker 4: It was such a great conversation.
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Speaker 3: Inspiring guy. We wanted to have another conversation with him,
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Speaker 3: this time about managing tricky behavior. He's got a book
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Speaker 3: of the same name, Tricky Behaviors. And Andrew has kindly
0:48
Speaker 3: decided to join us again for this conversation about managing
0:52
Speaker 3: the people around us. Well, Andrew, is it even right
0:55
Speaker 3: to say that we're managing the people around us with
0:56
Speaker 3: their tricky behaviors? Is that an appropriate term, do you think.
1:00
Speaker 2: Hi, Kylie, Hi, justin well trying to at least I
1:04
Speaker 2: suppose there are times when we need to in families
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Speaker 2: de escalate conflict and de escalate issues, and so being
1:12
Speaker 2: able to calm and disturb waters or distress behaviors is
1:18
Speaker 2: an important skill for any parent.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I guess I always chafe at the idea
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Speaker 3: of somebody managing me because autonomy is so important. But
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Speaker 3: there does need to be some working with on this.
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Speaker 3: So you've got a model in your book Tricky Behaviors.
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Speaker 2: That yes, yes, So basically I mean it's important, I guess,
1:36
Speaker 2: to be able to have a family culture. Maybe just
1:39
Speaker 2: to answer the management stuff, it's important have a family
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Speaker 2: culture where we can recover from upset and from distress,
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Speaker 2: and so learning that these are temporary feelings rather than
1:51
Speaker 2: business as usual is pretty important. So I developed beginning
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Speaker 2: in my career in psychiatric crisis services, but basically way
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Speaker 2: of working with families to resolve that unsurprisingly called resolve,
2:06
Speaker 2: and resolve is an acronym, and the first part is
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Speaker 2: to respond with respect. So the first thing I say
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Speaker 2: to parents is that you don't have to show up
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Speaker 2: to every argument. You're invited to. And that's a revelation
2:18
Speaker 2: for some parents, because some parents think they have to
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Speaker 2: manage everything, and indeed they don't. Tricky kids particularly will
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Speaker 2: give you lots of reasons to argue, but you don't
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Speaker 2: have to argue with all of them. Sometimes it's worth
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Speaker 2: just going, h that's interesting and move on. But there
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Speaker 2: are other times when you want to basically respond rather
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Speaker 2: than react. So it's not waiting until you've got a
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Speaker 2: head of steam to match their head of steam. It's
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Speaker 2: actually going, okay, I need to catch this fairly, fairly clearly,
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Speaker 2: and fairly quickly. So that's where the engage comes in.
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Speaker 2: So rather than waiting, because often one of the mistakes
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Speaker 2: are seeing families is that they hope that the behavior
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Speaker 2: will blow over, and generally, without some help, kids don't
3:04
Speaker 2: just allow the behavior to blow over, particularly if it's
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Speaker 2: an angry outburst or a tantrum or something like that.
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Speaker 2: And so really it's probably better rather than being backfooted,
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Speaker 2: to be front footed and to sort of say you're okay,
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Speaker 2: you seem a bit out of sources, you seem unhappy
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Speaker 2: what's happening, and I generally find that that won't amplify
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Speaker 2: the problem. In fact, it lessens it having somebody who
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Speaker 2: essentially is seeking out and understanding what's going on. Now,
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Speaker 2: the next part of it, the s part of resolve
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Speaker 2: is seek understanding. Now, in this part, we really want
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Speaker 2: to help parents to learn to understand that what's behind
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Speaker 2: the behavior. So the aim of resolve is to make
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Speaker 2: misbehavior the abnormal state in a family, not the normal state,
4:00
Speaker 2: because their misbehavior is a normal state in the family.
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Speaker 2: It's held for everybody. Yeah, that's right. And so you're
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Speaker 2: basically trying to think about how you might change language.
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Speaker 2: And so the most powerful question is what here? So
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Speaker 2: what's going on for you? Are you okay? What's happening?
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Speaker 2: Are you know? And we use an acronym of holts,
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Speaker 2: which is hungry, angry, lonely, tireds dressed? You know what's
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Speaker 2: happening for you? You're not normally like this? Are you
4:27
Speaker 2: what's going on? Are you hungry? Are you angry? Are
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Speaker 2: you lonely? Are you tired? Your stressed? And so basically,
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Speaker 2: whether you ask those things explicitly of a child or
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Speaker 2: just think them will give you a kind of response
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Speaker 2: As a parent. It's then about observing feelings. Now, anyone
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Speaker 2: who's ever watched a child do a tantrum, will know that.
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Speaker 2: It's like watching the surf roll and they're a peach,
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Speaker 2: and there are troughs, and it's really fascinating to watch
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Speaker 2: as kids basically go through those pizza and troughs. And
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Speaker 2: every parent's observed a child who's basically get into a
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Speaker 2: trough and then they almost read themselves up again. It's
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Speaker 2: like a surge back into our peak. Ye.
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Speaker 3: Usually it happens when you make eye contact with them.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's that's right. And so there are only
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Speaker 2: very limited moments in which you can communicate anything effectively.
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Speaker 2: And it's important to know that because if you just
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Speaker 2: try and talk your way right through this, it just
5:21
Speaker 2: amplifies the whole thing and worse thans it.
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Speaker 3: So I just want to quickly jump in and do
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Speaker 3: a quick summary, Andrew, because resolve there's obviously I can't
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Speaker 3: count that one, two, three, four, five. There are seven
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Speaker 3: thank you, seven elements and the first four the R
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Speaker 3: is respond with respect, the.
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Speaker 2: Ease, engage, yep.
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Speaker 3: The S is that we seek understanding, We try to
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Speaker 3: understand what's going on the o's, we observe their feelings.
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Speaker 2: That's right now. The l is lowered the tone. It's
5:53
Speaker 2: the mysterious world of neurochemistry and behavior. So we know
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Speaker 2: that basically behind mister behavior is a brain that's not
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Speaker 2: functioning well, and behind a brain that's not functioning well
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Speaker 2: is a neurochemical imbalance and the balance of the neurochemicals
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Speaker 2: in the brain, and so understanding as a parent those
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Speaker 2: makes a gigantic difference. Now, there are four major ones
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Speaker 2: that we try and help peris to get their heads around.
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Speaker 2: Two that we want more of, generally speaking, and so
6:23
Speaker 2: that we generally want less of. So the two we
6:26
Speaker 2: want less of adrenaline and quartisol. Now they're the stress hormones.
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Speaker 2: So basically these are adrenaline works to make kids what
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Speaker 2: I call chatty, ratty and scatty. They're over the place
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Speaker 2: where they about and they'll often talk abut miles an
6:43
Speaker 2: hour quartersole as the reverse that makes particularly teenage is monosyllabic.
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Speaker 2: It's okay. And so being able to lower those down
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Speaker 2: makes a gigantic difference. And one of the key things
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Speaker 2: in families that lowers it down a repetitions and rituals.
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Speaker 2: This is the way we do it, which part of us,
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Speaker 2: don't you understand justin I've got a whole life to
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Speaker 2: how it's going to be fun there eventually, and in
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Speaker 2: our family, this is how we do it. I'm glad
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Speaker 2: we've got that understood. That's excellent, well practiced, well practiced.
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Speaker 2: The three that we're generally like more of a dopamine,
7:22
Speaker 2: which is of course the driving neurochemical motivation, and also serotonum,
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Speaker 2: which is the most powerful and depressent over human can't
7:31
Speaker 2: and that's true love through feedback, through connection and so on,
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Speaker 2: and thinking about those makes a gigantic difference. The v
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Speaker 2: ing result is to value add so just you know,
7:42
Speaker 2: simply being prepared at times to turn to your children
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Speaker 2: and saying, how can I help? What can I do
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Speaker 2: that's useful here? Because it's easy to spend a lot
7:53
Speaker 2: of your time doing things that aren't useful. And I
7:55
Speaker 2: think it's important to realize that sometimes some about the
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Speaker 2: things that we're picked up on journey of life and
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Speaker 2: not always appropriate. For example, pep talks used to work
8:05
Speaker 2: with kids, but they don't anymore, and so basically giving
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Speaker 2: them a pep talk might feel kind of sort of
8:14
Speaker 2: rewarding for the parent, but often is pretty boring for
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Speaker 2: the child and the e the final part of resolves
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Speaker 2: respond with respect, engaged understanding, observed feelings, lower the tone
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Speaker 2: that you add, and then finally empower. And that's about
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Speaker 2: thinking about what the long term aim of this is.
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Speaker 2: So it's not for more parents to manage children's behavior,
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Speaker 2: but it's for children to learn how to manage their
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Speaker 2: own behavior. And so our long term aim is to
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Speaker 2: go through this process and families will go through it
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Speaker 2: time and time again until the child really knows how
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Speaker 2: to do this themselves. Somewhere around the age of fifty six.
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Speaker 3: Or so, Fingers crossed, we're talking with Andrew Fuller, child
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Speaker 3: an adolescent psychologists, the author of the eight is It
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Speaker 3: of Feelings and Tricky Behaviors among some of his twenty
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Speaker 3: plus books. We're going to talk about this resolve idea
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Speaker 3: in just a sec for managing tricky behaviors with two
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Speaker 3: specific scenarios, parents of toddlers who are melting down and
9:16
Speaker 3: parents of a teenager who is addicted to screen. So
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Speaker 3: that's coming up next on The Happy Family's podcast.
9:21
Speaker 1: It's a Happy Families podcast. For a happier family, try
9:26
Speaker 1: a Happy Families membership, because a happy family doesn't just
9:30
Speaker 1: happen details at happy families dot com dot au.
9:34
Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
9:36
Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers now, And today we're
9:39
Speaker 4: having a wonderful conversation again with Andrew Fuller.
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Speaker 3: Hey, Andrew, Let's say I've got a toddler really losing
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Speaker 3: the plot. It's I don't know, six point thirty at night,
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Speaker 3: already had dinner, belly full of food, had a bath,
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Speaker 3: supposed to be going to bed, but my toddler decides
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Speaker 3: I don't want to go to bed. I've had enough.
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Speaker 3: I'm cranky, I'm angry, and I'm going to scream the
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Speaker 3: house down. Let whole neighborhood know that my parents are
10:01
Speaker 3: awful people. How do we use your resolve model with
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Speaker 3: a toddler who's having this moment and exhibiting these tricky behaviors.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the problems the thing around with toddlers
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Speaker 2: is you're going to end up behaving like one yourself
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Speaker 2: if you're not careful. So everyone in the family's having
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Speaker 2: a tantrum. That's going to be really successful, isn't it.
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Speaker 2: And so we need to recognize here that you know,
10:26
Speaker 2: in terms of brains, there are many ways of processing information,
10:30
Speaker 2: which we could talk about for yongks, but in terms
10:33
Speaker 2: of emotions, there are really only two major pathways, and
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Speaker 2: once driven by your amign deal which kicks off that
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Speaker 2: kind of fear response agitation, and the other is basically
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Speaker 2: your hypothermis and your pituitary land releasing oxytocin. Oxytocin is
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Speaker 2: a hormone of love, connection, belonging, trust, friendship, all that
10:52
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, right, And so you have a choice
10:55
Speaker 2: at that moment when a child's tantrumming, which way do
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Speaker 2: you want to go? Now, many parents, of course were
11:02
Speaker 2: parented through parenting through the amigal er if you know
11:05
Speaker 2: that much else they'll be held to back. But really
11:09
Speaker 2: that's spy gone practices. That doesn't work anymore. And so
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Speaker 2: here's your chance to really to help this child to
11:16
Speaker 2: learn a really important lesson in their lives, which is
11:19
Speaker 2: about how to soothe themselves long term when they're distressed.
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Speaker 2: And the way we all learn to do that is
11:27
Speaker 2: by being initially soothed. And that means that the role
11:32
Speaker 2: of parents is probably to swoop in pick up possibly comfort.
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Speaker 2: So there's obviously something wrong. What's going on for you?
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Speaker 2: Are you Okay, I can see you distressed. What's happening?
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Speaker 2: How about I read you a story as you quietly
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Speaker 2: moved towards the bedroom holding them. But at the same time,
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Speaker 2: it's the business. The main game is, as I said before,
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Speaker 2: was resolved, is to empower. So you're wanting that child
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Speaker 2: down the track, and it will be a long way
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Speaker 2: down the track. So learn how to do this for
12:03
Speaker 2: themselves when they're upset, because otherwise they won't be able
12:07
Speaker 2: to do it in their general life.
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Speaker 4: I love how you humanize our children and their emotions, Andrew.
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Speaker 4: It's just it's empowering as a parent to recognize and
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Speaker 4: know that these little people and their emotions are just
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Speaker 4: part of the human experience.
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Speaker 2: But I'm waiting.
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Speaker 4: I'm wondering if you can help us resolve an issue
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Speaker 4: with our teenager. We've got a teenager, they've got ADHD,
12:34
Speaker 4: suffer from anxiety, and we just can't get them off
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Speaker 4: their screens. How do we work through resolving that challenge.
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Speaker 2: Well, most of the interventions that parents take to really
12:48
Speaker 2: try to get kids off screens just don't work. And
12:52
Speaker 2: so essentially, the first thing I think we've got to
12:56
Speaker 2: realize is that when a young person is playing a
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Speaker 2: computer game, they're in a hypnotic trance, and so they're
13:04
Speaker 2: in changed. I mean, computer games are incredibly brilliantly designed
13:08
Speaker 2: to entrance people, and so if you just jump into
13:13
Speaker 2: a room and say right, you know, get off your computer,
13:16
Speaker 2: it's done for bed, all that kind of stuff, basically,
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Speaker 2: they're going to respond incredibly negatively. So you're far better
13:25
Speaker 2: to sort of shuffle alongside them. I know you can't
13:29
Speaker 2: do this all the time, but at the same time,
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Speaker 2: just to ask them, well, you know what the game,
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Speaker 2: what's the game, and how's it going, and you know,
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Speaker 2: you know what's happening in it and so on, which
13:39
Speaker 2: they won't like to have a conversation with you because
13:41
Speaker 2: they're absorbed in the game. But at least what you're
13:43
Speaker 2: doing is gently easing them out of this. Now, particularly
13:47
Speaker 2: for kids with tension problems, particularly ADHD, computer grams are
13:53
Speaker 2: incredibly soothing. So they're even more if you like, entrancing
13:57
Speaker 2: than they would be for you know, kids, was just
14:00
Speaker 2: more functioning, and so you're going to realize the power
14:02
Speaker 2: of this. So of course, when you're a kid that
14:06
Speaker 2: has ADHD, the world is boring, really really boring, and
14:12
Speaker 2: so what you're after is excitement, and guess where you
14:15
Speaker 2: can get that excitement computer games. And so what we
14:19
Speaker 2: need to do is to trade on computer games strongly.
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Speaker 2: Computer games aren't bad, it's just basically there are other
14:27
Speaker 2: things to do in life. And so essentially what you
14:30
Speaker 2: have to do is earn your computer game time by
14:33
Speaker 2: doing preceding skills. Now, because computer games are designed so
14:37
Speaker 2: brilliantly to basically get dopamine peaks. Dopamine the neurochemical that
14:42
Speaker 2: relates to motivation, that once you've finished a computer game,
14:47
Speaker 2: basically you're lowered in levels of dopamine, which is why
14:50
Speaker 2: it's almost useless or pointless trying to get a teenager
14:53
Speaker 2: do anything productive after they've had extensive screen time. And
14:57
Speaker 2: so what you've got to then go is in order
15:01
Speaker 2: to play computer games by all means, but before that,
15:04
Speaker 2: you need to get the reading done, or you need
15:06
Speaker 2: to get the homework done or whatever whatever it is.
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Speaker 2: So you're doing that trade off all the time, and
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Speaker 2: that's it. Yeah, because because you see, you can't control
15:19
Speaker 2: this world, I think it's important to realize that. So
15:23
Speaker 2: maybe prior to twenty twenty you could get away with
15:25
Speaker 2: it a bit, but now given that young people have
15:29
Speaker 2: had all of their schooling, all of their entertainment, and
15:32
Speaker 2: all of their social linkage through computers, you're never going
15:36
Speaker 2: to win this again. The world's changed. It's time to
15:39
Speaker 2: get real about this. So in twenty nineteen, people would
15:43
Speaker 2: say stuff like, well, what you should do is never
15:45
Speaker 2: meet a friend that you never accept a friend online
15:48
Speaker 2: that you've never met face to face, and basically put
15:51
Speaker 2: the computer in the dining room. And you know this
15:56
Speaker 2: is just archaic stuff. Kids will laugh in your face
16:00
Speaker 2: if you suggest these things as absolutely ridiculous because the
16:04
Speaker 2: world's groved on and so the world is computer based now,
16:09
Speaker 2: and social interactions are also computer based. So a kid,
16:13
Speaker 2: if you said, well, I want you to shut down
16:16
Speaker 2: your computer and I want you to go outside and play,
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Speaker 2: most kids would probably say, so, you're actually wanting me
16:21
Speaker 2: to go and have a contract something. I might kill me,
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Speaker 2: so that what you want me to do, that's right.
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Speaker 3: But what I hear in both those examples, either with
16:29
Speaker 3: the toddle or with the child on the computer on
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Speaker 3: the screen, is I can hear the result coming out
16:35
Speaker 3: really clearly, the responding with the respect, the engaging with
16:40
Speaker 3: the child, and even a bit with the emotional state
16:43
Speaker 3: that they're in, this idea that we're seeking understanding, We're
16:46
Speaker 3: trying to get what's going on in their world, observing
16:49
Speaker 3: their feelings, lowering the tone. I mean, just listening to you. Seriously,
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Speaker 3: Kylie mentioned it based on the last conversation, but I'm
16:55
Speaker 3: sitting here listening and I'm like, yeah, I could, like,
16:58
Speaker 3: you're just easy to listen to, and you've brought my
17:01
Speaker 3: tone down. I feel like I'm calm, and I'm sort
17:04
Speaker 3: of I'm waiting for the big bang to happen somewhere
17:07
Speaker 3: because everything's so calm. But then there's the value add
17:10
Speaker 3: and the empower this idea. Okay, well, let's figure this
17:13
Speaker 3: out together. What's going to happen next? What are we
17:14
Speaker 3: going to do now? The model is really simple. It
17:18
Speaker 3: ties in a lot with my three e's of effective discipline.
17:21
Speaker 4: Yeah it does. But what I love about it is
17:23
Speaker 4: for the inexperienced person, you kind of look at this
17:25
Speaker 4: big long list and it feels like, Okay, step one,
17:28
Speaker 4: I've got to do this, Step two, I've got to
17:29
Speaker 4: do this, you know, and you're kind of working your
17:32
Speaker 4: way through it. But as I listened to Andrew, it
17:34
Speaker 4: kind of wasn't about steps. It's really about, you know,
17:38
Speaker 4: the way we respond to our kids holistically, as opposed
17:43
Speaker 4: to there's a step one and now there's a step two.
17:46
Speaker 4: You know, it just kind of everything merged into each
17:48
Speaker 4: other as he worked through it.
17:49
Speaker 3: Well, Andrew, what I really like about the resolve model
17:51
Speaker 3: that you've shared with this is that it's been forged
17:54
Speaker 3: in the fires of some of the most serious clinical
17:59
Speaker 3: psychological challenges that people can face, right. I mean you
18:02
Speaker 3: did this in a really intense environment.
18:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be sitting on bridges with people who are
18:09
Speaker 2: in gloomy moments, in the darkest hours of their lives.
18:13
Speaker 2: And yeah, forging this idea really of how do you
18:17
Speaker 2: stop people getting to that point? Which has really been
18:20
Speaker 2: the hallmark of my career. How do you stop people
18:22
Speaker 2: getting to those points in their lives? And most of us,
18:25
Speaker 2: to be honest, I think don't know how to resolve
18:28
Speaker 2: when relationships go wrong, when life goes wrong, we often
18:32
Speaker 2: are a bit stuck. We don't know quite what to do.
18:35
Speaker 2: I mean, for example, quite often with young people, when
18:39
Speaker 2: they have a bad day, they don't know that tomorrow
18:42
Speaker 2: can be different. I know this sounds a bit astonishing,
18:46
Speaker 2: to say, but quite often in my therapy room, I'll
18:48
Speaker 2: say teenagers, particularly, you know, if you do today exactly
18:53
Speaker 2: what you did yesterday and expect it to feel different,
18:57
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to work. And they look
18:59
Speaker 2: look be if somehow I've said something great revolution because
19:05
Speaker 2: they've never really thought about it, and there's not so obvious.
19:09
Speaker 2: Sometimes we don't think about these things well.
19:12
Speaker 3: The book is called Tricky Behaviors. Andrew Fuller is the
19:15
Speaker 3: author one of Australia's best known and loved child and
19:18
Speaker 3: adolescent psychologists. And Andrew, We've had a wonderful conversation with you.
19:22
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for joining us.
19:24
Speaker 2: It's been a de lot. Justin Conlie, thanks so much.
19:27
Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
19:29
Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. And if
19:32
Speaker 3: you'd like morefo about making your family happier, check out
19:35
Speaker 3: a Happy Family's membership. Pay a small monthly fee and
19:38
Speaker 3: get loads of support for your family to help your
19:40
Speaker 3: family to resolve many of the challenges that they've got.
19:43
Speaker 3: I can't wait to share Andrew's ideas with the Happy
19:45
Speaker 3: Family's community a little bit more. I think there's some
19:47
Speaker 3: really strong ideas. For more info, you can go to
19:49
Speaker 3: Happy Families dot com, dot you and make sure you
19:52
Speaker 3: check out Andrew's books. The ad is out of feelings
19:54
Speaker 3: and tricky behaviors. You can find them online and the
19:57
Speaker 3: bookstores everywhere it came