Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1176 - Competition and Kids: A Fresh Perspective

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#1176 - Competition and Kids: A Fresh Perspective · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Pink lunch boxes for Valentine's Day, a couple of really
0:09
Speaker 1: bad jokes that our kids have shared, and me issuing
0:13
Speaker 1: a mea Cooper because maybe maybe I've been too strong
0:18
Speaker 1: on one particular parenting behavior, that maybe I was wrong.
0:23
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying. Hello and welcome to the Happy
0:26
Speaker 1: Families Podcast, Real Parenting Solutions. Every day on Australia's most
0:29
Speaker 1: downloaded parenting podcasts. We adjustin and Kylie Colson and today
0:32
Speaker 1: I'll do better Tomorrow. It's the day Kylie where we
0:35
Speaker 1: talk about what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong,
0:37
Speaker 1: and how we can do better tomorrow. Because we care
0:39
Speaker 1: about parenting, we care about our kids. We want our
0:40
Speaker 1: families to be happier. I've got a couple of jokes
0:43
Speaker 1: that we've got to make our way to. But before
0:45
Speaker 1: we do that. Over the last few weeks, I've done
0:47
Speaker 1: a lot of professional development in schools as I've been
0:49
Speaker 1: running seminars around the country, and I bumped into somebody
0:53
Speaker 1: at Budroum Mountain State School. I was doing some PD
0:57
Speaker 1: there about emotional intelligence and well being in the classroom
1:01
Speaker 1: and a lady by the name of Corinne walked over
1:03
Speaker 1: to me. She said, I'm so excited to meet you.
1:06
Speaker 1: I have listened to every single episode of the Happy
1:10
Speaker 1: Families podcast. I listened to it every day. I never
1:13
Speaker 1: miss an episode, and I just wanted to say hello.
1:16
Speaker 1: We had the best conversation. She was just fabulous. She
1:19
Speaker 1: loves you much more than she loves me. Probably not
1:22
Speaker 1: surprised to hear that, And so I just wanted to
1:25
Speaker 1: say hi to Coren. Yeah, I just want to say
1:28
Speaker 1: hi to Krin because I thought that was awesome. All right,
1:30
Speaker 1: our kids are given a couple of gags lately.
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Speaker 2: Well it's all so much gags. They were actually talking
1:34
Speaker 2: about the worst lies that parents tell their kids. Yeah,
1:38
Speaker 2: and the one that jumped out at me from the
1:40
Speaker 2: long list was chick in the animal is different from
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Speaker 2: chicken the meat.
1:48
Speaker 1: Having that conversation because one of the kids wants to
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Speaker 1: be a vegetarian.
1:53
Speaker 2: So bad? What was yours?
1:54
Speaker 1: One of the kids walked in and she did this
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Speaker 1: really funny voice, like this really kind of voice. So
1:59
Speaker 1: I'm just going to do in my norm voice, but
2:00
Speaker 1: imagine a kid talking to you in that kind of voice.
2:03
Speaker 1: And she goes, hey, Dad, what's an HD? And I said,
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Speaker 1: I don't know what And she said, I don't know either,
2:12
Speaker 1: but the doctor reckons, I've got eighty of them on
2:16
Speaker 1: so many levels. Eighty HD. Just that's brilliant. It's an HD.
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Speaker 1: I don't know, but the doctor says, I've got eighty
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Speaker 1: of them.
2:27
Speaker 2: That explains so much.
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Speaker 1: All right, missus, happy families. What's happened this week that's
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Speaker 1: going to help you or help everyone to be better
2:33
Speaker 1: parents over the weekend and next week.
2:35
Speaker 2: Well, one of our daughters has started new school and
2:38
Speaker 2: it started off really well, and then the other day
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Speaker 2: she came home after a really really hard day.
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Speaker 1: Context around the nation, people have been starting new schools everywhere,
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Speaker 1: new high schools, new primary schools. But this particular daughter
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Speaker 1: has had a year and a half off school for homeschool,
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Speaker 1: and now she's decided, I'm in grade ten, I need
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Speaker 1: to go back to school. She's chosen the school, she's
2:59
Speaker 1: made all the decisions herself. We're supporting her in that,
3:03
Speaker 1: but suddenly it's hard.
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Speaker 2: And you had had a small conversation with her when
3:07
Speaker 2: she got home, and I tried to instigate I guess
3:12
Speaker 2: a deeper, a more explorative conversation with her later that night,
3:16
Speaker 2: and she still wasn't ready to talk. But the next day,
3:19
Speaker 2: as we were driving to school, I said, you know,
3:22
Speaker 2: how are you feeling today? I said, yesterday seems to
3:25
Speaker 2: have been a really hard day. She said, yeah it was.
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Speaker 2: I said, when you think about the experiences that you're
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Speaker 2: having right now at this new school, are they any
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Speaker 2: different from the kinds of experiences that you had previously
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Speaker 2: at school? Is it the school that you're at, like,
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Speaker 2: because we're going with a completely unconventional format of education.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a different model. This school works differently to
3:48
Speaker 1: most schools.
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Speaker 2: And whether or not the challenges are associated with the
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Speaker 2: new format or whether this is just school in general.
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Speaker 2: And she said, Mum, it's got nothing to do with
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Speaker 2: the format. She said, it's just kids these days. Like
4:00
Speaker 2: she really really struggles with the lack of respect and
4:05
Speaker 2: especially towards teachers in general. And so the classroom was
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Speaker 2: just really busy. She's at the moment doing subjects that
4:14
Speaker 2: do not interest.
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Speaker 1: Her, developing new relationships with new friends, the whole thing. Like,
4:19
Speaker 1: it's a lot much going on for kids when they
4:21
Speaker 1: start in your school.
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Speaker 2: And she said, and I just got to a point
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Speaker 2: where I was just complete overwhelm. Mum, and I said, okay.
4:28
Speaker 2: I said, when you talk about overwhelm, I said, are
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Speaker 2: you talking about emotional overwhelm? Are you talking about physical overwhelm?
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Speaker 2: Are you talking about just social overwhelm? Like? What overwhelm?
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Speaker 2: Is it specifically for you right now? Is this, you know,
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Speaker 2: kind of too much stimulus? And she said no, it's
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Speaker 2: definitely emotions. I said, okay.
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Speaker 1: I love how you're stepping that out though and getting
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Speaker 1: curious about it. You've identified it sounds like it's this.
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Speaker 1: Tell me more. There's so much value in helping her
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Speaker 1: to do that. It's not about doing therapy. It's just
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Speaker 1: about helping her to feel and hurt and valued so
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Speaker 1: that you can move to a productive resolution.
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Speaker 2: Well, as I kept talking to her, she acknowledged it
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Speaker 2: was definitely emotional. And I said, when you were in
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Speaker 2: that space, I said, do you know what emotions you
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Speaker 2: were feeling? She said no, not really And I said, okay.
5:16
Speaker 2: I said, this is really important. This is really cool
5:18
Speaker 2: that we get to sit here and talk about this.
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Speaker 2: I said, because we're not able to move through this
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Speaker 2: until we actually understand it. We actually can start to
5:28
Speaker 2: narrow in and pinpoint the experiences we're having. And because
5:32
Speaker 2: We've just recently watched Inside Out too with the kids.
5:36
Speaker 2: I was able to take her back to the movie
5:38
Speaker 2: and I said, do you remember towards the end when
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Speaker 2: anxiety took over, she completely had control of the situation,
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Speaker 2: or lack of control for one of a better explanation.
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Speaker 2: And I said, what was happening in that moment? She said,
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Speaker 2: there was absolute flurry. You couldn't see anxiety because there
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Speaker 2: was an absolute flurry around the control center of her brain.
6:00
Speaker 2: And I said, and what did Joy have to do
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Speaker 2: to break through that? She like, literally like cloring to
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Speaker 2: break through anxiety's flurry. But once she got to the
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Speaker 2: control center, what she realized was that, in spite of
6:16
Speaker 2: all that flurry, anxiety had actually frozen. Anxiety was no
6:21
Speaker 2: longer in control. She had just taken over. And it
6:25
Speaker 2: required so much energy and so much effort for Joy
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Speaker 2: to push through, because ultimately, that's what Joy's job is
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Speaker 2: to do, is to pull her out of these crazy spaces.
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Speaker 2: And I said, so when you get like that, I said,
6:40
Speaker 2: it's really easy for you to just kind of get
6:42
Speaker 2: caught up in the flurry and kind of freeze in
6:44
Speaker 2: the moment. And I said, but if you can sit
6:46
Speaker 2: there for a little bit longer and just start to
6:48
Speaker 2: get curious, like I am with you now, and start
6:50
Speaker 2: to ask yourself what am I feeling or what am
6:54
Speaker 2: I experiencing? What am I experiencing right now? I've got
6:57
Speaker 2: I'm feeling dizzy in the head, my stomach's churning, I
6:59
Speaker 2: feel a bit, you know, like crawley around my skin,
7:02
Speaker 2: whatever it is. But actually write that down so that
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Speaker 2: when you come back we can have a talk about that.
7:07
Speaker 2: And I said, and if you can sit there for
7:08
Speaker 2: just a little bit longer, maybe you can start to
7:11
Speaker 2: work out what emotion you're experiencing right now. And I said,
7:15
Speaker 2: do you think that if you did that that we
7:18
Speaker 2: could then start to work out there's coping strategies you
7:21
Speaker 2: would need to actually work through it. And she kind
7:24
Speaker 2: of looked at me and she said, I don't know, mum.
7:27
Speaker 2: I said, you've heard the word trauma used before. We
7:29
Speaker 2: talk about traumatic experience, that somebody in the family's passed away,
7:33
Speaker 2: we've lost a pet, I said, you've failed an exam.
7:37
Speaker 2: Those things people usually associate with being traumatic. I said,
7:42
Speaker 2: but it's actually not the experience that's traumatic for us,
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Speaker 2: it's how we process it. So in this space you
7:49
Speaker 2: are feeling overwhelmed, and I said, and you're struggling to
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Speaker 2: process it, and so you don't have the coping mechanism
7:56
Speaker 2: just to help you through it. I said, But if
7:58
Speaker 2: we can sit there for a little bit longer, in
8:00
Speaker 2: that space of uncomfortability, maybe we can start to build
8:04
Speaker 2: the strategies that you're needing so that you feel empowered.
8:08
Speaker 2: That's what it comes out to. We want our children
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Speaker 2: to feel empowered that they can actually work through these
8:12
Speaker 2: challenges without us sitting there by their side. But for
8:16
Speaker 2: the time being, they need a little bit of coaching,
8:18
Speaker 2: and so I guess my I'll do better tomorrow. Is
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Speaker 2: really just the acknowledgment where our kids are having a
8:23
Speaker 2: hard time. Sometimes they need their own space and time
8:26
Speaker 2: to process before we actually go in. But once we do,
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Speaker 2: just sitting in that space of curiosity and compassion as
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Speaker 2: we help them work through it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's all these steps to motion coaching, but sometimes
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Speaker 1: it's actually just having a conversation about emotions and moving
8:44
Speaker 1: towards a solution because everyone's calm and feeling understood. After
8:48
Speaker 1: the break, my mere coolper the stuff that I got
8:52
Speaker 1: wrong about parenting and what I've learned thanks to a
8:57
Speaker 1: swimming carneval. Okay, Kylie, It's it's hard for me to
9:08
Speaker 1: say this, but sometimes I get stuff. Did I get
9:11
Speaker 1: it wrong? I don't know if I got it wrong,
9:13
Speaker 1: but I've made a big deal about it so far
9:15
Speaker 1: in the pod that I got it wrong. So let
9:16
Speaker 1: me just spell it out. In one of my books,
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Speaker 1: Nine Ways to a Resilient Child, I have an entire
9:23
Speaker 1: chapter talking about how competition is bad for kids and
9:27
Speaker 1: their resilience. It doesn't have to be, but generally speaking,
9:30
Speaker 1: competition is bad for your kids. Why well, because when
9:33
Speaker 1: they're winners, sometimes they interpret the fact that they've won,
9:37
Speaker 1: whether it's the cross country or the astedford, or the
9:41
Speaker 1: major role in the play, whatever it is. When they're winners,
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Speaker 1: they start to believe that their identity is tied up
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Speaker 1: in winning. Therefore, they become quite fragile at the possibility
9:51
Speaker 1: that they won't win. Therefore, the competition that drives the
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Speaker 1: success so they can get the trophies or the plo
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Speaker 1: to whatever the acclamation, actually leads to what I'm going
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Speaker 1: to call a hollow form of resilience. It shatters easily
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Speaker 1: if they don't keep winning. Makes sense, right. Conversely, losing well,
10:15
Speaker 1: that tells you that you're a loser, especially if the
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Speaker 1: competition is important to you, especially if you want to
10:20
Speaker 1: base your self esteem around how well you perform at academics, maths, science,
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Speaker 1: cross country, swimming, carnivals, athletics, carnivals, whatever it is that's
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Speaker 1: going on. And so we have this thing where competition
10:34
Speaker 1: can drive losers to feel worse about themselves because they
10:36
Speaker 1: feel like literal losers, and winners to feel worse about
10:40
Speaker 1: themselves because if they don't win, what does that really
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Speaker 1: say about me? I mustn't be a winner, I must
10:43
Speaker 1: be a loser. I'm anti competition because I believe, especially
10:47
Speaker 1: when kids are younger than at about ten to twelve, that
10:50
Speaker 1: if they can't demonstrate competence, they're going to feel lack
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Speaker 1: of resilience. And if they are demonstrating competence, but there's
10:58
Speaker 1: a risk that that competence is going to be shown
11:00
Speaker 1: up by somebody more competent, that it's a hollow form
11:03
Speaker 1: of resilience. Okay, that's the backdrop. As a result of
11:06
Speaker 1: that approach, we've spoken to the kids about competition, and
11:11
Speaker 1: we've never really encouraged it. The kids have been involved
11:13
Speaker 1: in a bit of netball here and there, and they've
11:14
Speaker 1: done a bit of this and a bit of that,
11:16
Speaker 1: but they've never really been involved in competitive pursuits. And
11:20
Speaker 1: I've felt fine about it because I don't want my
11:23
Speaker 1: kids to feel like their self esteem is based on
11:27
Speaker 1: them making other kids feel bad about themselves, Like why
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Speaker 1: is it that competition is about I get to feel good?
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Speaker 1: So long as you have to feel bad, winning is
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Speaker 1: mutually exclusive. When you get older and you understand competition
11:40
Speaker 1: and it's not so much about your identity. Like for me,
11:42
Speaker 1: if I was to go back to competitive cycling, it
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Speaker 1: would be because I loved the cycling and the camaraderie
11:47
Speaker 1: and I love pushing myself in a bike raze. It
11:49
Speaker 1: wouldn't because I get to say that I won the
11:52
Speaker 1: fifty at over aged like who cares? Right, But for kids,
11:56
Speaker 1: they can really internalize that stuff. So our kids haven't
11:59
Speaker 1: done competitive stuff, And even on days where they've said,
12:02
Speaker 1: I don't want to do the swimming carnival, I don't
12:03
Speaker 1: want to the cross country, We've always encouraged them to go.
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Speaker 1: We've encouraged them to participate, to be part of the
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Speaker 1: team and to have a crack but if they've really
12:11
Speaker 1: put up a fight, we've been pretty relaxed about and said, sure,
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Speaker 1: stay home, be productive. It's your call. Well, our year
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Speaker 1: twelve daughter went to her swimming carnival just last week.
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Speaker 1: It was on Friday. She decided to go. She was
12:26
Speaker 1: going to cheer from the sidelines. First time she's been
12:28
Speaker 1: to a swimming carnival in years. It's been some health issues,
12:31
Speaker 1: she's had a bad mindset towards it, and perhaps a
12:34
Speaker 1: small factor has also been the fact that I've made
12:36
Speaker 1: a big deal about not being competitive. She went to
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Speaker 1: a swimming carnival to cheer from the sidelines last week,
12:43
Speaker 1: decided that she would participate. After all, they.
12:45
Speaker 2: Didn't actually have anyone from her team.
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Speaker 1: Nobody in her house was going to just swim. Yeah,
12:51
Speaker 1: but there are other girls swiming in the year twelve race.
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Speaker 1: But she said, oh, I might as well do the opens.
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Speaker 1: I'll get in there, I'll participate. It's my last year
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Speaker 1: of school. I've never participated. I'll give it a go.
13:01
Speaker 1: She won everything. She won everything. Now here's the funny thing.
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Speaker 1: Her winning didn't make other people feel bad. Firstly, but secondly,
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Speaker 1: I saw a difference in her because she felt competent,
13:16
Speaker 1: and because she received warm attention from the people around
13:20
Speaker 1: her because of her ability, she came home a different kid.
13:25
Speaker 1: I saw a level of confidence in her that I
13:28
Speaker 1: don't know if I've seen, certainly not for a long time,
13:32
Speaker 1: and it made me rethink if kids now. Granted, she's
13:35
Speaker 1: at the upper end, right, she's about to turn eighteen,
13:38
Speaker 1: so she approaches competition differently. It's not about identity, and
13:44
Speaker 1: yet what this really is as a story that competition
13:48
Speaker 1: approached the right way can build identity, not identity of
13:53
Speaker 1: I'm a winner, but rather identity swimmer.
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Speaker 2: In this instance, I'm a swimmer.
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Speaker 1: Or I'm competent, and it feels good to be competent.
14:02
Speaker 1: It's a confidence booster. And I kind of feel like
14:06
Speaker 1: I need to walk back my harsh anti competitive stance.
14:11
Speaker 1: The things that I've said about competition, their research and
14:14
Speaker 1: evidence backed. They're still quote unquote correct, but I'm less
14:20
Speaker 1: convinced that they're useful. I used to think that they
14:23
Speaker 1: were purely true, and therefore they were right, and therefore
14:26
Speaker 1: they were useful. But watching what's happened with our daughter
14:29
Speaker 1: is she's had this experience, I'm questioning that, and I'm
14:32
Speaker 1: wondering if there's a way that we can help our
14:34
Speaker 1: children to engage in competition because they enjoy the activity
14:37
Speaker 1: and they enjoy the relationships.
14:39
Speaker 2: That's the key. That's the key, though, When our children
14:43
Speaker 2: want and want to be involved in something, they're motivated
14:47
Speaker 2: to be involved in it. They do it because they
14:50
Speaker 2: love it, right, It doesn't matter. The outcome doesn't matter
14:54
Speaker 2: when they love it. But too often we place our
14:57
Speaker 2: children at really young ages into competitive arenas and they're
15:03
Speaker 2: not emotionally ready.
15:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm right. I was right after it, but
15:08
Speaker 1: I'm also wrong, and that's what I want to highlight.
15:11
Speaker 1: The context is everything, the goals, the striving, the aspiration,
15:16
Speaker 1: and the impact that it has an identity. The way
15:19
Speaker 1: that we process you talked about trauma with our daughter.
15:22
Speaker 1: The way that we process the win or the loss
15:24
Speaker 1: is actually what's important here.
15:26
Speaker 2: And how we support others around us as they grow
15:28
Speaker 2: through that process.
15:29
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you said that. So the take home
15:31
Speaker 1: message is help your kids feel competent, and if that
15:34
Speaker 1: means being involved in competition, maybe I was wrong. If
15:36
Speaker 1: you can do it the right way, we really hope
15:39
Speaker 1: that these stories and these ideas help you in your parenting.
15:42
Speaker 1: I'll do better tomorrow. We'll be back next Friday. Have
15:46
Speaker 1: a wonderful weekend. The Happy Families podcast is produced by
15:49
Speaker 1: Justin Rowland from Bridge Media. If you would like more
15:51
Speaker 1: information or resources to make your family happier, you'll find
15:54
Speaker 1: it at happy families dot com dot a