Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1159 - The Monthly Date That Changes Everything

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#1159 - The Monthly Date That Changes Everything · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: There is one day each month that can change your relationship,
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  Speaker 1: change your family, changed almost everything for your child. We're
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  Speaker 1: going to tell you about that in just a sec.
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  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Happy Family Podcast, Real Parenting
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  Speaker 1: Solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: are Justin and Kylie Courson and every Friday we get
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  Speaker 1: I was going to say down and dirty, but that's
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  Speaker 1: not really what this podcast is about. We get it
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  Speaker 1: into the details, the nitty grit. I'm so funny that
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I made you snort? Was that a snort? Maybe We
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  Speaker 1: get it into the detail of how our family is going,
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  Speaker 1: what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, how we
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  Speaker 1: can do things better, and we introspect because we want
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  Speaker 1: to be intentional parents. Today. I'm going to go first
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  Speaker 1: because my one is really, really, really short. Over the
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  Speaker 1: course of this past week, I'm back to work and
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  Speaker 1: there's been a bunch of schools that are heading back
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  Speaker 1: next week, and so I've been doing a lot of
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  Speaker 1: staff development seminars and sessions professional development for teachers, and
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  Speaker 1: I've been away a lot more than I have been
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  Speaker 1: over the last couple of months. This last week being away,
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  Speaker 1: it's reminded me of how bad hotel pillows are, no
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  Speaker 1: matter what hotel you're staying at, And it's reminded me
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  Speaker 1: of how much I missed my family when I travel.
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  Speaker 1: It's the hardest part of my job. The best part
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  Speaker 1: is making a difference in people's lives, but the hardest part,
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  Speaker 1: without question, is being away from you and the kids
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  Speaker 1: on whatever day. It was a couple of days ago,
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  Speaker 1: I got back from having been away for two nights,
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  Speaker 1: and when I got home, I walked into the kitchen
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  Speaker 1: to find you having made a delicious, healthy, gluten free
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  Speaker 1: banana cake, and our two teenage daughters, age seventeen and fourteen,
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  Speaker 1: and they were just delighting in one another. They were laughing,
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  Speaker 1: they were telling stories, they were Do you ever remember
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  Speaker 1: what they were talking about? I mean, it was just
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  Speaker 1: stuff rights, being fun, teenage girls, two sisters having a laugh.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the fact that one of them had been away
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  Speaker 2: for nearly two weeks made the reunion delightful.
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  Speaker 1: So about having a really great catch up. But the
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  Speaker 1: thing is, I had a really big headache because I
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  Speaker 1: hadn't slept because of a bad pillow in a hotel room.
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  Speaker 1: But walking in and hearing these two girls catching up
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  Speaker 1: and spending time together and laughing their heads off. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know what's happening to me. I guess I've kind
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  Speaker 1: of always done this. We do it all the way through.
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  Speaker 1: But at the moment, there's something happening where I feel
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  Speaker 1: like these experiences are richer than they've ever been. We're
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  Speaker 1: dealing with daughters four and five in their teens now
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  Speaker 1: only daughter number six is still to hit hers, and
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  Speaker 1: there's something about it. I just I want to reach
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  Speaker 1: out and capture the moment. I don't want the moment
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  Speaker 1: to disappear. It almost brings me to tears. As I
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  Speaker 1: stood in the kitchen and spread butter, probably too much
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  Speaker 1: butter on my healthy gluten free banana cake that you
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  Speaker 1: had made, and listened to the girls. I thought, I
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  Speaker 1: want this moment to last forever. This is heaven. My
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  Speaker 1: older better tomorrow is how can we have number one
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  Speaker 1: more of those moments? But then number two? How can
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  Speaker 1: we be in those moments and inhaled them? How can
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  Speaker 1: we absorb them? How can we emblaze them on our memories?
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  Speaker 1: And I think the only way that you can do
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  Speaker 1: it is to be absolutely present. I wasn't interested in
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  Speaker 1: checking my emails, even though I hadn't looked at them
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  Speaker 1: all day, didn't really care if I had any social
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  Speaker 1: media notifications.
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  Speaker 2: The fact that you had delicious banana bread in your
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  Speaker 2: hands it may have sweetened the moment, it.
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  Speaker 1: Just said to me. It did certainly keep me really
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  Speaker 1: present and right there, but it was just this, I
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  Speaker 1: mean intention, mindfulness. I want to do a quick experiment
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  Speaker 1: with you. You might have done this with me before, and
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  Speaker 1: if you have, then try not to try not to
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  Speaker 1: ruin it. I want to do some quick maths with you.
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  Speaker 1: What's a thousand plus.
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  Speaker 3: Forty one thousand and forty plus one thousand, two thousand
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  Speaker 3: and forty plus thirty two thousand and seventy plus one thousand,
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  Speaker 3: three thousand and seventeen plus twenty three thousand and ninety
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  Speaker 3: plus one thousand, four thousand and ninety plus ten four
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  Speaker 3: thousand and.
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  Speaker 2: One hundred.
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  Speaker 1: I think I've done this with you before. You were
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  Speaker 1: paying too much attention. You knew what was coming. But
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to know.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not good at math, so I needed to make
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  Speaker 2: sure I wasn't going to make a fool of myself.
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  Speaker 1: You've got the record, but none Well, I guess there's
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  Speaker 1: two things here. First, first thing, you're saying you're not
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  Speaker 1: good at maths, so therefore you had to pay attention.
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  Speaker 1: On the same day that I had this beautiful interaction
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  Speaker 1: with our daughters, I ran that puzzle by a room
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  Speaker 1: of educators, probably one hundred school teachers are sitting in
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  Speaker 1: the room, and the opening exercise, the opening conversation piece
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  Speaker 1: for my keynote presentation for them was let's do some
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  Speaker 1: simple maths and wake up your brain. And when you
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  Speaker 1: get to four thousand and nine and I say plus ten,
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  Speaker 1: the whole room and I've done this with hundreds, No,
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  Speaker 1: I've done this with thousands of people over the years.
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  Speaker 1: The whole room and maybe whoever's listening to the podcast
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  Speaker 1: felt the same way. Everyone just says five thousand. They
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  Speaker 1: go their mindlessly because you're not good at maths. You
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  Speaker 1: were trying really hard to be in the moment. Quite
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  Speaker 1: often they're in the room and they're not so much
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  Speaker 1: in the moment, they're just sort of on autopilot. And really,
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  Speaker 1: my take home message is when it comes to our kids,
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  Speaker 1: we can't be on autopilot, or maybe a better term
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  Speaker 1: for it would be we can't beyond auto parent we
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  Speaker 1: need to be there in the moment with them paying attention.
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  Speaker 1: When we do it, the moments are just so much richer.
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  Speaker 1: That's my I'll do better tomorrow. Be in the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Soak it up because one day they're not going to
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  Speaker 1: be three, or seven, or eleven or fourteen and seventeen. Again, Kylie,
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  Speaker 1: what's your I'll do better tomorrow? We've teased it at
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  Speaker 1: the top of the podcast. There's one day each month
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  Speaker 1: that will make a bigger difference in your family's life
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  Speaker 1: and your kid's life than just about anything else.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it flows in beautifully from your message in that
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  Speaker 2: you have to be intentional. I would love to attribute
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  Speaker 2: this to.
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  Speaker 1: Our genius and prowess and brilliance as parents, but.
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  Speaker 2: This actually has to go to one of our listeners,
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  Speaker 2: and I wish that I had taken note of their
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  Speaker 2: name when I read their comment because it has stuck
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  Speaker 2: with me. But they suggested that one of the things
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  Speaker 2: they do in their home is they have a date
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  Speaker 2: night with each of their children on the birth date
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  Speaker 2: of each of them.
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  Speaker 1: Right, So, basically, if your child is born on the
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  Speaker 1: second of May, every month January through December, on the second,
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  Speaker 1: you have a date night, or an outing of some kind.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a brecky, but you go and do something
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  Speaker 1: to celebrate their birth day each month. On the stit
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  Speaker 1: it's not.
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  Speaker 2: About celebrating their birthday. It's actually about being intentional about
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  Speaker 2: making time together. So I attempted to do it last
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  Speaker 2: year with moderate success.
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  Speaker 3: It's a little bit tricky.
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  Speaker 2: There's six of them, and our lives were very, very
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  Speaker 2: busy last year.
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  Speaker 1: That is a lot of date nights or date days,
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  Speaker 1: or mornings out or whatever. It's a lot.
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  Speaker 2: But at the beginning of the year I recommitted that
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  Speaker 2: this was something I really wanted to try, and so
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  Speaker 2: at the beginning of January, I sat down and looked
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  Speaker 2: at my calendar. I actually marked out the days that
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  Speaker 2: I would be required, and then I worked out exactly
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  Speaker 2: what would make a meaningful experience for each of our children.
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  Speaker 2: If we leave it to chance, if we leave it
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  Speaker 2: to the last minute, we're going to have a substandard experience.
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  Speaker 2: But if we are actually really intentional, do you know what,
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  Speaker 2: this is something that either my child's been dying to
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  Speaker 2: do forever and we just have never got around to it,
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  Speaker 2: or this is something that's going to light my child
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  Speaker 2: up you are going to build memories with your children
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  Speaker 2: in ways that you won't otherwise do so because you
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  Speaker 2: are willing to be so in the moment with them.
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  Speaker 1: There's a podcast that I really like listening to who
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  Speaker 1: says something along the lines of the definition of love
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  Speaker 1: is bearing witness to one another's lives, and I love
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  Speaker 1: that idea. It's about to get this. You have to
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  Speaker 1: be together. You have to be considered and affectionate towards
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  Speaker 1: one another and watch and participate and spend time in
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  Speaker 1: one another's lives. That's how you show that you love them.
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  Speaker 2: So the other day I took one of our girls
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  Speaker 2: out for an early morning walk. She doesn't love getting
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  Speaker 2: up too early, so this was a little bit of a.
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  Speaker 1: Stretch for the statement of the month.
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  Speaker 2: But I did sweeten the deal with an assah bowl.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know whoever came up with the idea or concept,
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  Speaker 2: but to me, it is sunshine in a cup and
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  Speaker 2: it is the best way to start a day.
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  Speaker 1: I love that. I can't stand this stuff. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know how you eat it. You've you've tried to force
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  Speaker 1: feit it to me, and every time it's just like wow.
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  Speaker 1: That is so especially when.
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  Speaker 2: You put some pain nuts in there, and you've got
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  Speaker 2: the crunch and the sweet.
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  Speaker 3: Oh it's just awesome.
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  Speaker 2: I love it, but so does she, So she doesn't
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  Speaker 2: want to pay for it though, So going on a
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  Speaker 2: little date.
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  Speaker 1: Have you noticed that none of our kids want to
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  Speaker 1: pay for anything? It's always on us all the time.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder if we were like that with our parents.
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  Speaker 1: Think so.
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  Speaker 2: But part of the sunshine in a cup is being
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  Speaker 2: able to sit down on the water's edge and to
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  Speaker 2: just soak in the sun's rays and just that beautiful
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  Speaker 2: positive energy from the ocean and lap it up. And
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  Speaker 2: what's beautiful about that is sitting side by side and
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  Speaker 2: being in that beautiful setting. Conversations that would not happen
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  Speaker 2: any other way start to flow. And as I listened
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  Speaker 2: to her share the things that she was really excited
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  Speaker 2: about this year, I was blowing away how much growth
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  Speaker 2: has taken place. Even in the last six months she
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  Speaker 2: applied for UNI, didn't get into the course that she wanted,
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  Speaker 2: had to take on a second course that she wasn't
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  Speaker 2: excited about. But given six months of time and work
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  Speaker 2: and play and all of the stuff that's happened, she's
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  Speaker 2: now sitting there going you know what, I wasn't really
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  Speaker 2: excited about it, but I can't wait. I'm so excited
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  Speaker 2: to get involved in this, and who knows where this
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  Speaker 2: is going.
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  Speaker 1: To take, so much so that she's essentially saying, I'm
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  Speaker 1: not sure if I actually want to do the thing
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  Speaker 1: that I thought I really wanted to do, because this
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  Speaker 1: has really grabbed me.
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  Speaker 2: And six months down the track, we might be in
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  Speaker 2: a totally different position and she might go, actually, I
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  Speaker 2: don't know why I was excited about this, but that's okay.
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  Speaker 2: That's okay.
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  Speaker 1: Tangent on this, and it's a really important tangent for
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  Speaker 1: any parent who has got a child who says, this
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  Speaker 1: is what I want to do or this is the
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  Speaker 1: path that I want to take. Some research that came
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  Speaker 1: out some years ago from a researcher named Laura King,
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  Speaker 1: she looked at this concept known as the best Possible
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  Speaker 1: Future Self. Essentially, what it is is it's a projecting
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  Speaker 1: yourself into the future and imagining in five or ten
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  Speaker 1: years all the things that you want to have happened
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  Speaker 1: having happened, so that you can see not just the
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  Speaker 1: kind of life you're living, but the kind of person
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  Speaker 1: you've become. It's really much more about character and career
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: and finances and aspiration. But what's fascinating about her research
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  Speaker 1: is I can't remember it was her or some career researchers.
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  Speaker 1: They took on this idea and said, well, that's great
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  Speaker 1: if you've got a clear idea of what you want
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  Speaker 1: to do, but there's potentially a whole lot of different
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  Speaker 1: best possible future selves. What they found was when they
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  Speaker 1: got people to do this experiment where they would imagine
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  Speaker 1: themselves doing the thing that they dreamed of, but also
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  Speaker 1: doing one or two other things that they hadn't really
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  Speaker 1: dreamed of, but they might really like to do or
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  Speaker 1: really like to try, things that are completely different to
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  Speaker 1: their dream career or dream goal. They found that people
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  Speaker 1: were much more balanced and much more relaxed about the future,
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  Speaker 1: and their well being was higher and their life satisfaction
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  Speaker 1: was higher because they weren't so boldly completely wedded to
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  Speaker 1: this one true path. What they started to understand was,
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  Speaker 1: I can take the pressure off a bit because there
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  Speaker 1: are a multitude of different things that I could do
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  Speaker 1: that could still help me to be who I wanted
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  Speaker 1: to be, develop how I wanted to develop, and make
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  Speaker 1: a difference in the way that I'd like to do it.
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  Speaker 1: So when I hear you tell that story, that sparks
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  Speaker 1: joy and satisfaction and optimism for me because it makes
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  Speaker 1: me think our daughter was initially rigidly fixed to a
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  Speaker 1: specific career path, and now she's going there's any number
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  Speaker 1: of options that might be suitable for me, And that's
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  Speaker 1: a wonderful thing to come out of a conversation like that.
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  Speaker 2: We were also able to talk about the things that
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  Speaker 2: she was anxious about, the things that were worrying her
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: at the moment, the things that she was fearful of,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: and just being able to sit there in again without
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: the agenda, without the stress of everybody else in the
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: house moving and getting on with things that intentional time
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  Speaker 2: that's taken away from everything else, meant that we could
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: sit there and I could actually listen here, offer support
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: and we could work through those challenges. You know, the
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  Speaker 2: best thing to say to your kid when they're struggling
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: like that, what's the worst thing that could happen if
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: that happens? What's going to happen if you fail that class?
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  Speaker 2: What's the worst thing? Is someone going to die? Is
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  Speaker 2: it going to you know, like, is the world going
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  Speaker 2: to erupt. No, you're going to have to do another class.
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  Speaker 2: It's not the end of the world. Your teacher might
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  Speaker 2: be able to give you an extension assignment, or you know,
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  Speaker 2: like there's so many other possibilities, but they always we
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: human nature, we go to the worst possible case scenario.
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  Speaker 2: So it's just it was just a really lovely, lovely
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  Speaker 2: opportunity to have that moment, and I want more of them.
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  Speaker 1: So to take our message for your all, do better tomorrow.
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  Speaker 2: Be intentional about finding moments that you can spend with
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  Speaker 2: your child. It might be the structure that we've been
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: shared by one of our wonderful listeners if you're out there,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: but it might be another way. You might do it
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: each weekend, or it might be a Sunday thing, whatever,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: whatever works for your family. It is about making time
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  Speaker 2: for each of your children.
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  Speaker 3: One on one.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love a spelt tim to our kids. Really
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: there's some helpful take my message and inspiration from our
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I'll do better tomorrow, have a great weekend. The Happy
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland. For more information
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and resources that will make your family happier, we'd love
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: for you to visit us at happy families, dot com,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: dot a you