Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #424 Food Fighters

Transcript

#424 Food Fighters · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers. Now Today, this
0:11
Speaker 1: is doctor Justin Coulson with Kate Mead. Today Kate is
0:15
Speaker 1: replace replace. Oh Kate, I just said you're replacing Kylie.
0:19
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, no, noozed profusely.
0:22
Speaker 1: I wonder if I need to reboot this one, Kylie.
0:26
Speaker 1: I didn't mean replacing, I mean substituting. Kate's here for Kylee. Yeah, yeah,
0:32
Speaker 1: just just filling in Kylie's If you missed yesterday. In
0:35
Speaker 1: the day before, Kate is about to be employed by
0:38
Speaker 1: Jones and Amanda at WSFM in Sydney as a producer
0:42
Speaker 1: of their show Kate's Got three Kids, And because because
0:46
Speaker 1: Kylie and I are moving house, Kylie is getting all
0:50
Speaker 1: that stuff organized and therefore is not available for the
0:52
Speaker 1: podcast this week, which is I mean, I miss I
0:54
Speaker 1: miss Kylie. But Kate, you're doing a wonderful job filling
0:57
Speaker 1: in and it's great to have you to to join
1:00
Speaker 1: us for this conversation today.
1:03
Speaker 2: Now you wanted to talk about food again.
1:06
Speaker 1: By the way, so yesterday the highlight was food, right
1:09
Speaker 1: like if you've got kids in iso, food, food, will
1:13
Speaker 1: food will get them through. About a week ago, week
1:17
Speaker 1: and a half ago, Kate I got a message come
1:20
Speaker 1: through via the Happy Families Premium Members Facebook group. So
1:23
Speaker 1: everyone who's a premium member with our Happy Families memberships,
1:27
Speaker 1: they get to engage with me and with the Premium
1:31
Speaker 1: Members community and just talk about the stuff that's going
1:33
Speaker 1: on for them as parents. And this particular mom, her
1:36
Speaker 1: name is Mirinda, she said, and I quote, I hate
1:41
Speaker 1: dinner time like I loathe it and buy myself a
1:45
Speaker 1: lot with the kids all the time. And well, I
1:47
Speaker 1: hate dinner time. I hate sitting there while I eat,
1:50
Speaker 1: As I eat quicker, I feel like it's the end
1:51
Speaker 1: of the day and sitting there for half an hour
1:53
Speaker 1: sucks the life out of me. And Kate, I don't
1:57
Speaker 1: know if you've ever felt that.
1:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just strapped up. I was like, yep, your
2:04
Speaker 3: answer in the air.
2:05
Speaker 2: I'm saying, thank you, thank you for saying it. Oh
2:08
Speaker 2: my goodness. And isn't it nice to not feel alone?
2:12
Speaker 2: Tea time can be hard work?
2:15
Speaker 1: Yeah?
2:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
2:16
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about now, I know that I
2:18
Speaker 1: might be laboring the point excessively. I know that this
2:20
Speaker 1: might be unnecessary, but I was thinking about why it's
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Speaker 1: so hard, like why would Mirinda have sent this message through?
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Speaker 1: Why would she say dinner time sucks? And it didn't
2:29
Speaker 1: take me long. It took me about four seconds to
2:31
Speaker 1: come up with a list of about ten things, and
2:34
Speaker 1: I reckon, well, i'd love to know if you would
2:35
Speaker 1: add to this list.
2:36
Speaker 3: So here's what I came up with. Number one.
2:38
Speaker 1: Then times are the worst because the kids are general Like,
2:41
Speaker 1: let's face it, we love food, we want to have
2:43
Speaker 1: good food, but it's so hard to enjoy it because
2:45
Speaker 1: the kids are tired, and we're tired, oh tired, and
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Speaker 1: it's mostly impossible to find a meal that everyone's going
2:57
Speaker 1: to be satisfied to eat. And as an extension of that,
3:00
Speaker 1: the likelihood of finding that said perfect meal that everyone's
3:03
Speaker 1: going to eat is inversely proportionate to the number of
3:05
Speaker 1: people in the family. And if I can just add
3:07
Speaker 1: a little bit more to that, one of our kids, Kate,
3:10
Speaker 1: has just recently announced that she's vegetarian, okay, and.
3:15
Speaker 3: She can't articulate why.
3:18
Speaker 1: Okay, we have no idea why, because she's it's not
3:21
Speaker 1: purely for health reasons, because she's still happy to scoff
3:23
Speaker 1: the junk food yeah, maybe it's for ethical reasons. I
3:27
Speaker 1: don't anyway, But what that's done is that it's added
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Speaker 1: a disproportionate level of distress and angst in general dread
3:33
Speaker 1: to our evenings, and it's increased the likelihood of disagreements
3:37
Speaker 1: at meal time to an all time high because it's
3:40
Speaker 1: so hard to find the perfect meal, and like.
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Speaker 3: There's just the kids are tired, right, so they'd rather.
3:45
Speaker 1: Be watching TV or on an app, talking to their
3:48
Speaker 1: friends or something.
3:49
Speaker 3: They it's like, oh, I have to come to the table.
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Speaker 1: And this is something that I probably shouldn't confess to
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Speaker 1: on a Happy Families podcast. But sometimes at the end
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Speaker 1: of the day, which is truly when meal time is
4:01
Speaker 1: obviously I just want my space and Kylie wants her space.
4:04
Speaker 1: And this is especially like at school holidays and we're
4:07
Speaker 1: with each other all the time, or there's lockdowns, or
4:09
Speaker 1: we're in isolation, or we're trying to juggle work while
4:13
Speaker 1: the kids are on holidays and we're supposed to entertain
4:17
Speaker 1: them and keep them going. And because it's twenty twenty two,
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Speaker 1: we don't send them out to play in the street
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Speaker 1: or the park anymore like our parents did in the
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Speaker 1: good old days.
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Speaker 2: And I know that you just said I probably shouldn't
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Speaker 2: say this, but as a mother of three, I applaud
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Speaker 2: you and say thank you for saying that. But it's okay,
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Speaker 2: thank you.
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Speaker 3: Do you like meal times?
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Speaker 4: Do you?
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Speaker 2: No? Because I've want a great cook.
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Speaker 1: Number one because the food's not that good anyway. I'm
4:46
Speaker 1: sure you're not that bad. I mean, the family's still.
4:48
Speaker 2: Alive, right, you still have Yep, they're still alive. They're
4:50
Speaker 2: all still kicking.
4:51
Speaker 3: All is good.
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Speaker 2: You still enjoyed the time that you get to sit
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Speaker 2: down together.
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Speaker 1: So you're making it nice now. But we've got Marito
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Speaker 1: who's saying no, and I've just said.
5:00
Speaker 2: But it's not no, no, no, you can't enjoy though. But
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Speaker 2: that's like a one. I don't know what the percentage is,
5:06
Speaker 2: but they're not all perfige. You get the one out
5:09
Speaker 2: of tennis that you go that's a really nice meal.
5:11
Speaker 2: Really Sunday lunch, there's a roast or something, but minus
5:15
Speaker 2: the meat. For the daughter that's giving up fidgetary well, and.
5:17
Speaker 1: We have a Sunday roast. And every Sunday she's like,
5:20
Speaker 1: oh we do we have like we have a Sunday roast.
5:23
Speaker 3: It's the tradition, and.
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Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, but I don't feel like you're thinking
5:26
Speaker 1: about me. And I'm like, well, frankly, i'm not. I'm tired.
5:29
Speaker 1: And on a Sunday, I don't have to think about
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Speaker 1: dinner because it's a roast and we just stick it
5:33
Speaker 1: in the oven. We have to think about it, and
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Speaker 1: I don't have to add another because this is the
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Speaker 1: thing Kate.
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Speaker 3: Every single day, you know what I mean?
5:41
Speaker 2: That fail every single day three times in fact, plus snacks.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean.
5:47
Speaker 1: Breakfast's usually kind of okay ish, right, there's some cereal
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Speaker 1: in the cupboard, make yourself some toast, throw some eggs
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Speaker 1: in the pan.
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Speaker 3: Breakfast is.
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Speaker 1: Breakfast is reasonably low maintenance, unless you've got one of
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Speaker 1: those children who make it otherwise. And lunch, I mean,
6:02
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what you put in their lunch box.
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Speaker 1: They're bringing home a full lunch box of food that
6:05
Speaker 1: you fought them over in the morning, Like what are
6:10
Speaker 1: you going.
6:10
Speaker 3: To have for lunch?
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Speaker 1: An you think for lunch you need to take lunch,
6:13
Speaker 1: and so you finally figure out what to put in
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Speaker 1: the lunch box and then they bring it home.
6:16
Speaker 3: Anyway, Yeah, agreed, What am I doing? Well? You nailed it.
6:21
Speaker 2: You nailed it straight away when you said the kids
6:24
Speaker 2: are tired. It's tired. You remember you think about what
6:27
Speaker 2: they do from three thirty or the moment that they
6:29
Speaker 2: get out of school. You might have been a basketball
6:30
Speaker 2: or to swimming, or been three different places with three
6:33
Speaker 2: different activities. And then it's quickly like he eat good, go. Yeah,
6:39
Speaker 2: you know, you've barely had a chance to catch your breath.
6:41
Speaker 1: Hey, after the break, I wanted to chat with you
6:43
Speaker 1: about the history of fuscy eating. It's really fascinating, and
6:46
Speaker 1: we'll have a few we'll share. Actually, maybe we shouldn't
6:50
Speaker 1: make this an advice.
6:50
Speaker 3: No, no, I'm going.
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Speaker 1: To share one, just one piece of advice that I
6:54
Speaker 1: think can help with the meal time, dinner time, dread.
7:00
Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast.
7:02
Speaker 4: US Screens Creating Tension at Home, Betweens, Teens and Screens
7:06
Speaker 4: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.
7:11
Speaker 4: Bye today at happyfamilies dot com dot au slash shop.
7:16
Speaker 2: It's the Happy Family's podcast, the podcast for the time
7:19
Speaker 2: poor parent who just one sounces now with Justin and Kate.
7:23
Speaker 1: First of all, I just want to say to Marinda,
7:26
Speaker 1: saw your message, and yes you can. You can do
7:29
Speaker 1: the fancy things like you can let the kids choose
7:31
Speaker 1: the music if you want to have music at dinner,
7:33
Speaker 1: or you can go outside and have a picnic and
7:35
Speaker 1: make it a special occasion. That gets kind of tiring,
7:38
Speaker 1: and you can get them involved with you in the kitchen.
7:40
Speaker 1: But that makes a big mess, and yes that works sometimes.
7:43
Speaker 1: But we tried that, Kate. We'd bring the kids into
7:46
Speaker 1: the kitchen Kylie and I and say hey, you help
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Speaker 1: us cook the meal, and then you can help us
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Speaker 1: to eat the meal. And they would help us cook.
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Speaker 1: They loved it, but then they look at the meal
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Speaker 1: after it was cooked and say, yeah, but I.
7:55
Speaker 3: Still don't like it.
7:56
Speaker 2: I don't want it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And we'd be like no, no, no, but you cooked.
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Speaker 1: This is going to be a maze. You got to
8:00
Speaker 1: try what you cooked. And they're like, yeah, don't want
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Speaker 1: to eat it.
8:04
Speaker 2: Frustralian thinking behind it though, like well done, yes, yeah.
8:09
Speaker 1: And we've actually found I know that. Gosh, I don't
8:13
Speaker 1: want to sound snarky. We actually do generally have really
8:16
Speaker 1: nice meal times. There's still some challenges, there's still some
8:21
Speaker 1: fussing with the meal times. We generally have nice meal
8:23
Speaker 1: times and we love to talk about the best things today,
8:26
Speaker 1: what we are grateful for, what are you looking forward to?
8:28
Speaker 1: And we've got a range of different questions that we
8:30
Speaker 1: ask around that what surprised you today? What did you
8:32
Speaker 1: do that was hard? What did you do that surprised
8:35
Speaker 1: yourself because you didn't think you could do it? Those
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Speaker 1: kinds of things. We really, we really do enjoy our
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Speaker 1: meal time conversations, but frankly, sometimes some nights is like
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Speaker 1: eat your dinner, brush your teeth, go to the toilet,
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Speaker 1: and go to bed.
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Speaker 3: We want to adult for a little while.
8:52
Speaker 2: And I will say this again, hands on heart, thank
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Speaker 2: you for saying that, because yes, like I said, we
9:00
Speaker 2: can still have those wonderful moments at tea time, we
9:03
Speaker 2: can still have those wonderful meals. But no, ten out
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Speaker 2: of ten, it's not going to happen that they're all
9:08
Speaker 2: going to run smoothly and all perfect, because that's not
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Speaker 2: how real world is going to work.
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Speaker 1: So question without notice, Kate, you've got three teenagers or
9:18
Speaker 1: a twelve year old and two teenagers. If there was
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Speaker 1: one meal time tip that you could share that would
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Speaker 1: make meal time less sucky for Marinda or anyone who's
9:27
Speaker 1: listening to this and going, oh my goodness, yes this
9:29
Speaker 1: is I just I'm over dinner time. What would I've
9:33
Speaker 1: got one? But I'd love to know what would yours be?
9:35
Speaker 2: Well? Can I actually share one that I read on
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Speaker 2: Facebook as one of the comments on this post. I
9:41
Speaker 2: had a really quick look at this and I thought,
9:44
Speaker 2: now that is something I could try. They flipped around
9:48
Speaker 2: what you were eating in terms of instead of having
9:51
Speaker 2: that big meal at tea time, they would present that
9:54
Speaker 2: that was lunch, and then at tea time they would
9:57
Speaker 2: have what you would have for lunch. So it might
9:58
Speaker 2: be the sandwich or something. It's easy and quick and
10:01
Speaker 2: not too much fast, but still you would sit down
10:04
Speaker 2: and have it. And someone had recommended it, just to try,
10:08
Speaker 2: try having your dinner meal at lunchtime and at dinner
10:13
Speaker 2: time have your lunch. I don't know how it would
10:16
Speaker 2: work in real time, but you know, at some point
10:18
Speaker 2: you nearly try anything, right, right.
10:20
Speaker 1: Yes, some people are going yeah, not practical, But for
10:24
Speaker 1: some people that might work really well because if you're
10:26
Speaker 1: at home and you've got the flexibility to do it,
10:28
Speaker 1: especially with COVID chaos, that could work really nicely. I'm
10:32
Speaker 1: going to throw out something different. I'm going to suggest
10:34
Speaker 1: a yo yo night.
10:36
Speaker 2: So now what is a yo yo night? Because I'm
10:38
Speaker 2: thinking yoyo's with the extra icing in the center.
10:41
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right, okay, of course, because Victoria, when you
10:44
Speaker 1: said yoyo's, I was thinking that you were thinking that
10:47
Speaker 1: the thing on the string that.
10:48
Speaker 2: You No, no, no, I'm steal thinking food, not where
10:53
Speaker 2: I'm going.
10:53
Speaker 1: So a yo yo night stands for you're on your own,
10:57
Speaker 1: your night, on your You're just you're on your own.
11:00
Speaker 3: You're on your own yoyo night.
11:02
Speaker 1: And what we do usually I reckon about once a
11:05
Speaker 1: week in our family is we just say to the kids,
11:09
Speaker 1: we don't feel like doing dinner tonight, so you figure
11:12
Speaker 1: it out. Yeah, we're getting takeaway. We're hanging out in
11:14
Speaker 1: our room. We'll come out at about eight o'clock, eight thirty.
11:17
Speaker 1: Put you order bed, make sure everyone's happy, good night.
11:20
Speaker 1: And I mean we can probably get away with this,
11:22
Speaker 1: right because we've got a couple of kids who are
11:24
Speaker 1: over eighteen. We've got a fourteen year old, eleven year
11:26
Speaker 1: old and a seven year old and they know the deal.
11:28
Speaker 1: Make sure the seven year old eats something, and we don't. Well,
11:32
Speaker 1: a couple of them. Sometimes on yo nights they say,
11:34
Speaker 1: all right, we're going down to the local fast food restaurant.
11:36
Speaker 1: They'll just go and buy their own and I don't
11:38
Speaker 1: pay for it because I'm not going to buy that
11:39
Speaker 1: junk for them. But if they want it on a
11:41
Speaker 1: Yoo night, I don't have to think about it. But
11:43
Speaker 1: most of the time we'll just we'll say, here's what's
11:46
Speaker 1: in the fridge, or we'll even pull it out. We'll
11:47
Speaker 1: put all on the kitchen bench and we'll say, take
11:49
Speaker 1: your pick, figure it out. There's salad, there's some meat,
11:53
Speaker 1: there's this, there's that, there's some leftover lasagna. Have a
11:57
Speaker 1: healthy and industritious meal. Make sure there's some color on
11:59
Speaker 1: your plate. Into our bedroom, make sure the food gets
12:01
Speaker 1: put away and the kitchen gets cleaned up. And I'm
12:05
Speaker 1: not suggesting you can do that with a two year.
12:06
Speaker 3: Old, Kate.
12:07
Speaker 2: No. Yeah, obviously, yeah.
12:09
Speaker 1: But once the kids get to I don't know, I'm
12:11
Speaker 1: going to say about eight, they actually can. You'll need
12:17
Speaker 1: to do more setup for the eight year old than
12:20
Speaker 1: you will for an eighteen year old. Obviously, we do
12:22
Speaker 1: very very little, if anything now because our kids are
12:24
Speaker 1: old enough. But the yo yo Knight just means we
12:27
Speaker 1: don't have to think about it, or we have to
12:29
Speaker 1: do minimal thinking. And it might mean you put out
12:32
Speaker 1: a platter and say help yourself and I'll clean it
12:34
Speaker 1: up in an hour and a half.
12:36
Speaker 3: And it works.
12:37
Speaker 2: Now justin you make some incredible resources. I'm just suggesting
12:41
Speaker 2: that you have a big poster mage that we can
12:44
Speaker 2: print off that says Yogo night coming this, and then
12:47
Speaker 2: you fill it in Thursday come Yogo knight coming this,
12:50
Speaker 2: and then mom and dad does write it on and
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Speaker 2: it's on the fridge and we all know that Yoyo
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Speaker 2: Knight's coming up this Tuesday night.
12:57
Speaker 3: I reckon not for that.
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Speaker 1: I reckon if we made that, there would some families
13:00
Speaker 1: that are like tonight, they'd write they write the word
13:03
Speaker 1: tonight and they would never erase it.
13:05
Speaker 3: They just stick it on the fridge. State every night.
13:07
Speaker 2: Every night, maybe you have to put teas and c's
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Speaker 2: on the boddo.
13:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, yo night. Not to be deployed more
13:12
Speaker 1: than once per week. Kate, really really enjoyable having a
13:15
Speaker 1: chat with you about this. Tomorrow we're going to be
13:19
Speaker 1: sharing the top five things that we've said to our
13:23
Speaker 1: kids these holidays give us a teaser.
13:27
Speaker 3: What's one of yours?
13:29
Speaker 2: How hard is it to put the towers in the basket?
13:33
Speaker 3: That's every day in my house. It's it's not a
13:35
Speaker 3: holiday thing.
13:36
Speaker 2: I know.
13:38
Speaker 1: Well, we'll talk more about that tomorrow on the Happy
13:39
Speaker 1: Families Podcast. The Happy Families Podcast is produced by Justin
13:43
Speaker 1: Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
13:47
Speaker 1: If you've got any questions, we love answering them on
13:49
Speaker 1: the podcast. The email addresses podcasts at Happy families dot
13:53
Speaker 1: com dot you. Also, Tomorrow Night, every every month we
13:58
Speaker 1: do a Happy Families Premium Members Q and A. So
14:03
Speaker 1: Tomorrow night I'm going to be answering specific questions that
14:06
Speaker 1: our Happy Families members have been asking about how to
14:09
Speaker 1: make family life run.
14:10
Speaker 3: A little bit more smoothly.
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