Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #955 Holiday Hacks

Transcript

#955 Holiday Hacks · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
0:05
Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just answers.
0:10
Speaker 1: Now, Kylie, we all love our kids. I mean, we
0:12
Speaker 1: all love our kids. We're so crazy about them. But
0:16
Speaker 1: every now and again at the Happy Families podcasts, we
0:18
Speaker 1: receive emails like the one we received from a mum
0:20
Speaker 1: who is kind of saying school holidays are nearly here.
0:23
Speaker 1: If you live in Queensland, Wa, or Victoria, it's this Friday. Okay,
0:27
Speaker 1: good Friday's coming up. Then there's sort of a staggering
0:30
Speaker 1: of holidays over the next few weeks for different states
0:32
Speaker 1: and territories. But Queensland, Victoria and Wa, here it comes.
0:36
Speaker 1: And this mom's kind of saying holidays are here. I
0:38
Speaker 1: love my daughter, but I think she's going to drive
0:40
Speaker 1: me crazy because I know what weekends are like. And
0:42
Speaker 1: now I've got a couple of weeks with her help.
0:45
Speaker 1: Kylie rid the email for us.
0:47
Speaker 2: She said, am I supposed to entertain my child all day?
0:51
Speaker 1: Yes?
0:51
Speaker 2: She said, just over the weekend. On Saturday, she made
0:54
Speaker 2: us watch a Disney movie. We went shopping and visited Grandma.
0:58
Speaker 2: I wanted to relax a bit and sit on the couch.
1:00
Speaker 2: My husband wanted to watch football, but she started whinging
1:03
Speaker 2: because we were not playing with her.
1:05
Speaker 1: I'm bored. I'm bored.
1:08
Speaker 2: She wants to pretend play, or go outside or watch TV.
1:11
Speaker 2: She said. I'm exhausted just in finding things to do
1:14
Speaker 2: to keep her from screaming and winging. If that's just
1:17
Speaker 2: the weekend, what am I going to do in the holidays?
1:20
Speaker 2: Please give me some advice.
1:21
Speaker 1: You can send your emails to podcasts podcasts withinness at
1:24
Speaker 1: happy families dot com dot you so that we can
1:27
Speaker 1: try to help you with the challenges of raising these kids. Now,
1:30
Speaker 1: there's a developmental reality to this, Kylie.
1:32
Speaker 2: Well, and she hasn't told us how old her child is. Firstly,
1:35
Speaker 2: and secondly, it sounds like an only child, which challenges
1:39
Speaker 2: parents in a totally different way than children who have siblings. Yeah.
1:42
Speaker 1: So there are arguments for and against having good families.
1:44
Speaker 1: This is one of the arguments for having big families.
1:47
Speaker 1: You don't really have to worry too much about what
1:49
Speaker 1: the kids are going to do. It's more dealing with
1:51
Speaker 1: the fact that they hate each other because they're bored
1:54
Speaker 1: and they've decided to go and every one of the
1:56
Speaker 1: other one another. Yeah, so let's go through a three things.
1:59
Speaker 1: I mean, we can talk about this for a long time,
2:01
Speaker 1: but I just think we spent a couple of minutes
2:02
Speaker 1: on three different ideas that are going to be helpful here. Obviously,
2:05
Speaker 1: depending on the age of your child, you'll have more
2:08
Speaker 1: or less input, you'll have more or less involvement. But
2:11
Speaker 1: at the outset, I think that it's really important to
2:15
Speaker 1: just work out what your expectation is for the break
2:18
Speaker 1: and what your kid's expectation is for the break, and
2:20
Speaker 1: communicate that really clearly with your kids.
2:23
Speaker 2: The word that jumps out at me is you're talking
2:26
Speaker 2: is scaffolding our kids. If we can create a system
2:30
Speaker 2: that actually provides and facilitates an engaging environment and relationships,
2:42
Speaker 2: that changes the dynamics of what our holidays look like.
2:45
Speaker 1: Okay, So in other words, if you've got young kids,
2:47
Speaker 1: you want to have the kinds of things, the kinds
2:49
Speaker 1: of resources that make the environment feel enriching. We didn't
2:53
Speaker 1: all do better tomorrow just recently where we talked about
2:56
Speaker 1: how I didn't want it, but my mum insisted on
2:58
Speaker 1: this secondhand Vuoley play equipment hashtag not sponsored. That's what
3:03
Speaker 1: it's called. This play equipment in the backyard. I didn't
3:05
Speaker 1: want to going to ruin my grass makes everything look ugly.
3:08
Speaker 1: We've only got limited space anyway. But since it's arrived
3:12
Speaker 1: that one thing has been so enriching in terms of
3:15
Speaker 1: having the kids outside and getting them physically active. So
3:18
Speaker 1: having the right things makes a world of difference.
3:23
Speaker 2: And changing it up regularly. So the other day in homeschool,
3:27
Speaker 2: one of the activities that was presented to us was
3:31
Speaker 2: to do Emily's spelling list using shaving cream. So I
3:37
Speaker 2: just I put some shaving cream on a tray and
3:40
Speaker 2: then she used her finger a sensory play to actually
3:43
Speaker 2: write the words oh.
3:44
Speaker 1: Right, okay. So you've got a big foaming tray and
3:47
Speaker 1: she's just dragging her fingers through it to spell the
3:50
Speaker 1: words exactly.
3:51
Speaker 2: Shaving cream is the most wonderful tactile experience. It doesn't
3:55
Speaker 2: matter what age you are. There's something amazing about feeling
3:58
Speaker 2: the soft, soapiness of shaving cream. She was having so
4:02
Speaker 2: much fun. I kind of looked at her and she
4:03
Speaker 2: wanted to start putting it all over her body, and
4:05
Speaker 2: I said, you know what, when you go have a bath,
4:08
Speaker 2: and I said, you can take that tray in there
4:09
Speaker 2: and you can play for as long as you want.
4:10
Speaker 2: I can see it for an hour.
4:11
Speaker 1: No way.
4:12
Speaker 2: She just played with it, but it was about providing
4:16
Speaker 2: the space for her to do it.
4:19
Speaker 1: Wow. So I think this leads into something else that's
4:21
Speaker 1: aligned with it, and that is that we've got to
4:23
Speaker 1: let go of the perfectible ideal. If you want to
4:28
Speaker 1: have your children having fun in the yard or in
4:31
Speaker 1: the house, you've got to recognize that maybe a swing
4:33
Speaker 1: set or a trampoline is going to kill your grass
4:35
Speaker 1: and ruin your outlook. But you're not raising grass, you're
4:38
Speaker 1: raising kids. It's going to ruin your dining table or
4:41
Speaker 1: make a mess in your bathroom or the living room
4:44
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean, we've got legos strewn across our
4:47
Speaker 1: living room more often than not. At the moment, it
4:49
Speaker 1: drives me crazy, But I'm not interested in having perfect carpet.
4:53
Speaker 1: I want my kids to be creative. So creating that
4:56
Speaker 1: enriching environment and saying to hell with the mess, that's
5:00
Speaker 1: what happens when you have kids, makes a huge difference.
5:03
Speaker 2: And here's the funny thing that lego. Only a few
5:06
Speaker 2: weeks ago, she actually pulled it out and she said
5:08
Speaker 2: to me, Mum, I don't ever play with this, can
5:10
Speaker 2: we get rid of it? And I thought, you know what,
5:12
Speaker 2: I have spent hundreds hundreds of dollars on Lego. We
5:16
Speaker 2: are not getting rid of it. And so I actually
5:18
Speaker 2: just left it in the lound room and within a
5:22
Speaker 2: day she had gone to it started using it and now,
5:26
Speaker 2: like you said, it's all over our floor. And she
5:27
Speaker 2: looked at me and she said, I don't think I
5:29
Speaker 2: want you to get rid of this, Mum. And this
5:31
Speaker 2: is something that's really really important. When we have a
5:34
Speaker 2: tidy house and we put everything away, it's out of sight,
5:38
Speaker 2: out of mind. Our kids don't think to go and
5:41
Speaker 2: open the cupboard. They don't think about all of the
5:43
Speaker 2: things that were behind closed doors. And so as parents,
5:47
Speaker 2: if we want to provide them with a stimulating, engaging environment,
5:53
Speaker 2: it's about pulling out a few different things every day
5:56
Speaker 2: that will peak their interest, putting things in a different
5:59
Speaker 2: place than they normally would be found, kind of go
6:02
Speaker 2: hang on a sec why are those books there? Or
6:05
Speaker 2: why is mum put those rocks on the table.
6:07
Speaker 1: So this ties in with one last thing that I
6:10
Speaker 1: really have to say. A couple of weeks ago, we
6:13
Speaker 1: lost the TV remote, and I say lost in inverted commerce.
6:17
Speaker 1: Everyone who's old enough can nudge, nudge, wink wink, know
6:19
Speaker 1: what I mean. But we don't know where the TV
6:22
Speaker 1: remote is anymore. And what that has forced in our
6:24
Speaker 1: home is our children have had to become resourceful in
6:27
Speaker 1: terms of the activities that they're engaging with. There's limited
6:30
Speaker 1: access to laptops and telephones and so the lego does
6:35
Speaker 1: get played with for an hour, or a bath for
6:36
Speaker 1: an hour with the shaving cream is amazing fun, or
6:40
Speaker 1: time out on the swing set feels different because there's
6:43
Speaker 1: no pull towards the screen. We've moved over the last
6:47
Speaker 1: decade decade and a half from a person based and
6:51
Speaker 1: play based childhood to a screen based childhood, and it's
6:55
Speaker 1: leading to lower levels of frustration, tolerance, lower levels of emotion,
7:00
Speaker 1: behavioral regulation, lower capacity to deal with boredom, lower levels
7:04
Speaker 1: of delayed gratification, and it's hurting our kids. A screen
7:08
Speaker 1: based childhood across this Easter break is the last thing,
7:12
Speaker 1: the last thing that our children need. Therefore, as parents,
7:15
Speaker 1: we've got to set up those resources and help our
7:17
Speaker 1: children to understand the expectations because they will have a
7:21
Speaker 1: much more enriching time if we can get that right.
7:27
Speaker 2: Number two involve other people. This is huge and especially
7:32
Speaker 2: for an only child.
7:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, play dates.
7:34
Speaker 2: If you are the only person your child knows and
7:38
Speaker 2: relies on for their social interaction and entertainment, you will
7:44
Speaker 2: be exhausted.
7:45
Speaker 1: Playdates a or a life saver. I've had several parents
7:48
Speaker 1: say to me over the years when I've said, Hey,
7:49
Speaker 1: would you like to send your kiddo over to play
7:51
Speaker 1: with mine? They're like, oh, but you've got so many kids?
7:52
Speaker 1: Will that be okay? Can you handle it? And I'm like,
7:55
Speaker 1: do you know what? When my child has someone else
7:57
Speaker 1: to play with, it makes my life so much easier,
8:00
Speaker 1: so much less attention has to be paid because the
8:02
Speaker 1: kids are entertaining themselves. They're developing the social skills, the
8:05
Speaker 1: emotional skills, they're developing emotional regulation, they're learning how to
8:08
Speaker 1: negotiate and cooperate and figure things out developmentally. It's amazing.
8:12
Speaker 1: Playdates are a godsend when it comes to school holidays,
8:16
Speaker 1: especially for frazzled parents who feel like they're responsible for
8:19
Speaker 1: their child's every moment.
8:21
Speaker 2: So maybe you switch it up a little bit and
8:23
Speaker 2: it's not so much a play date as it's a
8:24
Speaker 2: child swap.
8:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I'll have your kids on Monday
8:28
Speaker 1: and Wednesday, you have ours on Thursday and Friday or whatever.
8:31
Speaker 2: But there's also the opportunity to involve other people. Maybe
8:33
Speaker 2: auntie or uncle live close by. Maybe you've got a
8:36
Speaker 2: grandparent or a close family friend who can spend special
8:39
Speaker 2: one on one time with your child or children just
8:43
Speaker 2: one day a week, or even a couple of hours
8:45
Speaker 2: in a day. Yeah, just make morning all the difference.
8:49
Speaker 2: Maybe they have a special activity that they just do
8:51
Speaker 2: with grammar on Monday mornings and they bake together. Or
8:54
Speaker 2: maybe granddad loves working in his shed and the kids
8:58
Speaker 2: go and do something with.
8:59
Speaker 1: It and sores and power equipment.
9:02
Speaker 2: This is the perfect time to introduce new skill sets
9:05
Speaker 2: to your children and involve them. Maybe it's gardening. Just
9:09
Speaker 2: the other week, we actually purchased a worm farm. That
9:14
Speaker 2: worm farm. I've had my daughter's fingers in dirt for
9:18
Speaker 2: days as she's found for worms and places that she
9:22
Speaker 2: couldn't find.
9:23
Speaker 1: And I need to say this really, like explicitly, I
9:26
Speaker 1: hate the worm farm. I hate it. It's messy, it's dirty,
9:30
Speaker 1: it's in an area on my deck that there's nothing
9:32
Speaker 1: about the worm farm that I like. But again, I'm
9:35
Speaker 1: not trying to have a clean deck here. I'm trying
9:37
Speaker 1: to raise kids who are actively engaged in their lives.
9:40
Speaker 1: So Number one, get the resources right so they can
9:42
Speaker 1: have it enriching time and they've got options outside of screens.
9:45
Speaker 1: Number two, bring people in. Number three an extension of
9:49
Speaker 1: number two. Involvement is good. This idea in our email
9:55
Speaker 1: from our anonymous sender is I don't want to have
9:59
Speaker 1: to be with my child all day, but please note
10:03
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be with your child
10:04
Speaker 1: at all. In fact, there's so much value in being
10:07
Speaker 1: with your child. Kylie, you talked about all the things
10:09
Speaker 1: that you've done with our kids, and when you start
10:11
Speaker 1: doing something with the kids and they get engaged in it,
10:13
Speaker 1: they're pretty happy to go and do stuff on their own.
10:15
Speaker 1: So I just think you've mentioned baking and worm farms
10:19
Speaker 1: and gardening and all the other things that have come
10:22
Speaker 1: up in the conversation. You're teaching them new skills. Teach
10:24
Speaker 1: them new skills, giving them new experiences. Being involved with
10:28
Speaker 1: them for at least a couple of hours a day
10:31
Speaker 1: I think is essential.
10:33
Speaker 2: From where we're sitting, having watched three of our six babies,
10:37
Speaker 2: become adults, become adults. The reality is the time that
10:41
Speaker 2: you actually have with them in those early years pills
10:45
Speaker 2: like it's never going to end, but it ends, and
10:48
Speaker 2: it ends really really quickly. And as we look to
10:52
Speaker 2: say goodbye to baby number three as she heads away
10:55
Speaker 2: for eighteen months, the reality of that is really hitting hard.
10:59
Speaker 1: Nine hundred and thirty that's how many weekends you have
11:01
Speaker 1: with your kids from the time they're born until the
11:03
Speaker 1: time that they're eighteen. Nine hundred and thirty six. Look
11:06
Speaker 1: at how old your kids are now. Do a quick calculation.
11:09
Speaker 1: The numbers are dropping. And of course you lose so
11:10
Speaker 1: many to work commitments or school things like there's always
11:14
Speaker 1: something going on.
11:15
Speaker 2: I'm going to suggest if you're a tired mum like this,
11:17
Speaker 2: mum sounds.
11:19
Speaker 1: Nine thirty six, o's like a lot.
11:20
Speaker 2: That sounds like a lot of weekends, which.
11:23
Speaker 1: Probably already down to like four hundred or five hundred
11:25
Speaker 1: or something like that. And really this is just about
11:28
Speaker 1: being present. So when we've had school holidays, something that
11:30
Speaker 1: we've done consistently is we've just said we're going to
11:32
Speaker 1: do one family activity per day. It's good.
11:34
Speaker 2: Well, clearly you're not involved in the family activities because
11:38
Speaker 2: we don't do one every day because it's too much.
11:40
Speaker 1: Well that's true, but we've tried to put together a
11:43
Speaker 1: list of here are the eight things that we're going
11:45
Speaker 1: to do across the twelve or the sixteen days that
11:47
Speaker 1: we've got for school holidays.
11:48
Speaker 2: And this is probably my number one tip yeap for
11:52
Speaker 2: holidays to work great, you actually need a plan, right,
11:57
Speaker 2: So in the early stages of our family, we did
12:01
Speaker 2: create an activity every day and it was just too much.
12:06
Speaker 2: The kids didn't love being dragged around everywhere all the time,
12:09
Speaker 2: and I needed a break as well. So creating a
12:12
Speaker 2: system that works for you, whether it's an activity and
12:14
Speaker 2: outing and outing every two or three days, but then
12:18
Speaker 2: on the other days you either have facilitate activities, whether
12:22
Speaker 2: it's pull out the legos, take the blocks into the backyard,
12:25
Speaker 2: create a mud puddle, create a water theme park in
12:29
Speaker 2: your backyard, whatever would you.
12:31
Speaker 1: Do something with balloons in confetti, Like, you can do anything,
12:33
Speaker 1: and if you're stuck, just jump on a chat GPT,
12:36
Speaker 1: create a free account on chat GPT and say I
12:39
Speaker 1: live in Sydney, or I live in Newcastle, or I
12:41
Speaker 1: live in Woongong, or I live in Brisbane or the
12:42
Speaker 1: Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Townsville. I live in Adelaide,
12:45
Speaker 1: Claire Valley. I don't care where you are. Just type
12:47
Speaker 1: in here's where I live, and I'm looking for activities
12:51
Speaker 1: that I can do in my house, or that I
12:52
Speaker 1: can do in my local area, or that I can
12:54
Speaker 1: do within an hour of here. If you set that
12:57
Speaker 1: up on chat GPT, it will give you as many
13:00
Speaker 1: you can say thirty activities or fifteen activities for my
13:02
Speaker 1: living room, and say how old your kids are. It
13:05
Speaker 1: will give you local activities to go out and do.
13:08
Speaker 1: It will tell you what you can do at home.
13:11
Speaker 1: It's extraordinarily powerful software and it will do all the
13:15
Speaker 1: thinking for you.
13:16
Speaker 2: This works even if you're a working parent, because everybody
13:20
Speaker 2: needs a plan, and I think it's probably more important
13:23
Speaker 2: if you're working and you've got limited time, so that
13:26
Speaker 2: you feel like you're actually in control of what's going on.
13:30
Speaker 2: You can't and to know what's going.
13:31
Speaker 1: On prioritize your own needs as well. You've got to
13:34
Speaker 1: be there for the kids, but you've got stuff to
13:36
Speaker 1: do as well. So by putting together a plan, you
13:39
Speaker 1: give the children a structure or framework to follow. You
13:42
Speaker 1: bring people in you utilize the resources that you've got.
13:45
Speaker 1: You utilize that AI. It is incredible and hopefully that
13:48
Speaker 1: will help you to get through the next school holidays.
13:51
Speaker 2: When you think about what kids need, specifically the acknowledgment
13:56
Speaker 2: that they need to know in advance what's going on.
14:00
Speaker 2: They need to know that their environment is predictable. When
14:03
Speaker 2: they're constantly at you, it's because they don't actually know
14:06
Speaker 2: what's coming up next. So my last tip when it
14:09
Speaker 2: comes to holidays, tell your kids what the plan.
14:13
Speaker 1: Is and give them something to look forward to.
14:15
Speaker 2: If you can say, mum's got some work to do
14:17
Speaker 2: this morning, can you keep yourselves busy for the next
14:19
Speaker 2: couple of hours and then we're going to go to
14:21
Speaker 2: the theme.
14:22
Speaker 1: Park and here are your options, or we're.
14:25
Speaker 2: Going to go and visit Grandma at three o'clock this afternoon.
14:28
Speaker 2: So for the next few hours, I'm just going to
14:29
Speaker 2: get you guys to hang out together.
14:31
Speaker 1: Here's the shaving cream.
14:32
Speaker 2: That is going to make a world of difference because
14:34
Speaker 2: they know what's happening.
14:37
Speaker 1: That's got to make your holidays better. Good luck, enjoy.
14:39
Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow talking about what to do when
14:41
Speaker 1: your child is violent, When disregulated when they're hurting you
14:44
Speaker 1: or destroying things. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by
14:47
Speaker 1: Justin Rowland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer,
14:50
Speaker 1: and if you like more information about how to make
14:52
Speaker 1: your family happier, you can visit us on all of
14:54
Speaker 1: the socials Doctor Justin Pulson's Happy Families, Seve