Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #461 I'll Do Better Tomorrow

Transcript

#461 I'll Do Better Tomorrow · 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.
0:10
Speaker 2: Providing our kids with opportunities to actually brainstorm and come
0:15
Speaker 2: up with solutions on their.
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Speaker 3: Own, collaborate.
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Speaker 4: It's so powerful.
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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
0:22
Speaker 1: and dad.
0:22
Speaker 3: Well, another week is almost over Friday. It feels good.
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Speaker 5: It means that we get to be with our families, hopefully,
0:29
Speaker 5: so long as you're not working this weekend. Hello, this
0:31
Speaker 5: is doctor Justin Coulson. I'm here with my wife and
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Speaker 5: mum to our six kids. Kylie. How are you feeling, Kylie?
0:37
Speaker 5: The countdown is really on for us. Our house is
0:40
Speaker 5: about to be on the market, and hopefully I'm going
0:43
Speaker 5: to be joining you and we'll be together again as
0:45
Speaker 5: a family really soon, permanently.
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Speaker 2: I'm really looking forward to that. But there does doesn't
0:49
Speaker 2: seem to be any light at the end of the
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Speaker 2: tunnel at the moment finding a house.
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Speaker 4: It's driving me crazy.
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Speaker 3: How many houses do you reckon? We've looked at so far.
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Speaker 4: Too many.
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Speaker 2: I actually I was speaking to an a and I said,
1:01
Speaker 2: he said, I'm ringing up about blah blah blah house
1:03
Speaker 2: and I said, oh, I said, I'm sorry. Until I'm
1:05
Speaker 2: in front of the computer, I won't have a clue
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Speaker 2: which house you're talking about. I've been inundated and he said,
1:11
Speaker 2: what do you mean inundated?
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Speaker 4: He said, we.
1:12
Speaker 2: Can't get enough houses to show people, and I said,
1:16
Speaker 2: I am looking at every of them.
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Speaker 3: We are literally we've got six kids, right.
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Speaker 5: This is not what today's podcast is about, but today's
1:24
Speaker 5: podcast about.
1:25
Speaker 3: I'll do better tomorrow.
1:26
Speaker 5: We'll get to that in a seg but we are
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Speaker 5: looking at everything from like three bedroom shacks right up
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Speaker 5: to big, big houses and you name it, because we
1:36
Speaker 5: just want to find a house that's going to work
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Speaker 5: for our family. And I mean, obviously a three bedroom
1:40
Speaker 5: house isn't. But we're open to just about anything right now,
1:42
Speaker 5: aren't we? And housing the housing market, for anyone who
1:46
Speaker 5: is looking, we feel your pain. And for anyone who's selling,
1:51
Speaker 5: good luck to you, Like you're going to do really well,
1:52
Speaker 5: but then you're going to be looking and it's just unbelievable.
1:55
Speaker 5: The Australian housing market generally, or at least hearing Southeast Queensland.
2:00
Speaker 5: Holy smokes, holy smokes. And you know the scary thing.
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Speaker 5: I saw a house that sold the other day that
2:06
Speaker 5: we liked the look of They bought it what like
2:09
Speaker 5: two years ago for one point three million dollars and
2:12
Speaker 5: we're like, oh, maybe we're in with a shot.
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Speaker 3: They sold it for two.
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Speaker 4: Point four and didn't do a thing to it and don't.
2:17
Speaker 3: Know what to do it in two years. It's like,
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Speaker 3: how in the world.
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Speaker 5: I mean, we could get onto the whole political and
2:23
Speaker 5: economic conversation. That's not the purpose of the podcast, but
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Speaker 5: things are kind of intense when it comes to the
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Speaker 5: house hunting.
2:29
Speaker 2: Anyway, I'll do better tomorrow, Honey, have you done better
2:33
Speaker 2: or have we got some learning?
2:35
Speaker 3: The idea of I'll do better tomorrow.
2:36
Speaker 5: Thanks for listening to our winge And how fortunate are we?
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Speaker 3: Honestly, let's not winge in one too much. How fortunate
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Speaker 3: are we to.
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Speaker 5: Live in a country where where we actually do have
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Speaker 5: housing and we have the opportunities that we have in
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Speaker 5: this country are just just wonderful. I'll Do Better Tomorrow
2:51
Speaker 5: as a podcast that we do every Friday, where we
2:53
Speaker 5: focus on the things that have happened during the week,
2:55
Speaker 5: what worked, what didn't, how we can be better parents
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Speaker 5: next week. It's all about being better tomorrow. This week,
3:02
Speaker 5: I had an experience that reminded me of the Space Shuttle.
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Speaker 4: Fly me to the Moon, let me play among the stars.
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Speaker 3: The Space Shuttle, and as you know, I'm anything but
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Speaker 3: a rocket scientist. I don't know much about I'm intrigued.
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Speaker 5: Tell me. Okay, well, I'll start with the Space Shuttle
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Speaker 5: and then I'll share the parenting experience. For the Space
3:26
Speaker 5: Shuttle to get into orbit, it has to go twenty
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Speaker 5: eight thousand kilometers an hour. Let me say that again.
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Speaker 5: Twenty eight thousand kilometers an hour. That's two hundred and
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Speaker 5: eighty times faster than we travel when we're driving down
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Speaker 5: the freeway in one hundred zone. That's fast. Two hundred
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Speaker 5: and eighty times faster. It's unimaginably fast. It's I look
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Speaker 5: this up. It's nine times faster than a speeding bullet.
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Speaker 5: Superman doesn't fly as fast as the Space Shuttle when
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Speaker 5: it's in orbit twenty eight thousand k an hour.
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Speaker 3: Anyway, Superman's not really you know, yeah, I thank you.
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Speaker 5: The other thing about the Space Shuttle, though, is that
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Speaker 5: it takes ten minutes to get to eight thousand k
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Speaker 5: an hour. So in the first ten seconds from lift
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Speaker 5: off to one hundred k an hour ten seconds. It
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Speaker 5: takes about a minute to get to one thousand k's
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Speaker 5: an hour, and then over the next nine minutes as
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Speaker 5: it accelerates through the atmosphere and eventually drops those rocket
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Speaker 5: boosters as it enters orbit. It goes from that thousand
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Speaker 5: k mark to twenty eight thousand k an hour, drops
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Speaker 5: those rocket boosters, the jet fuel, the rocket fuel.
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Speaker 2: Well, I think that's key there. It has to drop
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Speaker 2: a whole heap to get to that speed. I don't
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Speaker 2: know where you're going with this. Can you just get
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Speaker 2: to the point.
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Speaker 4: Did you know?
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Speaker 5: It goes through the average family swimming pool, like a
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Speaker 5: backyard swimming pool, an in ground swimm pool, forty thousand
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Speaker 5: liters goes through one of those in rocket fuel like
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Speaker 5: every five seconds in the initial stages of liftoff. I
4:45
Speaker 5: mean that is thirsty, right, that's insane.
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Speaker 4: So is that what it's dropping. It's dropping the fuel tank.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, those fuel tanks. Those fuel tanks, they're like multiple
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Speaker 5: stories high, and there's three of them, the big orange
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Speaker 5: one in the middle and the two white ones.
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Speaker 3: That's the rocket.
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Speaker 5: Fuel, right, they're the boosters, all the fuels, and there
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Speaker 5: it all mixes together propels it into in the atmosphere
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Speaker 5: twenty eight thousand k's an hour after ten minutes. But
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Speaker 5: here's the fascinating thing about the rocket being in orbit.
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Speaker 5: Once it's in orbit, it doesn't have the big fuel
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Speaker 5: tanks anymore. It only has enough fuel on it to
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Speaker 5: propel it back into the Earth's atmosphere and land when
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Speaker 5: it comes back to Earth. In other words, while it's
5:19
Speaker 5: rocketing around the Earth at twenty eight thousand kilometers an hour,
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Speaker 5: it's really not consuming any fuel. The Earth's gravitational pull
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Speaker 5: and orbit and all the space stuff that I do
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Speaker 5: understand keeps it going at that speed. Now, normally I
5:33
Speaker 5: use that analogy when I'm talking to students in schools
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Speaker 5: about their study habits, and I'll say to them, if
5:40
Speaker 5: you can just commit to ten minutes of study without
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Speaker 5: any distraction, ten minutes of blisteringly intense study like the
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Speaker 5: rocket launching. Once you've done ten minutes, you will be
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Speaker 5: in orbit and you'll be able to study for another hour,
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Speaker 5: two hours.
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Speaker 4: House cleaning too.
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Speaker 3: I think it works with just about anything.
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Speaker 5: And this is my point, So I need to make
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Speaker 5: a parenting expert confession. Oh, this is a big one,
6:01
Speaker 5: and you know this because you've watched me over the
6:03
Speaker 5: last twenty years with our kids, twenty three, twenty four
6:06
Speaker 5: years with our kids. I actually hate playing most games
6:10
Speaker 5: with kids. The games that I like playing with the
6:12
Speaker 5: kids are the active games where we're wrestling and we're
6:14
Speaker 5: pushing one another off the bed and we're barreling into
6:18
Speaker 5: one another, or we're throwing things or kicking things. I
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Speaker 5: like active games. I like being in the pool, happy
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Speaker 5: to play with the kids that way. But if somebody says, hey,
6:24
Speaker 5: let's play snakes and letters, let's play checkers, let's play
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Speaker 5: even the really cool board games that everyone gets excited about,
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Speaker 5: what do I usually do?
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Speaker 1: Oh?
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Speaker 4: You leave that up to me?
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Speaker 1: Yeah?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And what do I actually do?
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Speaker 4: You wingine, complain and then you disappear.
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Speaker 3: I disappear, you leave it to me. I lave the
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Speaker 3: I'm like, you know what, Colyudie, you can do the
6:44
Speaker 3: jigsaw puzzle.
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Speaker 4: But I'm okay with that because I'm not going to wrestle.
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Speaker 4: I don't like doing that.
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Speaker 5: That's right. We've got strengths, we've got things that we
6:50
Speaker 5: prefer to do things we don't. But you play the
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Speaker 5: card games and you do all of that sort of stuff.
6:54
Speaker 5: The reason for this very long winded and conversation about
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Speaker 5: space shuttles and committing to ten is that over the
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Speaker 5: last weekend, given that I only get weekends with the
7:04
Speaker 5: kids as we're dealing with the aforementioned move to the
7:08
Speaker 5: coast and everything associated with that, over the weekend I
7:12
Speaker 5: committed to play some card games with the kids while
7:17
Speaker 5: missus happy families went and fell asleep on a bed
7:19
Speaker 5: in a different room. That was such a good move,
7:23
Speaker 5: and I played card games with the kids for ages.
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Speaker 4: I got about an hour to myself.
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Speaker 5: What I found was that the first ten minutes were torture,
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Speaker 5: and then I really began to enjoy myself, so much
7:36
Speaker 5: so that when I got home our second eldest daughter,
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Speaker 5: our nineteen year old and nearly twenty year old. She's
7:42
Speaker 5: living in our house in Brisbane with me while we
7:44
Speaker 5: get a river of sale because she's still going to
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Speaker 5: work and everything. When I got home that evening after
7:49
Speaker 5: being with you guys for the weekend, I got home
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Speaker 5: a bit early, had some dinner. It was only about
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Speaker 5: six thirty and I said, do you want to do anything?
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Speaker 5: And she said, I want to play a game, And
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Speaker 5: inside I went no, no, I don't. And I should
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Speaker 5: have know of offered. I should have just gone and
8:05
Speaker 5: picked up a book and read it and disappeared into
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Speaker 5: a room. But instead I said okay, and I committed
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Speaker 5: to ten minutes, and we ended up playing games for
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Speaker 5: about an hour and a half and we had so
8:14
Speaker 5: much fun. It was the most fun that I've had
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Speaker 5: with this particular daughter, as in literally as long as
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Speaker 5: I can remember. So that's my old do better tomorrow,
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Speaker 5: be the rocket ship, be the space shuttle. Commit to
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Speaker 5: ten minutes, no matter how crappy.
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Speaker 3: The thing that you.
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Speaker 5: Think you have to do is and watch what happens,
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Speaker 5: because it might actually be way better than your thought.
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Speaker 5: You might find yourself in orbit, rocketing around the Earth
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Speaker 5: that your children inhabit at twenty eight thousand kilometers an hour,
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Speaker 5: going check out the view. This is actually pretty awesome.
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Speaker 4: That's pretty cool.
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Speaker 3: Do you like that one?
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Speaker 4: Yeah?
8:44
Speaker 3: Okay, Well that's my older better Tomorrow.
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Speaker 5: We'll find out what your one is next with a
8:48
Speaker 5: flashback a callback to our conversation on Wednesday about letting
8:51
Speaker 5: kids find their own limits.
8:53
Speaker 1: It's a Happy Families podcast.
8:56
Speaker 6: Our screens Creating tension at home betweens, teens and screen
9:00
Speaker 6: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.
9:04
Speaker 6: Bye today at happy families dot com dot are you
9:07
Speaker 6: slash shop.
9:09
Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
9:11
Speaker 2: poor parent who just wants answers Now I don't have
9:14
Speaker 2: a rocket ship analogy.
9:16
Speaker 3: That we don't have time for another one that took
9:18
Speaker 3: way too long.
9:19
Speaker 4: A couple of.
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Speaker 2: Days ago, we had a conversation about a beautiful little girl.
9:23
Speaker 4: Who tried to pour herself a glass of juice.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, if you missed it Wednesday's podcast. It got
9:29
Speaker 5: people going again. Feedback by the way podcasts at happy
9:31
Speaker 5: families dot com dot you. I don't know if I
9:33
Speaker 5: want to ask for it, but let's do it anyway.
9:35
Speaker 5: And Yeah, we talked about giving kids the opportunity to
9:38
Speaker 5: find their own limits and it.
9:41
Speaker 2: Actually inspired one of my own parenting moments. When we're
9:45
Speaker 2: on the beach the other day, Miss seven was walking
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Speaker 2: along the beach. She loves exploring the rocks as we
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Speaker 2: make our way down to the yellow, red, and yellow flags,
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Speaker 2: and she recognized as we were walking that are after
10:00
Speaker 2: the heavy rains that we've had over the last couple
10:03
Speaker 2: of weeks. That quite a few rocks had, you know,
10:06
Speaker 2: kind of become misplaced. I guess they were on the
10:09
Speaker 2: smooth stand instead of where the rocks were, and she
10:11
Speaker 2: kicked a toe on one of them, and so I,
10:14
Speaker 2: you know, positioned myself on the sand near the flag
10:17
Speaker 2: so I could watch the kids in the water, and
10:19
Speaker 2: I realized that she hadn't.
10:20
Speaker 4: Followed her sisters in.
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Speaker 2: And the next thing I knew, she's digging up one
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Speaker 2: of these rocks and carrying it and putting it further
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Speaker 2: up the beach. I thought, oh, why what she's doing,
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Speaker 2: And so I just watched her for a little bit,
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Speaker 2: and the next thing I know, she's raced over to
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Speaker 2: a couple of other kids and they were building sand castles,
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Speaker 2: and she carried the rock to them and they started
10:45
Speaker 2: talking and I couldn't hear anything. I was just kind
10:47
Speaker 2: of watching this all unfold from a distance. And the
10:50
Speaker 2: next thing I know, these kids are out of the
10:52
Speaker 2: sand pit and they're racing to get rocks, all of them.
10:55
Speaker 2: There's four of them now, so they're getting rocks and
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Speaker 2: they're starting to build a pile of these rocks, and
11:02
Speaker 2: the rocks get bigger.
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Speaker 4: I'm talking like bolder size A seven year old's head.
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Speaker 2: They were picking up heavy, heavy rocks, and so at
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Speaker 2: some point the rock was too heavy for Emily to
11:14
Speaker 2: do on her own, so she's called in some help.
11:17
Speaker 2: And now there's two of them carrying a rock to
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Speaker 2: the pile. Well, as it continues, there's a big rock
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Speaker 2: like it's fully submerged in the sand. They could just
11:27
Speaker 2: see the tip of it, and they're digging. They're digging
11:30
Speaker 2: and digging.
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Speaker 5: What I love about this instantly is we've got kids
11:33
Speaker 5: outside cooperating, recruiting one another, and they're active and doing
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Speaker 5: something that to them is completely absorbing.
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Speaker 3: I just I love this story completely.
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Speaker 1: Well.
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Speaker 2: I was looking forward to reading my book, but I couldn't.
11:46
Speaker 2: I couldn't even couldn't stop. I couldn't stop watching that.
11:49
Speaker 2: I was enthralled by what I was seeing. So they've
11:52
Speaker 2: got to a point where they're fully, you know, kind
11:54
Speaker 2: of discovered how big this rock is.
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Speaker 4: Realized it's way too big.
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Speaker 2: Emily has tried to pick it up with everything she's got,
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Speaker 2: and he has done it, but she knows she can't
12:01
Speaker 2: hold it. So there's a kid and he's got his
12:03
Speaker 2: hands underneath, and then it's like, oh no, win in
12:05
Speaker 2: more help. So now there's four kids trying to carry
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Speaker 2: this rock, but they only make a couple of steps
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Speaker 2: before someone says, I've got to let go, and they
12:13
Speaker 2: all kind of just drop this rock while they jump
12:15
Speaker 2: backwards because they know that this could land on their feet.
12:19
Speaker 2: And I was like, I wonder how this is going
12:20
Speaker 2: to play out. So they start to pick it up
12:23
Speaker 2: again and realize that it's just too heavy. So the
12:26
Speaker 2: next thing, Emily is saying, let's roll it, but it's
12:28
Speaker 2: not a nice round rock and it's not rolling for
12:30
Speaker 2: them on the wet sand. Meantime, there's a lifeguard who's
12:35
Speaker 2: just off to the side and he's been watching the
12:38
Speaker 2: whole thing, and they look up at him and go,
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Speaker 2: can you help us, big strong, burly guy, he.
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Speaker 3: Got it, not wearing a shirt, not wearing a shirt.
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Speaker 2: He got in there and he picked this rock up
12:50
Speaker 2: and he took it to the pile for them. And
12:52
Speaker 2: as I watched it unfold, there was a part of
12:55
Speaker 2: me that was screaming inside. These were big rocks, and
12:58
Speaker 2: there could have.
12:59
Speaker 3: Been squashed toes, some.
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Speaker 2: Very squash toes if this went wrong. But I just
13:06
Speaker 2: loved their initiative. First and foremost there was care factor.
13:09
Speaker 2: They were actually doing this because they didn't want anyone
13:12
Speaker 2: else to stub their toe like Emily had just done.
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Speaker 2: So she was trying to clean the beach up.
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Speaker 1: Ye.
13:17
Speaker 2: But secondly she recognized that what she was doing she
13:20
Speaker 2: couldn't do on her own, so she went and got help,
13:23
Speaker 2: and together they actually created plans to work out how
13:27
Speaker 2: to do it and do it recognizing that there were
13:29
Speaker 2: safety factors that need I didn't have to say a thing.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, they figured out where the boundaries were, they navigated
13:35
Speaker 5: it themselves.
13:36
Speaker 2: And then when they realized that they couldn't do it
13:39
Speaker 2: by themselves, they sought out a safe person to help them.
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Speaker 3: I know that they didn't ask you to help carry
13:44
Speaker 3: the heaven out, really glad.
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Speaker 4: But they worked that out too.
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Speaker 3: Who's going to help me the best?
13:51
Speaker 4: Or that guy over there with the muscles.
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Speaker 5: I noticed by the way that so we shared this
13:57
Speaker 5: on our Facebook page after it happened, and I know
14:00
Speaker 5: that you made sure that the lifeguard carrying the heavy
14:02
Speaker 5: rock was in the photo.
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Speaker 3: I'm just saying. I'm just saying, maybe.
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Speaker 2: So to take home message, providing our kids with opportunities
14:11
Speaker 2: to actually brainstorm and come up with solutions on their.
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Speaker 3: Own collaborate is just so powerful and.
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Speaker 2: Well, Emily didn't do a fist pump at the end
14:21
Speaker 2: of it. She just had the best time and so
14:24
Speaker 2: did those kids. And at the end of it to
14:26
Speaker 2: show like their pile of rocks and big sticks that
14:30
Speaker 2: they'd collected.
14:31
Speaker 5: And they did it also that people wouldn't stub their
14:33
Speaker 5: toes on rocks on the beach.
14:35
Speaker 4: It was just such a joy to watch.
14:37
Speaker 5: We really hope that there's been some inspo in this
14:39
Speaker 5: I'll do Better Tomorrow episode of the Happy Families podcast
14:41
Speaker 5: for you, because we want you to have a great
14:44
Speaker 5: weekend doing better tomorrow with your kids. Thanks so much
14:47
Speaker 5: for listening. I want to just quickly mention on the
14:50
Speaker 5: twenty fourth, the twenty fourth of this month, we have
14:52
Speaker 5: a free webinar about bringing up Boys and it's going
14:56
Speaker 5: to be an absolute cracker.
14:57
Speaker 6: Now.
14:57
Speaker 5: It's going to be short, we can't talk about every
15:00
Speaker 5: but around about thirty to forty minutes of really great
15:02
Speaker 5: ideas about why boys are the way they are and
15:05
Speaker 5: how we can best work with them to help them
15:07
Speaker 5: to have happy, healthy lives in an era when everything
15:11
Speaker 5: masculinity related is being questioned. You can get all the
15:14
Speaker 5: details on our Facebook page, doctor Justin Colson's Happy Families
15:18
Speaker 5: or at happy families dot com dot AU.
15:21
Speaker 3: I just wanted to give a really big plug for.
15:23
Speaker 5: That, and I'll continue to do that over the next
15:25
Speaker 5: couple of weeks on the podcast. Thank you so much.
15:28
Speaker 5: Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. He's the guy that makes
15:30
Speaker 5: the podcast sound excellent. Somebody told me the other day, Ge,
15:33
Speaker 5: your podcast sounds good and it's all because of him.
15:35
Speaker 5: He's the producer of the podcast. Craig Bruce is the
15:38
Speaker 5: ideas guy. He's the one who finds some of the
15:41
Speaker 5: awesome stuff for us to talk about. That's what an
15:43
Speaker 5: executive producer does, and he always tells you how good
15:45
Speaker 5: you are at what you do and tells me how
15:47
Speaker 5: I can improve. So really appreciate Craig's work. The Happy
15:50
Speaker 5: Families podcast is produced and executive produced by those guys.
15:52
Speaker 5: And if you'd like more info about how your family
15:55
Speaker 5: can be happier, you can find it in the books
15:56
Speaker 5: that I've written. They're all available at happy families dot
15:59
Speaker 5: com dot a U