Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #68 Punishing Makes Selfish

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#68 Punishing Makes Selfish · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's a Happy Families podcast with Dr Justin Coulson, where
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  Speaker 1: Luke and Suzie parents of three little boys, and this
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  Speaker 1: is the podcast for those of us who are time
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  Speaker 1: poor parents. But just one answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now, it's an interesting statement that doctor Justin Coulson has
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  Speaker 2: written to me recently. It was this, punishing our kids
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  Speaker 2: makes them more selfish, which is interesting because sometimes we're
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  Speaker 2: punishing them for being selfish.
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  Speaker 1: Well, how does that work? How are we supposed to
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  Speaker 1: do this parenting gig?
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  Speaker 2: I don't know, well, doctor Justin Coulson from happy Families
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  Speaker 2: dot com do I use loads and loads of resources
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  Speaker 2: available to support us parents on that website. I encourage
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  Speaker 2: you to go there. But you're in the room with
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  Speaker 2: this now, doctor Justin to talk about this whole idea
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  Speaker 2: of punishing our kids making them more selfish?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, isn't that curious? It really is.
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  Speaker 4: The kids are fighting with each other, or maybe they've
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  Speaker 4: stolen something from the shop down the road.
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  Speaker 3: You know, when five.
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  Speaker 4: Year olds decide that that piece of chocolate looks too
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  Speaker 4: good and what do we do as it's the most
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  Speaker 4: common form of discipline in Australia. In spite of my
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  Speaker 4: very best efforts to change this is that we punish
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  Speaker 4: our kids.
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  Speaker 3: And I was reading some.
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  Speaker 4: Research fairly recently and considering what goes on in the
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  Speaker 4: mind of a child when they're punished, and it occurred
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  Speaker 4: to me, the more we punish our kids, the more
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  Speaker 4: selfish they are.
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  Speaker 3: I'll give you an example.
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  Speaker 4: So I'm a fourteen year old boy, and I grew
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  Speaker 4: up in a home. So I mean, I'm fourteen, right,
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  Speaker 4: So it's the nineteen eighties, and I've grown up in
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  Speaker 4: a home where we're not allowed to watch Neighbors or
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  Speaker 4: Home and Away all the Simpsons because of all the
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  Speaker 4: bad attitude that's there.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we too much sas.
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  Speaker 4: And my sister says something that ticks me off, and
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  Speaker 4: I look at her and say, Karina, you're.
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  Speaker 3: Such an idiot.
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  Speaker 4: I'm sorry for using that word, but you know, I
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  Speaker 4: just I called her an idiot. And my mum comes
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  Speaker 4: storming into the kitchen and she said, we don't speak
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  Speaker 4: like that in this house.
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  Speaker 3: You need to say sorry.
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  Speaker 4: Justin I take a deep breath, I look at my
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  Speaker 4: sister and I say, fine, Karina, I'm sorry.
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  Speaker 3: You're an idiot. And so MoMA, my mum sends me
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  Speaker 3: to my room. She says, that's it. Go to your
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  Speaker 3: room and you think about what you've done. We don't
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  Speaker 3: speak like that.
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  Speaker 4: And so I went to my bedroom and as you
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  Speaker 4: can imagine, fourteen year old boy sent to his room
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  Speaker 4: by his mum. I sit on my bed and I
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  Speaker 4: think to myself, you know, Mum's right. I needed this
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  Speaker 4: time away from my family to.
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  Speaker 3: To regroup.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm an impediment in my family's well being.
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  Speaker 3: I'm an impediment to our family's happiness.
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  Speaker 4: I've not been a good brother. And because I've had
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  Speaker 4: this opportunity to sit in my room, I'm going to
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  Speaker 4: be a better human being when I leave.
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  Speaker 5: Wonderful happens every time, no teenager or no child ever,
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  Speaker 5: you know, Supernanny and the whole naughty Corner thing, the
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  Speaker 5: stupidest anyway, you.
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  Speaker 3: Know what I did. I sat in my room and
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  Speaker 3: I got selfish. I'd been punished. And who did I
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  Speaker 3: think about while I was in my room. I thought
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  Speaker 3: about me. I thought about how unfair the world was.
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  Speaker 4: I thought about how my mum doesn't understand stand and
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  Speaker 4: how upset I was at her. And then I did
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  Speaker 4: think about my sister. But I thought about what I
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  Speaker 4: was going to do to her. When I got out
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  Speaker 4: of the bedroom and Mum wasn't watching, you know, Mum said,
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  Speaker 4: don't you ever let me catch me catch you doing
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  Speaker 4: that again? And I was like, you won't, Mum, don't worry,
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  Speaker 4: I'll be much sneaky.
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  Speaker 1: That's the thing, isn't it. Because we like I think
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  Speaker 1: about what we achieve when we punish hard is we
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  Speaker 1: make sure that they work harder at not getting caught.
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  Speaker 4: Well, we do that, but what we also do, think
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  Speaker 4: about the cognitions. When somebody gets you in trouble, you
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  Speaker 4: go from being the aggressor or the instigator in a
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  Speaker 4: certain situation. I mean, you might have been in the wrong,
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  Speaker 4: but now that you're getting in trouble, now that you're being.
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  Speaker 3: Punished, you actually become the victim.
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  Speaker 4: It happens in schools when we punished bullies and we
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  Speaker 4: actually make them victims. We punished the kid who did
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  Speaker 4: the inappropriate thing, and we make them the victim. It
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  Speaker 4: works against what we're trying to achieve. What we want
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  Speaker 4: to achieve is perspective and empathy. We want to improve
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  Speaker 4: them as humans, and all we do is we make
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  Speaker 4: them self centered, self focused, and feel completely misunderstood and ignored.
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  Speaker 1: Now just it's now a good time to pause knowing
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  Speaker 1: you and where you come from, because there's people now
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  Speaker 1: screaming at the radio because they think you're advocating for
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  Speaker 1: letting them get away with that's.
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  Speaker 3: Right, we should just let kids do whatever they know.
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  Speaker 3: That's not what I'm saying.
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  Speaker 1: And so it's very specific on the word punish. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: is what you're against, But that's not about letting just
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  Speaker 1: a child do whatever so that they don't feel bad.
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  Speaker 2: So what do we do if punishing is off the table,
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  Speaker 2: what do we do.
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  Speaker 4: We Well, just one more thing before I go to
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  Speaker 4: a solution. There's an acronym that I use all the
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  Speaker 4: time to emphasize what punishment.
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  Speaker 3: Does to our kids. We actually get into bed with
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  Speaker 3: our kids b ed. We get into bed blame, excuse,
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  Speaker 3: and denial. So when we're punishing kids, and you would
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  Speaker 3: have seen this with your own kids.
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  Speaker 4: If you're going to get your kids in trouble and
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  Speaker 4: punish them, they blame everyone else and they blame you.
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  Speaker 4: They make up every excuse in the world, and they
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  Speaker 4: deny that there's been a problem in the first place.
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  Speaker 4: That's what happens when we use punishment. It just undermines
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  Speaker 4: the whole thing.
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  Speaker 1: Now.
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  Speaker 4: I know I've said this to you many many times before,
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  Speaker 4: but we've got to remember what discipline means.
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  Speaker 3: Discipline means to teach, to.
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  Speaker 1: Teach, to God, to instruct.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, it's working, fantastic. Discipline means teach God an instruct.
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  Speaker 4: It comes from the Latin discipline, which means teach God instruct.
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  Speaker 4: If our children do something that is not appropriate, our
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  Speaker 4: job is not to get mad at them and hurt them.
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  Speaker 3: That's what punishment is.
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  Speaker 4: Our job is to teach them, guide them, and instruct them,
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  Speaker 4: which means we need to engage in a conversation with them.
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  Speaker 4: We need to engage in perspective taking with them. It's
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  Speaker 4: not going to work if there's an audience. It's not
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  Speaker 4: going to work if they're very emotional, or if we're
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  Speaker 4: very emotional. So if there's a drama going on that
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  Speaker 4: requires a media intervention, we do need to intervene, and
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  Speaker 4: we need to make sure that everybody is safe. Once
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  Speaker 4: that's taken care of, we set an appointment with our child.
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  Speaker 4: Because we're not quite ready to have a proper conversation
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  Speaker 4: or they're not, we say we're going to have to
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  Speaker 4: discuss this a little bit later, when I've calmed down,
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  Speaker 4: or when you've calmed down, and we do whatever we
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  Speaker 4: need to do to make sure everyone's okay. And then
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  Speaker 4: ten minutes later or ten hours later, or even the
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  Speaker 4: next day or that night, on the edge of their bed,
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  Speaker 4: we sit with them and we say we need to
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  Speaker 4: talk about what happened. We listen to them, We understand
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  Speaker 4: what was going on, you know, we need to see
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  Speaker 4: the full picture. We've had lots of conversations as we've had,
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  Speaker 4: you know, these chats where we recognize that as parents
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  Speaker 4: we don't see everything that's going on. We need to
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  Speaker 4: slow down, understand what's happening in our kids' lives and
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  Speaker 4: what was going on for them, and then we need
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  Speaker 4: to ask them why they chose to do what they
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  Speaker 4: did and what they could have done better next time. Now,
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  Speaker 4: this is a far more effective discipline process. It's not
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  Speaker 4: quite as exciting. Other people don't get to see us
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  Speaker 4: being the parent, you know, because we don't look like
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  Speaker 4: we're getting angry at our kids. But our kids learn
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  Speaker 4: more more than that. They learn that we are safe,
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  Speaker 4: and they learn that we are there to protect their
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  Speaker 4: best interests, but also the interests of their siblings, or
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  Speaker 4: the store owner, the street, or the kid in the
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  Speaker 4: school playground. I'm not advocating for no limits. In fact,
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  Speaker 4: I'm advocating for very clear limits. But we set them
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  Speaker 4: with our kids rather than doing things to them.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things that i've you know, we've been
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  Speaker 1: dealing with with our boys at the moment is a
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  Speaker 1: bit of lying. And a moment I experienced recently was
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  Speaker 1: that there was no reason for one of our sons
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  Speaker 1: to lie like there was no anger. There was nothing.
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  Speaker 1: But but I realized the way I asked the question
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  Speaker 1: may easily have triggered a I'm going to get into
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  Speaker 1: trouble for this response, and so his automatic response was
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  Speaker 1: to just cover, to not tell me what was like, No, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: you're not You're not in trouble. We're going to talk
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  Speaker 1: about the fact that he said a word that we
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  Speaker 1: never really spent a whole lot of time on saying,
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  Speaker 1: don't say that, and so I just wanted to clarify.
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  Speaker 1: I asked him what he said because I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: see if I had heard it right before I went
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  Speaker 1: and had this discussion. But he just went straight to
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  Speaker 1: I need to protect myself. I don't know, I don't
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  Speaker 1: remember what I said. Oh no, I didn't say that,
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  Speaker 1: but it was really highlighted to me how his bad
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  Speaker 1: behavior Lane came out of the fact that he thought
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  Speaker 1: I was out to get.
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  Speaker 4: Him right, and he became more selfish in that fear
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  Speaker 4: that he was going to get punished. When we punish
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  Speaker 4: our kids, we make them more selfish. That's really the
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  Speaker 4: essence of this. When we sit down and we have
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  Speaker 4: these proper conversations with them, when the fear is gone,
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  Speaker 4: they know they're not going to get quote unquote in trouble.
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  Speaker 4: They become more open to learning, They become more open
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  Speaker 4: to having a good relationship with us, and the discipline
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  Speaker 4: actually sinks in. Not just that, but they become more
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  Speaker 4: empathic and concerned about the people that we want them
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  Speaker 4: to be concerned about.
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  Speaker 3: So good.
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  Speaker 2: It's a great It's challenging because it's certainly much easier
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  Speaker 2: to be reactive as a parent. But I like this
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  Speaker 2: idea of actually that teaching, guiding and instructing and developing
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  Speaker 2: empathy in our children. Specifically for me as a mum,
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  Speaker 2: where Dad is not particularly empathic, I feel a lot of.
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  Speaker 3: Responsibility We should have this conversation.
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  Speaker 1: Words like that.
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  Speaker 3: You know again, I want to emphasize this about families
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  Speaker 3: with boys.
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  Speaker 5: Particularly.
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  Speaker 4: Research tells us that boy's experience to drop in empathy
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  Speaker 4: around about the time that they go through puberty twelve
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  Speaker 4: thirteen or thereabouts, and so it becomes even more important
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  Speaker 4: that we're having these conversations to draw that empathy back
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  Speaker 4: into their lives and help them to take the perspective
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  Speaker 4: of others at an age where neurologically and developmentally it's
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  Speaker 4: harder for them to do it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, very good, Doctor Justin Coulson, thanks so much
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  Speaker 2: for joining us in the studio and for talking about
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  Speaker 2: this big topic about punishing our kids making them.
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  Speaker 3: More selfish, and we'll have this therapy session short.
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• 9:45
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• 9:48
  Speaker 2: on all of doctor Justin Coulson's books, programs, and podcasts,
• 9:51
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• 9:54
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• 9:56
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