Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #157 Real Crocodile Tears
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Avoidance actually blocks out something that we need to move towards.
- 0:04Speaker 1: The more we can move towards those memories, the more
- 0:06Speaker 1: we can process them, we can make meaning from them.
- 0:11Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
- 0:14Speaker 3: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
- 0:17Speaker 3: wants answers.
- 0:18Speaker 4: Now.
- 0:18Speaker 1: I'm doctor Justin Coulson, the author of six books about
- 0:21Speaker 1: raising happy families, and I'm here with my wife co
- 0:24Speaker 1: hosts missus Happy Families, Kylie.
- 0:26Speaker 3: So the other morning I had this interesting experience, i'll say,
- 0:32Speaker 3: with the kids. One of our daughters came out of
- 0:35Speaker 3: her bedroom and she was sobbing, hysterically sobbing. I had
- 0:41Speaker 3: no idea what was going on. But once I realized,
- 0:45Speaker 3: I had to get a little bit of footage and
- 0:47Speaker 3: I have as sup permission and I'm going to share
- 0:49Speaker 3: it with you because it was hilarious.
- 0:50Speaker 2: I was, well, mixt just died. It's like the best
- 0:56Speaker 2: character in the book.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, that's so good. So there's a character
- 1:06Speaker 1: in a book has died and she's lost the plot.
- 1:08Speaker 3: She has devastated.
- 1:09Speaker 1: She loves to read, she loves her. But this is
- 1:12Speaker 1: a fictional book, right, this is not the real deal.
- 1:15Speaker 3: No, it's not, and it went on. I think we
- 1:18Speaker 3: kind of had about twenty five minutes because she would
- 1:20Speaker 3: she would calm down.
- 1:22Speaker 2: So this was my morning bike ride morning. I missed
- 1:24Speaker 2: all the action.
- 1:25Speaker 3: You missed it all. She would calm down and then
- 1:28Speaker 3: something would trigger, someone would say something and she would
- 1:31Speaker 3: just just gush.
- 1:33Speaker 2: Did you give her a big hud?
- 1:34Speaker 3: I did give her a big hug. Okay, But there
- 1:37Speaker 3: was definitely some laughter in there as well. And the
- 1:40Speaker 3: funny thing is even she she recognizes how how funny
- 1:44Speaker 3: it is, and so she would start laughing because she
- 1:46Speaker 3: would make herself, you know, kind of realize that this
- 1:49Speaker 3: was this was actually a bit a bit crazy that
- 1:52Speaker 3: she was so hysterical, but her laughter would actually lead
- 1:55Speaker 3: that into another beud of tears. She kind of started saying,
- 1:59Speaker 3: but it's not funny.
- 2:01Speaker 2: I love the recording.
- 2:02Speaker 1: But this leads to something that happened just in the
- 2:05Speaker 1: last couple of days with one of our other kids,
- 2:07Speaker 1: our little one. During the last holidays, we went to
- 2:12Speaker 1: Australia Zoo, which is the you the home of Steve
- 2:15Speaker 1: Erwin Bindi and Terry and Robert and all the crocodiles
- 2:19Speaker 1: and all that kind of thing and.
- 2:20Speaker 3: Such a great sue. We've had so much fun going there.
- 2:23Speaker 2: Absolutely great zoo.
- 2:25Speaker 1: And you bought the Terry Erwin memoir where she talks
- 2:29Speaker 1: about her life with Steve.
- 2:31Speaker 3: Can't it's such an incredible story. Like just he's so iconic.
- 2:36Speaker 3: We've seen the videos. We know how adventurous and crazy
- 2:40Speaker 3: and passionate he was. But reading the story from Terry's
- 2:44Speaker 3: point of view that there's no there's just there's no
- 2:49Speaker 3: there's no glory in it. There's just this is life.
- 2:51Speaker 3: This is exactly what it was like.
- 2:55Speaker 1: But it sounds I mean, I can't wait to read it.
- 2:57Speaker 1: Everything you've told me, I feel like I've read the
- 2:58Speaker 1: book already. But he just like he's just such a
- 3:01Speaker 1: dead set, faired income character and a ball agate a
- 3:05Speaker 1: million miles an hour and let's get up in the
- 3:07Speaker 1: middle of and go catch crocs and we'll just walk
- 3:09Speaker 1: into the water.
- 3:10Speaker 2: And you know, like it sounds like it's incredible.
- 3:13Speaker 1: But you had this experience just after you know, the
- 3:16Speaker 1: tears of the fictional person dying. You've had this experience
- 3:20Speaker 1: where you were having morning huggies with Emily, our six
- 3:24Speaker 1: year old, and she said, read to me, what are
- 3:28Speaker 1: you reading? So you started to read to her about
- 3:29Speaker 1: Steve Irwin.
- 3:30Speaker 3: Yeah, I love I love that. You know, she's still
- 3:33Speaker 3: in this space where she just wants to kind of
- 3:35Speaker 3: be close, and it doesn't happen very often, but every
- 3:38Speaker 3: now and again she'll kind of just say, can you
- 3:39Speaker 3: read out loud whatever you're reading? And you know, it
- 3:42Speaker 3: could be Brene Brown or a novel that I'm reading,
- 3:45Speaker 3: but she just she really wants to hear my voice,
- 3:48Speaker 3: I guess, and.
- 3:48Speaker 2: Be engaged, unlike our big kids.
- 3:51Speaker 1: Unlike our big kids who don't want to hear anyone's voice.
- 3:55Speaker 3: And so I started reading to her, and she she's
- 3:58Speaker 3: actually the reason we went to the zoo and the
- 4:00Speaker 3: first place. She really you know, loves animals and was
- 4:03Speaker 3: desperate to get to the zoo, and so she was
- 4:06Speaker 3: very much aware that this book was about Steve. And
- 4:08Speaker 3: so I read to her about Steve and Terry's honeymoon,
- 4:12Speaker 3: which was supposed to be in the beautiful, you know,
- 4:14Speaker 3: kind of western beaches of America, and she ends up
- 4:18Speaker 3: saying yes to a crocodile hunt instead, and so I
- 4:22Speaker 3: was reading this experience.
- 4:23Speaker 2: So she gives up the honeymoon so that she can
- 4:25Speaker 2: go hunt crocs with Steve.
- 4:26Speaker 1: She gave up the honeymoon and he said, no, honeymoon,
- 4:29Speaker 1: let's go get let's go catch a croc.
- 4:31Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly right.
- 4:32Speaker 3: And what was so amazing and this whole experience is
- 4:35Speaker 3: she's other than being at the zoo once where she
- 4:38Speaker 3: was in an enclosure with a crocodile and fed it
- 4:40Speaker 3: some meat. She actually has had no contact at this
- 4:44Speaker 3: point with a crocodile. And they catch a crocodile that
- 4:47Speaker 3: they needed to relocate, and.
- 4:49Speaker 2: So you read all this to Emily. I read all
- 4:50Speaker 2: of this.
- 4:51Speaker 3: To Emily, and in the process of catching it, they
- 4:53Speaker 3: had to take it out of the trap, the netting
- 4:56Speaker 3: trap that they've trapped it in to kind of keep
- 4:57Speaker 3: it safe, get all of the netting that he's tangled
- 5:02Speaker 3: up in off him. And in order to do that
- 5:05Speaker 3: you've seen the videos, they literally on top of it.
- 5:07Speaker 2: They jump on to the massive crop.
- 5:09Speaker 3: So she's getting hands on training, like on the spot
- 5:13Speaker 3: on her honeymoon, on her honeymoon, and he says, all right,
- 5:16Speaker 3: when I say you are going to jump on this
- 5:18Speaker 3: crocodile's head, right.
- 5:20Speaker 2: Jump on the crocodile's head. He's holding the body. Obviously,
- 5:25Speaker 2: no No, he wasn't. Somebody else was.
- 5:26Speaker 3: He's actually getting rid of all of the netting, like
- 5:28Speaker 3: you know, lifting up its foot and pulling the netting
- 5:31Speaker 3: off the foot and then you know, moving down the
- 5:32Speaker 3: tip like it.
- 5:33Speaker 2: Was just awesome. Sorry, So you've read that to Emily.
- 5:35Speaker 3: I've read that to Emily and she's so enthralled. She just,
- 5:37Speaker 3: you know, like this is so exciting. And then that
- 5:41Speaker 3: led to mummy, can I watch some videos? And so,
- 5:43Speaker 3: you know, it's early morning and everybody's still asleep, and
- 5:46Speaker 3: I thought, yeah, we can spend a few minutes kind
- 5:47Speaker 3: of watching. So I looked up on YouTube to see
- 5:49Speaker 3: if I could find some things, and there was lots
- 5:52Speaker 3: of you know, big kind of documentary style, one hour videos,
- 5:55Speaker 3: so I was looking for something nice and small, and
- 5:57Speaker 3: so I found a little five minute YouTube and I thought,
- 6:00Speaker 3: let's have a look at this. And what I didn't
- 6:03Speaker 3: realize at that point was that it was actually kind
- 6:05Speaker 3: of had been created as a bit of a tribute
- 6:09Speaker 3: to step So it was like.
- 6:10Speaker 2: A montage of his life, it was, and it was.
- 6:13Speaker 3: So beautifully done. It was so beautifully done. But obviously
- 6:16Speaker 3: at the end they touched on the fact that now
- 6:18Speaker 3: Steve's gone. And Emily was aware that Steve had died,
- 6:24Speaker 3: and we had that conversation with her previously, but in
- 6:27Speaker 3: that moment it just hit her and her heart, I'm
- 6:31Speaker 3: going to cry. Her heart was so crushed to think
- 6:34Speaker 3: that this good person she sees, Steve Irwin, is such
- 6:37Speaker 3: a good man. He was fighting for the rights of
- 6:40Speaker 3: you know, and the safety and the well being of
- 6:41Speaker 3: animals all around the world. And her heart just broke
- 6:45Speaker 3: in that moment that he was gone, and she sobbed
- 6:48Speaker 3: like she sobbed, and she just said to me, Mummy,
- 6:51Speaker 3: why why did Steve have to die? He was such
- 6:54Speaker 3: a good man. Why did he get in the water
- 6:57Speaker 3: with those stingrays? Didn't he know they were dangerous? Why
- 7:00Speaker 3: didn't the doctors fix his heart? Couldn't they have given
- 7:03Speaker 3: him a new heart? How does that stinger? I think
- 7:05Speaker 3: it would be if somebody came and stabbed him in
- 7:07Speaker 3: the heart. The questions just kept rolling, and so as
- 7:11Speaker 3: the morning progressed, she would just have about after a
- 7:14Speaker 3: bout of just anguish as she kind of relived this space,
- 7:19Speaker 3: and so the morning kind of turned into a bit
- 7:21Speaker 3: of a Stevo and tribute and Lily started looking up
- 7:25Speaker 3: other youtubes, and she found when Robert went over to
- 7:29Speaker 3: the Jimmy Fallon Show and they had this really cool
- 7:32Speaker 3: experience as he introduced Jimmy to a whole heap of
- 7:35Speaker 3: scary animals, and you know, that kind of got her
- 7:37Speaker 3: laughing a bit. And then she found True Blue sung
- 7:41Speaker 3: by John Williamson in the Crocoseum on the day of
- 7:43Speaker 3: their memorial memorial, and that got me going.
- 7:47Speaker 2: I was gone, but as we.
- 7:49Speaker 3: Kind of, you know, as the morning weaved on, we
- 7:52Speaker 3: got on our bikes to ride to school, and all
- 7:55Speaker 3: of a sudden, it just hit her again and she
- 7:57Speaker 3: literally rode and saw.
- 8:00Speaker 2: The whole lost kid.
- 8:03Speaker 3: She just couldn't understand, and that actually led to you know,
- 8:06Speaker 3: he died just like my grandma, Nana Bunt, and she
- 8:10Speaker 3: wanted to, you know, understand. Nana didn't even get to
- 8:12Speaker 3: hold me for very long because Nana died pretty soon
- 8:15Speaker 3: after she was born. She kind of hung around just
- 8:18Speaker 3: for Emily and just you know, so many questions and
- 8:23Speaker 3: not good answers. I didn't have anything great to tell her.
- 8:27Speaker 3: There was nothing that was going to fix her pain,
- 8:29Speaker 3: and so I guess, how do we deal with this
- 8:32Speaker 3: with our kids? Because from time to time there are
- 8:34Speaker 3: going to be experiences in their life where they lose
- 8:36Speaker 3: someone or something that means so much to them. How
- 8:40Speaker 3: do we help them through that anguish?
- 8:42Speaker 2: Let's talk about that next. It's the Happy Families podcast.
- 8:46Speaker 4: US Screens Creating Tension at Home, Tweens, Teens and Screens
- 8:50Speaker 4: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen
- 8:54Speaker 4: solutions by today at happy families dot com dot au
- 8:58Speaker 4: slash shop.
- 9:00Speaker 1: It's the Happy Family's podcast where talking about grief. We've
- 9:03Speaker 1: had a couple of incidents where our children have grieved,
- 9:06Speaker 1: one of them grieving over a fictional character and a
- 9:08Speaker 1: book that died unexpectedly that she really didn't want to lose,
- 9:11Speaker 1: and another one grieving the loss of Steve Irwin, the
- 9:15Speaker 1: Crocodile Hunter, And that lead into conversation and questions around
- 9:19Speaker 1: the loss of her great grandma and some of the
- 9:22Speaker 1: sadness and loss around that. So, how are you supposed
- 9:24Speaker 1: to talk to kids about grief? Where are you supposed
- 9:26Speaker 1: to go and what context? Like how much are you
- 9:29Speaker 1: supposed to tell them? I reckon there's a handful of
- 9:32Speaker 1: tips that I can share. I wish I'd been around too.
- 9:37Speaker 3: It would have been great if you were.
- 9:38Speaker 1: Yeah, that was my morning bike ride. It sounds like
- 9:40Speaker 1: I go for bike rides every morning or something. I
- 9:42Speaker 1: promise I am around to help with the kids. I
- 9:44Speaker 1: was actually there when she was upset, but we had
- 9:47Speaker 1: a kind of a complicated morning that morning.
- 9:50Speaker 2: I reckon The first thing is you need.
- 9:51Speaker 1: To be simple and clear and direct in your conversation
- 9:55Speaker 1: with your kids. I think that the best way to
- 9:58Speaker 1: deliver any kind of bad news is to just say it,
- 10:02Speaker 1: say it gently, say it kindly, but just to say it.
- 10:06Speaker 1: We need to keep it together ourselves. And then I
- 10:08Speaker 1: think that we want to have one of those I
- 10:10Speaker 1: call it the lion King moment. You know they been ya,
- 10:15Speaker 1: you know, the liking when we help kids to understand
- 10:19Speaker 1: the whole circle of life thing that everyone and everything
- 10:21Speaker 1: gets old and eventually dies. What happens is they start
- 10:25Speaker 1: to see death as normal and natural.
- 10:28Speaker 3: I think the tricky thing for Emily in this situation,
- 10:30Speaker 3: as Steve.
- 10:30Speaker 2: Wasn't old no, you're right, and this was.
- 10:33Speaker 3: Such an unknown this was such a surprise to everybody involved.
- 10:38Speaker 1: Yeah, and so in that situation, I think that the
- 10:41Speaker 1: best thing that you can actually do is well Sometimes
- 10:46Speaker 1: we get really caught up in giving kids information, and
- 10:48Speaker 1: in fact, even as I'm starting to give this information
- 10:51Speaker 1: to you, I'm caught up in how do we convey
- 10:54Speaker 1: the content? How do we help our children to understand
- 10:57Speaker 1: what happened and why? But sometimes that's not the best
- 11:00Speaker 1: thing to do. Sometimes we just need to provide the
- 11:04Speaker 1: emotional support that they need and let them work through
- 11:07Speaker 1: it themselves. And it might take them a minute or
- 11:09Speaker 1: ten minutes, or an hour or a day or a
- 11:11Speaker 1: week or a month. Sometimes we just need to be
- 11:14Speaker 1: there for them, so we give them a great big
- 11:16Speaker 1: hug and we say things like you're so sad, this
- 11:18Speaker 1: is the saddest news ever, and we just hold them
- 11:21Speaker 1: and let them cry. I think that it's also great
- 11:24Speaker 1: to memorialize, and so well, let's go and learn everything
- 11:26Speaker 1: we can. When we grieve, sometimes we try to avoid
- 11:31Speaker 1: anything that could increase that sense of grief, that sense
- 11:35Speaker 1: of loss, that sense of connection. We actually want to
- 11:37Speaker 1: sever the connection when we're grieving sometimes because the connection
- 11:41Speaker 1: is what hurts so much. And by severing the connection,
- 11:44Speaker 1: we just get to say, Okay, well I loved that person,
- 11:48Speaker 1: but now they're gone and I'm just going to move
- 11:49Speaker 1: on with my life. But my sense is that avoidance
- 11:55Speaker 1: just reinforces.
- 11:58Speaker 3: The gaping hole.
- 12:00Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Well, in anxiety research, we know that avoidance
- 12:05Speaker 1: actually reinforces anxiety. So if you're anxious about something and
- 12:09Speaker 1: you avoid it, that avoidance just reinforces the anxiety. But
- 12:13Speaker 1: in grief, avoidance doesn't help either. Avoidance actually blocks out
- 12:19Speaker 1: something that we need.
- 12:21Speaker 2: To move towards.
- 12:21Speaker 1: The more we can move towards those memories, the more
- 12:24Speaker 1: we can process them, we can make.
- 12:25Speaker 2: Meaning from them.
- 12:27Speaker 1: And I think what's really going on here is we've
- 12:28Speaker 1: got a little girl who wants to make meaning. So
- 12:31Speaker 1: from my perspective, I think that bringing her in, bringing
- 12:35Speaker 1: her close, showing her more videos, helping her to celebrate
- 12:40Speaker 1: the extraordinary life of stever in this case, and probably
- 12:44Speaker 1: showing her some more pictures of her great grandma, and
- 12:47Speaker 1: talking about the wonderful lady that our Nan was. I
- 12:51Speaker 1: think that those are the kinds of things that are
- 12:52Speaker 1: going to be much more useful, much more helpful in
- 12:54Speaker 1: helping them to.
- 12:55Speaker 2: Process that grief.
- 12:57Speaker 1: A lot of people have cultural or religious beliefs that
- 13:01Speaker 1: can provide them with support during times like this, and
- 13:04Speaker 1: I think that during grief, one of the most powerful
- 13:07Speaker 1: things we can do is lean on those cultural or
- 13:09Speaker 1: faith oriented beliefs and values and helped them to guide
- 13:15Speaker 1: us through those those difficult times. There's so much research
- 13:19Speaker 1: that shows that this is remarkable and powerful. So what'd
- 13:22Speaker 1: you do?
- 13:23Speaker 3: Well? We definitely had lots of cuddles and we had
- 13:25Speaker 3: a little cry together. And one of the videos that
- 13:28Speaker 3: we had watched had Steve telling his story. He was
- 13:32Speaker 3: in a darkened room and he was just the spotlight
- 13:34Speaker 3: on him and he talked about his vision and how
- 13:37Speaker 3: he had caught his parents' energy and drive for animal
- 13:45Speaker 3: conservation as a young kid, and he had been the
- 13:49Speaker 3: warrior and taken you know, kind of the baden off
- 13:53Speaker 3: dad and carried that flag throughout his life and that
- 13:58Speaker 3: his greatest hope was that.
- 14:02Speaker 2: He would be.
- 14:03Speaker 3: Able to hand the batton on to his kids and
- 14:05Speaker 3: he would know that his life had meant something if
- 14:09Speaker 3: his kids would be able to do that and continue
- 14:13Speaker 3: his work. And that was such a beautiful tribute to
- 14:17Speaker 3: who he was and the life that he led, because
- 14:19Speaker 3: as we've seen with Bindi and Robert, that's exactly what
- 14:23Speaker 3: they have done. That he has left this legacy that
- 14:25Speaker 3: has you know, formed and molded them into these amazing
- 14:31Speaker 3: conservation warriors and they do so they do him proud.
- 14:35Speaker 3: And so as we talked about that, you know, one
- 14:37Speaker 3: of the things that I've loved about Emily is she
- 14:40Speaker 3: has such a desire to make sure that animals are safe.
- 14:44Speaker 3: And one of the things lately is she wants to
- 14:46Speaker 3: pick up all the rubbish wherever we go. She wants
- 14:48Speaker 3: to pick up rubbish because she doesn't want the animals
- 14:50Speaker 3: to be hurt. And so we talked about how Steve's
- 14:53Speaker 3: legacy lives in all of us as we do the
- 14:56Speaker 3: things that he was so passionate about and strives so
- 14:59Speaker 3: hard to educ hate us in.
- 15:00Speaker 1: And whether it's Steve Ewin or a relative, someone that
- 15:04Speaker 1: your child loves and knows that meaning making in that
- 15:07Speaker 1: legacy is just critical. I think the last thing that
- 15:10Speaker 1: I'd add is just that more than anything, our children
- 15:13Speaker 1: need to know that we're there for them. They need
- 15:15Speaker 1: to feel safe to cry or hit a pillow or
- 15:19Speaker 1: talk without any judgment. They actually need to be allowed
- 15:21Speaker 1: to be happy too, and to move on with their lives. Well,
- 15:25Speaker 1: that was a great conversation. I'm really glad that we
- 15:26Speaker 1: had it. It's probably something that we don't talk about
- 15:28Speaker 1: nearly enough.
- 15:29Speaker 2: I hope you enjoy the podcast. I hope that you've
- 15:31Speaker 2: got something out of this.
- 15:32Speaker 1: If you did, please visit Apple Podcasts and leave us
- 15:36Speaker 1: a rating and a review. It's the reviews that help
- 15:38Speaker 1: people to find the podcast and have happier families, like
- 15:41Speaker 1: this five star review that came through from Starr E
- 15:44Speaker 1: three two one, who.
- 15:45Speaker 3: Said, I've always enjoyed listening to Doctor Colson, but this
- 15:48Speaker 3: podcast has become my daily go to with Kylie on board.
- 15:52Speaker 3: Thank you both for your genuine and practical advice and
- 15:54Speaker 3: being your authentic selves. Every parent and expecting parents should
- 15:58Speaker 3: listen to your podcast like that.
- 16:00Speaker 2: Thank you so very much for the rating and review.
- 16:03Speaker 1: Like I said, Apple Podcasts, the feedback helps other people
- 16:06Speaker 1: find the podcast. We really appreciate the work of Justin Rulan,
- 16:09Speaker 1: who produces the podcast, and our executive.
- 16:11Speaker 2: Producer is Craig Bruce.
- 16:13Speaker 1: If you'd like more information about how to make your
- 16:16Speaker 1: family happy or get through some tough spots, please have
- 16:19Speaker 1: a look at our Happy Families memberships. They are available
- 16:21Speaker 1: at happy families dot com dot au and for the
- 16:24Speaker 1: price of a cuppa once a week, you can make
- 16:27Speaker 1: your family.
- 16:28Speaker 2: Happier family is getting bigger and bigger every day.
- 16:30Speaker 1: You can also find more information at doctor Justin Colson's
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