Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Raising Kids Who Think Deeply About Relationships

Transcript

Raising Kids Who Think Deeply About Relationships · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, this is the Happy Families podcast. We're trying to
0:08
Speaker 1: record this and we have a childhood is going in
0:12
Speaker 1: the background because she wants us and we can't do it.
0:15
Speaker 2: This is family life. We're trying to keep it as
0:17
Speaker 2: real for you as we possibly can.
0:19
Speaker 1: How do you have hard conversations about tricky topics when
0:22
Speaker 1: kids don't want to talk to you, or when you're
0:25
Speaker 1: reading a parenting book and the script just doesn't make sense?
0:29
Speaker 1: Talk about that with Older Better Tomorrow Today and family Photos,
0:35
Speaker 1: they often feel what's the word, Kylie, disastrous?
0:40
Speaker 3: Hard just hard work.
0:42
Speaker 1: We might have just nailed family photos, but there's a
0:45
Speaker 1: story behind it and we're going to share that with
0:46
Speaker 1: you next as well. It's Older Better Tomorrow, our Friday
0:49
Speaker 1: edition of the Happy Families podcast right after this. Hello,
0:54
Speaker 1: and welcome to a Happy Families podcast where you get
0:57
Speaker 1: real parenting solutions every single day.
1:00
Speaker 2: This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
1:02
Speaker 1: We are Justin and Kylie Colson, were the parents of
1:03
Speaker 1: six children, are six daughters and one grand daughter. And Kylie,
1:08
Speaker 1: you're going to kicks off today with no actually I'm
1:10
Speaker 1: going to kicks off today. There are two things that
1:11
Speaker 1: I quickly need to share with you. The first was
1:14
Speaker 1: a conversation that I had with Emily, our eleven year old,
1:17
Speaker 1: the other day. She wanted to know about money. She
1:19
Speaker 1: was trying to understand something about compensation, but that's not
1:23
Speaker 1: what she was asking about. She was asking me about constipation.
1:30
Speaker 3: I couldn't work out how that had.
1:31
Speaker 2: Anything to do with money.
1:33
Speaker 1: She's like, dad, I can't remember the sentence that she
1:36
Speaker 1: led into it with, but she, like I said, financially
1:39
Speaker 1: oriented and she started talking about constipation, and I just thought,
1:43
Speaker 1: this is brilliant.
1:44
Speaker 2: This is absolutely brilliant. I love it.
1:46
Speaker 1: Constipation, compensation, what's the difference? Also a quick email. We
1:51
Speaker 1: get emails most days podcasts at Happy Families dot com
1:54
Speaker 1: dot dot.
1:55
Speaker 2: I Lou dot au.
1:57
Speaker 1: We love hearing from you about what's going on in
2:00
Speaker 1: your life or what you're enjoying on the pod. Brooklyn
2:02
Speaker 1: from New Zealand was kind enough to pop into our
2:05
Speaker 1: inbox a couple of days ago after catching up on
2:09
Speaker 1: our wedding anniversary podcast episode where You've Forgot the Anniversary
2:13
Speaker 1: and I gave you a hard time, and we just
2:15
Speaker 1: laughed our way through the five things that have made
2:16
Speaker 1: our marriage great and the two things that you decided
2:18
Speaker 1: to add on the back of it. Hey, Justin, Kylie
2:21
Speaker 1: and team just wanted to pop in and say today's
2:23
Speaker 1: episode about your anniversary was hilarious thanks to the genuine
2:27
Speaker 1: laugh out loud in my kitchen laughs. I especially love Justin's.
2:29
Speaker 2: Theme song, just Something. I'm never gonna live that down.
2:39
Speaker 2: I'm not a silk.
2:40
Speaker 1: The kids are still walking around the kitchen singing it.
2:44
Speaker 1: In fact, they know that it upsets me and that
2:46
Speaker 1: I start silking with a good.
2:49
Speaker 2: And so they.
2:50
Speaker 1: Just justin, this is not being such a sook is.
2:54
Speaker 2: It's gonna They're gonna play it at my funeral. I
2:56
Speaker 2: think they were like your theme song, it's so good.
3:02
Speaker 2: Everybody loves it. A little India grand daughter walks around
3:14
Speaker 2: the house. She's, Kyli, you're amazing, and I'm such a silk.
3:21
Speaker 3: We might have to rectify that.
3:23
Speaker 2: And I think.
3:23
Speaker 1: Anyway, Brooklyn says, I love Justin's theme song. I don't
3:26
Speaker 1: think they'll ever be forgotten, not least by your own family.
3:29
Speaker 1: You're both real and helpful.
3:30
Speaker 2: I love listening to the podcast happ anniversary. Have you
3:32
Speaker 2: have a great day, Brooklyn? Thank you for that.
3:34
Speaker 1: Oh, we should do a quick anniversary update That was
3:36
Speaker 1: not part of the run sheet for today, but let's
3:38
Speaker 1: just check it in anyway.
3:40
Speaker 2: What did your plan Hunt?
3:42
Speaker 3: I decided to drive you crazy.
3:44
Speaker 2: Literally.
3:45
Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: We jumped onto the go kart track.
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Speaker 3: I've been go karting once with you and we very
3:50
Speaker 3: first got married, and it scared the living daylights out
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Speaker 3: of me. I was we were with a large group
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Speaker 3: of people who were very competent, and here was me
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Speaker 3: little driving miss Daisy around the track.
4:01
Speaker 4: I was too scared.
4:02
Speaker 3: So I decided to.
4:03
Speaker 1: Give it another got yeah, and that was fun. So
4:05
Speaker 1: we don't go karting. I lapped you?
4:07
Speaker 2: You did, I lapped you.
4:09
Speaker 1: I was expert level, I think. But that was a
4:13
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Okay, let's hear your I'll do better tomorrow.
4:16
Speaker 1: This is family photos, family photos last weekend.
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Speaker 3: Family photos don't happen enough in our house.
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Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, they have happened way too many times.
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Speaker 3: The reason they don't happen enough is because it is
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Speaker 3: so tricky. There's just making sure that there's eight people
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Speaker 3: who are all smiling at the same time and actually have.
4:39
Speaker 2: A I need to wind this back a bit good demeanor.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So it starts with what am I going to wear?
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Speaker 1: So for anyone who has a daughter, you know what
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Speaker 1: it's like, what am I gonna wear? We have six
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Speaker 1: daughters who are all saying what am I gonna wear?
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Speaker 1: And it's torture.
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Speaker 3: And I have been trying to coordinate what everyone was
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Speaker 3: gonna wear for it up three weeks.
5:01
Speaker 2: Whenever we were all.
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Speaker 1: Together, I was going to say, almost three decades is
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Speaker 1: what you've been in front of coordin?
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Speaker 3: Well, yes, but for these one specifically, and every time
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Speaker 3: at least one child would kind of come to the
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Speaker 3: party and say maybe I could wear this or this.
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Speaker 3: And the challenge is everybody can make a decision, but
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Speaker 3: until you see everybody together, you don't know if it's
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Speaker 3: all going to work. And it was about an hour
5:23
Speaker 3: before we were supposed to leave for our location and
5:27
Speaker 3: everyone starts going.
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Speaker 2: Mom, can you come and tell me what to wear?
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Speaker 3: YEP, it was a bit stressful.
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Speaker 1: Three weeks of text messages and let's work it out.
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Speaker 1: And now before anyway, you got everyone standing together against
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Speaker 1: the wall and looking at us and taking photos of
5:40
Speaker 1: us in the living room just to make sure it matched.
5:42
Speaker 1: And you were satisfied enough After a couple of additional
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Speaker 1: clothing changes. So we jumped in the car and drive
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Speaker 1: to where the photographer told us to meet. It had
5:50
Speaker 1: been raining all day, it was cloudy. We wanted the
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Speaker 1: sunset and guess what, law we got it.
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Speaker 3: We got it, but not before Little Indie fell asleep
6:00
Speaker 3: on the drive.
6:01
Speaker 2: Because family photos are not easy. And you know, it's
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Speaker 2: like when you wake up a toddler and you're like, now,
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Speaker 2: smile for the camera. She was not happy.
6:08
Speaker 3: She was not happy. But what I wanted to share
6:12
Speaker 3: was how sometimes in family life we're kind of seeing
6:17
Speaker 3: things happen around us. And on this particular day, as
6:23
Speaker 3: I was watching the photographer and she was telling us,
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Speaker 3: oh my gosh, this is gorgeous. You guys are making
6:27
Speaker 3: this so easy. This is great, perfect. You know, she
6:30
Speaker 3: was giving us all the affirmation we needed. But for me,
6:34
Speaker 3: as a participant, I was standing there thinking, this just
6:36
Speaker 3: feels really ordinary. There's nothing special in this moment. And
6:42
Speaker 3: as we were leaving that day, she said to me,
6:45
Speaker 3: she said, oh that was great, and I said, do
6:46
Speaker 3: you think we got the money shot? I told her
6:48
Speaker 3: exactly what I wanted and she said, oh, Kylie, she said,
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Speaker 3: You've got lots of money shots. But I still didn't
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Speaker 3: believe her, and so that night when she went home,
6:56
Speaker 3: she actually just sent me a quick snap. She'd taken
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Speaker 3: a photo of the photo on her computer screen, so
7:03
Speaker 3: she said, don't look at the faces, she said, I'm
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Speaker 3: just showing you the vista. This is what you've got.
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Speaker 3: And oh my gosh, not only did I have no
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Speaker 3: idea what the sunset was doing behind us as she
7:20
Speaker 3: was taking those photos, but it was like this one
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Speaker 3: brief moment in time captured and all my joys kind
7:31
Speaker 3: of just accumulated into one small moment. I just felt
7:35
Speaker 3: so grateful. I love watching our family grow, and we've
7:38
Speaker 3: now got these two men in our picture on top.
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Speaker 4: Of you, two extra men. That's right, we only had
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Speaker 4: one man and our photos, and now we have three.
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Speaker 4: And to see the joy that they bring to our
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Speaker 4: daughter's lives and bring to us, it just feels like
8:01
Speaker 4: all of those tricky moments in life have led us
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Speaker 4: to this joyful moment.
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Speaker 2: Makes you emotional.
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Speaker 3: It does make me emotional, because, like I said, you
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Speaker 3: kind of miss it all unless somebody's there reminding you
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Speaker 3: to actually stop for just a moment and take it in.
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Speaker 3: It's so easy to get caught up in all of
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Speaker 3: the crazy of family life. So I take home as
8:27
Speaker 3: just take a moment to take stock, take photos, and
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Speaker 3: take photos.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, can I add a little note there as well.
8:34
Speaker 1: Two quick things about the family photos. Number one, it
8:37
Speaker 1: was the first time ever that we haven't had any
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Speaker 1: major fights during family photos, with the kids getting upset
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Speaker 1: with each other or saying that's.
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Speaker 2: It, I've had enough photos, no more photos.
8:44
Speaker 3: As we were sitting around the table, they actually commented
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Speaker 3: this was the best family photos ever.
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Speaker 2: And I was like, we're older. Everyone's older now than
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Speaker 2: they've ever been. Like, everyone's learned how to regulate their emotions.
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Speaker 3: We nearly have a full sweep of adults. We shouldn't
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Speaker 3: have any.
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Speaker 1: Issue yet to see the photo, but we did get
9:02
Speaker 1: a boys photo. We've never had a boy's photo before.
9:05
Speaker 1: But there was me with the two sons in law,
9:08
Speaker 1: and they're both about fifteen centimeters taller than me.
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Speaker 3: You were pretty sure.
9:12
Speaker 2: I'm just tiny time little kid in between these two
9:15
Speaker 2: giant men. After the break, figuring out how to have tricky.
9:20
Speaker 1: Conversations about difficult topics in a way that brings the
9:25
Speaker 1: kids in. It's always a surprise, but it can be done.
9:29
Speaker 1: I'll tell you how next on The Happy Family's Podcast.
9:31
Speaker 1: To stay with us, We're back. This is The Happy
9:41
Speaker 1: Family's Podcast. Thank you so much for choosing to spend
9:43
Speaker 1: your Friday morning with us. We hope that this is
9:45
Speaker 1: making your family happy, or at least letting you know
9:47
Speaker 1: that your family's no different to all the other families.
9:50
Speaker 2: That is. Life can be tricky.
9:52
Speaker 1: So I haven't shared this at the start of the pod,
9:55
Speaker 1: and I probably should have. But I've done another draft
9:59
Speaker 1: of book and this week I finally finished it. And
10:02
Speaker 1: this is the absolute last draft because the book gets
10:05
Speaker 1: printed and published and put on shelves in about two months,
10:07
Speaker 1: comes out June sixteenth. What are we up to? Like, Yeah,
10:12
Speaker 1: two and a half months and it's going to be
10:13
Speaker 1: on shelves. So the last few weeks I've been doing
10:16
Speaker 1: a final draft and it ended up being a fairly
10:18
Speaker 1: major overhaul of the book.
10:20
Speaker 2: But the book is done. The book is done. The
10:22
Speaker 2: book is done. The angels are singing, My goodness, the
10:29
Speaker 2: book is done.
10:29
Speaker 3: We're singing.
10:30
Speaker 1: So I was writing this chapter about talking to kids
10:36
Speaker 1: about consent and intimacy and how to have difficult conversations
10:39
Speaker 1: Kylie and really really tough topic to write about, and
10:44
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say, well, how do we have these
10:46
Speaker 1: chats with our kids? And I wrote the following about
10:49
Speaker 1: starting the conversation. I said, I'm an ambassador for this
10:51
Speaker 1: strain Government's consent Can't Wait campaign. Government research shows big
10:55
Speaker 1: holes exist in parent conversations with kids on this tricky topic.
10:59
Speaker 1: That's because we make it too big of a deal.
11:01
Speaker 1: So instead make it simple, dumb it down. A ten
11:03
Speaker 1: minute chat while driving can be more effective than an
11:06
Speaker 1: hour long formal discussion. A consistent Sunday morning check in
11:09
Speaker 1: is valuable. Use media as gateways when sexual content appears
11:13
Speaker 1: in movies, TV or social media, use it as a
11:15
Speaker 1: discussion starter, whether it's problematic or uplifting content. So I've
11:19
Speaker 1: written that, and I was just thinking, it feels empty,
11:22
Speaker 1: it feels trite. Do parents really do this? And as
11:25
Speaker 1: we were driving two family photos, I was driving Spotify
11:30
Speaker 1: as well as the car. I decided that I was
11:32
Speaker 1: in charge of the music grub and the kids and
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Speaker 1: John Lennon's nineteen seventy one classic Jealous Guy came on
11:40
Speaker 1: Spotify and I turned it up and I said, oh,
11:42
Speaker 1: this is such a good song. And then about thirty
11:44
Speaker 1: seconds in, I was like, actually, I like Brian Ferry
11:47
Speaker 1: Roxy Music. I think that's the better one. So I
11:48
Speaker 1: put that on instead, and as the song was playing
11:52
Speaker 1: out for I'm sure everybody knows it. Because of copyright,
11:55
Speaker 1: we can't play on the podcast, but I'm sure everyone
11:57
Speaker 1: knows the lyrics. I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm
12:00
Speaker 1: sorry that I made you cry. I didn't want to
12:02
Speaker 1: hurt you. I'm just a jealous guy. So the chorus
12:05
Speaker 1: is playing and our fifteen soon to be sixteen year
12:08
Speaker 1: old daughter is sitting in the back and she says
12:11
Speaker 1: that sounds like that's a pretty dodgy lyric, Dad, and
12:14
Speaker 1: I paused. I was like, hang on, this this is
12:16
Speaker 1: a classic. This song's been around since nineteen seventy one
12:18
Speaker 1: or nineteen eighty one. For the cover, and I wanted
12:21
Speaker 1: to just burn her. I don't know, that's probably too strong,
12:25
Speaker 1: but I wanted to put her in a place.
12:26
Speaker 2: I was like, there's nothing dodgy about this. This is
12:29
Speaker 2: really good.
12:30
Speaker 1: And then Lily said to me, well, hang on a sec.
12:34
Speaker 1: Here's a guy who's refusing to be accountable for his actions.
12:36
Speaker 1: He hurt her, and now he's saying, oh, I didn't
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Speaker 1: mean to I'm just a jealous guy. Like he's downplaying
12:43
Speaker 1: the impact of his behavior and the way that it's
12:46
Speaker 1: affecting her and he's hurt her.
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Speaker 3: What I loved was that you actually then asked her,
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Speaker 3: explain to me what you mean, and she said, well,
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Speaker 3: if I was dating a guy and then I went
13:01
Speaker 3: and spent some time just chatting with another guy and
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Speaker 3: he gets upset with me and treats me poorly and
13:08
Speaker 3: then apologizes because he's jealous. She said, that's just that's
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Speaker 3: poor excuse for treating me poorly, Like I don't deserve
13:19
Speaker 3: to be treated like that. I've done nothing wrong and
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Speaker 3: he doesn't have the right to treat me that way.
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Speaker 1: I found it really just a fascinating conversation. It showed
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Speaker 1: perhaps a generational divide. It also showed that context is everything.
13:35
Speaker 1: In fact, I ended up following the conversation up with
13:37
Speaker 1: her the next day because I couldn't let it go.
13:39
Speaker 1: Like it really it got out of my skin. It
13:42
Speaker 1: was like a knuckle noogie, knuckles going into my ribs.
13:44
Speaker 1: I was like, we're so much more alert today to
13:47
Speaker 1: things like coercive control and possessiveness and the emotional dynamics
13:53
Speaker 1: of unhealthy relationships, and jealousy is one of the most
13:58
Speaker 1: commonly cited precursors to intimate partner violence. And I didn't
14:04
Speaker 1: mean to hurt you as a phrase in twenty twenty six,
14:07
Speaker 1: that carries a whole lot of baggage that it probably
14:10
Speaker 1: just didn't carry previously. But and this is what I
14:13
Speaker 1: said to Lily, there's also a counter reading here. And
14:16
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to downplay what she's saying, because it's
14:18
Speaker 1: relevant and it matters, and if you've been in that
14:20
Speaker 1: situation then it's impactful. But the counter reading could show
14:25
Speaker 1: a shift in the culture where once this was a
14:28
Speaker 1: tender and emotionally sensitive guy, a guy who's actually brave
14:31
Speaker 1: enough to name his jealousy, And now we're saying, well,
14:35
Speaker 1: he's dangerous, whereas once upon a time we would have said, oh, no,
14:38
Speaker 1: good on him, because he's realized that his jealousy is
14:40
Speaker 1: leading him to act in unhelpful ways. And so then
14:43
Speaker 1: we had this fascinating conversation about the difference between acknowledging
14:45
Speaker 1: feelings and there or using them as an excuse for
14:48
Speaker 1: harmful behavior. No Sunday morning chat needed, no formalized discussion,
14:55
Speaker 1: just an impromptu chat because of a song lyric.
14:58
Speaker 2: That came up.
15:00
Speaker 1: And as I walked away from that, I thought to myself,
15:02
Speaker 1: these conversations are easier than we often make them out
15:06
Speaker 1: to be. We can have tough conversations about just about anything.
15:09
Speaker 1: You see something on the teller, you hear something on
15:10
Speaker 1: a podcast, you listen to.
15:12
Speaker 2: A song lyric.
15:15
Speaker 1: There's just so many opportunities for really great conversations with
15:18
Speaker 1: the kids, and you can come back to them later
15:19
Speaker 1: and say, I was thinking about that thing that you said,
15:21
Speaker 1: and I really think that there was wisdom or I
15:24
Speaker 1: think you missed the mark. Like there's so many opportunities
15:27
Speaker 1: for great conversations with our kids if we'll take them.
15:29
Speaker 2: And I don't know.
15:30
Speaker 1: I just got very, very excited about talking to my
15:33
Speaker 1: daughter about a classic nineteen seventy one nineteen eighty one song.
15:37
Speaker 3: I think the reason why this worked so well, though,
15:39
Speaker 3: is because Lily was at the lead. She actually wanted
15:43
Speaker 3: to engage in this. And the challenge we sometimes have
15:47
Speaker 3: with our kids is that if we're the ones who
15:49
Speaker 3: are constantly initiating the conversation, then it just feels like, yeah, oh,
15:54
Speaker 3: mom and dad want to teach me again, or Mum
15:56
Speaker 3: and Dad giving me a lecture, or so finding the
16:00
Speaker 3: middle ground is really important.
16:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I still feel like I had to
16:05
Speaker 1: make sure that she knew as well that just because
16:07
Speaker 1: somebody hurts you doesn't mean that you should close the
16:09
Speaker 1: door on them forever. Like people make mistakes. There's and
16:12
Speaker 1: I think and she'd read, context is everything.
16:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, context matters. We're listening to this crooning song and
16:19
Speaker 3: it's very easy to kind of see one side to it,
16:22
Speaker 3: but until you're actually in the.
16:23
Speaker 2: Experience, family life is stretching. Family life is stretching. Anyway.
16:28
Speaker 1: We really hope that you've enjoyed the podcast today. Thank
16:29
Speaker 1: you so much for listening to the Happy Families podcast,
16:31
Speaker 1: which is produced by Justin Rulan from Bridge Media. Mim
16:35
Speaker 1: Hammonds provides all of our additional admin and other support,
16:38
Speaker 1: and if you'd like more and fo to make your
16:40
Speaker 1: family happier, we would love for you to visit us
16:42
Speaker 1: at Happy Families dot.
16:43
Speaker 2: Com dot au. We'll see you back on Monday on
16:47
Speaker 2: the pod. Have a great weekend.
16:49
Speaker 5: She's ca calli couson turning Kason to Grace building world
17:00
Speaker 5: in this one big, busy place.
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Speaker 4: Say stop.
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Speaker 6: At the time you two sat lying the stuff, she said,
17:16
Speaker 6: you're already in love, just
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Speaker 5: Yeah, and they believe her in their hearts.