Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / When Parents Become Bullys
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Oh my goodness.
- 0:08Speaker 1: Every now and again stuff hits the news that means
- 0:11Speaker 1: we have to do one of these. It's this week
- 0:14Speaker 1: in Parenting. I love doing that. It makes me so happy.
- 0:21Speaker 1: How are you looking at.
- 0:22Speaker 2: Me like that?
- 0:24Speaker 1: Even Sky News has covered this. So there's a TikTok
- 0:28Speaker 1: video that's gone viral where a little girl has been bullying, bullying,
- 0:32Speaker 1: certainly been unkind of kids at school. She's going to
- 0:34Speaker 1: be suspended. Dad has to go to the school and
- 0:36Speaker 1: pick her up. And well, we're going to tell you
- 0:39Speaker 1: what happened and why this went viral right after this.
- 0:42Speaker 1: Stay with us. Hello and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast,
- 0:47Speaker 1: where you get real parenting solutions every single day. This
- 0:50Speaker 1: is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and
- 0:52Speaker 1: Kylie Coursen. The parents have six kids, and today we
- 0:55Speaker 1: have parenting solutions for you up the wazoo. That's what
- 0:58Speaker 1: my dad used to say. I don't know wazoo is,
- 1:00Speaker 1: and I got why you'd want to go up the wazoo.
- 1:03Speaker 1: But we've got solutions everywhere. Kylie, let me set the scene.
- 1:07Speaker 1: It's on TikTok can I just say this out loud,
- 1:10Speaker 1: Please don't try to get your parenting advice from random
- 1:14Speaker 1: people on social media, Like, if you want to be
- 1:17Speaker 1: a good parent, the last place you want to go
- 1:20Speaker 1: is TikTok listening to random's who are struggling with their
- 1:23Speaker 1: parenting and getting it so wrong. So anyway, now that
- 1:26Speaker 1: I've said that, oh my goodness, it drives me crazy.
- 1:30Speaker 1: All of our major news outlets in the last week
- 1:32Speaker 1: have reported on an American dad who was called into
- 1:35Speaker 1: the school because his daughter had been bullying, quote unquote bullying,
- 1:39Speaker 1: certainly being mean to kids in her school so much
- 1:43Speaker 1: so she was so mean that twice in one day
- 1:46Speaker 1: people put hands on her to hurt her because she
- 1:49Speaker 1: was being so unkind. This is messy at every level.
- 1:52Speaker 1: He goes into the school and the I guess it's
- 1:56Speaker 1: the school principle or somebody who's in charge, starts explaining
- 1:58Speaker 1: what's going on kids before.
- 2:04Speaker 2: So, yeah, it says two days but today, okay, yeah,
- 2:11Speaker 2: this semester she's given you ever seen that movie Mean
- 2:14Speaker 2: Girlshan Regina George That day, that's what she's acting like,
- 2:19Speaker 2: walking around bullying people, calling out their names.
- 2:22Speaker 3: Talking about their parents, talking about their clothes or smell,
- 2:25Speaker 3: just get anything to provoke these kids. So today uh
- 2:32Speaker 3: as a little Hispanic boy in hair class. She kept
- 2:36Speaker 3: getting in stay talking about so that's why Trump this
- 2:39Speaker 3: and something like that.
- 2:40Speaker 1: It's really interesting because at the start of the clip
- 2:43Speaker 1: you've got this kid saying, what are you doing here?
- 2:45Speaker 1: And I don't even know why you're here, which I'm
- 2:48Speaker 1: not sure he's honest.
- 2:49Speaker 3: Come on, it's okay, it don't matter.
- 2:56Speaker 2: Come on, let's go.
- 2:58Speaker 1: What did I even do? The dad interrupts the flow
- 3:01Speaker 1: of the video so that he can give his own commentary,
- 3:03Speaker 1: whoa whoa.
- 3:04Speaker 3: Whoa na na na. No. I know my child, and
- 3:07Speaker 3: I know up until this point you ain't said nothing.
- 3:09Speaker 3: That was a lie. I gotta do better. I'm trying
- 3:11Speaker 3: to train her up the right way.
- 3:13Speaker 1: This is kind of difficult.
- 3:15Speaker 3: We still figure it it out. But now, wouldn't it
- 3:17Speaker 3: hell my baby say about Trump to a Hispanic like,
- 3:21Speaker 3: I don't know nothing about that?
- 3:23Speaker 1: And then, to make a long story short, he takes
- 3:26Speaker 1: his daughter over to grandma's house because he doesn't know
- 3:30Speaker 1: what to do, and Grandma takes kiddo down to the
- 3:32Speaker 1: police station so that the police station can scare the
- 3:36Speaker 1: living heck out of this kid so that this child
- 3:39Speaker 1: will never put you again.
- 3:41Speaker 3: I know Kinsey walked in there, it turned around, looked
- 3:43Speaker 3: at me like, Daddy, you really gonna let her do
- 3:45Speaker 3: this to me? It is clearly I ain't doing enough.
- 3:49Speaker 1: Carly, there is so much here. Where do you want
- 3:52Speaker 1: to start?
- 3:53Speaker 4: I just want to say that, while I don't necessarily
- 3:55Speaker 4: agree with his methods, it is so refreshing to see
- 3:59Speaker 4: a parent who actually recognizes that their child is not perfect,
- 4:04Speaker 4: and they're actually willing to take responsibility for their role
- 4:10Speaker 4: in helping children to learn appropriate behavior.
- 4:13Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to tell you right now that that is,
- 4:17Speaker 1: in my mind, the only positive in this entire thing.
- 4:20Speaker 4: I agree, but I just as we have dealt with
- 4:25Speaker 4: so many challenges over the years as our children have
- 4:28Speaker 4: navigated tricky relationships, I don't think I have ever met
- 4:34Speaker 4: a parent who's been willing to sit in an uncomfortable
- 4:38Speaker 4: place and acknowledge that their child may not have acted
- 4:41Speaker 4: in the best way.
- 4:43Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, So we call it using your are
- 4:46Speaker 1: or being in bed, So using your are ownership, accountability
- 4:50Speaker 1: and responsibility, being in bed blame, excuse and denial, and
- 4:54Speaker 1: the amount.
- 4:54Speaker 4: Of times I have heard someone say, well, what did
- 4:57Speaker 4: your child do to provoke?
- 4:58Speaker 1: Right, exactly, I can't. My child can't be fully responsible this.
- 5:02Speaker 4: So I understand that we're going to go on totally
- 5:05Speaker 4: different road, but I needed to say that because I
- 5:07Speaker 4: just feel like we just get so caught up in
- 5:11Speaker 4: wanting our children to be good people, and we think
- 5:14Speaker 4: that if they're not good people, then it is a
- 5:17Speaker 4: slight against us.
- 5:18Speaker 1: From that point on, everything is wrong. Yes, everything's wrong,
- 5:23Speaker 1: which is frustrating because the comments and the fact that
- 5:26Speaker 1: this is blown up is because the comments essentially are
- 5:29Speaker 1: everybody and their dog being on social media and on
- 5:33Speaker 1: the news site saying, God on this, dad, he nailed it.
- 5:36Speaker 1: We need more parents doing this. No, no, we don't.
- 5:41Speaker 1: And I know you're laughing and it's kind of funny,
- 5:43Speaker 1: but it's not. It's not. It's really bad. So where
- 5:47Speaker 1: do we start. Number One, this child is you've seen
- 5:51Speaker 1: the clip? How old directed the child is?
- 5:52Speaker 2: Eight? Nine?
- 5:53Speaker 4: Mine?
- 5:54Speaker 1: Yeah, something like that. Yeah, That's where I'm going. I
- 5:57Speaker 1: don't think I don't think she's any older than that,
- 5:59Speaker 1: But eight or nine? Can kids be mean and even bully?
- 6:02Speaker 1: One hundred percent? Yes? Should we take responsibility as parents
- 6:06Speaker 1: to teach our children the right thing to do. One
- 6:08Speaker 1: hundred percent yes. But now because of this approach, this
- 6:14Speaker 1: nine year old is scared of grandma because grandma is
- 6:17Speaker 1: giving dirty looks and then saying you can't do that,
- 6:20Speaker 1: and I'm taking you to the police. So how likely
- 6:22Speaker 1: is it that this kid is going to grow up
- 6:24Speaker 1: and be like, oh, I'm struggling with something, I should
- 6:25Speaker 1: go and talk to my grandma about this. Kiddo is
- 6:28Speaker 1: now scared of police, even though the police were being nice.
- 6:32Speaker 1: Grandma's getting mad at the police for not being mean enough.
- 6:43Speaker 1: And what we've also got here is I think that
- 6:47Speaker 1: this child's going to be scared of dad because that
- 6:49Speaker 1: is not being nice. Dad is not working things out.
- 6:51Speaker 1: Dad's just saying we're going to go and talk to
- 6:52Speaker 1: grandma and then we're going to have a police station.
- 6:54Speaker 1: So even Dad's not willing to work with the child
- 6:57Speaker 1: on the problem. And there are definitely are problems here
- 6:59Speaker 1: that need to be worked on. Oh and I don't
- 7:01Speaker 1: have a problem with parents asking for help, but I
- 7:03Speaker 1: feel like this dad is just abrogating his responsibility. Maybe
- 7:06Speaker 1: I'm being a little bit harsh, but seriously, like man up,
- 7:11Speaker 1: be the dad, be the parent.
- 7:14Speaker 4: I know, I'm laughing because it's just it's a little
- 7:16Speaker 4: bit comical how social media has the power to just
- 7:21Speaker 4: get under our blow things up, yes, and blow things
- 7:25Speaker 4: out of proportion. However, there is a story that you
- 7:28Speaker 4: have told over the years that highlights this situation in
- 7:34Speaker 4: such a powerful way. It was about a young boy
- 7:38Speaker 4: who brought peanuts to school one day, right and threw
- 7:43Speaker 4: them in front of the face of a child who
- 7:45Speaker 4: was anaphylactic and said, I'm.
- 7:47Speaker 1: Going to kill you with this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. True
- 7:49Speaker 1: story happened on the New South Wales central coast, probably
- 7:51Speaker 1: about I was right at the very start of when
- 7:54Speaker 1: I was doing the parenting stuff, so it would have
- 7:56Speaker 1: been nearly twenty years ago.
- 7:57Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 7:58Speaker 4: And I love the advice that you gave to that
- 8:01Speaker 4: mum that day. Would you like to share?
- 8:03Speaker 1: I can't remember what I said. I remember the story.
- 8:05Speaker 4: Are you serious?
- 8:07Speaker 1: You can remember the advice? Obviously it's probably in harmony
- 8:09Speaker 1: with the advice. I'm then had given a second what
- 8:11Speaker 1: is the parenting solution that I gave?
- 8:14Speaker 4: Well, the parent was wrong. The school explained to her
- 8:16Speaker 4: what had happened, and she needed to come to collect
- 8:18Speaker 4: her child, and she gave you a phone call before
- 8:22Speaker 4: she even got there. She said, this is what's happened.
- 8:25Speaker 4: What am I supposed to do? And you asked her
- 8:29Speaker 4: what she wanted to do?
- 8:30Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was I want to put him
- 8:31Speaker 1: through the wall or something like that.
- 8:33Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 8:34Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 8:34Speaker 4: And she then asked you, but what am I supposed
- 8:37Speaker 4: to do? And your response was just one of absolute
- 8:42Speaker 4: love and acknowledgment that this little boy, in spite of
- 8:46Speaker 4: what he had done, was struggling for whatever reason, in
- 8:51Speaker 4: whatever space, there was something going on for him that
- 8:54Speaker 4: was making him act in such a poor way. He
- 8:58Speaker 4: knew that he'd done the wrong thing. He already knew
- 9:00Speaker 4: that he didn't need her to come in heavy handed.
- 9:03Speaker 4: He didn't need her to make him feel any worse.
- 9:07Speaker 4: He already felt worse, And the idea that she could
- 9:10Speaker 4: be a soft place for him to come so that
- 9:13Speaker 4: they could actually have connection and the potential for her
- 9:20Speaker 4: to utilize that time to teach him better ways to
- 9:24Speaker 4: act only comes through being soft, not coming down hard.
- 9:31Speaker 1: Okay, so some people will hear what you're saying and think, oh,
- 9:33Speaker 1: here we go. Namby pamby Cotton Wooll Bubble app gentle parenting.
- 9:37Speaker 4: It's not what this is.
- 9:39Speaker 1: After the break, I have another story that I think
- 9:41Speaker 1: is even more powerful and more pertinent that will illustrate
- 9:45Speaker 1: not just what not to do, but also precisely what
- 9:49Speaker 1: needs to happen in this kind of situation. I can't
- 9:53Speaker 1: wait to share it to stay Next we're back. This
- 10:02Speaker 1: is the Happy Family's podcast. If you're enjoying the pod,
- 10:04Speaker 1: police share it with your friends, your neighbors, other parents,
- 10:06Speaker 1: anyone that you think would benefit from the stuff that
- 10:09Speaker 1: we share to make families happier. Okay, we've got a
- 10:11Speaker 1: situation where there's been some bullying, some unkindness. There's a
- 10:14Speaker 1: child who needs to learn how to be civil, courteous,
- 10:17Speaker 1: considerate of others. And the solution that the dad comes
- 10:21Speaker 1: up with is go to grandma and then get grandma
- 10:23Speaker 1: to take child to the police, so the police and
- 10:24Speaker 1: grandma cant scare the heck out of the child so
- 10:26Speaker 1: they'll never do the wrong thing again. Research shows this
- 10:29Speaker 1: doesn't work. There's a story that I shared in one
- 10:31Speaker 1: of my books, twenty one Days to a Happier Family,
- 10:33Speaker 1: about ten years ago, fifteen years ago, and I wrote
- 10:36Speaker 1: that book that has always stayed with me, and that
- 10:38Speaker 1: I think is perfectly pertinent for this scenario. A young
- 10:42Speaker 1: girl was in trouble at school. She was in her
- 10:45Speaker 1: I think grade nine, grade ten, so I think she
- 10:47Speaker 1: was about fifteen. She created an explicit website featuring one
- 10:52Speaker 1: of her classmates with a whole lot of photo shop
- 10:56Speaker 1: and superimposed faces on explicit images of other people and
- 11:01Speaker 1: their bodies, and shared the website with a whole lot
- 11:04Speaker 1: of people and really just tried to hurt, cause genuine
- 11:08Speaker 1: harm to the reputation of this girl that she didn't
- 11:12Speaker 1: like in her class. Horrible stuff. Anyway, the school found
- 11:16Speaker 1: out about it, mum gets called in. The great irony
- 11:19Speaker 1: is that the mum in this instance was working in
- 11:22Speaker 1: the laboratory of a university professor who studied cyberbullying, and
- 11:26Speaker 1: now her fifteen year old daughter has been called into
- 11:28Speaker 1: the office for doing some absolutely breathtakingly horrendous cyberbullying, some
- 11:33Speaker 1: of the worst stuff that you could probably imagine. And
- 11:36Speaker 1: the moment is just freaking out. She's like, how could
- 11:38Speaker 1: you do this? What is going on? Why where did
- 11:41Speaker 1: this come from? And she basically had this massive fight
- 11:44Speaker 1: with her daughter that lasted for day after day after day.
- 11:47Speaker 1: She confiscated screens, confiscated computers, threatened to get the police involved.
- 11:52Speaker 1: The other family were threatening that as well. I mean,
- 11:54Speaker 1: this thing just blew up. And all that happened is
- 11:56Speaker 1: that her daughter got worse and worse, started taking rug's grades,
- 12:01Speaker 1: went down even further, started wagging school like this. This
- 12:04Speaker 1: thing just blew up. It got to the point where
- 12:06Speaker 1: this mum took the door off her daughter's bedroom so
- 12:09Speaker 1: that she could monitor her and so that she could
- 12:12Speaker 1: really prove that she meant what she said when she
- 12:14Speaker 1: said this girl was in trouble. Anyway, time passes and
- 12:18Speaker 1: they eventually get back onto talking terms. We're talking weeks
- 12:21Speaker 1: down the track, six eight weeks, and then mum has
- 12:25Speaker 1: this brain wave. She's like me doing the tough stuff
- 12:29Speaker 1: isn't working, has a conversation with her daughter and ends
- 12:33Speaker 1: up buying her a puppy. So fast forward another couple
- 12:36Speaker 1: of months and they're out on a walk one afternoon
- 12:38Speaker 1: walking the puppy. The relationship has healed a little bit more,
- 12:42Speaker 1: and while they're chatting about life, they walked past some
- 12:47Speaker 1: boys not far away in the park who are throwing
- 12:49Speaker 1: stones at a bird in its nest up in a tree,
- 12:54Speaker 1: and the mom's just saying, like, what are they doing?
- 12:56Speaker 1: And the girl's getting really upset, And then the mum
- 12:58Speaker 1: has this flash of inspiration and she says, see how
- 13:02Speaker 1: those boys are throwing the rocks at the bird in
- 13:07Speaker 1: the tree and at the nest, and you're getting really
- 13:10Speaker 1: upset about it. Well, in the same way, the other
- 13:15Speaker 1: parents of that girl that you were in trouble for
- 13:18Speaker 1: at school, they were that's how they felt. They felt
- 13:22Speaker 1: like you were throwing stones at their daughter and a
- 13:24Speaker 1: naest up high in the branches of a tree. And
- 13:27Speaker 1: this mum described how when she had that conversation with
- 13:30Speaker 1: her daughter, there was all of a sudden, this massive
- 13:32Speaker 1: empathy influx, and this girl suddenly realized, Oh, I get it.
- 13:37Speaker 1: I was causing I was causing real harm, Like this
- 13:41Speaker 1: could have been really, really bad. She said it was
- 13:43Speaker 1: the first time, the first time that she'd cracked it.
- 13:46Speaker 1: But then as they started to talk more, a very
- 13:49Speaker 1: important detail that I haven't shared yet came out. As
- 13:52Speaker 1: they talked about what was going on and the reasons
- 13:55Speaker 1: for this girl's behavior, turns out that about a year
- 13:58Speaker 1: before it all blew up, this lady had lost her husband.
- 14:02Speaker 1: This girl had lost her dad. He passed away unexpectedly
- 14:05Speaker 1: and the family was in turmoil, and as a result,
- 14:08Speaker 1: mama had to go back to work. That's why she
- 14:10Speaker 1: was working in that university professor's lab studying cyberbuilding. That's
- 14:13Speaker 1: why she wasn't available to her daughter. That's why her
- 14:15Speaker 1: daughter was so upset. Doesn't excuse the behavior, but it
- 14:18Speaker 1: helps to understand why this girl was just reeling. She
- 14:21Speaker 1: didn't have the support that she needed, and unfortunately, like
- 14:23Speaker 1: too many people, because she was hurt, she decided to
- 14:26Speaker 1: lash out in an unproductive and unhelpful way. The solution
- 14:31Speaker 1: is not fear. The solution is not tyranny. The solution
- 14:35Speaker 1: is not anger.
- 14:36Speaker 4: Well, she would never have had that conversation if she
- 14:39Speaker 4: had a continued with the same line approach that she
- 14:42Speaker 4: had in the beginning. So as you said, it's why
- 14:45Speaker 4: it's taken so.
- 14:46Speaker 1: Long, that's right. And as you said, when we kind
- 14:48Speaker 1: of deviated off the script a little bit with the
- 14:49Speaker 1: story that you shared that I couldn't really remember. In
- 14:52Speaker 1: the first part of the podcast, you said, we need softness,
- 14:57Speaker 1: and it's not softness because we're going to let the
- 14:59Speaker 1: kids get away with everything, nor are we going to
- 15:01Speaker 1: pander to their poor little feelings. It's not that kind
- 15:04Speaker 1: of gentle parenting softness. It's softness as in, I'm going
- 15:09Speaker 1: to create a level of safety here where you and
- 15:12Speaker 1: I can problem solve. And the best problem solving in
- 15:16Speaker 1: an incident like this is problem solving through empathy. We
- 15:21Speaker 1: want our child to be able to take the perspective
- 15:24Speaker 1: of the victim, of the person who's being bullied in
- 15:29Speaker 1: this case, of the Hispanic kid who's now being threatened
- 15:32Speaker 1: because Trump's going to send the Ice agents in and
- 15:35Speaker 1: deport you.
- 15:37Speaker 2: Right.
- 15:37Speaker 1: So, if we can have empathy, if we can help
- 15:40Speaker 1: our children to experience empathy, to take the perspective of
- 15:43Speaker 1: another person, to stand in their shoes, we can have
- 15:47Speaker 1: much more productive conversations around solving the problem of unkindness, cruelty, bullying.
- 15:54Speaker 4: But that only happens when we are able to step
- 15:57Speaker 4: into the shoes of empathy ourselves.
- 16:00Speaker 1: Yeah, and see how our child is feeling and engage
- 16:03Speaker 1: with them at that level.
- 16:05Speaker 4: Like, that's the step that parents miss so often because
- 16:09Speaker 4: our natural response is to crack down, get hard, be harsh. Ye,
- 16:14Speaker 4: And yet if we would take the opposite approach, we
- 16:18Speaker 4: actually get to show our kids in real time, what
- 16:22Speaker 4: it looks like to take someone else's perspective in that moment.
- 16:26Speaker 1: Here's my prorocative take that dad, that grandparent. They became
- 16:31Speaker 1: bullies to that little girl.
- 16:33Speaker 4: Yeah, the big person wins.
- 16:35Speaker 1: They just repeated the process exactly exactly. They didn't help her,
- 16:39Speaker 1: they didn't teach her. We need to wrap this up.
- 16:41Speaker 1: Our time is well and truly done. Let me say
- 16:44Speaker 1: this really clearly. Don't get your parenting advice from social media.
- 16:48Speaker 1: And if you are getting it from social media, make
- 16:50Speaker 1: sure it's from people who are credible and who have
- 16:52Speaker 1: actually got solutions and something to share with you that works.
- 16:56Speaker 1: Because this sort of stuff making it into our mainstream
- 16:59Speaker 1: media and turning into part of the parenting discourse, the
- 17:03Speaker 1: narrative that's in our community, it's going to damage kids,
- 17:06Speaker 1: it's going to damage families, and it's going to lead
- 17:08Speaker 1: to negative outcomes, not positive outcomes. Hopefully, the stuff that
- 17:11Speaker 1: we've shared just now provides some more hopeful and helpful
- 17:15Speaker 1: ways forward if you and your family are struggling with
- 17:17Speaker 1: these kinds of challenges. The Happy Families podcast is produced
- 17:20Speaker 1: by Justin roll On from Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides
- 17:23Speaker 1: our additional support for the pod, and if you'd like
- 17:26Speaker 1: more info to make your family happy, we'd love for
- 17:28Speaker 1: you to check us out at happyfamilies dot com dot
- 17:31Speaker 1: au or jump onto our social pages