Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1251 - Raising Young Adult Males

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#1251 - Raising Young Adult Males · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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Speaker 1: Tricky questions are some of my favorites. Hello, welcome to
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Speaker 1: the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast where we give
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Speaker 1: your real parenting solutions. Every day on Australia's most downloaded
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Speaker 1: parenting podcasts. We adjustin and Kylie course and every Tuesday
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Speaker 1: on the pod we answer your tricky questions. You can
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0:26
Speaker 1: that you're struggling with. We love your tricky questions about
0:29
Speaker 1: family stuff, relationship, parenting, children's screens, well being. Whatever it
0:35
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0:36
Speaker 1: We do that every Tuesday. If you'd like to submit
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Speaker 1: a tricky question another way, we will accept them via
0:42
Speaker 1: podcasts at Happy families dot com dot au. That's what
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Speaker 1: we've got today, Kylie, missus Happy Families. This one comes
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Speaker 1: from Kim. Do you have any tips on raising young
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Speaker 1: adult males maintaining connections and communication, especially when you don't
0:57
Speaker 1: always agree on choices and actions.
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Speaker 2: She must have got winged of a book that might
1:03
Speaker 2: be coming out.
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Speaker 1: I see this was not a setup. I just want
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Speaker 1: to be really clear. I'm not trying the book still
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Speaker 1: A while away like, we're not trying to. You can
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Speaker 1: pre order now at happy families dot com.
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Speaker 2: Do you.
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Speaker 1: I'm just letting you know. But so you can't even
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Speaker 1: pre order, you can register your interests. But no, this
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Speaker 1: was not a plant. This was a legit email that
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Speaker 1: came through.
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Speaker 2: So I guess I'm just going to let you take
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Speaker 2: the lead on this. I'm interested to hear what your
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Speaker 2: insights are. Considering we are parents of six girls.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's dive into it. I have a couple of
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Speaker 1: ideas that I think are going to be really useful.
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Speaker 1: Don't have any idea how old this young adult male is,
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Speaker 1: but the word adult makes me think eighteen plus. I'm
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Speaker 1: going to pull the age down to sixteen plus because
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Speaker 1: many people who are listening to this pod have got
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Speaker 1: teenage boys and they are They're frothing for independence. They're
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Speaker 1: starting to say, I want to be my own man,
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Speaker 1: I want to step into my I want to make
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Speaker 1: my own decisions. So the first thing that I want
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Speaker 1: to really really have a home is that this is
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Speaker 1: what's supposed to happen. Our children, in order to differentiate
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Speaker 1: from us, will work really hard to make decisions on
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Speaker 1: their own and the easiest way to say I'm an individual,
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Speaker 1: I'm not like you, I'm making my own choices is
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Speaker 1: literally to do things that their parents might always agree about,
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Speaker 1: so that the comment from Kim, especially when you don't
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Speaker 1: always agree on choices and actions, this is in many cases,
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Speaker 1: this is a sort of a way that a teenage
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Speaker 1: boy will plant his flag and say, my life making
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Speaker 1: my choices.
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Speaker 2: As I'm listening to all I can think about is
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Speaker 2: in this situation when we think about our children, is
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Speaker 2: it better to be right or is it better to
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Speaker 2: maintain a relationship with your child? Too often we come
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Speaker 2: in where gung ho, we're frustrated, we're angry, we read
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Speaker 2: them the Riot Act, we tell them all the reasons
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Speaker 2: why what they're doing is wrong, and it severs our
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Speaker 2: relationship with them. But if we recognize that in this instance,
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Speaker 2: we're talking about a young adult, we're talking about someone
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Speaker 2: who's actually at a point where they can start making
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Speaker 2: decisions for themselves, and they're going to make keeps that
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Speaker 2: go against what you would hope for them. But the
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Speaker 2: reality is it's not a defining moment.
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Speaker 1: You can come back from pretty much anything. I mean,
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Speaker 1: not totally completely everything, but pretty much anything, you can
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Speaker 1: come back from it. When I think about what I
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Speaker 1: was like as a young man, when I think about
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Speaker 1: the young men that I've spoken to for my book
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Speaker 1: that is coming out soon about raising boys and young men,
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Speaker 1: the central thing that I see here is that as parents,
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Speaker 1: we want to control. And if our relationship is a bucket,
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Speaker 1: I've used this metaphor so many times. If our relationships
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Speaker 1: a bucket, and the water in the bucket is connection,
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Speaker 1: the air is the control, right, it's the correction and direction.
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Speaker 1: And anyone who walks around with an empty bucket that
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Speaker 1: is a bucket full of air, a bucket full of
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Speaker 1: correction and direction. Pretty soon they just put the bucket down.
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Speaker 1: They walk away from the relationship. Right, no point carrying
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Speaker 1: an empty bucket. You only want a bucket if it's
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Speaker 1: full of water. You want the good stuff, so you
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Speaker 1: can use that water for the things that you need
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Speaker 1: in life. So when I hear Kim's question, what I
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Speaker 1: really want to focus on is connection, connection, connection, And
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Speaker 1: that's really the I guess the central part of what
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Speaker 1: her question is, how do I maintain connection and communication?
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Speaker 1: You maintain connection and communication by stepping away from control,
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Speaker 1: by stepping away from agendas exactly the correction and direction.
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Speaker 1: What are you living your life like that? For if
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Speaker 1: every time, let's say he's moved out, or maybe he's
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Speaker 1: living downstairs in the spare room and he's got his
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Speaker 1: own n swite and the rumpus room areas kind of
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Speaker 1: become his or whatever it is, every time he comes
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Speaker 1: home and sits at the dinner table and sees you,
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Speaker 1: if the conversation is what are you doing with your
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Speaker 1: life and why are you doing that? And you know
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Speaker 1: you've got that bill and if you don't pay it,
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Speaker 1: this is going to happen. If all we're doing is
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Speaker 1: having those conversations with our kids, pretty soon they stopped
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Speaker 1: talking to us. The second point that I want to
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Speaker 1: make really sort of leverages or sits on top of that. Recently,
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Speaker 1: I had a chat with my mom. I haven't even
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Speaker 1: shared this with you, So my mom has recently had
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Speaker 1: a birthday. I was chatting with her about her newfound
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Speaker 1: additional year of life and how it feels to be
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Speaker 1: getting older, and I commented that I really enjoy talking
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Speaker 1: with her, and sometimes she drives me crazy like all parents,
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Speaker 1: and sometimes I probably drive her crazy like all children.
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Speaker 1: But I just said Mom. I love catching up with you.
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Speaker 1: I love calling you. I love that I can pick
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Speaker 1: up the phone and ring you. I'm so glad that
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Speaker 1: you're still here and we get to have these conversations
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Speaker 1: like it's really it's really delightful that you're in my
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Speaker 1: life and that you're in my life the way that
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Speaker 1: you are.
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Speaker 2: But you haven't always felt like that.
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Speaker 1: No, I haven't. It's been a decades long process to
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Speaker 1: get to that point.
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Speaker 2: But the one thing that your mom has always done
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Speaker 2: is she's accepted those bits of however small they've been,
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Speaker 2: and she has continued to strive for connection even when
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Speaker 2: it's been tricky.
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Speaker 1: That's almost almost exactly what I was going to say.
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Speaker 1: As I was talking to her, I made this comment.
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Speaker 1: I said, it's just occurred to me. I really like
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Speaker 1: spending time with you. In fact, I love spending time
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Speaker 1: with you and Dad because you love spending time with us.
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Speaker 1: You make the effort, You make it so that there
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Speaker 1: is no judgment. I'm living my life the way I
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Speaker 1: want to live it. I really like my life, and
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Speaker 1: I know that you're pretty generally happy with how I'm
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Speaker 1: living my life. But I still do things that annoy you.
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Speaker 1: But you don't let that get in the way of
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Speaker 1: our relationship. Your love for me and your desire for
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Speaker 1: this relationship to flourish is far greater than any of
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Speaker 1: those ruffling of feathers that can happen from time to
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Speaker 1: time when I do something that you don't like, or
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Speaker 1: say something that you don't like, or I decided to
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Speaker 1: spend money on something that you don't think I should
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Speaker 1: be spending money on. I mean, that still happens. I'm
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Speaker 1: turning fifty this year and she still gets franky about
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Speaker 1: that stuff. And I think what I really want to
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Speaker 1: emphasize for Kim and any pair who's raising kids in
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Speaker 1: their teens and in their young adult years, is that
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Speaker 1: if you can demonstrate to your kids that you love
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Speaker 1: spending time with them, then they will love spending time
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Speaker 1: with you. That's not a very sciencey answer, but if
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Speaker 1: you want to keep that connection and that communication open,
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Speaker 1: I mean, that's what connection.
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Speaker 2: Is, right.
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Speaker 1: Connection is feeling seen and heard and valued. And the
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Speaker 1: one thing that my parents have consistently done exceptionally well
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Speaker 1: for all of their many faults, and they have them,
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Speaker 1: is that when we're with them, we feel like we matter.
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Speaker 1: They make the effort to demonstrate to prove consistently you
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Speaker 1: guys matter, and we're willing to travel into state, or
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Speaker 1: we're willing to do this or this or this will
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Speaker 1: cancel our plans, will do these things to make sure
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Speaker 1: you know that you matter in our lives. You're a
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Speaker 1: priority to us. There's always water going into that relationship bucket.
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Speaker 1: All right after the break. Two more complicated ideas for
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Speaker 1: when things get tricky. Okay, so you're raising a young
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Speaker 1: adult boy. I mean, the same principles apply for a
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Speaker 1: young adult girl as well. Rituals and rights of passage.
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Speaker 1: They just don't exist today like they did decades and
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Speaker 1: centuries ago. And this is a real challenge because every boy,
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Speaker 1: every boy has to prove that he's a man. Masculinity
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Speaker 1: is something that is both learned and earned, and this
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Speaker 1: is something that I really focus on in my upcoming book.
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Speaker 1: You can watch others and learn about masculinity, but you
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Speaker 1: actually then have to go out and earn it. That's
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Speaker 1: something that's quite different to womanhood. So girls grow up
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Speaker 1: and they are accepted as women once they are mature,
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Speaker 1: once they reach a certain age, once they start to
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Speaker 1: live their lives as young adult females. But for men,
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Speaker 1: there's this thing where your masculinity has to be earned,
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Speaker 1: it has to be proven. It's precarious, it can be
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Speaker 1: taken away. So quite often what you do is you
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Speaker 1: find yourself heads with a young man because he's constantly
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Speaker 1: in prove it mode and he's not going out and
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Speaker 1: slaying a lion or sticking his hand into a mitten
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Speaker 1: full of fire ants or being circumcised. He's not going
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Speaker 1: through those things as a young adult to prove his masculinity.
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Speaker 1: What he's doing instead is he's driving his car too fast,
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Speaker 1: or he's going on too many dates and maybe causing
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Speaker 1: some emotional distress for the people in his orbit, or
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Speaker 1: he's doing whatever else. It is drinking too much, doing
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Speaker 1: all these things that as a parent, you're looking at
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Speaker 1: him going, hey, buddy, this is not smart. You're not
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Speaker 1: making safe, healthy decisions. What's going on?
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Speaker 2: This is really curious to me. And we're going to
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Speaker 2: go on a little tangent here, But just listening to
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Speaker 2: you talking about this need to prove your masculinity and
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Speaker 2: the fact that as a woman, I'm accepted as a
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Speaker 2: woman in society just because I purely grow up right,
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Speaker 2: But I don't ever have to prove my femininity.
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Speaker 1: Never like, no, how is this?
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Speaker 2: It just doesn't make sense to me? And how has
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Speaker 2: this become about masculinity as opposed to just maturing.
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Speaker 1: Well, I think it's a combination of two. But to
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Speaker 1: mature into a healthy form of masculinity, you need to
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Speaker 1: be comfortable and confident with who you are. And when
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Speaker 1: somebody's constantly telling you to not be who you are
10:21
Speaker 1: right now, you feel like you have to push against them,
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Speaker 1: and it creates a whole lot of frustration. It creates
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Speaker 1: a whole lot of anger, It creates a whole lot
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Speaker 1: of discord in relationships.
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Speaker 2: Our twenty two year old went through a rite of
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Speaker 2: passage the other day. She brought a self a car
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Speaker 2: when she got home after being away, and she had
10:42
Speaker 2: to take it for its first service, and she got
10:45
Speaker 2: a quote. They told her how much it was going
10:47
Speaker 2: to be, and she dropped it off, and about two
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Speaker 2: hours later she got a phone call, well, we've done
10:53
Speaker 2: the service, but we've realized that there's X, Y and
10:55
Speaker 2: Z that needs to be done, so it's actually going
10:57
Speaker 2: to cost you an extra you know, two hundred bucks.
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Speaker 2: She said, okay, and then she got a phone call
11:03
Speaker 2: about another forty five minutes later, they checked the tires
11:06
Speaker 2: and they found that not only had she got a
11:10
Speaker 2: tax stuck in it, but it actually needed replacing as
11:12
Speaker 2: a result. So it was another two hundred dollars on
11:15
Speaker 2: top of what she was expecting. And she walked in
11:17
Speaker 2: to me and she said, I think I've just had
11:18
Speaker 2: the worst half of my life.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
11:21
Speaker 2: And I looked at her and I thought, welcome to adutod.
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Speaker 1: This is what it means to go to car. So
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Speaker 1: moving on from that, this idea of earning your masculinity,
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Speaker 1: I actually this is really hard for mums to hear, especially,
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Speaker 1: but I think there's really great value in boys moving
11:37
Speaker 1: away from home, like once the young adults, I think
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Speaker 1: that we should encourage them to create a little bit
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Speaker 1: of distance to go out and experience.
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Speaker 2: I didn't think it matters with they're boys or girls.
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Speaker 2: I actually think that it's really important for our kids
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Speaker 2: to actually move on. Progression is literally why we're here.
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Speaker 2: We're here to progress. And while ever we stay under
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Speaker 2: mum and dad's roof, Mom and Dad are still doing
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Speaker 2: the world and they're cooking your food, and we just
12:03
Speaker 2: kind of sit in this space of I'm going to
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Speaker 2: say nothingness. We're not going anywhere, We're we're not working
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Speaker 2: towards anything more times than not. And I just I
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Speaker 2: don't think it's a male thing or a female thing.
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Speaker 2: I think across the board, our kids need to move on.
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Speaker 1: So fundamentally, when we are progressing, we feel good about life.
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Speaker 2: And we've got purpose, we've got direction.
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Speaker 1: And by moving out, it kind of forces progress that
12:29
Speaker 1: doesn't happen when you're living at home and you're still
12:31
Speaker 1: having your washing done for you and your meals cooked
12:32
Speaker 1: for you, and you're borrowing mom and Dad's car or
12:35
Speaker 1: whatever those things are that are happening. So I'm not
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Speaker 1: encouraging everyone to say, well, boys, if you go like
12:40
Speaker 1: get out of the house. I know that there's a
12:41
Speaker 1: whole lot of other factors that come into it. There's
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Speaker 1: financial factors, and there's schooling factors and work factors and
12:48
Speaker 1: all those kinds of things. I get all of that,
12:50
Speaker 1: but I just want to highlight creating some distance is
12:53
Speaker 1: sometimes the best thing that you can do for your relationship,
12:56
Speaker 1: and that might be helpful. There's one last thing that
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Speaker 1: I'm going to mention. We are out of time, so
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Speaker 1: I'm going to mention it really, really briefly, and that
13:02
Speaker 1: is that when there is some conflict, when there's some
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Speaker 1: disagreement about what's going on, if your child is now
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Speaker 1: in their young adult years, as a parent, it's your
13:11
Speaker 1: obligation to not tell them what to do. It's now
13:16
Speaker 1: their life, and I know that comes with a whole
13:18
Speaker 1: lot of frustration. But if you really really really have
13:21
Speaker 1: to tell them, let me go through a quick process,
13:25
Speaker 1: a quick framework that's helpful. When your children a little
13:28
Speaker 1: it's appropriate to cocoon them, to hide them away from
13:31
Speaker 1: danger and risk and problems and concerns. But as they
13:34
Speaker 1: get a bit bigger, you start to step into what's
13:37
Speaker 1: called reasoned cocooning. That is, you explain them why you're
13:43
Speaker 1: cocooning them, or you talk to them about why you
13:45
Speaker 1: think you should cocoon them, and ask them how they'd
13:47
Speaker 1: like to work with you around that cocooning, because maybe
13:50
Speaker 1: they are big enough to start to make their own decisions.
13:52
Speaker 1: So that cocooning and reason cocooning is appropriate for young children.
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Speaker 1: But as they get older, they start to want to
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Speaker 1: explore the world, and that's when we have to step
14:02
Speaker 1: into something called pre arming. We pre arm our children
14:06
Speaker 1: by saying pretty soon, you're going to encounter these kinds
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Speaker 1: of situations. How will you navigate them? And that's what
14:12
Speaker 1: we do is our children are sort of between the
14:14
Speaker 1: ages of eight and I'm going to say fourteen. When
14:17
Speaker 1: they're a bit bigger and they're in those early teen years,
14:21
Speaker 1: we move to something that's called deference. That's when we
14:25
Speaker 1: defer to them. Now, if you defer to a thirteen
14:28
Speaker 1: year old, you're going to find yourself in trouble. So
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Speaker 1: I mentioned the word reasoned. When it comes to cocooning,
14:33
Speaker 1: we actually step into reasoned deference. So we say, okay,
14:36
Speaker 1: here's the situation. You're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, you want to
14:39
Speaker 1: do that thing, Let's talk it through. Here are all
14:41
Speaker 1: of the options. Now I'm going to reason with you,
14:43
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to defer to you and see
14:45
Speaker 1: if you've got the executive control and the brain power
14:49
Speaker 1: to work out the right way forward. And if they can't,
14:51
Speaker 1: we still do step in from time to time and
14:53
Speaker 1: cocuon them or spend some more time pre arming them.
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Speaker 1: But finally, by the time they get to sixteen, seventeen,
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Speaker 1: eighteen and step into younger dulthood, we moved to deference
15:02
Speaker 1: where we say, well, you're a young man, now you're
15:05
Speaker 1: a young woman. This really is your choice. If you
15:09
Speaker 1: really feel like you need to have some input, you
15:12
Speaker 1: don't start lecturing. You simply and gently say I have
15:17
Speaker 1: a couple of ideas around this. Are you open to
15:20
Speaker 1: hearing them?
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Speaker 2: So I love this question because in their answering, we
15:27
Speaker 2: get clarity on where we are in our relationship. When
15:30
Speaker 2: they say yeah, I'm open, then you have influence. If
15:34
Speaker 2: they say no, they're not.
15:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, leave me alone, I've got this.
15:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, then you actually know that there's some work to
15:41
Speaker 2: be done on your relationship because the connection isn't strong
15:45
Speaker 2: enough right now for them to accept.
15:47
Speaker 1: Normally Yeah, and normally. So I think about the couple
15:49
Speaker 1: of decades where I did not want to hear from
15:51
Speaker 1: my parents when it came to advice. It was because
15:53
Speaker 1: I didn't trust them, or more that I felt that
15:55
Speaker 1: they didn't trust me.
15:58
Speaker 2: I'm going to push back. I don't think it was
15:59
Speaker 2: that so much at all. I think it was the
16:01
Speaker 2: fact that your mom never gave you the opportunity to
16:04
Speaker 2: accept it.
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Speaker 1: Well, I guess that's a trust issue though, It's like
16:08
Speaker 1: you don't trust me and so I don't trust what
16:10
Speaker 1: you're saying because you're not trusting in my ability to
16:13
Speaker 1: do it.
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Speaker 2: She never asked if you were open to her opinion.
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Speaker 1: She just always has here it comes.
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Speaker 2: But the beautiful thing about that is over the years,
16:24
Speaker 2: you've matured as a person number one, so you're more
16:29
Speaker 2: I don't know, but you're more confident in your own decisions,
16:32
Speaker 2: Whereas when you're younger, you're not. You're not confident, and
16:36
Speaker 2: so when your mom comes in, she's busting to tell
16:39
Speaker 2: you how.
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Speaker 1: To do it, how to live my life, because she's
16:42
Speaker 1: got the experience, having lived hers already.
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Speaker 2: You've got to prove her wrong, right, correct, You've got
16:46
Speaker 2: to prove it wrong. So you're not open to hearing it.
16:49
Speaker 2: But when you get to a point in your life
16:50
Speaker 2: where you're you've matured enough, you're comfortable, you're confident in it,
16:54
Speaker 2: you can hear what she has to say because you
16:56
Speaker 2: know that you don't actually have to accept correct can
17:01
Speaker 2: listen to it. But it doesn't have to destroy your
17:02
Speaker 2: relationship asking consent.
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Speaker 1: It just opens your kids up to it if they're willing,
17:07
Speaker 1: And I think that's the real crux of it. But
17:10
Speaker 1: I love where this has gone Kim. Hopefully there's been
17:12
Speaker 1: some useful ideas for you in this conversation. That's the
17:14
Speaker 1: idea of asking those tricky questions. If you have a
17:18
Speaker 1: tricky question, you can jump online to Happy families dot
17:20
Speaker 1: com DOTU, go to podcasts on our website, click the
17:23
Speaker 1: record button and start talking. It's literally that simple, super
17:27
Speaker 1: simple system. We will also take your voice notes podcasts
17:31
Speaker 1: at happy families dot com dot au. Got a voice
17:35
Speaker 1: note lined up for next week from Anna can't wait
17:37
Speaker 1: to talk about that one. Where do babies come from?
17:41
Speaker 1: That's our conversation tomorrow on the podcast, we've gone from
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Speaker 1: big people.
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Speaker 2: I thought tricky questions were today to.
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Speaker 1: Little people's tomorrow. Join us then, thank you so much
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Speaker 1: for listening. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
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Speaker 1: Roulant from Bridge Media. For more information and more resources
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Speaker 1: to make your family happier, you'll find them at happy
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Speaker 1: families dot com dot au.