Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #762 Taking Our Own Advice

Transcript

#762 Taking Our Own Advice · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers Now.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: So my older tomorrow is there's some great advice on
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: this podcast.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Listen to that podcast that they know what they're talking
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: about at helps.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and dad.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Kylie am I a letter started a podcast episode by saying,
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: how tired I am?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Is that?
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Okay, we been on.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: A holiday well where we hardly did anything.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: You think to me, You think about what we've done
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: since we got back. There's been there's been a book launch.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: The workload has been overwhelming and for the last week,
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: I mean I've been in lawn Sestant, I've been in
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Brisbane and for the last four days I've been in Perth.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Working means you've got to sleep in your own bed,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: hotel children to take care of yours life sounds quite ideal.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: I have been running workshops all over Western Australia, from Bunbury,
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Mandara right through to Perth itself and it's been amazing.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: But it's so nice to be able to talk to
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: you about what I've done well as a parent. This week.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to hear it.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Since at the start of the week. I've had like
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: four hours at home this week. It's been really hard.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: So what we're going to do for I'll do, but
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: it's tomorrow. I'm going to do mine first because I
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: think it's going to be pretty quick and pretty simple.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: But while I've been away, I've had some time to reflect.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: I've done a lot of publicity for my brand new book.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: As you know, we launched The Parenting Revolution last week.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: The book is now in bookstores everywhere, it's online. I'm
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: getting text messages and emails from people who are saying
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: that they've been reading it and they have been loving it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: In fact, I just had a conversation in the last
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: little bit with a journalist who had to read the
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: book because she was interviewing me for the conversation about
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: the book, and she just said she's got a fourteen
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: year old. In the last year, they've been through absolute
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: hell with diagnoses around ADHD, severe anxiety. Their world has
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: been turned on its head, and she said reading the
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: book was everything. It just she said, since I started
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: reading the book, our whole family has changed, and I'm
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: like evil revolution, and I don't know how to speak French.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: But I was so excited, and so people are loving
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: the book. But while I've been doing that, I had
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: a chance to reflect and the old do Better Tomorrow
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: for me is actually about savoring the small stuff. So
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: somebody asked me what's the best part of being a parent?
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Because in the book I talk a lot about how
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: parenting is not associated with happiness, it's associated with feeling miserable.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: But the rewards are so big, and I'm at pains
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: to point out that parenting is so rewarding. And somebody
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: asked me, so, what's rewarding about parenting for you? And
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: I thought to myself, the list is so long, but
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: we've got to be really attentive to take notice. And
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: I thought, one of the most wonderful sounds in the
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: world for me is hearing one of our children call
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: out my name. Just the privilege of being called dad
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: or daddy. When they call me daddy, Oh my goodness,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: it just melts my heart. About a week and a
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: half ago, our nineteen year old stepped into the kitchen,
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: did I Daddy? And I just went, oh, my goodness,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: this is the best. And just as my heart was
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: about to fall into pieces, she said you're doing the
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: dishes and no one's helping you. I love it when
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: we get to talk together and do the dishes. Can
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: I join you? And I just thought, oh, my goodness.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: And it's those moments where you just go yes, yes,
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: it's so good. And the day before I left for
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: the trip, another one that really stood out to me
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: was our youngest, miss Emily. I woke up at four
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: o'clock that very morning and she was awake. She couldn't
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: get a slip and she asked for the TV remote
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: and I said, you know what, I think it's a
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: bit early for the TV. How apout if you draw?
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: And so while I sat down and did a whole
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: lot of reading and a whole lot of work and
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: had a really productive morning, she laid on the carpet
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: beside me and she just drew. She drew this dragon,
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: colored in and had such a great time. I thought,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: this is this is heaven. This is just so perfectly beautiful.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Saving those small moments so that is my older better tomorrow.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Really appreciate the tiny things that we gloss over and
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: take the granted so much because they are they're really special.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: It's interesting, as you're talking about all of that, just
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: thinking about how so much of family life feels messy
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: and murky and hard it is, and yet the really
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: tiny experiences like you've shared give you maximum payback. That
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: makes sense, Like.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: But you've got to you've got to be attentive to it.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Like just before we've recorded this conversation, when I stepped
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: into the office, our eldest daughter was in the corridor.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: She's several months pregnant. She just happened to be right
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: where I was as I was walking into the office,
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: and she was on a phone call. But she just
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: looked at me and smiled and said morning. And there
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: was something about that interaction. It was two second interaction.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: But I walked into the office just going, oh connection,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: seeing herd valued this is what it's about. It felt
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: so good. I just I love this stuff. So that's
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: my old about it. Tomorrow, I really pay attention to
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: the small moments because there is so much joy right there.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: What's yours?
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Well, we got a little bit of a kick up
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: the bar, and a couple of weeks ago, we've been
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: having a really difficult conversation with one of our children
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: who is at a crossroads in life. Okay and trying
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: to work out what she wants to do. And she's
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: seeing all of her friends doing one thing and she's
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: kind of going, I really like that, and I want
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: to do that. And we're looking at it and kind
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: of going, I think that this is going to close
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: a lot of pathways for you if you choose to
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: do this.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: You're speaking so abstractly. Can you be really concrete about it?
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: And I know that we haven't confirmed with our daughter
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: that we can talk about this, but she's pretty cruzy.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: I think she'd be okay with it.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: So our nineteen year old old has studied university this year,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: straight out of high school and she hates it and
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: she's hating it.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: And this is my thing, right, gap years. I'm always
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: going on about it. I'm a really, really big advocate
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: for a gap year. I've been a university lecturer. I've
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: seen these first year students. Most of them might not all,
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: but most of them shouldn't be there. They're not ready,
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: they don't know what they want, they don't know what
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: they're trying to do. It's just it doesn't work well.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: In her defense, she actually wanted to take a gap year,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: but after eight weeks of finishing high school and floundering,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: not having a clue what she wanted to do. She
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: was absolutely miserable.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and she came to us and she said, I
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: think we should I think I should go to UNI.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: And of all of our kids, she's actually a really mature,
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: really switched on kid. And I thought, if there's a
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: single child that we've got that could do this, I
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: reckon it's her. I also think our next one might
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: be able to as well. But I said, you know what,
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: go for it. You need something, do it. And I
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: shouldn't have said that. I should have told her to
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: do the gap year. I want to do it a
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: plumb for somewhere. Go and get a job, do something
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: because it's not working out.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: But unfortunately, her reaction is to just throw the towel in,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: give up, yeah, and travel the countryside in a comby
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: van with a whole heap of friends with no way
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: to pay. She's like, I'm just gonna throw caution into
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: the wind.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to sleep on the roof in the
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: campus wag thing. Oh, I'll climb up the ladder And
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: I'm like, how are you gonna live? She's like, I
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: don't know.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: We'll just busk from town to town, busk.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Eating two minute noodles for the next twelve months.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: So anyway, we were having a conversation and she wasn't
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: happy with the things that we were sharing.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: With her because we said, no, well we did. When
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: she's an adult, she can do whatever she wants, but
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: we advised strongly against it.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Well, anyway, the next morning I turned on my podcast
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: app and the first thing that came up was the
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: episode we shared a couple of weeks ago.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, In fact, the date was the second, It
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: was the second of May, and we were answering a
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: listener question about a mum who's got a twelve year
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: old who's not fulfilling his potential and what do I
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: do about getting my kid doing more at school? And
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: the advice that we gave.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Was brilliant advice for us. We just rout living it.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: So I listened to it and I kind of felt
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: like I'd had an instant uppercut. And I came home
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: from my morning walk and I went into our daughter's
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: bedroom and I said, I need you to listen to
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: today's podcast.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, so you asked her to listen to the advice
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: that we gave to another parent.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: I did. That was brave, I did. And I said,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: and once you've listened to it, I want you to
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: think about the situation that we're encountering at the moment
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: and how we might do better. Right, And she said, well,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: send me the link. And the next thing I heard
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: the podcast blaring out of her bedroom and she instantly
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: listened to it and the conversations that we're having a
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: slow but there is just an acknowledgment that there is
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: nothing she can do that's going to change the way I.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Feel about her, and well, this goes back to our
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: three most important words, right.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, After she'd finished listening, I just went into her
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: room and I just looked at her and I said,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: you need to know that first and foremost, we just
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: love you. We absolutely love you, and our concern for
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: you is not that you'll do your best, but that
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: you'll have a life that fulfills you. And from the
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: vantage point that we have, we just recognize that the
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: more open you leave your possibilities, the greater opportunity you
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: have for that life of fulfillment. And so as a
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: result of that conversation, we're able to kind of just
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: look at the factor that we just need to get through.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Another few weeks and she will have completed her first
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: semester done, at which point she can either defer or
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: at this point she actually looking at transferring over to
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: an arts degree because she actually doesn't know what she
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: wants to do. My point, she doesn't have a clue
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: what direction she wants to take.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: And so she did know. And this is the other
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: critical thing here, Kylie. I know I'm interrupting your flow
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: for a sec, but this is the critical thing for
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: parents of older kids to remember. The kids can be
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: absolutely set on a path. I want to be a dietician.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: I want to be a speech pathologist. I want to
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: be a lawyer. I want to be a doctor. I
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: want to be, in our daughter's case, an architect. And
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: four weeks into UNI, she's going, this is not what
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: I signed up for. I don't like this. I don't
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: want to do this.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: But it's not that I don't like this, it's I
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: don't like doing the drawings they are asking me to draw.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: I don't want to draw those buildings. I want to
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: draw these buildings.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Well there's that too, but there's a whole lot I
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: don't want.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: To study this subject. It doesn't make me excited. Yeah,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: but the reality is it's all preparatory and foundational for
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: the skill set if that's the direction you want to take.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: And she's not ready to sit in that place. So
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: you know, I encouraged her to go to university and
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: to have the conversation she needed to have to make
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: sure she had complete understanding of what needed to take
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: place in order for her to do what she wanted
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: to do. And she did that.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: So now we've just got to get through the next
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: few weeks. So my ild tomorrow is there's some great
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: advice on this podcast.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Listen to that podcast that they know what they're talking
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: about at helps.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: But I what I'm so grateful for is that we
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: often know what we need to do, but we get
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: so caught up in the emotion of the moment that
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: we forget or it's not our natural position to take.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: I love this because so often I'll think to myself,
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: when we're struggling with one of our children, what's the
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: advice that I would give to somebody else through situations?
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: But I can never quite think of what the advice
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: would be. But you're right that podcast really was useful
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: for that specific issue. So funny and so timely, same timely.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: I love that you know I'm going to take a
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: different message from your story. And that is the power
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: of those three most important words. When we talk to
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: about children, about meaningful things, about challenges, struggles and problems,
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: and we make sure that it's couched in an environment
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: where they unmistakably know not just that we love them,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: that we love them no matter what. It changes everything
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: about the conversation. It creates a vulnerability and an openness
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: that means that you get to talk about the kinds
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: of things that most people don't normally talk about. It's
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: profoundly important. And they're the stories that I love telling
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: the most. When I share stories about our own family
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: and my presentations, and I don't share as many as
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: I used to, but the no matter what, stories, they're
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: the ones that I love the most. They're the ones
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: that connect with people the most. They're the ones that
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: make people cry, and they're the ones that tap people
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: into the stuff that they know that they need to
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: be doing with their kids other than listening to this
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: podcast to get great advice. So that's our old do
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: better tomorrow We hope that it helps you to do
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: better tomorrow on your parenting. Thank you so much for
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: being an intentional parent, a parent who wants to really
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: engage with the process of raising your children. Well. We
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: hope that today's episode has been useful and it's given
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: you a bunch of ideas that can make your family happier.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us. The Happy Family's podcast is
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media. We have Craig
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Bruce as our executive producer and if you'd like more
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: information about making your family happier, please join us in
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: the Happy Families membership. We don't talk about it much
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: on the podcast, but our members.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Love what we do.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: They love the way they get the ongoing calm, assurance
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: and evidence based ideas for making their family happier. You
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: will love the membership. It's available at Happy families dot
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: com dot A. You hope to see you there. Yeah,