Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #23: 7 Things We Should Never Say to Our Children

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#23: 7 Things We Should Never Say to Our Children · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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Speaker 1: This is the Happy Family's podcast with doctor Justin Coilson,
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Speaker 1: where Luke and Susie our husband and wife radio team
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Speaker 1: with three young boys. This is the podcast for the
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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants some answers.
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Speaker 2: Now, it's nice to talk to you, Susie. Hi, Luke.
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Speaker 3: Hey, mates. Now what we're talking about is.
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Speaker 1: Seven things our children should never hear from us. It's
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Speaker 1: an article that you wrote that really, I guess you know,
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Speaker 1: there's been a lot of talk for a long time
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Speaker 1: about whether it's okay to hit our children, whether it's
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Speaker 1: okay to smack, and we've talked about that before, Justin.
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Speaker 1: But one of the things that you really highlight here
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Speaker 1: is that just as damaging can be the words that
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Speaker 1: we speak to our children.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, scientists have found that the same areas
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Speaker 2: of the brain light up when our children experience psychological
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Speaker 2: pain from the verbal punishment that they get as much
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Speaker 2: as from being hit. It's almost like the emotional pain
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Speaker 2: triggered the same part of our brain as physical pain does.
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Speaker 2: It's quite quite interesting and it shows just how important
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Speaker 2: the words we use. You know, we need to choose
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Speaker 2: the right words when we're speaking to our children, even
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Speaker 2: when they try us.
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Speaker 1: Yes, and maybe especially when they try us is when.
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Speaker 2: We need to be particularly Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Look, if you've put together a list of seven things,
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Speaker 1: I'll run through those quickly and then we might discuss
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Speaker 1: a couple of them in more detail. You've got in
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Speaker 1: their name calling, comparisons, threats, dismissal, nothing so not speaking
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Speaker 1: at all, guilt and shame and you don't matter. These
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Speaker 1: are the seven things you're saying our children shouldn't hear
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Speaker 1: from us.
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Speaker 2: Justin Yeah, yeah, I kind of cringe as you go
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Speaker 2: through that list. I mean, it was a painful article
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Speaker 2: to write because there's a sort of a there's a
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Speaker 2: negative energy associated with it, isn't there? But I mean,
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Speaker 2: let's start with the first one. Name calling. There just
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Speaker 2: is we call it behaving with contempt towards our children
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Speaker 2: when we name call. There's a fabulous researcher that many
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Speaker 2: people have heard of called John Gottman, and he argues
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Speaker 2: that when there's contempt in our relationships, regardless of whether
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Speaker 2: it's with a spouse or with somebody else, that we
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Speaker 2: are on the way to essentially distroying that relationship. There's nothing, nothing,
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Speaker 2: that our children should ever hear when it comes to
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Speaker 2: name calling. They don't need to be called stupid or
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Speaker 2: dumb dumb. They also don't need to be called selfish
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Speaker 2: or conceited or entitled or any of those things. Those
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Speaker 2: labels really do stick, and the boy, they just have
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Speaker 2: such an impact. I talked to adults regularly who say,
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Speaker 2: I remember that day that my dad called me that name,
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Speaker 2: and it's just never.
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Speaker 3: Left me well, and I have a memory like that
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Speaker 3: where and it wasn't my dad and my mum were
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Speaker 3: beautiful and how they spoke to me generally, but there
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Speaker 3: was one moment in my life where it crushed me,
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Speaker 3: and as an adult, I remember it vividly. But my
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Speaker 3: family teased me justin because I read some stuff about
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Speaker 3: this when I was a young man, way before I
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Speaker 3: had kids, and I made a commitment to say, not
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Speaker 3: just not calling names, but not putting negative labels on.
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Speaker 3: When I have kids, I'm going to talk about their behavior,
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Speaker 3: not that they're a naughty boy, but maybe they behaved
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Speaker 3: in a way that is naughty, but making sure I
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Speaker 3: differentiate between the two. And right now, I think one
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Speaker 3: of the things we're passionate about it when we sit
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Speaker 3: down with our kids, we talk about their choices and
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Speaker 3: their behavior. But try to never say you are naughty
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Speaker 3: or you are The only labels we want to give
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Speaker 3: them are that you are loved, and you are precious
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Speaker 3: and you are value.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so important, you know. I reframe naughty behavior
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Speaker 2: as challenging. I think that that's a much more helpful
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Speaker 2: way to look at behavior that we find difficult. I'd
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Speaker 2: much rather say, Wow, this is a really challenging situation
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Speaker 2: than say you're naughty, because that's just not fair the child.
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Speaker 2: The child's not naughty. That the child having a challenging time,
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Speaker 2: and so are we.
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Speaker 1: We've got a couple more of these we want to
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Speaker 1: look at. Doctor Justin Coulson is our guests today as
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Speaker 1: we look at the words that we shouldn't be speaking
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Speaker 1: to our children more.
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Speaker 4: Next, everyone wants their family to be happy, but so
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Speaker 4: much gets in the way. Work, stress, commitments, and our
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Speaker 4: children's challenging behavior are some of the usual suspects, and
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Speaker 1: It's The Happy Family's podcast with doctor Justin Coulson, and
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Speaker 1: we're talking today about what not to say to our children.
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Speaker 1: And there's lots of things, of course, justin like comparison.
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Speaker 1: We know not to try and compare our children to
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Speaker 1: other siblings. But there's a couple I wanted to group together,
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Speaker 1: one of them being dismissal and the other one being nothing.
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Speaker 1: Can you talk to us a bit about those two things?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So dismissal is kind of where we turn away
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Speaker 2: from our children. You know, they come to us with
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Speaker 2: a difficulty or a challenge and we just turn away.
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Speaker 2: We're like an talk to the hand, don't give me
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Speaker 2: that rubbish, and we turn away from them. We can
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Speaker 2: even do it in a sugar coated way, where we
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Speaker 2: can do it in like a well meaning way where
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Speaker 2: we say by you'll be right. And when we do that,
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Speaker 2: what we're effectively doing is we're dismissing our child's emotion.
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Speaker 2: We're saying to our child, you know, you don't really
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Speaker 2: matter that much right now, and what you're going through
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Speaker 2: isn't all that real for me. It leaves a child
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Speaker 2: feeling like they're not worthy and they're not important. Even
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Speaker 2: more destructive through us when we just don't say anything
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Speaker 2: at all, and all too often, I'll watch this happen.
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Speaker 2: I'll see it happen with parents who they're not meaning
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Speaker 2: to do it. I know. I'm sure we've all done
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Speaker 2: it accidentally from time to time. But there'll be a
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Speaker 2: situation where a child is calling out to us, Mum
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Speaker 2: and we're in the middle of something. Oh dad, Dad,
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Speaker 2: we're in the middle of something. We're walking to the
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Speaker 2: car and we're like, yep, what is it, and we
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Speaker 2: just keep on walking, or we don't even respond, or
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Speaker 2: they're having a hard time and we simply say nothing. Now,
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Speaker 2: there are times where it's better to not say anything,
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Speaker 2: but that's not helpful for our children. It makes them
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Speaker 2: feel worth The resilience takes an absolute battery.
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Speaker 3: So where's the balance between that and the other advice
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Speaker 3: that we tend to get, which is, if they're performing
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Speaker 3: attention seeking behavior in a negative way, don't reinforce them
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Speaker 3: by giving them the attention. Where's the line and balance
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Speaker 3: between these two decisions we have to ye.
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Speaker 2: I think I think that's a really important question that
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Speaker 2: we need to consider care and each context will be different,
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Speaker 2: But if I was to summarize it into simple dot points,
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Speaker 2: I'd say number one, if they are being challenging, they
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Speaker 2: don't need a good talking to, They need a good
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Speaker 2: listening to. Yeah, they don't need us to ignore them,
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Speaker 2: They don't need us to turn away from them, and
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Speaker 2: they certainly don't need us to turn against them and
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Speaker 2: start punishing them. What they need instead is for us
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Speaker 2: to recognize that they're having a tough time right now,
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Speaker 2: and we probably should spend some time trying to understand why.
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Speaker 2: And the second thing is, once we've got our head
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Speaker 2: around what's going on, once again, we don't need to
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Speaker 2: lecture them or punish them or anything like that. What
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Speaker 2: we need to do instead is put it back onto them.
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Speaker 2: And we can do this even with a three year old.
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Speaker 2: We say, well, now that I understand what's going on,
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Speaker 2: what do you think we should do about it? Or
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Speaker 2: how can I help? In other words, we're encouraging them
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Speaker 2: to think for themselves, to use their autonomy to boss
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Speaker 2: their resilience by coming up with ideas that are going
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Speaker 2: to benefit them.
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Speaker 3: No, sorry, justin. Sorry, there's one thing I don't want
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Speaker 3: to do, and that's encourage them to think for themselves.
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Speaker 2: Come on, our kids thinking for themselves?
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Speaker 3: Justin.
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Speaker 1: But just before we let you go, can I talk
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Speaker 1: about quickly on the back of all of this. This
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Speaker 1: is kind of a what not to do list that
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Speaker 1: you have for parents here, and it's easy to run
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Speaker 1: through a list like this and as parents go, oh
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Speaker 1: I've done that, Oh I've done that. Can we just
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Speaker 1: talk a moment about having grace on ourselves as parents
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Speaker 1: when we have got it wrong.
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Speaker 2: Every single one of us, including the parenting expert you're
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Speaker 2: talking to right now, has made several of these mistakes.
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Speaker 2: It's part of being a parent. We make mistakes. The wonderful,
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Speaker 2: wonderful thing about parenthood is that our children are infinitely forgiving.
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Speaker 2: They just want great relationships with us. And if we
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Speaker 2: go to them and we say, you know what I
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Speaker 2: got that's so wrong. I'm so sorry. But they'll forgive us.
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Speaker 2: I have a good friend. And when his teenager came
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Speaker 2: home late one night, having crashed the car and broken
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Speaker 2: purfew and broken about fourteen other rules, this friend of
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Speaker 2: mine laid into his son. He just started on HI.
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Speaker 2: Later and about ten or twelve seconds into this lecture
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Speaker 2: that he was launching into with all these well practiced lines,
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Speaker 2: he paused and he realized what he was doing, and
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Speaker 2: he looked at his son and he said, son, I'd
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Speaker 2: like to start over to your mind, And his son said, Dad,
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Speaker 2: I'd really prefer if you didn't wear twelve seconds in.
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Speaker 2: Can you just get it over with? But what he
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Speaker 2: was really saying was, you know, I got this wrong.
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Speaker 2: I want to start again. This is not the This
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Speaker 2: is not the way to a productive conversation. We can
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Speaker 2: start over with our kids. We can get it right,
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Speaker 2: and if we've got it wrong before, that's okay. We
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Speaker 2: all do start again starting today.
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Speaker 3: I discovered recently it's very humbling to sit a seven
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Speaker 3: year old down by the pool and say I'm sorry,
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Speaker 3: I got it wrong with it. But as you say,
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Speaker 3: he was very forgiving. I'm very gracious to.
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Speaker 2: Me from the big cuddle after it just feels so.
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Speaker 1: Good that doesn't it though? From Happy Families dot com
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Speaker 1: Todau doctor Justin Coleson, thank you so much. We really
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Speaker 1: appreciate it.
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Speaker 2: Love talking to you guys.
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Speaker 1: For more info in all of Justin's books, podcasts, and programs,
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Speaker 1: you can jump on line to happy families dot com
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Speaker 1: dot are you and to find out how to have
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Speaker 1: Justin speak at your school or you can come along
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