Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #616 I'll Do Better Tomorrow

Transcript

#616 I'll Do Better Tomorrow · 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 answers. Now.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: So we're on a bushwalk. We're in the middle of
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: this heated conversation with her, and someone walks past the
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: two of us and goes, I love what you guys do.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Recognize that, and like, we've got these serious looks in
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: our face and our daughters going what do you think
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: is going to happen in This person says, oh, you
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: guys are the best.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't feel very good right now. I
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: hope you're not hearing what's going on.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mom
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and dad.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: The weekend it's just around the corner. We're so excited
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: to be able to slow down and spend some time
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: with the family. But before we get there, Hello, this
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: is Justin and Clytie. I'll do better tomorrow. It's our
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Friday episode. Every Friday on the Happy Families podcast, we
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: unpack episodes and experiences from our week that has been
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: and try to figure out how we can be better
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: parents tomorrow because sometimes we don't get it right, or
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: we'll highlight what we got right today. Two things, one
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: of them is purely mine? The other one is a
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: joint one.
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  Speaker 4: How is it purely yours?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I was the one that lost the plot. I
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: was the one that did not respond. Well, you just
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: stood quietly in the background. Am I right?
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: I not believe you're stealing my story?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Well, okay, you tell the story and then I'll say
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: how I got it wrong. So for those of you
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: who a knew to the podcast, So every Friday, we
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: just we look at what we've done well, what we haven't,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: and how we can be better parents tomorrow. And we've
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: got a really really big one, but first, the short
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: one that I think is mine, But you're stealing it,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: even though you're saying I'm say so.
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  Speaker 4: I had had a full day in the kitchen. It
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: was the day before your birthday. I was prepping yep,
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: because you decided that you want to go sugar free,
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: and I was trying to do everything I could to
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  Speaker 4: give you a sugar free birthday. But we don't eat
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  Speaker 4: like that.
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  Speaker 2: You were so good the things that you created, I mean,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: because they're sugar free, they don't taste like normal sweets,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: but they were really like you just did an amazing job. Anyway,
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  Speaker 2: I shouldn't distract from where you're going.
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  Speaker 4: And so dinner was pushed back substantially, and in an
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: effort to try and have dinner on the table before
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: you walked in the door after a big day out.
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  Speaker 2: Well, i'd been in Melbourne, so it was on Saturday,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: and i'd flown to Melbourne, talked at the Resilient Kids conference,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: and I was flying home and the flame flamee The
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: flight to the plane was delayed till like an hour
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: later than it should have been, and I was coming
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: in at seven o'clock at night instead of six o'clock,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: tired and hungry.
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  Speaker 4: And I know how much you love exploring and experimenting
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: with new recipes, so I decided to make something. I
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: knew that we had a whole heap of broccoli in
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: the fridge, and I pulled up this recipe. And I
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: needed a few extra things, so I sent Miss nineteen
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: yep down to the shops to get me a handful
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: of things. Well, she came home and I said to her,
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: where's the chili? And she looked at me and she said, oh,
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: she said, you know when I went to pay for everything.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Well, you wanted hilipinos. You wanted Alipino chili.
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  Speaker 4: I wanted a Hilipino chili. And so when she went
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: to pay for everything in the self service aisle, she
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: was holding her basket and as she got through the
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: majority of things, the guy came up behind her and said,
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  Speaker 4: I'll take that from you. And she didn't realize until
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: she got home, but he'd taken the basket.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: With the chili in it, and it wasn't actually a
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  Speaker 2: Valipino chili. It was just a little red bullet sort
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: of chili as well, not the right chili. But she
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  Speaker 2: didn't tell you that, No, that's right.
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  Speaker 4: So she's come home. I've realized I don't have chili,
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  Speaker 4: and I've also realized that the broccoli is actually not
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  Speaker 4: doing too well. So I've spent an hour in front
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  Speaker 4: of the scenk. I'm trying to cut out all of
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  Speaker 4: the bad bits of the brocoli so I don't have
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  Speaker 4: to throw the whole thing out. And she's gone off
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  Speaker 4: to the shops to get satchuat.
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  Speaker 2: She's gone back to the shop.
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  Speaker 4: So she comes home. You've just walked in.
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  Speaker 2: And she's got a red bullet chili instead of a
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  Speaker 2: Halopino chili.
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  Speaker 4: And her little sister says that chili costs six dollars.
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  Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed that chili. Six dollars And I'm like, so,
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  Speaker 2: you know, chili, they should be five cents.
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  Speaker 4: Then, I think the most I've ever paid for one
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  Speaker 4: of those is about fourteen cents, depending on how much
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  Speaker 4: it is per kilo. So they are tiny. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: And we both turned around and looked at her and said,
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  Speaker 4: six dollars. How did you pay six dollars for this chili?
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  Speaker 2: Cheesy knowledge for a chili.
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  Speaker 4: That it is so small and so light that it
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  Speaker 4: actually did not register.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: On the scales. So what did she do?
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  Speaker 4: She placed her finger on top of the chili.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: She squeezed it with her thumbs. She squeezed the scales
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: with her thumbs to get some weight. That's what she did,
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  Speaker 2: she said, I pushed my thumbs down on the scales.
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  Speaker 2: She paid six dollars for a like She pushed like
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  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty chili's worth of pressure on the
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  Speaker 2: scales to weigh the scales to six dollars. Six dollars.
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  Speaker 2: I'm still incredulous. It's been a week. I looked at her,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: you know, yesterday's conversation about how we want to encourage
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: our kids to feel like they've got a positive in
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: a voice and competence, and you've got this and I
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: believe in you. I did not express that in any way,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: shape or form. I looked at her and said, you
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: have got to me kidding me. You are joking. This
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: is absolutely nuts. Like I actually didn't behave well at all.
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  Speaker 4: Oh so that's still a chilies.
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  Speaker 2: That's that's the I'll do better tomorrow story.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, Anyway, this was a sidetrack.
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  Speaker 2: Why would you not just ask somebody, this isn't waiting
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  Speaker 2: probably could you come and tell me what I can do?
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  Speaker 2: Oh no, I'll just push. Why don't I stand on
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  Speaker 2: the scales? I'll pay for sixty kilos of chilies? Far
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: out unbelievable. And then she had the hide to ask
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  Speaker 2: me for the six bucks for the chili? How do
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  Speaker 2: I do that better? Honestly, this is I'll do better tomorrow.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I'm still obviously not coping with it particularly well. How
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: do you deal with that? I don't know how else
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  Speaker 2: to say it that, Like, this kid is not ready
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  Speaker 2: for life.
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  Speaker 4: So if I had not had a full day in
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  Speaker 4: the kitchen and was not by that stage completely spent.
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  Speaker 4: I would have probably suggested that the both of us
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  Speaker 4: go back down to the shops and show the receipt
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  Speaker 4: the shop assistant and explain the situation, because man, how
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  Speaker 4: many grams of chili does six dollars buy you these days?
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  Speaker 2: Man, that looks like two kilos three kilos at chili.
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  Speaker 2: It's off the scale. And the funniest thing about all
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  Speaker 2: this is we ended up throwing the broccoli in the
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: bin and I went and bought fish and chips for dinner.
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  Speaker 2: That was the worst.
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  Speaker 4: It was so bad, and I just felt like an
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: absolute failure because I had worked so hard, so hard.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, that is so bad. It was. Anyway, that was
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: supposed to be the thirty second story before we actually
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: get into the real one. So I need to do
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  Speaker 2: the real I'll do better tomorrow. As a joint story,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: joint conversation, we have a daughter who is an adult.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: She's finishing year twelve eighteen, has been since the start
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: of the year. She doesn't want to go to schoolies.
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  Speaker 2: She's not interested in going out and getting drunk and
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: doing all the stuff that so often happens at schoolies.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: She wants to really, really celebrate the end of year twelve,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: but do it in a way that she can feel
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  Speaker 2: good about. And she doesn't feel like those kinds of
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: activities are the sorts of activities that she wants to
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: be involved in. But but.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: In spite of her best intentions to tick all the boxes,
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: there's still a few things that we're feeling really unsettled about.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: She's going away with a couple of friends. She has
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: no idea whether she's even going north or south, or
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: how many days they're going.
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  Speaker 4: For or whose car they're going and who's going to be.
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  Speaker 2: Driving, where they're staying, or whether they're going to camp
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  Speaker 2: or airbnb or like literally, because she's in year twelve,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: and how good are they are planning for the future?
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  Speaker 2: How good are they are thinking through every contingency and
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: working stuff out.
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  Speaker 4: And look, there's a part of me that is actually
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  Speaker 4: so excited because you know, here they are, They're just
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: life is an adventure.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm not supposed to be the controlling, restrictive parent.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be supporting her and believing in her,
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  Speaker 2: And but.
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  Speaker 4: You're freaking out going can just kind.
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  Speaker 2: Of pull it together and let me know what you
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: want to do? And then there's the other part of
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: it going and hang on, you're eighteen and you don't
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: have to answer to me at all in the eyes
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: of the law. Now you're an adult. We've always said,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: once you're eighteen, it's kind of your life, right.
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  Speaker 4: Well, and the reality is, if she was eighteen and
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  Speaker 4: she wasn't living at home, we'd be having a very
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: different conversation.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we wouldn't even be having one. She's doing it,
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  Speaker 2: that's exactly right.
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  Speaker 4: But she's eighteen, she's still at high school, and she's
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: living under our room, right, And then all of a sudden,
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: there's this emotional pull because we have this sense of
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: it's not even a sense of duty, it's just this
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: desperate need to keep our child safe. And as a
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: parent with all of this life experience, recognizing and seeing
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: how many possible roadblocks sneeze.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Perhaps just the absolute danger, like I said to it,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: how I'm going to keep yourself safe? And so anyway,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: we have this conversation where she said, can I go?
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Can I go? We need to have the conversation, and Dad,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: I need to let my friends know where am I
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: going or I'm not going. So we're on a bushwalk
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: we climbed up Mount Cool and on the way back down,
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: we're in the middle of this heated conversation with her
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: and someone walks past Kyle, past the two of us
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: and goes, I love what you guys? Do we recognize that?
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  Speaker 3: And like we've got these serious looks in our face
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: and our daughters going what do you think is going
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: to happen?
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: And this person says, oh, you guys are the best.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't feel very good right now. I
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: hope you're not hearing what's going on, boy, And what
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: it really came down to for me is here we are.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: We definitely don't want to be helicopter parents. I mean
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I rail against that all the time, but we're trying
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: to thread this needlere we're trying to explore explain an
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: empower with an adult, but even with a late teen child,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: and we're saying, help us understand what's going on for you,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: and she's doing a really lousee job of explaining it well.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: Her emotions are high because she's feeling threatened by the
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: fact that we're not on the same page as her.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Right, so then we're trying to explain why we're not
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: on the same page as her, so that we can
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: kind of come to some sort of an agreement. But
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: that's only exacerbating, that's right, Which then, because emotions are contagious.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: As she goes up, you and I are like, you're
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: not listening to us if we could just and so
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: we escalate with her in spite of our best intentions
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: to stay low and balanced, And then there's the empowerment
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: goes like, well, what do you think we should do?
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: And then you look at me and you're like, we're
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: not even on the same page. Really really hard to
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: have these conversations. And so my main older better tomorrow
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: around this is just to empathize and emphasize how hard
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: this stuff is. Like the parenting that we preach, the
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: parenting that we're trying to practice, is really damn hard.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: When you espouse to allowing your children to have autonomy
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: in making their own choices, the challenge comes when they
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: choose to make choices that you wouldn't make for them.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: That's it. And of course there are differences between autonomy
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: and independence. We want our children to be choiceful, we
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: want them to make choices consistent with who they are
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: as an integra rated self We want them to make
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: choices that feel good to them and that are in
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: alignment with their values. The difficulty comes ultimately when their
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: values are not the same as ours. And what we're
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: actually seeing here is her values are the same as ours,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: but she's still not thinking through the issues enough. We
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: want to make sure she's got a plan, that she's
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: safe and all those kinds of things, and that's just
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: not on her agenda. She wants it to be totally chill,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: totally relaxed. We just land where we land. We just
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: do what we do, and I'm going, oh, gosh, so
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: you know what we end up doing. When I finally
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: pulled it back together, I called her into our bedroom
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: because we were home from our walk by then and
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: we'd had some time to cool down after driving back
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: from the wonderful, beautiful, stunning walk that we had. I said,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: you really want to go? She said, yep. You're really
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: going to go, aren't you? Yep? And I said, all right, well,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Mum and I have had a conversation about it, and
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: you're an adult. You're eighteen. You can go whether we
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: want you to or not. But for us to feel
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: good about you going, will you just be in touch
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: with this either by a phone call or text twice
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: a day, morning and night. She said, yeah, for sure,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: and will you let us know what your plans are? Yeah,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: for sure. And I think there was one other thing
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: as well. I can't even remember what it was, but.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: You wanted to meet with the friends.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's right. I wanted to sit down with the
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: friends and just talk to them about how not lay
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: down the law, but ask them what they can do
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: to make sure that they're all safe and that they
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: all look out for each other, that they bring up
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: the best in one another. And she said, yeah, we
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: can bring my friends around, we can have a chat
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: with you. That'd be awesome. And all of a sudden,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, I can suddenly feel great about this.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Not that it's about me feeling great about it, but
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: she feels better knowing that she's got our support. Oh
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: and the other thing was if anything goes wrong. If
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: anything goes wrong, you don't try to figure out what
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: your friends, you call us because we've got a little
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: bit more experience and we can probably guide you better
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: if there's any kind of catastrophe or problem. And she
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, totally, just it all worked out. But
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: my goodness, it's hard. It's so done hard.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: It's that thing that we talked about the other day.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: It's that rest, you know, and whether we're children or
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: we're adults, we have to wrestle with these things. Is
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: there anything else you want to add?
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: No, I think that's it. I just wanted to get
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: off my chest and let people know that it's hard,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: even for the guy that writes the books and does
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: the talks. It's hard, especially when the kids get older.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: What I also want to do, though, is put in
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: a quick plug if you have any family, any friends,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: any kids that are autistic. On Monday Night, this coming
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Monday the seventeenth, We're going to be doing a very
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: very special webinar called Autistic Not Weird. It's with a
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: guy called Chris Binello. He's autistic. He's a secondary school teacher.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: He's been talking about topics to do with autism for
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: a number of years now and he's just got so
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: many great ideas. So please check it all out at
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Happy families dot com dot au. That's this coming Monday night.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Have a great weekend. The Happy Family's podcast is produced
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: by Justin Roulant for Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: executive producer and for all the information about making your
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: family happier, visit us on our Facebook page Doctor Justin
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Coulson's Happy Families, The Bod