Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1069 - Should You Tidy Your Teen's Room?

Transcript

#1069 - Should You Tidy Your Teen's Room? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: It's their Happy Families podcast.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: wants answers.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Now. Hello, it's doctor Justin Colson. Welcome to Happy Families Podcast,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and welcome to another week. I'm here with missus Happy Families,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: my wife and among our six kids, Kylie. A couple
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: months ago, I pretty much swore off social media. I've
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: always had a mixed relationship with it, but I struggle
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: with how antagonistic social media can be. People share things
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: that they think are going to be wholesome and uplifting
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and positive and helpful, and every now and again, well
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: not every now and again, on a daily, minutely, hourly basis. Whatever,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: there's controversy, there's provocation. So today we're going to be
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the voice of reason. There's a post that's been doing
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the rounds on all of the platforms from somebody called
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Shannon Taki. She's a mom of five, she has triplets,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: and she shared this video on Instagram of Facebook showing
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: how she makes her son's bed and picks up his clothes,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and people had feelings about it. So the text overlay
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: on the video while she's tiding up his bedroom says this,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I started doing this every morning for my teenager, not
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: because he won't do it, not because I do everything
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: for him, but because teenagers are now growing up in
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: a very strange and complicated world, and I want him
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to feel at peace when he comes home and there's
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: this spick and span, spotless room just in, I guess,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: because she anticipated that there might be some backlash. She
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: also added this in her caption for the photo. She said,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: he has his own chores and has been taught his
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: entire life to clean up after himself. But when he's
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: getting himself up early in the mornings and rushing off
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to school, this is something I've come to enjoy doing
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: for him. This way, when he gets home, he can
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: get his homework done in his room and just relax.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: There's plenty of other things Austin helps with around the house,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and I can only imagine what it's like being a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: teenager in today's world. It is my job to make
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: my children feel at peace. So if it's picking up
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a few pieces of clothes or making his bed, then
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I'm more than happy to do it for him. And
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I read that and I just thought this is so wholesome.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Isn't that great? But not everybody felt the same way.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: What's your reaction when you see something like that.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I really hate social media.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Well, this is why I've sworn off it. I just
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I won't use it anymore. I haven't checked my Facebook
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: account for months.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: There's a whole heap of feelings there. The first thing
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: is it interests me what people feel they should share
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: on socials. Well, there's that, But secondly, why everybody has
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: to have an opinion? And if we know that people
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: are going to have an opinion about it, then we
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: can't really get upset if we pose something and people
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: have a different opinion to ours.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Well, in fairness to Shannon Taki, I'm not sure that
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: she was upset, and I'm sure that she probably expected it,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: but I guess I don't really want to talk about
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: her and the I mean, the feedback was huge. It
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: was extreme. I'm both ends right, some people saying, you're
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: enabling your son, you're teaching him gender roles, what he's
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: going to expect his wife to pick up after him
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: as well, And then there are people at the other
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: end saying good on your mom, like this is a
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: really kind and sweet thing to do, and kids are
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: carrying a lot, and I mean, there was just so
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: much warmth as well, and.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: That's how I feel about it. I just I think
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: that's the difference between you and I. When it comes
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: to socials, I don't actually read any of the comments.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I'm not interested in what other people's opinion is about
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: somebody's posts.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: If I ever get back on to social media, I'm
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: going to stop reading comments completely.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I just don't.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I'll share my thing and that can blow up, and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I'll just walk away. I'll be the rock walking away
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: from the warehouse that just exploded after I've destroyed the enemy.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Just walk away. Don't even look back over my shoulder.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Oh there's a fireware didn't even notice.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Mother to mother, heart to heart, I love that she's
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: actually thought about why she does what she does and
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: that her actions are guided by love. I you know,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: on the.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Other hand, I don't think her actions, well, maybe they
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: are got it by love. She certainly said that I
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: reckon her action so guided by I want a clean house.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I was just about to say, I, on the
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: other hand, am guided by the fact that I need
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: to have a clean house. So the reality is I
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: don't do it every day, but when the children's rooms
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: get to a point where I cannot walk in there
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: and feel calm and peaceful. I will get in there
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: and I will clean it. But just like she said,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: the kids don't have the same level of I want
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: to say, perception and understanding. Because when I have conversations
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: with our children, specifically about what it feels like to
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: walk into a clean home, they can absolutely, absolutely tell
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: me how nice it is and how calming it is,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: and how peaceful, and how it just feels so good
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to come home to. But in their own space, they
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: haven't yet worked that out. They just think it's all
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: of their stuff, and so they find comfort in their stuff.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: But when they come home in their room clean, they
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: love it, and they will tell me that they love it.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: We have a daughter who gets up very very early
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: every morning. She's off to a class before school, like
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: she's out of the house at six am, and often
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: you will spend some time in her room making it
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: tidy so that when she comes home the room's tidy.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: And that doesn't enable her, that doesn't make her take
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: it for granted. It's just the reality that she's not
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: going to get up early enough that she can pull
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: her whole bedroom together and have it reset before she
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: starts a day. For you, it's important you like the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: house being clean and tidy, and so that's what you do.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So there's a social media aspect, Kylie, where people have
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: outrage and people share their opinions. What I'm interested in
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: is having a productive conversation about kids and chores and
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: their contribution around the house. What actually matters, And to me,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: there are two things that are really key here. The
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: first is do our children express and experience gratitude for
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the things that parents do. Do they have a winner
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: so they able to recognize that Mum or Dad or
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: their care are going out of the way to cook
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: a meal or drive them somewhere or do all those
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: things that need to be done for me. That's vital
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and as parents, it's our job to help them to
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: do that in a way that isn't overbearing, and also
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: in a way that recognizes that developmentally kids will just
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: take it for granted and are not supposed to recognize
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: and see everything that we're doing. The second thing is
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: getting their contribution, making sure that they're having a go
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and while they don't necessarily do the things that we
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: want them to do all the time, like they're not
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: cleaning the room, for example, what are they doing in
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the living room, or in the yard, or in the kitchen,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: or where.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: They have regular chores, where they are actually contributing to
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: the house. Is this part of their daily schedule.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: That's exactly what I'm getting at. Yeah, and it sounds
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: like in this case, certainly that's what's going on. There's
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: this gendered element that comes into it as well, and
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I get that. But I also think that as you
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: get older and you find yourself in a relationship. Let's
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: assume that this boy grows up and he finds himself
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: a girl. Because all the conversations were about him and
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: his future wife, There's going to be a division of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: labor in the home. Not everybody is going to do everything.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe they'll do a perfect fifty to fifty. You clean
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the bedroom Monday to Thursday, and I clean the bedroom
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: from Friday to Saturday. I just I don't think Friday, Satday, Sunday.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to happen what usually happened.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: But I don't think anyone wants that neither neither do I.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: The greatest contribution that I have experienced in my life
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: is when somebody is willing to just work side by
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: side with me, right right, whether that's you in an
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: employment situation, there's a big thing that needs to happen,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: and just knowing that you've got teammates that are there
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: beside you and you're working towards a common goal.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Let's get up to our elbows in this and make
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: it up. I love cleaning our bedroom with you. I
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: really like making our bed with you. I just can't
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: make it as well as you. But the other thing
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: is there's going to be different people doing different things
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: for work at different times. So maybe it just makes
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: sense that one person does kn't of look after the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: cleaning up of the bedroom, in the living room, in
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: the kitchen, and the other person does look after the X,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Y and Z. I think in these social media situations
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: people get really really worried about the future, and unnecessarily so.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: And the best claim that I have on that is
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that when I look at our daughter Chanelle, who is
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: now in her mid twenties and is married with her
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: own child.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: And could not keep a clean room, she.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Had the messiest room of all of our children. I
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: think her room was messier than the other kids combined,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: and they're not tidy by any stretch. And now she's
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a wonderful a wonderful mum and homemaker and she really
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: relishes having things in order. She's organized. It's like she
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: figured it out, she worked it out, and with her
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: husband Jared, they just make it work. I'm sure I
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: have a little bit of conflict now and then around
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: stuff who's not doing this or who should be doing that,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: But as you get older, you work it out.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: As I've talked to mums over the years, the number
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: one complaint that they have had is the acknowledgment that
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: their partners are not contributors in the home, whether it
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: be in the kitchen, cooking, or just doing the household
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: chores to keep the house maintained and functioning. It's a
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: really big challenge that so many couple's experience because there's
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: this kind of i don't know, gendered expectation. Girls do
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: the cleaning and boys do the earning.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And maybe that's why I'm relaxed about it because
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: in our situation that hasn't been the case, and we
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: know many good families where people just pitch in and
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: do what they need to do. One of his stories
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: like that it does worry me, and it also helps
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: me to understand why some of those comments are saying
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: what they're saying. But there's a way around this as well.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: The simple way around this is for us as a
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: family to sit down and have a family meeting and explore.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: And we do this with our kids all the time.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: They get sick of the chores, they stop doing the chores,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: they start complaining, I hope feeding the dogs. What do
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I have to feed the dogs? And so we sit
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: down on a Sunday, we pull out a treat or
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: two and we say, all right, we need to talk
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: about chores because we're having a little bit of conflict
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and it's not working. And then it's really simple, where
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: are you up to with the chores? What chores are
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: you willing to do? How do you feel about this one,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: this one, and this one. Here's the thing. We've all
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: got to contribute. So what are we going to do?
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: And it's an explore, explain in power conversation. It takes
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: about ten or fifteen minutes. The kids reading the chores,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: they decide that they're going to rotate who's feeding the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: dog and who's I don't know, vacuuming the floor or whatever,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and within fifteen minutes they've got their new list of chores.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And you and I both know that in three weeks
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: time they're going to be complaining about the chores they've
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: got and they hate them, and we're going to have
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: to do it again. But that is the detail. The
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: most important principle here is contribution, and everyone's contributing. That's
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the conversation that you need to have.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: I saw a post the other day and a mum
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: of six put up six things that she does to
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: simplify her daily running of family life with six kids,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: and one of her points was the acknowledgment that she
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: doesn't do a weekly chor chart. It's a yearly chor chart.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I love that I don't have to remember who's doing
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: what job because they're doing it for a whole year.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine the complaints about I mean, the main
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: one is feeding the dog. Rock we'd have to deal
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: with like.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: A leg that everyone begged to her.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Eleven and a half months of complaining, I don't want
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to feed that dog again.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: But you also acknowledge that they perfect that job. By
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the time they've done it for twelve months, they have
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: they've really really got it under wraps.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: All right, explore what the kids feel about the chores
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: and their contribution. Explained that the contribution needs to be
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: made and empower the kids to come up with some
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: chores responsibilities. Roles tasks jobs that they're willing to do
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: as their contribution to the family. And by the way,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: if you want the kids to have a clean bedroom
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and they just can't get it done for any number
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: of reasons, do it yourself. It's okay, just don't post
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: it on social media. That Happy Families podcast is produced
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: by Justin Roulin from Bridge Media. Love your work, Justin,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for all your help and for more
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: information about how to make your family happier. We'd love
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: for you to visit us at happyfamilies dot com dot
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: a