Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1217 - The Doctor's Desk: What Makes a ‘Favourite' Child?

Transcript

#1217 - The Doctor's Desk: What Makes a ‘Favourite' Child? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: What makes a favorite child? Do you have a favorite child?
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Are you were allowed to say that you have a
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: favorite child? What would happen if one of the children
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: found out that they were or were not the favorite child.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: We're tackling the big issues in today's Doctor's Desk episode
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: of The Happy Family's podcast, We're So Glad You're joining
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: us Real parenting Solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: parenting podcast, we are Justin and Kylie Coulson. Kylie, were
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: you the favorite child and your family?
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  Speaker 2: I can't answer that will incriminate me.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: No, but really were you? Do you think you were?
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  Speaker 1: You're one of three sisters. Well, you've got an older
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  Speaker 1: half sister as well.
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  Speaker 2: My sisters would all say that I was.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Really do do you believe that? Did you feel that?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I'm going to push back really hard on this whole
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  Speaker 2: favoritism thing because I don't think it's about favoritism. But
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I think that I think that we have individual relationships
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: with people, whether it's our children or whether it's our
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: friends or acquaintances, doesn't mean that we favorite like I
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: just I push against it.
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  Speaker 1: Ask me, were you the favorite? I have no idea
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  Speaker 1: and I think that's how it should be. What I
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: would hope is that everyone I'm the oldest of six kids,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and I would just hope that all of my siblings
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: feel like they were the favorite child. I don't necessarily
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: feel that I am the favorite, but I certainly don't
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: feel like I'm not the favorite. Does that make sense.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But you can talk to pretty much anyone and
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: at some point in their lives they felt like they
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: weren't the favorite.
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  Speaker 1: Though I was sixteen of being really rude to my parents,
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  Speaker 1: I was definitely not the favorite at that point.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: So this is why I push against it, because when
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I look at the dynamics in our home, at different times,
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  Speaker 2: different children have needed more of us. And it's very
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  Speaker 2: easy to look from the outside and say, oh, she's
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: your favorite because you're giving her all the time and attention.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: But it's got nothing to do with that. It's got
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: everything to do with having a needs based approach, and
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: at this point in time, whether it be health or
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: emotions or just time, this child needs more.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Whenever really cool research lands on my desk, we talk
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: about it on the Happy Families podcast. There's a brand
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: new study just published in the last month or so.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: In a Psychological Bulletin. Psychological Bulletin is a highly regarded
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  Speaker 1: psychological journal, and this one is called Parents Favor Daughters
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  Speaker 1: a meta Analysis of Gender and Other Predictors of Parental
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  Speaker 1: differential treatment meta analysis. It's a study of all the studies.
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  Speaker 2: So well, that means we've got six favorites.
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  Speaker 1: Then we have six daughters, so therefore they're all the
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  Speaker 1: favorite I know. The researchers had to look at thirty
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  Speaker 1: peer review journal articles and dissertations and theses and fourteen
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  Speaker 1: other databases. In all, they looked at nearly twenty thousand
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  Speaker 1: unique participants in all these studies about favoritism, talking to
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  Speaker 1: the kids, talking to the parents, the studies, trying to
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  Speaker 1: work out how favoritism works. Here's the very short version
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  Speaker 1: of a very big and very carefully conducted study in
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: a highly regarded journal. Results showed that when favoritism was
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: based on autonomy and control, that is, a parents able
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: to sort of just enjoy the kids without having to
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: be heavily involved in their lives, then parents tended to
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  Speaker 1: favor older siblings, which makes sense.
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  Speaker 2: Right, It's almost hands off parenting.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you've got an eight year old middle childhood
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  Speaker 1: doing pretty well, and then you've got a three year
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  Speaker 1: old who is tearing the house apart and you've got
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to lift everything up up high and put it on
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  Speaker 1: the high shelves. Well, maybe that's an eighteen month old,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: but you kind of you love that eighteen month old.
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  Speaker 1: But they're really needy, they're really whiny, they always want
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  Speaker 1: to be picked up and carried. And you've got this
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  Speaker 1: eight year old who's just nailing nailing life. It's like,
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  Speaker 1: you get it, you're raizing. I mean, it's going to
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  Speaker 1: get worse than a few years. And then you're like
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the younger one because the But essentially, we really like
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  Speaker 1: it when the kids can function autonomously, when we don't
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  Speaker 1: have to be too controlling over their lives. I should
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: share this with my mom. I'm turning fifty this year.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: You're still trying to tell me what to do. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: I'm not the favorite after all. So here's where it
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  Speaker 1: gets really interesting. The research showed that parents tend to
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  Speaker 1: report favoring daughters. And I think that's because there's a
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  Speaker 1: general rule. I mean, I'm writing this book, I'm finishing
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: my book about boys at the moment, and there's there's
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a heaviness when people comment on social media about their
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  Speaker 1: sons versus their daughters. Parents generally worry about their kids,
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  Speaker 1: but when I talk to parents about their sons, there's
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  Speaker 1: I don't know what the word is, Kylie, there's genuine concern.
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  Speaker 1: There's but what if my son X, Y or Z
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  Speaker 1: in a way that parents don't worry about their daughters.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's tangible, it's it's palpable. Can you can feel
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  Speaker 1: it in the discussions. So the research showed that our
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  Speaker 1: parents are favoring their daughters more than their sons. And
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  Speaker 1: here it is in terms of personality attributes. Conscientious kids
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  Speaker 1: and agreeable kids definitely receiving more of the favored treatment.
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  Speaker 1: And I think that's probably why you were the favorite,
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  Speaker 1: because you were always a conscientious contributor to the home.
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  Speaker 1: Conscientiousness is this character trait of doing the things that
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  Speaker 1: you say you're going to do. It's just being around
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  Speaker 1: and being present. Agreeableness it means that you're not creating
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  Speaker 1: fights and contention. Now that makes sense that these are
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  Speaker 1: the kids that parents like more than the slightly neurotic children,
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  Speaker 1: the slightly extroverted and over the top kids.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: This is where I push back again because that's such
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  Speaker 2: a shallow perception. Oh really, I honestly, I feel like
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  Speaker 2: just because your child is challenging and just because there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of pushback, doesn't.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that they're not your favorite.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: No.
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  Speaker 1: No, I like my kids that I fight with the most.
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  Speaker 1: Is that what you're saying.
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  Speaker 2: No, that's not what I'm saying. But I'm not saying.
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  Speaker 2: I'm also not saying that because my kids agreeable, they're
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: my favorite, they're easier to spend time with.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, more conscientious children had relatively less conflict with their parents,
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  Speaker 1: so therefore they were perceived either by the parents or
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  Speaker 1: the child as being the more preferred child as a
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  Speaker 1: result of the reduced conflict. That's really what the researchers
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  Speaker 1: are getting up there. That's what the findings are. So
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  Speaker 1: the short version is this, kids that are conscientious, kids
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  Speaker 1: that are agreeable, kids that are female who do often
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  Speaker 1: tend to be conscientious and agreeable relative to males anyway,
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  Speaker 1: And kids who are older tend to be more favored
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  Speaker 1: than kids who are younger. After the break, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to tell you how to not fall into the favoritism trap,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: because research is pretty clear that if you are a
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: non favored child, that there are all kinds of social,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: psychological and self esteem issues that can follow. All right, Kylie,
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  Speaker 1: We've got a bunch of ideas for how we can
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  Speaker 1: help parents to not esteem one child more highly than
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  Speaker 1: the other. I have this activity that I do with educators.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I do an emotional intelligence workshop. It's probably my most
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: popular workshop. And around about sort of forty five to
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: fifty minutes in we're talking about the idea of self awareness,
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  Speaker 1: and I ask a question, Think about the students that
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  Speaker 1: you understand the least. Think about the students that you
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  Speaker 1: understand the most. How do you respond to them differently?
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  Speaker 1: What's your body language? How do you treat them differently?
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  Speaker 1: Think about the things that you talk to them about
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  Speaker 1: and how much you talk to them, all that kind
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  Speaker 1: of stuff. What's the difference between the students that you
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  Speaker 1: understand the most and the ones you understand the least.
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  Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. I used to have the word
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  Speaker 1: like the most and like the least, but a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of teachers said, oh no, no, we like them all, We
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  Speaker 1: really really truly like them all. And I'm like, yeah, whatever,
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  Speaker 1: because some kids are really really tricky in a class
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  Speaker 1: of thirty. But I change the word from like to understand,
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  Speaker 1: and I feel like this is a critical contributor to
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  Speaker 1: our conversation about favoritism. You're just much more likely to
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  Speaker 1: get along better with the kids that you understand. And
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  Speaker 1: studies show that when you understand someone, slash like them.
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  Speaker 1: Your body language, your posture, you're like contact. You're totally you,
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  Speaker 1: completely open, Your sentences are longer less clipped, you're less
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  Speaker 1: direct and abrupt, less directive and corrective, and more.
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  Speaker 2: Times than not, you're actually you actually look for opportunities
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  Speaker 2: to connect.
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  Speaker 1: So I guess my first major point here is that
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  Speaker 1: if you're concerned that you could be slipping into a
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  Speaker 1: I prefer this child over that child trap, which does
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  Speaker 1: have tremendously big impacts on their self esteem across across
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  Speaker 1: time and throughout life. Start to wonder about look at
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  Speaker 1: how you understand them differently, which one do you understand
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  Speaker 1: better and which one less? And lean into the one
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  Speaker 1: that you understand least. Find ways to understand them better.
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  Speaker 1: I think it'll make a difference. The way I would
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  Speaker 1: say it is see their hearts.
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  Speaker 2: What's your second suggestion?
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  Speaker 1: Times and seasons? So we're currently raising our fifteen year
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: old daughter. Well, she turns fifteen in a couple of weeks,
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  Speaker 1: but it feels like she's been fifteen throughout the last
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  Speaker 1: three years now. And the reality is that there are
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  Speaker 1: some times in life that are just harder than others.
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  Speaker 1: So most people would generally agree that the toddle years
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  Speaker 1: are tricky, And most people would generally agree that that
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  Speaker 1: time frame from around fourteen through fifteen, maybe even sixteen, I.
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  Speaker 2: Reckon I'd take toddlerhood over teenagehood.
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  Speaker 1: Sure, But if you haven't had teams before and you're
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  Speaker 1: dealing with your first toddler, I think it's really really hard. Right.
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  Speaker 1: So the second thing that I want to emphasize is
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  Speaker 1: just that you might understand them better at sometimes than others.
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  Speaker 1: They might be more agreeable at sometimes than others. They
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  Speaker 1: might be just more inclined to get along a little
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  Speaker 1: more at sometimes over others. So Times and Seasons is
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  Speaker 1: my second one, and I only have one more idea.
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  Speaker 1: The idea is this, we need to find joy. We
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  Speaker 1: need to find ways to experience joy. Pleasant conversation is fun, activities, laughter, delight,
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  Speaker 1: time to look into one another's eyes, the opportunity to
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  Speaker 1: really understand one another. We need to find joy in
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  Speaker 1: our relationships, and that means time time together. And when
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  Speaker 1: you spend that time, it's really hard for kids to
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  Speaker 1: feel like they're not the favorite because you're spending time
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  Speaker 1: with them.
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  Speaker 2: For a parent who's really struggling with a child, the idea.
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  Speaker 1: Of it, I love how you said, a parent who's
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  Speaker 1: really struggling with a chore. That's what it sounds like.
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  Speaker 1: You're about to say, sorry, chaut child almost the same,
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  Speaker 1: not quite.
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  Speaker 2: The concept of finding joy with that child feels burdensome.
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  Speaker 2: The reality is it really is about finding opportunities to
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: connect because joy will come with connection. But if we
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: make joy the focus, we might feel like we're failing miserably. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I think that if you chase the happiness, if you're
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: really trying to make it happen, it doesn't tend to
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  Speaker 1: happen that way. It feels here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But if you can just find a way to enjoy
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  Speaker 1: time together or just be together, be together and do
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: things there are things that they want to do, they're
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  Speaker 1: going to feel like they're the favorite because you're making
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: time in your day to spend that time with them.
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  Speaker 1: So favoritism. It is a thing. It does have negative impacts.
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  Speaker 1: We can overcome it if it's happening in our lives,
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  Speaker 1: especially if we've got daughters who are definitely winning the
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: favoritism game. If you'd like more information about this particular
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  Speaker 1: study will linked to it in the show notes. The
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: If you'd like a lot more info about how your
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: family can be happier, we've got all the resources you
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: need at happy families dot com dot a