Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #732 This is How You Raise Resilient Kids

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#732 This is How You Raise Resilient Kids · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers Now.
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  Speaker 2: Well today at Happy Families, it's a big day. Today
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  Speaker 2: is the Raising Resilient Kid's Summit. If you haven't already
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  Speaker 2: gotten on board, it's not too late. We do have
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  Speaker 2: access available right now via our Facebook page, Doctor Justin
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  Speaker 2: Collson's Happy Families and our website happyfamilies dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 2: It starts well, I guess it depends on when you're
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  Speaker 2: listening to this podcast, but it starts this morning if
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  Speaker 2: you're listening live. Oh and I should also mention you
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  Speaker 2: don't have to watch the whole thing. In fact, you
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  Speaker 2: don't even have to attend it live. We're going to
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  Speaker 2: be putting all of the conversations behind a podcast paywall,
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  Speaker 2: and everyone who has signed up for the Summit gets
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  Speaker 2: to listen at their leisure. Alternatively, you can take the
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  Speaker 2: day off and watch one talk after another after another.
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  Speaker 2: They're going to be great conversations. Speaking with Maggie Dent,
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  Speaker 2: We're talking with Harvard's doctor Robert Brooks, the guy who
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  Speaker 2: literally wrote the book about resilience. We're talking with Jessica
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  Speaker 2: Lay New York Times best selling author of the Gift
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  Speaker 2: of Failure. Alfie Kohane is joining us and I'm just
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  Speaker 2: such a great list of so many great people. I
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  Speaker 2: can't wait to get into it. Kylie, what do you
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  Speaker 2: think about when you think about resilience?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I was actually going to ask you. We talk
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  Speaker 3: about resilience all the time, but what's a really succinct
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  Speaker 3: definition of resilience?
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  Speaker 2: That's what the whole day is all about. There's a
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  Speaker 2: handful things that I would say make up resilience. The
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  Speaker 2: thing that people talk about most is when you bounce
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  Speaker 2: back from adversity. But I don't feel like that's an
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  Speaker 2: adequate or even necessarily a helpful definition of resilience because
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  Speaker 2: when you think about adversity in your life, how often
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  Speaker 2: do you just bounce back, Like something hard happens and
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  Speaker 2: you bounce back to be who you were.
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  Speaker 1: It just doesn't resonate for me.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever bounced.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. People don't bounce. That's right.
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  Speaker 3: Number one, I haven't bounced, and number two, I don't
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  Speaker 3: ever come back the same person, because adversity actually changes
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  Speaker 3: who I am.
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  Speaker 1: That's right.
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  Speaker 2: Because we're such complex systems, right, We're not the rubber
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  Speaker 2: bouncy ball that literally you drop it and it bounces back.
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  Speaker 2: Where that we've got the psychology and the emotion, the cognition,
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  Speaker 2: and the social side of things.
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  Speaker 1: There's so much going on.
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  Speaker 2: So the way that I usually define resilience is it's
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  Speaker 2: avoiding maladaptive outcomes, which is oh, depression, stress, anxiety, freaking out, anger,
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  Speaker 2: crawling into your shell, giving up. They're typically considered maladaptive outcomes.
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  Speaker 2: Now I also should highlight sometimes they're completely adaptive outcomes,
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  Speaker 2: depending on the random adverse experience we're having. Sometimes climbing
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  Speaker 2: under the covers and hiding is a perfectly rational and
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  Speaker 2: adaptive thing to do, but not usually. Sometimes giving up
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  Speaker 2: is a perfectly rational and adaptive thing to do, but
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  Speaker 2: not always. So it's avoiding the maladaptive outcomes and experiencing
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  Speaker 2: adaptive outcomes when things go wrong, when things are bad,
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  Speaker 2: when things are tough.
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  Speaker 3: So when you say all that, the word that keeps
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  Speaker 3: coming to me is having hope. Yeah, we can't ever
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  Speaker 3: avoid adversity like that is a part of the human experience.
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  Speaker 3: Guarantee to experience it and have a sense of hope
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  Speaker 3: that things will get better to me would be to
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  Speaker 3: be resilient.
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  Speaker 2: So we haven't planned this conversation, but I just love
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  Speaker 2: what you've said. It ties in with two things that
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  Speaker 2: are really important. First off, when we define hope in
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  Speaker 2: a psychology context, there's something that's out there called hope theory.
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  Speaker 2: To wonderful, wonderful beauty good men and fabulous researchers, a
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  Speaker 2: guy called C. R. Snyder and Shane Lopez. They're both
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  Speaker 2: deceased now, but they were brilliant, brilliant researchers, and they
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  Speaker 2: developed this hope theory which argues that there are three
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  Speaker 2: elements that are necessary for hope. The first is that
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  Speaker 2: you have to have a goal, like goal striving, working
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  Speaker 2: towards and out. You can't have hope if you're not
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  Speaker 2: hopeful about something, right, I mean, it's an irreducible element
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  Speaker 2: of being hopeful is having something that you're hoping for.
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  Speaker 2: The second thing, though, is critically important, that is pathways
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  Speaker 2: to that goal or to that thing that is hoped for.
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  Speaker 2: If you're hoping for something but you have no way
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  Speaker 2: of getting there, you will not feel hopeful. You will
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  Speaker 2: feel hope hopeless. Yeah, and so not longer do you
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  Speaker 2: have to have something that you're working towards you need
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  Speaker 2: to have a way to get there. But they also
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  Speaker 2: identified just those two things in and of themselves are
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  Speaker 2: not enough to give us hope. There has to be
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  Speaker 2: a third thing, and that third thing they describe as
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  Speaker 2: agency or efficacy. That is, do I believe that I
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  Speaker 2: have the power in me the capacity to walk down
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  Speaker 2: that pathway towards that goal? And if I walk down
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  Speaker 2: the pathway and the pathway gets closed off for a second,
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  Speaker 2: do I believe that another pathway will open up, that
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  Speaker 2: I can find another pathway that I can blame my
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  Speaker 2: own trail. So when we have those three things, we
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  Speaker 2: have hope. And when you think about it, based on
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  Speaker 2: what you've just described, somebody who's resilient, they are the
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  Speaker 2: kind of person who has hope.
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  Speaker 1: That is, they believe that there is.
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  Speaker 2: A thing that's worth pursuing, there's a way to get there,
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  Speaker 2: and they believe they can. And people who lack resilience
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  Speaker 2: either don't have anything they're working for, don't think they
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  Speaker 2: can get there, or don't believe that.
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  Speaker 1: They can they can. Yeah, really, I think really important. Now.
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  Speaker 2: The second thing that ties in with that that I'm
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  Speaker 2: so glad you mentioned it is the word that I
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  Speaker 2: like to use for resilience, or a synonym for it,
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  Speaker 2: I guess, is optionality. So if I'm a person who
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  Speaker 2: is resilient when things get tough, I see that I
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  Speaker 2: have options. If I'm not resilient when things get tough,
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  Speaker 2: I throw my hands up in the air and say,
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  Speaker 2: this always happens to me, nothing ever works out. I
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  Speaker 2: have no options. I can't figure. I feel that's exactly right.
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  Speaker 2: So to me, developing resilience in kids is actually about saying,
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  Speaker 2: what are your options? And of course, if your kids
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  Speaker 2: aren't feeling and resilient, you know what they say, we
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  Speaker 2: don't have any God do anything I've got. I've got
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  Speaker 2: no options. Therefore, our role as parents is to help
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  Speaker 2: them to find options, not show them the options, not
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  Speaker 2: hand them the options, but help them to discover options.
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  Speaker 2: And as we do that, we do what you so
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  Speaker 2: beautifully highlighted so eloquently with one word you said, hope.
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  Speaker 2: What we do when we show or help our kids
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  Speaker 2: to find and discover options is we become hope builders.
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  Speaker 3: So the other day I had the opportunity to attend
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  Speaker 3: Emily's Cross Country.
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  Speaker 2: So, for those who are new to the podcast, Emily's
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  Speaker 2: our youngest, our nine year old daughter, and.
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  Speaker 3: She has a friend in her class who's actually a
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  Speaker 3: year older than her, so she wasn't running in the
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  Speaker 3: same race.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So Emily had her race, she came through, she was great,
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  Speaker 3: and then we decided that we would stay so we
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  Speaker 3: could watch her friend.
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  Speaker 1: So let's just call her friend Sarah for privacy reasons.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, and Sarah's mum wasn't able to be there, so
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  Speaker 3: I wanted to get a little bit of footage of
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  Speaker 3: Sarah running a race and just participating it. Well, we
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  Speaker 3: got close to the finish line, there's probably about two
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  Speaker 3: hundred meters left of the race, and we could see
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  Speaker 3: Sarah off in the distance and she kind of just
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  Speaker 3: lost all interest in the race. She was off the
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  Speaker 3: side of the track and she was looking at trees
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  Speaker 3: and you know, playing with the.
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  Speaker 1: Grass, and so was she not running at all.
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  Speaker 3: She'd completely stopped, completely stopped. Emily saw what was going
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  Speaker 3: on and she just said, hey, mom, I'm just going
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  Speaker 3: to go and help Sarah. And so the next thing
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  Speaker 3: she runs over, so she's not in the track, she's
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  Speaker 3: along the side of the track and she's just said, Sarah,
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  Speaker 3: come on with you're so close. Let's just finish this race.
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  Speaker 3: And I saw Sarah look at her and she kind
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  Speaker 3: of went, oh, but you know, and she's obviously talking
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  Speaker 3: about whatever she's seen in the tree, and Emily's like, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 3: come on, let's go, let's go. And so over the
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  Speaker 3: next few minutes, I saw Emily really work to encourage
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  Speaker 3: Sarah to make it to the finish line, and she
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  Speaker 3: got within about probably twenty meters and she left Sarah
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  Speaker 3: and said, it's your turn. Keep going, and Sarah ran
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  Speaker 3: through the finish line, and we all were able to kind.
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  Speaker 1: Of cheer on that story. It's so cool.
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  Speaker 3: And as we were talking about this idea of being
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  Speaker 3: a hope builder, I think that so many of our
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  Speaker 3: children struggle with resilience because it is something that we learn,
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  Speaker 3: it's not something we're born with. And just like Emily
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  Speaker 3: had to encourage Sarah to actually make it to the
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  Speaker 3: finish line, our job as parents is to encourage our
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  Speaker 3: kids to help them so that they will get to
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  Speaker 3: a place in their lives where they can actually do
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  Speaker 3: it for themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so there's a couple of things in this beautiful
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  Speaker 2: so I love this story.
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  Speaker 1: A couple of things that.
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  Speaker 2: I have to draw out and get really specific about.
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  Speaker 2: First off, resilience is typically not always, but typically relational.
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  Speaker 2: That is, we are much more likely to persist, do
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  Speaker 2: hard things, overcome adversity, get through challenges when there is someone,
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  Speaker 2: when there's an Emily in our life who says, you
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  Speaker 2: can get to the finish line, You've got this, let's
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  Speaker 2: do it together. And that's the second thing. Not only
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  Speaker 2: is it relational, but when you think about your life
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  Speaker 2: and you think about the times where you've faced adversity,
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  Speaker 2: quite often the person beside you they can't do what
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  Speaker 2: you have to do, but they've taken every step beside you.
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  Speaker 2: There's that It's not just that it's relational, there's a
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  Speaker 2: level of involvement.
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  Speaker 3: Emily was invested, Yeah, Sarah, she was invested in seeing
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  Speaker 3: her finish like that was really important. And there were
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  Speaker 3: so many times through that you know, two hundred meters
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  Speaker 3: that they ran together where Sarah was just like, I
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  Speaker 3: can't do this, it's too hard, you know, and she'd
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  Speaker 3: kind of stop and take a few steps of just walking,
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  Speaker 3: and Emily was right there, just going, no, come on,
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  Speaker 3: we can do this, Let's do it. And you'd see
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  Speaker 3: that spurt of energy as she kind of kicked started
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  Speaker 3: her again.
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  Speaker 2: So I love what Emily's the specific words she's used, we,
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  Speaker 2: Even though it's really Sarah who's got to run the race,
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  Speaker 2: there's we. And that's so different to saying you can
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  Speaker 2: do this, because when it's you, it feels like it's
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  Speaker 2: you on your own and you're feeling incompetent, you're feeling
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  Speaker 2: like it's too hard, you're feeling like you don't have hope,
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  Speaker 2: and it's just beyond you. So we've got this word WI,
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  Speaker 2: so important for resilience, so important for relationships, and we've
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  Speaker 2: got the involvement that's happening where I mean, let's say
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  Speaker 2: you've got a child who's really struggling. Instead of saying
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  Speaker 2: get up, tough, en up, get on with it, saying
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  Speaker 2: let's figure this out, let's do it together. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: to me, that is just so fundamental to growth. And
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  Speaker 2: what happens then is that there's a development of competence
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  Speaker 2: and capability. The child goes I can do that, they
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  Speaker 2: do feel good and they know that they did it.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, we could just pick that apart.
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  Speaker 1: I love the story. I'm so glad you shared it again. Unscripted.
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  Speaker 2: The Raising Resilient Kids Summit is on today. We've shared
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  Speaker 2: a couple of really useful ideas that can help you
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  Speaker 2: to raise resilient kids, and you don't have to do
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  Speaker 2: the summit to get that information, but if you'd like
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  Speaker 2: to join us today, there's me. I'm doing a presentation
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  Speaker 2: to kick things off, Maggie Dent, Jessica lay Like I said,
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  Speaker 2: New York Times bestselling author Oh doctor Laura Markham. Doctor
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  Speaker 2: Laura has this thing online called Aha Parenting. She is
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  Speaker 2: literally one of the world's most loved parenting experts and
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  Speaker 2: she's so kindly joined us. Doctor Robert Brooks from Hubbard
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  Speaker 2: Alfie Kohane, who's written Punished by Rewards. He's got so
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  Speaker 2: many insightful things to say about resilience. And we've also
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  Speaker 2: got a former Australian Comic of the Year Marty Wilson,
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  Speaker 2: futurist Michael McQueen, tech guru Yasmine London, James Anderson talking
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  Speaker 2: about learnership and helping kids to succeed academically and.
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  Speaker 1: A whole lot more.
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  Speaker 2: The day kicks off well, hopefully if you're listening to
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  Speaker 2: this early real soon and you can still register now
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  Speaker 2: at happy families dot com dot Au or just Google
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  Speaker 2: Raising Resilient Kids Summit and Happy Families that'll give you
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  Speaker 2: everything need to join us. It would be so good
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  Speaker 2: to have you as part of what's going to be
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  Speaker 2: an absolutely brilliant day. It's the Raising Resilient Kids Summit,
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  Speaker 2: presented by Happy Families dot com dot Au. Hey, thanks
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  Speaker 2: for listening to the Happy Families Podcast today. A little
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  Speaker 2: bit of a cell compared to what we normally do,
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  Speaker 2: but hopefully some great ideas.
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  Speaker 1: For you tomorrow.
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  Speaker 2: It's all do better tomorrow, Kylie and I talking about
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  Speaker 2: the stuff that we've done well.
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  Speaker 1: Kylie, I hope you've got a great story for us.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if you can match that awesome little
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  Speaker 2: story they've just shared about Emily and Sarah. But that's
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  Speaker 2: all tomorrow and the Happy Families Podcast. We will speak
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  Speaker 2: with you there.