Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #230 Paying Children to Win

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#230 Paying Children to Win · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
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Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
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Speaker 2: wants answers. Now, we have a natural consequence of doing
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Speaker 2: well at something. I'm sure you're going to tell me
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Speaker 2: the technical terms for it, but our bodies give us
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Speaker 2: a response. We feel good because we've achieved something and
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Speaker 2: we've worked hard at it. And now here's the scars
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Speaker 2: of our show.
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Speaker 3: My mum and dad. Hello, it's doctor Justin Coulson, dad
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Speaker 3: to six daughters and the author of six books about
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Speaker 3: raising happy families. Founder of happy families dot com dot you.
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Speaker 3: I'm here with Kylie, my wife, my co host, and Kylie.
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Speaker 3: We've had an email comes through to podcasts at happy
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Speaker 3: families dot com dot you, and I reckon this one
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Speaker 3: is going to set the cap among the pigeons, let's
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Speaker 3: hear it. Okay, this one comes from somebody who wanted
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Speaker 3: to rename it nameless, remain namely. I feel like it's
0:53
Speaker 3: been a big day already. How is that possible? This
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Speaker 3: person said, I've got two primary school aged children who
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Speaker 3: do reasonably well at their chosen sport. They love their sport,
1:02
Speaker 3: especially the connection they have with teammates, and just hearing
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Speaker 3: that It makes me happy straight away because at this
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Speaker 3: age primary school, it's all about connection and competence. It's
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Speaker 3: not about anything else anyway. She says, they train a
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Speaker 3: few days per week because they enjoy it. I don't
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Speaker 3: see anything unhealthy about the level of involvement in this
1:17
Speaker 3: sport at this point. However, there is increasing pressure put
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Speaker 3: on their teammates, with their parents now paying their own
1:25
Speaker 3: children when they win or when they improve upon their
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Speaker 3: previous performance. I'm not speaking about a few dollars, which
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Speaker 3: I would still disagree with, but amounts of fifty dollars
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Speaker 3: for a single event. Wow. Imagine that. That beats popping
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Speaker 3: down to the local luxury family restaurant with those big
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Speaker 3: yellow archers to you know, to celebrate the week have
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Speaker 3: soft save fifty bucks. There are also examples of children
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Speaker 3: not receiving cash but being allowed to buy quote anything
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Speaker 3: you want, and these payments and gifts are not linked
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Speaker 3: to effort but purely to results.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 3: Is that amazing? Have you heard of this happening? Like
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Speaker 3: you spend more time on sidelines at sporting events and
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Speaker 3: school events than I do. Does anything like that pop
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Speaker 3: up in Not so much in.
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Speaker 2: The sporting arena, but we don't have, we don't spend
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Speaker 2: a lot of time.
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Speaker 3: On play their game.
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Speaker 2: That's right, but definitely in academia.
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Speaker 3: Well, she highlights that as well, So let me get
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Speaker 3: to that in a second. This person has said it's
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Speaker 3: concerning for two reasons, only two according to this person,
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Speaker 3: but we'll go with these two. First, for the kids
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Speaker 3: who can't fully understand why their friends get paid to
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Speaker 3: win when they don't like how is this fair? Why
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Speaker 3: don't my parents pay me when I win? How can
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Speaker 3: parents explain this? And secondly, I worry a lot about
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Speaker 3: the kids who are getting paid to win. These are
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Speaker 3: usually the kids who break down and who are inconsolable
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Speaker 3: when they don't win. Athletes simply cannot improve their times
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Speaker 3: at each in every race. How do they translate this?
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Speaker 3: And how their parents must feel about them when they lose. So,
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Speaker 3: while trying unsuccessfully, I might add to explain the reasons
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Speaker 3: I will never pay my children to win. They listed
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Speaker 3: other examples that I was also unaware of. They explained
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Speaker 3: how some of their friends will be given quite large
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Speaker 3: sums of money if they sit tests and obtain placements
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Speaker 3: in opportunity classes and or selective academic high schools. So
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Speaker 3: this is a new South Wales thing, and she says,
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Speaker 3: I would love it if this issue could be part
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Speaker 3: of your podcast. As adults, most of us work more
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Speaker 3: for the money rather than the love of our jobs.
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Speaker 3: And I think that's somewhere that society has just gotten
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Speaker 3: and it's so wrong. We chase this idea of success
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Speaker 3: instead of fulfillment, this idea that I'm supposed to have
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Speaker 3: the house, in the car and the income rather than
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Speaker 3: doing what I love and what lights me up anyway.
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Speaker 3: She says, money is off in our motivation, but it
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Speaker 3: feels wrong. Whant to hear about children being paid to win?
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Speaker 3: And then she asks for us to talk about it.
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Speaker 3: It does?
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Speaker 2: She tell you how old the children are.
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Speaker 3: Their primary school age children. Wow, this is so let's
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Speaker 3: say they're eight and eleven.
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Speaker 2: That's intense.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and not just that, but from a psychological point
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Speaker 3: of view, it's completely unhealthy. It's dysfunctional, and I utterly
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Speaker 3: that there are any benefits to come from this.
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Speaker 2: This just is fascinating to me. It's such a different
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Speaker 2: way of seeing the world to anything that you and
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Speaker 2: I have done as parents.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and we've been very deliberate to not reward our children,
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Speaker 3: but to encourage them to be motivated within and to
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Speaker 3: do stuff that lights them up. I'm not going to
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Speaker 3: pay my kids to quote unquote succeed, that is, to
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Speaker 3: do better than other people and make other kids feel
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Speaker 3: lousy as well.
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Speaker 2: I know plenty of adults who literally are doing these
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Speaker 2: amazingly high paying jobs and are just so miserable. And
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Speaker 2: the last thing I want for my child is to
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Speaker 2: go down that road just to have an exorbitant pay package.
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Speaker 3: It's all about the financial reward. Forget about fulfillment, forget
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Speaker 3: about what you love. It's all about the results. And
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Speaker 3: research actually shows, both in an educational setting and on
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Speaker 3: the sporting field, oh and in corporate environment that when
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Speaker 3: we're driven by financial rewards, we're much more likely to
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Speaker 3: behave unethic So what happens is money motivates you to
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Speaker 3: get more money. It doesn't motivate you to be better
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Speaker 3: or to love what you're doing more. It's this Alfie
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Speaker 3: Cone in one of his books, I think it was
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Speaker 3: in Punished by Rewards. He says, what we've essentially done
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Speaker 3: is we've set up this system where we say if
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Speaker 3: you do this, you'll get that. And what that means
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Speaker 3: now is that all the focus is on the that,
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Speaker 3: and there's no focus on this. This is just a
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Speaker 3: means to get that. In other words, this the sport
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Speaker 3: or the exam is just the hoop that I have
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Speaker 3: to jump through to get that. And what we're really
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Speaker 3: doing as parents when we're giving financial rewards for success
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Speaker 3: on the sporting field or in the classroom, is we're saying,
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Speaker 3: we think, with the very best of intentions, that we're
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Speaker 3: saying to our kids this classroom stuff, or this sports
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Speaker 3: stuff or this success really matters. But what we're really
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Speaker 3: saying is focus on the money, focus on the dollars,
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Speaker 3: focus on the reward. Whatever you do in life is
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Speaker 3: instrumental to getting something else, rather than its good for
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Speaker 3: its own sake.
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Speaker 2: Well, I'm wondering, you know, at a primary school level
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Speaker 2: of fifty dollars is the going rate.
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Speaker 3: It's so much money.
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Speaker 2: I can't imagine what they would be needing to pay
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Speaker 2: their children once they hit high school. Fifty dollars is
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Speaker 2: not going to be enough sooner or later. So I
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Speaker 2: started doing a little bit of research on this because this,
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Speaker 2: like I said, it's just blowing my mind a little bit.
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Speaker 2: And I found some really kind of interesting stuff. There's
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Speaker 2: a list of cons that I found to actually, you
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Speaker 2: know what it does to our children as we pay them,
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Speaker 2: And the first one was it just it's providing a
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Speaker 2: short term solution to a long term problem. If our
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Speaker 2: children aren't actually motivated already just because of the sheer
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Speaker 2: love of it or a desire to learn and be better,
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Speaker 2: then we're actually just bandating.
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Speaker 3: I would even go further when I look at what
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Speaker 3: the academic research shows in this area. It shows that
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Speaker 3: their intrinsic motivation for something will actually decrease the more
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Speaker 3: we reward them with extrinsic rewards. There's a study, as
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Speaker 3: a classic study now from probably twenty five years ago,
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Speaker 3: where students were paid to read books. They were given
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Speaker 3: pizza vouchers, and what the research has found was that
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Speaker 3: book reading went through the roof and they thought, well,
7:14
Speaker 3: the pizza vouchers are fantastic, But then they looked at
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Speaker 3: what was actually happening, and the kids are reading the
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Speaker 3: shortest books they possibly can, with the biggest words and
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Speaker 3: the most pictures, because it's not about the books and
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Speaker 3: the reading anymore. It's actually about the pizza, and it
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Speaker 3: actually undervalues and devalues I should say the very thing
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Speaker 3: that you're rewarding, because they're focused on the goody at
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Speaker 3: the end. Do this and you'll get that well.
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Speaker 2: We have a natural consequence of doing well at something.
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Speaker 2: I'm sure you're going to tell me the technical terms
7:44
Speaker 2: for it, but our bodies give us a response. We
7:47
Speaker 2: feel good because we've achieved something and we've worked hard
7:50
Speaker 2: at and all of a sudden, we're kind of saying
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Speaker 2: that that feeling's not enough. We're telling our kids that
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Speaker 2: that natural ability to kind of have those feelings is
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Speaker 2: not worth the end result. Or maybe after the break
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Speaker 2: we can talk about some ways that we can help
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Speaker 2: our children work through this challenge affair surrounded by friends
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Speaker 2: who are actually being paid to succeed.
8:15
Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
8:18
Speaker 1: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having
8:21
Speaker 1: to feel bad or in trouble. The dos and don'ts
8:23
Speaker 1: of discipline as a webinar to help parents set limits
8:26
Speaker 1: with love, compassion, and humanity. Find it now at happyfamilies
8:30
Speaker 1: dot com dot au slash shop.
8:33
Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time
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Speaker 2: poor parent who just wants answers now and today we've
8:38
Speaker 2: been talking about a really intriguing topic. We're talking about
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Speaker 2: paying children to win.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so this email kids getting paid to win. They're
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Speaker 3: breaking down under the pressure. They're getting fifty bucks for
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Speaker 3: winning a single event, and they're getting paid large sums
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Speaker 3: of money to get into selective classes at school. What's
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Speaker 3: it all mean in terms of motivation? That's been the
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Speaker 3: conversation so far. But the specific question that this mum
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Speaker 3: asked in her email through podcasts that's podcasts with aness
9:07
Speaker 3: at happy families dot com dot I you was how
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Speaker 3: do I explain this to my kids? How do I
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Speaker 3: talk to them about it? Because everything I've said so
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Speaker 3: far has not worked. My kids just want the cash.
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Speaker 3: They want to be like everyone else. How come we're
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Speaker 3: not getting money. I don't want to play this sport anymore.
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Speaker 3: Is not fair?
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Speaker 2: Well, fifty dollars, I mean I'd want fifty dollars too.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a pretty it's a pretty tidy sum.
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Speaker 2: Oh I can buy whatever I want. That's even better.
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Speaker 3: I know that I've got the books and the PhD.
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Speaker 3: But I love your take on these kinds of things.
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Speaker 3: How would you go about this?
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Speaker 2: I think the first thing that I would be doing
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Speaker 2: with my child is sitting down and just hearing their
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Speaker 2: viewpoint on things. Obviously, this is something that's really challenging
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Speaker 2: for them, and they want to be heard.
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Speaker 3: Okay, So that sounds to me like you're you're saying
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Speaker 3: that you get curious, not furious, that you lean in,
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Speaker 3: that you explore what's happening for them, Explore, don't explode, understand,
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Speaker 3: don't reprimand you're trying to to get their take on it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, how do they feel about this? How does it
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Speaker 2: make them feel? What are they seeing in their friends
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Speaker 2: as a result of this payment plan that's in place
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Speaker 2: for them? You know, do they like what they see
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Speaker 2: in their friends? Are they noticing that they are, you know,
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Speaker 2: the kind of good sport that we encourage our children
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Speaker 2: to be. Do they embrace the values that we're instilling
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Speaker 2: in our children, or do they actually start to see
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Speaker 2: that things that are deteriorating on the playing field as
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Speaker 2: a result.
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Speaker 3: Okay, so that's what we're going to call that. Explore
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Speaker 3: What would you do after you've explored what's going on
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Speaker 3: from their perspective?
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Speaker 2: So, usually we would have a conversation about our values.
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Speaker 2: We'd reinstate the values that we have in our home,
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Speaker 2: and one of I guess our little phrases is every
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Speaker 2: family has their own rules, but in our family, this
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Speaker 2: is how we do things.
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Speaker 3: Our kids hate that, No, I want to be in
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Speaker 3: their family. Their family is better than ours.
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Speaker 2: Because the reality is every home is going to be different.
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Speaker 2: Every home is going to have a different set of values,
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Speaker 2: in a different kind of way of doing things. And
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Speaker 2: if our children are constantly looking to everybody else, it's
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Speaker 2: going to be really hard.
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Speaker 3: Okay, so you've explored what's going on for them, and
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Speaker 3: now you've explained what's happening in our world. It sounds
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Speaker 3: like you're quoting me back to me because I have
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Speaker 3: these three e's of effective discipline where we explore what's
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Speaker 3: happening for our children through their eyes, stand in their shoes,
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Speaker 3: take their perspective, and then we explain what our expectations
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Speaker 3: are or what our rules are. Is there anything else
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Speaker 3: that you would do misus happy families?
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Speaker 2: Well, I guess now that you've said it like that,
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Speaker 2: we're going to find a way to empower them. Yes,
11:34
Speaker 2: are we going to find a way to empower them.
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Speaker 3: It's working. It's working all these years, and it's working.
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Speaker 3: We're on the same page.
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Speaker 2: So let's put your expertise to the test. How are
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Speaker 2: you going to empower these children in this situation?
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Speaker 3: All right, throw it back at me. You've been doing
11:46
Speaker 3: so well. That's a really tricky question because they want
11:50
Speaker 3: something that we're not going to give them. When we've
11:53
Speaker 3: explored how they feel about it, they're probably going to
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Speaker 3: say it's not fair. I want to get what they're getting.
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Speaker 3: And they might even be able to identify that it's
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Speaker 3: not ideal and that it does have negative impacts, negative
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Speaker 3: ramifications around identity, around bad sportsmanship, around crashing pressure. They
12:11
Speaker 3: may even be able to see that even the primary
12:13
Speaker 3: school years, and when we explain what our expectations are,
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Speaker 3: that may create some resistance. So when we look at
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Speaker 3: our kids and empower them, we literally say, so, what
12:21
Speaker 3: do you think we should do from here? It's possible
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Speaker 3: that the eight year old is going to say, well,
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Speaker 3: I think we should still get fifty bucks. Because they're kids.
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Speaker 3: Empowerment doesn't mean that we give them whatever they want.
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Speaker 3: It means that we sit down and we work things
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Speaker 3: out together. My inclination, especially with primary school age children,
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Speaker 3: but even with older children, would be that we would
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Speaker 3: have a conversation about what fulfillment is, what enjoyment is,
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Speaker 3: what development of competence and mastery feels like. And I'd
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Speaker 3: be saying things like, we just want you to enjoy
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Speaker 3: the game, and we live a good life. We get
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Speaker 3: to have lots of fun, we always have treats, but
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Speaker 3: it doesn't really matter to us whether you win or lose.
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Speaker 3: We just want to see you in enjoying time with
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Speaker 3: your friends and getting better at the sport. That's all
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Speaker 3: that we want to see. And as long as you're
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Speaker 3: enjoying it, we're going to have a great time. And
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Speaker 3: that's much better than all the pressure so that you
13:09
Speaker 3: can have fifty dollars in your bank that you're probably
13:11
Speaker 3: going to blow on some beanie bool or something ridiculous
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Speaker 3: like that. Anyway, So that would be how I'd be
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Speaker 3: approaching it. And while the empower idea is supposed to
13:19
Speaker 3: hand over the power to the kids when they're this age,
13:22
Speaker 3: I'd probably be a little more inclined to indicate that
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Speaker 3: this is how we're going to go. And the kids
13:27
Speaker 3: are usually going to follow. They follow a good leader
13:31
Speaker 3: who has listened and who has made life fun for them.
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Speaker 3: They're willing to get behind a parent who who they
13:37
Speaker 3: can see has their best interests at heart. They trust
13:39
Speaker 3: us when we do that.
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Speaker 2: So when I was younger, I remember my parents we'd
13:45
Speaker 2: bring home our report cards and we would sit down
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Speaker 2: and we'd go through the report and look at our grades.
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Speaker 2: And my parents weren't so much worried about my grades.
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Speaker 2: They wanted to see that I had put in effort
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Speaker 2: and that I felt good about what I had achieved
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Speaker 2: without fail The night of our report cards coming home
14:04
Speaker 2: meant we got takeout. We didn't get takeout very often
14:07
Speaker 2: at all. This was a really really big treat for us.
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Speaker 3: Awack in the eighties, no one had taken out regularly
14:11
Speaker 3: back then.
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Speaker 2: It wasn't it wasn't so much a reward as it
14:15
Speaker 2: was a celebration of all that we'd accomplished. And I
14:19
Speaker 2: really loved that. And I feel like sometimes instead of
14:23
Speaker 2: putting so much emphasis on a reward so much, we
14:25
Speaker 2: can definitely have these moments with our children where we
14:29
Speaker 2: celebrate that they've been involved, that they've participated, that they've
14:33
Speaker 2: enjoyed themselves, that they've learned, they've grown. And I think
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Speaker 2: that might be one of the ways that you could
14:38
Speaker 2: kind of work through this challenge for a young child
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Speaker 2: who's feeling hard done by.
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Speaker 3: At the end of every netball game, every soccer game,
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Speaker 3: every cricket game, every tennis match, whatever it is that
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Speaker 3: your kids playing hockey, volleyball, rowing, it doesn't matter whatever
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Speaker 3: it is. At the end of it, there should only
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Speaker 3: really be two questions that we ask our children. Number one,
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Speaker 3: how do you feel like you went? Or even better,
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Speaker 3: did you enjoy that? And then the next question should
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Speaker 3: be where do you want to go and get a treat?
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Speaker 3: We don't need to tell them how they did. We
15:08
Speaker 3: don't need to judge them more evaluate them. We certainly
15:10
Speaker 3: don't need to pay them. And if we want them
15:12
Speaker 3: to do well throughout the rest of their lives and
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Speaker 3: do stuff because it feels good, we're much better off
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Speaker 3: asking those questions than saying, oh, it was only a draw,
15:20
Speaker 3: it's only twenty bucks, or to win that's fifty I
15:22
Speaker 3: just can't think of anything more damaging.
15:25
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