Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1198- The 'Worst Mother' Who Got It Right

Transcript

#1198- The 'Worst Mother' Who Got It Right · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: A little while ago, I had a conversation with a
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  Speaker 1: woman who has literally been labeled the worst mother in
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  Speaker 1: the world. Her name is Leonor Skanazi. She is the
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  Speaker 1: founder of the Let Grow movement, and a few years
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  Speaker 1: back she allowed her nine year old son to catch
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  Speaker 1: the subway in New York City home alone. Hello and
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  Speaker 1: welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every
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  Speaker 1: day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin
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  Speaker 1: and Kylie Coulson. Kylie, you've been to New York City,
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  Speaker 1: You've ridden the subway. Would you let your nine year
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  Speaker 1: old child catch a train on the subway? Solo? I'm
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  Speaker 1: putting you under the microscope here. You're looking at me like,
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  Speaker 1: why do you have to ask that question? That's not
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  Speaker 1: what you'd read on It just popped into my head.
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  Speaker 2: So, having done it a number of times now, I
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  Speaker 2: would say that depending on what station I was dropping
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  Speaker 2: my child off at and what station they were getting
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  Speaker 2: off at would make a difference to my answer.
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  Speaker 1: Would being with them also make it?
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  Speaker 2: Nine's pretty young, and yes I know that as a
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  Speaker 2: forty five year old woman, I was pretty nervous getting
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  Speaker 2: on and off those trains and trying to work out
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  Speaker 2: lines and following colors, and it was a lot to
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  Speaker 2: take in.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, obviously you're not familiar with it at all,
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  Speaker 1: and the Skinnazi has lived in New York City and
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  Speaker 1: so therefore it wasn't nearly as scary for them. But
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  Speaker 1: I got the chance to talk with her. This is
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  Speaker 1: one of the most influential women in parenting in the
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  Speaker 1: world these days. She's done some great work with Jonathan
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  Speaker 1: Hate and his work around the Anxious Generation. And I
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  Speaker 1: asked her when she wrote this article about the decision
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  Speaker 1: to let her nine year old do it and was
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  Speaker 1: subsequently labeled the worst mother in the world, I just
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  Speaker 1: kind of said to it, well, putting a kid on
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  Speaker 1: a subway in New York City feels risky. So I
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  Speaker 1: asked to give us the setup for how she let
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  Speaker 1: him do it.
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  Speaker 3: Some kids love certain things, like there are kids who
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  Speaker 3: love cars or dollars or whatever. He loved the subway
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  Speaker 3: loves you know, he loved public transportation. But we wanted
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  Speaker 3: to make sure he understood that. You know that you're
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  Speaker 3: reading the map and the green line, which is the
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  Speaker 3: line that he was going to have to take. That's
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  Speaker 3: the four, five, and six train. For anybody who's been
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  Speaker 3: to New York City, that that was the train you
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  Speaker 3: would have to take, and you know this is the
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  Speaker 3: stop you get off on. And then of course we're
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  Speaker 3: always on that extremely slow bus, so he knew that
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  Speaker 3: he would have to wait for the bus at the
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  Speaker 3: bus stop. I don't recall telling him this that time,
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  Speaker 3: but I've always told my kids that you can talk
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  Speaker 3: to strangers, you can't go off with strangers. So if
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  Speaker 3: you if you need help from somebody, certainly you can
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  Speaker 3: ask a question of somebody, but you can't get into
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  Speaker 3: somebody's car. You can't go off with somebody. And other
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  Speaker 3: than that, we prepared him with a couple of things.
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  Speaker 3: We gave him a subway map twenty dollars just in
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  Speaker 3: case he needed something went really terribly wrong and needed
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  Speaker 3: take a cab or something quarters because there were still
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  Speaker 3: some pyphons in the subway, and a Metro card, which
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  Speaker 3: is the card that you slide through the entryway to
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  Speaker 3: get into the trains to pay your fare. And so
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  Speaker 3: I'd say that we didn't think we were crazy because
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  Speaker 3: we were preparing him and because it wasn't something that
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  Speaker 3: he was saying no, Mom, I don't want to do this.
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  Speaker 3: This was his idea and something that we had all
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  Speaker 3: discussed and decided he was ready for.
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  Speaker 2: So when you listen to her, it's clearly obvious. Number One,
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  Speaker 2: they use the trains regularly. This is not something that's
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  Speaker 2: new to him, and he loves public transport. And number two,
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  Speaker 2: the thing that really stands out to me is he's
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  Speaker 2: a mom who's absolutely pre armed her son with everything
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  Speaker 2: that he needs to be safe.
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  Speaker 1: He's prepared, she's prepared, They've walked him through it, they've
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  Speaker 1: done dry runs, practiced.
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  Speaker 2: And the thing that stands out to me, having done
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  Speaker 2: that and having had my own personal experiences that have
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  Speaker 2: not ended up that way, is he, as a nine
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  Speaker 2: year old, walks out that door with more confidence and
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  Speaker 2: feels empowered because somebody believes in him. Somebody believes that
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  Speaker 2: he's actually capable of doing that, and that that's the
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  Speaker 2: power in what she's given him.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of noise being made, and I'm
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  Speaker 1: one of the people making noise about it. Is we've
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  Speaker 1: got to help our kids to take more risks, to
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  Speaker 1: be engaged in risky play. You keep unrolling your eyes
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  Speaker 1: when I say it but I'm going to say it
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  Speaker 1: again right now. Anyway, our children need to be able
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  Speaker 1: to do things that could land them in hospital if
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  Speaker 1: they go wrong on at least a weekly basis, whether
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  Speaker 1: it's climbing a rock wall, which is what one of
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  Speaker 1: our kids do, or going for a bike ride, or
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  Speaker 1: just doing stuff that could land you in a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of strife. The whole thing here is that children
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  Speaker 1: do better and feel better about life when we expressed
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  Speaker 1: confidence in them and set them up to go and
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  Speaker 1: do it. Our job is to make ourselves redundant and
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  Speaker 1: to give our kids the opportunity to push against those boundaries.
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  Speaker 2: You did something similar to this in Parental Guidance a
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  Speaker 2: couple of years ago, and what I found really really
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  Speaker 2: interesting was how each of the kids handled themselves to
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  Speaker 2: the point where one of them actually stopped at mac
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  Speaker 2: has brought himself, missed a couple of buses, but he
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  Speaker 2: wasn't fame.
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  Speaker 1: I can't remember how old he was, but I think
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  Speaker 1: he was maybe eleven, and he had to catch a
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  Speaker 1: bus from Brisbane to like forty minutes down the road
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  Speaker 1: to Logan home. It was a lot a big deal.
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  Speaker 1: It was a big deal, and he's just gone and
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  Speaker 1: brought himself from Jakdoms and it was great. So lanoscan
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  Speaker 1: as he is, is, like I said, super influential. We're
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  Speaker 1: going to play the entire interview on Saturday, but I
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  Speaker 1: just want to play this as well, because this really
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  Speaker 1: stood out to me when I interviewed her. I said
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  Speaker 1: to her, people always say, but what if things go wrong?
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  Speaker 1: What if you'd put him on the train and there
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  Speaker 1: was an emergency? Things played out friendly. I mean, it's
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  Speaker 1: great that he was okay, but what if, what if?
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  Speaker 1: What if? This was her response.
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  Speaker 3: First of all, you can never say you're going to
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  Speaker 3: be fine, because that's that is the idea of control.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, the illusion that we can control for every variable.
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  Speaker 2: It leads to bureaucracy, yes.
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  Speaker 3: And I think it leads to extreme nervousness on the
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  Speaker 3: part of parents because there's no there's no acknowledgment that like,
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  Speaker 3: we can't control everything. We aren't God, you know, we
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  Speaker 3: think we are. We have the phones, we can track them,
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  Speaker 3: we can see who they texted, we can you know,
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  Speaker 3: there's cameras everywhere. But in fact we're not in complete control.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, if you think you are, you will
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  Speaker 3: never be able to let go at all, because you
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  Speaker 3: will think if anything bad happens, there will be no grace.
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  Speaker 2: I remember, as a fourteen year old catching a bus
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  Speaker 2: for the very first time. Public transport had never done
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  Speaker 2: it before. My friend was going to the movies and
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  Speaker 2: she asked me to meet her, so I caught the
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  Speaker 2: Great City Circle bus. I didn't know what that meant
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  Speaker 2: at the time, but I was to find out later
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  Speaker 2: that if you catch a Great City Circle bus, you
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  Speaker 2: catch one number two your destination, but you have to
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  Speaker 2: catch a different number back because it gets to the
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  Speaker 2: halfway point and then as it does a turnaround, it
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  Speaker 2: does a big loop around the city, so it gets
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  Speaker 2: to the halfway point and then it changes numbers. So
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  Speaker 2: it was a five nine eight bus on the way in,
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  Speaker 2: and I had to catch the five nine to nine
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  Speaker 2: on the way out right. My parents had told me
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  Speaker 2: that I had to come home straight after the movies,
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  Speaker 2: so I jumped out of the movies and I ran
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  Speaker 2: to the bus and my bus was there, the five
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  Speaker 2: nine eight right. I didn't think to ask anyone. I
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  Speaker 2: jumped on the bus makes sense, and before I knew it,
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  Speaker 2: I was half an hour in the wrong direction. At
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  Speaker 2: the end of the day. So I got off the
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  Speaker 2: bus and I was like, this is where I should be.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, you got off the bus.
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  Speaker 2: I did get off the bus, but then I checked
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  Speaker 2: the sign and it told me that this bus would
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  Speaker 2: take me. So I didn't ask anyone. I just got
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  Speaker 2: back on the bus. I ended up another half an
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  Speaker 2: hour down the road. So by the time I finally
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  Speaker 2: asked somebody, they explained what I'd done wrong, and I'd
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  Speaker 2: actually reached the halfway point by then, so I could
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  Speaker 2: stay on the bus and wait until they did the
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  Speaker 2: turnaround to go back.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
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  Speaker 2: But because it was now so late, I wasn't going
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  Speaker 2: to make it home.
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  Speaker 1: And in the days before my bill fasten.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, so my parents were very stressed. But the reason
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  Speaker 2: this story stands out to me and what Lenor has done,
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  Speaker 2: is that because of that experience, I actually never caught
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  Speaker 2: another bus. Oh, I wasn't left feeling empowered. I wasn't
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  Speaker 2: there wasn't an opportunity for me to learn for getting
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  Speaker 2: it from my mistakes. Yeah, and so I just love
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  Speaker 2: that here's this mum that has not only shown belief
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  Speaker 2: in her son, but has given him everything he needs
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  Speaker 2: to be successful.
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  Speaker 1: Alfie Kohane said to me once, if you want responsible kids,
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  Speaker 1: you have to give them a responsibility, which.
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  Speaker 2: Means they're going to stuff it up correct and they're
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  Speaker 2: going to get it wrong.
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  Speaker 1: And his whole argument was when they get it wrong,
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  Speaker 1: you don't say, well that's it, You're not going to
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  Speaker 1: do that again. Can't trust you what you do? Instead?
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  Speaker 1: Did you sit down and say I trusted you with
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  Speaker 1: something it didn't work out. Let's understand what went wrong.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think that if I trust you that you
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  Speaker 1: can get it right this second time? And so by
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  Speaker 1: giving kids more responsibility, that's how they learn to be responsible.
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  Speaker 1: Beautiful time with Lenore's message, we are out of time.
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  Speaker 1: I wish we could play the whole interview right now instead,
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  Speaker 1: because there's so much great stuff that she talks about.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to play the entire conversation for you on Saturday.
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  Speaker 1: We'll linked to her websites and her Free Range Child
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  Speaker 1: book and all that sort of stuff on our show
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  Speaker 1: notes as well. But we really would encourage you to
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  Speaker 1: have a listen to what Leonore has to say. That's
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  Speaker 1: on Saturday Today's sneak peek, giving you a sense of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: just some of the really cool stuff that she's going
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  Speaker 1: to talk about. I can't wait for you to hear
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  Speaker 1: the whole conversation. The Happy Families Podcasts is produced by
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Just Didn't Rule On from Bridge Media. More information and
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: more resources about strengthening, supporting, and making your family happier
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: are available at happy families dot com dot au