Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #295 Breaking Bad Habits

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#295 Breaking Bad Habits · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  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.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Now, if we want to raise great kids, the only
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: way that we can really do that is to be
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  Speaker 2: great ourselves.
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  Speaker 3: The better we are, the more we provide them a model.
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My mum
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  Speaker 1: and dad.
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  Speaker 3: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson.
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  Speaker 2: I'm the author of a bunch of books about raising
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  Speaker 2: happy families and the founder of happy Families dot com
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  Speaker 2: dot you. And this is the Happy Famili's podcast. I'm
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  Speaker 2: here with Kylie, my wife.
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  Speaker 3: And mom to our six daughters.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Kylie, we love it when we get requests from people
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  Speaker 2: to help them out with some parenting challenges because this
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: is where we get to answer your questions podcasts at
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: happy families dot com dot au.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Let Kylie and I know what it is that you're.
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  Speaker 2: Struggling with, and we will do our best to use
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  Speaker 2: our expertise. With a PhD in six books all about
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  Speaker 2: psychology and parenting and our experience with.
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  Speaker 3: Six kids and twenty three years of.
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  Speaker 2: Child rearing, I think we could do okay, Kylie, Well,
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  Speaker 2: hopefully we can be helpful.
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  Speaker 4: Well, if nothing else, we can put your fears aside
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  Speaker 4: because we probably don't exactly the.
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  Speaker 3: Same thing we've done.
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  Speaker 2: We've blown it, so your Lander now in full disclosure,
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  Speaker 2: Landa didn't email us. I do some interviews on a
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  Speaker 2: weekly basis with some wonderful radio hosts, a husband and
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  Speaker 2: wife du I called Luke and Suzie, longtime listeners to
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  Speaker 2: the podcast. We'll know that Luke and Suzie used to
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  Speaker 2: have these conversations with me every week.
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  Speaker 3: That's what the podcast used to be.
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  Speaker 2: And so I was chatting with them recently and they said, Hey,
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  Speaker 2: we've got this email from your Lander and it was
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  Speaker 2: such a great email, so applicable that I asked if
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  Speaker 2: I could also share on the podcast and they said yes.
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  Speaker 2: So would you please read the email Kylie from your
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  Speaker 2: Landa and let's see if we can help her with
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  Speaker 2: her parenting question.
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  Speaker 4: She said, how do I change my bad parenting habits
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  Speaker 4: that negatively affect my children's behavior? I find them snapping
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  Speaker 4: at each other the way I snap at them. I
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  Speaker 4: try to break the habit, but I find myself feeling
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  Speaker 4: guilty a few days later when I fall back into
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  Speaker 4: those bad habits.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, painful, isn't it.
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  Speaker 4: We've been there so many times. We still are there
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  Speaker 4: from time to time.
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  Speaker 2: And I just love this song. When I think of
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  Speaker 2: bad habits, just I don't know, there's something that comes
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  Speaker 2: over me and I feel like jazzing it up. Bad habits,
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  Speaker 2: you know, the one he loves. So what do we
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  Speaker 2: do about our bad habits? How do we fix that situation?
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  Speaker 2: Because we know that the behavior that we display, As
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  Speaker 2: Julanda has said in her email, kids copy right, there's
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  Speaker 2: that old poem.
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  Speaker 3: Children live what.
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  Speaker 4: They learn and there's nothing more confronting I think as
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  Speaker 4: a parent when you see your bad parenting displayed right
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  Speaker 4: before your eyes with your three and four year old.
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  Speaker 2: Or give us an example, what's happened in your life?
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  Speaker 2: Have you actually seen your bad parenting moments come flying
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  Speaker 2: back at you in our his interactions.
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  Speaker 4: I can't think of anything right now.
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  Speaker 2: I can so I used to, and it's very very
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  Speaker 2: rare that it happens any longer because I'm a parenting expert.
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  Speaker 2: But I used to really just blow my cool, and
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  Speaker 2: every now and again I would even call the kids
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  Speaker 2: a name. And when you hear them doing it to
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  Speaker 2: one another, it's like, oh, my goodness, is this is
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  Speaker 2: devastating and they've learned it from me. Now, often they
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  Speaker 2: haven't learned it from us. They've learned it from the
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  Speaker 2: school yard or from preschool or whatever. But as soon
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  Speaker 2: as they start doing stuff that we know that we're doing,
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  Speaker 2: it's like someone's holding the mirror up and we just.
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  Speaker 3: Feel awful about it.
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  Speaker 2: So there's a couple of things that we need to
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  Speaker 2: highlight here, and the first is just a little bit
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  Speaker 2: of understanding of how habits work, because when the children
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  Speaker 2: are behaving in a challenging way and we respond poorly,
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  Speaker 2: we still often get a result, and that result reinforces
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  Speaker 2: the behavior that we've done, even though it's lousy behavior.
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  Speaker 2: There's this thing that a guy called James clear outlines
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  Speaker 2: in his book Atomic Habits, which is a really wonderful
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  Speaker 2: piece of thought leadership, bringing together cutting edge science and
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  Speaker 2: a really model for how habits work. And what he
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  Speaker 2: says is there's four parts to a habit. The first
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  Speaker 2: bit is the Q. Then there's a craving, then there's
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  Speaker 2: a response, and then there's a reward. So the Q
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  Speaker 2: is the thing that actually sets everything off in.
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  Speaker 3: The first place.
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  Speaker 4: So the kids fighting.
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  Speaker 2: Perfect, that's exactly the cue. And as soon as the
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  Speaker 2: kids start fighting. What's the craving that happens within us?
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  Speaker 4: Chocolate?
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  Speaker 2: Kindly, everything becomes a chocolate craving for you, that's not
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  Speaker 2: the answer that I'm looking for.
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  Speaker 3: What do you crave when the children other than chocolate?
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  Speaker 3: What do you crave when the children are peace? Peace
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  Speaker 3: and quiet? Okay? Great?
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  Speaker 2: And so what happens then is you go from the
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  Speaker 2: queue of the kids fighting to the craving for peace
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  Speaker 2: and quiet, and so you respond and how chocolate brings
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  Speaker 2: peace to the piece and harmony to the home and obesity.
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  Speaker 3: But let's not go there.
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  Speaker 2: So, so how else do you respond to the kids
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  Speaker 2: fighting when you're craving peace and quiet?
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  Speaker 3: What's the standard.
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  Speaker 4: Standard response when I'm not thinking about anything else except
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  Speaker 4: for peace and quiet? Is I usually explode and tell
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  Speaker 4: them that they need to be quiet, which is ironic
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  Speaker 4: because it's hardly peaceful and quiet when you do that,
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  Speaker 4: But not that you do that very often, of course,
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  Speaker 4: But the.
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  Speaker 2: Standard parenting practice is that. And then the last part
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  Speaker 2: of that is the reward. And what's the reward that
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  Speaker 2: comes once you've exploded and yelled at the kids and
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  Speaker 2: told them they're all good for nothing? And if they
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  Speaker 2: don't stop fighting, you're going to send into their rooms,
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  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera.
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  Speaker 4: Well, they usually will stop.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Usually, even if it's only for a couple of minutes,
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  Speaker 2: they're like, oh, we've really upset mum. Of course we're
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  Speaker 2: using this hypothetically. This doesn't happen in our perfect household,
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  Speaker 2: right never, But this is kind of how the habit
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  Speaker 2: cycle works. And because they've now gone quiet, that reinforces
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  Speaker 2: the Q craving response reward loop. And pretty soon as
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  Speaker 2: soon as the kids start to get stuck into each other,
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  Speaker 2: the immediate response is that we blow up. Why because
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  Speaker 2: we know that we're going to get resolution, it's going.
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  Speaker 3: To be really fast. But we're teaching bad habits.
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  Speaker 2: We're not helping the kids to work through things in
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  Speaker 2: any kind of an effective way.
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  Speaker 3: And I guess there's one other.
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  Speaker 2: Thing that I want to touch on now that we've
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  Speaker 2: talked about the psychology of the theory behind habits and
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  Speaker 2: how they work and the practical aspect of that, and
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  Speaker 2: the other thing that I really want to touch on
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  Speaker 2: is this.
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  Speaker 3: You mentioned that when the children behave in.
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  Speaker 2: A bad way, that that's a reflection of bad parenting. Now,
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  Speaker 2: sometimes that's true, but it's not always true. Sometimes kids
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  Speaker 2: are just having a lowsy day, and it doesn't matter
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  Speaker 2: how good a parent you are. The kids are having
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  Speaker 2: a lowsy day. And I can't emphasize this enough. The
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  Speaker 2: product of parenting, that is the outcome of parenting. The
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  Speaker 2: product of parenting is not the child, it's the parent. Incidentally,
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  Speaker 2: the child may be an outcome of parenting, but there's
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  Speaker 2: so many other influences on the child that affect how
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  Speaker 2: the child turns out. The real product of parenting is us.
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  Speaker 2: And if we want to raise great kids, the only
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: way that we can really do that is to be
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: great ourselves. The better we are, the more we provide
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  Speaker 2: them a model. But even then there's no guarantee. But
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  Speaker 2: at least we've been better at ourselves. So let's take
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  Speaker 2: a quick break, and after the break, we'll come back
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  Speaker 2: and talk about some specific things that Orlanda can do
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  Speaker 2: to break those bad habits and set herself up for success.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Next time everything blows up at home, it's.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Their Happy Families podcast.
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: Our Screens Creating Tension at Home, Tweens, Teens and Screens
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen Solutions. Bye.
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: Today at happy families dot com dot au slash shop.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
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  Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers now, and today we
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  Speaker 4: are dissecting Yolander's question about how to break bad parenting habits.
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  Speaker 2: So I've got a couple of really quick answers, and
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  Speaker 2: I reckon you've probably got a few things to throw
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  Speaker 2: in as well.
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  Speaker 1: Well.
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  Speaker 4: There's this notion that gets bandied around all the time,
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  Speaker 4: it takes twenty one days to break a habit? Is
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  Speaker 4: there any truth to that?
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  Speaker 2: Most science supports that at all. In fact, the best
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  Speaker 2: science on this shows that, depending on what the habit is,
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  Speaker 2: to take quite a bit longer to make a habit,
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  Speaker 2: and habits are hard to break Chicago saying about that,
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  Speaker 2: remember the song.
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  Speaker 3: So there's no evidence.
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  Speaker 2: At all that it takes twenty one days to make
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  Speaker 2: or break a habit. In fact, the best science suggests
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  Speaker 2: that it depends on the complexity of the habit. Even
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  Speaker 2: learning to drink more water or do more push ups
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  Speaker 2: or something like that. Really simple habits can take two
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  Speaker 2: three months to really bed in. It's hard to make
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  Speaker 2: and break habits.
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  Speaker 4: I shouldn't really be hard on myself. If I can't
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  Speaker 4: break the habit of eating too much chocolate.
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  Speaker 2: We continue to try, don't we. We just continue to
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  Speaker 2: work on that so bad. So here's what I would recommend.
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  Speaker 2: First of all, decide ahead of time, like, just make
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  Speaker 2: up your mind, here's what I'm going to do next time.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of people say I want to stop yelling
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  Speaker 2: at the kids. That's not deciding anything except that you
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  Speaker 2: don't want to yell. But if you don't want to yell,
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  Speaker 2: what are you going to do instead? It's a critical difference.
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  Speaker 2: Just because you don't want to yell doesn't mean that
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  Speaker 2: you know how to behave in the next challenging situation.
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  Speaker 4: I've got a different response, completely different.
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  Speaker 3: What's your response?
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  Speaker 4: If it's a habit that I am doing and it
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  Speaker 4: is being displayed in my children and they are doing it,
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  Speaker 4: then I actually think there's good reason to sit down
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  Speaker 4: and have a family meeting about this and get the
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  Speaker 4: children's perspectives on how they feel when I do it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, that's great, But ultimately you've still got
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  Speaker 2: to work out what you're going to do next time.
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  Speaker 2: That's different, and maybe the children need to be part
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  Speaker 2: of that as well. But the kids, they've got their
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: l plates on right, they don't know how to regulate
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  Speaker 2: their behaviors and their emotions. They're still going to blow
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  Speaker 2: up the questions what are you going to do? Like
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  Speaker 2: I said, the product of parenting is the parent, not
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  Speaker 2: that they.
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  Speaker 4: Get to help you be accountable. And I think that
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  Speaker 4: that's really that's powerful.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it can be yes, but accountable for what. You've
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  Speaker 2: still got to decide what am I going to do
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  Speaker 2: instead of yelling? And there's a million different strategies that
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  Speaker 2: we could talk about to help to not yell. We
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: can take a deep breath, we can go for a walk,
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  Speaker 2: we can speak softly, we can move in closer, we
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  Speaker 2: can get curious, not furious, we can ask some questions.
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  Speaker 2: We can just acknowledge that within ourselves. I'm feeling really
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  Speaker 2: angry right now and I need to work out how
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  Speaker 2: to respond to this challenging situation.
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  Speaker 4: Well, clt it fixes everything I'm telling.
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  Speaker 2: You, Okay, and there's chocolate as well. So the first
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  Speaker 2: thing is you've got to decide ahead of time what
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  Speaker 2: you're going to do. Second thing that you have to
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  Speaker 2: do if you want to break that habit is practice
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  Speaker 2: and practice, and practice and practice, because under pressure, we
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  Speaker 2: revert to our most practiced habit.
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  Speaker 4: So it's that groove, right, We've created.
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  Speaker 3: This groove and we just slide into it.
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  Speaker 4: We just keep sliding back into it because it's what
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  Speaker 4: we know.
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  Speaker 2: And then it becomes a rut. Ah rut, yes so,
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  Speaker 2: and there's no chocolate in the rut, Kyle, right. So,
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  Speaker 2: first of all, decide what you're going to do is. Secondly,
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  Speaker 2: practice it, because you do revert to your most practiced,
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  Speaker 2: most literally most practice behavior when you're under pressure. Third,
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  Speaker 2: hold that mirror up to yourself after every interaction. When
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: you get it right, give yourself a pat on the bag.
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  Speaker 2: Talk of the kids, Hey, kids, did you notice what
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: I did that time? Did you notice the I nailed it?
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  Speaker 2: And if you've got it wrong again, be accountable. Review
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  Speaker 2: it and your later. If you've got a husband or
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: a partner who's involved in the kids' lives as well,
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  Speaker 2: get them to work on this with you. Practice it together,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: support one another, get on the same page. That's what
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I would say would be a helpful way forward when
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: you're trying to break a habit.
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  Speaker 4: So now that you've given us all of that information
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: and all of those options of what we could do instead.
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  Speaker 3: I feel like there's a bit of passive aggression coming
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: up here.
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  Speaker 4: What is the take home message?
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  Speaker 3: Doctor Cale s, You're so funny?
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  Speaker 2: Can I actually suggest that the take home message isn't
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  Speaker 2: about our habits. It's not about chocolate either. The takeout
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  Speaker 2: message is not about our habits. The takeo message is
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  Speaker 2: actually about our hearts. When we change our hearts, we
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  Speaker 2: change the way we engage with our children.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: If we can practice all.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Of those important virtues like patients along stuff and goodness
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  Speaker 2: and kindness and charity and forbearance and compassion and gentleness
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  Speaker 2: and love.
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  Speaker 3: If we can practice those because.
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  Speaker 2: They are in our heart, our children cannot help but
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: be drawn to us because they feel unconditionality, They feel
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: our absolute and complete love.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: On Friday, we talked about an experience that I'd had
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: and the kids had really, really been unkind to each other,
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: and I had come in and I blew the whole
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: situation out of proportion. But there came a point where
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: I actually had to step away and get my heart
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: in the right place before I could make things good.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: And it takes time sometimes, but the heart was what
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: was imperative for things to be made good.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: We really hope that you've enjoyed this podcast.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: We hope that it's helpful for your family and then
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: it makes your family happier your LANDA thank you for
• 12:59
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• 13:01
  Speaker 2: got questions, we welcome them via podcasts at happy families
• 13:05
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• 13:07
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• 13:10
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