Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #705 3 Secrets to a More Helpful Child at Home

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#705 3 Secrets to a More Helpful Child at Home · 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.
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  Speaker 2: Now, if the battle is about allowing them to have
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  Speaker 2: some kind of childhood that's free from the burdens of
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  Speaker 2: adult life, then we have to see it as a
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  Speaker 2: long game.
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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, well Kylie.
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  Speaker 3: Every Tuesday we do our best to be helpful in
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  Speaker 3: answering a listener question.
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  Speaker 4: People can email.
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  Speaker 3: Us podcasts that's podcasts with an s at happy families
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  Speaker 3: dot com dot AU. I should introduce us. For those
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  Speaker 3: of you who are you to the pod, welcome. My
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  Speaker 3: name's doctor Justin Courson. I'm the found of Happy Families
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  Speaker 3: dot com dot you and I'm here with Kylie, my
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  Speaker 3: wife and mum to our six kids.
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  Speaker 4: I think that we're probably one.
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  Speaker 3: Of the only husband and wife podcast partnerships that talk
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  Speaker 3: about parenting on the planet, and we're going to do
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  Speaker 3: some more of that today every Tuesday. Like I said,
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  Speaker 3: listener questions, this one, Kylie, I'm and flustered just reading
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  Speaker 3: the question. I have so much empathy for this mum
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  Speaker 3: who has emailed us. No name included on the email,
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  Speaker 3: but here's what it says. We have three kids, six, four,
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  Speaker 3: and two, and I'm pregnant with twins. Now, just before
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  Speaker 3: I go on, do you remember we had some friends
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  Speaker 3: they had three kids and they armed an ard and
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  Speaker 3: do we or don't we? Should we have a fourth child?
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  Speaker 3: I'm in it and it means a bigger car, it
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  Speaker 3: means so many other things. But they finally, I was
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  Speaker 3: going to say, pulled the pin. I'm not sure if
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  Speaker 3: that's quite the right phrase, but they decided that they
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  Speaker 3: would go for number four and they got triplets. They
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  Speaker 3: got four, five, and six all in one. They went
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  Speaker 3: from three to six in nine months. Anyway, similar thing
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  Speaker 3: happening here. Three kids, six, four and two and now
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  Speaker 3: twins on the way. This is going to be a busy,
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  Speaker 3: busy family.
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  Speaker 4: And the next.
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  Speaker 3: Decade, next decade, next fifteen years, let's be honest, next
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  Speaker 3: fifteen years are going to be really really intense. What
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  Speaker 3: are reason expectations to have on children this age in
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  Speaker 3: regards to helping as part of a family. Now, I
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  Speaker 3: really like this question because this isn't just relevant for
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  Speaker 3: this family. This is every family who has kids, and
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  Speaker 3: we're kind of going, how do we get them involved?
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  Speaker 3: Like how do we get them to unpack the dish
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  Speaker 3: washer or clean up the room? At what age is
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  Speaker 3: it reasonable to expect that the kids are going to
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  Speaker 3: do stuff?
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  Speaker 4: But with this.
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  Speaker 3: Family, obviously we've got some additional challenges, additional requirements. Mum
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  Speaker 3: says some context, I am physically limited at the moment,
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  Speaker 3: We have limited support, and everything's landing on my husband.
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  Speaker 3: And I feel like simple things, particularly the six year
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  Speaker 3: old and the four year old could do to help
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  Speaker 3: would be great. But there are also kids, and I
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  Speaker 3: want them to be kids, and I don't want to
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  Speaker 3: have expectations that are unfair and unreasonable. But I'm also
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  Speaker 3: feeling like the next twelve to sixteen weeks is going
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  Speaker 3: to be hard to survive or function well. And I'm
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  Speaker 3: going to add the next twelve to sixteen weeks are
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  Speaker 3: going to be easy compared.
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  Speaker 4: To what's coming with the twins.
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  Speaker 3: Kylie just hearing this, I mean, it's a really tough question.
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  Speaker 3: It's really really challenging for this mum. But I think
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  Speaker 3: that there's a fair bit that we could talk about.
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  Speaker 3: Do you remember what it was like when you were
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  Speaker 3: pregnant with number four or five or six? Each of
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  Speaker 3: our youngest kids, and the rest of the house still
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  Speaker 3: needed to function. And I mean I have always done
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  Speaker 3: what I can, but I've been working full time, I've
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  Speaker 3: been studying full time. I've had all those things going on.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, this is a really, really difficult situation. What
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  Speaker 3: did you used to do? I mean, I've got a
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  Speaker 3: whole of ideas here, but you've lived this. What did
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  Speaker 3: you used to do when you were heavily pregnant or
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  Speaker 3: just having had a baby. And we lived in places
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  Speaker 3: where we had no support.
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  Speaker 2: So I can really identify with this listener in relation
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  Speaker 2: to that need for help and assistance, support. And yet
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  Speaker 2: the yearning of my heart says, let my children be children,
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  Speaker 2: Let them be light, Let them have the freedom to
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  Speaker 2: explore and be inquisitive and curious in their world without
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  Speaker 2: having the burden of adult life.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, without the four year old having to pull out
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  Speaker 3: the vacuum cleaner in the eye and get stuff done.
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  Speaker 2: And so background for me is that I grew up
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  Speaker 2: in that home where as a four year old I
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  Speaker 2: had to do a lot of things.
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  Speaker 4: You were pretty much running the house from what the
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  Speaker 4: age of nine to ten.
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  Speaker 2: Well, at different times, my mum had my little sister
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  Speaker 2: when I was six and she was bedridden for a
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  Speaker 2: very long part of her pregnancy and then after pregnancy,
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  Speaker 2: and so I was doing lots of things, yep.
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  Speaker 4: And she had high expectations.
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  Speaker 2: She did, and so when we had children, I kind
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  Speaker 2: of pushed back. You had expectations of what the kids
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  Speaker 2: would get involved in, and I really really pushed back
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  Speaker 2: on it.
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  Speaker 3: And if I could go back, I would change that
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  Speaker 3: high expectation that I had. I feel like I was
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  Speaker 3: too hard.
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  Speaker 2: So your question what did we do in those younger
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  Speaker 2: years to get our kids involved. The one thing that
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  Speaker 2: we did do that I think was semi successful.
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  Speaker 4: You're not really selling it.
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  Speaker 2: Semi successful was the acknowledgment that while ever I dictated
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  Speaker 2: to the kids what they would wouldn't do, we got
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  Speaker 2: very little compliance. But the times that we sat down
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  Speaker 2: with them and just explained the situation, explained that Mum
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  Speaker 2: and Dad didn't have the capacity to do what we
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  Speaker 2: were capable of doing at other times, and that we
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  Speaker 2: actually really needed their help. Was to actually sit down
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  Speaker 2: together and write a list of the jobs that they
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  Speaker 2: knew needed to be done around the house, and then
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  Speaker 2: ask them what jobs they were willing to volunteer. To participate.
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  Speaker 2: In those times, we got much better compliance than we
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  Speaker 2: did the times where I just said all right, well
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  Speaker 2: you're going to do this and this and this, that's
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: your weekly job.
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  Speaker 3: I wouldn't even say compliance. I'd say the kids were
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: more willing helpers. They got involved, they rolled their sleeves up,
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  Speaker 3: and they got stuff done. We've learned a lot since
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  Speaker 3: those days, and if I could go back and do
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: it again, I g I would do it so very differently.
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  Speaker 3: So my new book that's coming out in April May,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: late April, early May, my new book is all about
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: what I'm about to share. So here's a sneak peek
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  Speaker 3: for what the book is. And oh my goodness, I
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  Speaker 3: wish that I'd known this and read this back then.
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  Speaker 3: First off, we know that force creates resistance. So the
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  Speaker 3: more hardcore we are as parents saying you need to
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  Speaker 3: do this and we need help. A mom can't do
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  Speaker 3: it all, and Dan can't do it all, and it's
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  Speaker 3: all too much, and you kids need to participate, they're
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  Speaker 3: going to look at us like it just does not
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  Speaker 3: make sense, it's too hard. Second thing we've got to
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  Speaker 3: do is consider developmental realities of what the kids are
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  Speaker 3: capable of doing when they're doing well. The two year old,
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  Speaker 3: I wouldn't have too much of an expectation, full stop,
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  Speaker 3: end of story. And even the four year old, I mean, ah, boy,
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  Speaker 3: looking at our eldest, I remember when she was four
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  Speaker 3: or five and I thought, well, she's a big girl now.
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  Speaker 3: And I look at our eight year old and I'm like, oh,
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  Speaker 3: she's still just a baby, just a baby. So there
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  Speaker 3: are three principles that I think can guide the way
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  Speaker 3: any parent works with their kids to help them to
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  Speaker 3: do chores, whether you're expecting two more and you've already
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  Speaker 3: got three and they're six, four and two, or if
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  Speaker 3: you just want the kids to get some work done
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  Speaker 3: around the house. And the three principles are number one involvement.
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  Speaker 4: Connection.
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  Speaker 3: What we're looking for here is Kylie, What a difference
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  Speaker 3: it makes when the kids are doing it with you,
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  Speaker 3: rather than being sent to do it on their own
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  Speaker 3: as a chore. It doesn't feel like a chore anymore.
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  Speaker 3: If there's involvement, well, it's time together.
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  Speaker 2: You're connected, you're actually you're sharing in each other's space
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  Speaker 2: and time. Yeah, it doesn't feel like I'm being sentenced
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  Speaker 2: and banished to the bathroom I had.
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  Speaker 3: This amazing experience just as you said that, it reminded
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  Speaker 3: me of what happened just a couple of nights ago.
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  Speaker 3: Our just started to attend university. Daughter Ella came out
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  Speaker 3: and helped me to do the dishes. She'd cooked dinner
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  Speaker 3: for us, which was wonderful. I love it when the
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  Speaker 3: kids cooked dinner. It means that we're raising competent humans.
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  Speaker 3: And it was a good dinner. You had gone out,
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  Speaker 3: the other kids were all out doing things. I was
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  Speaker 3: literally the only one around, so I'm doing the dishes,
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  Speaker 3: and she saw me and came over and simply started
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  Speaker 3: doing the dishes. And it's not just nineteen year olds
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  Speaker 3: that do this, In fact, they're the least likely. Usually
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  Speaker 3: it's you. It's typically the smaller kids that do it.
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  Speaker 3: They see you doing something and they say, let me
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  Speaker 3: come and join in. And when I queried her on
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  Speaker 3: a lot and said, oh, how come you're helping me
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  Speaker 3: with the dishes? You cooked dinner, and she said, when
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  Speaker 3: I see you in the kitchen, I just want to
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  Speaker 3: come and be with you.
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  Speaker 4: And I thought, oh, I know.
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  Speaker 3: It was just magic, But it's that involvement. It's the connection,
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  Speaker 3: the belonging and if I've got a six year old
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  Speaker 3: and a four year old and the two year old,
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  Speaker 3: and I want them to be involved in contributing around
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  Speaker 3: the house, I'm going to say, hey, kiddo, I'm going
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  Speaker 3: to go and do this.
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  Speaker 4: I'm going to go and pick up the leaves, or
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  Speaker 4: I'm going to go.
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  Speaker 3: And pick up fifteen things off the floor in the
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  Speaker 3: toy room, or I'm going to go and hang out
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  Speaker 3: the washing. You ain't come and hand me the pigs.
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  Speaker 2: That's the key, That really is the key. And I
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  Speaker 2: wish that I had known that as a young mum.
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  Speaker 2: I think about the multiple times my children actually wanted
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  Speaker 2: to get involved, and it's really hard for me to
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  Speaker 2: admit this now, but I didn't want their involved because
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  Speaker 2: I knew it wasn't going to be the perfect execution.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's got to look right.
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  Speaker 2: That I needed. I remember, I remember baby number three.
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  Speaker 2: I was washing walls. We were renting a house and
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I needed to clean the walls, and she wanted to
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  Speaker 2: get involved. And it was the first time where I
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: had started to have a shift in thinking, and so
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: I let her. I think we went through nearly every
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: towel in the house because I had to put towelstown
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: near the end of the like on the carpet so
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  Speaker 2: that all of the water that was coming off the
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  Speaker 2: sponge didn't obviously drench the carpet. But she was so
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  Speaker 2: excited to be a part of what we were doing.
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  Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, it was that
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  Speaker 2: connection that you're talking about, that involvement. She just wanted
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  Speaker 2: to do what I was doing.
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  Speaker 3: Now you've brought me to the second point that I
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  Speaker 3: was going to make, and that is competence. So we've
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  Speaker 3: got the connection, and then we've got competence or capability.
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  Speaker 3: And this is critical, especially with younger kids, but also
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  Speaker 3: with older kids who are now trying to adult and
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: are doing a really bad job of it. When there's
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: a beautiful story in Hunt Gather Parent, the book by
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  Speaker 3: Michaeleen dukelef that I made a big deal about last year,
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  Speaker 3: and she tells this story of a young girl, Alexa,
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  Speaker 3: four or five years of age, sitting down with her mum,
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  Speaker 3: Maria as Maria makes tortillas. Now, to make a tortilla
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  Speaker 3: is a complicated thing to do. You've got to get
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: the cornflower, you've got to flatten it out, you've got
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  Speaker 3: to get it to the right shape. It's not something
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  Speaker 3: that is easy. It takes years and years of practice
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  Speaker 3: and lots of strong thumbs, I guess. And so Alexa
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  Speaker 3: is trying to make this tortilla and it's not round
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  Speaker 3: and it's not flat, it's kind of lumpy. And Maria
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  Speaker 3: does not offer any correction, does not provide any direction.
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  Speaker 3: She just lets Alexa make a couple of tortillas, and
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  Speaker 3: after she's made two or three, she decides that she's
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: going to go and run and play outside and do
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: something else. She gets bored, and as Michael Leeen Duclef
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  Speaker 3: watches this happen, she says to Maria once little Alexa
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  Speaker 3: has run out of the room, she says, isn't it
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  Speaker 3: driving you crazy? Why are you not telling her how
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  Speaker 3: to do it? Like if this was me with my daughter,
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  Speaker 3: I would have said, no, not like that, like this,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: now practice do it again. And Maria said, but it's hard,
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  Speaker 3: and she wants to beat with me. And she's made
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  Speaker 3: three Towardsias, and she doesn't need to know how to
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  Speaker 3: do it as a five year old, like she'll learn
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  Speaker 3: how to do it by the time she's twelve or fifteen.
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  Speaker 3: She'll be a professional to tea maker, and she's making
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  Speaker 3: them right now because she wants to, not because she
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  Speaker 3: has to.
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  Speaker 4: Isn't it beautiful?
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  Speaker 2: So beautiful?
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  Speaker 3: So we're building competence by accepting their offering, whatever it is,
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  Speaker 3: and just having them involved.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I know a couple of years ago, our six year
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: old at the time wanted to wash the car.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, And if.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: You've ever allowed a young child to wash your car,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: know that they don't get every spot and you kind
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: of get these clean streaks through what is otherwise a
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  Speaker 2: dirty car.
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  Speaker 3: And I tried myself for it now, Kylie, but whenever
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: the kids used to help me wash the car, I
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: would follow them with the sponge and everything that they'd
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: done I would redo because it wasn't done properly. And
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: I won't say I hate myself for it now, but
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  Speaker 3: I wish I could change it.
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  Speaker 2: But we worked out that she was actually really good
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: at details. It's a big space to kind of try
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: and clean a whole car, so she one of her
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: really and she still does it today. She is adamant
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: about cleaning the wheels and she makes sure all those
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: wheels are squeaky clean, and she does a magnificent job
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: she's now eight, and so she actually is doing a
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: pretty damn good job of washing the car.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Just last weekend, she actually she asked for the footstool,
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: like a step on it so that she could get
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: up into the roof.
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  Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, we're progressing.
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  Speaker 2: But I think that beautiful illustration Maria, and just the
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: acknowledgment as a six year old she doesn't actually need
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: to know how to wash the car. Yeah, competently, She's
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: just she's she wants to be involved. And yeah, we've
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: said it enough times, but I wish I had.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Have known that sometimes they make more mess then, like
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: it makes more work for us. And I appreciate in
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: light of the email that we've received that this may
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: sound like the worst idea ever.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: It could be completely counterproductive.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: But there's this great quote. I'm going to make an
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: absolute mess of it. I don't even know who said it,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: but there's this guy. He was a famous baseball player
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: in America, and he was talking about when he was
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: being raised, he and his brothers would be out on
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: the lawn playing baseball and football and just making a
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: mess of things. And one time one of the neighbors
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: commented to his dad the boys are making a mess
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: of the lawn out there, aren't they? And his dad said,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: I'm not raising a lawn, I'm raising boys.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: Is that great?
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I wish that we could go back and start
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: all over again.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: Probably don't know if I would have had six if
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: i'd started, although I don't know which one would get
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: rid of. I mean, I'm crazy them all. But so
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: the last idea, I mentioned that there were three principles
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: to help this family work out what to do about chores.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: And I've talked about involvement.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: Involvement and connection. We've talked about confidence and capability. And
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: the last one is choice or agency or autonomy.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: Autonomy.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's sort of been interwoven through your stories
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: and through a couple of the principles and stories that
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: I've shared as well, And that is we just want
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: to say to them, here's what I'm doing, would you
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: like to join me? Or here are some things that
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: need to be done. What do you feel most like doing?
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: And even if they pick the simplest thing, even if
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: the six year old goos or my four year old
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: brother or sister always picks the easy one, I always
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: have to do.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: The hard ones. Let them have.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Choice, Let them have choice, and let them do the
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: stuff that they want. We might say which room do
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: you want to clean up? Do you want to clean
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: up the kitchen? Or do you want to clean up
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: the living room, which is what you and I will
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: say to our kids reasonably frequently, and they'll usually say no,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: I'd rather do the bathroom or my bedroom.
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: And we were like, okay, do it. That's fine.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: As long as you're doing something, we don't really care.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: But the importance of choice to go along with the
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: competence and just learning and figuring out how to do
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: it however long it takes. As long as they're involved
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: with you and developing themselves and have some choice in it,
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: I think I think they're the principles that matter. I
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: don't know that that is the kind of answer that
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: our emailer was looking for.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: The reality is, when we're dealing with the children and
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: the age groups that we're looking at six, four, and two,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: this is a long game. It's a long game. It's
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: a long game. But if the battle is about finding
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: a balance between helping our children to learn responsibility and
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: to gain competence in areas that help us and allowing
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: them to have some kind of childhood that's free from
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: the burdens of adult life. Then we have to see
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: it as a long game and the opportunity for us
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: to be involved. One of my favorite memories of our
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: youngest is that she would come and sit with me
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: when I would fold the washing, and she would just
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: match the socks. And it took her a while to
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: do that as a little three year old, and by
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: the time she'd match the socks, I'd finished folding a
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: basket of washing and I could fold the socks too.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: But we did it together, and we got to do
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: lots of incidental learning as a result, matching colors, sizes, and.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: You build the relationship at the same time. Yeah, I
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: really think that it's the secret. It's not the list.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: When they're two, they can do this job, and when
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: they're four they can do that job, and when they're
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: six they can do this job, and when they're eight
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: they're big enough to do this job. I don't think
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: that's what it's about, and that's why I haven't approached
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: this response in that way. I really think it's about
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: these principles that underpin the relationship and the development of
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: confidence and the freedom to make choices.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: I guess the last thing that I would add, Being
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: the mum who's gone through this numerous times, well, I
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: haven't particularly being great at getting our kids involved all
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: the time. One of the things that I learned the
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: hard way was acknowledging that at this season of my life,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I can't do it all, and being able to let
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: go of the things that just aren't important. If you're
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: used to having an empty washing basket every day, the
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: reality is that's probably not going to happen now, and
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: that's okay. Giving yourself permission to just take a step
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: back and do what is achievable and let go of
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: the other stuff.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rowland from
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. If you've
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: got a question that like answered, send us an email.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Podcasts at happy families dot com dot au. That's podcasts
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: within this at happy families dot com dot you. If
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: you'd like more info about making your family happier, you
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: can visit us at happy families dot com dot au
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: for all the info you need.