Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1194 - Maths Anxiety, Camp Bullies, and the Power of Connection

Transcript

#1194 - Maths Anxiety, Camp Bullies, and the Power of Connection · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: What do you do when your child can't do maths
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and they're in year twelve and the pressure is building.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: What do you do when your child is on camp
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and they ring you in tears on the teacher's phone
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: to describe how they've been bullied and that shaped today,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I'll do better tomorrow. It's The Happy Family's podcast, Real
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Parenting Solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: We are Justin and Kylie Coulson. Kylie, you're feeling exhausted.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It's been a monster week. I have some puns to
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: help you to feel better about life, because I know
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: how much you love great dad jokes.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I can't wait here we go. I was at a
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: funeral of a friend of mine. His wife asked me
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: if I could say a quick word. I stood at
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: the front, cleared my throat, troup about the tears, and
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: so plethora. Thank you, his wife said, and sat back down.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: That means a lot. The next man stands up, sniffling
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: and says earth, thank you. The widow says that means
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the world.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Another guy goes up and says water hole and sits
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: back down. The widow thanks him and says, I know
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: you meant well. Then another guy gets up and says totality.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: The widow says, thank you, that means everything. A woman
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: gets up and says underestimate, thank you very much. The
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: widow says, that means more than you know. The last
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: guy gets up and says bargain. The widow says, thank you.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: That means a great deal. So good.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Ah, Kylie, do you feel more energized?
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Sorry, I don't think any pun is going to pull
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: me out of my exhaustion.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: That came from how to Kill an Hour Online. I
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: just thought you were feeling a little bit low, feeling
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a little bit lacking in vitality. You're first today because.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: It's just sleep, honey.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Probably that is my number one parenting hack. You want
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: to be a better parent, get enough sleep. For those
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: of you who a knew to the podcast, we don't
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: normally play other people's puns, but that one just caught
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: me and I wanted to cheer Kylie up because she
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: is feeling a little bit weary. On a Friday, we
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: discuss things that have happened during the week that we
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: think can help everyone to be a better parent. It's
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: kind of like our newsday. Remember when you're in those
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: first few years of Show and tell, Show and Tell,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: you stand up in front and share your news. Well,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: that's kind of what we do on a Friday. We're
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: so glad that you listen to the pod. Kylie, you
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: are first for our show and tell. I'll do better tomorrow.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: What have you discovered this week that can help other
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: families with their happiness?
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: This past week, I've had a couple of experiences with
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: people builders, and it's really impacted me and my desire
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: to be one myself. I have a daughter in year
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: twelve and she has for the last twelve months been
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: struggling on and off with maths. She's managed to get
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: through and she's actually done exceptionally well, and her grades
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: don't reflect the fact that she's been struggling as much
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: as she has. She has done really, really well. She
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: asked for a tutor. Last year, We had a look around,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: we asked different people, and I even tried one not
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: with her, with one of the younger girls, and just
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: didn't feel like we were in the right place at all,
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: And then the year kind of came to a close.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: This year she started and within two days of school
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: she is panicking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the anxiety's gone through
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: the roof. And I thought, all right, we need to
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: do something. Well, I just happened to be driving past.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: There's a commercial building down the road, literally down the road,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: with a big sign out of that says Juisi.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Tuition, and I thought, oh, I better try this. This
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: is nice and close. But I just didn't. I kept
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: forgetting to do it, and finally I had an chat
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: with her and I was like, I've got to go.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: So I literally made a beeline for this place, took
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: a pamphlet, made a phone call, and the guy explained everything.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: It was actually a lot more expensive than I had
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: expected it to be. Everything, and it was a very
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: different process. We had tried one on one. This is
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: actually a group setting, and the acknowledgment was that she
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: could pretty much bring any subject. She wasn't signing up
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: as a math student. She was actually just signing up
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: for tutoring. There were five or six teachers on hand
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: at any given time who would be able to help
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: her with any subject, and so I thought, we can
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: only give it a go. Let's give it a go.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: We walked in the door. The principle of the company
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: was waiting. He was talking with another family, and he
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: looked at them and he said, I apologize, I really
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: need to talk to this new family. Took us aside,
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: had a chat with us, and before I had even
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: kind of registered what was going on, here was this
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: guy who had taken as much interest in my child
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: before before he even knew her, And I just thought, wow.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: But what was more impressive was that at the end
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: of the time that she had spent with him, he
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: met me at the door again to tell me what
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: an amazing child we had, just how amazed he was that,
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: in spite of the gaps in her learning due to illness,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: that she was doing as well as she was, and
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: that she really needed to give herself a pat on
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: the back for doing as well as she done, And
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  Speaker 3: then just talked about all of the things that he
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: was so excited to see her achieved this year, and
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: the acknowledgment that he really felt like she was someone
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: who was going to make a difference in the world.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: I just loved Number one. As a parent, hearing somebody
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: else have this beautiful vision of your child is definitely
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: a great.
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  Speaker 1: Feeling, But it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Was actually more of what it did to her. I
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: was just so grateful that we were number one found
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: this place and number two. When she walked out the door,
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: she said, Mum, I got more done with him in
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: an hour and a half than I have got done
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: in any class. Like she was just blown away, and
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: she just said.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I've got this, I can do this great.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: It was amazing. And then a few days later, I'm
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: with my ten year old and she invites a friend
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: over and I watched this little girl walk in and
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: Emily was so excited to show her some of her toys.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: And again, just this people builder ten year old who
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: just warmed my house up and warmed my heart. As
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: I watched her build Emily up in everything she showed her,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: she was just energized and excited, and in the next
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: breath the two of them were bursting into song and
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: singing together. It was just beautiful. And after having those
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: two experiences, it just really reaffirmed to me just how
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: beautiful it is when we can see the good and
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: others and build them up and let them wreckgnize and
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: know it. It was so gorgeous. I want to be
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: a people builder.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I love that. It reminds me of a poem that
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I heard when I was younger. You may recall this poem.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: It goes like this. It's by Edgar Guest. I watched
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: them tearing a building down, A gang of men in
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: a busy town with a ho, heave ho, and a
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: lusty yell. They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I asked the foreman, are these men skilled? The men
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: you'd hire if you had to build? He gave me
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: a laugh and said, no, indeed, just common labor is
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  Speaker 1: all I need. I can easily wreck in a day
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: or two what builders have taken a year to do.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, as I went my way,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: which of these two roles have I tried to play?
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  Speaker 1: Am I a builder who works with care, measuring life
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: by the rule and square? Am I shaping my deeds
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: by a well made plan, patiently doing the best I can?
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  Speaker 4: Or?
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  Speaker 1: Am I a wrecker who walks the town content with
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the labor of tearing down? Be a people builder who
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: love that up? Next, what happened when our daughter had
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: a meltdown at school camp? Okay, Kylie, So we have
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: children who have stopped listening to the podcast because we
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: only ever talk about our youngest Emily. Today, you've talked
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: about our year twelve daughter Annie, and I'm going to
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: share a quick anecdote about our year ten daughter Lily,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: just to spread things around. Although you did give Emily
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: an honorable mention then your second story just then. So
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: over the last couple of weeks, I've spent a lot
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of time away. Primarily I've been in New South Wales
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: and I am allowed to say this. We've been recording
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: season three Parental Guidance and it is amazing. I'm so
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: excited about this Channel nine. I don't know when a
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: little bit later this year. This show is going to
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: be incredible. Anyway, my schedule was absolutely so far as
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: we put this together, and I really wondered how I
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: was going to get any time to spend with family.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: As it happened, I had a five minute break. My
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: phone was in my hand because I was about to
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: call you. It was on do not disturb. But I
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: look down and it was ringing. It was Lily, our
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: year ten daughter. So we homeschooled her the last year
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and a half. She's gone back to an alternative kind
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: of school this year and they had school camp. She'd
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: been on camp for a day and a half. She
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: was ringing me on the teacher's phone. I didn't know
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: that it was the teacher, it was just a random
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: number ringing me. I pick up. I say hello, this
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: is Justin and I hear sobs. Because I'm out of context,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure who it is, but it only takes
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: me a second. Lily, it sounds like you're having an
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: awful time. And then Lily begins to cry down the
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: phone as she tells me that one of the kids
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: was fat shaming her, that there been some bullying, and
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: that there was just a group of kids who she
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: was really struggling with. I think she used the word
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and parents, you might want to close your children's ears
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: for a moment. In three to two one grabheads. I
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: think she literally said that's what she was really struggling
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: with them. And I tried not to laugh because she
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: was having a really hard time, but her description was well,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: it made me chuckle. Anyway. As I listened, I thought
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: to myself, Okay, here I am in a television studio
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: talking with a whole bunch of people on national TV
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: about how to be great parents.
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: Because I'm one of the nation's leading parenting experts and
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: I've got a daughter who's about fifteen, who is bawling
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: her eyes out down the phone, saying that she's had
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: enough of camp and she can't stand the kids and
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: it doesn't seem fair.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: And I have two minutes, and I have two.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Minutes to resolve this.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Oh what am I going to do?
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And then I remember all the stuff that I try
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: to teach people, and I thought, if it's going to work,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: it needs to work now. So as she described it
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: all to me, I paused. When she took a break,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I said, it sounds like you are having a really
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: awful hard time. And she burst into tears and said, Dad,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I am. And I thought, oh, no, I've done the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: wrong thing, because now her tears are even bigger, and
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I said, I can hear that. It sounds absolutely rough.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And she was for a moment and she said, I
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: just I just don't know what to do, and I'm
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: so sad. And I said, yeah, I know when we're
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: in those situations, it can be really tricky, huh, And Kylie,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: in the next breath, she said, but you know what, Dad,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: they sent one of the kids home and he was
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: the main trouble maker and just talking to you about it,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and hearing your voice makes me feel better already. And
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I said, okay, so what do you think is going
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to be the best thing for us to do? And
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: she said, I can get through another day and a half.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I'll be home tomorrow afternoon. I said, I'm so glad
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: we got to talk and she said, me too, Dad,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and hung up. It was a two minute focal.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Just so we're very clear. This is not success on
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: your end.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Oh what's going on?
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Nailed And he pulled that together all by herself. I'm
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: so impressed.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: But the thing is, she pulled it together because she
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: was heard, she was valued, she was validated.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: What's amazing to me in that story is just the
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: acknowledgment of the power that our voice. She couldn't see you,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: she couldn't hold you, she couldn't be hailed. But just
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: hearing your.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Voice and in that moment and.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: The acknowledgment that she felt heard, was enough to give
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: her the courage to actually take the next step forward.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: So there are a couple of other things here. Number
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: one emotion coaching. John Gotman popularized it back in the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: late nineteen nineties, wrote The Emotionally Intelligent Parent. But what
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: it's really about, is you recognize the emotion that the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: child's experiencing, and you give it a name, which is
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: what I did. Then you let it breathe and you
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: don't try to fix it. You just support, don't solve.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Once she felt supported, she recalibrated. I asked her what
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: she thought would be the best thing to move forward.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And because we've done this repeatedly, year after year after
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: year after year after year, emotion regulation happens faster. It's
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: a smoother process because those neural pathways of connection and
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: regulation have been worn into the brain. That's the natural response.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: So when she felt seen and heard in valued, when
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: she felt understood, when she heard me describe what she
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: was feeling, she heard that love in my voice, that
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: understanding in my voice. She calmed herself, and Okay, I
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: can get through the next day and a half and
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the clear and present danger that was in my orbit
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: is now not here. I can do this.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: And what was amazing was when I picked her up
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: the next day, she was exhausted. This was survival camp.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: They trudged through mud, They carried stretches for four hours
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: with the fifty five kilo person on it all the things.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: And the last day they pulled a six ton truck.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: There was fifty kids trying to pull this truck and
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: they did it for hours and she came home physically exhausted,
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: but there was an exhilaration that she had experienced as
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: she had pushed her body to the limits and she
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: overcome something that was really really hard.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: That is our old do bitter tomorrow. To take home
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: message from Kylie, be a people builder and from me,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: you don't have to solve, you just have to support.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: And when the kids can feel it and then you
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: give them an opportunity to find a way forward, they
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: will find it. The answers are deep inside themselves. We
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: really hope you have a wonderful weekend. We're so grateful
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: that you've been part of the Happy Families podcast this week,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and we look forward to joining you next week with
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: a whole lot more. The Happy Families Podcast is produced
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: by Justin Rulanck from Bridge Media. You can find more
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: information and resources at Happyfamilies dot com dot au.