Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / 5 Secrets to Raising Resilient Kids Who Can Handle Hard Things

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5 Secrets to Raising Resilient Kids Who Can Handle Hard Things · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Resilience is the most requested topic of all the topics
0:08
Speaker 1: that I talk about, whether it's on the podcast, whether
0:10
Speaker 1: it's my talks in businesses, in schools, it doesn't matter
0:14
Speaker 1: where it is. Resilience is what every parent wants to
0:17
Speaker 1: know about. It seems statistically that the numbers are going
0:20
Speaker 1: in the wrong direction and that too many of our
0:21
Speaker 1: kids are struggling with this resilience thing. And it has
0:25
Speaker 1: been the same for a number of years. However, today
0:28
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the five secrets to raising
0:31
Speaker 1: a resilient child. Stay with us. That is next. Hello,
0:37
Speaker 1: welcome to the Happy Families podcast. Real parenting solutions every
0:40
Speaker 1: single day. It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We're Justin
0:43
Speaker 1: and Kylie Coulson. I want to talk about resilience, but
0:46
Speaker 1: before we do that, I'm not trying to pick on you, hun,
0:48
Speaker 1: but I saw you on your phone a little bit
0:50
Speaker 1: earlier with Christmas carols blaring out of your telephone speaker.
0:56
Speaker 1: It's Christmas.
0:57
Speaker 2: There's like 67 days till Christmas.
1:00
Speaker 1: And you're counting.
1:01
Speaker 2: Six, seven.
1:05
Speaker 1: I love that you did it with the hands and everything.
1:08
Speaker 1: You're so bad. If you're a parent, you should do
1:10
Speaker 1: that tonight. If you're a parent with the kids listening,
1:12
Speaker 1: I know they've just grown and rolled their eyes, but
1:13
Speaker 1: if your kids are not listening while you're listening to
1:15
Speaker 1: this podcast, you know what you can do tonight now?
1:17
Speaker 1: Dining table. Hey, kids, guess how many days till Christmas?
1:20
Speaker 1: They're not going to know. You can say it's just
1:22
Speaker 1: over two months. It's two months and one week, 67 days, six, seven, six, seven.
1:27
Speaker 1: You'll be the coolest parent on the block. Yeah, milk
1:30
Speaker 1: it for all it's worth. Brilliant.
1:31
Speaker 2: Brilliant.
1:32
Speaker 1: Thank you. Let's get serious.
1:33
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:34
Speaker 1: Resilience.
1:34
Speaker 2: You said you want to talk about resilience.
1:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do. I want to talk about five ways
1:38
Speaker 1: that we can raise resilient kids. Why? Because the data
1:40
Speaker 1: shows that our kids are not resilient. They're going in
1:42
Speaker 1: the wrong direction and have been for a couple of
1:44
Speaker 1: decades now. And there is not a more requested topic
1:48
Speaker 1: that I get than the topic of resilience.
1:50
Speaker 2: Well, I had a really proud moment a couple of
1:53
Speaker 2: weeks back. You and I went away to Melbourne for
1:56
Speaker 2: the weekend and our two youngest, 16 and 12, were
2:00
Speaker 2: going off to girls camp. So for our 12-year-old, this
2:03
Speaker 2: is her first girls' camp. She's never done this before.
2:07
Speaker 2: And our 16-year-old has had a couple of mixed experiences
2:12
Speaker 2: when it comes to girls' camp.
2:13
Speaker 1: So enthusiasm on both their parts was not high.
2:17
Speaker 2: And because we were heading off, times ….
2:20
Speaker 1: We needed them to go to girls' camp because we
2:22
Speaker 1: were going. It's like, you don't have a choice. You
2:24
Speaker 1: actually have to go.
2:26
Speaker 2: Coordinating getting them there was a little bit tricky. So
2:28
Speaker 2: one of the older sisters dropped them off. And we
2:31
Speaker 2: were waiting at the airport when I got the first
2:33
Speaker 2: phone call. And our 16-year-old was having a pretty full-blown
2:38
Speaker 2: anxiety attack as she talked me through what was happening
2:42
Speaker 2: for her and the fact that she really just didn't
2:45
Speaker 2: want to go. And so I took some deep breaths
2:48
Speaker 2: with her and we talked through it. And I just
2:51
Speaker 2: said to her that she had proven time and time
2:53
Speaker 2: again that she was more than capable of dealing with
2:58
Speaker 2: tricky situations. But more importantly, that she was utilizing past
3:03
Speaker 2: experiences and bringing that forward into this experience, knowing and
3:09
Speaker 2: understanding that not only is she not the same person
3:12
Speaker 2: that she was back then, but nor are the other girls.
3:16
Speaker 2: And there's different dynamics now because they're not all together
3:19
Speaker 2: like they were last time. And now she's got a
3:21
Speaker 2: younger sister coming along. So that changes the dynamics. And
3:24
Speaker 2: she gets to decide what this one looks like. But
3:27
Speaker 2: if she carries the past into the future, then she's
3:29
Speaker 2: going to create the past all over again. And she
3:32
Speaker 2: was so good. Like she was so scared and she
3:35
Speaker 2: was so worried about it. But by the time we
3:39
Speaker 2: got off the phone, she was calm. She was collected.
3:42
Speaker 2: She recognized that she could do this and she's done
3:45
Speaker 2: hard things in the past. And I told her that
3:47
Speaker 2: outside of airplanes and a concert, I was available. She
3:51
Speaker 2: could call me anytime she needed to.
3:54
Speaker 1: And the best thing is.
3:55
Speaker 2: We didn't get a phone call.
3:56
Speaker 1: Not for the entire weekend. And when we chatted with
3:59
Speaker 1: them about it afterwards, they both just had a really
4:01
Speaker 1: good time.
4:02
Speaker 2: They had an amazing time.
4:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:04
Speaker 2: They had an amazing time. And I just, I'm really
4:07
Speaker 2: proud because it was so hard for her. It was really,
4:11
Speaker 2: really big.
4:12
Speaker 1: So getting kids to do hard things and to be
4:14
Speaker 1: resilient in the face of difficulties is such a trick.
4:18
Speaker 2: But the biggest proud moment for me was when I
4:20
Speaker 2: spoke to the leaders a few days later. And they
4:24
Speaker 2: just shared that our 16-year-old Lily had taken her 12-year-old
4:28
Speaker 2: sister under her wing and had just made sure that
4:31
Speaker 2: she had the best weekend. And I actually think that
4:34
Speaker 2: that was the change that was needed. Yeah.
4:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. When siblings are kind to each other, we should
4:39
Speaker 1: do a podcast on that. When siblings are kind to
4:40
Speaker 1: each other as a parent, just like, oh, okay, it's working.
4:43
Speaker 1: This is good. And we're seeing, for those of you
4:46
Speaker 1: who have children who are not always kind to each other,
4:48
Speaker 1: we're seeing as the kids have gotten older that they're
4:50
Speaker 1: getting better and better at it. Yeah. they see the
4:53
Speaker 1: value in having good relationships with one another. They want
4:55
Speaker 1: to have good relationships and they've got the maturity to
4:57
Speaker 1: figure it out. Like, there have been times where we've
5:01
Speaker 1: thought this family thing is not going to work. We've
5:05
Speaker 1: clearly failed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's been working pretty well.
5:10
Speaker 2: So you hinted, you've got five things that you want
5:13
Speaker 2: to share with us that will help our children.
5:15
Speaker 1: Be more resilient. And I'll go through them pretty quickly.
5:17
Speaker 1: They're fairly self-explanatory and we'll give everyone an early mark
5:20
Speaker 1: because sometimes our pod can go a little longer than
5:22
Speaker 1: it should. First two and then the break and then
5:24
Speaker 1: three after the break. So the first one, the research
5:27
Speaker 1: seems to indicate that children need to know that you
5:31
Speaker 1: care and that you listen. So this is based on
5:33
Speaker 1: some work that Andrew Fuller, you might have heard of
5:35
Speaker 1: Andrew Fuller, a really respected Australian psychologist, used to run
5:39
Speaker 1: something called Resilient Youth Australia. And Andrew Fuller did this questionnaire.
5:42
Speaker 1: He found that with 16,000 Australian young people, the most
5:46
Speaker 1: resilient kids agreed almost universally with two statements and the
5:50
Speaker 1: least resilient kids disagreed with both of these statements. The
5:52
Speaker 1: first one was, I have a parent who cares about me.
5:54
Speaker 1: The second one was I have a parent who listens
5:56
Speaker 1: to me. So at the very core of resilience is
6:00
Speaker 1: it's actually not the child. It's the supports around the child.
6:03
Speaker 1: It's the quality of the relationships. It's the fact that
6:05
Speaker 1: if I'm falling, someone's going to catch me. Or if
6:09
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit too scared to try the thing,
6:11
Speaker 1: I can have the confidence that I can try it
6:13
Speaker 1: because if I fall, somebody will catch me. And I
6:16
Speaker 1: often share the story when I'm doing my presentations, a
6:18
Speaker 1: bit of a personal one, but when I was a
6:21
Speaker 1: university lecturer, think by then I was 36 or 37
6:25
Speaker 1: years old, something like that. We had five kids. We
6:27
Speaker 1: hadn't had Emily yet, but we had five of our kids.
6:30
Speaker 1: And I wanted to leave university and start this business,
6:33
Speaker 1: this happy families thing. And I was so scared. All
6:37
Speaker 1: those kids, a mortgage, a family relying on me. And
6:41
Speaker 1: so I rang my dad after you and I'd had
6:43
Speaker 1: many conversations. I rang dad and said, here's what I'm
6:45
Speaker 1: thinking about doing. If it doesn't work, can my family
6:48
Speaker 1: come and live in the garage? Because mom and dad
6:50
Speaker 1: have got a garage with some downstairs space. And Dad said, no,
6:56
Speaker 1: you can come and live in the house. We've got
6:57
Speaker 1: space in the house and you don't need to live
6:59
Speaker 1: in my garage. I'm going to have my son and
7:00
Speaker 1: his family living in my garage. And we never had
7:03
Speaker 1: to go on with mum and dad. And we were
7:05
Speaker 1: really fortunate. While they did provide some support to us
7:07
Speaker 1: while we were students from time to time, we didn't
7:11
Speaker 1: actually need to call them for support once I started
7:13
Speaker 1: the business. But simply having him there.
7:17
Speaker 2: It's that safety net. It's knowing that I can jump.
7:22
Speaker 2: with the confidence that if I miss.
7:25
Speaker 1: He cares.
7:26
Speaker 2: There's somebody there to kind of catch me.
7:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. The critical thing here, though, and you made this
7:30
Speaker 1: distinction a while back on the podcast, is that it's
7:32
Speaker 1: not about having a parent who's going to carry you.
7:34
Speaker 1: It's having a parent who cares about you. Because I
7:36
Speaker 1: don't need to be carried. I just need to have
7:38
Speaker 1: somebody who will stop me from falling too far and
7:41
Speaker 1: getting all banged up.
7:42
Speaker 2: Well, you share the analogy in your talks about a
7:46
Speaker 2: child walking a balancing beam. And as a parent... As
7:51
Speaker 2: they start to lose balance, you don't grab them. You
7:54
Speaker 2: kind of just put your hand out and you just
7:56
Speaker 2: give them a little gentle nudge in the right direction
7:59
Speaker 2: to correct their balance. And that's essentially what your mum
8:02
Speaker 2: and dad have done for us from time to time
8:04
Speaker 2: when we've taken those big, scary leaps. We've kind of thought,
8:08
Speaker 2: I don't know if we've got this.
8:10
Speaker 1: But you don't have to– it doesn't always have to
8:11
Speaker 1: be the big stuff. This is my key point. It's
8:13
Speaker 1: the little stuff. Like when your child wants to talk
8:15
Speaker 1: to you, stop, look, listen. Stop what you're doing. Look
8:19
Speaker 1: them in the eyes. Listen to what they're saying. Don't interrupt.
8:22
Speaker 1: Just be there. Turn your body towards them. Put the
8:23
Speaker 1: phone down. If they bring you a problem, hear all
8:26
Speaker 1: of the problem and then say, well, that sounds pretty tough, huh?
8:31
Speaker 1: What do you think you should do about it? You
8:33
Speaker 1: don't have to solve it. It's not your job to
8:35
Speaker 1: carry it. It's your job to care about it and
8:37
Speaker 1: to show it. So that's the first big thing.
8:40
Speaker 2: I think back to the conversation I had with Lily
8:42
Speaker 2: literally a couple of weeks ago while she's standing in
8:44
Speaker 2: the car park waiting for her ride to go to camp.
8:48
Speaker 2: And she was trying to be so big. And I
8:52
Speaker 2: literally just rang to say, hey, mom and dad, just
8:54
Speaker 2: about to get on the plane, just checking in, make
8:56
Speaker 2: sure you're all there and you're ready to go. And
8:58
Speaker 2: she was kind of like, uh-huh, uh-huh, just giving me really,
9:01
Speaker 2: really short answers. And just as I went to hang
9:04
Speaker 2: up and she had literally said goodbye to me, I
9:06
Speaker 2: could hear the tears. And I just said, hey, Lil,
9:09
Speaker 2: is everything okay? And then she broke down and we
9:12
Speaker 2: were able to have this beautiful conversation, which I wasn't
9:15
Speaker 2: expecting to have. Yeah.
9:16
Speaker 1: So they know you care and they know you listen.
9:18
Speaker 1: That's the number one thing for resilience. The number one
9:21
Speaker 1: thing where kids go, okay, now I can go on.
9:23
Speaker 1: It ties in a lot with the second one. I
9:25
Speaker 1: said two before the break, but we need to take
9:26
Speaker 1: the break after the break. We'll do the last four.
9:28
Speaker 1: Stay with us. We're back. It's the Happy Families podcast.
9:38
Speaker 1: All right. Here's the second thing that Kylie's just demonstrated
9:41
Speaker 1: that helps kids to be resilient. And And I've actually
9:43
Speaker 1: picked this line up from Steve Biddulph, the legendary parenting
9:47
Speaker 1: expert from– he's still around doing stuff, but really in
9:50
Speaker 1: the 80s and 90s, he was Australia's biggest parenting expert
9:54
Speaker 1: and was even exported overseas. He just did such a
9:57
Speaker 1: great job. Steve Bidoff says a parent's main job is
10:00
Speaker 1: to always remain calmer than their child in those big moments.
10:05
Speaker 1: And I just love that phrase. I love that idea.
10:07
Speaker 1: And often in the little ones as well. So a
10:10
Speaker 1: child's nervous system learns to settle by borrowing a settled
10:14
Speaker 1: nervous system. So if you meet a meltdown with your
10:18
Speaker 1: own meltdown, You've essentially taught your child escalation, and you've
10:21
Speaker 1: probably created fear and anxiety. So your example, Kylie, is perfect.
10:28
Speaker 1: You rang. We had a child who was not well regulated.
10:31
Speaker 1: She was holding it together. And when you asked how
10:33
Speaker 1: she was doing, you stayed calmer than her. She got
10:35
Speaker 1: really worked up. And you didn't say, you're being silly.
10:37
Speaker 1: Calm down. Stop it or anything. You just listened. You
10:39
Speaker 1: cared and did that for her. It asks a lot
10:44
Speaker 1: of parents. It really does. Sometimes we don't have it.
10:47
Speaker 1: But it's what builds the support that's needed for their
10:51
Speaker 1: resilience and for their regulation.
10:53
Speaker 2: Well, in complete transparency, just in case everybody thinks I'm perfect,
10:56
Speaker 2: and I clearly am not. Number one, I actually didn't
11:00
Speaker 2: want to make the phone call. You and I were
11:02
Speaker 2: going away for two nights of solitude, and I was
11:05
Speaker 2: so excited about it. We had said goodbye to the
11:08
Speaker 2: kids in the morning. They packed their bags. I was
11:11
Speaker 2: done and dusted. I'd wiped my hands of them for
11:13
Speaker 2: two days.
11:14
Speaker 1: I pine. I'm like, oh, shouldn't we just call? Can
11:16
Speaker 1: we just check in? And you did it.
11:19
Speaker 2: And I did it. Yeah. I did it. And then
11:23
Speaker 2: when I did hear the quiver, I was almost like, oh,
11:25
Speaker 2: let's just, she'll be okay. She'll be okay.
11:29
Speaker 1: See, this is a much better story now that you've
11:30
Speaker 1: added this.
11:32
Speaker 2: But in that brief second, as I was ready to
11:36
Speaker 2: hang up, I was like, you know what? Clearly she
11:38
Speaker 2: needs me. And I was able to tap in. But
11:42
Speaker 2: it requires intention and effort. Yes. It's so easy to
11:46
Speaker 2: just kind of turn a blind eye because we're dealing
11:47
Speaker 2: with our own stuff as well.
11:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, very much. I have a technique that can
11:52
Speaker 1: be useful here. If you want to stay calmer than
11:54
Speaker 1: your child, before you respond to your child, take one
11:58
Speaker 1: breath that you can hear. Like, not a sigh. No,
12:04
Speaker 1: I didn't say sigh. I didn't say roll your eyes.
12:06
Speaker 1: I said, you take a big breath because when you
12:08
Speaker 1: breathe in and you slow everything down, you're going to
12:10
Speaker 1: do way better. You're going to regulate yourself better.
12:12
Speaker 2: I think I actually did that.
12:14
Speaker 1: I think you probably did as well.
12:18
Speaker 2: What's number three.
12:19
Speaker 1: Oh, this is my favorite one. Um, let them do
12:21
Speaker 1: hard things. And again, this ties in with the camp school.
12:24
Speaker 1: This was girls camp, but school camps are one of
12:26
Speaker 1: the biggest issues for so many parents and so many kids.
12:28
Speaker 1: School camp is a really big deal. And, uh, These
12:33
Speaker 1: all count here, but let them do hard things. What
12:35
Speaker 1: do I mean by that? You don't know you're resilient
12:39
Speaker 1: until you've done something hard.
12:41
Speaker 2: Well, it would have been very easy in that moment.
12:43
Speaker 2: My child is literally having an anxiety attack to get
12:47
Speaker 2: on the phone, tell her big sister she's got to
12:48
Speaker 2: go and pick her up. She can't do this. It's
12:50
Speaker 2: too hard. And she doesn't have anybody there.
12:54
Speaker 1: And in 2026, school principals consistently ask for this presentation
12:57
Speaker 1: because too many parents are rescuing their kids. They're saying, oh,
13:00
Speaker 1: my child's having an emotion. My child's feeling challenged and
13:03
Speaker 1: I need to rescue them.
13:05
Speaker 2: The challenges as a parent is- You feel like a
13:08
Speaker 2: good parent when you're doing it. Well, no, there's a
13:09
Speaker 2: fine line between how much do I push and how
13:14
Speaker 2: much do I need to rescue?
13:15
Speaker 1: And I would even say there is a time and
13:16
Speaker 1: a place to rescue. Like there is actually a time
13:19
Speaker 1: and a place to step in and say, actually, this
13:20
Speaker 1: has gone too far. I need to get you out
13:22
Speaker 1: of this situation. That's fair.
13:25
Speaker 2: Totally. And so as a parent, finding the balance between
13:30
Speaker 2: when to step in and when to step out is
13:34
Speaker 2: really tricky.
13:35
Speaker 1: I would say that the default should be towards reducing
13:39
Speaker 1: the rush to go and rescue and reassure. I would
13:42
Speaker 1: say the default should be that we stop letting them
13:45
Speaker 1: skip it. Research shows that when kids do hard things,
13:48
Speaker 1: they actually become less anxious. When they take bigger risks,
13:50
Speaker 1: they become less anxious. There was a Yale research team,
13:53
Speaker 1: university team, that found that when you reduce those parental accommodations,
13:58
Speaker 1: that's as effective at reducing anxiety as therapy, but way cheaper.
14:05
Speaker 1: And I think it's also really important to remember that
14:07
Speaker 1: every time you rescue a child.
14:10
Speaker 2: The message you actually send to them is that they're
14:12
Speaker 2: not capable.
14:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't cope without me.
14:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
14:15
Speaker 1: That's the thing we've got to bear in mind. Let
14:17
Speaker 1: them approach that new friend. Let them try out for
14:21
Speaker 1: the team. Let them stumble a little bit. Let them
14:23
Speaker 1: go on school camp. Let them stay in the hard class.
14:27
Speaker 1: They've got to do the hard things. That actually builds resilience.
14:30
Speaker 1: But of course, like you said, there's got to be
14:33
Speaker 1: that discernment. Sometimes you have to step in. And I
14:34
Speaker 1: can't tell you where that line is. I would just
14:36
Speaker 1: say that the fault should be that You let them
14:40
Speaker 1: go a little bit further than you want them to
14:42
Speaker 1: and see if they're still hanging in there and then
14:43
Speaker 1: let them go a little bit further again.
14:45
Speaker 2: So in the camp instance, for me, there were a
14:49
Speaker 2: few things that made it easy for me to give
14:50
Speaker 2: her the little nudge she needed. Firstly, we'd had another
14:54
Speaker 2: experience recently where she'd had an anxiety attack. She sent
14:57
Speaker 2: me a message and she said, Mom, I'm not doing well.
15:00
Speaker 2: She talked me through what had happened and she said,
15:03
Speaker 2: but I also know I've got this and I can
15:06
Speaker 2: get through. So she has already got the mindset that
15:09
Speaker 2: things are hard, but she can do hard things. So
15:13
Speaker 2: that was the first one. The second one is I
15:15
Speaker 2: knew the leaders and I knew that they loved her
15:18
Speaker 2: and wanted her to have a good time. They were
15:20
Speaker 2: ready to help her be successful.
15:22
Speaker 1: So there's that support again. It's not just about parents.
15:24
Speaker 2: And number three, she had her sister. She wasn't isolated
15:28
Speaker 2: on her own and their relationship's good. And so that
15:30
Speaker 2: enabled me to remind her that she had this. Like
15:34
Speaker 2: she literally, and they're all my last words, you've got this.
15:37
Speaker 2: You're going to have a great weekend.
15:39
Speaker 1: You've got this. So good for resilience.
15:41
Speaker 2: Number four.
15:42
Speaker 1: So we're going to do the last two really fast
15:43
Speaker 1: because our time is up. The fourth one is that
15:45
Speaker 1: we want to give our kids a story bigger than themselves.
15:48
Speaker 1: I love talking about identity when I do my workshops.
15:50
Speaker 1: Our kids need foundations. They need roots. And that is
15:54
Speaker 1: our family culture. It might be our faith. It could
15:56
Speaker 1: be our family identity. It could be our racial or
15:59
Speaker 1: ethnic history. It could be a cause. It could be
16:02
Speaker 1: a tradition. Just some other purpose. It might be as
16:05
Speaker 1: simple as somebody just saying, yeah, I depend on you.
16:07
Speaker 1: So they know that they're contributing to something bigger than themselves.
16:10
Speaker 1: There's a resilience researcher called Anne Mastin, and she found
16:13
Speaker 1: that meaning making is as important as robust relationships and
16:19
Speaker 1: as important as self-regulation when it comes to protective factors
16:23
Speaker 1: and resilience. When kids are going through a hard thing,
16:26
Speaker 1: but they can see a greater purpose to it, like
16:29
Speaker 1: they can locate their suffering inside something much larger, larger
16:31
Speaker 1: than them. If they start to see that hardship as
16:34
Speaker 1: something valuable and something that gives their life purpose and
16:36
Speaker 1: they get through it faster, they get through it better,
16:38
Speaker 1: they're much more resilient.
16:39
Speaker 2: Well, and I think the higher purpose in this instance
16:42
Speaker 2: was Lily got to be the big sister.
16:44
Speaker 1: She got to look after her little sister. That's the
16:45
Speaker 1: higher purpose.
16:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:46
Speaker 1: So she will suffer hardship and go through trials because
16:50
Speaker 1: her little sister needs her.
16:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
16:52
Speaker 1: Perfect example of that. When our kids have got something
16:54
Speaker 1: to serve, when they've got a family story, when they
16:57
Speaker 1: can see a bigger picture, they're really hard to sink.
16:59
Speaker 2: And lastly, number five.
17:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, in 2023, Peter Gray, who is a world-leading play expert,
17:04
Speaker 1: wrote that the collapse in children's independent activity is a
17:06
Speaker 1: central driver of rising anxiety and depression. Got other researchers
17:10
Speaker 1: that have found that children with more risky outdoor play
17:12
Speaker 1: have better physical and social outcomes. And there's also a
17:16
Speaker 1: whole bunch of suggestions from scholars suggesting that climbing high
17:21
Speaker 1: or moving fast or roaming out of range actually increases
17:25
Speaker 1: What's the word I'm looking for? Calibrates the fear system,
17:28
Speaker 1: the anxiety system, the emotional system. Short version of this,
17:32
Speaker 1: risky play and other activities are good for your kids.
17:34
Speaker 1: You should let them out of your sight. Need to emphasize,
17:37
Speaker 1: as I always do on the podcast, risk and danger
17:39
Speaker 1: are different. Danger means you've got no idea about the risk,
17:42
Speaker 1: like a toddler playing near a pool. Dangerous. Risky play
17:45
Speaker 1: means you can see the dangers and you have the
17:47
Speaker 1: capacity to make decisions accordingly. So risky play. What does
17:52
Speaker 1: that mean? It means that we want to send our
17:54
Speaker 1: kids to the shops or let them go into the
17:56
Speaker 1: next aisle if they're little to get the milk and
17:58
Speaker 1: bring it back to you. We want to let them
17:59
Speaker 1: ride to a friend's house or for little ones, let
18:01
Speaker 1: them ride ahead to the corner and wait for you
18:03
Speaker 1: without crossing the road. Let them climb higher than you
18:07
Speaker 1: would like them to at the local park or on
18:09
Speaker 1: your roof when they jump into the pool if you're
18:11
Speaker 1: lucky enough to have a pool near a roof or
18:13
Speaker 1: unlucky enough as the case may be. And watch how
18:15
Speaker 1: big and capable it lets them feel.
18:18
Speaker 2: Three years ago, you took Emily, who was nine at
18:22
Speaker 2: the time.
18:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.
18:23
Speaker 2: Tubing on the back of your dad's boat.
18:25
Speaker 1: And she was terrified. Absolutely terrified. And dad really wanted
18:28
Speaker 1: to flip her and just get her used to it.
18:29
Speaker 1: And I said, no, no, no, she'll never do it again.
18:31
Speaker 1: So we gave her a lot of fun, but we
18:34
Speaker 1: did not tip her. We did not flip her.
18:36
Speaker 2: Three years later, we're at girls camp.
18:39
Speaker 1: Oh, here we go again.
18:39
Speaker 2: A couple of weekends ago.
18:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
18:41
Speaker 2: And the consensus from all the leaders on board was
18:46
Speaker 2: that our Emily, our 12-year-old, was the most.
18:51
Speaker 1: Adventurous.
18:52
Speaker 2: Adventurous. Little tuber there was. She wanted to be thrown
18:56
Speaker 2: off at every turn. Just such a big change.
19:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think parents misunderstand resilience. We need to wrap
19:03
Speaker 1: it up. But a lot of parents think that resilience
19:06
Speaker 1: means we have to say toughen up, princess. And when
19:10
Speaker 1: hard things happen, kids have to be left alone to
19:12
Speaker 1: figure it out, that they need to drink some concrete,
19:15
Speaker 1: harden up, that kind of idea. And it's just not right.
19:18
Speaker 1: The scientific research points away from that approach. Resilience is
19:23
Speaker 1: built as much inside a child, that toughening up thing,
19:27
Speaker 1: as it is built around a child in healthy, supportive
19:31
Speaker 1: environments and usually in interactions that seemed too small to
19:36
Speaker 1: matter at the time, except they do. There is no
19:39
Speaker 1: triumph without the trial. We hope that this has been
19:41
Speaker 1: a useful conversation for you about resilience. For more information,
19:44
Speaker 1: visit happyfamilies.com.au. The Happy Families podcast, production, sound, audio, and
19:50
Speaker 1: from justin rulon at bridge media and mim hammonds provides
19:53
Speaker 1: our additional support later this week we talk with dr
19:56
Speaker 1: joe winchester about fears parents have about kids and their
19:59
Speaker 1: careers and tomorrow what do you do when your kids
20:02
Speaker 1: are lashing out it's a tricky question on the happy
20:04
Speaker 1: families podcast we'll talk to you then