Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1149 - The 2025 Family Reboot: Using The WISE Approach

Transcript

#1149 - The 2025 Family Reboot: Using The WISE Approach · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Do you ever find yourself stretched too thin at home
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: or at work? Have you ever felt like you're overworked
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: but not fulfilling your ptension, not using your strength, not
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: being utilized the way that you want to utilize your life.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Do you ever feel like you're really, really, really really
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: busy but not productive, not getting the things done that
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: need to be done. Do you ever feel like you're
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: constantly in motion but never getting anywhere? What if your
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: family could start twenty twenty five fresh, a complete reboot,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: a full restart. Hello and welcome to the first episode
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: of the Happy Families podcast for twenty twenty five. It's
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: real parenting solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We are Justin and Kylie Coulson. Kylie, a fresh start
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: for a fresh year. It sounds so good.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: At the end of twenty twenty four, I wasn't hiding
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: the fact that I was really struggling.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: On the podcast. You sounded like you completely goes.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Out, completely burnt out, to the point where the only
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: solution I saw inside was it literally to throw life
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: out the window. Everything, every component needed to go, and
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to curl up in a ball and
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: hide in a corner and not come out for a
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: week or two, maybe three.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: So it's interesting how, in spite of all of that
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: emotion and the way we were feeling, what a new
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: year offers that clean slate. The visual for me is
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: getting that new, clean diary, blank pages everywhere for a
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: whole year, and we get to determine what fills the pages.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: And so, in spite of how exhausted I felt, a
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: couple of quiet weeks over Christmas and the New Year
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: break have been everything that I needed and a new
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: diary to reset and get set for twenty twenty five.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: At quieter Christmas than we have ever had, and it
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: felt so good. So the real question is how do
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you get that refreshing start to a new year. Hopefully
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: your break's been wonderful, but that's what we're going to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: talk about on the podcast today.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: As part of our reset, we decided to read a
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: book together. It's a book called Essentialism by Greg McEwen.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: We used to do this years and years ago. We
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: lay in bed each night and read to each other
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and it was wonderful. So we've rebooted that and I
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: love it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: This is actually a book you've already.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Read You Love It, one of my top five books
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of all time.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: And as we were having discussions towards the end of
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: last year about how we wanted the next year to be,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: as you were.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Linging on by your fingernails.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I kept saying, I just need things to slow down.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I can't keep running this fast, and you said, but
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: what does that look like? And in my mind, I'm
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: looking at this big to do list and nothing I
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: can take out of it. I can't give away any children,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I can't I can't stop doing the podcast like there
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: was just there was nothing that I could stop doing.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: And as we've been reading this book, there's been a
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: handful of quotes that have really jumped out at me,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: and this one is just so profound. If you don't
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: prioritize your own life, someone else will.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's someone who's usually about knee high and
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: maybe waist high. If you've got teenagers, they're probably taller
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: than you.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: And that was the big trap for me last year,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: because there were so many moving parts and so many
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: new things for us to work through. I was allowing
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: all of those other agendas to crowd in and take
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: up the space without me first, prioritizing my needs.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: And then you've also got that agenda where I was
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: going to say, the kids have got their own agendas,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and I guess they do. Sometimes their agendas are leave
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: me alone. I just want to I don't know, like
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I'm writing a book about teenage boys right now, so
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I want to use a terrible example. I just want
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to stay in my room and vape and play video
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: games or something like that. I mean, that's a kind
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: of a dark example. But our kids have got their
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: own agendas. They want to do their thing. They want
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: to stay out, well.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: They just want to watch another episode in their show,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: or they want to swim in the pool the time,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: you know, instead of helping or doing any number of
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: other things that you've got on your agenda.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And it derails everything that you're trying to do. And
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: you've got the best of it. Your agenda really is
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: to give them the best life possible, and they seem
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: intent on derailing that because they don't want the best
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: life possible. They want to watch DV now or eat
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: junk food now. And so we keep on trying to
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: do more and more and more and more. And this
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: is why we need a fresh start.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: I remember when our kids were a lot younger, I
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: was going to the gym with my friend each morning,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: and we had these conversations regularly about the fact that
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: you know, she'd come home and she'd have a shower
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: and get into a normal clothes and get on with
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: the day. And I found that if I had a
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: shower and I changed, I didn't have the same motivation
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: level to get through my big to do list. And
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: so I would stay in my gym clothes and my sneakers,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: and I would tell you, the only way I can
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: get through to if I have my stack as on,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: because I have to keep running.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I remember you saying that, and you would say, I
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: literally run to the washing loan. I literally run to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the laundry. I literally run to the kitchen. I literally
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: run to the car. And if I'm in my gym gear,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: it just makes me more energized and keeps me moving,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: which is not really what life's supposed to be.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: In essentialism, he actually says it's not about getting more
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: things done, it's about getting the right things done.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So after the break, we're going to break it down
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: four things to restart the year, to freshen it up.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: We call it the Wise Family Reset, Kylie. A fresh
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: start means stripping back to essentials. Our Wise Family Reset
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: is going to help everyone to do that.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: The biggest thing I struggled with towards the end of
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: the year was a feeling or a lack of feeling
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: in control.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's called burnout and literally meaning you don't
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: have a sense that you have any agency or control
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: over your life.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: And so the idea that we can be intentional about
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: what we say yes to helps us to feel more
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: in control. We can get the right things done the
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: right way at the right time, and we can find
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: joy in the every day as a result.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a fresh refresh. It sounds like a
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: fresh start. The Wise Family Reset is really simple for things,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and it's an acronym. That's what it's called, the Wise
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Family Reset. W stands for workout what matters. I stands
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: for implement tiny changes. S stands for sync as a team,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: not as in sync like the Titanic, but SINC as
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: in get on the same page. You just s sinc
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: as a team and the EMU later in the year,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that's right. The E stands for encouraged, don't nag so
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: let's break this down, go through each of those one
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: by one. The w workout what matters. This is the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Wise Family reset. Work out what matters has two elements.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I think it's so important as an individual and especially
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: as you know, the mom and dad of the family,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: to actually work out what matters most to you as
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: an individual and as a couple before you include the
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: children's processing into that equation.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: At the end of last year, several times I said
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: to you, Collie, what do you actually want? Because so
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: few people can articulate what they want, and you couldn't.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: You were unable to tell me what you wanted full stop.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: End of story. And eventually after about a week and
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: a half you said it's one of things, slowed down
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and said, all right, well, we've got to work on
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: understanding what that looks like, what that means. That's why
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: we pulled this book out. But the Wise Family reset
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: working out what matters, creating personal space, escaping, having time
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: to think. There's this part in our brain called the
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: default mode network. It's associated with thinking and guess what
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: in today's digitally charged world where we are so burdened
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and so busy, and then when we use our downtime
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to stare at a screen. The DMN, the default mode network,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: which is so important for developing identity and asking the
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: big questions and having that escape, it doesn't get a
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: chance to turn on the way it's supposed to. Like
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: once upon a time when there was nothing to do,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: you know what, you did nothing, and the DMN, the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: defaut mode network in your brain would switch in and go, hm,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: there's nothing to do, which means now I get to
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: ask myself the big existential questions like why am I here?
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  Speaker 1: And what do I want? And how am I going
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to make a contribution on what's my purpose? And all
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. So when we pick up a
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: screen and play a game, or we pick up a
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: screen and scroll our socials, what we do is we
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: disallow the DMN from kicking in, which means that our
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: brain never gets the downtime it needs to think about
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the big questions and allow us to feel like we
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: are rested. I'm turning into an anti screen kind of
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: person because it just doesn't let us shut off, which
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: exacerbates and amplifies the stress and the burnout and the fatigue.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: You've just said, to work out what matters you need
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: that personal space. I'm going to go further. I'm going
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: to say you need to escape. You need to escape,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: even if it's for a few hours, so that you
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: can just do nothing, just let your brain do what
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: your brain is supposed to do. It's incredible what it
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: will come up with. But there's two things to work
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: out what matters.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: So the second part of this is that while it's
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: really important for us as individuals to work out what
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: matters most, we actually need to bring the family in.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: They need to be a part of this process as well,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: and together we get to work out what's important for
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: our family.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you'll have the answer beforehand. That's why you create
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that personal space and have that escape and figure it out.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: But sometimes even though you think you know the answer,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: you sit down with the family and say, hey, what
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: matters here, and they give you something that you were
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: not expecting. And it's really important to be open to that.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: It's a new opportunity for us to get that fresh start.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: What you thought was necessary, it might only be necessary
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: for you, it might not be necessary for the whole family. Alternatively,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: the family could just be completely deluding themselves. They could
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: be fully to Lulu, I thought I was so gen
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: olf when I said that, and they need your prefrontal
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: cortex to step in and say, well, you know what,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: those things are important, but this is the stuff that
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: matters most.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: I think if the family's really struggling to come together
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: with this and work out what matters most, one of
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: the most important questions you can ask them is when
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: has it felt great in our family?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Beautiful?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when has it felt great?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: What were we doing?
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Then you can narrow down what you were doing in
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: those moments and what it was that enabled that moment
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: to feel great.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Wise, family reset. Once you've worked out what matters, implement
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: tiny changes.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: So often we have this clean slate and we want
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: to change it all.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: It's like when you say I'm going to get fit
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and healthy, and so you go on the diet and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: you join the gym and you.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Want to lose twenty kilos in a day.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: That's right, and you do day one and you kind
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: of well, you wake up on day two and you
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: can't move and you're hungry and you're having sugar withdrawals,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: or maybe you've given.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Up a and you eat a block of chocolate.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: He cover, it's too hard. I don't want to do this,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: So we want to start small. When you do it yourself,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: and especially when you do it with the family, say okay,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: so screens are an issue, or bedtimes an issue, or
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: mornings are an issue, whatever it is, what's one small
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: thing that we can work on this week to make
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: it better. It's just one small thing. We're not going
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: to do the whole lot, which is going to pick
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: on one thing and when we get really good at that,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: then we'll move to the next step. So Number one,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: workout what matters. Number two, implement tiny changes.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Number three is we sync together as a team. We
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: actually pull it all together, and we work together as
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: a team. We create a plan and then we're able
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: to implement that plan as part of that process.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: It's really about being on the same page. If you
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: sit down as a parent and say, right, this is
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: what we need to do to make our family function
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and the kids aren't buying in, it just feels horrible.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: It doesn't go well. Whereas if everyone's got some input,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: everyone's involved in the development of the plan, everyone's involved
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: in the conversation, everyone is in agreement that yeah, this
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: is something that's worth working on. That's how you sink
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: as a team. Wis w workout what matters, I implement
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: tiny changes, s sink as a team and the last
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: one encourage nag.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: So how do you do this in practical terms? How
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: are you seen by your children as an encourager and
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: not a nagger.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Let me start with what not to do. Don't point fingers.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: We have talked about this often at home. You're not
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: the police.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: You're not the police.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: You're not the police.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: You're not the food police, you're not the you're not
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: the homework police.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Almost please or whatever it is, or the bedtime police.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: You are the parent, and there has been an agreement reached.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: But usually if you step in and start pointing things
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, I thought we agreed, Hey, what are
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: you doing that for? Hey we said we wouldn't do that,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: everyone feels judged rather than loved. I don't think that
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: hate is the opposite of love. I think judgment is,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and judgment shuts down relationships, that ruptures them, It stops conversation.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: It's just not helpful. So rather than doing that, you've
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: got a couple of options. Option number one is you
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: notice it and then later that day, in a totally
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: different context, maybe on the edge of their bed. That night,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: you sit down and say, hey, we've been going pretty well,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: but today there was a couple of slip ups. What
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: did you notice and see if they can identify it
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: and say, I'm not getting you in trouble. I know
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: you're doing your very best, but what do you reckon
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: we can do tomorrow to make sure that doesn't happen again.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: In other words, let it slide in the moment, because
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the moment doesn't matter as much as the learning that
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: can come from it later on. If you do feel
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: like you need to step in in the moment because
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: there's been an agreement made, we're having a fresh start everyone,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: you can just smile and say, hey, guys, fresh starts.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Or you might let's say, I don't know. Let's say
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: they're on their screen and the screen really needs to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: go off. You might simply say, I don't want to
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: be the nag. I know that you know what we've
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: agreed on, so let's see if we can come up
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: with a solution here. Because what's happening right now isn't
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: what we agreed to on Saturday or on Sunday when
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: we had our family meeting. And if you've got a
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: ten year old like ours, she's going to look at
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: you and go but it's not and have a big
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: sook and you can say, I know it doesn't feel fair.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a minute to have a
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: think about it and then we'll talk about it again then.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: So you're letting the emotion go out of the moment.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: You're not putting pressure on them. And usually what the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: kids do is they go, mum more, Dad has left
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the room and we did make that agreement, and a
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: minute or so later they'll usually turn off the TV
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: or they'll do the thing they're supposed to do. Those
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the two ways that I would go about it. Every
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: now and again. You've got to step in with force.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Every now and again, you've got to step in and
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: just be the big, tough guy, the parent. But when
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that happens again, you talk about it later. It's about
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the conversations that happen later. We're not striving for perfection.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: We're striving for small, incremental, implemented improvements.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: I think the way that comes to me at the
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: moment is just realistic expectations of our children. When we're
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: trying to implement new things in our lives. Even us
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: as adults struggle with that. It's not something that we
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: get perfect right away, and our children and are going
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: to be the same. And so just like a new
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: year provides us with this beautiful clean slate, this new
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: beginning each day provides us with that.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: A fresh start for a new year twenty twenty five,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: here we come. Have that family meeting with the kids.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: See how it goes, the wise family recess it, work
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: out what matters, implement tiny changes, sink as a team, Encourage,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: don't nag. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Ruland from Bridge Media. We would love it if you
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: would leave us a rating and review. Those five star
• 15:12
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• 15:14
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