Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #734 Beck Delahoy & The Wicked Mouse

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#734 Beck Delahoy & The Wicked Mouse · 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 Now.
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  Speaker 2: This week on the Happy Families Podcast, we have a
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  Speaker 2: special guest sharing some ideas from her substack. Rebecca Delahoy
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  Speaker 2: or Beck, is a former researcher who decided to move
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  Speaker 2: her skills in research and writing away from the rather
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  Speaker 2: niche field of neuropsychiatry to the far less niche field
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  Speaker 2: of parenting, hoping that her work would have a more
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  Speaker 2: immediate impact on helping people. Beck is a homeschooling mum
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  Speaker 2: raising her three kids in Melbourne with her husband of
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  Speaker 2: seven years. She has also very recently started writing on substack,
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  Speaker 2: where she shares the lessons she's learning about what it
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  Speaker 2: means to parent. You can read her latest thoughts about
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  Speaker 2: parenting intentionally at Bechdelahoy dot substack dot com. We'll link
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  Speaker 2: to that in the show notes.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Hello everyone, I'm Beck Delahoy. I'm a homeschooling mum of
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  Speaker 1: three kids and the author behind the substack Bechdalahoy dot
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  Speaker 1: substack dot com. I have a quick story to tell you.
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  Speaker 1: At home, it's not just me, my husband and our
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  Speaker 1: three kids living there. We also live with the wicked mouse.
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  Speaker 1: I think you'll like this story. So the wicked mouse
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  Speaker 1: first came along a few years ago when my oldest
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  Speaker 1: was a preschooler and first learning not to draw on
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  Speaker 1: the walls. But one day crayon just appeared on the wall. However,
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  Speaker 1: my son assured me that he did not do it. It
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  Speaker 1: was a wicked mouse. Ever since then, the wicked mouse
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  Speaker 1: has gotten up to all sorts of mischief. Sometimes wicked
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  Speaker 1: mouse leaves rubbish on the table. Sometimes wicked mouse pulls
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  Speaker 1: books off the bookshelf and leaves them on the floor.
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  Speaker 1: The wicked mouse has been known to unroll all the
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  Speaker 1: toilet paper pretty much whenever there is an overwhelming amount
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  Speaker 1: of chaos or mess, it was probably the wicked mouse
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  Speaker 1: who contributed to it. A few months ago go, the
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  Speaker 1: wicked mouse got up to mischief for the first time
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  Speaker 1: in a while. I'd gone upstairs to where my five
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  Speaker 1: year old was quietly playing. And now his age silence
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  Speaker 1: isn't always a sign of getting up to no good, thankfully,
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  Speaker 1: but on this occasion, I discovered that there was orange
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  Speaker 1: crayon on every imaginable surface in the bathroom. I'm talking
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  Speaker 1: orange squiggles on the tiles, the shower glass, the toilet lid,
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  Speaker 1: around the edges of the bath, on the drawers, on
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  Speaker 1: the plug, even the toilet brush. Pretty Much nothing in
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  Speaker 1: the bathroom was untouched. It was as though an experiment
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  Speaker 1: had been done to see which surfaces a crayon would
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  Speaker 1: work on. Unfortunately, the answer was it works on all
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  Speaker 1: of them. Interestingly, the orange crayon had even been used
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  Speaker 1: to leave a message on the tiled bathroom floor, five
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  Speaker 1: letters spelling out l U C A S, my five
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  Speaker 1: year old's name. There were really only two possibilities to
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  Speaker 1: what had happened. My five year old had gone and
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  Speaker 1: created with a crayon, or the wicked mouse was trying
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  Speaker 1: to frame him. Now, I probably don't really need to
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  Speaker 1: say this, but the wicked mouse doesn't exist. And it's
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  Speaker 1: not that my son was lying when he first blamed
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  Speaker 1: war drawings on a wicked mouse. Young children, especially preschoolers,
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  Speaker 1: don't really lie, at least not in the way we
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  Speaker 1: might do as adults. They just tell us what they
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  Speaker 1: wish the truth was, so my son, when blaming the
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  Speaker 1: wicked mouse, was really saying that he wishes that someone
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  Speaker 1: else had drawn on the wall because he already knew
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  Speaker 1: that he shouldn't have done that. I could call him
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  Speaker 1: out as a liar. I could shame and blame him.
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  Speaker 1: I could punish him for what he had done so
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  Speaker 1: that he'd learn his lesson. But instead of blaming and shaming,
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  Speaker 1: I had a different tactic. I called my son upstairs,
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  Speaker 1: and this is what happened. I said, hey, you wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: believe what the wicked mouse has done. Come up here
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  Speaker 1: and look with me. The wicked mouse draw all over
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  Speaker 1: the floor. What a cheeky mouse. What are we going
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  Speaker 1: to do? Can you help me clean it up? And
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  Speaker 1: he said, okay, I can help. So I passed him
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  Speaker 1: a scrubber, and together we got to work. We spent
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  Speaker 1: the next thirty minutes identifying every spot that had been
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  Speaker 1: drawn on, and for mysterious reasons, my son seemed to
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  Speaker 1: have a very good idea about where the wicked maths
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  Speaker 1: had scribbled. He personally scrubbed out at least half of
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  Speaker 1: the drawings, diligently, working with me until every spot of
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  Speaker 1: orange was gone. Now would he have been so helpful
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  Speaker 1: if I had blamed him? Probably not. He might have
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  Speaker 1: felt so ashamed that he would have hidden his feelings
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  Speaker 1: behind defensiveness and anger. Instead, I probably wouldn't have been
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  Speaker 1: able to engage his cooperation at all. But you might
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  Speaker 1: be thinking he shouldn't have gotten away with it. The
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  Speaker 1: thing is, he didn't get away with anything at all.
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  Speaker 1: The consequence was exactly the same. He still needed to
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  Speaker 1: help clean up. But by not blaming him first, he
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  Speaker 1: learned some really important lessons. He learned that we can
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  Speaker 1: find solutions without finding someone to blame first. He learned
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  Speaker 1: that we can be part of the solution even if
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  Speaker 1: we're part of the problem. He learned that we don't
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  Speaker 1: need to make others feel when something has gone wrong.
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  Speaker 1: And he learned that we can focus on problem solving.
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  Speaker 1: We can teach our children without blaming them. They can
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  Speaker 1: learn to be responsible for their actions without being shamed
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  Speaker 1: for them. I think every family of young, destructively curious
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  Speaker 1: kids would benefit from having a guest come and stay.
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  Speaker 1: It might be a wicked mouse, a cheeky frog, or
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  Speaker 1: a silly pigeon, just something to remind us that we
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  Speaker 1: can fix the problem without finding someone to blame first. Now.
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  Speaker 1: I first shared this story on substack a few weeks
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  Speaker 1: ago as a follow up to the original story. I
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  Speaker 1: want to share that since the sudden reappearance of the
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  Speaker 1: wicked mouse, my boys have been trying to catch it
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  Speaker 1: to no avail. They've set up traps, made poisoned stew
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  Speaker 1: in the mud kitchen, and in general made a whole
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  Speaker 1: lot of mess trying to catch the wicked mouse. But
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  Speaker 1: at least they're taking responsibility for the chaos, so I
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  Speaker 1: guess that's a good thing. Anyway. I hope you enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: this story, and if you want to hear more, find
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  Speaker 1: me at Bechdalahoy dot substack dot com or on Instagram
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  Speaker 1: at Bechdalahoy. Thank so much, Justin, and back to you.
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  Speaker 2: I hope you really enjoyed Beck's ideas. You can read
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  Speaker 2: more from Beck Delahoy at Bechdelahoy dot substack dot com.
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  Speaker 2: I've been a really big supporter and fan of what
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  Speaker 2: she's been writing. I think she's doing great work and
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  Speaker 2: her voice is valuable. Beck's back again tomorrow on the
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  Speaker 2: Happy Families podcast.