Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #840 Turning Down the Chaos
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
- 0:07Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Now, what we're actually trying to achieve here is these
- 0:13Speaker 2: spontaneous conversations with our kids. The idea of creating space
- 0:20Speaker 2: for those things to happen is so important.
- 0:23Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mom
- 0:26Speaker 1: and dad.
- 0:27Speaker 3: I know that it depends on the day, but on average,
- 0:30Speaker 3: how chaotic would you say our household is? Why are
- 0:35Speaker 3: you laughing with the pairing experts. We're supposed to know
- 0:38Speaker 3: how to not have chaos?
- 0:39Speaker 4: What do you reckon?
- 0:40Speaker 2: I think anybody who's looking from the outside in would
- 0:43Speaker 2: say that we live in absolute chaos. Really, I'd like
- 0:47Speaker 2: to say organized chaos.
- 0:49Speaker 3: No, come on, People who would look at us would say,
- 0:51Speaker 3: you're nailing it. Wish I could be like the Colson's,
- 0:53Speaker 3: wouldn't they?
- 0:55Speaker 2: Well, I told you a few weeks ago that I
- 0:58Speaker 2: picked up my friend. Yeah, and the fifteen minute drive
- 1:01Speaker 2: that we had, I literally had a phone call from
- 1:03Speaker 2: every child, including you. She kind of just looked at
- 1:07Speaker 2: me and just when.
- 1:08Speaker 4: To be clear, I'm not one of your children. Okay.
- 1:11Speaker 2: Sometimes I feel like, no, no.
- 1:12Speaker 4: No, don't say things like that.
- 1:14Speaker 3: So there's a brand new study that's come out, and
- 1:17Speaker 3: I think that we should talk about this because it's
- 1:19Speaker 3: so interesting to me. Every parent we talk to says,
- 1:24Speaker 3: when I'm one child down, it feels so good. Whether
- 1:26Speaker 3: you've got six kids like us, or whether you're down
- 1:28Speaker 3: to three or two children, or even one child one
- 1:31Speaker 3: child's out of the house at Grandma's or something, it's like, oh,
- 1:33Speaker 3: oh good, is this so? But families feel chaotic, whether
- 1:37Speaker 3: you've got one child, two children, like there are just
- 1:39Speaker 3: those times where the pressure is on and things feel heavy.
- 1:44Speaker 3: So there's this research at Jackie Nelson. She's at the
- 1:46Speaker 3: University of Texas, and she does this study with a
- 1:49Speaker 3: whole bunch of teenagers and their mums. And here's what
- 1:53Speaker 3: she finds, and I quote stressful experiences such as living
- 1:58Speaker 3: in a chaotic home vironment can deplete parent regulatory abilities,
- 2:04Speaker 3: making it more difficult for them to remain responsive and
- 2:08Speaker 3: positively engaged with children over the course of the day.
- 2:13Speaker 2: I kind of laugh when you read these studies because
- 2:16Speaker 2: it just kind of seems obvious.
- 2:18Speaker 3: You're saying, it's from the University of Duh, not the
- 2:20Speaker 3: University of Texas, right, Duh.
- 2:22Speaker 2: Anybody who's lived in chaos recognizes that their capacity to
- 2:28Speaker 2: regulate is diminished, right, significantly.
- 2:32Speaker 3: But how many of us feel like we're living in
- 2:34Speaker 3: chaos a little bit too much of the time, Like, yes,
- 2:37Speaker 3: it might be duh obvious, but understanding the mechanism behind it. Okay,
- 2:41Speaker 3: So if I'm feeling like things are a bit chaotic
- 2:44Speaker 3: for me, what that does is it causes me to
- 2:47Speaker 3: be disregulated, which means that my child, whether they're a
- 2:50Speaker 3: teenager or not, doesn't feel safe enough to come and
- 2:54Speaker 3: spend time with me. Now, this is what I think
- 2:58Speaker 3: is the really interesting part of this study. Here's what
- 3:00Speaker 3: and found spontaneous disclosure. So spontaneous disclosures when the kids
- 3:05Speaker 3: show up and talk to you about stuff without you asking, right,
- 3:09Speaker 3: Spontaneous disclosure is a key factor informing what parents know
- 3:14Speaker 3: about their teens' lives and their teens activities. And she
- 3:17Speaker 3: found that when parents are asking for information, teens often
- 3:21Speaker 3: withhold that information, they even lie about it. But if
- 3:24Speaker 3: the kids just sort of walk in and start talking,
- 3:26Speaker 3: that's the spontaneous disclosure. And she found that household chaos,
- 3:30Speaker 3: which is confusion, disorganization, noise, unpredictability, clutter and lack of
- 3:33Speaker 3: routine lead to less attention, less engagement, and therefore less
- 3:38Speaker 3: spontaneous disclosure and sharing.
- 3:42Speaker 2: So I find that in our home, if the kids
- 3:45Speaker 2: don't see me as being available, they're less likely to
- 3:48Speaker 2: share information, so that spontaneous conversation doesn't happen, not so
- 3:55Speaker 2: much because there's chaos, as much as my availability in
- 3:59Speaker 2: their mind is limited.
- 4:01Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 4:02Speaker 3: We have talked often about my mum's unavailability. So for
- 4:06Speaker 3: the last well twenty five years that we've been married,
- 4:08Speaker 3: In nearly twenty six years that we've been married, conversations
- 4:12Speaker 3: with my mum usually go, hey, Mum, just calling to
- 4:14Speaker 3: say hi, Well I'm so glad you did, but I'm.
- 4:16Speaker 4: In the middle of blah blah blah blah, or could
- 4:18Speaker 4: you just hold on?
- 4:19Speaker 3: Could you say yeah, because there's four or five other
- 4:20Speaker 3: phocals that comes through where you're trying to have that chat.
- 4:23Speaker 3: So mum's been running all of these businesses for all
- 4:25Speaker 3: these years, she's raising six of her own kids, plus
- 4:27Speaker 3: she's also been heavily involved as a grandma. Heavily involved
- 4:30Speaker 3: because several of my siblings live near home, and I
- 4:33Speaker 3: guess she's been heavily involved. And one thing that I
- 4:37Speaker 3: have said to you for over twenty years is, oh,
- 4:39Speaker 3: my goodness, her life is so chaotic. And I want
- 4:41Speaker 3: to talk to my mum, but she's simply not available.
- 4:45Speaker 4: And when I try to.
- 4:46Speaker 3: Talk to her, it's pointless because she can't hang on
- 4:48Speaker 3: to it and she can't take any of it in,
- 4:50Speaker 3: and then she forgets anyway what I've discovered because I
- 4:53Speaker 3: spent so much time traveling, and we're running a business
- 4:57Speaker 3: and we have a big family.
- 4:58Speaker 4: Is it every now and again I hear my mother
- 5:00Speaker 4: in my larynx.
- 5:01Speaker 3: So our big kids will give me a call and
- 5:04Speaker 3: I say, hey, Dad, just calling to find out how
- 5:05Speaker 3: are you going? Just wanted to say hi, And I'll
- 5:07Speaker 3: say something like things are so busy right now. I'm
- 5:10Speaker 3: so glad you called, and I really want to talk
- 5:12Speaker 3: to you.
- 5:13Speaker 4: But I've got to.
- 5:13Speaker 3: Catch this plane. I've got to deliver this seminar, i've
- 5:15Speaker 3: got to write this book. I've got to blah blah
- 5:17Speaker 3: blah blah blah.
- 5:18Speaker 4: And I hang up the.
- 5:19Speaker 3: Phone, having had a completely unfulfilling conversation with my kids
- 5:21Speaker 3: and think, oh my goodness, there goes that opportunity for
- 5:24Speaker 3: spontaneous disclosure, there goes that opportunity for real connection and engagement.
- 5:30Speaker 3: So in this podcast, based on this science from not
- 5:33Speaker 3: the University of d but the University of Texas, what
- 5:36Speaker 3: I think we need to do is talk about how
- 5:38Speaker 3: we can develop that trust where your kids feel like
- 5:41Speaker 3: you've got their back, and how we can increase the
- 5:44Speaker 3: amount of their spontaneous disclosure by reducing the chaos in
- 5:50Speaker 3: our lives.
- 5:54Speaker 2: So there's a long list of things that we could
- 5:55Speaker 2: talk about today, but we're going to just stick to four.
- 5:57Speaker 2: Can you do that?
- 5:59Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I can. I promise good.
- 6:02Speaker 2: And I think the first one that we really have
- 6:03Speaker 2: to tagle when you're talking about chaos would have to
- 6:06Speaker 2: be routine, which.
- 6:07Speaker 3: Prompts an eye roll from anybody who's living chaotic clips like,
- 6:10Speaker 3: how do I create routine when there is so much
- 6:14Speaker 3: going on and I've got these near diversity challenges, or
- 6:18Speaker 3: I've got kids who are rebellious, or.
- 6:20Speaker 2: Oh, you've got a husband who travels and comes in
- 6:22Speaker 2: and out of our home.
- 6:23Speaker 4: And messes up the routine and messes up the route
- 6:25Speaker 4: even though he's appearing has good intentions.
- 6:28Speaker 2: Every single one of us has a reason why routine
- 6:31Speaker 2: could possibly not function the way we want it to.
- 6:35Speaker 3: I'm I'm massive on routine. I love the James Clear
- 6:38Speaker 3: stuff where he talks about your rise of fall to
- 6:40Speaker 3: the level of your system or your routine. And during COVID,
- 6:43Speaker 3: oh my goodness, I just had this routine thing down
- 6:45Speaker 3: pat two and a half hours every morning. It was
- 6:48Speaker 3: so perfect time with the kids, time for exercise. But
- 6:51Speaker 3: with travel it's been really.
- 6:53Speaker 2: Tough, even just eating a meal.
- 6:55Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, right time.
- 6:57Speaker 3: So when it comes to routine, I'm going to see
- 7:00Speaker 3: just two things you might want to fill in a
- 7:02Speaker 3: few gaps that I leave. The first thing is I
- 7:05Speaker 3: think we've got to have routines for mornings, making your
- 7:08Speaker 3: morning's magic. I bang this drum all the time, but
- 7:12Speaker 3: while you were away over the last couple of weeks,
- 7:14Speaker 3: I really pushed getting ready for the morning the night before.
- 7:17Speaker 3: Your morning begins the night before. And what I've discovered
- 7:21Speaker 3: is that we've got a couple of kids who hate that.
- 7:23Speaker 3: They don't want to get ready the night before. They
- 7:25Speaker 3: don't like any part of that at all. And yet
- 7:27Speaker 3: when we did it, our mornings were bliss.
- 7:30Speaker 2: I'm going to suggest that outside of that, the most
- 7:35Speaker 2: important factor in morning routine working well, is you actually
- 7:40Speaker 2: being available?
- 7:41Speaker 3: Yes, which means that you've got to get up that
- 7:42Speaker 3: a little bit earlier, be showered, and have had your breakfast.
- 7:46Speaker 3: Because once you're pretty much ready, you can be present
- 7:49Speaker 3: and you don't have to do everything for the kids,
- 7:52Speaker 3: but you can kind of shepherd them through their morning.
- 7:54Speaker 3: You can guide them and say, hey, what's next, or
- 7:57Speaker 3: how about I help you what I found. So our
- 7:59Speaker 3: youngest child, Emily, I'll ask her to do something, and
- 8:03Speaker 3: a minute and a half later, I'll find her sitting
- 8:05Speaker 3: on the floor in the lounge room, halfway through a
- 8:07Speaker 3: chapter of a book, like she's on the way to
- 8:09Speaker 3: her bedroom so that she can put her shoes on.
- 8:11Speaker 3: I'll get a school bag, and she sees a book
- 8:13Speaker 3: on the living room floor and thinks that looks way
- 8:16Speaker 3: better than putting my shoes on.
- 8:17Speaker 2: Oh, she picks up the violin and decides she's going
- 8:19Speaker 2: to practice right then, and there.
- 8:21Speaker 3: Messes up the routine something shocking and yet doing good things.
- 8:24Speaker 3: So keeping everyone on track with the routine is also
- 8:27Speaker 3: critically important. But I think mornings and routine are vital.
- 8:30Speaker 3: The second thing that I think we need a routine
- 8:32Speaker 3: for to make life less chaotic is just meals. And
- 8:36Speaker 3: what I mean by that is a meal list. Here's
- 8:38Speaker 3: what we're having Monday, here's what we're having Tuesday. Get
- 8:41Speaker 3: it really clear so that you're not trying to make
- 8:43Speaker 3: a decision when you walk in the door at five
- 8:45Speaker 3: thirty or six or six thirty, or as you're ferrying
- 8:49Speaker 3: children from one activity to another in the afternoon and
- 8:51Speaker 3: thinking I've got to stop at the shops.
- 8:53Speaker 2: It's going to say. If you've got a meal list
- 8:55Speaker 2: and you're shopping to that meal list, then you are
- 8:58Speaker 2: assured that the things that you need for that meal
- 9:01Speaker 2: to prepare it in the fridge, they're in the pantry.
- 9:04Speaker 2: You've got them all there, and you're not having to
- 9:05Speaker 2: do that, you know, five point thirty run into to
- 9:08Speaker 2: get some sour cream.
- 9:11Speaker 3: I'm going to add to this routine thing as well.
- 9:13Speaker 3: We don't have time for this conversation, so I'm just
- 9:15Speaker 3: going to do dot points. You've got to get enough sleep.
- 9:18Speaker 3: It's got to be part of your routine that you
- 9:19Speaker 3: get the full eight to nine hours a night. You've
- 9:21Speaker 3: just you're a better parent when you do. And somehow,
- 9:25Speaker 3: as unfair as it is for me to say, this.
- 9:27Speaker 3: You've got to get enough exercise. Now I don't have
- 9:30Speaker 3: time for exercise, but I just do it anyway. And
- 9:32Speaker 3: it happens at four thirty in the morning. And I
- 9:35Speaker 3: hate that because it makes it it's really tricky. But
- 9:39Speaker 3: we're better when we're looking after ourselves and we've got
- 9:42Speaker 3: a routine sleep and getting up at four thirty in
- 9:45Speaker 3: the morning can be tricky. Let's not go there right now.
- 9:47Speaker 3: We're making it work. It's done. Second thing that I
- 9:51Speaker 3: think can reduce the chaos make time for connection. Dedicated
- 9:58Speaker 3: time for connection, whether it's a walk or a ride,
- 10:03Speaker 3: or a sit on the couch or playing board games,
- 10:05Speaker 3: playing a board game, laying down in bed next to
- 10:09Speaker 3: the kids for snuggles and tickles and cuddles and whatever else.
- 10:13Speaker 3: Genuine time gives you a sense of margin. Go and
- 10:17Speaker 3: sit on the grass on a picnic blanket in the
- 10:19Speaker 3: backyard if you're lucky enough to have one, and stare
- 10:22Speaker 3: up at the sky for ten minutes with the kids.
- 10:25Speaker 3: Get outside in nature. It changes the way you feel.
- 10:28Speaker 3: It reduces the sense of chaos. Nature time for connection,
- 10:34Speaker 3: removing yourself from the never ending agenda and to do list.
- 10:39Speaker 2: When you think about the fact that what we're actually
- 10:41Speaker 2: trying to achieve here is these spontaneous conversations with our kids.
- 10:48Speaker 2: The idea of creating space for those things to happen
- 10:55Speaker 2: is so important because they don't happen when things feel stressful,
- 11:00Speaker 2: when we're running one hundred miles an hour. They usually
- 11:02Speaker 2: happen when you've decided to have a lie down on
- 11:06Speaker 2: the couch, right, and you're thinking you're going to have
- 11:08Speaker 2: all this time to yourself, and somebody comes over and says, hey, mom,
- 11:11Speaker 2: can we have a chat?
- 11:12Speaker 4: That's the idea of spontaneous disclosure.
- 11:14Speaker 2: Right, or they decide they want to jump all over you.
- 11:17Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 11:18Speaker 2: When you look at the times where your kids have
- 11:19Speaker 2: connected with you one hundred percent, I would suggest it
- 11:23Speaker 2: has been because you have slowed down.
- 11:25Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 11:26Speaker 3: Yeah, reducing the chaos creating margin. Okay, I've lost count.
- 11:30Speaker 3: I know that we've number three. Well, we've kind of
- 11:32Speaker 3: done number three and number four and number five and
- 11:34Speaker 3: a whole lot altogether.
- 11:35Speaker 4: So we're just going to do one more because our
- 11:37Speaker 4: time is running out.
- 11:38Speaker 3: And what I want to suggest is, if we're going
- 11:40Speaker 3: to reduce the chaos, we actually have to be aware
- 11:42Speaker 3: of where we are emotionally, the emotional barometer, self barometer,
- 11:47Speaker 3: where am I at, what am I doing to keep
- 11:51Speaker 3: myself together?
- 11:53Speaker 2: So this is a really tricky one, and for parents
- 11:55Speaker 2: who feel time poor and already feel stretched.
- 11:58Speaker 4: And who are carrying all their back from stuff.
- 12:02Speaker 2: This is one that is kind of confronting for a
- 12:05Speaker 2: lot of people. But over the last few years, I've
- 12:08Speaker 2: recognized for a long time that there are ways that
- 12:11Speaker 2: I respond to things. There are things that I think
- 12:14Speaker 2: and as a result, do, and I just knew they
- 12:17Speaker 2: weren't healthy, and they weren't helping our family or my
- 12:20Speaker 2: relationships with my children or you. And so I came
- 12:24Speaker 2: to a point where I realized that if I wanted
- 12:28Speaker 2: to change the family dynamics, I actually had to work
- 12:32Speaker 2: on me. And just like you, I don't really have
- 12:34Speaker 2: the time for it. It's not like I'm sitting there
- 12:37Speaker 2: going I've got this two hours here, Wonder what I
- 12:39Speaker 2: could do with that two hours.
- 12:40Speaker 3: Yeah, when you say I need time to work on me,
- 12:41Speaker 3: I just think of every parent that I know who's
- 12:43Speaker 3: going but I don't have any time at all.
- 12:46Speaker 2: But what I've realized is if I'm not an advocate
- 12:49Speaker 2: for me, no one else will be. I have to
- 12:53Speaker 2: actually prioritize understanding myself better if I want myself to
- 12:59Speaker 2: be better, if I want to be a better person,
- 13:01Speaker 2: if I want to be able to deal with situations differently,
- 13:05Speaker 2: if I want to respond to my children with love
- 13:08Speaker 2: and understanding and caring and all of the things that
- 13:10Speaker 2: I envisaged, I would be as a mother and not
- 13:13Speaker 2: the screaming banshee that sometimes I become. I actually have
- 13:17Speaker 2: to do that hard in a work, and sometimes it
- 13:21Speaker 2: requires actually leaving the space and creating the emotional and
- 13:26Speaker 2: mental space needed to do that. And other times it's
- 13:30Speaker 2: about getting up half an hour early so that you
- 13:33Speaker 2: have some quiet in the morning to just sit and
- 13:35Speaker 2: reflect and ask yourself questions or read a book that's
- 13:38Speaker 2: going to challenge your way of thinking and make you,
- 13:42Speaker 2: you know, kind of just reassess where you're at. I
- 13:46Speaker 2: think one of the most amazing things that we've experienced
- 13:48Speaker 2: in our home over the last few years is as
- 13:50Speaker 2: I have started to do that hard work, I've been
- 13:53Speaker 2: able to recognize when the kids are starting to get
- 13:56Speaker 2: build you know, their emotions are building up. I've started
- 13:59Speaker 2: to recognize what it is that's actually going on. Instead
- 14:02Speaker 2: of seeing the outburst as this cranky teenager who just
- 14:07Speaker 2: wants to do things their own way, and recognize all
- 14:11Speaker 2: of the angs underneath that, all of the worry, all
- 14:13Speaker 2: of the anxiousness, all of the stress and concern about
- 14:17Speaker 2: who they are and what the world looks like and
- 14:20Speaker 2: whether or not they're going to fail. That's all the
- 14:22Speaker 2: stuff that's going on underneath it. But it just comes
- 14:25Speaker 2: out as anger. It comes out as you know, a
- 14:27Speaker 2: rebellious teenager. They're not rebellious, they're not angry.
- 14:31Speaker 3: But I love how this idea of doing the work yourself,
- 14:35Speaker 3: staying in control of your own emotions, regulating, understanding your
- 14:37Speaker 3: own self, it helps you to respond well to that.
- 14:40Speaker 3: To me, that's the real key right now.
- 14:43Speaker 2: But you can't do that if you don't understand it
- 14:44Speaker 2: in yourself. Yeah, you've got to do that well, go
- 14:46Speaker 2: through that process for you, then you can't be the
- 14:49Speaker 2: mentor that your children need to help them navigate.
- 14:52Speaker 3: And the way you do the work is you read
- 14:54Speaker 3: the books and you listen to the podcasts, and you
- 14:57Speaker 3: invest in you. You go for the I don't know,
- 15:01Speaker 3: I don't do the mindfuls meditation stuff, but some people do.
- 15:04Speaker 3: But you do the things that you need to do
- 15:05Speaker 3: so that you can be the best version of you,
- 15:07Speaker 3: and you go and learn what those things need to be.
- 15:10Speaker 2: You'll have people in your circles who do things a
- 15:13Speaker 2: little bit better than you, even if you just spend
- 15:15Speaker 2: time with them and in your conversations. How do you
- 15:17Speaker 2: do that? Yeah, like when life gets you know, when
- 15:19Speaker 2: you're talking about chaos, sometimes chaos isn't actually even anything
- 15:24Speaker 2: to do with routine. Sometimes chaos is because there's just
- 15:26Speaker 2: so much emotion in the room.
- 15:28Speaker 4: Yeah, great stuff, great insight.
- 15:30Speaker 3: We're going to link to the study in the Journal
- 15:32Speaker 3: of Family Psychology by psychologist Jackie Nelson. You can find
- 15:36Speaker 3: the study in the show notes if you're interested in more.
- 15:39Speaker 3: But hopefully these four or five, six, I don't know
- 15:40Speaker 3: how many tips we'd ended up sharing will be helpful
- 15:43Speaker 3: in making your family a little less chaotic. Get the
- 15:47Speaker 3: routine right, create dedicated time for connection in space, be
- 15:54Speaker 3: self aware, regulate and connect with those kids.
- 15:58Speaker 1: So.
- 15:58Speaker 3: The Happy Family Podcast is produced by Justin Rola for
- 16:00Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. If you'd
- 16:03Speaker 3: like Mari fold about making your family happier, we would
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- 16:13Speaker 3: world leading experts, literally some of the best minds on
- 16:17Speaker 3: the planet talking about teams and how we can reduce
- 16:20Speaker 3: the chaos. More navana, less drama. The Smells Like Teen
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