Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #562 The Pursuit of Happiness

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#562 The Pursuit of Happiness · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  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 answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now, if we do things because we think they're going
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  Speaker 2: to make us happy, we will often not always, but
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  Speaker 2: we will often be disappointed.
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My mum
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  Speaker 1: and dad.
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  Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson, the founder of Happy
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  Speaker 2: Families dot com dot you. It's a Monday morning. Kylie,
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  Speaker 2: my wife who has six kids podcast partner is thing
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  Speaker 2: opposite me yawning because that's what Mondays are for, right,
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  Speaker 2: big weekend. I don't be big weekend, bit tough. Woke
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  Speaker 2: up a bit late this morning, just a little not
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  Speaker 2: feeling great. We are so grateful that you've chosen to
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  Speaker 2: join us today. We're having a conversation about whether or
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  Speaker 2: not we're responsible for our kids happiness. When I ask
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  Speaker 2: this question in workshops, it's the number one response. The
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  Speaker 2: question is what do you want most of your kids?
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  Speaker 2: And everyone always says.
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  Speaker 3: I want them to be happy.
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  Speaker 2: I hear it again and again and again, and today
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  Speaker 2: I want to bust the myth that it's our responsibility
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  Speaker 2: to make our kids happy. In fact, I want to
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  Speaker 2: expose the lie that it is that we need to
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  Speaker 2: make our kids happy. I want to argue that that's
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  Speaker 2: not our job. Not that I'm suggesting that we're therefore
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  Speaker 2: here to make our children miserable. That's not it either.
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  Speaker 3: I think that we have just lightened the load of
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  Speaker 3: every parent ever, but we.
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  Speaker 2: Need to explain why. And so what we're going to
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  Speaker 2: do because you're not feeling one hundred percent today is
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  Speaker 2: I've put together a list of five things that go
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  Speaker 2: wrong when we try to help our kids to be
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  Speaker 2: happy when we think that it's our responsibility. So you
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  Speaker 2: can sort of just join in the conversation around that,
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  Speaker 2: but I don't want to put too much of a
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  Speaker 2: load on you, because not my job to make you happy,
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  Speaker 2: on your job to make me happy. And then, oh,
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  Speaker 2: I just thought of a sixth one. And then after
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  Speaker 2: the break, we're going to play around with what we
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  Speaker 2: are actually responsible for. If we're not responsible for our
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  Speaker 2: children's happiness, what are we as parents responsible for other
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  Speaker 2: than clothing and feeding in sheltering them.
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  Speaker 3: Well, let's dive into it. What's the first one.
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  Speaker 2: The first one is that if you think that you're
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  Speaker 2: responsible for your children's happiness, you're often going to make
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  Speaker 2: short sighted decisions.
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  Speaker 3: I think about this all the time because I can't
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  Speaker 3: even count the amount of times that we've taken the
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  Speaker 3: kids on an outing or you know, spent a whole
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  Speaker 3: heap of money that we probably really didn't have, but
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  Speaker 3: we were desperate to put a smile on their face.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, spend spend quality time together as a family,
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  Speaker 3: only to get in the car or maybe not even
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  Speaker 3: make it to the car after a wonderful day out
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  Speaker 3: and have someone griping because there's not enough leg room
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  Speaker 3: on the car, or the sibling next to them is
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  Speaker 3: breathing in their air, or whatever it is. It just
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  Speaker 3: blows out of proportion after all of that effort that
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  Speaker 3: we've gone into.
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  Speaker 2: I'm thinking theme parks, right, you take the kids to
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  Speaker 2: theme park because we want you to have an awesome day.
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  Speaker 2: But they fight on the way to the theme park.
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  Speaker 2: They fight and winge and complain because you.
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  Speaker 3: Don't I don't want to go on that ride, they
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  Speaker 3: want to go on this ride.
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to sit next to dad, not Mum.
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  Speaker 2: And then and then when you take your picnic lunch,
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  Speaker 2: because you're not prepared to spend forty six dollars want
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  Speaker 2: on one burger and chips plus an extra twelve dollars
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  Speaker 2: if you want the forty cents worth of softering that
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  Speaker 2: you have to buy. I just and the kids winge
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  Speaker 2: and whinge wing. And you're thinking, but I did this
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  Speaker 2: so that you would be happy, and that right there
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  Speaker 2: is the problem. But we make all of these short
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  Speaker 2: sided decisions. The kids winging, and so we say, well,
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  Speaker 2: I just want you to be happy, so I don't
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  Speaker 2: have to go to school today, or the kids winging,
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  Speaker 2: and we said, well, I just want you to be happy,
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  Speaker 2: so yes, I'll buy you that treat in the supermarket.
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  Speaker 2: It's short sided decisions that don't actually make the kids happy. Like,
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  Speaker 2: let's say you do let them stay home, are they
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  Speaker 2: truly are actually happy? Let's say you do buy them
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  Speaker 2: in the treat? Do they treat everyone well?
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  Speaker 1: Like?
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  Speaker 2: Are they happy? After that? It doesn't. It just doesn't
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  Speaker 2: work out that way. So we make short sided decisions
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  Speaker 2: when we think that we're responsible for our children's happiness,
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  Speaker 2: and it rarely works to anyone's real advantage.
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  Speaker 3: What's number two?
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  Speaker 2: The second one is that it's impossible to satisfy our
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  Speaker 2: children's craving for happiness.
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  Speaker 3: Weren't satiable. It is.
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  Speaker 2: There's a psychological reference to the hedonic treadmill. So hedonism
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  Speaker 2: is avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. And when you get
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  Speaker 2: on the hedonic treadmill, what happens is you get something
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  Speaker 2: that feels really good, and then you keep on chasing
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  Speaker 2: more and more of that good stuff. You become acclimatized,
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  Speaker 2: You become accustomed, you become habituated to all of the
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  Speaker 2: goodness in your life. And as you become familiar and
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  Speaker 2: comfortable with all of the stuff that made you happy,
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  Speaker 2: once it's no longer enough, it doesn't make you happy anymore.
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  Speaker 2: You need more.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I'm thinking about the multiple times I may have
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  Speaker 3: read fifteen books a bedtime instead of one because it
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  Speaker 3: just was never enough. And now that we've got a
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  Speaker 3: seven eight year old.
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  Speaker 2: Who is reading on her own, reading.
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  Speaker 3: Chapter books, one chapter is not enough. We're up to
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  Speaker 3: three chapters an I dad.
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  Speaker 2: I fall asleep. I asleep when they ask me to
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  Speaker 2: read because I just can't read that long at night.
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  Speaker 2: Once my head once on horizontal anyway, it's impossible to satisfy.
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  Speaker 2: So when you think that you're responsible for your kids happiness,
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  Speaker 2: you keep on pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing,
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  Speaker 2: which it's just too much, which kind of leads to
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  Speaker 2: my third idea, and that is that being responsible for
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  Speaker 2: somebody's happiness is actually an impossible burden to carry because
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  Speaker 2: your kids are always going to have experiences. Not always,
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  Speaker 2: but your kids are going to end up being mad
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  Speaker 2: or sad or bad, feeling horrible, and then you feel
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  Speaker 2: like it's your job to make it all better. And
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if this is helpful or not, but
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  Speaker 2: I want to make it really clear it's not your
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  Speaker 2: job to make it better as a parent. You don't
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  Speaker 2: have to fix it because they're feeling bad. You don't
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  Speaker 2: have to fix it because they're feeling sad. You don't
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  Speaker 2: have to fix it because they're feeling mad. What you
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  Speaker 2: do need to do is let them know that you
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  Speaker 2: get it and there to support them as they figure
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  Speaker 2: it out. But what we do is we sit there
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  Speaker 2: on the carpet, laying beside our children, reading four and
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  Speaker 2: chapter five, because we just want them to be happy.
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  Speaker 2: We just want them to know that we're there for them.
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  Speaker 2: We just want to connect with them. Now, I'm not
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  Speaker 2: saying that we shouldn't connect and that we shouldn't enjoy
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  Speaker 2: quality time together. But it becomes pathological once we start
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  Speaker 2: to think that we're responsible for their happiness, and if
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  Speaker 2: they're not feeling happy, that we are the ones who
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  Speaker 2: are responsible to do something about it.
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  Speaker 3: Well and right, you know, and then we're burdened by
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  Speaker 3: the fact that our children are unhappy.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what's before number four is that
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  Speaker 2: when we think that we are responsible for our children's happiness,
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  Speaker 2: we actually set them up to fail in life. Because
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  Speaker 2: if they think that their happiness, that their emotional stability,
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  Speaker 2: that their emotional wellbeing is predicated on somebody outside of themselves,
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  Speaker 2: what are they going to do when we're not around.
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  Speaker 2: What are they going to do when they're at university
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  Speaker 2: or when they're in a relationship with another adult. Are
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  Speaker 2: they going to think that other person is responsible for
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  Speaker 2: their happiness? Going to think that it's all that other
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  Speaker 2: person's fault that they're not having a good day. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: sometimes other people can interfere with our otherwise best laid
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  Speaker 2: plans and we can feel like we're having a bad day,
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  Speaker 2: But we were actually setting our children up to fail
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  Speaker 2: because they're looking to external sources to satisfy their sense
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  Speaker 2: of well being, and it's so unhealthy, it's not going
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  Speaker 2: to be in anyone's best interests.
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  Speaker 3: It's interesting that you've brought this one up, because it's
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  Speaker 3: something that I've actually really only come to fully understand
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  Speaker 3: as an adult, that concept that this is actually my gig,
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  Speaker 3: it's up to me. But for so long I looked
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  Speaker 3: to external sources to kind of get that lift and
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  Speaker 3: that happy. And I didn't like being on my own,
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  Speaker 3: not because I don't enjoy being in my own space,
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  Speaker 3: but I just love being with other people. But I
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  Speaker 3: was relying on them to make me feel good.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that brings me the last thing, and that
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  Speaker 2: is that nobody can actually make you feel good. I
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  Speaker 2: can't make somebody happy, I can't make somebody sad. I
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  Speaker 2: can certainly treat people in a particular way that is
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  Speaker 2: going to make it easier for them to choose one
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  Speaker 2: thing or the other. But something that I have noticed,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, we've made no secret of it. Over the
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  Speaker 2: last few weeks, we've had some particularly challenging times with
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  Speaker 2: one of our children, but a couple of our kids
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  Speaker 2: have been giving us a bit of a rough old time,
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  Speaker 2: and one thing that has come back to me again
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  Speaker 2: and again and again, is that I'm not responsible for
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  Speaker 2: their happiness and they can't make me miserable, so I
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  Speaker 2: can give them all the love and compassion in the world.
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  Speaker 2: But ultimately, when I step out of that room, it's
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  Speaker 2: on me how I feel, It's on me, how I react.
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  Speaker 2: It's on me whether it gets me down or whether
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  Speaker 2: I say, well, that's the way they are right now,
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  Speaker 2: but that doesn't mean I have to be miserable as well.
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  Speaker 3: I think it takes a level of maturity to get
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  Speaker 3: to that point, and.
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  Speaker 2: It's one that I've been trying to make with our children,
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  Speaker 2: somewhat unsuccessfully for some time now. Your sister is not
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  Speaker 2: responsible for your happiness, and they're like, yes, yes, They're
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  Speaker 2: convinced that their sisters are the ones that are making
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  Speaker 2: them angry, that are making them sad, that are making
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  Speaker 2: them mad. And it's that consistent water torture, just that
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  Speaker 2: little drop once and then once again and once again
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  Speaker 2: to me saying you choose, you choose, you choose. After
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  Speaker 2: the break, If we are not responsible for our children's happiness,
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  Speaker 2: what are we responsible for? Imagine a relationship where you
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: felt seen, heard and valued, one where as your partner
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: enters the front door, they see you and their eyes
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  Speaker 2: light up. A relationship like that is a gift. If
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: you don't have it now you can. The Happy Family's
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: webinar Better Together gives you the insight, tools and support
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: you need to have a happier relationship, Available now at
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: the Happy Family's webshop.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: It's the Happy Famili's podcast, the podcast for a time
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  Speaker 3: Poor Pairs who just wants answers now? And I'm curious,
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  Speaker 3: if we're not responsible for our kids happiness, what are
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  Speaker 3: we responsible for? Doctaicals.
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  Speaker 2: The first thing I'm going to say is that we're
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  Speaker 2: responsible for teaching our children to find their own happiness,
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  Speaker 2: and they're most likely to find it not by searching
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  Speaker 2: for it. If we do things because we think they're
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  Speaker 2: going to make us happy, we will often not always,
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  Speaker 2: but we will often be disappointed. In fact, happiness often
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  Speaker 2: comes from the anticipation of something, not doing it. You
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  Speaker 2: struggle with this one, don't you. I've talked about this
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  Speaker 2: before with the chocolate cake analogy. The anticipation of the
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  Speaker 2: chocolate cake is actually often better than the chocolate cake itself.
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  Speaker 2: It's the excitement of the trip that's quite often better
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  Speaker 2: than the trip itself. Not always, not always, but our
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  Speaker 2: brain gets so excited about things. You're looking at me like,
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  Speaker 2: I still don't buy it When.
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  Speaker 3: You say our holiday, I agree with that wholeheartedly. More
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  Speaker 3: times than not, the actual living through a holiday is
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  Speaker 3: not anywhere near as good as I imagined it would be,
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  Speaker 3: especially if the kids are involved.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.
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  Speaker 3: But I'm still going to say that eating the chocolate
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  Speaker 3: cake is better than anticipating it.
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  Speaker 2: You've always said that since the first time I shared
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  Speaker 2: this idea with you. But we are responsible for helping
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  Speaker 2: our kids to find their own happiness, and there's a
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  Speaker 2: handful of ways that we can do that. The first
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  Speaker 2: one is we need to teach them how to understand
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  Speaker 2: their emotions.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a big one. I think that so often,
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  Speaker 3: especially as kids, but I think even as adults, we
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  Speaker 3: get so overwhelmed by the emotion we don't even know
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  Speaker 3: what it is, and so helping them to understand it
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  Speaker 3: helps them to recognize that they actually have control over.
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  Speaker 2: It, right, And that's the critical thing. Nobody else can
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  Speaker 2: make you feel happy or sad. And when you start
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  Speaker 2: to understand how your emotions are working, that your emotions
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  Speaker 2: are just giving you information that you can accept that
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  Speaker 2: information or you can argue against it. That there are
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  Speaker 2: different ways to deal with the emotional information that's coming
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  Speaker 2: through your system. As that starts to resonate for your children,
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  Speaker 2: they start to learn how to regulate those emotions better
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  Speaker 2: and choose for themselves how they want to be presenting
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  Speaker 2: in the world, how they want to be showing up
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  Speaker 2: critically important. So we've got to help our kids to
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  Speaker 2: understand emotions. Usually we're going to do that best by
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  Speaker 2: emotion coaching. While emotion coaching, especially as suggested by Professor
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  Speaker 2: John Gotman, is often well done in the moment, my
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  Speaker 2: experience with our kids has been that it doesn't work
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  Speaker 2: so well in the moment. My experience with you is
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  Speaker 2: that it doesn't work so well in the moment. Sometimes
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  Speaker 2: it does, but it takes a lot of practice. It's
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  Speaker 2: a really heavy skill to learn. It takes a lot
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  Speaker 2: to learn to do it, especially in the moment. But
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  Speaker 2: emotion coaching doesn't have to take place just when someone's emotional.
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  Speaker 2: You can deal with the emotion coaching process much more
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  Speaker 2: effectively sometimes after the emotional outburst, when things have calmed down,
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  Speaker 2: or a week later, or a day later or whatever
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  Speaker 2: it might be. Another way that we can help our
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  Speaker 2: children to find their own happiness is to teach them
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  Speaker 2: how to have positive relationships. Teach them what a real
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  Speaker 2: friend is like, what a real friend is not like,
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  Speaker 2: how to deal with conflict and control issues, how to
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  Speaker 2: repair relationships when they go wrong. When we learn how
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  Speaker 2: to do those things, when our kids learn how to
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  Speaker 2: do those things and get better at the social interactions
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  Speaker 2: that they're involved with, when their relationships improve, they're going
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  Speaker 2: to be happier.
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  Speaker 3: As you shared that, I remembered a couple of instances
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  Speaker 3: where our children have had pretty significant falling outs with
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  Speaker 3: their friends and they've come home just a mess. Whether
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  Speaker 3: it be your eye, we've got them in the car,
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  Speaker 3: we've driven them up the road, and they've been able
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  Speaker 3: to go knock on the door of their friend, and
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  Speaker 3: literally just that process has been it's just so beautiful
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  Speaker 3: to watch it because they're upset and they're burdened by
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  Speaker 3: what they're feeling, and if they don't face it, it
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  Speaker 3: just fest is and they create a mountain out of
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  Speaker 3: what was probably a molehill to start with. And every
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  Speaker 3: single time these two girls have just crashed, just didn't
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  Speaker 3: teach you other and given each other a big hug
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  Speaker 3: and cried and said sorry and life goes on.
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  Speaker 2: And that ties in with the next idea that I
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  Speaker 2: wanted to share. If you want to help your kids
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  Speaker 2: to be happier, not only do they need to get
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  Speaker 2: relationships right and learn how relationships work and how to
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  Speaker 2: have good relationships, but they need to learn how to
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  Speaker 2: do hard things and saying sorry or asking for help.
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  Speaker 2: They're hard things to do. But can I just give you,
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  Speaker 2: like huge kudos on what you've just described. I hope
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  Speaker 2: that every parent who's listened to this podcast heard what
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  Speaker 2: you just said and got it. When the kids are
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  Speaker 2: fighting with a friend, sometimes instead of just leaving them
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  Speaker 2: to figure it out for themselves, sometimes the best thing
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  Speaker 2: you can do is stick them in the car and
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  Speaker 2: trap them to their friend's house and go knocking on
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  Speaker 2: the door and say, oh, my kid needs to talk
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  Speaker 2: to your kid. Can we just get them together.
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  Speaker 3: For a minute.
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  Speaker 2: You've done that a handful of times with our kids
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  Speaker 2: over the years, and relationships are restored. But it's doing
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  Speaker 2: hard things. If you want your kids to be happy,
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  Speaker 2: you can't give them an easy life. You've got to
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  Speaker 2: ge them the opportunity to do things that are hard,
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  Speaker 2: to invent, or to get curious, or to push their limits,
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  Speaker 2: or to try and to fail and to I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: memorize lines in a musical, or learn how to play
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  Speaker 2: an instrument, or get good at a sport, or practice
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  Speaker 2: an art, do karate, whatever it is. Doing hard things
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  Speaker 2: makes us happy. I know the kids winge and wine
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  Speaker 2: and complain and say this is the worst day. Hey,
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  Speaker 2: there's a coach down doing this. I don't want to
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  Speaker 2: do this anymore. And yet by pushing through those hard times,
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  Speaker 2: they tend to be so grateful and tend to be
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  Speaker 2: much happier because they did something hard. It builds resilience,
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  Speaker 2: It builds self efficacy, it builds confidence, it builds satisfaction.
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  Speaker 2: It actually creates happiness as a byproduct, not as an
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  Speaker 2: end in itself.
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  Speaker 3: I love it. What's a five?
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  Speaker 2: The last one is that we need to teach them
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  Speaker 2: to be responsible for their own emotions, for their own happiness,
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  Speaker 2: which is kind of the recurring theme of this podcast.
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  Speaker 2: They get to choose, they get to choose if they're
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  Speaker 2: going to be angry. And we've had this conversation conversation
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  Speaker 2: with our kids, so many times. You know what you
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: get to choose. You get to choose if you want
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: to lay here and be miserable or if you want
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: to get up and come and join us be happy.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: And every now and again, O kids have looked at
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: us and said, I choose misery. Yes, I'm like, okay,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: that's your choice. We're going to go out there and
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: we're going to smile and have a great time because
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: we love being together. When you feel like doing that,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: come and join us. They get to choose.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: But if we're being completely transparent, every now and again,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: you and I choose misery too.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: We do because we're human, like I've done a few
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: times over the last couple of weeks because it's been hard.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: But we really hope that these ideas are helpful for
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: you and your family. When we think that we're responsible
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: for our kids' happiness, or anyone's for that matter, we
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: make shortsighted decisions. We put an impossible load on our
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: own shoulders. We set our children up to fail. We
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: will never actually satisfy them anyway. And all we do
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: is kind of suthe ourselves in the moment, makes it
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: makes selves feel like we're doing a good job. We're not.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: What we're responsible for is helping our kids to find
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: their own happiness, not by searching for it, but by
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: understanding their emotional world, by practicing healthy relationships, by doing
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: hard things, by repairing relationships, and by being responsible for
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: their own emotions.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: It's a big list.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not supposed to be easy. Missus Happy Families.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: I'm not responsible for people being happy to have heard it.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: I just want to share the ideas. The Happy Families
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Bruce is our executive producer, and if you'd like more
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: information about how to make your family happier, you can
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: find a whole lot of content about the stuff we're
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: sharing in this podcast on our Facebook page Doctor Justin
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Colson's Happy Families