Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1265 - Learning to Trust Your Child's Natural Development

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#1265 - Learning to Trust Your Child's Natural Development · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: Do you trust your kids, like really trust them, not
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  Speaker 1: in terms of will they do the things they say
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  Speaker 1: they're going to do, but that they are going to
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  Speaker 1: develop into a healthy, happy, well developed human. That's the
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  Speaker 1: topic of today's podcast. Welcome to The Happy Family's podcast,
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  Speaker 1: Real Parenting Solutions every Day. It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
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  Speaker 1: My name is doctor Justin Couson. Normally I have Kylie
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  Speaker 1: with me, but unfortunately today for this Doctor's Desk episode,
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  Speaker 1: I'm flying solo. Today we're going to be talking about
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  Speaker 1: one of the most powerful shifts that you can make
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  Speaker 1: as a parent. It's learning to trust your child's natural development.
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  Speaker 1: This comes from an older study. It's actually almost twenty
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  Speaker 1: years old, from two thousand and eight. A research by
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  Speaker 1: the name of Renee Landry at McGill University did some
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  Speaker 1: work with some other people including Richard Kasner, Genevieve You
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  Speaker 1: and Mide Jusmi. Lots of French names because of the
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  Speaker 1: area in France that we're talking about, and it's looking
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  Speaker 1: at this thing called trust in organismic development, autonomy, support
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  Speaker 1: and adaptation among mothers and their children. I'm so sorry
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  Speaker 1: for all the big words. Here's what we're dealing with here.
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  Speaker 1: This is a mindset that can transform your parenting experience
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  Speaker 1: and your child's outcomes. I promise no more big words.
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  Speaker 1: So here's what the research shows. Let's just start there. Really, simply,
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  Speaker 1: a handful of research is at McGill UNI studied hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of mums over a number of years so that they
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  Speaker 1: could understand how parental beliefs about child development affect both
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  Speaker 1: parents and kids. And here's what they found. Parents who
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  Speaker 1: trust that children naturally develop at their own pace, rather
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  Speaker 1: than needing constant intervention and acceleration, like my child needs
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  Speaker 1: all of this extra training. The parents who just trusted
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  Speaker 1: that their children would naturally devel about their own pace
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  Speaker 1: had better mental health and felt more competent as parents.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, the parents were thriving because they were
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  Speaker 1: relaxed that their children were going to develop healthily and
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  Speaker 1: safely and appropriately. And here's the kicker for me, their
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  Speaker 1: children showed fewer behavior problems across time. So we're using
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  Speaker 1: observational methods following families for years and even comparing across
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  Speaker 1: cultures to understand what's going on. So let's talk about
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  Speaker 1: this idea of trust in development because this is the
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  Speaker 1: crux of it. This is what we're really talking about here.
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  Speaker 1: Trust in organismic development is not about saying, well, I
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  Speaker 1: trust that the kids will be fine, so I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to have a hands off, permissive approach. Instead, it's about
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  Speaker 1: believing that children have an innate drive to grow and
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  Speaker 1: learn and progress and develop a sense of mastery to
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  Speaker 1: know how to navigate their environment. Well, no one teaches
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  Speaker 1: a baby how to smile or sit up or take
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  Speaker 1: the first steps right. These things unfold naturally. They unfogged
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  Speaker 1: when the child is ready, same with speaking, or even
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  Speaker 1: running or climbing up and down a ladder or a slide.
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  Speaker 1: Trust means accepting as well that development isn't linear. So
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  Speaker 1: some kids will say their first word at nine months,
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  Speaker 1: some kids will say their first word at nineteen months.
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  Speaker 1: Some might even wait until twenty nine months before they
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  Speaker 1: start talking. And for the most part, while this might
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  Speaker 1: some of these might deviate a little bit from what's typical,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that we need to be panicking and
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  Speaker 1: thinking that our child has a problem. We've got this
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  Speaker 1: wide and diverse way that children develop at age one.
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  Speaker 1: We know that some toddlers understand let's say ten words.
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  Speaker 1: We know that other toddlers understand seventy five words. So
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  Speaker 1: when you trust development, you're not constantly comparing your child
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  Speaker 1: to others or panicking about timelines. You're confident that your
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  Speaker 1: child is going to reach milestones when they're developmentally ready,
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  Speaker 1: not when a chart or even a health nurse says
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  Speaker 1: that they should. Unfortunately, we're constantly comparing. We're constantly worried
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  Speaker 1: about whether our child is or is not going to
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  Speaker 1: be okay. So after the break, I want to talk
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  Speaker 1: about the stress trap of controlling parenting, because that's what
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  Speaker 1: these researchers really pointed to, and then how we can
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  Speaker 1: parent with trust. Do you trust that your child is
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  Speaker 1: going to develop naturally and healthily or do you feel
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  Speaker 1: like you need to intervene? Do you need to step
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  Speaker 1: in with control all the time or are you happy
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  Speaker 1: to sit back and be supportive where you're required. When
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  Speaker 1: we don't trust natural development, we fall into what researchers
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  Speaker 1: would typically call controlling parenting. Controlling parenting looks like this,
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  Speaker 1: We push kids to accomplish tasks they're not ready for.
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  Speaker 1: We constantly worry about whether we're doing enough and whether
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  Speaker 1: they're doing enough, and we as parents feel completely ric
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  Speaker 1: responsible for every aspect of their progress. Think about that
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  Speaker 1: list again and ask yourself, where do I land on this?
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  Speaker 1: Am I pushing my child to accomplish tasks that they
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  Speaker 1: may not be ready for? Am I always worried about
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  Speaker 1: whether I'm doing enough or they're doing enough? And do
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  Speaker 1: I feel responsible for every aspect of their progress? If
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  Speaker 1: you do, that means that you're going to experience a
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  Speaker 1: whole lot of stress in your life and you will
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  Speaker 1: actually hinder your child's development. That's the stress trap of
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  Speaker 1: controlling parenting. So basically what happens here is controlling parents
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  Speaker 1: often become what Landry in this study, what they call
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  Speaker 1: ego involved. So your child's performance becomes about how you're
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  Speaker 1: doing as a parent, which means that you're much more
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  Speaker 1: likely to micro manage, much more likely to overstimulate, much
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  Speaker 1: more likely to intervene constantly, which ironically and paradoxically prevents
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  Speaker 1: your child from developing the very self regulation and zic
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  Speaker 1: motivation skills that they need so that they can be
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  Speaker 1: genuinely successful. One of my favorite studies was conducted in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four by Wendy Grolnick. She gets these one
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  Speaker 1: year Odds and their mums to do this simple shape
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  Speaker 1: sorting activity. Do you remember those Fisher price that like
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  Speaker 1: the yellow tube with the blue lidle on the top,
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  Speaker 1: and all the shapes are in there, and you tip
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  Speaker 1: the shapes out, put the blue liddle on, and then
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  Speaker 1: you've got to stick the shapes back through the lid.
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  Speaker 1: That's essentially what the task was. And as Gronic and
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  Speaker 1: her colleagues and Frodi and Lisa Bridges, as they watched
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  Speaker 1: these these mums guide their children to complete the task,
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  Speaker 1: they just saw that some parents were really ego involved.
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  Speaker 1: Some parents were super controlling. That is, they were pushing
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  Speaker 1: the kids to accomplish the task that might have been
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  Speaker 1: just a bit beyond them because they were only one.
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  Speaker 1: They were definitely worried about whether they were doing enough
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  Speaker 1: and where the kids were performing enough, and they felt
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  Speaker 1: like they were responsible if they were controlling parents. But
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  Speaker 1: then there were these other parents who were really trusting.
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  Speaker 1: They sat back, They didn't just let the kids do
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  Speaker 1: whatever they wanted. They still provided frameworks and guidance, but
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  Speaker 1: they just let the kids sort of figure things out
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  Speaker 1: with a little bit of input were required. What was
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  Speaker 1: curious about this is at the end of the activity,
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  Speaker 1: the mums are used to go and stand over by
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  Speaker 1: the wall for another couple of minutes while the kids
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  Speaker 1: are given a new toy to play with. The researchers
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  Speaker 1: were interested in whether or not the kids would play
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  Speaker 1: with the new toy, and if so, for how long
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  Speaker 1: and in what way. And overwhelmingly, what they found was
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  Speaker 1: that the parents who were controlling, the parents who had
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  Speaker 1: that level of ego involvement, the parents who with the
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  Speaker 1: best of intentions one of their children to do really,
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  Speaker 1: really well. Their kids would look at the new toy,
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  Speaker 1: then they'd look at mum, and then they'd crawl across
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  Speaker 1: the room to mum. They didn't know what to do
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  Speaker 1: with the toy. It's like they needed mum to help them.
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  Speaker 1: And that's what the research shows, right, the controlling approach backfires.
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  Speaker 1: Kids with controlling parents actually shown more behavioral problems and
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  Speaker 1: they struggle more with self motivation, like less task assistance,
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  Speaker 1: less curiosity. The kids whose mums were supportive but not controlling, well,
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  Speaker 1: they just sat with the new toy and play. They
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  Speaker 1: looked at mum and smiled every now and again, and
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  Speaker 1: then they played with the new toy. They were creative,
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  Speaker 1: they were trying to figure it all out. So let's
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  Speaker 1: wrap this up with probably the most important question of
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  Speaker 1: all that comes out of this Landry two thousand and
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  Speaker 1: eight study, how do your parent with trust? Especially when
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  Speaker 1: we're in this world where there's so much pressure, so
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  Speaker 1: much expectation that your children are going to grow up
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  Speaker 1: to fulfilled their potential by the time they're nine or
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  Speaker 1: twelve or seventeen, which is just so unfair on the kids.
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  Speaker 1: Trusting development looks like the thing that I wrote about
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  Speaker 1: in my book The Parenting Revolution. It looks like need
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  Speaker 1: supportive or autonomy supportive parenting. So instead of pushing and controlling,
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  Speaker 1: you provide four key ingredients. Here they are. This is
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  Speaker 1: the secret to the very best parenting, because it's parenting
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  Speaker 1: with trust. Number One, when you ask the kids to
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  Speaker 1: do something, you give explanations, fear requists rather than demanding
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  Speaker 1: blind obedience. And the reason you do that is because
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  Speaker 1: when they buy the why, then you're going to have
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  Speaker 1: higher levels of compliance because they're going to integrate and
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  Speaker 1: identify with these ideas and therefore them much more likely
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  Speaker 1: to carry them out. Number Two, you're going to recognize
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  Speaker 1: your child's feelings and perspective. Now, this doesn't mean that
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  Speaker 1: you're going to go all gentle parent and you're going
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  Speaker 1: to say, oh, you can feel whatever you like, and
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  Speaker 1: if you want to be angry, then you can be angry.
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  Speaker 1: Like you're still going to have limits, but you are
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  Speaker 1: going to say this is really hard for you or
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  Speaker 1: sometimes life's tough, like you're going to be compassionate and
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  Speaker 1: kind to your child. The third thing that you'll do
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  Speaker 1: is you're off choices where possible, and I want to
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  Speaker 1: be really clear about it. A choice is not would
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  Speaker 1: you like to wear the green jumper or the red
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  Speaker 1: jumper today? That's manipulation, that's coercion, that's actually force. Choices
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  Speaker 1: are well, what do you think you'd like to do?
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  Speaker 1: And then the last point is that you minimize controlling
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  Speaker 1: techniques like bribes and threats and pressure. When things get
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  Speaker 1: tricky and you're starting to step into control, step back
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  Speaker 1: and say, hang on a second, I don't want to
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  Speaker 1: control you, but let's make sure that we understand why
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  Speaker 1: I'm asking you to do this. I know that you're
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  Speaker 1: not that keen on it. What do you think would
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  Speaker 1: be the best way for us to move forward? And
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  Speaker 1: you work with your kids rather than doing things to them.
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  Speaker 1: Let's go to little kids for a sec. If your
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  Speaker 1: toddler isn't walking yet, you don't drill them with walking practice.
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  Speaker 1: You provide safe opportunities that they can explore movement, and
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  Speaker 1: you trust that they'll walk when they're ready. And you
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  Speaker 1: can take that same principle and apply it at any
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  Speaker 1: age and for any situation. If your preschooler isn't reading,
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  Speaker 1: you don't give them extra special tutoring because they're three
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  Speaker 1: or four and they're not reading. You just read together.
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  Speaker 1: You expose them to letters and words. You don't turn
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  Speaker 1: it into forced lessons. You just show them that reading
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  Speaker 1: is great, and you trust that they'll get there. It's
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  Speaker 1: the same with teenagers and different activities. Participating in the house,
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  Speaker 1: you become a facilitator rather than a director. Your responsive
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  Speaker 1: to their interests. You follow their pace, and you support
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  Speaker 1: their natural curiosity instead of doing what so many of
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  Speaker 1: us do and imposing our own agender on things. This
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  Speaker 1: is really the crux of what the study is. Now,
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  Speaker 1: there are two other things that I quickly want to
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  Speaker 1: touch on. One was the cross cultural aspect. I think
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  Speaker 1: this was really curious. The research showed that Norwegian mums
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  Speaker 1: showed significantly higher trust in development than Canadian mums. They
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  Speaker 1: were the two cultures that were compared their rational their reason.
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  Speaker 1: Norway seems to provide a lot more parental support, long
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  Speaker 1: maternity leave, quality healthcare, stronger social safety nets than Canada.
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  Speaker 1: Australia is not doing fantastically well here. I would expect
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  Speaker 1: that we wouldn't be performing great here. Societies that support
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  Speaker 1: families give parents a whole lot less pressure to feel
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  Speaker 1: like they have to accelerate their children's development. Get them
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  Speaker 1: out the door, get them to school, get them learning,
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  Speaker 1: get them being the ducks of kindergarten. I think that
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of anxiety about our kids progress, and
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  Speaker 1: that's not really about our kids. It's about the social
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  Speaker 1: pressure and the lack of support. And when we recognize this,
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  Speaker 1: we can start to separate things to properly be concerned
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  Speaker 1: about from cultural anxieties that we're told to be concerned about.
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  Speaker 1: But the practical benefits. This is where we're going to land.
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  Speaker 1: This is where we're going to stop. Parents who trust
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  Speaker 1: in their kids' natural development just have better outcomes. They
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  Speaker 1: report greater satisfaction and competence in their parenting role. They're
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  Speaker 1: less stressed because they're not constantly worried about whether the
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  Speaker 1: child's behind. They're making a lot less social comparisons, which
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  Speaker 1: protects them and it also protects their child from unnecessary anxiety,
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  Speaker 1: and the kids benefit as well. The kids develop better
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  Speaker 1: self regulation, they show more intrinsic motivation, they have fewer
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  Speaker 1: behavior problems. They learn to trust their own capabilities. Why
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  Speaker 1: because their parents are trusting them as well. So I
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  Speaker 1: just want to emphasize this one more time. Trusting development
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  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you ignore genuine concerns. If you've got
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  Speaker 1: a child who's showing significant delays, if you've got genuine worries,
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  Speaker 1: then you should absolutely consult health professionals. But if we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about typical creations in development, which can be really significant,
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  Speaker 1: then trust allows both you and your child to relax
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  Speaker 1: into the growth that is going to unfold naturally. Let's
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  Speaker 1: wrap this up. I think, based on the Landry two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and eight study, which is one of my favorite
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  Speaker 1: studies of all time, that the most radical thing that
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  Speaker 1: you can do as a parent might actually be to
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  Speaker 1: trust your child. Trust that they want to grow, trust
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  Speaker 1: they want to learn, Trust that they want to succeed.
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  Speaker 1: And if they're not showing you those signs, like let's
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  Speaker 1: say you've got a really angry teenage son or a
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  Speaker 1: really ornerary teenage girl and they're not looking like they
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  Speaker 1: want to learn and grow and succeed. My question then
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  Speaker 1: would be why what's going on in the environment that
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  Speaker 1: is taking away their desire? Because as humans, we have
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  Speaker 1: an inbuilt curiosity and it might be that they've lost
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  Speaker 1: motivation for certain things, but they're highly motivated for other things. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So that means that one environment is supporting their learning
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  Speaker 1: and growth and another environment is not, And we want
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  Speaker 1: to tap to what's going on there and help them
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  Speaker 1: to find the things that are valuable in the environments
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  Speaker 1: that matter the most. I think that's about it. Oh
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  Speaker 1: one more thing. I want you to trust that development
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  Speaker 1: will happen when your children are ready, not when they
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  Speaker 1: think they should be. I mean, a perfect case in
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  Speaker 1: point is I hated high school, but I went back
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  Speaker 1: to school when I was twenty seven, and that's when
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  Speaker 1: I started my psychology career. Trust creates the space for
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  Speaker 1: authentic development, and it transforms parenting from being a stress
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  Speaker 1: filled job into just the most wonderful relationship where you
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  Speaker 1: get to sit and enjoy supporting your child as they
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  Speaker 1: grow into whoever it is that they are supposed to be.
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  Speaker 1: I really hope that you've enjoyed this insight. I think
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  Speaker 1: that this is one of those studies that we just
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  Speaker 1: don't talk enough about, and some principles that we don't
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  Speaker 1: hear enough about. If you'd like more information, we'll link
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  Speaker 1: to the study by Landry and colleagues in the show notes.
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  Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roulan Media,
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  Speaker 1: and more information and resources to support your family and
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  Speaker 1: trust in your children's organismic development is available in my
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  Speaker 1: book The Parenting Revolution, or online at happyfamilies dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot au.