Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #459 No Point Crying Over Spilt Juice

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#459 No Point Crying Over Spilt Juice · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Time poor parent who just wants answers. Now here's this
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: little girl who wants to do something for her self.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: It's called Independence. And now here's the stars of our show,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: my mom and dad.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I'm so excited our house is getting photos taken.
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  Speaker 3: And because I've got so much to do in the office,
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  Speaker 3: I've had to call a special favor in missus Happy
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Families has left the coast and come back to the
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: house to get the house looking great for the photos.
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  Speaker 1: The kids are at school.
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  Speaker 3: We've only got a few hours, and I said, while
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  Speaker 3: you're here, can we please record a podcast or two
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: or three because.
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  Speaker 2: You're really really pushing it. You know about, don't you.
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  Speaker 3: But it's so nice to have you in the studio
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: with me and to have proper sound audio quality.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: It's just so fantastic.
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  Speaker 2: And I are radio to be concerned, and.
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  Speaker 3: I know, I know that you've got lots to do
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  Speaker 3: and I need to come and help you. But we've
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  Speaker 3: got some really cool stuff to talk about over the
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  Speaker 3: next couple of days, and we're going to put it
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: all together in this great recording session.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm so excited. For those of you who are
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  Speaker 1: new to the.
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  Speaker 3: Podcast, I'm justin and I'm Kylie. Oh my goodness, that
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  Speaker 3: was so enthusiastic. You actually caught me by surprise.
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  Speaker 1: Then.
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  Speaker 3: I'm the founder of Happy Families dot com dot au
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  Speaker 3: and the host of Channel nine's Parental Guidance, which season
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  Speaker 3: two is coming up real soon. We're still looking for
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  Speaker 3: one or two more families to join in, by the way,
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  Speaker 3: so go and type in Parental Guidance Channel nine and
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  Speaker 3: your Google search bar and sign up. We would love
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  Speaker 3: to have some more families in there, Kylie. Today we're
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  Speaker 3: having a conversation about something that absolutely blew up on
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  Speaker 3: Facebook and Twitter last week.
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  Speaker 2: It actually never ceases to amaze me. What gets people?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the stuff that, yeah, I know, I doubt so.
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to press play on this video. It's a
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  Speaker 3: video of a little girl. I'm going to guess she's
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  Speaker 3: probably about two maybe maybe not even too maybe twenty
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  Speaker 3: twenty two months, really little girl African American kids. She's
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  Speaker 3: got a hair in the pig tails. I mean, she's
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  Speaker 3: just the you just kid.
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  Speaker 1: Ever.
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  Speaker 3: She's standing on a dining chair at the dining table,
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  Speaker 3: and she is pouring juice a craping. It's like a
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  Speaker 3: two or three littered bottle of juice, and it was
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  Speaker 3: about half full when she started. She's pouring juice into
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  Speaker 3: the cup. But right now I'm watching her go oh,
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  Speaker 3: that didn't work.
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  Speaker 2: She gives it another guy.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if you heard that. That was the
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  Speaker 1: That was the juice splashing under the floor.
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  Speaker 3: And she's got this grape big smile on her face,
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  Speaker 3: like I'm doing it. The cup is filling, like she's
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  Speaker 3: missing the cup mostly until she's down to the.
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  Speaker 1: Last quarter of the bottle and all of a sudden
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  Speaker 1: she's filling it up. She sets it all.
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  Speaker 3: She's so stoked about it. Then she picks it up
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  Speaker 3: one last time. There's only like I don't know, fifty
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  Speaker 3: milli liters left, and she's like, yeah, I got this.
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  Speaker 1: That was the bottle. The empty bottle landing on the floor, and.
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  Speaker 3: She picks up this glass of juice and starts to
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  Speaker 3: sip at it. I mean, it's so full that it's
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  Speaker 3: now ever flowing. There's red I think it's cranbridge. There's
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  Speaker 3: red cranberry juice everywhere, all over the table. And then
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  Speaker 3: at the end of it all, she kind of thrusts
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  Speaker 3: her hip out of the side and punches the air
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  Speaker 3: like yes, Yes, I did it. This thing has had
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  Speaker 3: eleven point four million views. That's been retweeted on Twitter
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  Speaker 3: thirty three point seven thousand times.
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  Speaker 1: It's had two hundred and eighty four thousand likes.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, a little kid pouring juice into a class
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  Speaker 3: and making a mess.
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  Speaker 1: Who would have thought that it could go that viral, But.
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  Speaker 3: Kylie when we shared it on the Happy Family's Facebook page. Now,
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  Speaker 3: now let's just be clear about one thing. Social media
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  Speaker 3: goes sideways no matter what you say, Like it's really
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  Speaker 3: really hard to get a social media post where somebody
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  Speaker 3: doesn't have something to say that's negative about it. And
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  Speaker 3: this thing blew up with some people being so happy
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  Speaker 3: and some people being really upset about what.
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  Speaker 1: Was going on.
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  Speaker 2: As a young mum, the thought of having my todd
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  Speaker 2: love poor two liters of juice all over the table
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  Speaker 2: and floor would have probably sent me to an asylum.
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  Speaker 2: I just don't think that I could have coped with that.
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  Speaker 1: So let's be serious about it for a second.
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  Speaker 3: Some people were really really upset that it was a
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  Speaker 3: waste of juice, it was a waste of money, it
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  Speaker 3: was a whole lot of mess and why would you
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  Speaker 3: let your child do that with a body? Now, not
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  Speaker 3: to be clear, it wasn't full. It was only about
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  Speaker 3: half full when she began. So it's not like.
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  Speaker 2: But it's an adult sized bottle.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
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  Speaker 3: So the jug is half full, that the bottle is
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  Speaker 3: half full, and juice is messy and sticking.
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  Speaker 1: It's also expensive.
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  Speaker 3: And you and I were having a conversation about it,
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  Speaker 3: and you said, when you were in your past life
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  Speaker 3: as a childcare worker, sometimes people get offended when you'd
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  Speaker 3: send time macaroni necklaces.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there are so many different cultures and
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  Speaker 2: life style choices. And for people who you know, are
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  Speaker 2: struggling from wheat to weeat to food on the table.
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  Speaker 3: Or who have come from have come from countries where
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  Speaker 3: you just don't have enough food to turn the food
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  Speaker 3: into a necklace and a plaything.
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  Speaker 2: Just to see their kids playing with food is really offensive.
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  Speaker 2: It really kind of you know, cuts to the core
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  Speaker 2: of the things that they feel important about.
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  Speaker 3: So when we think about this scenario, what we're actually
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  Speaker 3: talking about is a mum is videoing her little girl,
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  Speaker 3: but she's teaching her a concept. She's teaching her daughter
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  Speaker 3: to pour from a bottle into a glass, And you
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  Speaker 3: might say, well, is it developmentally appropriate to teach a
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  Speaker 3: two year old to actually do this? And if you
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  Speaker 3: were going to do it, wouldn't you do it outside?
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  Speaker 3: And when you do it with a plastic cup, and
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  Speaker 3: when you do it with a whole lot less water
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  Speaker 3: not juice, so you're not going to have the sticky mess.
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  Speaker 3: So we just want to we want to highlight at
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  Speaker 3: the outset. We get it, We know that's the obvious
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  Speaker 3: stuff that we can talk about and for people who've
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  Speaker 3: found that challenging to watch, fair enough, not necessarily what
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  Speaker 3: the point of it was all about, but fair enough,
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  Speaker 3: we get that it's inconvenient and when you're a young mum,
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  Speaker 3: who's really got time to clean up that much juice
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  Speaker 3: off the floor, and how hard is it because it's
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  Speaker 3: so sticky? But the real purpose of us talking about
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  Speaker 3: it here on the podcast and the purpose of sharing
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  Speaker 3: the video on Facebook is because we've got to give
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  Speaker 3: our kids the opportunity to grow, the opportunity to learn,
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  Speaker 3: and often it's through making those kinds of mistakes and
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  Speaker 3: making the big mess that goes along with those kinds
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  Speaker 3: of mistakes that really makes a difference.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes I think we just get so caught up in
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  Speaker 2: the nitty gritty of things, like the real specificness of
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  Speaker 2: what's happening in that video.
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  Speaker 3: Can I be really specificness right now? It's not a word,
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  Speaker 3: not even a word, but I know what you mean.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes on Facebook or social media generally, people will be
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  Speaker 3: like that. I've got a problem with that. Without stepping
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  Speaker 3: back a little bit.
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  Speaker 2: It's a bigger picture here, right here's this little girl
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  Speaker 2: who wants to do something for her self. It's called independence.
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  Speaker 2: And she's only not even two.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think though, I mean, do you hand it
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  Speaker 3: two year old? Let's just get caught up on this
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  Speaker 3: like everyone else for a second. Do you hand a
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  Speaker 3: two year old half a bottle of juice adult size
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  Speaker 3: and expected to be able to pour it and get
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  Speaker 3: it right?
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  Speaker 2: No, you don't. But her mum didn't expect her to
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  Speaker 2: pour it.
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  Speaker 3: Let's change the context. Let's say you're going to teach
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  Speaker 3: the kids to drive. I mean, do you just hand
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  Speaker 3: them the keys and say, hop in the driver's seat,
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  Speaker 3: let's see what you've got.
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  Speaker 2: That's exactly what you do. Actually, now, do you mention
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  Speaker 2: it that's exactly what you do. You literally put them
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  Speaker 2: in outside of your house, probably the most expensive.
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  Speaker 1: Commodity that you own, yep, with.
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  Speaker 2: A set of keys, with you sitting that. They literally
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  Speaker 2: are in charge of your life.
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  Speaker 1: They've got complete control, haven't they.
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  Speaker 2: That's exactly what you do.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they do.
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  Speaker 3: But then there's probably a little bit more instruction. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: as you heard from that clip, the mum didn't give
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  Speaker 3: any instructions.
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  Speaker 2: But you don't know whether it was the first time
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  Speaker 2: or the third. Of course, you don't know what happened.
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  Speaker 2: And that's it. You're looking at like one little snippet,
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  Speaker 2: did she clean it up at the other and we
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  Speaker 2: don't know it stopped?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've got I've got four kids that I've
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  Speaker 3: taught to drive now and I literally now, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: I was using this against you, but now I'm completely
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  Speaker 3: in agreement with you. I've handed them the keys, I've
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  Speaker 3: driven them to a quiet street. I've put them somewhere safe,
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  Speaker 3: which is what that mum did. And I've known that
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  Speaker 3: they're probably gonna make a lot of mistakes, but I've
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  Speaker 3: given them the keys, shown them how the clutch works,
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  Speaker 3: and then I've said, let's do this all we.
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  Speaker 2: Know she'd put tows down before she even gave me.
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  Speaker 3: It didn't sound like towers are on that floor based
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  Speaker 3: on this flash. Oh, come on, go with me, all right,
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  Speaker 3: after the break, we're going to talk about the psychology
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  Speaker 3: of how we help our kids to develop competence, why
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  Speaker 3: it matters, and why we both actually think that this
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: mum did something awesome. It's their Happy Families podcast.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: For a happier family, Try a Happy Families membership, because
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: a happy family doesn't just happen. Details at happy families
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: dot com dot au. It's the Happy Families podcast, the
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: podcast for the time poor parent who just wants answers
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: now And as long as I'm not cleaning.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Up juice, it's a great video to watch.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: It's an awesome videot to watch.
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  Speaker 3: All right, So I'm going to step into doctor justin
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  Speaker 3: call some lecture mode for a couple of minutes here, Okay,
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: but feel free to don't let me dominate. I don't
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: want a man's plain here. I want to be helpful.
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  Speaker 3: So we have a basic psychological need for competence, and
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  Speaker 3: we are born with it from the minute our children
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  Speaker 3: well maybe not from the very minute, but their brains
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  Speaker 3: are working and work trying to decipher and understand the environment,
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  Speaker 3: and as soon as they start to develop, they want
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  Speaker 3: to be in control. They want to increase in their capacity.
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  Speaker 3: This is why they keep on trying to learn to
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  Speaker 3: walk or to crawl, or to maneuver, or to lift
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  Speaker 3: or to grasp or whatever. They're developing competence.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that video shows that so beautifully. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: especially there's a desire.
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  Speaker 3: She wants to do it, and the fizz pump at
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  Speaker 3: the end when she's done it, She's like, yes, I'm competent.
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  Speaker 2: Who doesn't want to feel competent? Like who does not
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  Speaker 2: want to have that rush of going I did that?
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  Speaker 3: And the research shows that when we stifle our kids'
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  Speaker 3: opportunities to develop competence and we say, hang on, I'll
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  Speaker 3: do that when we helicopter, when we have, and when
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  Speaker 3: we stop, when we control, we undermine their sense of competence,
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  Speaker 3: which is bad for their a motivation and be their
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  Speaker 3: resilience and well being.
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  Speaker 2: If I just kind of walked into that room halfway
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  Speaker 2: through because she was making a mess and freaking out,
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  Speaker 2: and I had have done what most of us would
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  Speaker 2: do in any moment of that video, so.
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  Speaker 1: Stop what are you doing? Or put that down or gone.
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  Speaker 2: And used my hands to help her. What would have
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  Speaker 2: happened in about nine times out of ten.
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  Speaker 3: What would have happened is you wouldn't have had any mess,
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  Speaker 3: but you wouldn't have had a child who was developing
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  Speaker 3: the competence.
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  Speaker 2: That's not the answer I want to doctor Justin Coleson,
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  Speaker 2: what are you looking for? I would have had a
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  Speaker 2: tantruming two year old who was screaming at me saying
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  Speaker 2: I want to do it myself.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Because competence, like and autonomy, these two basic psychological needs.
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  Speaker 3: So if we want to help our kids to develop competence,
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  Speaker 3: we have to expect that they're going to make a
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  Speaker 3: mess all over the floor, and we've got to be
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  Speaker 3: okay with that.
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  Speaker 1: Now, there are things that we can do to the car,
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  Speaker 1: or there are.
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  Speaker 3: Things that we can do to minimize the likelihood of
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  Speaker 3: this happening, or at least minimize the significance of the
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  Speaker 3: consequences of the mistakes. So, for example, you could use water,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: and you could use a plastic cup, and you could
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  Speaker 3: do it outside or.
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  Speaker 2: In the bath.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, sure, and so that minimizes but we still want
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  Speaker 3: them to have the failure experiences because they're going to
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  Speaker 3: learn more from having the failure experience. And I love
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  Speaker 3: I mean, the mum's given a half a bottle of juice,
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  Speaker 3: not a full bottle. Can you imagine if we've got
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  Speaker 3: a two year old trying to pour out a two
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  Speaker 3: lead a bottle of juice. Two big, too heavy, impossible,
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  Speaker 3: but half a bottle, It's doable. Second thing that I
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  Speaker 3: want to highlight is what Vaygotsky called the zone of
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: proximal development. And what that is is basically, there's something
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  Speaker 3: that a child is capable of and they can do
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  Speaker 3: it without any support at all. And then there's something
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  Speaker 3: that a child is only capable of if they have
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  Speaker 3: a little bit of assistance, a little bit of additional support,
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  Speaker 3: what psychologists will often call scaffolding. And when we get
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: our kids working in the zone of proximal development, what
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: that means is that we're giving them the room to
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: stretch to do something that they couldn't do, but we're
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  Speaker 3: setting them up in a way that they've got that
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: little bit of supervision. And my favorite way of describing
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: it is when I use the balance beam analogy, which
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: is Basically, when if we can use this as a metaphor,
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  Speaker 3: our children are walking across a balance beam that we
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  Speaker 3: call the balance beam of life. And what a lot
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  Speaker 3: of parents do is when their kids start to fall
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  Speaker 3: off the balance beam, they jump up onto that balance
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  Speaker 3: beam and they pick them up and they say, don't worry,
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  Speaker 3: I've got you. You're safe, and they carry them across
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  Speaker 3: the balance beam. But we can't carry our kids across
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  Speaker 3: the balance beam of life. They actually have to take
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  Speaker 3: those steps themselves. It's through taking the steps that they
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  Speaker 3: develop and grow and build competence. Some parents have an
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: opposite response, completely other end of the spectrum, and they say, oh,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: it looks like they're going to fall. Oh a bit,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: that hurt, and they let them make all the mistakes
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: in the world. And sometimes that's really bad because the
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: fall from the balance beam can be really, really harmful.
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  Speaker 3: That's the tough en uugh princess kind of approach to
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  Speaker 3: resilience and to life. But in a perfect world, what
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: we would do instead is we would walk beside our
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: children as they walk along that balance beam, and as
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: they start to tip or stumble, we might reach out
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  Speaker 3: and just let them lean against our hand. For support
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: so they don't fall without actually lifting them and without
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: letting them fall. In other words, they make the mistake,
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: they stumble, but instead of hitting the ground, they get
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: to lean against our hand, recover, have a look at
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: what they've done wrong. Then we take our hand away
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: so they can take the next step on their own.
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  Speaker 2: I think so often as parents, and I am as
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: guilty as the next person to do this, we limit
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  Speaker 2: our kids' capacity because we're scared that they're going to fail. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we're scared, Yes, we're scared they're going to fail. Or
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  Speaker 2: we're scared that they're going to make a mess of things.
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  Speaker 2: And if you hadn't asked everybody at the beginning of
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: that video, before they'd seen it, whether they thought she
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: was capable of pouring glass of juice, I reckon most
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  Speaker 2: people would have said.
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  Speaker 3: And even if they said yes, would people give her
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  Speaker 3: the bottle and say, okay, let's see. So it's one
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  Speaker 3: thing to say yes, capable, it's another thing to say
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  Speaker 3: and I'm going to let you try.
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  Speaker 1: And that's the thing.
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  Speaker 3: How many of our lives, I mean, we are who
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: we are to such a large extent because of the
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  Speaker 3: mistakes we've made because of the errors, the fumbles, the missteps,
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  Speaker 3: And I just love this video because it highlights that
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  Speaker 3: if we let our kids make the mistakes, they'll figure
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  Speaker 3: it out. And the crowning moment is the bit where
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: they do figure it out and they raise their hand
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  Speaker 3: in the air and pump the air like, yeah, baby,
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  Speaker 3: I'm the champion.
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  Speaker 1: I got this. I feel competent.
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  Speaker 2: It's my victory.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: We hope you enjoy this podcast.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: We will link to the clip in case you missed
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: it in our show notes. The Happy Family's podcast is
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: produced by Justin Ruhland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: our executive producer and if you like Laura in fact
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: about making your family happier, please visit us at Happy
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: families dot com dot au, people bet