Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #136 Year 12 Muck Up Days Get Foul

Transcript

#136 Year 12 Muck Up Days Get Foul · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: When I mentioned that Chuddley sucks thing on Facebook, somebody
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: said that was a rookie error. You don't use weed killer,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: you use fertilizer. Oh that is so good. It's the
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time poor parent
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: who just wants answers. Now. Hello, my name's doctor Justin Coulson.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Here with my co host, Missus. Happy Families, Day three,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Day three. We're doing a daily podcast. We're doing our
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: best to keep time. It's amazing how fast ten minutes goes,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: isn't it?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: It is? And I'm really surprised you haven't broken up
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: with me yet.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Oh no, this has been fun. I love talking with
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: you about this stuff. I kind of feel like we're
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: talking about stuff that we don't usually talk about because
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: we're so busy being mum and dad and parents. This
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: has been fun. So we're the parents, have six children,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: six daughters, aged from our early twenties down to our
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: six and a half year old, and and I've written
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: six books about raising happy families. Today a topic that
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: is well, it's probably for adult is only. You probably
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: don't want the kids to hear this one.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Well, this is something that's been hitting the news a
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: lot in the last few weeks. You sent me an
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: article the other day that has me really just bewildered
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: as a parent about the year twelve markup days that
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: are happening. You know, I remember when I was in
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: year twelve, not being involved in it.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not surprised you can remember. It wasn't that long
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: ago for you. I mean, goodness me, did you get
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: involved in your twelve makeup date? No?
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: I didn't get involved in it, but I remember coming
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: to school on the last day and the boys had
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: been in there nice and early, and they had gone
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: and collected every single picnic table that the school had
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: and created a pyramid of picnic tables right in the
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: center of our assembly area.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So I'm just going to pause you right there and say, inconvenient,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: a little bit naughty, but it's actually pretty funny.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: It was a pretty good one, yeah.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Like if you've got a sense of humor, especially if
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: they took a responsibility for it and put it away later,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: which they did, which they did. I mean, this is
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: just a bunch of kids who are goofing off and
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: having the.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Year before the year twelve's they filled a room up
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: with balloons, right like completely filled this room up. They
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: must have been blowing for days.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: That's great. So at my school for year twelve, Mike
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: updates And so I graduated in the very very early nineties.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: You were sort of in the mid nineties area. We
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: did this thing. Well again, I wasn't involved in it.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Some of the cool kids did this thing where they
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: they drizzled honey all over the handrails throughout the school.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: It is gross and I don't actually know I reckon
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: because I know that there was The school was pretty
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: cranky about it. I'd say that they figured out who
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: it was and that they did clean it up, but
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know for certain. All I know is that
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: they made a pretty big mess.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine the ants.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's pretty bad. And it's all undercover, right,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: the handrails on, so there's no rain to wash it away.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: It had to be clean. And the other thing that
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: they did was that they got weed killer went down
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to the oval and our deputy principal at Central Coast
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Grammar School was a guy by the name of Peter Chudley.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't have much to do with mister Chudley, but
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the naughty kids had a lot to do with him,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and nobody really liked him, especially the naughty kids that
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: had to deal with him a lot.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: You just do some artwork on the grass.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: They did some artwork on the grass with weed killer. Yeah,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: they went down to the oval and they wrote Chudley
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: sucks in the school oval with the weed killer. And
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: you know, you can actually laugh at it because even
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: though it's unkind, it's kind of it's harmless fun. It's
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the kind of prank that you'd expect from teenagers who
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: are goofing off.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I know some people who are going to listen to
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the podcasts and say, oh my goodness, that's appalling. I
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: don't think any of that's appropriate, and I get where
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: you're coming from, but I also think that we want
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: to give kids a bit of latitude and let them
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: let their head down a little bit. And the year
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: twelve mark up day has been a tradition in Australian
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: high schools for decades.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: I think for the most part. You know, obviously our
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: memories of it were very harmless.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: And inappropriate, and you want them to take responsibility for it,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: but pretty funny. When I mentioned that Chuddley Sucks thing
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: on Facebook, somebody said that was a rookie error. You
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: don't use weed killer, you use fertilizer. Oh that is
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: so good.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: But anyway, the news at the moment, the news at
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: the moment is not pretty.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: What's happened over the last few weeks in a number
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: of news publications is that teenagers finishing year twelve have
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: been caught creating lists of activities that need to be
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: done on year twelve markup day. And you get points
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: for doing different activities, and depending on the seriousness of
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: the activity, And when I say seriousness, I mean how
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: far below community standards you go, You get more and
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: more points, and whoever gets the most points wins the
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: year twelve markup Day, scavenger hunt. They're despicable, they're appalling,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: But these are actually at the low end. It gets
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: much worse than this. But some of the activities were
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: spitting on a homeless man, punching somebody that you don't know,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: just you know, go up and hit a random go
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and punch them. There was nudity and exhibitionism and sexual
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: intimacy in public. It leaves me speechless.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've got a question for you in relation
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: to that. If your child was involved in something like that.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: How do you respond, So, do you mean if our
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: child that's just wow? Yeah, So that's not a question
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: that I was expecting you to ask. If I had
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a child and they were caught up in something like that,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, I would be broken. I
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: would be devastated to find that they were involved in
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: illegal activities or in such disrespectful activities that completely utterly
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and in every way lack empathy. That'd be devastating. Before
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I say what I would do, I think it's worth
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: highlighting that these are news reports, right, And you know
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: what we say when kids get scared about what they
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: see in the news, we say to them, it's only
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the news because it's so unusual. Things are only newsworthy
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: because it's not what normally happens. We've got so much
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: evidence that kids these days are the worst they've ever been,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: except that that evidence has been around every single generation
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: for the last couple of millennia. You know, like, we
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: always worry about kids these days, and I think that
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: it's right that we worry about a certain proportion of kids,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: because there are some kids these days who really need
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: some help and have some really concerning attitudes and exhibit
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: those through their behaviors. But it's always been the case.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: There were kids at school when I was at school
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: who would have thought that stuff was funny. They it's
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: so hilarious. That's the word, right. If somebody's doing something
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: that's despicable, the word is hilarious. It's so hilarious. Why
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: because if you can laugh at it, then you're part
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: of the inn group and it makes it okay.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Yes, So are senior students acting out because they want
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: to be more popular, they want to be included. Why
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: is this become the norm of muck up?
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that we need to also recognize or
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: ask the question is it the norm? And I don't
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: think that it is. That's why it's newsworthy. I don't
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: think that most I deal with teenagers every single day.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I don't think that this is normal behavior for teenagers,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: and I don't think that most teenagers think that it's normal.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: I don't think most teenagers think that it's cool. I
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: know that there's a sub section of them who do.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: But that sub section existed when we were kids, and
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: it probably existed when our parents were kids as well,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: and you can go back generation after generation. There's always
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: been a subset of the population who's like that. The
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: other thing that I would say is there are adults
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: today who think that that sort of stuff's okay as well,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and even think that sort of stuff's cool and want
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to do it for bragging rights or for social media
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: kudos or whatever. So I just don't think that this
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: is typical of teenagers today or at any time. It's
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: not typical. It's only typical of a very small percentage
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: of them. I think it's unlikely that we're going to
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: see this kind of behavior from this extraordinary class of
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty that have gone through so much this year.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: So do you think this is a conversation we need
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: to be having with our scene.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I think that that's much more valuable. And I'd imagine
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: that in the schools where these lists have been found,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: those conversations have been more than had I reckon the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: riot acts would have been read out to these kids.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: As a parent, let's talk about what we can do proactively.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: If you've got a child who's in year twelve, you
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: want to have a chat with them like you would
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: before school. Is you want to have a chat with
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: them and say it's almost over it's been quite a year.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: What are your plans. We've heard these stories in the media.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: We're concerned for you. And then I'd go through my
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: three e's of effective discipline. Let's explore what are your
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: thoughts when you hear about these lists? How would affect
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: our family? How to affect you if you were to
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: be caught up and involved in any of this, Like
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: any teenager who's sitting down with their parent and actually
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: having that conversation is probably not going to go ahead
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: with any of that behavior. You might explain what your
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: expectations are, but I'd do that pretty briefly. If they
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: don't need a lecture, they already know and that I'd
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: empower them. I'd say what I would say to our
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: kids is we've got a daughter, Abbey who's finishing year
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: twelve right now, and I'd say, Abby, a great time
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: when you twelve's finished. I hope you really enjoy being
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: with your friends. I believe in you, I trust you,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I love you, I reckon. That kind of a conversation
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: where we empower them is going to be so much different.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Is it possible that some of them will go, oh,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: got you? Haven't I marm got you? Haven't. I yeah,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I reckon. There's going to be a handful of teenagers
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: who do it, but they would do that anyway. They're
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: certainly going to do it. If we come down and
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: say if I ever catch you, so help me, they're
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: going to like, you won't catch me, don't worry. I'll
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: be really tricky. I'll be sneaky. So I think that
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that's the better conversation to have. Now, if you've got
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: a child who actually does some of this stuff, that's
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the bit that gets really hard. And I think that
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: if I was a parent of a child who did that,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: i'd sit down with them and I'd say, I need
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: you to know that I love you no matter what.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I'm so sad about what happened, but I love you
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: no matter what. And I'm not interested in why you
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: did it, because you probably can't give me a good
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: reason anyway. But I want to know what you've learned
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: because of it and what's going to happen in the future.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Let's focus on the future.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I think that's a really powerful conversation to have.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: You're the best. Well, I'm glad we got to have
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: this conversation as well. If you've enjoyed the podcasts. Please
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: leave us a rating and a review, and there's been
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a bunch of reviews that have been coming through lately.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I want to read this one to you. It comes
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: from there's lots of m's and eyes and ends. Mimi
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Mimini me. I think it says, and this person said,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: five star review, it's like having a friend hold your
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: hand navigating the tricky world of parenting. Dr Justin Colson,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for this wonderful podcast and all
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: your happy families tips. Thank you well, Mimi Mimminy. I'm
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: sorry if I got that wrong. Thank you so much
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: for your five star review and rating it. It's these
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: reviews that actually give us encouragement to keep the podcast
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: going and do everything that we do. Thank you so
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: very much. And a quick note, Class of twenty twenty.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: We think you rock. We believe in you, and we
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: think that you can do great things. Please stay away
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: from those scavenger huntless though. I don't think they're going
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: to serve you or our community well at all, or
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: your school or your family. You know what, If you
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: want more info about what we do, visit our Instagram page.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: You can visit doctor Justin and Colson's Happy Families on
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Facebook or you can jump onto Happy families dot com
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: dot You. Also a quick reminder tonight if you're a
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: member of the Justin Colson's Happy Families membership page, missus
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Happy Families, You've got something big happening tonight. You're going
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: to be running book club. Book Club.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm very excited.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So if you're not a member, please become a member
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: and join book Club. Tonight. Kylie is going to be
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: going through the first chapters of twenty one Days to
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a happier Fan, to a happier family. Really excited about that,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and we will be doing a Q and A tomorrow
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: night for premier members as well. So loads going on
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: in the membership if you haven't checked it out Happy
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: families dot com dot Au