Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The 6 Worst Parenting Tips We’re Never Taking Again

Transcript

The 6 Worst Parenting Tips We’re Never Taking Again · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: There is so much helpful parenting advice out there, so
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  Speaker 1: much that makes you go, oh, that's definitely going to help.
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  Speaker 1: It's going to make me a better parent, it's going
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  Speaker 1: to increase the quality of my connection between myself and
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  Speaker 1: my children. I need to do this. And Instagram, TikTok
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  Speaker 1: and the other social platforms are some of the places
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  Speaker 1: where you get that advice. But my goodness, there's some
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  Speaker 1: bad stuff out there as well, not helpful at all.
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  Speaker 1: And today I'm the Happy Families podcast where you get
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  Speaker 1: real parenting solutions every day because we're Ausralia's most downloaded
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  Speaker 1: parenting podcast, Kylie and I are going to walk you
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  Speaker 1: through our three what would you call it, the three
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  Speaker 1: pieces of parenting advice that we're going to ignore forever
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  Speaker 1: and teach our kids to ignore and hopefully help you
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  Speaker 1: encourage you to ignore as well. Stay with us. So, Kylie,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to get you to kick it off with
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  Speaker 1: your first one, and we're going to go like you me,
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  Speaker 1: you me, you me, and let's share the three things
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  Speaker 1: each that we think we should ignoring as parents because
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  Speaker 1: the parenting advice is terrible.
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  Speaker 2: So my first one is the whole myth that controlled
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  Speaker 2: crying is an opportunity for babies to learn independence. Yeah
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  Speaker 2: through distress.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah Yeah, that bad idea.
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  Speaker 2: And fundamentally misunderstands how attachment works.
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  Speaker 1: I've got to jump in really quickly. I spoke to
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  Speaker 1: somebody just the other day who was all for control crying,
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  Speaker 1: and I asked them how old their child was, and
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  Speaker 1: it was like a three month old child or something
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  Speaker 1: like that, and I was just like, I'm totally against it.
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  Speaker 1: But even if you are going to do it, research
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  Speaker 1: in this specific area is actually quite clear. There's not
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  Speaker 1: a lot of good research on control crying, letting them
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  Speaker 1: cry it out, but there is clear research that if
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  Speaker 1: your child is under six months, you don't do it, it's
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  Speaker 1: bad for the child, full stop, end of story. Just don't.
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  Speaker 1: I just wanted to put that in as a public
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  Speaker 1: service announcement. But anyway, back to you, So there's a
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  Speaker 1: reason that you don't like it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, when we ignore our babies prime reform of communication,
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  Speaker 2: what are we teaching them. We're teaching them that they
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  Speaker 2: don't matter like it just it breaks my heart and
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  Speaker 2: I can't. I can't do it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And we've been there and we've been through it,
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  Speaker 1: and it's It's pretty brutal, isn't it like a really
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  Speaker 1: really rough, rough thing to do, Kylie. My first one,
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  Speaker 1: My first one is that timeouts teach consequences. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I've been on a personal mission to eradicate super nannies
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  Speaker 1: you need a timeout thing from the Parenting Resource Manual
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  Speaker 1: for about twenty years now. Timeouts are essentially punishment disguised
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  Speaker 1: as pedagogy. That is, I'm trying to teach you something here.
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  Speaker 1: But you know what they do. They prioritize adult control
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  Speaker 1: over any learning and relationship repair. When you put a
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  Speaker 1: child in time out, you just make them into the victim,
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  Speaker 1: and they you make yourself their enemy. The only learning
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  Speaker 1: that happens is a plot revenge, like they learned.
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  Speaker 2: I was about to say, like, who in their right
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  Speaker 2: mind things that getting their child and try and then
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  Speaker 2: isolating them is going to create any positive feelings in
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  Speaker 2: their relationship.
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  Speaker 1: I'm glad to use the word isolation. So doctor Daniel Siegel,
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  Speaker 1: who wrote The Whole Brainchild, he highlights that isolation during
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  Speaker 1: emotional distress actually impairs the developing brain's capacity for self regulation.
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  Speaker 1: And if there's no self regulation, there's not going to
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  Speaker 1: be any learning. Children when they're struggling with their behavior.
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  Speaker 1: They don't need banishment. They need connection, they need problem solving,
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  Speaker 1: They need someone to help them understand their feelings, not
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  Speaker 1: just suppress their behavior. So my first one is, let's
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  Speaker 1: let's just not take any advice. Pairing advice that I'm
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  Speaker 1: ignoring time out is good for kids? Not true. I
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  Speaker 1: can't believe I just made that noise. All right, what's
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  Speaker 1: your second one?
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  Speaker 2: Number two for me is responsiveness spoils your child? Just
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  Speaker 2: this advice that just treats love like this finite resource.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, you're spoiling them, You're giving them attention, You're going
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  Speaker 1: to spoil them.
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  Speaker 2: I yeah, And I think that the idea that giving
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  Speaker 2: our children attention is actually going to do them damage
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  Speaker 2: is so far from the truth it breaks my heart.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's like this old fashioned traditional concept
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  Speaker 1: that if you spoil your child, it's basically saying your
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  Speaker 1: kid's naturally manipulative, as opposed to your children are naturally
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  Speaker 1: seeking connection and security. To me, that's the central thing there.
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  Speaker 1: You are not spoiling your child if you give them
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  Speaker 1: attention they need. Your responsiveness would be my response to that.
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  Speaker 1: After the break, my last two, including what to do
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  Speaker 1: about tantruming children. Apparently if you ignore it, it'll stop.
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  Speaker 1: And the myth that we're supposed to let our kids
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  Speaker 1: learn to self soothe. And I know you've got a
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  Speaker 1: classic that you might read about in Jane Austen. Okay, Kylie,
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  Speaker 1: I've got to You've got one piece of pairing advice
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  Speaker 1: that we've decided that these things just need to be ignored.
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  Speaker 1: There's so much good advice out there, and yet the
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  Speaker 1: bad stuff persists and prevails all too often.
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  Speaker 2: You say ignored, I say abolished.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, abolished, ignored. Anyone who does this needs to sit
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  Speaker 1: in the naughty chair for forty No, that doesn't. I
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  Speaker 1: thought that was really funny. I thought that was really funny.
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  Speaker 1: All right, here's my next one. Just ignore the tantrum
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  Speaker 1: and it will stop. Is pairing advice that I think
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  Speaker 1: needs to be thrown in the dust bin and we
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  Speaker 1: need to come up with better solutions. What do I
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  Speaker 1: mean by that? So research shows that kids who receive
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  Speaker 1: empathy when they're emotional learn to develop better emotion regulation
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  Speaker 1: of skills than kids who are ignored, which makes sense, right,
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  Speaker 1: Like if you're having an outburst and somebody comes to
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  Speaker 1: you with a little bit of softness and validation. It
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  Speaker 1: says you having a really tough time, aren't you? Or
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  Speaker 1: you're really upset, aren't you. It helps your system to
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  Speaker 1: reset and recalibrate all of those stress hormones, all of
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  Speaker 1: that adrenaline and nore adrenaline of the cortisol at all subsides.
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  Speaker 1: Because now you feel connection, and you feel security, you
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  Speaker 1: feel empathy. It just feels good. Is my analogy. If
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  Speaker 1: I've got a friend who is distressed, I'm not going
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  Speaker 1: to ignore them. I'm going to go to them and
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  Speaker 1: put my arm around them and say, you look like
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  Speaker 1: you're having a really bad day. I'm here for you.
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  Speaker 1: I don't understand why we think that abandoning children in
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  Speaker 1: their most vulnerable moments teaches them anything except that our
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  Speaker 1: love is conditional. Some one goes in the bin. Just
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  Speaker 1: ignore the tantrumental stop wile I out of garbage. We
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  Speaker 1: need to consign that to the annals of parenting history.
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  Speaker 1: What's your last one?
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  Speaker 2: You tease? This has been something you'd find in Jane Austin,
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  Speaker 2: and yet it's still prevalent in today's society that the
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  Speaker 2: idea that children should be seen and not heard. And
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  Speaker 2: I would think that often most parents would actually push
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  Speaker 2: against this idea that they support it. But the reality is.
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  Speaker 1: In practice, in practice.
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  Speaker 2: We hate it when our kids push back. We hate it.
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  Speaker 2: We call it disrespectful, and we call it backchat.
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  Speaker 1: Right, we just want compliance, We just want to get
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  Speaker 1: us to do as they're told, to be quiet and
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  Speaker 1: make life easy.
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  Speaker 2: But what we actually do is when we silence our kids'
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  Speaker 2: voices and we don't allow them a safe place to
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  Speaker 2: work through their emotions and they're questioning their curiosity around
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  Speaker 2: this and they're pushback on it, we're actually teaching them
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  Speaker 2: that their opinions don't.
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  Speaker 1: Matter, and that ignoring their voice, to.
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  Speaker 2: Ignore their own voice, and to never question authority just
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  Speaker 2: because someone's in a place of authority doesn't make them right.
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  Speaker 1: We need to teach them to be respectful when they
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  Speaker 1: push back. I mean, we've just done a podcast about
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  Speaker 1: that on Monday. Kids need to be considerate, and all
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  Speaker 1: too often they're clumsy in the way that they push back.
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  Speaker 1: But I just love that. I think that's exactly right
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  Speaker 1: and a little bit less Jane Austen because it's twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty five.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the goal is quiet compliance, it's raising humans who
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  Speaker 2: can think for themselves, think critically, and communicate clearly.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, I love it. Here's my last one. The advice
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  Speaker 1: that's out there, I hear it all the time is
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  Speaker 1: that kids need to learn to self soothe. All right,
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  Speaker 1: so you've got a child who's emotionally disregulated and they
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  Speaker 1: need to learn to calm themselves down. The reality is
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  Speaker 1: it's really helpful if they can. But when you've got
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  Speaker 1: a four year old who's having a tantrum because they
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  Speaker 1: got the wrong color mug or bowl, or they didn't
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  Speaker 1: get what their brother got or their sister got, and
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  Speaker 1: they're having a tantrum, that's they're not going to learn
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  Speaker 1: to self soothe in that moment. And the time that
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  Speaker 1: they're most likely to learn to self soothe is when
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  Speaker 1: they have a parent who's willing to pause, be in
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  Speaker 1: that tough space with them and show them how it's
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  Speaker 1: done to coregulate with them.
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  Speaker 2: I'm so got to use that word, because that's exactly
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  Speaker 2: what I was thinking. We're not actually supposed to do
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  Speaker 2: this on our own, We're actually supposed to do this.
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  Speaker 1: I was going to say that, I went on, yeah
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  Speaker 1: exactly right, Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, coregulation is how we do it. We catch other
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  Speaker 2: people's car, we catch other people's piece, we catch other
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  Speaker 2: people's love. And it's not about codependency. It's acknowledging that
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  Speaker 2: when we have big emotions, we just need someone to
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  Speaker 2: see us.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I soothe myself way better if I'm emotionally distressed
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  Speaker 1: when I spend time with you, or if I'm emotionally
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  Speaker 1: distressed because of you, which happens very very infrequently. I
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  Speaker 1: soothe myself better when I get to just be in
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  Speaker 1: the company of others.
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  Speaker 2: And sometimes you don't even need them to do anything.
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  Speaker 1: We are ultra social people. In fact, just talking about
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  Speaker 1: this now it reminds me of so the guy behind
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  Speaker 1: attachment parenting, that parenting style that you hear about from
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  Speaker 1: time to time. Doctor Alan Shaw. His research on attachment
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  Speaker 1: shows that emotion regulation develops through thousands repeated experiences of
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  Speaker 1: coregulation with caring people around you.
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  Speaker 2: You think about, you're having a bad day, you don't
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  Speaker 2: want to be around anyone, but somebody love pushes you
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  Speaker 2: out the door and says, come on, we're going to
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  Speaker 2: go and do something. Nine times out of ten you
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  Speaker 2: have the best day ever, and not because you've talked
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  Speaker 2: about anything particular, but you've actually you've gone through a
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  Speaker 2: coregulation process together without even knowing that that's what you've done.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just had a thought about that. How you
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  Speaker 1: have to have the repeated, thousands and thousands of experiences
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  Speaker 1: of coregulations so that you can learn how to do it.
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  Speaker 1: Expecting a child to calm themselves down without first learning
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  Speaker 1: how to have being shown how to with somebody else,
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  Speaker 1: like how it feels to be calmed is kind of
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  Speaker 1: like expecting them to learn how to read without ever
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  Speaker 1: having been read to just doesn't happen anyway. They are
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  Speaker 1: our well, my three and your three so six parenting
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  Speaker 1: ideas paring advice that we are ignoring forever and ever
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  Speaker 1: and ever. And we really hope that our kids listening
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  Speaker 1: to this podcast for the rest of their lives so
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  Speaker 1: that they can learn how to not do those things.
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  Speaker 1: We really hope that you like that. Jump onto Facebook
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• 10:56
  Speaker 1: and let us know what do you reckon? Is the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: best pairing advice that should be best pairing? What is
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  Speaker 1: the pairing advice that should be ignored? I got that
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  Speaker 1: round the wrong way hunt you did. Yeah, what is
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  Speaker 1: the pairing advice that you're ignoring? We want to know
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  Speaker 1: on our Facebook and Instagram pages. Jump on there now
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and let us know tomorrow. On the pod, I'll do
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: better Tomorrow. It's where we draw life lessons from all
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  Speaker 1: the mistakes that we've made as parents. Hopefully we can
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  Speaker 1: give you some good advice tomorrow. I can't wait for
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: that one. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Roland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides admin support and
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: additional research. If you would like more information about making
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: your family happier, visit us at happyfamilies dot com dot au.
• 11:31
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• 11:33
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• 11:36
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• 11:42
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