Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #37 Conversations with Kids

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#37 Conversations with Kids · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is the Happy Family's podcast with doctor Justin Coilson,
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  Speaker 1: where Luke and Suzy and this is the podcast for
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  Speaker 1: the time poor parent who just wons answers Now.
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  Speaker 2: Parenting is so easy, right, talking to your kids as
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  Speaker 2: a breeze. I've experienced a couple of situations with this recently,
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  Speaker 2: where as an adult having a conversation with our children.
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  Speaker 2: We've got an eight year old and two six year
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  Speaker 2: olds where I was caught between you know, like, how
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  Speaker 2: much do I like? One of them was about discipline,
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  Speaker 2: and one of them was about, you know, whether I
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  Speaker 2: was arbitrary with them, and they thought that I was
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  Speaker 2: just being mean for the sake of being mean, and
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  Speaker 2: the other one they wanted to walk a long distance
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  Speaker 2: without parental supervision. And I was caught between telling them
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  Speaker 2: about the dangers of a child of eight years old
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  Speaker 2: being by themselves versus not wanting to scare him unnecessarily
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  Speaker 2: of the dangers of the world. And it suddenly all
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  Speaker 2: of this happened in a couple of days, and I
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  Speaker 2: realized how difficult a balance it is to talk to
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  Speaker 2: our children about adult things in a way that gives
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  Speaker 2: them respect and teaches and makes us not seem like
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  Speaker 2: arbitrary idiots, but at the same point not forcing him
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  Speaker 2: to have to try and understand adult concepts. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 2: how do I navigate those conversations? Doctor Justin Kilson from
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  Speaker 2: Happy Families dot com dot please tell me how to
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  Speaker 2: talk to my.
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  Speaker 3: Children softly, quietly, we love with compassion.
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  Speaker 4: This is such a hard one because we want them
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  Speaker 4: to maintain their innocence. We want them to be creative
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  Speaker 4: and to be curious and to explore. And then we say, oh,
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  Speaker 4: but by the way, if you get curious to explore
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  Speaker 4: over there, something bad is going.
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  Speaker 2: To happen to Yeah, and we know, and we've talked
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  Speaker 2: about this previously. The likelihood or the stats of something
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  Speaker 2: bad happening are very very low. But as a as
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  Speaker 2: an adult, and it's our job as a parent to
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  Speaker 2: be acutely aware of that small percentage of likelihood, But
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  Speaker 2: we don't want to freak them out about it. At
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  Speaker 2: the same point, one of the things we do is
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  Speaker 2: I find myself trying not to do it. But when
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  Speaker 2: we have a conversation with kids, default our catch all
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  Speaker 2: is because I.
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  Speaker 4: Said, so, it's funny because the stats might be maybe
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  Speaker 4: extraordinarily small, But when it happens to you.
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  Speaker 3: The stats don't matter.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right, which is what scares us.
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  Speaker 4: That's exactly that's exactly why we get so worried about it.
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  Speaker 4: That the likelihood of something bad happening is tiny, but
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  Speaker 4: if it does, it's going to shake our world in
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  Speaker 4: such significant ways. Look, I think that one of the
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  Speaker 4: things that we want to do is be really clean
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  Speaker 4: and clear in our conversation. So let's take the whole
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  Speaker 4: walking to school scenario. You want to walk to school,
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  Speaker 4: you're eight years old. As a parent, you want to
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  Speaker 4: encourage your kids to do this, but at the same time,
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  Speaker 4: they need to be aware that it's not necessarily safe
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  Speaker 4: for them to do. That is why, and we don't
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  Speaker 4: need to go into detail, but we do need to
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  Speaker 4: say there are some people who have bad ideas.
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  Speaker 3: They're very unusual, they're very rare.
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  Speaker 4: We hardly ever hear about them, or you know, we
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  Speaker 4: don't even The problem is we don't know who they are,
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  Speaker 4: and therefore we're concerned for your safety and well being.
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  Speaker 3: And then we look for ways that we can set
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  Speaker 3: them up for success.
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  Speaker 4: So we might find that they've got two or three
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  Speaker 4: friends who live nearby who can all walk with them,
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  Speaker 4: and they can all meet at one person's house and
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  Speaker 4: off they go, or they can promise you that they'll
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  Speaker 4: ride their bike really really really fast, which obviously we're
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  Speaker 4: probably not going to let them get away with it,
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  Speaker 4: but you know, it's about having that conversation and exploring
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  Speaker 4: options with them because we want them to have that opportunity.
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  Speaker 4: A couple of years ago, there was a lady called Leonorskanazi.
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  Speaker 4: She let her nine year old ride the subway home
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  Speaker 4: in New York alone, and she wrote a book called
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  Speaker 4: Free Range Parenting about it.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 4: She was criticized globally for a decision to let a
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  Speaker 4: nine year old boy ride the New York subway on
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  Speaker 4: his own. I don't have an opinion about it because
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  Speaker 4: I don't know the context. I don't know the time
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  Speaker 4: of day. Did she do it at eleven pm? Probably not?
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  Speaker 3: Is he big kid for his age? Maybe? Maybe not.
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  Speaker 3: The point is she made an educated.
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  Speaker 4: Adult guess that he was going to be okay, and
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  Speaker 4: he was, and then she wrote about it and she
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  Speaker 4: made a million dollars out of it.
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  Speaker 3: Good for her. Would you do that for your kids?
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  Speaker 3: Would you let them do that? Are you okay with them.
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  Speaker 4: Walking that far to school on their own. And let
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  Speaker 4: me ask you this question. You might say yes to
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  Speaker 4: your son, what would you say to your daughter? And
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  Speaker 4: then how do you explain to your children why if
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  Speaker 4: your answer is different, why that answer is different. We
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  Speaker 4: need to be able to have that conversation.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 4: I can't tell you what to say, because every family
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  Speaker 4: and every neighborhood, at every school and every child is different.
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  Speaker 4: But we do need to have the conversations. It's the
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  Speaker 4: same with sleepovers. Your kids want to go to a sleepover.
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  Speaker 4: Maybe you've got one of those rules that says kids
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  Speaker 4: don't have sleepovers because you or a friend was harmed
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  Speaker 4: at a sleepover or exposed to something that shouldn't have happened,
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  Speaker 4: and so you want to protect your kids. And so
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  Speaker 4: again you make it really clear at this point, we
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  Speaker 4: don't believe that you're old enough. Here's why, and we
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  Speaker 4: provide a really clear Now, sometimes kids going to be
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  Speaker 4: really upset with that, and they're going to put pressure on.
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  Speaker 3: They're going to cry and whipper and moan and mumble
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  Speaker 3: and groan.
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  Speaker 4: And tell you how horrible you are and write horrible
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  Speaker 4: things and leave letters that say I hate my parents.
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  Speaker 3: Because kids do that sort of stuff.
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  Speaker 4: This is their life and they care so much about
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  Speaker 4: having the freedom, and at that point we need to say, well,
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  Speaker 4: you know, how do we protect you, how do we
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  Speaker 4: make sure you're okay? And we might actually negotiate with them,
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  Speaker 4: depending on how old they are, or we might simply
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  Speaker 4: say no because we're the parent. If you were to
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  Speaker 4: draw two circles overlapping, we call that a ven diagram,
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  Speaker 4: and draw these two circles with your kids, and in
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  Speaker 4: one of them write parent decisions and the other one
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  Speaker 4: write child decisions. And then the bit where they overlap,
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  Speaker 4: you draw an arrow into that pit that part and
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  Speaker 4: you say decisions, we negotiate, and then you have a
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  Speaker 4: conversation with the kids. You say, you know what, sometimes
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  Speaker 4: parents just make decisions, and all the things that we
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  Speaker 4: decide on they go in this circle right here. You
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  Speaker 4: might even get them to tell you what some of
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  Speaker 4: those things are. What you eat, what school you go to,
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  Speaker 4: what time you go to bed, for example, whether you
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  Speaker 4: walk to school, whether you go to sleepover parties. And
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  Speaker 4: then in kids' decisions, we say, but you know what,
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  Speaker 4: we want you to make lots of decisions for yourself.
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  Speaker 3: Can you think of any decisions you're allowed to.
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  Speaker 4: Make, and so you write them all there, and now
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  Speaker 4: we've got these ones that we can negotiate. And over
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  Speaker 4: time those circles change shape and size, and the kids
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  Speaker 4: get to make more and more decisions, and the negotiation
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  Speaker 4: space changes as well, and we talk our kids through that.
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  Speaker 4: Now at some point we might say, because of what
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  Speaker 4: you're asking, let's have a look at which circle it
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  Speaker 4: goes in.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, look at that.
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  Speaker 4: It's a parent decision. This is my decision. This is
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  Speaker 4: why I've decided. And because I said so, its not
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  Speaker 4: a reason, by the way, exactly, you can't say because
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  Speaker 4: I said so, You've got to explain why, and then
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  Speaker 4: you leave it there. You say that's just the way
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  Speaker 4: it is.
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  Speaker 3: Other times you'll say, you know what, I don't care
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  Speaker 3: you decide yep.
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  Speaker 2: And then as a manager in a workplace, in an office,
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  Speaker 2: one of the things I got taught very early on
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  Speaker 2: is arbitrary communication and decisions from a manager is the
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  Speaker 2: most destructive thing to the team, because as soon as
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  Speaker 2: they sort of grasp that that you make random, wild
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  Speaker 2: decisions that make no sense whatsoever, you've lost them. And
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  Speaker 2: I learned that the power of sitting down with someone
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  Speaker 2: even if you can't give them detail, but give them
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  Speaker 2: the respect of a I can't tell you all the
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  Speaker 2: reasons why I had to make that decision, and I
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  Speaker 2: hope you understand that, but there's confidentialities involved. But no,
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  Speaker 2: I understand your point. I understand it doesn't look like
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  Speaker 2: it makes sense to you, but I need to make
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  Speaker 2: this like even just as simple as that. You've said
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  Speaker 2: nothing more, but you've given them a respect to be
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  Speaker 2: have a conversation, to honor that you know it doesn't
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  Speaker 2: make sense to them. And I learned that as a
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  Speaker 2: manager that as best you can give explanation and give
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  Speaker 2: the respect of a conversation, and your team then follows you,
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  Speaker 2: sometimes blindly because they trust that you're taking everything into
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  Speaker 2: account and trying to apply that to my parenting in
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  Speaker 2: the same way, to go even if they're eight years
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  Speaker 2: old and six years old and don't understand it, to
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  Speaker 2: give them a respect of a conversation. And then there's
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  Speaker 2: a point where you go, I know you're not going
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  Speaker 2: to understand this, but this is in the parent decision column,
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  Speaker 2: so you're just going to have to go with it.
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  Speaker 2: I've I've found that when I'm calm enough to go
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  Speaker 2: through that conversation. Usually they come out the other side
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  Speaker 2: pretty quickly and easily.
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  Speaker 3: And Susie, that's the key.
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  Speaker 4: Luis just said it when I'm calm and enough, because
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  Speaker 4: what happens is our kids have got so much energy.
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  Speaker 4: They've got far more energy to argue about something that
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  Speaker 4: they want. Then we have energy to argue back about
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  Speaker 4: why we should say no.
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  Speaker 5: And say, oh, look, for goodness, I've had enough whatever,
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  Speaker 5: do whatever you want. I'm tired of arguing about it,
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  Speaker 5: because they just win on energy, you know, the whole
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  Speaker 5: pest of power thing. Teenagers are the worse for that.
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  Speaker 5: But if we can step back from the emotion of it,
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  Speaker 5: take the energy out of it, and just have that
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  Speaker 5: frank conversation where we validate their feelings and say, but
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  Speaker 5: this is a parent decision, Yeah, that's it. Or we
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  Speaker 5: might say, you know now that, now that I see
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  Speaker 5: things the way you've explained them, maybe we should negotiated
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  Speaker 5: this instead. I have three e's of effective discipline, so
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  Speaker 5: it's kind of the same thing, but going up another level.
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  Speaker 3: Explain, explore and power. We explain what we want.
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  Speaker 4: And why, we explore how they feel, and then if
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  Speaker 4: we can negotiate it, we actually empowered them to come
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  Speaker 4: up with a decision. I think I've shared the story
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  Speaker 4: about my daughter who wanted Snapchat, and I explained all
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  Speaker 4: the reasons I didn't want it to have it, and
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  Speaker 4: then she said, but Dad, I've been to your seminars,
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  Speaker 4: and while they're good reasons, I know that now you've
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  Speaker 4: got to explore why I want it. This is the
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  Speaker 4: problem with being a parent. And so I said to her, sure,
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  Speaker 4: let me explore that. And she told me her reasons.
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  Speaker 4: All my friends are on it, which means two of
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  Speaker 4: her friends are on it, and I don't want to
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  Speaker 4: be the only one that hasn't got it because all
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  Speaker 4: my friends are on it.
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  Speaker 3: And I said, well, all your friends are on Facebook.
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  Speaker 3: Just talked to them.
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  Speaker 4: There I've explored, and I'm going back to my explanation,
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  Speaker 4: just use Facebook. And she said she was really great.
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  Speaker 4: She said, Dad, you haven't explored properly. You've closed your mind.
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  Speaker 4: And I said, well, well, open my mind helped me
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  Speaker 4: to understand. And she said, you're telling me to be
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  Speaker 4: on Facebook while all my friends are on Snapchat is
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  Speaker 4: like you telling me to go to the park while
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  Speaker 4: of my friends are at the beach. I was like, Wow,
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  Speaker 4: that's all of a sudden, just like you, Luke. I went, ah,
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  Speaker 4: and it opened up my eyes a little bit. I
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  Speaker 4: actually was to explore. I saw the world through her eyes.
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  Speaker 4: I was like, goly, that's good. So then I said
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  Speaker 4: to her, you know there's a problem with that, though,
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  Speaker 4: because at the beach there are rips and sweeps and currants,
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  Speaker 4: and there are sharks and stingers, and there are syringes
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  Speaker 4: in the sand, and there's sun. You're going to get
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  Speaker 4: sun burnt, and there's perverts. And she said, have you
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  Speaker 4: been to the park lately? And she was Facebook and
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  Speaker 4: Instagram are not exactly the safest places to be, and.
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  Speaker 1: From Facebook.
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  Speaker 2: Not the consequence she was after.
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  Speaker 4: So I said to her that Genie was out of
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  Speaker 4: the bottle. I said, okay, well I've explained and now
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  Speaker 4: we've explored. So I guess we need to move to empower.
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  Speaker 4: And while she didn't use these words, I'm extending the
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  Speaker 4: metaphor and putting words in her mouth now, but she
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  Speaker 4: basically said that if I go to the beach, I
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  Speaker 4: promise I'll wear a sun's shirt and a sun hat,
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  Speaker 4: and I promise I'll put lots of sunscreen on and
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  Speaker 4: I'll just play in the rock pools. You know, she
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  Speaker 4: came up with some guidelines for her use of snap
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  Speaker 4: Chat that were completely acceptable to me, and so we
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  Speaker 4: were able to say yes.
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  Speaker 3: And so that's a long way of answering your question, Luke.
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  Speaker 4: But what we're really doing here is we're working with
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  Speaker 4: our kids rather than arbitrarily doing things to them. Whether
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  Speaker 4: it's walking to school, or whether it's going to the sleepover,
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  Speaker 4: it's using social media, whatever the issue is, we work
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  Speaker 4: out whether it's my decision, your decision, or our decision,
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  Speaker 4: and then we explain, explore and power.
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  Speaker 2: Which I love because even with our eight year old,
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  Speaker 2: I can see those conversations where, in a sense accidentally,
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  Speaker 2: we fell upon that with the walking to school thing
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  Speaker 2: where I picked him up that afternoon and he said,
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  Speaker 2: can I at least walk to the corner at the
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: service station and you've picked me up from there? And
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  Speaker 2: I went, you know what, I can see it it's controlled.
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  Speaker 2: There's a lot of other kids. I can feel comfortable
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  Speaker 2: enough to give him some leeway, and he was empowered
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  Speaker 2: to feel like he was independent and on his own,
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  Speaker 2: where I thought the risk factor was so low I
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  Speaker 2: was willing to make that call, and we met that
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  Speaker 2: middle ground because he engaged with understanding. Okay, I'm not
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: going to win this one with dad, but can you
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  Speaker 2: give me a little bit.
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  Speaker 4: The camel stick in its nose into the tent in
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  Speaker 4: the desert. You know what else you could do, though,
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  Speaker 4: is you could just buy a drone, yes, and.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Attach a leash to him, which which the drone keeps
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  Speaker 2: loution most of the time. If there's any danger, then
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  Speaker 2: the joint just goes up and out of danger.
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  Speaker 1: That'd be great.
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  Speaker 2: Just watch out for the power lines, right.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, such a good thing to explore these conversations. I've
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  Speaker 1: got ven diagrams.
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  Speaker 2: Glare in my head at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Justin Coulson from Happy Families dot com, that are you?
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much?
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  Speaker 2: With you sou he's got the Olympic rings.
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  Speaker 1: You can certainly find some more resources available to help
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  Speaker 1: you in your parenting journey at happy families dot com
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: dot au. If doctor Justin Coulson is someone that you'd
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: be interested in having speak at your community event or organization,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: you can find those details at Justinculson dot com.