Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1224 - Awards, Assemblies and Away Days

Transcript

#1224 - Awards, Assemblies and Away Days · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's Easter.
0:07
Speaker 2: I can't believe that I'm talking about being the sort
0:10
Speaker 2: of the Easter holidays.
0:12
Speaker 1: This is doing my head in.
0:14
Speaker 2: I can't get my head around how fast this year
0:18
Speaker 2: is going.
0:18
Speaker 3: Do you think it just gets faster because we're getting older.
0:22
Speaker 1: There's some research that says that that can happen.
0:25
Speaker 3: Or is it just a fact that as the older
0:27
Speaker 3: you get, the fuller your life gets and therefore time
0:29
Speaker 3: moves fast.
0:30
Speaker 2: I think it's a bit of that as well. But
0:33
Speaker 2: it is already April and we're halfway through it. Just
0:35
Speaker 2: about like at the end of this weekend, we're halfway
0:37
Speaker 2: through April. Doing my head in. We should do the
0:40
Speaker 2: intro Hi. This is the Happy Families podcasts. We're just faster.
0:44
Speaker 2: We're Justin and Kylie Colson Real parenting Solutions every day
0:47
Speaker 2: on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. Every Friday, we relax
0:51
Speaker 2: a little bit, become a little bit more informal, and
0:54
Speaker 2: we do this thing called I'll do Better Tomorrow. We
0:56
Speaker 2: have a look at the week that was, look at
0:58
Speaker 2: what was working, what wasn't working, and how we can
1:01
Speaker 2: make our families happier as a result. Of some intentional introspection. Kylie,
1:06
Speaker 2: I want to share an email that we received that
1:08
Speaker 2: blew my mind before we talk about our old do
1:11
Speaker 2: better tomorrow, and you haven't heard this, so I'll be
1:14
Speaker 2: curious to get your reaction. This was such a great email. Hi,
1:19
Speaker 2: Justin and Kylie. Your recent episode The Worst Mother Who
1:22
Speaker 2: Got It Right?
1:23
Speaker 1: That was on the.
1:25
Speaker 2: Twelfth of March, Episode one and ninety eight.
1:28
Speaker 3: Twelfth of March still Anor's Skanezzi.
1:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it was truly eye opening. Something
1:34
Speaker 2: just clicked for me about giving kids responsibility. I have
1:38
Speaker 2: an eleven year old who often struggles with getting the school.
1:40
Speaker 2: The anxiety of leaving the house can be overwhelming, even
1:43
Speaker 2: though she loves school once she's there. The other morning,
1:46
Speaker 2: I had to take one child to band practice early,
1:48
Speaker 2: but my eleven year old was having a particularly tough time.
1:51
Speaker 2: She was stressed, upset, and in no state to leave early.
1:54
Speaker 2: But I still had to get her sister to band
1:57
Speaker 2: whether she was ready or not, so I gently suggested
1:59
Speaker 2: that I had without her. If she felt up to it,
2:01
Speaker 2: she could get herself ready to lock up the house
2:03
Speaker 2: and take the key with her on the bus. For
2:05
Speaker 2: the first time ever, she looked at me in amazement,
2:08
Speaker 2: as if she couldn't believe I would trust her with
2:10
Speaker 2: such a grown up responsibility. Then she smiled and nodded.
2:14
Speaker 2: She hesitated for a moment and asked, what if I
2:16
Speaker 2: can't do it. I reassured her that if she needed help,
2:19
Speaker 2: I'd be back soon to take her to school. But
2:20
Speaker 2: I also told her I knew she.
2:22
Speaker 1: Could do this.
2:24
Speaker 2: To give her the full experience of managing it on
2:26
Speaker 2: her own, I stayed at BAND a little longer than necessary,
2:29
Speaker 2: timing it so that I wouldn't get home before her
2:32
Speaker 2: bus left. Honestly, I half expected to return and find
2:36
Speaker 2: her still at home. But when I arrived, the house
2:38
Speaker 2: was locked, she was gone. She had done it, and
2:41
Speaker 2: now she's decided this will be her new routine on
2:44
Speaker 2: band days.
2:45
Speaker 1: Hurrah. Kylie was absolutely right.
2:48
Speaker 2: Quote our children will walk out the door with confidence,
2:51
Speaker 2: feeling empowered because someone believes that they are capable of
2:55
Speaker 2: doing something hard. Close quote yeah, apparently you said that.
3:01
Speaker 1: That's why we do this podcast.
3:04
Speaker 3: I love that. I absolutely love that, And I can
3:08
Speaker 3: just literally imagine this eleven year old girl getting on
3:11
Speaker 3: the bus and high fiving yourself.
3:16
Speaker 1: Deal, let me high five me.
3:18
Speaker 3: I'm just such such an empowering move.
3:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm so glad to receive the email. You
3:25
Speaker 1: can email us your success stories. We love hearing them.
3:28
Speaker 1: If we've inspired any goodness in your life, we'll share it.
3:30
Speaker 2: Podcasts at happy families dot com dot you at podcasts
3:33
Speaker 2: with an s at happy families dot com dot you.
3:36
Speaker 2: Right o, Kylie, let's talk about our I'll do better
3:39
Speaker 2: Tomorrow's you go first.
3:41
Speaker 3: Well, you have a lot to talk about todays. I
3:43
Speaker 3: don't plan on sharing too much, but I just want
3:46
Speaker 3: to set it up that the reason you have so
3:49
Speaker 3: much to talk about is.
3:50
Speaker 1: Because I had to do parenting this book.
3:54
Speaker 3: My best friend, who I have not seen for a
3:57
Speaker 3: very very long time, happened to be in Brisbane the
4:00
Speaker 3: morning and I had to be in Brisbane the following
4:03
Speaker 3: day and was stuck there for a day while my
4:06
Speaker 3: car was being looked at. And I looked at that
4:08
Speaker 3: opportunity and thought, could we do something a little bit tricky,
4:13
Speaker 3: And so I messaged her and I said can you
4:15
Speaker 3: stay the night? And she said yes, So I got
4:20
Speaker 3: to have a night. Now, I remember back to the
4:23
Speaker 3: days when having a night away was so hard to orchestrate,
4:27
Speaker 3: and you would organize it for me, and I would
4:30
Speaker 3: resent having to go home because I felt so starved
4:35
Speaker 3: of time to myself or time together with you, and
4:39
Speaker 3: it never ever felt like enough. But these days that
4:43
Speaker 3: at one night a gift, like absolute gift to each
4:47
Speaker 3: other to be able to just have one night where
4:50
Speaker 3: we got to talk as late as we wanted and
4:52
Speaker 3: wake up the next morning and keep talking for as
4:55
Speaker 3: long as we wanted.
4:55
Speaker 1: I was desperate for a text message.
4:57
Speaker 2: I just wanted some contact, and I was like, Kylie's
4:59
Speaker 2: having to much fun, not in touch with me at all.
5:03
Speaker 1: I'm pining.
5:04
Speaker 3: We laughed, we cried. It was just so good.
5:08
Speaker 1: It was great.
5:08
Speaker 3: So it meant that you got to parent less.
5:11
Speaker 2: Which I mean the I'll do better tomorrows have been
5:14
Speaker 2: fairly scant on my side lately. I've been really just
5:18
Speaker 2: struggling to find stories because I've been traveling so much
5:21
Speaker 2: for work.
5:21
Speaker 1: That's the nature of what I do.
5:23
Speaker 2: I go and make everyone else's families happy while you
5:25
Speaker 2: stay at home.
5:25
Speaker 1: And look after ours. But because you went away, I
5:28
Speaker 1: had to really step up.
5:30
Speaker 2: Fortunately, my travel schedule has slowed down as it always
5:32
Speaker 2: does at the end of term, and I've got I've
5:35
Speaker 2: got several things that i want to share so quickly,
5:38
Speaker 2: but they're all related, and they all happen because you
5:39
Speaker 2: are away. I despise. I absolutely hate. I can't stand
5:44
Speaker 2: school assemblies. They are possibly the most boring, frustrating, annoying,
5:48
Speaker 2: just stick flaming bamboo shoots under my fingernails instead of
5:53
Speaker 2: sending me to a school assembly kind of thing, like
5:55
Speaker 2: just they're the worst kind of torture anyway. Our daughter
5:59
Speaker 2: who has just returned to school after a couple of
6:01
Speaker 2: years of home schooling, Lily, aged fifteen, grade ten, has
6:06
Speaker 2: just completed term one at a school called the Industry School,
6:10
Speaker 2: so we looked at putting her back into mainstream schooling.
6:13
Speaker 1: She just didn't want to go.
6:14
Speaker 2: She's had horrible bullying situations, she doesn't really love school.
6:18
Speaker 1: She's got a fairly clear idea.
6:20
Speaker 2: Of where she wants to go with life and an
6:22
Speaker 2: atar path isn't necessary for her. And as we looked around,
6:25
Speaker 2: we discovered the Industry School. This is not a sponsored thing.
6:28
Speaker 2: It's just as a school that gives children alternative education
6:33
Speaker 2: opportunities because they might want to go and do a
6:35
Speaker 2: trainees ships or apprenticeships or school based work related things.
6:41
Speaker 2: So she does five weeks in school and five weeks
6:44
Speaker 2: in industry and she's just loving it. It's still had
6:47
Speaker 2: a few bumps along the way, but it's generally been
6:50
Speaker 2: an outstanding experience for her.
6:52
Speaker 3: Well.
6:53
Speaker 2: At the end of term, they do this thing that
6:54
Speaker 2: they call a roof shout. Apparently it comes from New Zealand.
6:57
Speaker 2: When you put the roof on a newly constructed house,
7:00
Speaker 2: everyone shouts.
7:02
Speaker 1: Or osam or look that we are.
7:04
Speaker 2: Because we've built the house. And so at the end
7:05
Speaker 2: of term it's kind of like a celebration assembly. We
7:09
Speaker 2: got one of those emails. Your daughter will be receiving
7:11
Speaker 2: an award. Don't tell her, but we'd love for you
7:13
Speaker 2: to come along. You couldn't make it now, Normally I would.
7:16
Speaker 2: I would absolutely handle this one to you. This is
7:18
Speaker 2: the hospital pass. You're going to the assembly. I've got
7:20
Speaker 2: work to do, I've got important things I can't go.
7:23
Speaker 1: But I had no choice. I had no choice, So
7:26
Speaker 1: I show it up. And I was sitting in the hall.
7:28
Speaker 1: She walked in. First, first thing.
7:30
Speaker 2: She did with scan for parents, and she spotted me
7:34
Speaker 2: and she waved, and then she whispered to her friends.
7:36
Speaker 1: She told me.
7:37
Speaker 2: Later, she whispered, I think I'm getting an award my
7:39
Speaker 2: dad did, because my dad would not that banded an
7:43
Speaker 2: assembly for anything. This must be a special day. And
7:47
Speaker 2: she didn't just receive one, she received three. She got
7:50
Speaker 2: one for her science, she got one for business, and
7:52
Speaker 2: she got the Principal's Award, which our kids have been
7:57
Speaker 2: pretty skinny on awards over the years. But it was
8:00
Speaker 2: really cool to sit there and see our daughter in
8:03
Speaker 2: an environment where she feels capable and competent, she feels
8:07
Speaker 2: like she has good relationships and she's choosing to be there.
8:10
Speaker 2: Those basic psychological needs are being supported in this environment,
8:13
Speaker 2: and she's thriving as a result.
8:16
Speaker 3: As a parent, making decisions for your child often we
8:21
Speaker 3: don't have any way of quantifying whether or not those
8:24
Speaker 3: decisions will actually pay off.
8:26
Speaker 1: Yeah. Good decision, bad decision.
8:28
Speaker 2: We've got to suck up and see Yeah.
8:30
Speaker 3: And when it comes to homeschooling, there was no way
8:34
Speaker 3: for me to know whether or not she was behind
8:39
Speaker 3: in her learning, ahead of her learning grade wise, and
8:44
Speaker 3: the thought of putting her back into the school system,
8:47
Speaker 3: it was almost like my parenting and particularly my education
8:50
Speaker 3: capacities were really going to be.
8:54
Speaker 1: Under the microscope. Yeah examined.
8:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, have I failed my daughter's homeschooling exactly?
9:00
Speaker 3: I was really really stressed. So for her to come
9:02
Speaker 3: out with so much confidence and capacity is just a
9:09
Speaker 3: really nice pat on the shoulder. Not that I did much.
9:11
Speaker 3: She has been fully responsible for her own learning over
9:14
Speaker 3: the last twelve months.
9:15
Speaker 1: But home school taught her how to do that.
9:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I honestly to I wish I had a
9:22
Speaker 3: been there, just not because don't it was because I
9:25
Speaker 3: care about the awards. It's not actually about the awards,
9:29
Speaker 3: but it's about the acknowledgment that she is getting this stuff.
9:35
Speaker 1: Take our message.
9:35
Speaker 2: School environment matters this so much more. I have to
9:39
Speaker 2: tell you about you being away that you don't know about,
9:41
Speaker 2: and that's coming up in I'll do it to tomorrow
9:43
Speaker 2: after break, Okay. So basic psychological needs in a class
9:54
Speaker 2: or a school environment have a huge impact on the
9:57
Speaker 2: ability that our children have to do well to thrive,
10:00
Speaker 2: to flourish, and we've really been able to see that.
10:03
Speaker 2: I'm kind of anti bribery, right, I'm not big on
10:06
Speaker 2: bribing kids and saying, well, if you do this, i'll
10:08
Speaker 2: give you that. I've always always argued strongly against that however.
10:12
Speaker 3: Unless it's eating an oyster.
10:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I have bribed the kids to eat oysters
10:17
Speaker 2: and they still don't like oysters, which can't prove it,
10:20
Speaker 2: but their.
10:21
Speaker 3: Bank account was a little bit healthier by the end
10:23
Speaker 3: of it.
10:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, the stomachs were, not should point out, but that
10:26
Speaker 2: proves the point, right, when you bribe people, they're not
10:28
Speaker 2: doing it for the right reason.
10:29
Speaker 1: So if you're trying an oyster.
10:30
Speaker 2: Because you want to get twenty bucks, then you're never
10:33
Speaker 2: going to really like oysters because you believe I have.
10:35
Speaker 3: A true an oyster bus, you're not enough.
10:39
Speaker 1: That's right anyway.
10:41
Speaker 2: Something that I feel quite differently about is that when
10:43
Speaker 2: your children do well, if you want to give them
10:45
Speaker 2: an unexpected surprise at random intervals, just because it's nice
10:49
Speaker 2: to surprise them because you're.
10:50
Speaker 1: Stoked for them, I'm all for that.
10:52
Speaker 2: So I took Lily down to the Malulabar Esplanade and said,
10:57
Speaker 2: let's go get gelato. Been on a health kick. It's
11:01
Speaker 2: so funny. I bought this gelato about a week ago.
11:06
Speaker 2: What it's still kind of in the freezer.
11:09
Speaker 1: Some of it's been eaten.
11:10
Speaker 2: Lily had a pretty good crack at hers, but I
11:12
Speaker 2: bought a leader of it, and I just thought, let's
11:16
Speaker 2: lash out, let's celebrate, and we all love gelato. Bought it,
11:21
Speaker 2: had fun buying it, had fun tasting it, but haven't
11:25
Speaker 2: really had fun eating it because our bodies are kind
11:27
Speaker 2: of responding to this sugar in ways that they haven't previously.
11:31
Speaker 2: But I just wanted to emphasize how fun it was.
11:33
Speaker 2: It was pouring with rain, the weather was obviously rotten,
11:37
Speaker 2: but we still got to hang out and eat gelato
11:40
Speaker 2: and just enjoy being in.
11:41
Speaker 1: One another's company. It was really nice.
11:43
Speaker 3: It sounds like I should go away more.
11:46
Speaker 1: Either that or do better at school. Maybe I'll have
11:49
Speaker 1: to treat you to some gelato. You don't want it.
11:52
Speaker 2: The last thing that I wanted to touch on, just
11:54
Speaker 2: while we're doing it.
11:55
Speaker 1: It's the end of term.
11:56
Speaker 2: Term one is done, I'm pretty sure right around the
11:59
Speaker 2: country now, maybe there's a couple that are still finishing up,
12:01
Speaker 2: but Termine's more or less done. And I've noticed something
12:05
Speaker 2: about our eleven year old. She's just had a birthday,
12:08
Speaker 2: just had a party, and I've noticed that she is
12:13
Speaker 2: a different kid as a result of homeschool. Now, I'm
12:16
Speaker 2: not saying that everyone should homeschool their kids. School is
12:18
Speaker 2: brilliant for a lot of kids, they really really thrive.
12:22
Speaker 2: But we've had a number of ups and downs with
12:24
Speaker 2: our children through the years during their school experiences, and
12:29
Speaker 2: looking at what homeschool did for Lily, but also looking
12:31
Speaker 2: at what it's doing for Emily, our beautiful eleven year
12:34
Speaker 2: old daughter. There was a time where she was losing
12:37
Speaker 2: all confidence. She felt like she was completely incompetent. She
12:40
Speaker 2: didn't like who she was, and school seemed to be
12:44
Speaker 2: the catalyst for her. She was struggling with her teacher,
12:48
Speaker 2: she was struggling socially. Nothing was quite working out. And
12:51
Speaker 2: over the last two years we've worked extremely hard. Well, no,
12:55
Speaker 2: you've worked extremely hard as her home school provider.
13:00
Speaker 1: I don't know what the word is.
13:01
Speaker 2: You've been her mum, but you've also been her teacher.
13:04
Speaker 2: And we've got a confident, excited, delightful human being, full
13:09
Speaker 2: brimming overflowing with confidence, really balanced. I just want to
13:15
Speaker 2: sort of emphasize, as we focus on I'll do better tomorrow,
13:20
Speaker 2: sometimes we have to make decisions that are really hard
13:23
Speaker 2: to make, decisions that we don't even necessarily want to make,
13:28
Speaker 2: but we are in charge of protecting our children and
13:33
Speaker 2: helping them. And as we wrap up term one, I
13:37
Speaker 2: want to point to Emily's confidence and her delight in
13:41
Speaker 2: life as a reflection of us making a hard choice,
13:46
Speaker 2: you doing extremely hard work, and you making enormous sacrifices.
13:52
Speaker 2: I mean, go one, are the days where you had
13:54
Speaker 2: six hours during the day where you could do the
13:56
Speaker 2: things that were important to you and to us. Instead,
14:00
Speaker 2: you've given all of that time to being present for
14:04
Speaker 2: a little girl. But what it has done for her,
14:06
Speaker 2: I think is just astonishing. And so that's how I
14:10
Speaker 2: kind of want to wrap up term one. I'll do
14:12
Speaker 2: better tomorrow by paying tribute to the decisions that you've made,
14:17
Speaker 2: the decisions that we've made that have helped our children
14:20
Speaker 2: to thrive, even though it's mean meant stepping away from
14:24
Speaker 2: the mainstream and frankly acting with not just uncertainty, but
14:28
Speaker 2: therefore courage to do what we see is right for
14:32
Speaker 2: our kids, even if a lot of people look down
14:34
Speaker 2: their noses at it or say what on earth would
14:37
Speaker 2: you do that for you? Maybe or weepy, Well, that's
14:41
Speaker 2: because because you love our kids.
14:43
Speaker 3: Right, making decision to homeschool our kids has been one
14:48
Speaker 3: probably in the making for ten a good ten years.
14:53
Speaker 3: It was so hard to say yes. It was so
14:57
Speaker 3: hard to say yes to this, and living it on
15:00
Speaker 3: a day to day basis has some really significant.
15:05
Speaker 1: Challenges, massive impacts.
15:07
Speaker 3: But I wish we had have done this so much earlier.
15:13
Speaker 2: That's the question I was liscerally going to ask you.
15:15
Speaker 2: You've answered it before I got there. Yeah, I'll look
15:17
Speaker 2: at it and think, how would all of our kids'
15:19
Speaker 2: lives have been different if we'd been able to do that. Obviously,
15:23
Speaker 2: not everyone can, and frankly not everyone should.
15:26
Speaker 3: And I don't actually believe we could have done it
15:30
Speaker 3: much earlier.
15:31
Speaker 1: Possibly, but.
15:33
Speaker 3: Seeing the change in our kids, and even like I said,
15:38
Speaker 3: acknowledging Lily going back into a school system an entirely
15:43
Speaker 3: different kid.
15:44
Speaker 2: Because it's an entirely different school.
15:47
Speaker 3: But internally she's different. She's had nearly eighteen months to
15:53
Speaker 3: get rid of the voices of everybody else and just
15:57
Speaker 3: hone in with the voice that matter and have time
16:03
Speaker 3: to regroup, to recenter, to just navigate challenges at a
16:09
Speaker 3: much slower pace. And that has been the gift, that
16:12
Speaker 3: is the gift of homeschool.
16:14
Speaker 1: Well, our time is up.
16:15
Speaker 2: The take home message, do what's right for your kids,
16:18
Speaker 2: even if it's hard, and even if people think your
16:20
Speaker 2: bonkers for doing what you're planning on doing.
16:23
Speaker 1: Have a great school holiday experience.
16:25
Speaker 2: Hopefully you get some good quality time together with you,
16:28
Speaker 2: with the kids, with the family.
16:30
Speaker 1: We will be back.
16:32
Speaker 2: With podcasts right through the break, so if you're looking
16:34
Speaker 2: for any parenting inspo, it'll be there. It'll be on
16:37
Speaker 2: your podcast speed. We hope that you check it out.
16:39
Speaker 2: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruhlan from
16:43
Speaker 2: Bridge Media. If you'd like more information and more resources
16:46
Speaker 2: to make your family happier, visit happy families dot com.
16:50
Speaker 1: Dol a