Speaker 1: Of all the things that I say, of all things
Speaker 1: that I do, all the things that I've learned, of
Speaker 1: everything that the kids have put me through. Kids just
Speaker 1: text you, They try you. There's nothing easy about being
Speaker 1: a parent, so let it be hard. Don't fight that.
Speaker 1: This is what parenting is, and the great irony is
Speaker 1: as you accept that it's going to be hard, ironically
Speaker 1: becomes a lot less hard.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Things you Can't Unhear podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Maritza Barone. Get ready to hear moments that will help
Speaker 2: you to see the world differently and inspire you to
Speaker 2: become the happiest, healthiest and kindest version of you. What
Speaker 2: makes a happy family? In this episode, we're joined by
Speaker 2: one of Australia's most trusted voices in parenting and family
Speaker 2: wellbeing to find out. Doctor Justin Coulson is a dad
Speaker 2: to six daughters, a psychologist and author, and the founder
Speaker 2: of the Happy Families Platform. In this conversation, we go
Speaker 2: beyond parenting tips and go into the heart of what
Speaker 2: it means to raise humans in today's world. We explore
Speaker 2: the mistakes parents make that they don't realize they're making.
Speaker 2: The truth about self belief and grades the schooling system,
Speaker 2: and how Justin believes changes should be made to help
Speaker 2: children thrive more, and how Justin himself has navigated it
Speaker 2: all while raising six daughters of his own. This is
Speaker 2: a powerful, honest, and emotional conversation about the kind of adults
Speaker 2: we're shaping and the kind of parents we're choosing to be.
Speaker 2: Doctor Justin Coilson, Welcome to the Things you Can't On
Speaker 2: Here Podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling really light today and I just want to
Speaker 1: I just want to mock you for sounding so serious
Speaker 1: when you did that intro.
Speaker 2: This is the things you can on here podcast We're
Speaker 2: not meant to have fun. We're meant to have like
Speaker 2: drop moments to change the way we think we did.
Speaker 1: You know, you're more likely to absorb really great information
Speaker 1: if you're in a good mood, like if you're laughing.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, and if you're hearing stories.
Speaker 1: Right yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well let's start with that. Tell me your story.
Speaker 2: I want to know that moment when you as a father,
Speaker 2: the perception of you as a father, and a moment
Speaker 2: that changed everything in the way that you saw yourself
Speaker 2: as a farmer. Okay, and this may take the lightness
Speaker 2: out of your I was going.
Speaker 1: To say this, this kind of changes everything, so we
Speaker 1: kind of have to go back to my high school days,
Speaker 1: which is kind of annoying. I didn't become a teenage
Speaker 1: father or anything like that, but I just hated school
Speaker 1: and my dream. After I did work experience in year
Speaker 1: ten at the local radio station on the New South
Speaker 1: Wales Central Coast two go, I got to hang around
Speaker 1: in the studio and in the jocks room with all
Speaker 1: the radio announcers, and I was like, this is the
Speaker 1: best job in the world, because back then radio is
Speaker 1: a very different beast than what it is today, and
Speaker 1: radio announcers would literally show up for their let's say
Speaker 1: their nine to twelve shift or their six till nine
Speaker 1: shifts or whatever it was. They do fifteen or twenty
Speaker 1: minutes of prep, they do the shift, and then they
Speaker 1: had the rest of them they do whatever they wanted.
Speaker 1: There's something I'd get paid to play music, open up
Speaker 1: the mic and have a chat for fifteen seconds once
Speaker 1: every fifteen minutes, give away some money. We'd beat the
Speaker 1: bomb or the Mad Minute or whatever is that we're doing,
Speaker 1: and then I.
Speaker 2: Get to go surfing, right, and you probably get to
Speaker 2: talk a little bit too, which is probably one of
Speaker 2: your strengths.
Speaker 1: I do like to talk, and so I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a radio announcer, and I recognize
Speaker 1: that we're recording this pod in a radio station, so
Speaker 1: I need to tread gently with what I'm going to say.
Speaker 1: But if you've ever listened to the radio, especially the
Speaker 1: FM radio stations, you can tell straight away that the
Speaker 1: people who are on the radio didn't have to do
Speaker 1: well at school to be on the radio.
Speaker 2: You should tread to care except.
Speaker 1: For the news readers, right, they're very well educated. And
Speaker 1: so as a year ten student, I've just gone well,
Speaker 1: school doesn't matter. My parents had a different opinion. They
Speaker 1: were spending this is late eighties, early in nine as
Speaker 1: they're spending over ten grand a year back then to
Speaker 1: send me to this grammar school that I at it,
Speaker 1: and so I'm wagging school and going surfing. There was
Speaker 1: no such thing as mobile phones, and so my parents
Speaker 1: weren't getting that text message saying your son isn't at school.
Speaker 1: I was just could get away with much more, got
Speaker 1: away with everything, which means that when I finished high
Speaker 1: school in New South Wales, you have your HSC. I
Speaker 1: scored on the bottom. If you scored below a certain ranking,
Speaker 1: they don't give you a score, They just tell you
Speaker 1: that you scored this all below. And I scored in
Speaker 1: the fifteen or below range. Like I just it wasn't
Speaker 1: your thing. No, And it's not that I was well,
Speaker 1: I was not a great kid, but my purpose laid elsewhere.
Speaker 1: And I could see that my parents were freaking out.
Speaker 1: They were thinking, this is the end. He ruined his
Speaker 1: life because you twelve matters so much, apparently, and because
Speaker 1: everything hinges on that to see score it, apparently, And
Speaker 1: I just said, no, I just want to be in radio.
Speaker 1: And I went and had a really successful radio career.
Speaker 2: You know what I always say to my children, I
Speaker 2: don't care what it is that you do, as long
Speaker 2: as you're really good at it, if you really enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Being good at it and enjoying it are both really helpful. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes life a lot better. You don't have to
Speaker 1: be good at it or enjoy it. You can still
Speaker 1: get by, but that will make a difference for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm now in my late twenties. I'm working at
Speaker 1: Brisbane's B one O five. Well, we've played all today's
Speaker 1: best musical worked, and I'm really good at my job.
Speaker 1: And then I'm going home. I've got a wife and
Speaker 1: two kids. I'm about twenty six years old. We've just
Speaker 1: had a second baby, and we've got a three mager
Speaker 1: And it's so funny because and I'm sure that there
Speaker 1: are so many parents who get this right. Like, you
Speaker 1: go to work and you're confident, you're capable, you do it,
Speaker 1: you do it well. People come to you for solutions
Speaker 1: and answers, you provide them, you get the job done,
Speaker 1: and then you go home and you're just like, I
Speaker 1: am clueless. I'm so far out of my depth. This
Speaker 1: isn't working. My wife had a background an early childcare,
Speaker 1: so she was reasonably well equipped to deal with our
Speaker 1: three year old and our newborn. But what had been
Speaker 1: happening since everyone talks about the terrible twos, but three
Speaker 1: is way worse than too, And what had been happening
Speaker 1: as our daughter neared three was that her behavior was escalating.
Speaker 1: Her emotions were out of control. And I'm a radio
Speaker 1: DJ with no education, no understanding of relationships, no understanding
Speaker 1: of psychology, and not understanding of child development, and we
Speaker 1: just kept on getting into these power struggles, and I
Speaker 1: was pretty convinced that I was going to win no
Speaker 1: matter what, because I'm big and I can make her
Speaker 1: do whatever I demand. I remember one time, quick tangent.
Speaker 1: My grandma saw the way that I was treating my
Speaker 1: oldest with frustration and strictness and sternness and harshness, and
Speaker 1: she said, justin, and she said it as gently as
Speaker 1: she could. He said, Justin, You're very hard on Chanelle.
Speaker 1: And I said, you've got to be man, otherwise the
Speaker 1: whole run circles around you going to have me wrapped
Speaker 1: around her little finger. I was really proud of it,
Speaker 1: and on a reflection, I just cringe when I think
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: Oh do you think you were replicating how you were raised?
Speaker 1: No? No, I had really really loving, and I would
Speaker 1: say quite permissive parents who just wanted the best for me.
Speaker 1: My parents were far from perfect. And a quick hint,
Speaker 1: by the way, if your parents ever come to you
Speaker 1: and say, we feel like we've got a few things wrong,
Speaker 1: would you like to tell us Just say no, No,
Speaker 1: just say I know you did the best that you.
Speaker 2: Could, did the best you could because the.
Speaker 1: Way that they carry Oh my goodness, there's a guy
Speaker 1: that I heard say this recently and it stuck with me.
Speaker 1: You talk about things you can't on here, he said,
Speaker 1: because I was thinking about and I had been talking
Speaker 1: to somebody about how your parents stuff you are because
Speaker 1: they do like and every parent will, there's no getting
Speaker 1: around her. I know that I've made a mess with
Speaker 1: my kids in various ways as well, we all do.
Speaker 1: And as I was thinking about that, he said this thing,
Speaker 1: and it just, oh, it hit me so hard. He said,
Speaker 1: your parents are going to make a mess of things.
Speaker 1: Don't judge them, for here's the measure of a good parent.
Speaker 1: Did they do a better job raising you than their
Speaker 1: parents did raising them? Yes? And I thought, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: my parents were great. It just it shifts it around
Speaker 1: because that's the model that they had, and if they've
Speaker 1: improved on the model, then they're doing it right, even
Speaker 1: if they're not perfect.
Speaker 2: I agree, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know how my parents my kids
Speaker 1: are going to go because they've had me.
Speaker 2: You're a perfect grapount or you've done all the studies.
Speaker 2: So with that frustration that you had with Chanel, and
Speaker 2: then was it your mum that had sort of said.
Speaker 1: No, I'm my grandma. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here's the
Speaker 1: climax of the story. Climax of the story is as follows.
Speaker 1: I'd done this big Friday night at B one five,
Speaker 1: not on air, but doing some I don't know, promotional thing.
Speaker 1: Got home at about two in the morning, had to
Speaker 1: be back in the radio station at five point thirt
Speaker 1: to do a six to midday Saturday morning shift. I'm desrecked.
Speaker 1: I get home from that shift, trying so hard to
Speaker 1: stay awake till I get home. Walk in the door.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful brue has been spring afternoon sun shining,
Speaker 1: temperatures like perfect for a nano nap. And I've said
Speaker 1: to Kylie, I'm beat, you know how late little sleep
Speaker 1: If I have an hour or two are going to
Speaker 1: be so good for the rest of the day and
Speaker 1: we'll have some nice family time. And Kylie said, well,
Speaker 1: that's fine. I've got to run out and run some
Speaker 1: errand because I've be waiting for you to get home
Speaker 1: because of the baby. The baby's gone to sleep Chanel
Speaker 1: three years old. She needs to have a nap. You
Speaker 1: put her down, I'll go out. I'll be back before
Speaker 1: anyone's working up. It sounds simple, sounds so simple, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, it sounds so simple, and again, knowing what
Speaker 1: I know today, I would have just done everything so differently.
Speaker 1: But I screwed this up monumentally, and I feel terribly ashamed.
Speaker 1: I sometimes I get weepy when I talk about it
Speaker 1: because I just hate how I blew this. But I
Speaker 1: said to Chanel, it's time to go to bed, and
Speaker 1: she now did what every three year old, self respecting
Speaker 1: three year old says. I don't need a daytime nap.
Speaker 1: I'm a big girl, And I'm like, no, you do.
Speaker 1: And the reality is she probably didn't, but I did,
Speaker 1: and so therefore she did. And we just escalated and
Speaker 1: started yelling at each other, and then I started calling
Speaker 1: her names and I and I squeezed her and I said,
Speaker 1: you've got to go to sleep. And I remember at
Speaker 1: one stage, as she's holing, I'm like, that's it, and
Speaker 1: I had her in my hands and I literally just
Speaker 1: chucked her at the bed, like chucked her on the mattress,
Speaker 1: and she sort of bounced on the bed a couple
Speaker 1: of times, and fortunately there was no harm done to her.
Speaker 1: But who throws their baby at a bed, right either
Speaker 1: three or a bed and then I slammed the door
Speaker 1: and I'm holding it on the handle so that she
Speaker 1: can't get out, and she's laying behind the door, and
Speaker 1: she's using your heels hammers, going let me out, let me.
Speaker 3: I'm not tired, and I'm like, you need to go
Speaker 3: to sleep, narrative and get the fuck yeah, And honestly, like.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been really emotionally elevated like she was,
Speaker 1: or like I was now and gone, Yeah, Actually I
Speaker 1: do feel like in that, like as if she was
Speaker 1: going to go to sleep, because I've taken her from
Speaker 1: like two to twelve out of ten. It was so mad.
Speaker 1: Shoved the door open even though she was behind and
Speaker 1: she was in the way. I like just barreled her
Speaker 1: out of the way with the door and I smacked
Speaker 1: her on the backside, like everything you're not supposed to do.
Speaker 2: It's so brave that you're even doing.
Speaker 1: I hate talking about it. Don't say that all get
Speaker 1: even more upset about it. But I just did everything
Speaker 1: that you're not supposed to do in my anger and
Speaker 1: in my single mindedness, like you need to go to sleep.
Speaker 1: And eventually I just locked her in a room and
Speaker 1: I held that door. I had this thought, and like
Speaker 1: it stayed with me for she's twenty seven now. It
Speaker 1: stayed with me for twenty four twenty five years. Had
Speaker 1: this thought she's a toddler. She'd behaving like, one, what
Speaker 1: are you like? You're an adult? What are you behaving like?
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, my goodness, I am getting this so wrong.
Speaker 1: And eventually she went quiet. She fell asleep on the
Speaker 1: carpet behind the door. She just exhausted herself, screaming. I
Speaker 1: was like, if she wakes up the baby, right And
Speaker 1: so I walked into the backyard because right now I'm
Speaker 1: not ready for a sleep. I'm just and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to process and go. Clie has been mad at me
Speaker 1: for getting cranky at Shanella a lot lately. My Grandma's
Speaker 1: been into me. I've had a couple of other people
Speaker 1: tell me that I'm a bit harsh. And I know
Speaker 1: it's not working. That's the biggest thing I know in
Speaker 1: my heart, and this is not working. And two things
Speaker 1: happened as I stepped into the backyard. And I feel
Speaker 1: that beautiful sunshine coming down. The first thing I think
Speaker 1: is this thing that my dad said to me once.
Speaker 1: He said, justin the only time the only time my
Speaker 1: father should lay his hands on his child is to
Speaker 1: bless them. Yeah, and I've just gone, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: I'm not a blessing in my child's life. And then
Speaker 1: the follow up thought was, in fact, justin you are
Speaker 1: a bad father. Now I know that I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of good quality time with my daughter. I read
Speaker 1: a stories, We wrestled, we played, we went to the park.
Speaker 1: We did all the good stuff. But when she was
Speaker 1: not regulated, there was I. I was out of control
Speaker 1: and I was using my mighties right power to enforce.
Speaker 1: And we'd just gone to the Wiggles concert. This was
Speaker 1: back when the Wiggles were huge and we had all
Speaker 1: the original Wiggles. We'd just gone to a Wiggles concert
Speaker 1: and I was like, I reckon, it won't matter how
Speaker 1: many backstage passes I get throughout my radio career. If
Speaker 1: I don't have a relationship with my daughter, what's the point.
Speaker 1: And so Clytie came home. She was surprised to see
Speaker 1: that I was awake. She was also surprised when she
Speaker 1: opened the door to see shene laying on the carpet
Speaker 1: with tear stained cheeks. And I had this really hard
Speaker 1: conversation with it where I said, here's what happened, here's
Speaker 1: what I'm noticing, I'm getting it wrong. Clylie, who's really
Speaker 1: compassionate and kind and thoughtful and elevating and inspiring and
Speaker 1: all the good things, looked at me and you said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you are, like there was nothing nice about it. And
Speaker 1: she said, and I've been thinking about it for a
Speaker 1: little while now, I'm wondering how to bring it up,
Speaker 1: and you just have So you just kind of need
Speaker 1: to know that our family can't keep going like this,
Speaker 1: and if you can't change it, I'm going to have to.
Speaker 1: Like you're not the father, I hope you be, and
Speaker 1: I'm kind of going, well, this is a lot, and
Speaker 1: then she added, you're also not a husband. I hope
Speaker 1: you be. Things need to change. So that's kind of.
Speaker 2: You know, hearing that and people listening to this today
Speaker 2: on this podcast, we were all as parents, we will
Speaker 2: all identify with some.
Speaker 1: Aspect of that stuff because we also.
Speaker 2: Parenting is a frustrating game. I was watching my friend
Speaker 2: who's got an eighteen month old couple of days ago,
Speaker 2: and she'd set up toys and there were red bowls,
Speaker 2: green bowls, blue bowls, yellow bowls, and then little cars
Speaker 2: that with tongs the child is supposed to put into
Speaker 2: the correct colors. And you know, watching us adults are
Speaker 2: sitting around and he's sitting on the carpet and we're
Speaker 2: watching it. We're just like, that's what he's supposed to do,
Speaker 2: but of course he wants to just throw them around
Speaker 2: and do it. And so for us as parents watching
Speaker 2: that so frustrating. Put the red in the red, put
Speaker 2: the green in the green? Yes, And so, like I said,
Speaker 2: it's a frustrating game. We learn so much about ourselves
Speaker 2: as parent parents, and you sharing that, I can see
Speaker 2: myself in so many situations where I've let my emotions
Speaker 2: get the better of me. Do we need to regulate
Speaker 2: our own emotions to be better parents?
Speaker 1: Undercent like, this is how you become a better person
Speaker 1: is you learn how to respond to stress. There's what
Speaker 1: resilience is. Right, Do I have the emotional resilience? Do
Speaker 1: I have the capacity to absorb the stress that my
Speaker 1: child's placing on me and respond in a way that
Speaker 1: is going to help them feel safe?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Like, as a parent, you've got one job, and it's
Speaker 1: to holp your kids to be safe. It's true, and
Speaker 1: the great irony is that when we get frustrated with them,
Speaker 1: when we get them in trouble, when we threaten them,
Speaker 1: when we make ourselves into this gray, big, scary monster,
Speaker 1: they're now in this awful tension where the place that
Speaker 1: they're sposed to go for safety and security is not
Speaker 1: safe and secure. So where do they go? That's one
Speaker 1: of the biggest challenges that parents face is whether you're
Speaker 1: dealing with a toddle that won't go to sleep, or
Speaker 1: wants to eat out of the pink bowl and not
Speaker 1: the green bowl, or you cut the toast in triangles
Speaker 1: and they want rookie era. By the way, always go
Speaker 1: into rectangles first, right, because when they want triangles, you're sweet, right,
Speaker 1: But if you've gone triangles and they want rectangles, it's
Speaker 1: in the bin and going again. So, Or we're dealing
Speaker 1: with teenagers who are riding their e bikes without helmets
Speaker 1: as seventy k's an hour down backstreets with no lights
Speaker 1: with three people on them, and or they've stolen the
Speaker 1: car for the third time, or they went to the
Speaker 1: party when you said no, or you find out that
Speaker 1: they got someone pregnant, or they're pregnant, or they're consuming substances,
Speaker 1: like all the all this stuff is so big, and
Speaker 1: one of the hardest things for every parents to learn
Speaker 1: how to do is to work through that in a
Speaker 1: way that invites their child in rather than which is
Speaker 1: their child away. Because when we push our child away
Speaker 1: through our anger, through our correction and direction, through our
Speaker 1: ongoing command and control. The research is pretty clear things
Speaker 1: don't work out particularly well for our children, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't usually work out well for us in our family
Speaker 1: relationships either.
Speaker 2: I'm curious do you think an element of fear helps?
Speaker 2: Because I remember my childhood. If I screwed up, I
Speaker 2: knew my dad was going to lose it. He was
Speaker 2: going So I was like, I don't think I'm going
Speaker 2: to do that because I don't want to screw up.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get in trouble. The element of fear,
Speaker 2: I think it sort of kept me safe a little
Speaker 2: bit because I wasn't as rebellious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so from a pure perspective, I would push back
Speaker 1: against that. Yeah, his why when my children do the
Speaker 1: wrong thing, who do I want them to go to? Right?
Speaker 1: And if they're afraid of me, what's the likelihood that
Speaker 1: they'll do it?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: I totally understand. They go they're friends, they go to
Speaker 1: anybody but me, and yet who's the one who's going
Speaker 1: to help them the most? Ideally, it's it's got to
Speaker 1: be me, right, And so that's a challenge to that idea.
Speaker 1: In practice, they don't have to be afraid of us
Speaker 1: because we're going to get a nasty like In practice,
Speaker 1: maybe they don't want to let us down.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly what, and so I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: Call that fear. I'd call that a healthy respect and
Speaker 1: a love and it decided to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: But even then, like I said, if I wanted to
Speaker 1: be really pure about it, and forgive me for getting
Speaker 1: a little bit academic for a sec, when we or
Speaker 1: our children are doing something because of the way that
Speaker 1: it's going to affect people around us, we're working at
Speaker 1: a fairly low level of motivation. What I'm really interested
Speaker 1: in is helping kids to understand the why, the rationale,
Speaker 1: because if they can understand the why, then they'll endorse
Speaker 1: the behaviors, they'll endorse the activities they're going to lead
Speaker 1: to healthier, safer, wiser outcomes. Yes, so I can have
Speaker 1: my kids afraid of disappointing me yes. And I remember
Speaker 1: one parent I spoke to said that he almost remembered
Speaker 1: that day that his dad said, I'm so disappointed in
Speaker 1: your son. And he's said, I make sure that I
Speaker 1: tell my kids that I'm disappointed if they get it wrong,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, just stop. That doesn't make kids feel
Speaker 1: better in any way. They're going to behave a certain
Speaker 1: way because they don't want to let you doubt, not
Speaker 1: because they know that it's the right way to behave
Speaker 1: or because they want it to behave that way. So
Speaker 1: that takes a toll on the relationship. It's a manipular
Speaker 1: and it's coercive. So much better when the kids are
Speaker 1: like I identify the value in wearing a helmet, or wearing
Speaker 1: a seatbelt, or staying off alcohol and other drugs. I
Speaker 1: identify the value in it. Therefore, because I can see
Speaker 1: the value, I don't need my parents to be reminding
Speaker 1: me and standing over my shoulder and cajoling me. I
Speaker 1: can go to the party quite comfortably say yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't dream because I actually endorse that myself. It's not
Speaker 1: like I don't want to let my parents down and
Speaker 1: get caught tomorrow because I'm hungover.
Speaker 2: How you change the language around that though. And I've
Speaker 2: heard you talk about this beautiful sentiment of connection over control, right,
Speaker 2: and I love that and I've been preaching it in
Speaker 2: my house since yesterday. When child's connection not control, and
Speaker 2: you you that sounds very controlled. You're very funnily reminded
Speaker 2: me that that's controlling. I'm like, the control of the
Speaker 2: husband's okay, just not off the children. But I love
Speaker 2: that sentiment of connection over control because, like you said,
Speaker 2: that safety element is there. You're getting them to open up,
Speaker 2: you're getting them to speak, and you're making them think
Speaker 2: of what the correct answer is for themselves rather than
Speaker 2: telling them because no one knows. No one likes being
Speaker 2: told what to do, especially teenage kids. Right.
Speaker 1: Let me geek out just a little bit here. There's
Speaker 1: two different kinds of control. There's behavioral control and there's
Speaker 1: psychological control. Kids need behavioral control, like it's just not
Speaker 1: okay to do certain things. You're not allowed to throw
Speaker 1: knives at your sister with the apple on the head
Speaker 1: because you think that you saw in the movie and
Speaker 1: it's real and you can do it. Like there has
Speaker 1: to be a real control. And then there's psychological control
Speaker 1: and that's a lot of the the bribing and the
Speaker 1: threats and the guilt tripping and just the different ways
Speaker 1: that we Well, you can't go and do that thing
Speaker 1: unless you do the thing that I've asked you to do.
Speaker 1: As so, psychological control research is chine is pretty damaging.
Speaker 1: Behavioral control that's not damaging at all. That's actually good
Speaker 1: to kids, But it's not what. It's the how. And
Speaker 1: so you've talked about command. I sometimes use command and
Speaker 1: control as words, but normally what I do is I
Speaker 1: imagine that your relationship with your kids is like a bucket, okay,
Speaker 1: and what do you put in a bucket? You want
Speaker 1: a whole lot of water in the bucket. That's why
Speaker 1: you have the bucket. Seek and fill it with water.
Speaker 1: Seek and water the plants, or carry stuff or whatever.
Speaker 1: So you've got this bucket. That's your relationship and the
Speaker 1: water is the connection in any relationship. You want that
Speaker 1: bucket full of connection. You want as much water in
Speaker 1: that bucket as you can. The air in the top
Speaker 1: of the bucket from where the water stops and then
Speaker 1: all the way to the rim of the bucket. The
Speaker 1: air is correction and direction. Do this Do that not
Speaker 1: like that hurry up, Well I haven't done already. You're
Speaker 1: going to be late if you don't. How many times
Speaker 1: do I have to say? That's correction and direction? And
Speaker 1: the question that I always ask is, think about the
Speaker 1: morning that you've spent with your kids getting them ready
Speaker 1: for school. How much water to put in the bucket?
Speaker 1: Because if you're walking around with it, what if I
Speaker 1: asked you to carry an empty bucket all day? What
Speaker 1: would you eventually do with that bucket?
Speaker 2: Fill it up? Hopefully?
Speaker 1: Well, but I'm the one that's in charge of filling it, right,
Speaker 1: But I've given you the bucket. This is the relationship,
Speaker 1: and I've said to carry that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what are you going to do? Probably just put
Speaker 2: it down.
Speaker 1: You're going to put it down and walk away from it.
Speaker 1: And that's what people do with relationships when nothing is connecting,
Speaker 1: but instead everything's correcting and directing. That's what happens in
Speaker 1: coercive control relationships. That's what happens with kids that are
Speaker 1: raised by really controlling parents. They're just like, I don't
Speaker 1: want this in my life anymore. This is abusiveful, this
Speaker 1: is toxical, this is just not helping me. And I'm
Speaker 1: walking away. But When you think about your standard morning
Speaker 1: with the kids getting the ready for school, it sort
Speaker 1: of goes like this, get out of bed. This is
Speaker 1: the fourth time I've told you, hurry up, get out
Speaker 1: of bed. I want you to put your uniform one
Speaker 1: go and get yoursues and socks I have. When you
Speaker 1: put your shoes, what do you mean you don't know
Speaker 1: you bought them home yesterday? Have you checked the car?
Speaker 1: Get me your lunch box? While you're finding your lunch
Speaker 1: is still in here from yesterday? Do you know how
Speaker 1: much bread costs? Right now?
Speaker 2: Gosh, are you listening?
Speaker 1: And so we go through this thing. What do you
Speaker 1: mean you can't find your jump? But this is the
Speaker 1: third jump of this year and we're not even a
Speaker 1: winter yet, and so we Our whole morning is because
Speaker 1: correction and direction, and we're on the kids case because
Speaker 1: we've got to get out of the door on time,
Speaker 1: because if we don't get down the road and through
Speaker 1: the intersection or whatever by seven forty seven, we're going
Speaker 1: to get those lights and that means that we're going
Speaker 1: to be late for everything. And so we really ride
Speaker 1: the kids hard, and do you reckon the kids? Get
Speaker 1: out of the car at school and go, well, that
Speaker 1: was a pretty busy morning. But at least I know
Speaker 1: that my parents are thinking of my best interest. No, don't,
Speaker 1: but imagine this. So this is how you make mornings magic.
Speaker 1: Imagine this before you go to bed the night before,
Speaker 1: you say to the kids, what's in the morning do
Speaker 1: you want to have tomorrow? Do you want to be
Speaker 1: rushed or do you want to be peaceful? The kids
Speaker 1: are usually going to say, yeah, let's go for a peaceful,
Speaker 1: chill morning. All right, great, what are the things that
Speaker 1: we can do tonight so that tomorrow can be peaceful?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What can we do right now to prep for tomorrow?
Speaker 1: Because your morning begins the night before. So what I've
Speaker 1: just done there is I've provided a rationale to my
Speaker 1: child your morning begins the night before, like if we
Speaker 1: have a nice, good bit of preparation, now, tomorrow morning's
Speaker 1: going to be easy. So the child's more likely to
Speaker 1: value and identify that this is an activity worth doing,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to course them and control them.
Speaker 1: Did you notice what else I did?
Speaker 2: You included them in the decision making.
Speaker 1: By doing what bym asking questions exactly? So by saying
Speaker 1: what can we do now? I'm not telling them what
Speaker 1: to do. I'm saying, what are some simple things. Might
Speaker 1: mean finding shoes, getting the sports uniform already, finding the
Speaker 1: library books because tomorrow's library day. It could mean pulling
Speaker 1: the lunch box out of the lunch out of the
Speaker 1: bag now and putting in the kitchen and washing it.
Speaker 1: It might even, depending on how far you want to
Speaker 1: go with this, and might even include putting down a
Speaker 1: list of what we're going to have for brecki and
Speaker 1: lunch tomorrow so that in the morning we're not staring
Speaker 1: into the refrigerator for two and a half minutes looking
Speaker 1: at nothing and trying to work out what I want
Speaker 1: to do here. Now, if you spend five minutes doing
Speaker 1: that tomorrow morning, the next thing you do is you
Speaker 1: make a commitment that you're going to get up fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes earlier than you need to because we stay up
Speaker 1: too long staring at our screens, doom, scrolling, whatever. But
Speaker 1: if you get up fifteen minutes early. Let's say you've
Speaker 1: got to get up at six, and you say, I'm
Speaker 1: going to get up at five forty five. I don't
Speaker 1: like anything at a five minute but I'm going to
Speaker 1: do it anyway. You get up, go through some sort
Speaker 1: of rising ritual. Maybe you make yourself that cup of
Speaker 1: tea or coffee, sit on the deck and just inhale
Speaker 1: and don't look at you for the first fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: and then go and get on with your morning, so
Speaker 1: that by the time it's it's time to get the
Speaker 1: kids moving, you're kind of already done.
Speaker 2: You've emotionally regulated.
Speaker 1: You've regulated.
Speaker 3: It's also given yourself sometime. It's called margin, and we
Speaker 3: just don't have it in our lives, right. So then
Speaker 3: the next way to make your morning magic is to
Speaker 3: sit on the kid's bed about ten minutes before they
Speaker 3: need to get up, instead of yelling at them and saying.
Speaker 1: For goodness sakes, we got to go.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 1: You now know that they're almost ready, you're totally ready.
Speaker 1: You're still getting up ten minutes earlier, but normal anyway.
Speaker 1: And so you can give them a little tickle or
Speaker 1: a little snuggle, or you can say today's going to
Speaker 1: be a great day. What are you looking forward to?
Speaker 1: And as you talk with them, you're moving away from
Speaker 1: this correction and direction and you're moving into connection, which
Speaker 1: means that they're going to go to school with a
Speaker 1: really full relationship. Bucket Oh my goodness, what a difference.
Speaker 2: So many moments in that that were just absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 2: And it's definitely the way I think we communicate with
Speaker 2: our children that has so much power. I want to
Speaker 2: move to a different topic now and talk about schooling
Speaker 2: because I know you've transitioned with your kids. Tell me
Speaker 2: about your kids' ages now.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. So there are six of them that
Speaker 1: keep on changing. Six daughters, six daughters.
Speaker 2: Ages keep changing. Amazing.
Speaker 1: I know. I forgot to mention, by the way, when
Speaker 1: you were asking about my story after that big blow up,
Speaker 1: I went to Tafe in ninety four years at UNI
Speaker 1: and got a first class office it's like science. And
Speaker 1: then I did a PhD. And then I worked at
Speaker 1: the Union lectur and now I write books, a TV show,
Speaker 1: on a podcast and all that sort of stuff. So
Speaker 1: that's who I am.
Speaker 2: Well, everyone about that in the intro.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I just wanted to make sure that. Yeah, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: So so my youngest, and I'll start with my oldest.
Speaker 1: She's in her late twenties. She and her hobby live
Speaker 1: on the Sunday Coast, about ten minutes from where I am,
Speaker 1: and they've got a baby girl. Because we only do
Speaker 1: girls in our fare. Yeah, here's I'm a grandparent, Yeah,
Speaker 1: young the math's maths, yes, yea. And so she's two
Speaker 1: and a half. And then then the next one is
Speaker 1: about to get married, so she's in her mid twenties.
Speaker 1: And we've got an early twenties baby as well.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: And then our fourth daughter just finished high school last
Speaker 1: year and she's about to take a gap year. So
Speaker 1: she's having a gap year this year, but she's extending
Speaker 1: it into sort of two two and a half years,
Speaker 1: doing a bit of travel and working herself out, which
Speaker 1: is a huge fan of gap years. But that's the
Speaker 1: school conversation that's coming up. My fifth daughter is at
Speaker 1: school here on the coast called the Industry School. We
Speaker 1: transitioned her out of a regular school environment, homeschooled for
Speaker 1: a bit, and then in yettend she said, I want
Speaker 1: to go back to school, so we put her into
Speaker 1: the Industry School for a bunch of reasons we can
Speaker 1: discuss or not if we have time. And then my
Speaker 1: youngest we pulled her out of school I think in
Speaker 1: grade one might have been grade two, I think, and
Speaker 1: she's homeschooled, so she's doing year six at the moment
Speaker 1: at home, but realistically, because she's homeschool she's kind of
Speaker 1: doing like year seven maths, and she's doing year nine
Speaker 1: health and pe, and she's doing year whatever. Like homeschool
Speaker 1: just has been delightful for us and also very very taxing,
Speaker 1: but really good for her.
Speaker 2: And what were your reasons for transitioning to homeschooling. Is
Speaker 2: it the schooling system in general or was it your
Speaker 2: particular youngest daughter that you think thought might thrive in
Speaker 2: a homeschooling environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Both. So we put our first four all the
Speaker 1: way through school the traditional way. They've gone all the
Speaker 1: way through to year twelve, and three of them are
Speaker 1: at UNI right now. Again because my fascination and encouragement
Speaker 1: of gap years, they've all gone back to Unich quite
Speaker 1: late and they're thriving because of it. The research shows
Speaker 1: that people pull the kids out of traditional schooling and
Speaker 1: put them into either ornative schooling or they homeschool them
Speaker 1: or distance it or whatever other options are there, mainly
Speaker 1: because of bullying. Neuudiversity is also really high on the list.
Speaker 1: And then there are just philosophical issues with the way
Speaker 1: the school system works. And I'm really careful to distinguish.
Speaker 1: I'm a massive believer in education. Education is so so important,
Speaker 1: and I believe that formalized education gives us a way
Speaker 1: of structuring and ensuring that we're not having too many gaps.
Speaker 1: So I'm big on education the school system have I
Speaker 1: work in schools almost every single day. I'm doing professional
Speaker 1: development teachers. I'm often working with students, and I do
Speaker 1: work with parents as well, so I do principal's conferences
Speaker 1: and all sorts of things. And I just think that
Speaker 1: the school system fails too many of our kids. So
Speaker 1: both of our kids, we pulled them out of school
Speaker 1: because they weren't quite fitting and because there was some
Speaker 1: pretty turgid bullying going on for one of them, and
Speaker 1: there was some university longes as well, and we just thought,
Speaker 1: we've persisted with four kids, let's just give this a break.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we got one at home, and like I said, Lily,
Speaker 1: she wanted to go back to school to complete her
Speaker 1: last couple of years. And when we talked about in
Speaker 1: the traditional school options, she was just like, none of them.
Speaker 1: There's so many schools, so many great schools near where
Speaker 1: we live, including both state schools and private schools, and
Speaker 1: none of them grabbed her. But this idea of the
Speaker 1: industry school. She's in grade eleven. Now she's got a
Speaker 1: school based apprenticeship, she's working with horses. She's just having
Speaker 1: an absolute ball doing stuff that she cares about, loves
Speaker 1: and wants to do. And we're delighted to see her thriving.
Speaker 2: What changes would you like to see in the schooling system?
Speaker 1: There are so many. There are so many. First of all,
Speaker 1: the whole system is so rigidly standardized. So secondly, the
Speaker 1: curriculum is both politicized and not always evidence based. Thirdly,
Speaker 1: we've got we've got really big challenges culturally. I spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time talking to teachers and school leaders
Speaker 1: at the very highest levels about what creates a a
Speaker 1: psychologically need supportive environment. And there are essentially just three factors,
Speaker 1: and schools tend to trample all three of them. So
Speaker 1: the three things that are going to help children. Education
Speaker 1: is not about learning anymore. Education is about benchmarks and
Speaker 1: box ticking. It's about rubrics and curriculum and just it's
Speaker 1: about evaluation, constant evaluation, and the devastating thing. Let's look
Speaker 1: at naplan or even a report card. What happens and
Speaker 1: this is something else that I will change. I just
Speaker 1: abolish grades. Yes, we're don't need grades. They're not They're
Speaker 1: not helpful at all. And I'll give you a counterpoint.
Speaker 1: I'll give you two counter points as to why. But
Speaker 1: when a child, I'll use napland as an example, a
Speaker 1: child submits themselves to the napland their parents so let
Speaker 1: school make them do naur plan. And then about four
Speaker 1: or five months later, because they've tightened it up it
Speaker 1: used to be six months. About four or five months later,
Speaker 1: they get this envelope from the government with their name
Speaker 1: and their scores.
Speaker 2: That brands them brand.
Speaker 1: It gives them a label. This is the band I'm in.
Speaker 1: And when a child gets that, whether it's on a
Speaker 1: report card or whether it's an official document from the government, well,
Speaker 1: let me ask you what does that say. What does
Speaker 1: that child internalize about what's on that piece of paper.
Speaker 2: Their belief system about their ability to learn and to
Speaker 2: be educated and their intelligence is based on that, and
Speaker 2: that's what they tend.
Speaker 1: To believe, right bingo. So there's this guy called Alfred Benet.
Speaker 1: He's a Frenchman. It's nineteen ten ish. He gets approached
Speaker 1: by the French government and they say, we've got all
Speaker 1: these students, we've got universal education, we've got all these
Speaker 1: students falling through the cracks. We'd like to advise a
Speaker 1: test to identify which ones aren't doing well so that
Speaker 1: we can support them and help them to do well.
Speaker 1: But they developed the very first ever IQ ten. So
Speaker 1: let me ask you this. When you do an IQ test,
Speaker 1: what do you get you hit the school, and what
Speaker 1: does the school tell you?
Speaker 2: Well, it tells you whether you're intelligent or you're not.
Speaker 1: And that just rolls off our tongue, right, it's just
Speaker 1: how smart you are. And the school system is designed
Speaker 1: to filter and sort and prepare children for stepping into
Speaker 1: careers and industry and that kind of thing. And it's
Speaker 1: just not designed for learning. It's not designed for passionate,
Speaker 1: it's not designed for education, it's not designed for discovery.
Speaker 1: Bene actually said. He said, a few modern philosophers assert
Speaker 1: that intelligence is a fixed quantity that cannot be increased.
Speaker 1: And check out this line. He says, we must protest
Speaker 1: and react against this brutal pessimism. That's right, And he
Speaker 1: talks about how we practice and with method and we
Speaker 1: can actually improve our intelligence. We can become more intelligent
Speaker 1: than we were before by learning how to do new things.
Speaker 1: But what the system does is it says, well, you're
Speaker 1: an in nine, so you have to learn about surds,
Speaker 1: like do you know what a serd is?
Speaker 2: And I may have been taught, but I did not
Speaker 2: retain that information.
Speaker 1: Second laughter came home one day She's like, Dad, what's
Speaker 1: a surd? And I'm like, are you telling me a
Speaker 1: toilet joke?
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 1: Like where is this going? And it turned out that
Speaker 1: she asked three different people with degrees if they knew
Speaker 1: what serds were, none of the beer. The only adult
Speaker 1: that she knew who could describe what a sord was
Speaker 1: was a maths teacher who was teaching her about serds
Speaker 1: that day. Now, so it's important. They probably are. From
Speaker 1: what I recall, there something called an irrational number. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that just means they're disgrigulated.
Speaker 2: Important to somebody the problem, maybe not to the majority
Speaker 2: of people.
Speaker 1: And see, you fall in love with learning when you're
Speaker 1: learning something that feels purpose for, something that you endorse,
Speaker 1: something that you see the value in. And that's why
Speaker 1: I failed high school because I didn't see the point.
Speaker 1: Because I was going to be a radio announcederent and
Speaker 1: I just needed to know which celebrity was in town
Speaker 1: and what they'd been up too lately, so if I
Speaker 1: could entertain my audience, I got really good at that.
Speaker 1: So if I was to change the school system back
Speaker 1: to your question at number one, oh sorry, in addition
Speaker 1: to the things that I've already said, I'd be looking
Speaker 1: for more more autonomy in in the way curriculum is crafted.
Speaker 1: And autonomy doesn't necessarily mean freedom. It doesn't mean carte blanche.
Speaker 1: It means that kids feel like they're choicefully in doing
Speaker 1: the activities they're doing. So it might be that everybody
Speaker 1: does actually need to learn how to write an essay.
Speaker 1: Essays are important. They distill your thinking, they help you
Speaker 1: to explore ideas well. But let's make sure that they
Speaker 1: understand the rationale and that they're writing about something that
Speaker 1: they care about, so that they can have that sense
Speaker 1: of Okay, I'm endorsing this activity. Therefore I'm doing it
Speaker 1: choicefully and willingly. Therefore it feels autonomous.
Speaker 2: It comes back to that questioning. When you're at home,
Speaker 2: you're giving them the options.
Speaker 1: Yep. So the style of parenting that I teach is
Speaker 1: called autonomy. Supportive or needs supportive parenting, and the same
Speaker 1: needs that I'm talking about that are absent in our
Speaker 1: school system, sorry, that are diluted and trampled on in
Speaker 1: our school system are the same needs that cans have
Speaker 1: at home. So the first one's autonomy. Again, that's not freedom,
Speaker 1: that's an understanding of why this matters and a choice
Speaker 1: to do it powerful. Secondly, it's relationship, like do I
Speaker 1: feel good with the people I'm around? We were talking
Speaker 1: before about connection. Here's my definition of connection feeling seen, heard, valued, accepted.
Speaker 1: So when I step in that school gate, is that
Speaker 1: someone that says, hey, come sit with us. Because if
Speaker 1: that happens, I feel seen, heard, valued and accept it.
Speaker 1: And if I don't, I don't want to be there.
Speaker 1: It's like you and me with the in laws. Right,
Speaker 1: if you don't get on with the in laws and
Speaker 1: it's Christmas lunch, I do not feel seen, heard, valued
Speaker 1: and accepted. Why don't you go? Hn, You take the kids,
Speaker 1: I'll clean up the house and get it ready for dinner.
Speaker 1: I've been a big morning. Yeah, right. And then the third,
Speaker 1: the third one is a sense of competence, capability, mastery,
Speaker 1: or a sense at least that I'm progressing. And what
Speaker 1: happens when you get a grade on a report card
Speaker 1: is now you feel like the teacher is evaluating you.
Speaker 1: So getting judged and judged. Yeah, so that's not good
Speaker 1: for relationships number two. And some people might say I'm straining.
Speaker 1: There's a whole lot of other things that we can
Speaker 1: talk about. We're time crunch So that's enough. Their competence.
Speaker 1: You find out real quick with your competent, not in
Speaker 1: the eyes of the teacher. Oh quick. Story about report cards.
Speaker 1: My fourth daughter, Annie, who just finished high school in
Speaker 1: grade three, she came home and handed her report card
Speaker 1: and started crying. And I'm like, you know, it sounds
Speaker 1: like you've got a bad report card, and she said,
Speaker 1: dam I did. And I had a look at the
Speaker 1: report card and there were a couple of bees and
Speaker 1: even at C or two. And I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: don't really care about the grade, just care that you tried.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what I say.
Speaker 1: That's what every parent says, because that's what we've kind
Speaker 1: of been conditioned to say.
Speaker 2: Not all you'd be surprised, Well, I.
Speaker 1: Get from it. Yeah, that's true. I did get a
Speaker 1: bit of pushback on this, but anyway, I said that
Speaker 1: because I thought it was the right thing to say,
Speaker 1: and I got a peroge to do a psychologist, so
Speaker 1: therefore I've been a good dad. And then she burst
Speaker 1: into tears again because she got a C for effort
Speaker 1: in one of her subjects, and I said, well, what
Speaker 1: happened here? And she's through her heaving sobs, She's like,
Speaker 1: I tried so hard, but the teacher's perception of her effort.
Speaker 2: Exactly and exactly what happens in our personal home.
Speaker 1: So I haven't looked through it card since then. Well,
Speaker 1: I literally just for all the kids were still at school,
Speaker 1: and when the report cards came in, I said, I
Speaker 1: don't care, not interested. My interest with you being at
Speaker 1: school is do you have friends and you're happy to
Speaker 1: be there? That'll do me And I guess what. They're
Speaker 1: all contributing, and they're all doing really well in their lives,
Speaker 1: and it didn't actually harm them at all. I think
Speaker 1: that it benefited them. So we've got a sense of
Speaker 1: mastery and confidence, we've got relationship and a sense of choice.
Speaker 1: They're the three big things. And if I could change anything,
Speaker 1: it would be that I would make schools feel more
Speaker 1: need supportive and they're just unfortunately for too many, not all,
Speaker 1: but for too many of our children, they're not. I
Speaker 1: want to give you a quick example of a cutting edge,
Speaker 1: very very thoughtful school leader in Sydney that I met
Speaker 1: with just a couple of months ago who's changing the
Speaker 1: way they're doing reporting. And I should highlight this guy's
Speaker 1: working out one of the most prestigious and old and
Speaker 1: expensive private schools in Sydney, so they're moving away from
Speaker 1: the traditional reporting, right it needs to happen. And what
Speaker 1: he's doing is he's saying in his classes and across
Speaker 1: their school. Now they're just trialing it, but they're saying,
Speaker 1: here's where you were at the start of the year,
Speaker 1: here's where you are now, and here are your next steps.
Speaker 2: Brilliant.
Speaker 1: So instead of a grade or instead of a fixed
Speaker 1: quantity or evaluation, it's just an indication of progression. Are
Speaker 1: you improving? And your instant response is brilliant. And I've
Speaker 1: thought about it NonStop since he talked to me about it,
Speaker 1: because I really like to pick at what schools are
Speaker 1: doing and talk about how they're getting it wrong. And
Speaker 1: I can't see anything wrong with this. I love it.
Speaker 1: And at an adult level. I've just started with a
Speaker 1: PT I'm trying to get in shape. I've let myself
Speaker 1: go for too long and enough. Well it's only a
Speaker 1: couple of months, but I'll take it.
Speaker 2: You're a grandfather, now this is great.
Speaker 1: I can't wait until I've got grandkids and I can say,
Speaker 1: let's see, you can do more push ups. Anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at this at a PTE level, and I was
Speaker 1: in the gym a couple of weeks after I had
Speaker 1: this conversation with this school leader and my PT. I'm
Speaker 1: doing these calisthenic sort of things, so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of weights, it's more body weight things, and I'm doing
Speaker 1: this really challenging thing and I'm finally at a point
Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh, I got it, and the PT
Speaker 1: is like, high five this pump. You did it. That's great.
Speaker 1: You know three months ago you couldn't even do this,
Speaker 1: and now you've going to boom boom boom. He literally
Speaker 1: make you feel. I was like my top of door,
Speaker 1: I know. And then he said here's what we're working towards,
Speaker 1: and he demonstrated the next thing and I looked at it.
Speaker 1: I was like, I reckon, I could do that. And
Speaker 1: I got down on the four and tried to do it,
Speaker 1: and I fell in a heap in half a second,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm so motivated because that is
Speaker 1: a real challenge. But look what I've done in three months.
Speaker 1: That's the model that that school is going to. And
Speaker 1: in terms of psychological theory, in terms of motivational theory,
Speaker 1: in terms of well being, oh my goodness, Like if
Speaker 1: we could just run that across the nation, that would
Speaker 1: change schooling forever in profound ways.
Speaker 2: I think all of us who have been through schooling
Speaker 2: and the ones who are still there are haunted by
Speaker 2: grades at that received. So I'd love to see some
Speaker 2: type of evolution there as well. And I'm the same
Speaker 2: as you. I don't well, I look at the reports,
Speaker 2: but I don't discuss them really with my children. I
Speaker 2: was I was sort of stupid, and I probably am
Speaker 2: pretty much like you and go to the effort level
Speaker 2: of like where where's where's the effort grade? If that's
Speaker 2: pretty much the one that I'm concerned about. But I
Speaker 2: thought I was stupid too. I always thought I was stupid. Funny,
Speaker 2: because my brain has told me that I was not
Speaker 2: that clever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, isn't that tragic? Because what I've discovered is
Speaker 1: that there's no such thing as smart or dumb. There's
Speaker 1: just people who get stuck in and figure it out,
Speaker 1: and people who don't, and.
Speaker 2: People who can retain information better, people who some people
Speaker 2: pass street smart, people who are books smart, people who
Speaker 2: are creative.
Speaker 1: That's just because they've practiced it, right, Like I can't
Speaker 1: retain any information about how my car or my lawn
Speaker 1: mower or my computer work. But that's because I only
Speaker 1: have to try to deal with those issues when they
Speaker 1: come up. I don't know once ever, three months, six months,
Speaker 1: nine months, if I was doing it every day, I'd
Speaker 1: retain it. I'd know how to feel you cared about it,
Speaker 1: and if I cared about it, yeah, So again, I
Speaker 1: don't Howard Garden to come up with this under of
Speaker 1: multiple intelligences, and that's been just proven pretty thoroughly. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you work at something, you get better at it,
Speaker 1: and if you don't, you don't. And we have applied
Speaker 1: these words like smart and dumb completely unfairly and inappropriately.
Speaker 1: Anyone can kind of pretty much almost not I would
Speaker 1: say almost anyone. Some people really do have some limitations
Speaker 1: and Unfortunately that just that's a real challenge for them
Speaker 1: and their families. But if we can move beyond our
Speaker 1: limited beliefs, it's extraordinary what we can do. I thought
Speaker 1: I was dumb, and then I got a PhD and
Speaker 1: became a university lecturer and people pay me to talk
Speaker 1: to them about stuff that I know, Like, hello, can
Speaker 1: I just talk about this for one more second about boys?
Speaker 2: You can, But I just want to ask you one question.
Speaker 2: Do you still think you're dumb?
Speaker 1: I don't care. It's not all that day anymore. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: do I think I'm smart and dumb? I don't think
Speaker 1: about it. I just figure stuff out or I don't,
Speaker 1: based on whether I care about it or not. And
Speaker 1: so if I care about it, then I'm smart enough
Speaker 1: to figure it out, because all humans are.
Speaker 2: That's the beauty of age as well. Yeah, caring what
Speaker 2: other people thing tell me about boys. I want to
Speaker 2: bring this up because you are you are writing, or
Speaker 2: you have written already now a book specifically on boys. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I don't want to turn this into a
Speaker 1: plug for the book, although I will just mention that
Speaker 1: it's twenty seven percent off right now, both you dot Commada,
Speaker 1: you and pre orders really matter and it comes out
Speaker 1: in June, so link in this show. There we go.
Speaker 1: But no, that's not what I wanted to bring it up.
Speaker 1: For the reason I wanted to highlight it is because
Speaker 1: when it comes to education, our boys are falling behind.
Speaker 1: In fact, on almost every metric that we look at,
Speaker 1: boys are falling behind. And some people will say, well,
Speaker 1: go girl power, that's fantastic, and I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is fantastic. I've got six daughters. I want my
Speaker 1: girls to succeed and have every opportunity. But the world
Speaker 1: doesn't work if one gender is falling behind. At the
Speaker 1: risk of being a little bit sexist about this, especially
Speaker 1: if it's boys, Like we can't have thriving, happy women
Speaker 1: if we do not have thriving, happy boys, when we
Speaker 1: have non viable boys socially and economically, when we have
Speaker 1: boys who are non thriving, they unfortunately can be quite
Speaker 1: destructive and quite harmful.
Speaker 2: Is this a new thing that's being seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well we've always We've always had boys struggling in
Speaker 1: various things. That's just the way of the world. But
Speaker 1: girls have also had their struggles. But over the last
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen years, the data has become increasingly concerning,
Speaker 1: so much so that there are governments around the world
Speaker 1: who are looking at the data and saying, oh, my godness,
Speaker 1: if we do not help boys, especially in education, especially
Speaker 1: with their mental health, especially with their physical health, especially
Speaker 1: with their employment prospects, their earnings, and the list goes
Speaker 1: on their involvement with criminal behavior, their addictions, and their
Speaker 1: substance use. If we don't have You know, a male
Speaker 1: is between three and four times more likely to die
Speaker 1: by suicide than a female will is. Nine people are
Speaker 1: day straight as suicide. Seven of them are men. Now
Speaker 1: any of them regards that the gender is too much,
Speaker 1: but two women, seven men or boys. Every single day,
Speaker 1: like yesterday and today, and tomorrow it will be another
Speaker 1: nine and the day after, and every time it happens
Speaker 1: a family, it's just obliterated. My nephew died at twenty.
Speaker 1: He took his life about two and a half years ago,
Speaker 1: and so having experienced it, as you can tell, it
Speaker 1: definitely makes me emotional. And so much of this goes
Speaker 1: back to not all of it, not all of There
Speaker 1: are other factors like what happened pre natally and personatally,
Speaker 1: and what happened with alcohol and their families and whether
Speaker 1: their parents are functional and all that kind of. There
Speaker 1: are so many factors, but the one of the big
Speaker 1: contributing factors to boys thriving and becoming both economically and
Speaker 1: socially viable is their ability to do well at school.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. For every ten girls in primary school,
Speaker 1: every ten girls in primary school who was suspended, and
Speaker 1: that's a pretty serious thing, right, there are fifty seven boys.
Speaker 1: Research shows that there is and I hate saying this
Speaker 1: for any teacher who's listening. I'm so sorry to say this,
Speaker 1: but the data is really clear on this. There is
Speaker 1: a bias against boys in education because we want kids
Speaker 1: to sit down, be quiet, listen and take note, to
Speaker 1: pay attention, work with one another. And you're not what
Speaker 1: boys want to do when they're in class. They want
Speaker 1: to stare out the window. They want to kick the
Speaker 1: seat of the person in front of them. They want
Speaker 1: to poke someone in the ribs. They want to put
Speaker 1: a spit water in a pen and flick it across
Speaker 1: the room. They want to do anything except learn about serds. Right,
Speaker 1: And so what happens is the boy plays up a
Speaker 1: little beer, the teacher rouses on him, and you know
Speaker 1: what it's like like when somebody starts to annoy you,
Speaker 1: you become predisposed to respond to them more quickly and
Speaker 1: more sharply. And the data shows that teachers will speak
Speaker 1: in shorter, more clip sentences to boys than to girls.
Speaker 1: They turn their body towards girls more when they talk
Speaker 1: to them. There's this full open stands, whereas with boys
Speaker 1: they might look over their shoulder and say a short
Speaker 1: command like correction and direction right. And what we see
Speaker 1: is that by the time they get into high school,
Speaker 1: we have around about ten For every ten girls who graduate,
Speaker 1: we have about seven point nine to eight point three,
Speaker 1: depending on the state boys who graduate high school. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a challenge because when we get into the
Speaker 1: university setting, a straight I think has forty four universities,
Speaker 1: and in forty two of those universities, girls out number
Speaker 1: the boys. Girls are going to university at much higher rates.
Speaker 1: For every ten girls in the university, there are only
Speaker 1: six point nine boys. For every girl who graduates university,
Speaker 1: there are approximately six boys I should say men, because
Speaker 1: by the time they're graduating there well into their twenties.
Speaker 1: And so what we see is research around dating is fascinating.
Speaker 1: The research around coupling shows that women, in spite of
Speaker 1: all the women's movement stuff, and this even happens in
Speaker 1: the most militarian countries in the world, like your northern
Speaker 1: Scandinavian countries and the Denmarks and Swedens, who are just
Speaker 1: totally all good with let's be equal women. In fact,
Speaker 1: women in those nations tend to move more towards more
Speaker 1: traditional gendered roles. Interestingly, but I digress women across the
Speaker 1: Western world, and even more so not in the Western world,
Speaker 1: they look to partner economically and educationally across or up.
Speaker 1: In other words, generally speaking, women are looking for somebody
Speaker 1: at least as educated as them and hopefully earning more
Speaker 1: than them. They want somebody who can provide and protect
Speaker 1: and education and income make you economically viable as a guy.
Speaker 1: But you're more likely to be economically viable if you
Speaker 1: finished high school than if you don't. If you finish
Speaker 1: high school, you are going to earn approximately three to
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand dollars across the lifespan. More it's probably
Speaker 1: even more than that. Now this is a twenty nineteen report,
Speaker 1: than somebody who doesn't finish high school. Finish high school,
Speaker 1: your earnings are going to be about fifty percent higher
Speaker 1: than somebody who doesn't finish high school. Like that, three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand must have gone up since Sam, because if
Speaker 1: you do university, your numbers go up even more. Right,
Speaker 1: So girls are getting all this education and they're becoming
Speaker 1: really economically viable, and unfortunately they're looking across and going,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what's really on offer, Like show me
Speaker 1: the guy who's going to be a bonus. I actually
Speaker 1: had a conversation with a woman in her forties. She
Speaker 1: was divorced. She was a friend, so I was appropriate
Speaker 1: that I had this personal conversation with her and I said,
Speaker 1: are you going to get back into the dating thing
Speaker 1: it's been a few years, and she said, no, I
Speaker 1: can't think of a single man that has shown up
Speaker 1: in my app who is actually going to be a
Speaker 1: bonus in my life. I'm going to be the cook,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be the cleaner, I'm going to be this,
Speaker 1: that and the other. I'm looking for a guy who'll
Speaker 1: be a bonus. What she's really saying is, I'm looking
Speaker 1: for a guy who is going to be economically and
Speaker 1: socially viable. And while over guys are hanging out in
Speaker 1: a moment over boys are hanging out in mom and
Speaker 1: dad's living room or in their bedroom and they're vaping,
Speaker 1: or they're gaming and playing Fortnite or nicking off and
Speaker 1: just turning into being a man child. They're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to distract the kind of mate who says, hey,
Speaker 1: let's make this work and let's go and create a
Speaker 1: viable family unit. All of that to bring it back
Speaker 1: to your question is how do we help school be
Speaker 1: better for boys? And the things that we've talked about
Speaker 1: are the kinds of things that will do that for them.
Speaker 1: Helping them to see the relevance, helping them to see
Speaker 1: the purpose, helping them feel like they're progressing, confidence, mastery, capability,
Speaker 1: having great relationships with teachers instead of having teachers who
Speaker 1: are biased against them, and having a sense of choice
Speaker 1: in what I'm doing, like I'm doing this because I'm
Speaker 1: interested in it. The data still shows, even in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, the boys really just want to get their
Speaker 1: hands dirty and move their bodies.
Speaker 2: I love your passion around this and I love that
Speaker 2: you Is this what your book is entailing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, I know much of that you're.
Speaker 2: Delving into deeply in the book, which is so important
Speaker 2: I think with boys too, know, the young men that
Speaker 2: I've been around and when I talked to my mother
Speaker 2: in law about my husband and when he was a
Speaker 2: teenager and growing up, is that they tend to communicate
Speaker 2: a lot less than girls and disclose how they feel
Speaker 2: and able to verbalize their emotions. And I mean she
Speaker 2: has three sons, each of them are a different experience,
Speaker 2: but just talking about one in particular, yeah, the one
Speaker 2: that I live with, and men like I just feel
Speaker 2: like in particular, in general, men struggle to share emotions
Speaker 2: and communicate more than women do. And are you finding
Speaker 2: that can be an underlying issue with some of the
Speaker 2: bigger issues that boys are encountering in their lives.
Speaker 1: This is partly a skills issue. Unfortunately. The research shows
Speaker 1: that when we're emotionally inarticulate, when we're emotionally illiterate, the
Speaker 1: risk of depression goes up, the risk of anxiety goes up,
Speaker 1: the risk of suicide skyrockets because we're feeling these things
Speaker 1: and we don't know how to communicate them properly. And men,
Speaker 1: far more than women struggle with that, particularly men in
Speaker 1: their forties and fifties. They're the cohort typically in most
Speaker 1: nations that are most likely to die by suicide. But
Speaker 1: you think about it, I'm a let's say I'm a
Speaker 1: forty or a fifty year old man, and I haven't
Speaker 1: been particularly emotionally responsive. I'm a little bit disregulated. I
Speaker 1: show my emotions only when I'm angry. I've had Everything's fine,
Speaker 1: I'm fine, not bad. Everything it's fine, and so and so.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, I'm not getting along with my wife.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting along with the kids. My wife says,
Speaker 1: let's pull the pin, and I've had enough, let's try
Speaker 1: a separation. Now I'm living on my own in a unit,
Speaker 1: so my relationship need I don't have anyone around me
Speaker 1: because all of my friends were actually the husbands of
Speaker 1: my wife's friends, because that's often how it goes for guys.
Speaker 1: So I'm relationally that needs not being supported. I'm feeling
Speaker 1: incoonfident because my relationships are a mess and the rug's
Speaker 1: been pulled out from under me. I didn't choose this, this
Speaker 1: has been done to me, and so my basic psychological
Speaker 1: needs through the floor. And then I start drinking too
Speaker 1: much alcohol. Maybe I start taking other substances as well.
Speaker 1: I probably get way too involved with pornography, but basically
Speaker 1: I'm just feeling like I'm crap. And this is why
Speaker 1: we see so many men in their forties and fifty
Speaker 1: struggling if if we can help boys and men. A
Speaker 1: lot of people say, oh, you're feminizing boys by getting
Speaker 1: to talk about their emotions. You don't have to talk
Speaker 1: about your emotions. What you do need is an environment
Speaker 1: where you feel safe and secure and to.
Speaker 2: Be able to verbalize what is going on in here,
Speaker 2: so it's no longer just simmering inside. And I think
Speaker 2: a lot of the problem comes from when it's simmering
Speaker 2: inside and people around you are unsure of what's actually
Speaker 2: going on. What are they thinking? Is it about me?
Speaker 2: Is it something else? Can I help? Yeah, that conversation
Speaker 2: is so important.
Speaker 1: We're moving away from parenting a little bit here, but
Speaker 1: it's worth relationship. Yeah, it's worth the boy becomes the
Speaker 1: man males and females. Females already do this naturally, and
Speaker 1: this is why it's tricky because men, whether it's socialized
Speaker 1: or not, whether it's nature or nurture, is irrelevant. Men
Speaker 1: are not naturally predisposed to having these kinds of conversations.
Speaker 1: But if a guy's got a couple of maids that
Speaker 1: he can get together and have productive not beer drinking,
Speaker 1: let's just hate the world. Let's not turn into in
Speaker 1: cells here. But if he's got a couple of mates
Speaker 1: that he can have productive conversations with, that is life.
Speaker 2: Saving, even for teenage boys.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know what, it was really interesting going back
Speaker 1: to boys for a sec emotionally when it comes to empathy,
Speaker 1: when boys have this massive testosterone spikes. So there are
Speaker 1: three testosterone spikes in a boy's life that are life changing,
Speaker 1: and this is why boys and girls are different because
Speaker 1: of this, Like this is the hormone that dominates us
Speaker 1: and divides us.
Speaker 2: So what are those age groups?
Speaker 1: First of all in utero, so girls also have a
Speaker 1: testosterone spoken in utero, but boys have two, three, maybe
Speaker 1: even four times as much, just massive explosion and that
Speaker 1: sets the brain on its path. The second one is
Speaker 1: about six months of age, there's this other boom, massive
Speaker 1: explosion of testosterone, and then as puberty, onto the puberty,
Speaker 1: boys at that point have between twenty and thirty times
Speaker 1: the testosterone coursing through their system, as do girls. Twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty times. Right, this is why they turn into
Speaker 1: both heads. What's going on? I don't know, well, why
Speaker 1: did you just hit your brother? Because right? But what's
Speaker 1: going on actually is that their empathy because of this
Speaker 1: testosterone drop. Their empathy as sorry, this testosterone surge, the
Speaker 1: empathy drops. There's two kinds of empathy. There's cognitive empathy, Oh,
Speaker 1: I get how you feel. And there's effective empathy. Oh.
Speaker 1: That must have been so hard. I'm feeling it too.
Speaker 1: I'm crying because you're crying that kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: what the data shows is that for boys, they're cognitive empathy.
Speaker 1: It's kind of steady and low from about the age
Speaker 1: of twelve or thirteen through until their late teams. For
Speaker 1: their affective empathy, the feeling part, it drops once testosterone
Speaker 1: surge hits and it doesn't recover until they're mid to
Speaker 1: late teens. Now, no, it's not like it's absent. We
Speaker 1: can still teach empathy, and in fact, I would argue
Speaker 1: it's even more important that we do. But this kind
Speaker 1: of explains why when you say to your teenager you
Speaker 1: need to talk like or why did you how do
Speaker 1: you think your sister feels when you call her that
Speaker 1: name and part of it. He kind of does know,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't care enough to bother putting in the
Speaker 1: effort to explore it, because the empathy is solo. It's
Speaker 1: fascinating everything that's going on with our boys versus our
Speaker 1: girls as they as they grow up, and then you
Speaker 1: chucking technology and all that sort of thing, and it
Speaker 1: just expounds the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so interesting. I'm very impressed with your ability to
Speaker 2: retain statistical information.
Speaker 1: I must be really smart. No such thing, but if
Speaker 1: it matters that you.
Speaker 2: Are throwing out, it's so interesting to know that you
Speaker 2: retain all of that.
Speaker 1: But that's because it matters, right, And because it matters,
Speaker 1: you just learn it.
Speaker 2: Justin what does a happy family look like?
Speaker 1: Oh? Three l's three l's love limits laughter. Love is
Speaker 1: very the very core, right, Like there's this saying. I
Speaker 1: don't know who invented it. Who invented word for saying?
Speaker 1: I don't know who coined the phrase first. It's been
Speaker 1: around for decades, like fifty sixty seventy years, but somebody
Speaker 1: once said to a child, love is spelled t im,
Speaker 1: Like I get weepy thinking about it. I get really
Speaker 1: emotional about it, because when you think about the very
Speaker 1: best times. If you ask your kids what are the
Speaker 1: best times we've had together, They're never They're never gonna
Speaker 1: look at him and say about last weekend when we
Speaker 1: all watched YouTube, Oh, that was the best. Or we
Speaker 1: went to our rooms and we got the game for
Speaker 1: an hour. That was the best day of my life.
Speaker 1: I don't say that. They say that time that we
Speaker 1: went for the walk along the beach and we found
Speaker 1: the thing and we had the adventure, or the holiday
Speaker 1: that we went on, or I remember one dad he
Speaker 1: had a little consult with me back when I still
Speaker 1: one on one stuff. His family was struggling, and I said,
Speaker 1: why don't we just why don't we just talk to
Speaker 1: the kids about the best thing in their day each
Speaker 1: day at the dinner table. Let's just try that. And
Speaker 1: he asked his daughter, what's the what's been the best time,
Speaker 1: the best thing in your day to day? And she
Speaker 1: was like, right now, I know I'm getting where you beat.
Speaker 1: Stop it. And so love, love is vital. There's there's
Speaker 1: one more thing that I want to say about love,
Speaker 1: because sometimes we look at our kids and we're like,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I love you at all right now,
Speaker 1: Like you're really taking me off. Over the years, my
Speaker 1: children have given me all sorts of challenges because that's
Speaker 1: what kids do. Just because you're a parenting expert doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you have perfect kids. And I'm far from
Speaker 1: perfect as well. But I learned something when one of
Speaker 1: my children, in particular, they she put me through the
Speaker 1: ring in a way that I just have never experienced.
Speaker 1: This was the hardest two or three months that I
Speaker 1: might have ever enjoyed in my life. Clylie and I
Speaker 1: were like like we were questioning everything, questioning our marriage,
Speaker 1: like this was just exploding around us. And I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: I teach this stuff for a living, and I don't
Speaker 1: know how to deal with this, Like what what did
Speaker 1: everyone else do? At around about the three month mark
Speaker 1: in this ongoing saga with this child, I had this realization,
Speaker 1: and it was that she felt judged, she felt evaluated,
Speaker 1: She felt like there was too much correction and direction.
Speaker 1: She felt like she wasn't allowed to be herself. And
Speaker 1: I was at the I was the problem here. I
Speaker 1: am pointing a finger at her and saying you're the problem.
Speaker 1: And I was teaching a seminar about love, limits and laughter,
Speaker 1: and I thought, she's not feeling love. I can say
Speaker 1: I love her all day long, but if she's not
Speaker 1: feeling the love, the fact that I love her is
Speaker 1: irrelevant because she's not feeling it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So I sat down with her and I said, I've
Speaker 1: made a pretty big mess of things for the last
Speaker 1: couple of months, and here's what I need you to know.
Speaker 1: And then I share with the three most important words
Speaker 1: that any parent can ever hear there, any child can
Speaker 1: ever hear their parents say. And those three words are
Speaker 1: I love you. No no, bird, oh no, No, it's
Speaker 1: not I love you. It's the three words that come next.
Speaker 1: I said to her, I need you to know I
Speaker 1: love you no matter what, absolutely, unquestionably, in every way,
Speaker 1: regardless of anything that happens.
Speaker 2: And there's a huge difference, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unconditionally. Some people like, oh, there's a difference being
Speaker 1: conditional and unconditional love. No, there's not. If your love
Speaker 1: is conditional, it's not love. So hopefully that's something that
Speaker 1: you can't un hear, right, I love you no matter what.
Speaker 1: And I've used that line more times than I can
Speaker 1: count over the last ten or fifteen years with all
Speaker 1: my kids, especially when they don't deserve it like at
Speaker 1: the hardest times. Recently, I had the opportunity to say
Speaker 1: not just that to one of my children, but she said, yeah,
Speaker 1: but Dad, I've made this mistake that I've made is
Speaker 1: so big. And she held out her arms like she
Speaker 1: was showing me how big it was, like, this is
Speaker 1: how big the fish I caught was that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And I said, that is a that is a really
Speaker 1: big mistake, like that is a big, big error. And
Speaker 1: I said I've got some good news for you, and
Speaker 1: she's like what And then I put my arms out
Speaker 1: as why as they go, Oh gosh, I'm getting weeping,
Speaker 1: And I said to her, your mistake is this big,
Speaker 1: but my.
Speaker 4: Love for you is this big. It's a big ache. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I can I can envelop you and the mistake
Speaker 4: and we're still good. And so when I say kids
Speaker 4: need love to thrive. That's what makes a happy family,
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, they need that. You don't always have
Speaker 4: to be soppy and make people like me cry because
Speaker 4: of the stories.
Speaker 2: Feel so bad because I came in here feeling so
Speaker 2: loved and now I've made you cry.
Speaker 1: I'm sniffling into the microphone as well. That's disgusting.
Speaker 2: So beautiful to see your dad wearing his heart on
Speaker 2: his sleeve like this and cherry. It is absolutely a
Speaker 2: moment that I won't forget seeing it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: So anyway, we have to have limits, and we set
Speaker 1: limits better when we set limits together rather than autocratically.
Speaker 1: And we have to have laughter. Like the happiest families,
Speaker 1: they have fun. They splash in the water, they go
Speaker 1: to the beach and they go to escape bowl, or
Speaker 1: they throw off frisbee, or they.
Speaker 2: Even light humor in their house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they tell you. My daughter gave me this one
Speaker 1: the other day. She said, hey, Dad, what's an HD?
Speaker 1: Let me ask you what's an HD?
Speaker 2: I'm asking the questions on this podcast.
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know, and she said, I don't
Speaker 1: know whither. But the doctor said, I've got eighty of them.
Speaker 2: Hang on, got it? Got it. It's terrible, but I
Speaker 2: got it.
Speaker 1: And those kinds of things just so fun. I was
Speaker 1: looking at the ceiling in this podcast studio. I'm sure
Speaker 1: our time is up and I should stop talking, but
Speaker 1: I was looking at this. I thought, that's a great ceiling.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not the best in the world, but
Speaker 1: it sure is up there.
Speaker 2: What I haven't even looked up. Thank you for making
Speaker 2: me look up and find a new perspective. And I
Speaker 2: think that's what you've done today.
Speaker 1: You missed the gag though, but I have.
Speaker 2: I'm terrible with and justin if you have to explain
Speaker 2: a joke and means it's not funny, it's not the
Speaker 2: best in the world, but it sure is up there.
Speaker 2: But honestly, I got it. I got it now. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: is pointing now? Pointing now? But you have given us
Speaker 2: so many different perspectives on parenting and a reframe that
Speaker 2: I think so many of us need sometimes And for me,
Speaker 2: you know, big takeaways are asking questions, getting children involved
Speaker 2: in decision making, making them see what the right pathway
Speaker 2: is for them by asking the right questions, and of
Speaker 2: course showing them so much love. As you know the
Speaker 2: name of the podcast, it's things you can on here
Speaker 2: and I want you to share just in wrapping up,
Speaker 2: one thing is you can't unhear moment that you had
Speaker 2: that you learned about parenthood that changed the way that
Speaker 2: you saw the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think has got to be the no matter
Speaker 1: what stuff, of all the things that I say, of
Speaker 1: all things that I do, all the things that I've
Speaker 1: learned of everything that the kids have put me through.
Speaker 1: Kids just text you, they try you. There's nothing easy
Speaker 1: about being a parent, so let it be hard, like
Speaker 1: don't fight that. This is what parenting is. And the
Speaker 1: great irony is as you accept that it's going to
Speaker 1: be hard, ironically becomes a lot less hard and you.
Speaker 2: Went back six times so that it's great at the
Speaker 2: same time, right, and love.
Speaker 1: Them no matter what and make sure that they know it.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time today. Please check
Speaker 2: out doctor Justin Coulson's podcast. It is brilliantly such a
Speaker 2: resource there and I've recently listened to a couple of
Speaker 2: episodes which I wanted to bring up today, but they're
Speaker 2: all completely new topics that I think we should be
Speaker 2: delving into around schooling systems, ADHD, medication, boys, and so
Speaker 2: much more. Again, thank you so much for.
Speaker 1: Your time, so much.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the show. What did you think
Speaker 2: and what did you feel? Let us know by leaving
Speaker 2: me a message on the things you can't unhear Instagram
Speaker 2: community page and if you can give us some rating
Speaker 2: glove on your favorite listening platform.