Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News TALKSB.
Speaker 2: Told me.
Speaker 3: I want to see.
Speaker 4: Let's welcome back. Were welcome into the Weekend Collective. This
Speaker 4: is the Parents Squad.
Speaker 5: By the way, if you missed any of our previous hours,
Speaker 5: we had a Pete Wolf camp and I are in
Speaker 5: Gardner on for our panel. You can go check that
Speaker 5: out on our website. Look news Talk, said B. Just
Speaker 5: look for the Weekend Collective on iHeartRadio and likewise interesting
Speaker 5: chat with de Wi Roberts are just about the art
Speaker 5: of negotiation and a few good stories there for the
Speaker 5: for the one roof radio show. Anyway, right now, as
Speaker 5: I say, it's the Parents Squad and joining me is
Speaker 5: season euro Science Educator. It's a name that's known to
Speaker 5: many many Kiwis or many of many parents around the country.
Speaker 4: Nathan Wallace today, Yes you too.
Speaker 1: It looks I.
Speaker 5: Don't know if we're on a zoom meeting you and
Speaker 5: I and it looks like is it about foggy out
Speaker 5: the back there through your window instead of sitting an
Speaker 5: artwork or something.
Speaker 1: No, it's an illusion. It's an illusion. It's a that's
Speaker 1: a picture rather than an actual window window.
Speaker 4: It has confused me.
Speaker 1: When you come on, you look like a young Jeene Hackman. Ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what Zoom is doing today.
Speaker 4: I have had that one before.
Speaker 5: I think I will go with that someone you know, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: the late Jean Heckman. Actually, now I think of it,
Speaker 5: isn't that that's right? Because that's why I died recently.
Speaker 5: Sitting in a few days apart from his wife was
Speaker 5: very mysterious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has avent sure, I think, and his wife
Speaker 1: died and if he wandered around for a week, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: had the capacity of.
Speaker 2: Like a twelve month old so and then he died.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was pretty good. I'm actually gosh.
Speaker 5: Hey, we now, we'd love to hear from you if
Speaker 5: you've any questions or some stories you'd like to share
Speaker 5: on with dealing with meltdowns with your kids. I know
Speaker 5: eight one hundred eighty ten eighty or text nine two
Speaker 5: nine two. And look, I don't share too much about
Speaker 5: my own kids for their own privacy sake, but obviously
Speaker 5: every child that's ever ever been well has the capacity
Speaker 5: to have the meltdown and be unreasonable, no matter no
Speaker 5: matter how wonderful they are in every other aspect of
Speaker 5: their lives. But some of it's tied with anxiety. Some
Speaker 5: of it's just tied with pubany kids asserting their independence.
Speaker 1: Yep, some of it's completely natural.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's start on the anxiety side of things, because.
Speaker 4: It seems to be a word that packs up all
Speaker 4: the time, doesn't it? Know, Nathan that I.
Speaker 1: Mean, I often do tell stories about my kids, but
Speaker 1: the way I get around the privacy issues, I don't
Speaker 1: mention which kid it is. It's pretty hard to do this,
Speaker 1: you know, like I say a child, So that's not
Speaker 1: saying which one it is because it's I'm hard to
Speaker 1: do it without you know, pulling on your own experience.
Speaker 5: Well so, yeah, I mean, but okay, just on the
Speaker 5: anxiety side of things, how how are we doing with
Speaker 5: kids in anxiety?
Speaker 4: Has this generation of kids got more anxiety? And why
Speaker 4: is it? Or are we just more aware?
Speaker 1: I mean skyrocketing amounts, you know, hundreds of percent, like
Speaker 1: three hundred percent more so it's absolutely there. Are they
Speaker 1: pre wired for anxiety? Yes they are, but so were we.
Speaker 1: Everybody's pre wide for anxiety. You have to sort of
Speaker 1: it's like that's the default mode, and then you've got
Speaker 1: to have all these sort of layers on top of
Speaker 1: it to calm you down your survival as the prime director.
Speaker 1: So that's about being anxious. So then you have all
Speaker 1: your needs met and and you calm that. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is that there's no different biology with
Speaker 1: these kids. And you know, because generally take thousands of
Speaker 1: years to change, so they've got the same genetic predisposition
Speaker 1: as us, but they face a very different world. You know,
Speaker 1: Like in the space of thirty years, we've gone from
Speaker 1: having mainly one parent was a home for the first
Speaker 1: five years of life, eighty percent of people lived. Eighty
Speaker 1: percent of people lived in the same community as their
Speaker 1: extended family, so that there was aunties and grandparents. Grandmothers
Speaker 1: didn't work thirty years ago, so you know, we had
Speaker 1: a full time grandparent kids. People tended to stay in
Speaker 1: one area a whole lot. More so the kids on
Speaker 1: knew each other in the neighborhood and the parents knew
Speaker 1: each other, and the kids have fear fear of freedom.
Speaker 2: Now now most kids are in a childcare center. Before
Speaker 2: the age of one.
Speaker 1: Only twenty percent of people live in the area of
Speaker 1: their extended family. But I'm not trying to depress people
Speaker 1: and make people feel guilty. It's just saying the reality is.
Speaker 1: The reality is that the rapid change that they've gone through,
Speaker 1: they've taken away to the village. They now we find
Speaker 1: sixty kids into what used to be a backyard. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just there's a lot of change for kids to
Speaker 1: cope with. And I think it's natural that they get anxiety.
Speaker 1: I mean it's added to things by people think it's
Speaker 1: like PlayStation and Facebook, and certainly screens and social media
Speaker 1: do play a part in that. But I think if
Speaker 1: we had I had taken away our grandmothers and you know,
Speaker 1: extended family and most of us had in our home
Speaker 1: here and until we were like you know, out of
Speaker 1: high school. Yeah, yeah, you can't really underestimate how much
Speaker 1: those things really add to resilience. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: all doing with Glennoi. There are things we can do
Speaker 1: to compensate that. Yeah, this generator of kids are amazing.
Speaker 1: Part of that having anxiety is there actually a little
Speaker 1: bit more emotional intelligent than we were. They so they
Speaker 1: labeled their emotionals. You know, that's what's not all of it,
Speaker 1: but some of us there I'm a labeling.
Speaker 5: I'm almost relieved that the conversation hasn't gone straight to
Speaker 5: social media and devices and things, because I mean, look,
Speaker 5: we've got plenty of problems with addictions to devices.
Speaker 4: But I look at it. Look, I look at my kids,
Speaker 4: and look what.
Speaker 5: They don't have Facebook accounts yet they're twelve and forteen
Speaker 5: years old. There's no Facebook, there's no Instagram. But I look,
Speaker 5: but I look at the way that they and you
Speaker 5: know we I've got a limit on our youngest one's time.
Speaker 5: I don't know how we managed the older one because
Speaker 5: she's on an Apple. I can't control our Apple. That
Speaker 5: that's another topical drives me nuts. I low the apple.
Speaker 4: But I noticed that.
Speaker 5: The way that they communicate with their friends using WhatsApp,
Speaker 5: I actually am not okay. They're not on TikTok either, Okay,
Speaker 5: but I know they just seem to use those those
Speaker 5: methods of communicating with their friends in a way that
Speaker 5: doesn't actually bother me as much as they seem to
Speaker 5: be coping with it.
Speaker 4: Better surprise me, you know.
Speaker 1: Because it's told me that they've come from a house
Speaker 1: where you've moderated their screen time.
Speaker 2: They haven't just been free for all. So they've learned those.
Speaker 1: Other things you do when you're not on a screen,
Speaker 1: communication skills and stuff. So half of it will be
Speaker 1: that you've raised responsible kids that have got boundaries around
Speaker 1: their stuff alreally, so they're already using it with boundaries,
Speaker 1: And the other.
Speaker 2: Half will be that that's the stuff they're letting you see.
Speaker 1: You know, if they really hit full time access to
Speaker 1: them run it all the time, and the reality is
Speaker 1: they do start delving into your so they wouldn't want
Speaker 1: us to see oftentimes.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean I sometimes wonder whether it's the older
Speaker 5: generation have had problems with addictions to computers and stuff
Speaker 5: because we grew up without it and all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: I mean, anyone can get addicted to this ste but
Speaker 5: that's getting away from it.
Speaker 2: Really, it's all about how it underwarks the sense of reality.
Speaker 1: Like the issue was social media, like you know that
Speaker 1: in their research, the issue is with comparison to others
Speaker 1: and not knowing the difference between reality and what they
Speaker 1: see online. They're forming their vision of reality with what
Speaker 1: they're seeing online and that's making up their normal. And
Speaker 1: so interestingly, all we have to do is have a
Speaker 1: conversation with them as parents. That's that's that you know,
Speaker 1: like if you say to your kids, you know, social
Speaker 1: media pictures adopted, that's say, you know, people put forward
Speaker 1: their best foot, they want their lives to look better
Speaker 1: than other people's.
Speaker 2: That's not what real people look like.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's taking one hundred four days and put that one ahead,
Speaker 2: just letting them know.
Speaker 1: It's the same with pornography. If the parents have a
Speaker 1: conversation so you realize that pornography, that's not what real
Speaker 1: sex is.
Speaker 2: Like, women don't really do that.
Speaker 1: That's you know, made by men. As long as you
Speaker 1: have the conversation that tells them is different and it's
Speaker 1: not real, it seems really you need to do. It's
Speaker 1: the parents that don't talk about it and assume their
Speaker 1: kids aren't doing it or avoid the conversation that those
Speaker 1: kids get a warped perception of reality and they do
Speaker 1: start to believe it's real. And that's what causes the anxiety.
Speaker 1: You know, the comparison to others and there's warp sense
Speaker 1: of reality.
Speaker 5: So on the anxiety thing there'll be, I mean, it
Speaker 5: crops up. Sometimes we look at what previous generations have
Speaker 5: gone through in terms of trauma. I mean, I guess
Speaker 5: my generation grew up thinking that we're all going to
Speaker 5: die in a nuclear explosion. It comes small circle. I mean,
Speaker 5: obviously we people will say, well, you know, people went
Speaker 5: through the Blitz and kids were sent away from London
Speaker 5: and stuff like that. But I sometimes wonder if what
Speaker 5: what's missing from those comparisons, as the acknowledgment actually kids
Speaker 5: were deeply traumatized by the stuff they went through.
Speaker 4: As if we survived, we did all right. I'm not
Speaker 4: sure by that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I said that these generation has got better,
Speaker 1: These generation has got more emotionally intelligent, more articulate, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think the change is every generation. You see
Speaker 1: the teenagers, you know, like there's bloody hieroglyphics on the
Speaker 1: side of the pyramids dated seven thousand years old to
Speaker 1: say this generation it's going to ruined civilization because they're
Speaker 1: also maybe you know, and it's just really what old
Speaker 1: people have seen are getting a time they see the
Speaker 1: new generation. There's lots of real when you look at
Speaker 1: the statistics, there's lots of very positive things about this generation.
Speaker 1: You know, there's certainly been more much you know, they
Speaker 1: they smoke less cigarettes, they do less drugs, they delay sex,
Speaker 1: they rag school, less. They just made every measure of
Speaker 1: you know, delinquent behavior. They do much better than previous generations.
Speaker 1: It's actually my generation Generation X, you know, anyone sort
Speaker 1: of forty five to sixty.
Speaker 4: We've got the.
Speaker 1: Crap the rules, and they had to comped all the
Speaker 1: sex and drunk or the alcohol. So I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the reality of just the statistics. But you know that
Speaker 1: these kids are I think part of it is like
Speaker 1: I said before, that they are more emotionally intelligent, you know,
Speaker 1: so they will say this was how I'm feeling, whereas
Speaker 1: we were in a courage to say how we were feeling.
Speaker 1: You know, when my daughter said to me, when one
Speaker 1: of my daughters, there's me and my daughters said to me,
Speaker 1: I've got anxiety, I like a normal generational experient, thought
Speaker 1: inside my head of bullshit, what do you got to
Speaker 1: have anxiety for a sweet, cruisy life? And well, I
Speaker 1: knew not to say that out loud, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I tell if your parenting courses. I knew not to
Speaker 1: say it, but in my head I thought not, but
Speaker 1: I know, not to discount their feelings. And it cut
Speaker 1: a long story short. I actually ended up coming full
Speaker 1: circle and realizing, oh, what she describes as anxiety. If
Speaker 1: I just described as normal getting ready for the worst thing.
Speaker 1: So basically I realized, well, I have anxiety. But I
Speaker 1: was a generation that thought to say, don't say you've
Speaker 1: got anxiety. It's a weakness. To say you've got something negative,
Speaker 1: it's a it is manifesting it. Whereas actually, what I
Speaker 1: learned is that when you say you've got anxiety and
Speaker 1: you start to do things about it, like I started yoga,
Speaker 1: and yeah, things have been so much better since then.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that identified it. It wasn't a weakness after all.
Speaker 1: It was a strength. And I think this generation is
Speaker 1: doing that. So we might see them as weaker because
Speaker 1: they're not hardening out, but you know, brand probably they're
Speaker 1: not as hard in some ways as the people that
Speaker 1: grow up in the depression, But in many ways they're
Speaker 1: harder because they, again, to grow up in the depression,
Speaker 1: usually have family around them. And you might have had
Speaker 1: all that hard stuff going on, but the family is
Speaker 1: the number one thing. It's pull I love for you,
Speaker 1: it's your connection. That's what it's all about being a human.
Speaker 1: What's the point hitting an Xbox I PlayStation in a
Speaker 1: flash house? So you know, when both parents a work.
Speaker 1: By the time you're won and you're day. Look, word,
Speaker 1: you probably around your extend of family and you're quite isolated.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so when you think of I mean, that's touched
Speaker 5: on a bunch of things for me because I think
Speaker 5: actually these days that we're surrounded by connect with people
Speaker 5: in a way with social media and technology, and yet
Speaker 5: I think that I think that we, many of us
Speaker 5: are lonelier than we've ever been in a way because
Speaker 5: the lack of genuine human connection. And are kids So okay,
Speaker 5: if we wind it back to what we first talked
Speaker 5: about that you know, the fact that there's only you know,
Speaker 5: we used to have one parent at home. You know,
Speaker 5: when we got home from school, Mum or dad was home.
Speaker 5: Let's be honest, it's mostly mum.
Speaker 4: How Look, life is the way it is.
Speaker 5: We now need to incomes generally to begin to afford house.
Speaker 5: So we're not winding that back. How what can we do?
Speaker 1: It's difficult to hear that stuff because parents are still
Speaker 1: guilty and go oh you know, and they have that
Speaker 1: defensive reactional I can't help, but my mind's not to
Speaker 1: make them feel bad about it, because you're right, even
Speaker 1: we can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2: That's the society that we live in.
Speaker 1: It's just acknowledging it so that we know that there's
Speaker 1: anything wrong with our kids.
Speaker 2: They're not particularly weak. They're not a bunch of us.
Speaker 1: It is understandable, you know what they're going through. And
Speaker 1: then the next question is, well, how do we compensate
Speaker 1: for that, because you any regeneration has to and there
Speaker 1: are clear ways of the literature that you can compensate
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 4: Are okay, give us a clue.
Speaker 1: We basically that everything's so rushed now. The opposite to
Speaker 1: being rush to slow everything down. The way your brain works.
Speaker 1: The faster you are, the more your stress brain is
Speaker 1: aroused to get the frontal cortext, the you know, the
Speaker 1: really good brain that's got all the flash stuff out
Speaker 1: like empathy and controlling your emotions and higher thought and
Speaker 1: all the good stuff. To get that, you've got to
Speaker 1: slow down. And so basically that's why meditation is such
Speaker 1: a big thing. You know, A mindfulness and schools are
Speaker 1: such a big topics. You know, look, thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: if you mentioned mindfulness just sounded like a hippie. You know,
Speaker 1: it didn't really have anything to do it academic learning,
Speaker 1: whereas now we understand that basically you think of your
Speaker 1: survival brain as being on a set of scales, you know,
Speaker 1: an old fashion set of scales with your learning brain,
Speaker 1: you know the front of cortex and your brain's set.
Speaker 1: So your survival brain do on a set of scales.
Speaker 1: It's the survival brain's aroused. Then you're not going to
Speaker 1: get access to their cortex. It's got all the good
Speaker 1: stuff and the ability to control your emotions and you know,
Speaker 1: all the adult things. So you know, we're basically living
Speaker 1: in a state that's arousing our brains see all the
Speaker 1: time when you add social media and screens and the
Speaker 1: rapid rate of information and change. So by doing something ritualize,
Speaker 1: like any sort of form of mindfulness where you stop
Speaker 1: and consciously slow down your breath and slow down and
Speaker 1: bring yourself into the present moment, really that's a bigger
Speaker 1: that's a big answer to mental illness because you know,
Speaker 1: to be less simplistic, anxiety is worrying about the future,
Speaker 1: depression is worrying about the past, and mindfulness as being
Speaker 1: in the present moment. So if you learn to be
Speaker 1: in the present moment, you can normally handle any problems
Speaker 1: here right now. It's worrying about future problems or overthinking
Speaker 1: past ones. So the practice of bringing yourself into a mindfulness,
Speaker 1: say of bringing the present moment, sets you up for
Speaker 1: good mental health the rest of your life and helps
Speaker 1: to compensate for the fact that you're living in such
Speaker 1: a world of rapid change.
Speaker 5: Because I think I've found that because of the hours
Speaker 5: I do, I'm lucky that I actually am around when
Speaker 5: my kids get home. I'll pack them up and things
Speaker 5: like that. But the thing that I think was probably
Speaker 5: the worst, well not the worst thing, but when I now,
Speaker 5: I don't try and do any work if I fucking
Speaker 5: avoid it. I make sure that I'm not doing any
Speaker 5: work when they get home, because otherwise I'm fifty percent present,
Speaker 5: you know, and then they stress, and then you're irritated
Speaker 5: because hang on, I just need to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been there, Yes, having good boundaries around that day. Right,
Speaker 1: this is my work time, and I might have to say, right, kids,
Speaker 1: our dad's going to do this ray, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to be finished at six o'clock and then I'll be
Speaker 1: available for an hour and we'll do what you want
Speaker 1: to do. I mean, so much of It is about
Speaker 1: the type of play that you have with your kids too.
Speaker 1: If you let your kids be in charge of the play,
Speaker 1: you know, ten minutes of them being in charge, it's
Speaker 1: worth two hours of us playing with us, making the
Speaker 1: rules and telling them what to do. So it's about
Speaker 1: playing well as well use your time.
Speaker 5: It's interesting you're talking about the meditation thing because the
Speaker 5: school that my girls go to to a Catholic school.
Speaker 5: But this I think it's at the start of the
Speaker 5: day or at some stage they have five minutes. I
Speaker 5: can't remember the name for it. Somebody who's listening for
Speaker 5: they were Bearandeine because I haven't kept it secret. They baridine,
Speaker 5: but I can't remember what they call it. But it's
Speaker 5: five minutes where it's just quiet time to think about
Speaker 5: what they've got to do with their day. And that
Speaker 5: I thought, gosh, that sounds really like genius. I think
Speaker 5: they there yere.
Speaker 1: I mean in lots of ways, Catholic schools have been
Speaker 1: doing mindfulness forever because they've always started the day with
Speaker 1: career ands, and that repetitive nature sort of does the
Speaker 1: same thing as a mindfulness exercise. It brings you into
Speaker 1: that present moment, It ritualizes you into that environment.
Speaker 2: And kind of cop up of NATI schools have always.
Speaker 1: Started with you know, fucker tokey and and mehi and stuff,
Speaker 1: and that that's the same ritualized things we would start
Speaker 1: with our news when I was at my little country school.
Speaker 1: That they are the same ritualized routine sort of acts
Speaker 1: as us fall and mindfulness. So to sing it because
Speaker 1: singing generally flowers down that whole internal you know, especially
Speaker 1: the songs that make you sing a score.
Speaker 2: So you yeah.
Speaker 5: I'm making a couple of notes to myself as you're
Speaker 5: talking about this actually just but anyway, Hey, look, we'd
Speaker 5: love your cause if you've got any questions for Nathan
Speaker 5: Wallace and neuroscience educator on you know, if your kids
Speaker 5: are a little stressed or anxious, or you're worrying about
Speaker 5: how you're handling the whole thing, give us a call
Speaker 5: if you've got any suggestions as well on how you
Speaker 5: because we want to touch on the meltdown thing before
Speaker 5: we this hour as well. It is twenty four past
Speaker 5: five News Talks. It'd be the number of OZ eight
Speaker 5: hundred and eighty ten eighty text nine to nine two
Speaker 5: back in just to take.
Speaker 6: It'll lie nice to meet you to night, you eat,
Speaker 6: you go des get up a fussy esities life river song,
Speaker 6: You're together.
Speaker 5: Then let's welcome back or welcome into the parents squad.
Speaker 5: There's the week in collective Hunton Beverage. And my guest
Speaker 5: is Nathan Wallace is a neuroscience educator. Hey, by the way,
Speaker 5: when I give a job description, I say neuroscience educator,
Speaker 5: there will be people going, what is a neuroscience educator
Speaker 5: at Nathan?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I'm neuroscience. It's just how your brain works,
Speaker 1: and so it's really educating people about how your brain works.
Speaker 1: When really I'm a human developmentalist. That's my area of
Speaker 1: you know, sort of election in a university, human development.
Speaker 1: It's just that that's where neuroscience landed when at first
Speaker 1: They have their own department now, but they landed under
Speaker 1: human development when a first, because I was in the
Speaker 1: department of cognition, so come under me, and I was
Speaker 1: ended up being a lead trainer for a neuroscience organization.
Speaker 1: But really it's about wrapping together all of the you know,
Speaker 1: I'm been a primary school teacher and an early childhood teacher,
Speaker 1: and I spent most of my years working in child
Speaker 1: therapy so it's really bringing it all to you, you know.
Speaker 1: And I've been a foster parent and I was foster
Speaker 1: at myself, So it's really coming from lots of different
Speaker 1: angles of just understanding how to put that research, especially
Speaker 1: from neuroscience and how the brain works and practice to
Speaker 1: my parenting better and easier and better outcomes when.
Speaker 5: It comes to the meltdowns, and look, that can come
Speaker 5: from a bunch of reasons, and as long as I
Speaker 5: don't end up having a meltdown on my own, because
Speaker 5: that's the thing as a parent sometimes you can just
Speaker 5: get bloody annoyed.
Speaker 1: I was going to push about buttons more.
Speaker 5: I think my favorite technique though I remember there was
Speaker 5: there was a meltdown going on. There might have been
Speaker 5: been in a couple of meltdowns going on, and I actually,
Speaker 5: in fact it ended up turning into they think they
Speaker 5: ended up laughing, but there was it was a serious meltdown,
Speaker 5: and I said, right, that's that, I'm going off. I'm
Speaker 5: taking myself off to my room and remove myself because
Speaker 5: actually I really did need to smart. God I'm bloody annoyed, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a really smart thing to do, you know,
Speaker 1: because I'm that's when you don't do that and you
Speaker 1: stay and you're parenting from your own emotional state. You're basically,
Speaker 1: you know, parenting from your own to your old self,
Speaker 1: and that's not going to help.
Speaker 2: So I think it was a smart move to it. Right,
Speaker 2: I'm going to a room.
Speaker 5: Oh good, good, because because there's that sort of I mean,
Speaker 5: you've been through it as a parent. I guess other
Speaker 5: times when you want to say, hey, listen, excuse me,
Speaker 5: what did you just say? And you challenge them on something.
Speaker 5: But there's a point where I'm trying to you know,
Speaker 5: I like to think I'm quite good at it, but
Speaker 5: I'm probably lousy at it of thinking, okay, tell you what,
Speaker 5: I'm just going to ignore, you know, I don't know,
Speaker 5: take my I want to use a really unpleasant analogy. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but just take your foot off of someone's throat. Just
Speaker 5: don't be pushing them on every bit of bad behavior.
Speaker 5: There's a point where you sort of have to is
Speaker 5: there a sort of point where you're going to step
Speaker 5: away and go, okay, we're going to address this before
Speaker 5: the end of the day is out, but now is
Speaker 5: not the time.
Speaker 1: Oh. I think that's really smart there, and you do
Speaker 1: have to monitor that thing about how negative you've been,
Speaker 1: because you know, at the end of the day you
Speaker 1: have said eighty percent negative things to them and only
Speaker 1: twenty percent positive, and of course you're not going to
Speaker 1: have a good relationship and you're not going to have
Speaker 1: good behavior. So it has been being aware of not
Speaker 1: being on their case all the time. It's so much
Speaker 1: easier to to point out the things that they're doing well.
Speaker 1: And that sounds a bit soft, but you know, the
Speaker 1: research shows and over again that if they keep slamming
Speaker 1: the lounge door and you keep saying, don't stand the door,
Speaker 1: don't stand the door, and they keep slamming the door,
Speaker 1: whereas when they close it and nice to go, oh,
Speaker 1: thank you for showing the door, knights and quietly, that
Speaker 1: really does increase the behavior whole lot more So I.
Speaker 4: Try sarcastic when you say it, Yeah, I know, but
Speaker 4: I will.
Speaker 1: Find sounds like cast I mean, telling them what to
Speaker 1: do instead of what not to do is actually way
Speaker 1: more effective of getting them to do what you want anyway,
Speaker 1: So you do, you know, and there's it's a way
Speaker 1: of avoiding being negative, but it isn't It is a dance,
Speaker 1: isn't it like you know about when do you do that?
Speaker 1: When do you challenge? I think what you said about
Speaker 1: how you'll you know, you'll think about it and come
Speaker 1: back to it later, because I'm often thinking is it
Speaker 1: a pattern?
Speaker 2: I don't need to get on top of everything?
Speaker 1: If the kids just if it's a one off, maybe
Speaker 1: I can just let a slide because of you know,
Speaker 1: but I can calm down later and I'm not reacting
Speaker 1: from my emotions and think is there something I want
Speaker 1: to address with them? And how do I want to
Speaker 1: address it? There's way more chance that you'll be in
Speaker 1: your own front for quarter by then too, because you're
Speaker 1: not responding emotionally to the moment. I think I'm in
Speaker 1: the moment. That's when we we respond with our thinking,
Speaker 1: just respond from our own emotions. That's often when you
Speaker 1: hear your own mother orther's voice come sailing out the
Speaker 1: amount and it's not really often your best parenting. So
Speaker 1: if you can stepping away from it and thinking about
Speaker 1: it and just taking a second to calm down, well
Speaker 1: you going to your own well take that lot.
Speaker 5: That probably paints me in a better light than I
Speaker 5: deserve at times at appearent because there are times when
Speaker 5: it's just like this, you know, the basic things you
Speaker 5: keep on saying, can you just take put your dishes
Speaker 5: in the rusher?
Speaker 4: Or do this or this and and after aways. So God,
Speaker 4: I'm sick of saying this.
Speaker 2: And you have bad days as well, like every parent does.
Speaker 1: This reality. We're sometimes grouchy and snappy and were you know,
Speaker 1: sound my parents from the eighteen forties. But it's what
Speaker 1: you do most of the time that matters. Really, you know,
Speaker 1: we are human as well, So I think, don't beat
Speaker 1: ourselves up about not doing the perfect parenting all the time.
Speaker 4: Well, I guess as long as you're.
Speaker 5: Trying if you slip into that and their parents who
Speaker 5: have you know who find that they're constantly correcting their
Speaker 5: kids because they're you know, their kids are not picking
Speaker 5: up on But how resilientire kids when it comes to
Speaker 5: because I would imagine they just tune out in the end,
Speaker 5: don't they, Or.
Speaker 4: If you're constantly on their back for things.
Speaker 2: I mean, it does depend on the context.
Speaker 1: So if you've got a parent that has always criticizing
Speaker 1: you and doesn't display any love, doesn't seem proud of you,
Speaker 1: it has usually serious consequences for it. For who you are.
Speaker 1: But this is a parent that is loving and spends
Speaker 1: time with them and tells them that they love them.
Speaker 1: And then there's also a bit critical, and that's a
Speaker 1: very different thing. They just learned to think, God, that's
Speaker 1: you know, daddy is just a bit critical. So it's
Speaker 1: not really the criticism. It's more that does the criticism
Speaker 1: come on top of a loving relationship, because if it does,
Speaker 1: then you're probably fine. Yeah, it becomes instead of a
Speaker 1: loving relationship. And they just find our dad to be
Speaker 1: critical and distant, then that is a problem.
Speaker 5: So if they know that dads and they call Mum
Speaker 5: or Dad are in their corner, then you've got a
Speaker 5: bit more of it. They can tolerate a bit more
Speaker 5: corrective advice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think when we do lose it, I
Speaker 1: mean I would just make sure I would own it
Speaker 1: with my kids, and I had no worries about apologizing.
Speaker 1: You know, when I swore at them or something and
Speaker 1: lost my rag and you know, it wasn't a good parenting.
Speaker 1: It was my parents, you know, coming out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: I'd come back into the rum afterwards and go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: clearly I lost it. There was that was on me.
Speaker 5: I actually think that that's a major because there are
Speaker 5: some parents who would never want to admit they're wrong,
Speaker 5: and that to me, that's look, I'm.
Speaker 1: Not as you do, not as you say. What you know,
Speaker 1: if you want kids to admit that they're wrong, you
Speaker 1: know you have they're to see you doing that, and
Speaker 1: sometimes you clearly are wrong. When you're just sworn at
Speaker 1: your kids, it's hard to justify that as being, you know,
Speaker 1: a good parenting strategy. So I think it's a strength
Speaker 1: when they become what we call about we're talking about
Speaker 1: in the literature is rupture and repair as the academic stuff,
Speaker 1: which is rupture as when you're leashi of shit. Repare
Speaker 1: is when you go back and do something to fix it.
Speaker 1: And as kids have rupture and repair, rupture and repair,
Speaker 1: those kids are have to be emotionally intelligent and resilient
Speaker 1: and the good outcomes the kauds they up go to
Speaker 1: jail and mental illness and addiction and stuff are the
Speaker 1: ones that have rupture, rupture, rupture.
Speaker 2: So that repair part is a really important part of it.
Speaker 1: You know, to go in and say you don't have
Speaker 1: to fix it what happened, It might just be you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, going in and saying, oh, well, I
Speaker 1: lost the plot.
Speaker 5: Then see if I hate the idea that we ever
Speaker 5: compile a list of advice, But if you were going
Speaker 5: to put a list of things about how to avoid,
Speaker 5: you know, kids having anxiety and resentment and things like that,
Speaker 5: I would have put that just about at the top one.
Speaker 5: It was that because if you there's saying admitting when
Speaker 5: mum or dad is wrong, I got that wrong. Sorry
Speaker 5: about that, honey, I love you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. Parents are worried that they're geting away
Speaker 1: some sort of power, but you're not. I think you're
Speaker 1: actually increasing your power in many ways because you're having
Speaker 1: a sort of relationship. I'm showing the kids what to
Speaker 1: do when they If you want your kids to your
Speaker 1: front up and say and repair what they've damaged, because
Speaker 1: they will damage things, they will have mountdowns their children.
Speaker 1: Is heart break down a child.
Speaker 4: You know we have?
Speaker 1: I mean it is we have.
Speaker 2: I mean we've still got our child brain.
Speaker 1: You have your limbic system, your emotional brain for the
Speaker 1: rest of your So I think you've always got that
Speaker 1: two year old and they're ready to have a set
Speaker 1: or to that and that too year old, that o
Speaker 1: limbic system doesn't care about the future. It only cares
Speaker 1: about right now, and it doesn't care about consequences, or
Speaker 1: it doesn't even think. It only cares about feeling. He's
Speaker 1: about feeling, and it feels about what feels good right now.
Speaker 1: It's just that we have a frontal cortex that regulates
Speaker 1: that behavior and thinks about consequences and thinks about impact
Speaker 1: on other people. Whereas being a child, that Olympic system
Speaker 1: is just on full rant without the you know, it's
Speaker 1: like the exhilarators on four with the no brains. It is.
Speaker 4: I'm almost relieved to hear you say that. Actually, Nathan,
Speaker 4: thank you for that. Let's take some calls Ruth, Hello,
Speaker 4: Hi there, how's it going good things?
Speaker 7: Yeah, my son has recently been knocked out playing rugby
Speaker 7: and it's quite early days, but I was warned that
Speaker 7: one of one of the symptoms could be that he
Speaker 7: has an inability to cope with normal every day to
Speaker 7: day situation, just gets more easily overwhelmed and that can
Speaker 7: end up in irritability or maybe even a meltdown. And
Speaker 7: he's he's not normally susceptible to meltdown. So I'm just
Speaker 7: wondering how I'm going to cope with that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Has he had a mountdown so he's had a head
Speaker 1: of hendry at Rugby and now you're worried about him
Speaker 1: being concussed, that's right?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And has he displayed those behaviors yet or are you
Speaker 1: just sort of worried about.
Speaker 2: Them likely to come.
Speaker 7: At the moment. It's only run on day three, so right,
Speaker 7: we just we're hoping that we can manage it. And
Speaker 7: but at the moment, he's at home resting, so we
Speaker 7: have actually hasn't had to deal with a normal school
Speaker 7: day yet in normal traveling group environments. For the over stimulation,
Speaker 7: we've basically just tried to keep the stimulation really low
Speaker 7: a few days.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's really wise.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're going to be fine because
Speaker 1: you're acknowledging what's happening, and you know that he's going
Speaker 1: to be easily overwhelmed. So you are having a low
Speaker 1: stimulus environment, and I think you're ready for it. You know,
Speaker 1: if he does lose the plot over you cooking and
Speaker 1: the wrong thing for Tea, you're not going to make
Speaker 1: a drama about it because you're going to understand that
Speaker 1: his brain stressed and so he's more likely to fall
Speaker 1: into that emotional brain all the time. So I think
Speaker 1: just the fact that you're even ringing, the fact that
Speaker 1: you've taken him off school, and the fact that you're
Speaker 1: thinking about how to cope with that, means that he's
Speaker 1: going to be fine because you know what to expect.
Speaker 7: Right, Oh, that's good news.
Speaker 4: How old is he Rose? Did you say?
Speaker 7: He's just about seventeen?
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, it's so susceptible to you telling him.
Speaker 1: Like you know, people are a combination of the stories
Speaker 1: that they hold about themselves, and so you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is if you tell him, if he does, say,
Speaker 1: lose the plot and has an emotional meltdown, when you
Speaker 1: come back to him and say something like, oh look mate,
Speaker 1: I'm not worrying about this. I think your brains under
Speaker 1: a long streets. It's about a concussion. Usually you're such
Speaker 1: a polite, respectful, you know young man, and you're always
Speaker 1: so considerate of other people that this was out a character.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think it's just down to the
Speaker 1: head injury. Then you have a kid that thinks yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they will be here you tell them. Yeah, So when
Speaker 1: you tell the point out that No, you're normally so
Speaker 1: you know, respectful, and then that's who they will be
Speaker 1: because that's who you're telling them they are.
Speaker 2: So it's when they do just play that behavior. Yeah,
Speaker 2: don't make it sound like the normal.
Speaker 1: I mean you're not going to. But just for other pearents,
Speaker 1: you know, don't.
Speaker 2: Be Oh, you're always like this, and you're always so
Speaker 2: arrogant and you're always so you know, actually they will
Speaker 2: always be so arrogant.
Speaker 1: It's always will be so agg today.
Speaker 7: M Well, they are teenagers. You've got to give them that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right way around it.
Speaker 4: Good on your ruth. Thank you for your call. Thank
Speaker 4: you very much.
Speaker 5: Actually it's funny, you know, and that there's the I
Speaker 5: mean as a reminder as well. I think if you
Speaker 5: realize what your kids have gone through with their day
Speaker 5: and they're feeling about lousy and you, it does if
Speaker 5: you can understand why they're feeling like that to me,
Speaker 5: I mean, it's actually with any relationship, you know that
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, it's like, actually, there's a reason
Speaker 5: this person's baying like that because they're feeling X, Y
Speaker 5: and Z. Mind you I mean, you know, not that
Speaker 5: we're all perfect in Saints all the time, but it
Speaker 5: doesn't hurt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And sometimes we are just annoying adhd as A
Speaker 1: can't remember just being annoying, just wanting to be annoying,
Speaker 1: you know, I start annoyed, so the more everyone else
Speaker 1: to be annoyed as well. Sometimes sometimes there's shit.
Speaker 5: I love that you knew you were doing it. It's like, anyway,
Speaker 5: we could I quick break. We'll be back with Nathan
Speaker 5: Wallace in a moment. If you'd like to give us
Speaker 5: a call. We'd love to hear from your eight hundred
Speaker 5: and eighty ten eighty dealing with meltdowns and anxiety, twenty
Speaker 5: six news talks.
Speaker 4: You'd be that's welcome back to the Weekend Collector.
Speaker 5: This the Parents Squad as the Stings is raising your child,
Speaker 5: but I think sometimes we're raising parents as well at
Speaker 5: the same time.
Speaker 4: And let's take some more calls. So is it hello?
Speaker 3: Hi there?
Speaker 4: What was the name of Nathan Nathan Wallace?
Speaker 3: Wallace? Have you written a book, Nathan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that hasn't been published yet, so they should come
Speaker 1: out on each year. I've got about three different books
Speaker 1: for publishers.
Speaker 4: Wow, wonderful news flash.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm much more of a talker than I'm a writer,
Speaker 1: so it's taken me a long time to get around
Speaker 1: to write the box, but it's finally happened.
Speaker 2: You got to scoop out of them.
Speaker 4: Are you going to be in the line to buy one?
Speaker 1: There? Is it?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to make great gifts. Wouldn't they.
Speaker 4: Excellent? Is that what you're just calling forward? See if
Speaker 4: he's got a book?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no no.
Speaker 3: Now that's scenario you explained where the parenting is their
Speaker 3: bad and the children getting collected or criticized and there
Speaker 3: never any love and perfection or no communication, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Well that was what my childhood was like, and so
Speaker 3: I've studied it quite a lot because it's very analytical.
Speaker 3: So now once the horse has bolted, the results of
Speaker 3: this is all kinds of different outcomes like anorexia, drug addiction, smoking, alcohol.
Speaker 2: All those risks.
Speaker 4: How did you deal with this?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: Just let me finish. So if these things are happening
Speaker 3: to your child, then they're going to at some point
Speaker 3: hopefully reach out for help. Because she hit the wall.
Speaker 3: And so for me, I turned to Christian to the church. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's the enormous healing and support.
Speaker 2: I think you have the nail right in the head.
Speaker 2: You know, it is about getting that support, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's about our community else. Yeah, those negative experiences, and
Speaker 1: you need positive experiences as well because a lot of
Speaker 1: you when when a child grows up with that sort
Speaker 1: of negative environment, they might have parents that aren't providing that,
Speaker 1: but the fact that all they need is like one
Speaker 1: grandparent to someone that does provide value.
Speaker 2: For them, and that can find really foster resilience.
Speaker 1: It's when the child's got no one at all the
Speaker 1: values them that's really at least that all those negative
Speaker 1: outcometry talking about.
Speaker 5: And it just tells one person, doesn't it who they
Speaker 5: have that connection with it that can make called.
Speaker 1: That's right, just one person that makes them feel valued
Speaker 1: and and you know worthy then and it validates there
Speaker 1: as a person. And this really helps them to grow
Speaker 1: that frontal cortex, whereas if they're just proved as bad
Speaker 1: all the time, they don't, so they are set to
Speaker 1: put all those rusks. The last guest was talking about
Speaker 1: addiction and soological problems.
Speaker 4: Thanks for your course, is that?
Speaker 5: Sorry, we've got times running a bit short now, but
Speaker 5: just quick, I hate to say, just quickly. But you know,
Speaker 5: we are in a time of an environment, Nathan. But
Speaker 5: you know you touched on ADHD and things like that,
Speaker 5: and you know we are well, we have more science
Speaker 5: in terms of diagnosing people with whatever particular way they're white,
Speaker 5: their minds are wired. Is there a point where I mean,
Speaker 5: there are various levels of ADHD, I guess, should everyone
Speaker 5: be diagnosed if they've got it? Or is there a
Speaker 5: point where it's it's not helpful because I remember reading
Speaker 5: something we're hearing someone talking about it that if it
Speaker 5: becomes a way of defining yourself, it's not helpful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's going to be there's no real
Speaker 1: answer to that. There's going to be a whole spectrum
Speaker 1: of answers to it. You know, there's always been people
Speaker 1: that have a genetic predisposition of something that we now
Speaker 1: called ADHD. Even when I was a kid, that was
Speaker 1: called hyperactivity. It wasn't called AD but it wasn't called that,
Speaker 1: and it was an adult. For all of primary school
Speaker 1: it was called hyperactivity. For all of the early childhood,
Speaker 1: it was called being a little shit, but it was
Speaker 1: the same. It was the famed personality it was and
Speaker 1: there's always been people that have you know, they're on
Speaker 1: their spectrum. But if they're grow up and nurturing, loving
Speaker 1: environments where you know, a lot of that will not
Speaker 1: go to the surface. So, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: if the child uses ADHD as an excuse to not
Speaker 1: be accountable for their behavior and not play attention, and
Speaker 1: it can be a negative thing. But that's not what
Speaker 1: happened most of the time. Most of the stories I
Speaker 1: hear are people are having trouble focusing their attention.
Speaker 2: Which is a big thing.
Speaker 1: It's not you know, it's been erratic and all over
Speaker 1: the show, and you can't achieve anything at school. You
Speaker 1: can't really access that frontal cortex. You're really inhibited. So
Speaker 1: there's not just medication, because you know there's meditation.
Speaker 2: There's lots of different approaches.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I think I'm understanding that maybe you know
Speaker 5: that you are a little different, and the relief of
Speaker 5: knowing that there is a reason itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just curious with my ADHD. I just
Speaker 1: think it's just I don't think it's a disorder. I
Speaker 1: think it's just my personality and that's the way they
Speaker 1: want to classify it. Yeah, but I don't think there's
Speaker 1: anything wrong. It just means this is the way I operate,
Speaker 1: which is not compliant and do as I'm told. You
Speaker 1: don't want all human beings to be compliant and digitil so.
Speaker 4: Very well behaved today, Nathan. Hey, by the way, for years,
Speaker 4: have you got a title for these books that are
Speaker 4: coming out?
Speaker 2: I still working on that.
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna I think I'm gonna call one
Speaker 1: of them dance speak, because I'm just sort of trying
Speaker 1: to be blunt, and so if I start call it
Speaker 1: dance speak, you know mums can read it as well.
Speaker 2: But that's an excuse to be blunt and not have
Speaker 2: to be too warm on cluffe right, dads want to blunt.
Speaker 1: I like.
Speaker 5: The sound of it already. Well it's good, Susan got
Speaker 5: that out of you. You've got three books on the way,
Speaker 5: so why why why one when three will do?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 4: Hey, mate, thanks so much for your time this afternoon.
Speaker 1: Cheers, m good you two.
Speaker 5: That is Nathan Wallace and we'll be keeping our eye
Speaker 5: up for that bill, whyon't we anyway, We'll be back
Speaker 5: to rap Sport with Christopher Eve in just a moment.
Speaker 4: It's coming up to ten to six for more from
Speaker 4: the Weekend Collective. Listen live to news Talk zed Be
Speaker 4: weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio