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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for.

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Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers Now.

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Speaker 1: When I was a university lecturer, we used to do

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Speaker 1: this thing called office hours consultation hours. There was a

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Speaker 1: sign on the door. It said, if you want to

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Speaker 1: see me, you can see me between this hour and

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Speaker 1: this hour. This is one I can answer questions about

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Speaker 1: lecturing and workshops and tutorials and assignments and essays. I

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Speaker 1: kind of feel like every Tuesday it's become office hours,

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Speaker 1: it's consultation hours. This is your chance to ask the expert.

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Speaker 1: Kylie and I have got I think we added up

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Speaker 1: the other week like one hundred and three hundred and four. Well,

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Speaker 1: the kids are about to get older that.

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Speaker 2: We've got to as grandparent hours add up because I reckon,

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Speaker 2: there's a whole week more in that.

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Speaker 1: We've got one hundred and five years of cumulative parenting experience.

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Speaker 1: When you look at the ages of all of our kids,

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Speaker 1: add them all up. That's what we're doing today. We're

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Speaker 1: sharing our ideas that can help you to make your

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Speaker 1: family happier. Kylie. We received an email podcast at happy

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Speaker 1: families dot com. You This one comes from Lauren, I've.

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Speaker 2: Just come across your fabulous podcast and love listening.

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to interrupt you right there. I love

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Speaker 1: it when people say that they love our podcast. I

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Speaker 1: just love that. Thank you, Lauren. Glad that you like listening.

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Speaker 2: It's always great to have a new listener. My eldest

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Speaker 2: is eight, and she is always monitoring if everything is fair,

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Speaker 2: from food to how much we play, to choosing a

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Speaker 2: game or TV show to watch. We have tried to

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Speaker 2: explain that sometimes things are not fair and that's okay,

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Speaker 2: but she has a very strong sense that things are

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Speaker 2: unfair for her. I was wondering if there is a

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Speaker 2: better approach than what I am doing, which is explaining

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Speaker 2: that not everything's fair, and often I have to do

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Speaker 2: things like cleanup or do things that I don't feel

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Speaker 2: us fair either. Anyhow, it would be greatly appreciated.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Lauren. Really appreciate, appreciate how much you

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Speaker 1: love your kids. And it comes across in the way

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Speaker 1: that you've shared that email with us podcasts at Happyfamilies

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Speaker 1: dot com dot au. Look, we need to dive into

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Speaker 1: the developmental playbook here Kylie for a couple of key

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Speaker 1: ideas on this question.

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Speaker 2: Before you do that, can I share a little analogy

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Speaker 2: I saw the other day.

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Speaker 1: Just about to get on a roll, but go for it.

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Speaker 1: Let's hear it.

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Speaker 2: I watched this teacher give a beautiful explanation to her

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Speaker 2: little preppy class about fairness, and so she asked everybody

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Speaker 2: she had a box of band aids, and she asked

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Speaker 2: everybody to put up their hand if that ever hurt

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Speaker 2: their elbow. And so a few kids put their hands up.

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Speaker 2: So she said to one of the kids, come up

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Speaker 2: here and I'll give you a band aid for your elbow.

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Speaker 2: So she puts a band aid on his elbow and

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Speaker 2: makes him feel all better, and he sits down, and

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Speaker 2: she says, has anybody ever hurt their knee? And the kids,

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Speaker 2: a few kids put their hands up, and she says,

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Speaker 2: come up here, Freddie, let me give you a band

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Speaker 2: aid for your elbow. And a few of the kids

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Speaker 2: start to kind of look at her and go hang

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Speaker 2: on a sec, but she keeps going with the analogy.

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Speaker 2: So she puts a band aid on his elbow and

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Speaker 2: Maxim sit down. She said, has anyone ever had a

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Speaker 2: sore tummy before? And a few kids put their hands up,

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Speaker 2: and she says come up here, and I'll give you

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Speaker 2: a band aid for your elbow. And by this stage

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Speaker 2: the kids are looking at like she's gone mad. They're like,

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Speaker 2: but he doesn't need a band aid for his elbow.

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Speaker 2: He needs one for his tummy. And so then she's

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Speaker 2: able to explain to them, but if everything needed to

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Speaker 2: be fair, I gave Johnny a band aid for his.

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Speaker 1: Elbow, so everybody has to have everybody.

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Speaker 2: Has to have a band aid. That's the fair thing,

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Speaker 2: she said. But it's not always fair because you didn't

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Speaker 2: hurt your elbow. You hurt your knee, or you have

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Speaker 2: a sore tummy, and it requires a different a different

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Speaker 2: way to fix it, a different means, and so sometimes

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Speaker 2: it looks like Johnny's getting something better or something different

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Speaker 2: to you, and he is because that's what he needs.

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Speaker 2: So I just loved that analogy, and it was so

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Speaker 2: visual for these little kids as they were sitting there, going, oh,

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Speaker 2: that makes sense. I don't need an elbow band aid,

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Speaker 2: I need one for my knee.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So this ties in not very well at all.

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Speaker 1: What I was kind to say about moral development and

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Speaker 1: formal operation thinking and concrete operational thinking and pij and

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Speaker 1: Swiss psychology and blah blah blah blah. I think that

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Speaker 1: we can actually pull this together reasonably. Okay, in spite

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Speaker 1: of it, I want to get into the nitty gritty

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Speaker 1: of moral development and cognitive development.

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Speaker 2: For just see, I just keep things light.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're basically sharing a Facebook meme with me, aren't you.

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Speaker 1: I sure, just straight off Facebook. Okay, let's bring this together.

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Speaker 1: Picture your daughter's brain as a construction site, and that's

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Speaker 1: what all brains are. They're literally being developed through what's

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Speaker 1: happening our experiences, creating perceptions and ideas. But at the

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Speaker 1: age of eight, we've got a reasonably solid foundation to

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Speaker 1: build on. And now we're laying the foundation for more

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Speaker 1: complex thinking skills that are going to land in a

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Speaker 1: few years time, somewhere around twelve thirteen fourteen. Right now, though, Lauren,

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Speaker 1: your daughter is in what we call concrete operational thinking mode.

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Speaker 2: Any think it's really black and white?

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Speaker 1: Black and white? Yeah, And she's trying to move to

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Speaker 1: more advanced reasoning. But concrete operational thinking is literally the

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Speaker 1: cornerstone of the mental edifice that she's going to construct

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Speaker 1: in years to come. She's great with rules, she likes

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Speaker 1: what's tangible, be directly observed, like logic rules.

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Speaker 2: It's so much easier to follow the rules when they're

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Speaker 2: logical correct.

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Speaker 1: And this is what makes the concept of fairness fuzzy

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Speaker 1: because with you, as an adult, you've got this thing

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Speaker 1: called formal operational thinking. What that means is that you're

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Speaker 1: aware of context. You're aware of all the stuff that

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's the Iceberg analogy. You've got the little

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Speaker 1: bit above the water and all the stuff underneath. As

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Speaker 1: an adult with advanced thinking skills, you've got this formal

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Speaker 1: operational thinking that says, I know that there's stuff underneath

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Speaker 1: the water, and I'm going to look at what's fair

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Speaker 1: based on that. So if we go back to your

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Speaker 1: little story, what's going on here with this teacher doing

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Speaker 1: this is the kids have got this really black and

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Speaker 1: white thinking, and what the teacher is doing is she's

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Speaker 1: essentially magnifying and amplifying it to the point of stupidity.

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Speaker 1: And the kids, even with their concrete operational thinking, they

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Speaker 1: can see it. They can see, hang on, logically, this

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Speaker 1: does not make sense. And the beauty of it is

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Speaker 1: it's starting to move into abstraction, started to move into

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Speaker 1: more advanced kinds of thinking. That are typically beyond the

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Speaker 1: level of a five or a six, or a seven

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Speaker 1: or an eight year old. So it does actually work here.

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Speaker 1: What kids generally miss because of the concrete, operational thinking

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Speaker 1: that they're in is they see things as fair or unfair,

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Speaker 1: and there is nothing fuzzy about it. They don't have

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Speaker 1: the same moral compass, the equivalent that we have in

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Speaker 1: terms that just surface level right and wrong, good and bad,

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Speaker 1: fair and unfair. That's their perception.

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Speaker 2: A little while ago, you shared a dilemma with me,

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Speaker 2: a moral dilemma. It's actually known as the Hinz dilemma.

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Speaker 1: Right. This is from a moral philosopher or psychologist, Colberg.

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Speaker 1: Lawrence Colberg, classic stuff.

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Speaker 2: This is the stuff we talk about in our spare

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Speaker 2: time people.

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Speaker 1: Can I share it with you?

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Speaker 2: No, I'm going to share it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's go.

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Speaker 2: A woman was on her deathbed. There was one drug

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Speaker 2: that the doctor said would save her. It was a

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Speaker 2: form of radium that a druggist in the same town

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Speaker 2: had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but

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Speaker 2: the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost

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Speaker 2: him to produce.

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Speaker 1: Sounds like all the pharmaceutical helpties I've heard of.

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Speaker 2: He paid two hundred dollars for the radium, but charged

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Speaker 2: two thousand dollars for a small dose of the drug.

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Speaker 2: The sick woman's husband, Hines, went to everyone he knew

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Speaker 2: to borrow the money, but he could only get together

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Speaker 2: about one thousand dollars, which was half of what it cost.

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Speaker 2: He told the druggist that his wife was dying and

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Speaker 2: asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later,

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Speaker 2: but the druggist said, no, I discovered the drug and

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Speaker 2: I'm going to make money from it. So Heinz got

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Speaker 2: desperate and he broke into the man's laboratory one night

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Speaker 2: to steal the drug for his wife. So the question is,

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Speaker 2: should Hines have broken into the laboratory to steal the

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Speaker 2: drug for his wife? Why? Or why not?

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Speaker 1: Okay, So the Hinds dilemma is basically, if you give

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Speaker 1: this question to a six to an eight year old,

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Speaker 1: or even a ten to twelve year old, they're just

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Speaker 1: starting to form their moral compass. This is really a

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Speaker 1: question about fairness and equity. Are like, this is such

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Speaker 1: a great dilemma and hopefully, even as you're hearing this

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Speaker 1: on the podcast, you're kind of going, Wow, that's really tricky,

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Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of complexity here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, my mind is going like three different directions all

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Speaker 2: at once, yeah yeah, and trying to justify each one

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Speaker 2: of them.

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Speaker 1: And so the answer that we come up with is

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Speaker 1: going to be influenced by the values and the principles

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Speaker 1: that we're exposed to at home and at school and

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Speaker 1: the media and this obsession with fairness. This is your

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Speaker 1: daughter's way, Lauren, of testing out her moral muscles and

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Speaker 1: figuring out what's right and wrong in her eyes. So

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Speaker 1: when she blows up about fairness, the best thing we

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Speaker 1: can do is engage her in discussions about fairness and

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Speaker 1: justice and empathy. Probably not on the spot high emotions

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Speaker 1: equals low intelligence, but out of the moment, challenged to

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Speaker 1: think critically and to consider different perspectives. Because development of

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Speaker 1: moral reasoning is a marathon. It's a marathon, so we

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Speaker 1: have to start taking steps straightaway.

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Speaker 2: But that's not the only thing that's going on here,

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Speaker 2: is it?

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Speaker 1: Now? I think the I mean, we talked a lot

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Speaker 1: about theory of mine. That's the other developmental playbook principle

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Speaker 1: that I would lean on here, mental gymnastics. So I've

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Speaker 1: been doing some research on gymnastics. Lately, I was writing

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Speaker 1: a piece and I got excited about it. I thought,

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Speaker 1: I what the hardest gymnastics move is in the world,

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Speaker 1: and I found this YouTube of the top ten most

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Speaker 1: difficult gymnastics moves. There's one that's called the Yuchenko double pike.

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Speaker 1: It was named after someone called Yuchenko.

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Speaker 2: I was about to say, how do you come up

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Speaker 2: with a name like that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, u Chenko double pike. Now I watched this. Simone

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Speaker 1: Biles Samobiles is literally the only female gymnast in the

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Speaker 1: history of the planet to pull off the Yuchenko double pike.

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Speaker 1: It's usually a male gymnast move, and even then most

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Speaker 1: of them won't try it. Now, the reason that I'm

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Speaker 1: talking about the Yuchenko double pike is because the mental

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Speaker 1: gymnastics see what I've done. They're the linkage, the mental

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Speaker 1: gymnastics that are required to understand that other people have

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Speaker 1: their own thoughts and feelings and perspectives separate from our own.

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Speaker 2: And they could be so different, like so different.

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Speaker 1: For an eight year old, it's the equivalent of the

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Speaker 1: mental psychological equivalent of a Yuchenko double pike. Not very

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Speaker 1: many eight year olds on the planet can really get

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Speaker 1: the head around the reality that what's going on in

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Speaker 1: their head is not the same as what's going on

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Speaker 1: in the minds of other people. Certainly, no five and

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Speaker 1: six year olds can. They start to develop it around

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Speaker 1: that age. So when she's obsessing over fairness, it's not

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Speaker 1: just about her being self centered and me, me me.

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Speaker 1: It's a crucial step in her cognitive development. This is

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Speaker 1: one little kids struggle to share because they think what's

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Speaker 1: fair is that I get what I want. That's their

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Speaker 1: idea of fairness. And this moral development go back to

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Speaker 1: Coldberg in the Heines dilemma and this theory of mind.

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Speaker 1: As they start to kind of coagulate and build up

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Speaker 1: in the brain, we've got that foundation, and now we're

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Speaker 1: really putting the framework up for advanced reasoning and morality

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Speaker 1: and thinking and cognition in adulthood. She's going through that

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Speaker 1: building phase right now. It's a mess. And this is

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Speaker 1: why we need to cut U some slack and use

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Speaker 1: these moments to burgeon or sorry, to nurture her burgeoning

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Speaker 1: theory of mind and moral reasoning and development.

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Speaker 2: So this conversation is just so important. This changes, literally,

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Speaker 2: this changes for us as parents, Our perspective on where

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Speaker 2: our children are at. It allows us to exercise those

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Speaker 2: compassionate muscles that sometimes get lost in everyday life, because

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Speaker 2: all we see is a kid who just wants it

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Speaker 2: their way. This is just beautiful. I love I love

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Speaker 2: how this this offers me as a parent so much

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Speaker 2: scope to actually understand where my child's at and why

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Speaker 2: they are the way they are right now.

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to share three quick ideas in like

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Speaker 1: sixty seconds to sort of wrap this up about what

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Speaker 1: we can do about this. Okay, because knowing the developmental

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Speaker 1: reality doesn't stop the fact that it's just a real

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Speaker 1: pain of the bump and the kids like it's not firs. Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't only e forget like it's just it's hard.

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Speaker 1: Even if you know that they don't have the developmental capacity,

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Speaker 1: it's still really hard. So three quickly is number one.

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Speaker 1: I think all we've got to do is genuinely embrace

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Speaker 1: it as a learning opportunity. So fundamentally, fairness is like

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Speaker 1: a It's a foundational concept that kids start grappling with

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Speaker 1: really early on. And her fixation on fairness isn't just

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Speaker 1: about getting her away, it's about understanding her place in

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Speaker 1: the world. So we've got to use these as an

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Speaker 1: opportunity to explore and explain and empower with her. Go

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Speaker 1: through those three e's, embrace it as a learning opportunity.

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Speaker 1: Just don't do it when emotions are high.

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Speaker 2: I think you can have lots of fun with this.

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Speaker 2: When you and I first met, you would take me

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Speaker 2: through a whole heap of hypothetical questions, and we would

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Speaker 2: have so much fun exploring what we might do when

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Speaker 2: we were parents and we had a child who did

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Speaker 2: X or Y, or what we would do if we

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Speaker 2: found ourselves in a shopping center and somebody was stealing something.

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Speaker 2: Or you just talked to me about all kinds of

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Speaker 2: different moral dilemmas that we might be faced with as adults.

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Speaker 2: We can do this with our kids and have so

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Speaker 2: much fun with it. Make it fun so it doesn't

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Speaker 2: feel like it's a lecture. But start to help them

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Speaker 2: see different perspectives. And I was just thinking about as

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Speaker 2: you were talking. I go to the doctors and sometimes

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Speaker 2: I sit there and I get a little bit frustrated

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Speaker 2: because I could be waiting for my fifteen minute consult

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Speaker 2: for an hour, the doctor has seen a whole heap

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Speaker 2: of people and I'm watching the clock, and I know

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Speaker 2: that the person before me has not been in there

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Speaker 2: for fifteen minutes, like I'm going to be given, he's

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Speaker 2: been in there for forty minutes. But if I was

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Speaker 2: to think about that from a fairness point of view,

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Speaker 2: I'd get really really upset. But I know that there

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Speaker 2: are times where I have gone to the doctor and

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Speaker 2: I've been the person who's needed that forty minutes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so you might have someone in here who's just

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Speaker 1: found out they've got a cancer diagnosis.

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Speaker 2: But I've gone with a paper cut, very but very

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Speaker 2: different needs. And so having those kinds of conversations with

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Speaker 2: your true children outside of the moment that are completely

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Speaker 2: outside of the box for them is a really powerful

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Speaker 2: way for them to start to develop a sense of fairness,

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Speaker 2: a sense of their where their moral compass is, and

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Speaker 2: also empathy.

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Speaker 1: Let me share those two additional things to make up

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Speaker 1: the three things that I said I was going to

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Speaker 1: share really quickly. The first of those extra two is

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Speaker 1: we've got to have really clear expectations with our kids

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Speaker 1: around what fairness is and what it is and what

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Speaker 1: we're going to do about fairness. I actually say to

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Speaker 1: our kids pretty consistently, it's not fair. I'm not trying

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Speaker 1: to be fair. I'm dealing with what needs to be

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Speaker 1: dealt with right here, right now, in the moment, and

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Speaker 1: over time everything's going to work out okay, and even

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Speaker 1: if it doesn't, that's okay as well. Like life isn't fair.

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Speaker 1: I think that if you bend over backwards try to

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Speaker 1: make everything fair and your eight year old's eyes, you're

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Speaker 1: setting yourself up for a world of pain. It's not

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Speaker 1: realistic because it's really all about her. I think though,

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Speaker 1: that you can do it with a whole lot of empathy.

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Speaker 1: So those statements where you give them in fantasy what

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Speaker 1: they can't have in reality, don't you just wish wouldn't

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Speaker 1: it be great? That's where I'd be heading there. Thing is,

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Speaker 1: kids are sponges lead by example. They absolve absolutely everything

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Speaker 1: from their parents. So the way that you respond to

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Speaker 1: things that aren't fair in the world, whether you respond

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Speaker 1: with grace, whether you respond with compromise, and sometimes when

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Speaker 1: you just roll with the punches and accept your life

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Speaker 1: isn't fair. But sometimes we all just have to grieve

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Speaker 1: what we can't have and then move on and helping

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Speaker 1: the kids to see that life isn't fair for us.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes there's grown ups as well, and that's just what

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Speaker 1: it is. What we're really doing there is where we're

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Speaker 1: letting the kids know that life can be difficult for everybody,

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Speaker 1: and resilient people recognize the unfairness of it all and

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Speaker 1: make their own luck, They make their own goodness, They

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Speaker 1: go up and make a positive contribution. So that, I reckon, Lauren,

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Speaker 1: is how we deal with the unfairness problem with our kids.

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Speaker 2: Well, if I was going to wrap everything up into

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Speaker 2: a nice, little perfect package like a beautiful bow, going too, yes,

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Speaker 2: I think the thing that stands out to me the

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Speaker 2: most is helping our children learn to trust that there's enough.

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Speaker 2: It's that abundance mentality that says, regardless of what it

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Speaker 2: feels like right now, trusting that Mummy has enough love

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Speaker 2: to give to you when you need it and to

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Speaker 2: your sister when she needs it. That there's enough food,

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Speaker 2: that even though it looks like somebody else is getting

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Speaker 2: more than you, that you will have enough for your needs.

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Speaker 2: It's trusting that there's enough toys, that there's enough attension,

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Speaker 2: that there's enough care, that there are enough friends and

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Speaker 2: people in the world who love and adore you. It's

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Speaker 2: just helping them to trust that there's enough. That abundance

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Speaker 2: mentality makes all the difference.

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Speaker 1: I think you talked more than me today on the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's fair really. That Happy Family's

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Speaker 1: podcast is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media. Greg

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Speaker 1: Bruce is our executive producer. No, I don't actually have

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Speaker 1: a clue, but I thought it was going to be

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Speaker 1: really funny to say it. If you'd like more information

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Speaker 1: about making your family happy, we'd love for you to

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Speaker 1: visit us Happy families dot com dot you check out

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Speaker 1: our socials. We're on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram and Hey Tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: On the podcast, we're talking with Professor Brad Wilcox, he's

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Speaker 1: a sociologist from the University of Junior, about his brand

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Speaker 1: new book called Get Married. Controversial and provocative and very

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Speaker 1: interesting