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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.

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Speaker 1: Now, if we do things because we think they're going

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Speaker 1: to make us happy, we will often not always, but

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Speaker 1: we will often be disappointed.

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Speaker 2: And now here's the stars of our show, My mum

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Speaker 2: and dad.

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Speaker 1: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson, the founder of Happy

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Speaker 1: Families dot com dot a you. It's a Monday morning. Kylie,

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Speaker 1: my wife none who has six kids podcast partner is

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Speaker 1: thing opposite me yawning, because that's what Mondays are for, right,

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Speaker 1: Big weekend, don big weekend, bit tough. Woke up a

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Speaker 1: bit late this morning, just a little not feeling great.

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Speaker 1: We are so grateful that you've chosen to join us today.

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Speaker 1: We're having a conversation about whether or not we're responsible

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Speaker 1: for our kids happiness. When I ask this question in workshops,

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Speaker 1: it's the number one response. The question is what do

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Speaker 1: you want most of your kids? And everyone always says

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Speaker 1: I want them to be happy. I hear it again

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Speaker 1: and again and again, and today I want to bust

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Speaker 1: the myth that it's our responsibility to make our kids happy.

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Speaker 1: In fact, I want to expose the lie that it

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Speaker 1: is that we need to make our kids happy. I

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Speaker 1: want to argue that that's not our job. Not that

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Speaker 1: I'm suggesting that we're therefore here to make our children miserable.

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Speaker 1: That's not it either.

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Speaker 2: I think that we have just lightened the load of

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Speaker 2: every parent ever.

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Speaker 1: But we need to explain why. And so what we're

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Speaker 1: going to do because you're not feeling one hundred percent

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Speaker 1: today is I've put together a list of five things

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Speaker 1: that go wrong when we try to help our kids

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Speaker 1: to be happy when we think that it's our responsibility.

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Speaker 1: So you can sort of just join in the conversation

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Speaker 1: around that, but I don't want to put too much

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Speaker 1: of a load on you, because not my job to

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Speaker 1: make you happy, on your job to make me happy.

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Speaker 1: And then, oh, I just thought of a sixth one.

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Speaker 1: And then after the break, we're going to play around

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Speaker 1: with what we are actually responsible for. If we're not

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Speaker 1: responsible for our children's happiness, what are we as parents

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Speaker 1: responsible for other than clothing and feeding in sheltering them.

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Speaker 2: Well, let's dive into it. What's the first one.

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Speaker 1: The first one is that if you think that you're

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Speaker 1: responsible for your children's happiness, you're often going to make

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Speaker 1: short sighted decisions.

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Speaker 2: I think about this all the time because I can't

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Speaker 2: even count the amount of times that we've taken the

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Speaker 2: kids on an outing or you know, spent a whole

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Speaker 2: heap of money that we probably really didn't have, but

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Speaker 2: we were desperate to put a smile on their face.

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Speaker 2: And you know, spend spend quality time together as a family,

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Speaker 2: only to get in the car or maybe not even

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Speaker 2: make it to the car after a wonderful day out

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Speaker 2: and have someone griping because there's not enough leg room

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Speaker 2: on the car, or the sibling next to them is

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Speaker 2: breathing in their air, or whatever it is. It just

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Speaker 2: blows out of proportion after all of that effort that

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Speaker 2: we've gone into.

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking theme parks, right, You take the kids to

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Speaker 1: the theme park because we want you to have an

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Speaker 1: awesome day. But they fight on the way to the

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Speaker 1: theme park. They fight and winge and complain because you know.

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Speaker 2: I don't want to go on that ride. They want

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Speaker 2: to go on this ride.

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Speaker 1: I want to sit next to Dad, not Mum. And

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Speaker 1: then and then when you take your picnic lunch, because

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Speaker 1: you're not prepared to spend forty six dollars on one

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Speaker 1: burger and chips plus an extra twelve dollars if you

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Speaker 1: want the forty cents worth of softfering that you have

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Speaker 1: to buy. I just and the kids winge and whinge wing.

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Speaker 1: And you're thinking, but I did this so that you

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Speaker 1: would be happy, and that right there is the problem.

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Speaker 1: But we make all of these short sided decisions. The

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Speaker 1: kids winging and so we say, well, I just want

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Speaker 1: you to be happy, so I don't have to go

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Speaker 1: to school today, or the kids winging, and we say, well,

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Speaker 1: I just want you to be happy, so yes, I'll

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Speaker 1: buy you that treat in the supermarket. It's short sided

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Speaker 1: decisions that don't actually make the kids happy. Like let's

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Speaker 1: say you do let them stay home, are they truly

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Speaker 1: are actually happy? Let's say you do buy them in

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Speaker 1: the treat? Do they treat everyone well? Like? Are they

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Speaker 1: happy after that? It doesn't. It just doesn't work out

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Speaker 1: that way. So we make short sided decisions when we

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Speaker 1: think that we're responsible for our children's happiness, and it

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Speaker 1: rarely works to anyone's real advantage.

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Speaker 2: What's number two?

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Speaker 1: The second one is that it's impossible to satisfy our

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Speaker 1: children's craving for happiness.

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Speaker 2: Weren't satiable it is.

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Speaker 1: There's a psychological reference to the hedonic treadmill. So hedonism

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Speaker 1: is avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. And when you get

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Speaker 1: on the hedonic treadmill, what happens is you get something

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Speaker 1: that feels really good, and then you keep on chasing

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Speaker 1: more and more of that good stuff. You become acclimatized,

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Speaker 1: You become accustomed, you become habituated to all of the

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Speaker 1: goodness in your life. And as you become familiar and

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Speaker 1: comfortable with all of the stuff that made you happy,

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Speaker 1: once it's no longer enough, it doesn't make you happy anymore.

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Speaker 1: You need more.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I'm thinking about the multiple times I may have

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Speaker 2: read fifteen books a bedtime instead of one because it

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Speaker 2: just was never enough. And now that we've got a

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Speaker 2: seven eight year.

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Speaker 1: Old who is reading on her own, reading.

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Speaker 2: Chapter books, one chapter is not enough. We're up to

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Speaker 2: three chapters and I Dad.

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Speaker 1: I fall asleep asleep when they ask me to read,

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Speaker 1: because I just can't read that long at night. Once

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Speaker 1: my head once on horizontal, anyway, it's impossible to satisfy it.

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Speaker 1: So when you think that you're responsible for your kids happiness,

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Speaker 1: you keep on pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing,

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Speaker 1: which it's just too much, which kind of leads to

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Speaker 1: my third idea, and that is that being responsible for

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Speaker 1: somebody's happiness is actually an impossible burden to carry because

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Speaker 1: your kids are always going to have experiences. Not always,

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Speaker 1: but your kids are going to end up being mad

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Speaker 1: or sad or bad, feeling horrible, and then you feel

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Speaker 1: like it's your job to make it all better. And

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Speaker 1: I don't know if this is helpful or not, but

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Speaker 1: I want to make it really clear. It's not your

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Speaker 1: job to make it better as a parent. You don't

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Speaker 1: have to fix it because they're feeling bad. You don't

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Speaker 1: have to fix it because they're feeling sad. You don't

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Speaker 1: have to fix it because they're feeling mad. What you

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Speaker 1: do need to do is let them know that you

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Speaker 1: get it and they're to support them as they figure

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Speaker 1: it out. But what we do is we sit there

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Speaker 1: on the carpet, laying beside our children, reading chapter four

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Speaker 1: and chapter five because we just want them to be happy.

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Speaker 1: We just want them to know that we're there for them.

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Speaker 1: We just want to connect with them. Now, I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying that we shouldn't connect and that we shouldn't enjoy

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Speaker 1: quality time together. But it becomes pathological once we start

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Speaker 1: to think that we're responsible for their happiness, and if

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Speaker 1: they're not feeling happy, that we are the ones who

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Speaker 1: are responsible to do something about it.

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Speaker 2: Well, right, you know, and then we're burdened by the

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Speaker 2: fact that our children are unhappy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what's before number four is that

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Speaker 1: when we think that we are responsible for our children's happiness,

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Speaker 1: we actually set them up to fail in life. Because

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Speaker 1: if they think that their happiness, that their emotional stability,

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Speaker 1: that their emotional well being is predicated on somebody outside

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Speaker 1: of themselves, what are they going to do when we're

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Speaker 1: not around. What are they going to do when they're

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Speaker 1: at university or when they're in a relationship with another adult.

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Speaker 1: Are they going to think that that other person is

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Speaker 1: responsible for their happiness? Going to think that it's all

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Speaker 1: that other person's fault that they're not having a good day.

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Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes other people can interfere with our otherwise

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Speaker 1: best laid plans and we can feel like we're having

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Speaker 1: a bad day, But we were actually setting our children

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Speaker 1: up to fail because they're looking to external sources to

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Speaker 1: satisfy their sense of well being. And it's so unhealthy,

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Speaker 1: it's not going to be in anyone's best interests.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting that you brought this one up, because it's

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Speaker 2: something that I've actually really only come to fully understand

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Speaker 2: as an adult, that concept that this is actually my gig,

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Speaker 2: it's up to me. But for so long I looked

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Speaker 2: to external sources to kind of get that lift and

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Speaker 2: that happy. And I didn't like being on my own,

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Speaker 2: not because I don't enjoy being in my own space,

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Speaker 2: but I just love being with other people. But I

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Speaker 2: was relying on them to make me feel good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And that brings me the last thing, and that

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Speaker 1: is that nobody can actually make you feel good. I

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Speaker 1: can't make somebody happy, I can't make somebody sad. I

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Speaker 1: can certainly treat people in a particular way that is

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Speaker 1: going to make it easier for them to choose one

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Speaker 1: thing or the other. But something that I have noticed,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we've made no secret of it. Over the

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Speaker 1: last few weeks, we've had some particularly challenging times with

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Speaker 1: one of our children, but a couple of our kids

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Speaker 1: have been giving us a bit of a rough old time.

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Speaker 1: And one thing that has come back to me again

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Speaker 1: and again and again, is that I'm not responsible for

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Speaker 1: their happiness and they can't make me miserable, so I

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Speaker 1: can give them all the love and compassion in the world.

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Speaker 1: But ultimately, when I step out of that room, it's

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Speaker 1: on me how I feel, It's on me, how I react.

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Speaker 1: It's on me whether it gets me down or whether

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Speaker 1: I say, well, that's the way they are right now,

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Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean I have to be miserable as well.

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Speaker 2: I think it takes a level of maturity to get

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Speaker 2: to that point, and it's.

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Speaker 1: One that I've been trying to make with our children,

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Speaker 1: somewhat unsuccessfully for some time now. Your sister is not

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Speaker 1: responsible for your happiness, and they're like, yes, yes, They're

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Speaker 1: convinced that their sisters are the ones that are making

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Speaker 1: them angry, that are making them sad, that are making

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Speaker 1: them mad. And it's that consistent water torture, just that

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Speaker 1: little drop once and then once again and once again,

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Speaker 1: and me saying, you choose, you choose, you choose after

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Speaker 1: the break. If we are not responsible for our children's happiness,

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Speaker 1: what are we responsible for? Imagine a relationship where you

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Speaker 1: felt seen, heard and valued, one where as your partner

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Speaker 1: enters the front door, they see you and their eyes

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Speaker 1: light up. A relationship like that is a gift. If

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Speaker 1: you don't have it now you can. The Happy Family's

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Speaker 1: webinar Better Together gives you the insight, tools and support

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Speaker 1: you need to have a happier relationship, Available now at

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Speaker 1: The Happy Family's web shop.

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Speaker 2: It's The Happy Family's podcast, the podcast for a Time

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Speaker 2: Poor Pairs who just wants answers Now? And I'm curious,

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Speaker 2: if we're not responsible for our kids' happiness, what are

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Speaker 2: we responsible for? Doctaicals.

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Speaker 1: The first thing I'm going to say is that we're

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Speaker 1: responsible for teaching our children to find their own happiness,

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Speaker 1: and they're most likely to find it not by searching

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Speaker 1: for it. If we do things because we think they're

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Speaker 1: going to make us happy, we will often not always,

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Speaker 1: but we will often be disappointed. In fact, happiness often

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Speaker 1: comes from the anticipation of something, not doing it. You

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Speaker 1: struggle with this one, don't you. I've talked about this

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Speaker 1: before with the chocolate cake analogy. The anticipation of the

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Speaker 1: chocolate cake is actually often better than the chocolate cake itself.

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Speaker 1: It's the excitement of the trip that's quite often better

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Speaker 1: than the trip itself, not always, not always, but our

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Speaker 1: brain gets so excited about things. You're looking at me like,

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Speaker 1: I still don't buy it.

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Speaker 2: When you say a holiday, I agree with that wholeheartedly.

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Speaker 2: More times than not, the actual living through a holiday

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Speaker 2: is not anywhere near as good as I imagined it

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Speaker 2: would be, especially if the kids are involved.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, but.

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Speaker 2: I'm still going to say that eating the chocolate cake

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Speaker 2: is better than anticipating it.

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Speaker 1: You've always said that since the first time I shared

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Speaker 1: this idea with you. But we are responsible for helping

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Speaker 1: our kids to find their own happiness, and there's a

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Speaker 1: handful of ways that we can do that. The first

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Speaker 1: one is we need to teach them how to understand

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Speaker 1: their emotions.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a big one. I think that so often,

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Speaker 2: especially as kids, but I think even as adults, we

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Speaker 2: get so overwhelmed by the emotion we don't even know

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Speaker 2: what it is, and so helping them to understand it

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Speaker 2: helps them to recognize that they actually have control over.

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Speaker 1: It, right, And that's the critical thing. Nobody else can

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Speaker 1: make you feel happy or sad. And when you start

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Speaker 1: to understand how your emotions are working, that your emotions

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Speaker 1: are just giving you information that you can accept that information,

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Speaker 1: or you can argue against it that there are different

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Speaker 1: ways to deal with the emotional information that's coming through

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Speaker 1: your system. As that starts to resonate for your children,

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Speaker 1: they start to learn how to regulate those emotions better

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Speaker 1: and choose for themselves how they want to be presenting

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Speaker 1: in the world, how they want to be showing up

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Speaker 1: critically important. So we've got to help our kids to

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Speaker 1: understand emotions. Usually we're going to do that best by

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Speaker 1: emotion coaching. While emotion coaching, especially as suggested by Professor

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Speaker 1: John Gotman, is often well done in the moment, my

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Speaker 1: experience with our kids has been that it doesn't work

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Speaker 1: so well in the moment. My experience with you is

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Speaker 1: that it doesn't work so well in the moment. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: it does, but it takes a lot of practice. It's

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Speaker 1: a really heavy skill to learn. It takes a lot

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Speaker 1: to learn to do it, especially in the moment. But

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Speaker 1: emotion coaching doesn't have to take place just when someone's emotional.

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Speaker 1: You can deal with the emotion coaching process much more

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Speaker 1: effectively sometimes after the emotional outburst, when things have calmed down,

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Speaker 1: or a week later or a day later, or whatever

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Speaker 1: it might be, Another way that we can help our

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Speaker 1: children to find their own happiness is to teach them

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Speaker 1: how to have positive relationships. Teach them what a real

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Speaker 1: friend is like, what a real friend is not like,

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Speaker 1: how to deal with conflict and control issues, how to

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Speaker 1: repair relationships when they go wrong. When we learn how

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Speaker 1: to do those things, when our kids learn how to

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Speaker 1: do those things and get better at the social interactions

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Speaker 1: that they're involved with, when their relationships improve, they're going

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Speaker 1: to be happier.

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Speaker 2: As you shared that, I remembered a couple of instances

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Speaker 2: where our children have had pretty significant falling outs with

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Speaker 2: their friends and they've come home just a mess. Whether

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Speaker 2: it be your eye, we've got them in the car,

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Speaker 2: we've driven them up the road, and they've been able

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Speaker 2: to go knock on the door of their friend, and

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Speaker 2: literally just that process has been It's just so beautiful

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Speaker 2: to watch it because they're upset and they're burdened by

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Speaker 2: what they're feeling, and if they don't face it, it

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Speaker 2: just fest is and they create a mountain out of

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Speaker 2: what was probably a molehill to start with. And every

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Speaker 2: single time these two girls have just crashed, didn't teach

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Speaker 2: you other and given each other a big hug and

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Speaker 2: cried and said sorry and life goes on.

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Speaker 1: And that ties in with the next idea that I

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Speaker 1: wanted to share. If you want to help your kids

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Speaker 1: to be happier, not only do they need to get

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Speaker 1: relationships right and learn how relationships work and how to

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Speaker 1: have good relationships, but they need to learn how to

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Speaker 1: do hard things and saying sorry or asking for help.

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Speaker 1: They're hard things to do. But can I just give you,

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Speaker 1: like huge kudos on what you've just described. I hope

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Speaker 1: that every parent who's listening to this podcast heard what

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Speaker 1: you just said and got it. When the kids are

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Speaker 1: fighting with a friend, sometimes instead of just leaving them

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Speaker 1: to figure it out for themselves, sometimes the best thing

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Speaker 1: you can do is stick me in the car and

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Speaker 1: drop them to their friend's house and go knocking on

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Speaker 1: the door and say, oh, my kid needs to talk

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Speaker 1: to your kid. Can we just get them together for

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Speaker 1: a minute. You've done that a handful of times with

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Speaker 1: our kids over the years, and relationships are restored. But

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Speaker 1: it's doing hard things. If you want your kids to

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Speaker 1: be happy, you can't give them an easy life. You've

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Speaker 1: got to get them the opportunity to do things that

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Speaker 1: are hard to invent, or to get curious, or to

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Speaker 1: push their limits, or to try and to fail and

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Speaker 1: to I don't know, memorize lines in a musical, or

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Speaker 1: learn how to play an instrument, or get good at

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Speaker 1: a sport, or practice an art, do karate, whatever it is.

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Speaker 1: Doing hard things makes us happy. I know the kids

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Speaker 1: winge and wine and complain and say this is the

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Speaker 1: worst day. Hey there's a coach down doing this. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to do this anymore. And yet by pushing

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Speaker 1: through those hard times, they tend to be so grateful

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Speaker 1: and tend to be much happier because they did something hard.

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Speaker 1: It builds resilience, It builds self efficacy, it builds confidence,

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Speaker 1: it builds satisfaction. It actually creates happiness as a byproduct,

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Speaker 1: not as an end in itself.

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Speaker 2: I love it.

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Speaker 1: What's a five? The last one is that we need

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Speaker 1: to teach them to be responsible for their own emotions,

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Speaker 1: for their own happiness, which is kind of the recurring

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Speaker 1: theme of this podcast. They get to choose, They get

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Speaker 1: to choose if they're going to be And we've had

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Speaker 1: this conversation conversation without kids so many times. You know

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Speaker 1: what you get to choose, You get to choose if

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Speaker 1: you want to lay here and be miserable or if

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Speaker 1: you want to get up and come and join us

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Speaker 1: and be happy. And every now and again our kids

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Speaker 1: have looked at us and said, I choose misery. Yes, okay,

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Speaker 1: that's your choice. We're going to go out there and

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Speaker 1: we're going to smile and have a great time because

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Speaker 1: we love being together. When you feel like doing that,

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Speaker 1: come and join us. They get to choose.

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Speaker 2: But if we're being completely transparent, every now and again,

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Speaker 2: you and I choose misery too.

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Speaker 1: We do because we're human, like I've done a few

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Speaker 1: times over the last couple of weeks because it's been hard.

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Speaker 1: But we really hope that these ideas are helpful for

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Speaker 1: you and your family. When we think that we're responsible

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Speaker 1: for our kids' happiness, or anyone's for that matter, we

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Speaker 1: make short sighted decisions. We put an impossible load on

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Speaker 1: our own shoulders, We set our children up to fail.

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Speaker 1: We will never actually satisfy them anyway. And all we

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Speaker 1: do is kind of suthe ourselves in the moment, makes

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Speaker 1: it makes selves feel like we're doing a good job.

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Speaker 1: We're not. What we're responsible for is helping our kids

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Speaker 1: to find their own happiness, not by searching for it,

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Speaker 1: but by understanding their emotional world, by practicing healthy relationships,

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Speaker 1: by doing hard things, by repairing relationships, and by being

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Speaker 1: responsible for their own emotions.

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Speaker 2: It's a big list.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's not supposed to be easy. Missus Happy Families.

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Speaker 1: I'm not responsible for people being happy to have heard it.

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Speaker 1: I just want to share the ideas. The Happy Families

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Speaker 1: podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig

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Speaker 1: Bruce is our executive producer and if you'd like more

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Speaker 1: information about how to make your family happier, you can

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Speaker 1: find a whole lot of content about the stuff we're

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Speaker 1: sharing in this podcast on our Facebook page Doctor Justin

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Speaker 1: Coulson's Happy Families