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Speaker 1: I am known for making provocative statements. Today, my provocative

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Speaker 1: statement starts the podcast your kids should do at least

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Speaker 1: one thing per week that poses enough risk that they

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Speaker 1: could end up in the hospital or in the doctor's surgery. Hello,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Happy Families podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every

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Speaker 1: day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin

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Speaker 1: and Kylie Coulson.

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Speaker 2: So I'm struggling with this. You did say you were

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Speaker 2: being provocative.

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Speaker 1: Of course I am.

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Speaker 3: But do you really believe this?

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Speaker 1: Yes? I do, and I'll tell you why. Because our

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Speaker 1: children need to take risks, they need to experience adversity.

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Speaker 1: This is how they become resilient. Where we're getting so

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Speaker 1: many inquiries from schools and from organizations who want to

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Speaker 1: hire me to speak this year, and everyone's saying parents

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Speaker 1: are worried about their kids and their resilience. Parents are

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Speaker 1: worried about their anxious kids. Kids don't want to take risks,

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Speaker 1: kids don't want to leave the house. We've got to

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Speaker 1: get our kids out of the house in engaging with life,

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Speaker 1: and I think that one of the best ways to

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Speaker 1: do that is to encounter physical challenges. Because when you

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Speaker 1: encounter those physical challenges, you learn where the boundaries are,

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Speaker 1: You learn them in really healthy, positive ways, and you

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Speaker 1: also become resilient because you discover that you can overcome

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Speaker 1: hard things. I just I really really think that our

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Speaker 1: kids have got to be doing hard things, especially hard

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Speaker 1: physical things. They tend to do them socially anyway with

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Speaker 1: other people. There is research that shows as we increase

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Speaker 1: risky play in our children's lives, they are more resilient.

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Speaker 1: They are more socially adept, they tend to do better academically,

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Speaker 1: they are more resilient.

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Speaker 2: During the holidays, your parents had a couple of the

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Speaker 2: grandkids for a few days.

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Speaker 1: It was so nice.

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Speaker 2: This was our young Emily's first solo trip. Yes home,

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Speaker 2: it's a really really big deal.

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Speaker 1: That is a big deal. In fact, that ties in

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Speaker 1: with exactly what we're talking about.

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Speaker 2: It's a huge deal.

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Speaker 1: I hadn't thought of.

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Speaker 2: That huge deal. And everything was going great. Emily was

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Speaker 2: having an absolute.

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Speaker 1: Blasting away for like three or four days.

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Speaker 2: I get a message from your mum. It says, note

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Speaker 2: to self. Ice skating is a hard contact sport. Took

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Speaker 2: Emily and Emma to the doctors as they were both

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Speaker 2: so bruised this morning. I was worried they had breaks.

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Speaker 3: But it's all good, thank goodness.

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Speaker 2: And she's got a picture of the doctor's surgery.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: I was like, she's not doing me any favors.

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Speaker 1: Here, not doing herself any face.

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Speaker 3: No, not at all.

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Speaker 2: But here's this thing. We hear it time and time again.

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Speaker 2: Schools have banned climbing trees.

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Speaker 1: Well, you're not allowed to play brandings anymore either, because

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's probably not a good example.

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Speaker 2: How many schools don't have monkey bars anymore, it don't exist.

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Speaker 2: There are literally schools where there's no playgrounds.

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Speaker 1: So you know what my reaction was when that text

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Speaker 1: came through from mum. What was I was like, that's awesome,

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Speaker 1: that is so awesome. She went ice skating, Like if

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Speaker 1: you haven't been, I mean, we don't ice skate. When

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Speaker 1: on an ice skating family, you're actually reasonable on the

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Speaker 1: ice when we've done it maybe twice in twenty seven

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Speaker 1: years because you used to roll a skate or something

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Speaker 1: like that. But I'm not good on the ice and

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Speaker 1: when you fall over, it hurts more than landing on concrete.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it is just so painful.

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Speaker 2: But here's the crazy thing. Your kids fall over and

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Speaker 2: what did they do?

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Speaker 1: They sometimes they cry and sometimes they break a wrist,

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Speaker 1: but they usually get up and they keep on going.

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Speaker 1: They want to master it, they want to learn how

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Speaker 1: to do it. They're naturally usually resilient.

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Speaker 2: I remember the first time I got on a pair

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Speaker 2: of roller skates. They were like two sizes too big

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Speaker 2: for me. My cousin had got them for Christmas. They

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Speaker 2: lived on a property where the house was at the

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Speaker 2: top of the driveway, so in order to go anywhere

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Speaker 2: you had to go down a really steep driveway to

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Speaker 2: get to the road.

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Speaker 3: That's how I learned to roll a skates.

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Speaker 2: I fell over how many times I actually am, so

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Speaker 2: I have no idea how I survived it.

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Speaker 1: So we've got our kids involved in bouldering, which is

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Speaker 1: sort of rock climbing but without a harness. Indoor rock climbing,

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Speaker 1: and you land on crash pads, but nevertheless, sometimes there

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Speaker 1: are maybe three meters they get pretty high on those

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Speaker 1: bouldering walls. We've got Emily surfing. One of our kids

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Speaker 1: is into horseback riding. That's the whole reason that they

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Speaker 1: were on the central coast of my parents. Anyway, we've

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Speaker 1: got kids who love to skateboard, bike riding, climbing a tree.

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Speaker 1: This is what I mean when I say our kids

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Speaker 1: should do at least one thing per week where they

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Speaker 1: could end up in hospital or could end up at

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Speaker 1: the doctor's surgery, because when they start to do these things,

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Speaker 1: this is what they learn. They learn to be resilient.

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Speaker 1: What happens with so many parents is we look at

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Speaker 1: any kind of adversity, whether it's physical adversity, which is

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, or emotional adversity, or psychological adversity,

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Speaker 1: or cognitive adversity, or social adversity or emotional adversity. In

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Speaker 1: other words, any hardship, any trial, any thing that could

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Speaker 1: be a setback. Too many parents sort of the helicopter parent, right,

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Speaker 1: This is the thing. This is why I predicted that

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Speaker 1: lighthouse parenting needs to come in twenty twenty five, because

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Speaker 1: it's such a such an improvement on the helicopter thing.

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Speaker 1: When we treat all adversity as inherently negative, we do

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Speaker 1: this tremendous disservice to our children and their ability to

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Speaker 1: develop adaptive coping mechanisms that are going to help them

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Speaker 1: in the future. When they experienced adversity again.

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Speaker 2: When Chanell, our eldest was born and she started crawling

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Speaker 2: very early on in the piece, I was blown away

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Speaker 2: with how many times people would come into our home

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Speaker 2: and they would be absolutely on edge because we had stairs,

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Speaker 2: and she used to love climbing the couch and I

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Speaker 2: would let her and they would be like, she's got

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Speaker 2: to fall, She's got a fall, and we said, yeah,

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Speaker 2: but if she falls, she'll work it out. And obviously

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Speaker 2: I wasn't wanting her to hurt herself, and we had

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Speaker 2: put safety parameters in place to ensure that if she

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Speaker 2: did fall, you know, like I would put she.

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Speaker 1: Wasn't falling into a pool or falling three meters onto

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Speaker 1: I put the cushion crocodiles and razor blades.

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Speaker 2: I put the couch cushions on the floor so that

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Speaker 2: she was climbing onto a hard base and if she fell,

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Speaker 2: she was falling onto a soft cushion.

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Speaker 1: In other words, it's a developmentally appropriate challenge and the

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Speaker 1: risk is also developmentally appropriate.

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Speaker 2: It's about scaffolding. And when she started wanting to climb

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Speaker 2: the stairs, I taught her how to use the stairs,

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Speaker 2: how to be able to slide down backwards, so that

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Speaker 2: her feet went first, not her face, and she worked

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Speaker 2: it out with the couch. She literally fell off the

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Speaker 2: couch once and she went, oh, I don't like that,

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Speaker 2: and that was it. So between the two of us,

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Speaker 2: I showed her what she needed to do to do

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Speaker 2: it the right way, and she never did it again.

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Speaker 1: Obviously, some kids are quicker learners than others. I know

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Speaker 1: a friend of mine when I was a kid, who

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Speaker 1: rode his bicycle off a balcony, a second floor balcony,

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Speaker 1: because he just thought that the first time when it

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Speaker 1: didn't work, he did it wrong, so we should try again.

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Speaker 1: But for the most part, most part, kids learn pretty well.

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Speaker 1: After the break, we're going to talk about what Stanford

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Speaker 1: University research tells us about how we approach threat and

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Speaker 1: adversity and challenge and what it can teach our children.

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Speaker 1: Plus seven action steps for you as a parent to

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Speaker 1: become more comfortable and help your kids become more comfortable.

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Speaker 1: We're doing at least one thing per week that could

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Speaker 1: lend you or them or everyone in hospital. Stanford University

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Speaker 1: is where Carol Dweck, the professor who has done all

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Speaker 1: the growth mindset research, is based and it's become a

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Speaker 1: growth mindset hub. Some recent research from Stanford looking at

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Speaker 1: parental mindset shows this when children experience a challenge, when

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Speaker 1: they experience something that could be painful, a physical adversity,

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Speaker 1: when they experience a setback or a trial or something hard,

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Speaker 1: if the parent's response to the child's adversity is I

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Speaker 1: need to protect you from that. John Hate in his

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Speaker 1: book The Coddling of the American Mind calls this safetyism.

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Speaker 1: I need to protect my child as much as possible,

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Speaker 1: rather than as much as it's necessary. Our children then

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Speaker 1: adopt the same mindset. I need to be afraid. This

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Speaker 1: is bad. Fearfulness and anxiety would be the appropriate response

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Speaker 1: to this situation. Again, and it doesn't matter whether it's

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Speaker 1: social with a friend situation or physical like we've been

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Speaker 1: talking about for much of this podcast, or academic because

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Speaker 1: they might fail to test. Whatever it is. When parents

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Speaker 1: see failures and setbacks and challenges and adversities as a

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Speaker 1: problem to be avoided, children adopt the same mindset. Unsurprisingly,

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Speaker 1: when parents see adversity and challenge and difficulty and falling

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Speaker 1: over on the ice and spraining your wrist or ending

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Speaker 1: up with a whole lot of bruises as an opportunity

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Speaker 1: for growth. The kids love it. They adopt the same approach,

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Speaker 1: the same mindset to the challenges that they face.

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Speaker 2: There was a trend last year on socials where parents

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Speaker 2: holding a baby would pretend to walk into a wall

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Speaker 2: and you'd hear them slap.

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Speaker 3: The wall with their hand.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah.

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Speaker 2: Depending on how the parent reacted to that depended on

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Speaker 2: whether or not the baby cried or was oblivious. I

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Speaker 2: missed that to the slap and the times when the

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Speaker 2: parents were like, oh, instant babies, baby.

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Speaker 1: Looks to the parents for the cue. That's right, be

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Speaker 1: afraid of this.

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Speaker 2: Our babies literally from the time they're born, they're looking

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Speaker 2: to us for facial cues.

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Speaker 1: That makes me think of Jared and Chanell and Indy.

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Speaker 1: For those of you who knew to the pod, Chanelle's

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Speaker 1: our eldest daughter. She and her husband have an eighteen

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Speaker 1: month old baby. Now I can't believe that we're grandparents

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Speaker 1: have been eighteen month old. But they've just got a

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Speaker 1: constant smile on their face. And whenever Indy does something,

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Speaker 1: even if she hurts herself, they just find it hilarious,

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Speaker 1: not in a cruel, nasty way, but rather they just go, oh, whoops,

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Speaker 1: and they laugh about it, and then they give her

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Speaker 1: an opportunity to do it again straight away. It's magic

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Speaker 1: to watch as I think about it. That's what I

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Speaker 1: do in the surf with Emily, with our eleven year

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Speaker 1: old almost eleven year old, when she falls off a wave,

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Speaker 1: when she knows dives, when she gets hit by something

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Speaker 1: that was a bit bigger and harder than she was expecting,

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Speaker 1: I just crack up. I'm like, I can't believe your

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Speaker 1: hand on that. And she's taking those cues, and she's

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Speaker 1: more confident now in the water and more excited about

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Speaker 1: surfing because she's realizing it's not as scary as I thought.

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Speaker 1: In fact, even as I think about this. When I

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Speaker 1: was still a university lecturer and decided that I wanted

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Speaker 1: to start happy families, I went to my parents, you

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Speaker 1: remember this, And I said to them, I'm about to

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Speaker 1: leave the safety and security of an academic role and

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Speaker 1: start a business. I know nothing about it. I don't

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Speaker 1: know how to do any of this, and I'm pretty nervous.

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Speaker 1: And my parents, their faces, their demeanor, their attitude was,

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Speaker 1: this is so exciting for you, how wonderful behind you

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Speaker 1: go for it.

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Speaker 3: We had a mortgage.

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Speaker 1: We had five kids at the time.

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Speaker 2: This was a really big leap of faith on our part.

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Speaker 1: And they said you've got this, and they said we're

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Speaker 1: here for you.

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Speaker 3: I will catch you if you fall.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I literally said them, can we live in your

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Speaker 1: garage if this goes south?

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Speaker 3: They did say no to that.

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Speaker 1: They said no, They did live in the house instead.

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Speaker 1: But it was that support that made me feel like

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Speaker 1: I was resilient enough to go and do it.

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Speaker 2: It was, well, it gave you the courage to jump,

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Speaker 2: because I don't think you would have without that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And I wasn't saying I need you to give

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Speaker 1: me money, I want you to support me as I

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Speaker 1: do this startup. Rather, it was if this fails, can

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Speaker 1: you be the safety net? And they didn't hesitate. So

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Speaker 1: what are the action steps if you want your children

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Speaker 1: to do something risky, if you want your children to

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Speaker 1: learn resilience, if you want them to do hard things

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Speaker 1: because you know that it will equip them to do

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Speaker 1: harder things in the future and therefore be stronger and

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Speaker 1: more capable. We have seven action steps to help you.

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Speaker 2: So Number one, we've got to look for ways to

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Speaker 2: enable our kids to see failures as an opportunity for growth.

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Speaker 1: So let me get really practical about this. This is

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Speaker 1: when they fail and you say, well, that must hurt.

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Speaker 1: So we let them know that we're they're supporting them,

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Speaker 1: and we say, if you were to do it again,

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Speaker 1: how would you do it differently? Notice that you fell

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Speaker 1: over on the ice, Notice that you hurt your wrist.

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Speaker 1: What other ways can we help you to get better

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Speaker 1: at ice skating? As the metaphor, and it might be

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Speaker 1: that we use one of those you know, those penguins.

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Speaker 1: Penguins the walkers that go in front or they hold

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Speaker 1: the wall, we hold their hands.

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Speaker 3: Real they need to make adult versions of those. I

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Speaker 3: just use it one.

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Speaker 1: I just used the kid one last time, I know.

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Speaker 1: So that's the first one. You frame that failure or

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Speaker 1: that adversity of that challenge as an opportunity for growth, and.

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Speaker 2: That builds beautifully on the second one. Because of what

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Speaker 2: you did, you're creating a supportive environment in which your

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Speaker 2: kids can work through the tricky emotions that come with failure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which is what my parents did as well. They're

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Speaker 1: just so beautifully I love reflecting on that story.

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Speaker 2: Number three, allowing our children to experience appropriate levels of challenge.

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Speaker 2: If we go back to the story that we shared

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Speaker 2: earlier with Chanelle as a young baby, as she started

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Speaker 2: to crawl and started to move around, one to explore

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Speaker 2: taking the cushions of the couch and putting them on

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Speaker 2: the floor so if she fell off it wasn't going

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Speaker 2: to be such a big shock to her. Teaching her

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Speaker 2: to climb down the stairs backwards. All of those things

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Speaker 2: were providing an opportunity for her to have appropriate levels

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Speaker 2: of risk.

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Speaker 1: And that's a critical thing developmentally appropriate. So going to

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Speaker 1: school is a developmentally appropriate thing. Doing exams is a

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Speaker 1: developmentally appropriate thing. Going bouldering as a two year old

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Speaker 1: or going surfing as a three year old probably not

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Speaker 1: developmentally appropriate, But by the time the kids are seven

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Speaker 1: or nine or eleven much more developmentally appropriate. We've just

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Speaker 1: got to make sure that the setting is right. Too

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Speaker 1: much too sooner, and it can really crush their confidence

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Speaker 1: and make them more afraid.

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Speaker 2: Number four is really about developing a village, utilizing what's

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Speaker 2: in your village to help you children take appropriate risks.

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Speaker 2: If your child wants to do bouldering and you don't

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Speaker 2: know anything about it, then find somebody else who does

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Speaker 2: and allow them to work through that and help to

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Speaker 2: educate both of you so that they can take risks

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Speaker 2: that you feel comfortable with.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Or if you go back to an academic setting

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Speaker 1: and you've got a child in your five who doesn't

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Speaker 1: understand maths and you don't understand your five maths either,

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Speaker 1: which is most of us, Let's be honest, go and

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Speaker 1: get a math tutor, or hire a year eight kid

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Speaker 1: who's happy to work for fifteen bucks an hour to

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Speaker 1: do the tutoring. If you can't afford a full price

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Speaker 1: math tutor, find somebody who can be that external support,

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Speaker 1: because it's not going to be you, because you're not

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Speaker 1: feeling competent either.

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Speaker 2: And I think the great thing about this one is

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Speaker 2: just acknowledging that we're not saying that your kids have

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Speaker 2: to suffer ongoingly. It's important for our kids to recognize

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Speaker 2: failure as an opportunity for growth. But if we allow

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Speaker 2: them to stay in that place for too long, they

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Speaker 2: get discouraged and they're less likely to move on.

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Speaker 1: Okay, The fifth thing is that we need to recognize

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Speaker 1: the difference between harmful trauma and beneficial stress. All stresses problematic.

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Speaker 1: Something that I've been talking about in my seminars for

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Speaker 1: years is in Biosphere too. This was a science experiment

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Speaker 1: where an entire habitat was built under a dome to

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Speaker 1: do science basically in case of space exploration. The trees

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Speaker 1: who were planted under this dome in Biosphere two shot

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Speaker 1: up really tall, really fast, and they looked like they

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Speaker 1: were better trees than nature ever provides. They were just pure, perfect,

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Speaker 1: lovely tall pines or whatever it was. But all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden they started falling over. And the reason they

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Speaker 1: fell over is because they hadn't dug down deep roots

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Speaker 1: and they hadn't created what's called stress would because they

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Speaker 1: didn't have any wind. In Biosphere too, it was a

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Speaker 1: completely still environment. There was no wind because there was

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Speaker 1: this great big dome preventing the wind from getting in.

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Speaker 1: Beneficial stress is the wind. Beneficial stress is the rain.

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Speaker 1: Beneficial stress is the stuff that happens in our lives

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Speaker 1: normally half of trauma, that stuff like abuse, that stuff

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Speaker 1: like neglect, that stuff like alcoholism and drug use in

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Speaker 1: the home, it's being exposed to explicit content. It's the

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Speaker 1: kinds of things that kids are not that are just

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Speaker 1: not kid friendly and not appropriate for kids. Bosed to bullying,

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Speaker 1: and being a victim of bullying. If we can help

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Speaker 1: our children to understand the difference. We're not going to

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Speaker 1: say tough enough, princess, when they're experiencing something that is

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Speaker 1: genuinely traumatic. Instead, we're going to give them support that

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Speaker 1: they need. If they're experiencing beneficial stress, we're still not

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Speaker 1: going to say tough enough, princess, but we might say

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Speaker 1: this is really tough, let's figure out a way through it,

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Speaker 1: because I think you're strong enough to try this again.

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Speaker 1: Get back out on the eyes, let's go. Number six,

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Speaker 1: we want to foster positive coping mechanisms when our children

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Speaker 1: are going through challenges that are appropriate. In other words,

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Speaker 1: this is about sitting down with the kids and saying,

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Speaker 1: when you're under this stress or when this thing goes wrong,

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Speaker 1: let's find some solutions for you. Sometimes you do it

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Speaker 1: in the moment. Often you'll do it the next day

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Speaker 1: or even the day after, when the kids have had

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Speaker 1: time to process it and they're not feeling defensive about it.

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Speaker 1: And number seven, the last one is that we need

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Speaker 1: to just make it say for our kids to have

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Speaker 1: those difficult processing moments with us or with their significant

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Speaker 1: mentor or teacher, whoever, it is. That's kind of been

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Speaker 1: implicit through everything we've talked about, So I won't the

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Speaker 1: point our kids need to be doing hard things even

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Speaker 1: if it could land them in hospital.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm hopeful that no one's going to end up

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Speaker 2: in hospital today.

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Speaker 1: I'm not encouraging hospital visits. I just I feel like

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Speaker 1: I need to put a big caveat a big neon lights.

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Speaker 1: The reality is life is dangerous.

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Speaker 2: But I hope your kids get to climb a tree today.

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Speaker 1: Or ride a horse, or go surfing or a right skateboard,

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Speaker 1: or just do something up and sit on the carpet

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Speaker 1: and play a video game. That's really what we're getting at.

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Speaker 1: The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rouland from

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Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Hey, we'd love it. If you're enjoying the podcast,

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Speaker 1: can you leave us a rating and review wherever you're listening?

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Speaker 1: Five star ratings and reviews make a big difference for

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Speaker 1: helping other people to know that the pod is happening

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Speaker 1: and make a difference in their lives. If you would

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Speaker 1: like more information and resources to make your family happier,

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Speaker 1: visit us at Happy families dot com dot a