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Speaker 1: This is the Happy Family's podcast with doctor Justin Kilson.

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Speaker 1: We're Luck and Susie, our husband and wife radio team

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Speaker 1: with three young boys. This is the podcast for the time,

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Speaker 1: poor parent who just wants the answers now.

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Speaker 2: So just One of the things that he's been talking

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Speaker 2: about recently is about prep kids. Aren't they cute, Susan, beautiful?

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Speaker 2: They're the most lovely and adorable little children.

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Speaker 1: Though, so cute in their little uniforms.

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Speaker 2: Yes, but apparently they're little monsters. More prep kids being

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Speaker 2: suspended now than in previous Occasionally, this behavior seems to

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Speaker 2: be getting worse. From Happy Families dot com dot au.

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Speaker 2: He is the man behind twenty one Days to a

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Speaker 2: Happier Family, Doctor Justin Kilson, Hello, how.

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Speaker 3: Are you good?

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Speaker 2: I'm super and you yeah, Well, we're very scared about

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Speaker 2: prep kids. What is going on?

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Speaker 4: Well, look, I think this is pretty scary. In Queensland,

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Speaker 4: suspensions of prep students have gone up one hundred and

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Speaker 4: thirty percent in just five years. And we're not off

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Speaker 4: the lowest of baselines either, I should say, because well, look,

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Speaker 4: kids are kids are crumbling when they get to school.

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Speaker 4: They're they're Some people are saying that they're too soft

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Speaker 4: these days, that they've been molly coddle, that they've been

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Speaker 4: bubble wrapped, that they've been spoon fed, And the numbers

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Speaker 4: are pretty amazing to have to listen to this. Prep

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Speaker 4: suspensions leapt from three hundred and seventy nine in twenty ten.

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Speaker 4: Now you think about it, across all of Queensland, prep

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Speaker 4: is like four and a half to five years old. Thereabouts.

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Speaker 4: Nearly four hundred kids in twenty ten were suspended at

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Speaker 4: the age of four. Yeah, I mean, what does a

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Speaker 4: four year old do or maybe a five year old

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Speaker 4: do to get suspended? They went up to five hundred

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Speaker 4: and seventy two and twenty thirteen, and last year eight

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Speaker 4: hundred and seventy three kids across Queensland have been have

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Speaker 4: been suspended, and in almost every case it's because it's

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Speaker 4: they're being told that they've been behaving inappropriately. So they've

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Speaker 4: been aggressive, they've been bullying, they've been treating others poorly,

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Speaker 4: they've been refusing to do what the teacher asked them

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Speaker 4: to do and really acting out and so the schools

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Speaker 4: are sort of saying, well, we've worked with this family,

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Speaker 4: we've worked with these kids.

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Speaker 3: It's not working they're out.

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Speaker 2: Is it possible, though, because I mean I can see

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Speaker 2: a case where maybe the kids are behaving worse. Is

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Speaker 2: it possible that maybe the schools have made a determining

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Speaker 2: factor to say this is a non compulsory year, this

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Speaker 2: is the first year. It's where we get to draw

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Speaker 2: a line in the sand and teach kids and families

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Speaker 2: about what to expect in the years ago. I do

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Speaker 2: it in prep. Don't wait till grade one, two and

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Speaker 2: three have to do this.

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Speaker 4: I work with school teachers and school principles all around

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Speaker 4: the country all the time, and I don't get that feeling.

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Speaker 4: I don't hear primary school principles and primary school teachers

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Speaker 4: saying we've got to teach them early.

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Speaker 3: We've got a disciplee them hard.

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Speaker 4: I mean, usually there's a great deal of compassion, there's

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Speaker 4: tremendous care and concern. In some cases, perhaps there are

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Speaker 4: some who might be saying that, and look, I think

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Speaker 4: that there is an argument for suspension at any age group.

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Speaker 4: I'm not big on punishment, you know that. I'm begon teaching.

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Speaker 4: I don't think we need to hurt our kids to

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Speaker 4: make them better. I think we need to help them

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Speaker 4: so that they can be better. And when I talk

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Speaker 4: with sorry, and when it comes to suspensions, if there

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Speaker 4: are people who are at risk, if there are other

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Speaker 4: students who are at risk and safety is a concern,

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Speaker 4: or if we're trying to help the person be better

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Speaker 4: and nothing else is working, then maybe in some cases

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Speaker 4: a suspension or an expulsion is appropriate. But we're not

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Speaker 4: talking about this with four and five year olds. We're

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Speaker 4: talking about that's it. We can't deal with it. And

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Speaker 4: you know what, I think the biggest problem here is

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Speaker 4: is when we suspend kids at this young and age,

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Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, they have such a negative feeling about

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Speaker 4: school that it really casts a long shadow through the

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Speaker 4: rest of their lives, at least through their childhood and

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Speaker 4: adolescent years. They look at school as a horrible place,

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Speaker 4: as a prison.

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Speaker 1: And it's a tough call because we can't. And also,

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Speaker 1: there needs to be support for the teachers in this

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Speaker 1: in this circumstance, because they have a lot of children

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Speaker 1: at the same age that they need to cater for

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Speaker 1: and if one is disabling learning for the others, that

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Speaker 1: needs to be addressed. But how do we support the parents,

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Speaker 1: how do we support the student, how do we support

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Speaker 1: the teachers and the deputies and principles responsible to navigate that.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think you're asking the wrong question.

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Speaker 3: I think we take that.

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Speaker 4: I think we need to ask how do we support

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Speaker 4: our children because they're the ones that are struggling. And

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Speaker 4: you know, this is a terribly politically incorrect thing for

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Speaker 4: me to say. And before I say it, I want

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Speaker 4: to preface it by saying, not everybody gets to choose.

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Speaker 4: Some people are in situations where they're just stuck and

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Speaker 4: they've got to send their kids off to school. But

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Speaker 4: the reality is our society has become structured so that

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Speaker 4: there is an expectation that mum and dad, well, well

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Speaker 4: sometimes there is only mum, sometimes there's is only dad.

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Speaker 4: Again I'm speaking generically, but the expectation is that we

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Speaker 4: have double income families now and that the kids get

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Speaker 4: farmed out to daycare and then they get farmed out to.

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Speaker 3: School as early as possible. Kids are hard work.

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Speaker 4: They do cramp our opportunity to save up the money

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Speaker 4: to have the new car, or to have the holiday,

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Speaker 4: or just to live in a nice suburb near the

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Speaker 4: in laws.

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Speaker 3: I mean, let's face it, it's not all about materialism.

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Speaker 4: Sometimes it's just being able to put food on the

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Speaker 4: table and not even live in a nice suburb. Just

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Speaker 4: pay the rent for your mistakes. But we've created this

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Speaker 4: structure in our society now where we're shoving our kids

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Speaker 4: into formalized education at younger and younger and younger ages.

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Speaker 4: In Tazzy, they're making it compulsory for kids to be

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Speaker 4: at school by the age of four.

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Speaker 3: That's the plan. I don't know if it's gone through.

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Speaker 4: At four that's the cutoff now. And you know, there's

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Speaker 4: a second thing that's working against our children, and that's this.

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Speaker 4: We have got what we call a push down effect

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Speaker 4: on academic rigor and standardized testing. So once upon a time,

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Speaker 4: you did your standardized tests in year twelve and year ten,

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Speaker 4: and maybe there was a bit of testing in high

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Speaker 4: school as well, but primary school was pretty relaxed. And

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Speaker 4: those first couple of years of school, my goodness, that

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Speaker 4: was all about play, you know, playing in the water,

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Speaker 4: playing with paints, playing with drawing, playing with reading, just

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Speaker 4: playing and creating and being a kid and learning how

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Speaker 4: to navigate relationships.

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Speaker 3: And now we expect so much of our four year olds.

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Speaker 4: If they're not writing their name and reading in Mandarin,

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Speaker 4: by the time the four years and three days.

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Speaker 3: What's the matter.

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Speaker 4: We need to get them in the extracurricular activities and

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Speaker 4: they've got to be in the soccer team and they've

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Speaker 4: got we're.

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Speaker 3: Expecting so much of them and they're just kids.

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Speaker 4: We do need to support the staff, the principles, the parents,

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Speaker 4: but my goodness, we're got to support our kids to

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Speaker 4: be kids.

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Speaker 2: It's such an interesting climate these days because academia has

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Speaker 2: been seen and getting the right grades and achieving the

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Speaker 2: right results in so many ways is a big pressure.

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Speaker 2: And it's almost like we had a parent teaching interview

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Speaker 2: just recently and I'm jokingly in my head thought it's

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Speaker 2: almost like we're going there to get our results, like

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Speaker 2: we're being.

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Speaker 3: Tested, pressure off.

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Speaker 2: And so if our kids aren't doing well, we think

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Speaker 2: about what we're letting them down with. And yet we're

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Speaker 2: so focused by the report card because that's our key measure,

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Speaker 2: that's our KPI. But there's not the KPIs for how

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Speaker 2: they're doing emotionally as much, and some of the social

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Speaker 2: stuff is not as marked.

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Speaker 4: And I think there's a couple of problems here. Number One,

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Speaker 4: we're measuring the wrong things, especially in the early years,

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Speaker 4: which is what we're talking about right now. But number two,

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Speaker 4: the broader thing is we're measuring and I don't think

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Speaker 4: we should be. Why are we measuring a four year

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Speaker 4: old's capacity to this or a five year old's capacity

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Speaker 4: to do that.

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Speaker 3: You know a lot of parents will say, but my

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Speaker 3: child is ready for school, and you're right.

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Speaker 4: At the age of four, age of five, they are

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Speaker 4: usually ready for school, but they're not ready for the

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Speaker 4: pressure that comes with the way school is now. And

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Speaker 4: it is just like you said, you constantly as parents,

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Speaker 4: as teachers, as children, constantly under pressure to perform and

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Speaker 4: show results, and everything's being measured. You know, the countries

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Speaker 4: that are doing education best globally are the Scandinavian countries,

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Speaker 4: and you know we're talking about I don't know, if

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Speaker 4: I'm not good at geography, it might be the Nordic countries.

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Speaker 3: The place were over there in Europe where it's really cold.

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Speaker 3: So we're talking.

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Speaker 4: About Finland and Denmark and Switzerland, and you know all.

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Speaker 1: That they start school later, don't they.

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Speaker 3: Well, they start school later.

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Speaker 4: They have institutionalized care at a young age. But it's

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Speaker 4: all play based and it's all about creativity and learning

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Speaker 4: and feeling comfortable and generating good social relationships. They don't

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Speaker 4: even bother teaching kids to read till they're seven. They

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Speaker 4: don't do standardized tests, they don't do homework. They have

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Speaker 4: a really nice integrated curriculum where you don't just sit

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Speaker 4: down and do maths.

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Speaker 3: You actually sit down.

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Speaker 4: And solve problems that involve maths but also involve social

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Speaker 4: interactions and also involve geography or involve agriculture.

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Speaker 3: You know what I mean. Like they learn all sorts

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Speaker 3: of things, all integrated together, and the kids enjoy being

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Speaker 3: at school. They love being at school. Ossie kids.

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Speaker 4: Well, the Australian systems following the American system, and America

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Speaker 4: is not doing particularly well globally, but in the push

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Speaker 4: that politicians and parents have for transparency and you know more,

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Speaker 4: let's just get more productive and get more bang for

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Speaker 4: our buck, where we're focused on measurement, where folks on

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Speaker 4: all these things that are actually hurting our children.

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Speaker 2: It's fascinating. As someone who has worked with young people

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Speaker 2: at various different ages, through churches and through schools, especially

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Speaker 2: at risk kids. I was working with these kids justin

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Speaker 2: that the system said were at risk and were struggling

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Speaker 2: academically that they basically they are not up up to

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Speaker 2: the grade.

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Speaker 3: And it's almost always boys by the way.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah it was. It was interesting. This is

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Speaker 2: particular group I'm about to refer to. It was group

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Speaker 2: of girls who were told basically, they're stupid, not capable.

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Speaker 3: Thank you proving me wrong.

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Speaker 2: I would agree with you, but just this story just

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Speaker 2: a highlight. I'm not disagreeing with you. This just happens

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Speaker 2: to be a story about girls. But they were sitting

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Speaker 2: in a bus with them, We're going somewhere, and for

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Speaker 2: about seven or eight minutes, they word for word re

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Speaker 2: enacted scenes from these movies that they've just been watching,

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Speaker 2: and then they sung every single lyric of a song.

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Speaker 2: And I sat there and I thought, there is no

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Speaker 2: problem with their ability to learn, because if you have

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Speaker 2: a look at what they've done in music and movies

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Speaker 2: and entertainment, they are learning. They are learning the computers

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Speaker 2: and Facebook and social media, and they are learning every

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Speaker 2: single moment of every day. School doesn't help them learn

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Speaker 2: at that particular tape. And I'm not having to go

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Speaker 2: on any school but that those kids just didn't fit.

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Speaker 3: Well, No, it's not about the school.

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Speaker 4: It's about the system, and it's about this issue where

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Speaker 4: we are just pushing so much pressure on them, where

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Speaker 4: we're drawing them from childhood and we're turning them into

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Speaker 4: little robots.

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Speaker 3: We're expecting them, sorry, to be little robots.

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Speaker 4: You know, you can't step out of line otherwise you're

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Speaker 4: on detention or we're going to have to We're going

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Speaker 4: to have to hurt you so that you know what

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Speaker 4: our expectations are. They're just little kids, you know what.

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Speaker 4: My two cents worth of advice, go and send your

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Speaker 4: kids to schools where they don't worry so much about

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Speaker 4: testing for at least the first six or seven years

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Speaker 4: of school, and where they just encourage them to explore

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Speaker 4: themselves and explore their friendships, and explore the joy of

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Speaker 4: learning and the joy of creating and the joy of discovery.

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Speaker 4: That's the sort of stuff that childhood should be about.

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Speaker 4: That's the sort of stuff that education, especially in the

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Speaker 4: early years, needs to be about. And that's the sort

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Speaker 4: of stuff that ensures that we don't have to start

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Speaker 4: suspending kids because they're behaving badly.

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Speaker 2: I'll give you one point. With ryd and Asun who

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Speaker 2: was behind everything, we didn't even know whether we should

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Speaker 2: send him to school. It's been a great decision. The

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Speaker 2: school has been wonderful with him, but needs work in

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Speaker 2: almost every category. He suddenly he's now significantly above average

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Speaker 2: in maths. One year in into school. He's just thrived

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Speaker 2: on the environment for him. But what's what's hilarious for

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Speaker 2: me is that his strongest point in maths is his

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Speaker 2: six times table Grade one?

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Speaker 3: Where does that come from?

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Speaker 2: AFL? He loves the footing and every time someone scores,

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Speaker 2: he's adding and subtracting.

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Speaker 1: And he's doing the other day and I said, Roydy,

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Speaker 1: tell me you six times that. They don't even do

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Speaker 1: times table in grade one.

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Speaker 3: Of course, I said, tell me, tell.

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Speaker 1: Me six times table And he got to one hundred

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Speaker 1: and two counting in sixes.

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Speaker 4: Doesn't that just highlight though, what I mentioned before about

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Speaker 4: that whole You know the Finn, the Fins, the way

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Speaker 4: they're they're integrating different subjects.

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Speaker 3: And I say this to staff all.

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Speaker 4: The time when I'm doing my workshops in schools and

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Speaker 4: I'm talking professional development with staff, I said to them,

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Speaker 4: if you can give your subject meaning, if you can

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Speaker 4: make your subjects seem purposeful to your students, they will

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Speaker 4: love it. And You've given a beautiful example there of

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Speaker 4: how if you can find kids that love AFL and

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Speaker 4: teach them they're six times tables.

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Speaker 3: You've got it made. You don't even have to try.

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Speaker 4: They will do it because they're so into it. Now,

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Speaker 4: that's obviously not going to be every student, but there's

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Speaker 4: so many different things that we can do where we

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Speaker 4: see this is important because you could use this here.

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Speaker 3: Let's pull this.

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Speaker 4: Out of life and pull that out of life, and

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Speaker 4: let's explore these ideas. It's a totally different process to

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Speaker 4: let's memorize the six time tables by.

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Speaker 2: Rote exactly right, and that the thing is right from

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Speaker 2: the word go. We have never once got him to

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Speaker 2: do maths through AFL, because that's what we wanted. He

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Speaker 2: just did it. But now the actual application is not

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Speaker 2: by Rote. He's applying it and it's a skill he

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Speaker 2: has now.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, as you know what research tells us,

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Speaker 4: Luc and Suzi, when our kids are having good learning experiences,

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Speaker 4: they like school and they look forward to being there.

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Speaker 4: When they're having negative learning experiences, they hate school and

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Speaker 4: they don't want to be there.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's why I've been sitting here. I

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Speaker 1: felt very detached from what you've been talking about with school,

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Speaker 1: because I feel like it's not been our children's experience

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Speaker 1: at all. They haven't felt the pressure. Our teachers have

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Speaker 1: always said, we're going to give homework, but you don't

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Speaker 1: have to do it.

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Speaker 2: Read I love. We sat there and they said, do not.

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Speaker 2: If you get to suddenly go oh we haven't done it,

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Speaker 2: then just don't. Don't worry about it.

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Speaker 3: Make sure you read. I've got to put that in that.

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Speaker 1: Make even our teachers even said with us with reading,

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Speaker 1: start them, but if they get halfway through and they're

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Speaker 1: just done with it, you read the rest of the book.

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Speaker 1: Just said, our job is to teach them. Your job

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Speaker 1: is to help them enjoy it.

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Speaker 3: That's exactly right.

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Speaker 4: If they don't want to read it, you read it

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Speaker 4: to them and help them to fall in love with

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Speaker 4: hearing you read. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well there's I mean there are, but we

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Speaker 2: might just we might wrap it up there. What an

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Speaker 2: incredible big thing to get a head around the behavior

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Speaker 2: of prep kids, the suspension of prep kids, and the

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Speaker 2: difference between the fun education and schooling. It's a big topic,

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Speaker 2: but Dr Justin Goilson, thank you so much for exploring with.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Luke, Thanks Suzzy.

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Speaker 1: For more info in all of Justin's books, podcasts, and programs,

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Speaker 1: you can jump online to Happy Families dot com. Are

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Speaker 1: you to find out how to have Justin speak at

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Speaker 1: your school or you can come along to your organization

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Speaker 1: as well. Go to Justin Coulson dot com