Speaker 1: Welcome to the Christian O'Connell show podcast.
Speaker 2: On the show right now, taking your questions next dot
Speaker 2: to Justin Coulson from Channel nine's Parental Guidance if you've
Speaker 2: missed it finished this week, but it's all a bit
Speaker 2: of a watch on demand on nine now, Doctor Justin,
Speaker 2: you good to take some calls?
Speaker 3: Now, let's play. Okay, I like that, Andrew.
Speaker 4: Good morning morning Christian.
Speaker 3: All right, what is your question for Dr Justin Colson
Speaker 3: this morning?
Speaker 4: Morning, Doctor Justin. I have a quick question. I've had preteen.
Speaker 4: Tony's twelve years old, and he is fairly well defiant, Like,
Speaker 4: for example, you know, no matter what you say to him, well,
Speaker 4: he will basically try to catch her out on the
Speaker 4: technicality on anything like if you give him, if you
Speaker 4: try to take his screen time away, if you like
Speaker 4: his technology time, He'll jump from one device to the
Speaker 4: next and try to catch you out at every earn
Speaker 4: to sort of get your own way. I don't know
Speaker 4: if there's a better way to put that question.
Speaker 1: It's exhausting. You got when you've got kids that know everything,
Speaker 1: won't listen, just want to live their own lives, and
Speaker 1: you think, hang on, you're part of a family. Here,
Speaker 1: we're part of a conversation about how to get things done.
Speaker 1: So I reckon there's a couple of things going on
Speaker 1: in circumstances like this. First off, imagine your relationship with
Speaker 1: your kids like a bucket, and you can have one
Speaker 1: of two things in the bucket. You can have air,
Speaker 1: which is pointless, or you can have water. So the
Speaker 1: water is connection, the air is correction and direction. And
Speaker 1: most of the time when parents come to me with
Speaker 1: these kinds of challenges, especially with those sort of tween
Speaker 1: to early teen years, what's going on is we're walking
Speaker 1: around with buckets full of air. There's no water in there.
Speaker 1: That is, we're constantly giving our kids correction and direction,
Speaker 1: and we're not actually spending time in connection. It's like, hey, mate,
Speaker 1: you need to do this. Why haven't you done this?
Speaker 1: I asked you to this fifteen times. What's going on
Speaker 1: with you? You never listen to this? That get off
Speaker 1: your damn screen. I'm sick of talking to you about this.
Speaker 1: And so correction and direction becomes the the foundation of
Speaker 1: our lives and as adults, if we were in a
Speaker 1: relationship with someone that just constantly told us what to
Speaker 1: do all the time, we kind of stopped listening, and
Speaker 1: we'd look for any opportunity to get away from the
Speaker 1: person constantly correcting and directing. Therefore, what I would suggest
Speaker 1: for any parent who's got any kind of antagonism in
Speaker 1: their relationship with their kids is go back to basics.
Speaker 1: Like when they were little, we never told them what
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 3: We just loved them.
Speaker 1: We'd get on the floor and roll around them and
Speaker 1: play and connect, connect, connect. But the older they get,
Speaker 1: the less of that we do, which means that we
Speaker 1: keep on taking water out of the bucket. I'd be
Speaker 1: looking at things like Saturday mornings, let's go for a
Speaker 1: walk down to our favorite cafe and buy a chocolate
Speaker 1: milkshake and talk with no agenda. Go for a camp
Speaker 1: once a month or every once a term or something
Speaker 1: like that, just for a night or two nights. Go
Speaker 1: overnight camping. Look for ways that you can connect. Go
Speaker 1: for a bike ride, walk the dog, go and kick
Speaker 1: a footy, throw a netball, whatever it is that you
Speaker 1: and your kids do. Get that sort of stuff going,
Speaker 1: and then over time, I mean it's taken twelve years
Speaker 1: for the relationship to deteriorate to where it is. It's
Speaker 1: not going to reinstate itself within twelve minutes of connection.
Speaker 1: But if you sit down and watch a funny movie
Speaker 1: and talk about all the all the funniest lines, you
Speaker 1: do that consistently for three weeks, four weeks, six weeks,
Speaker 1: twelve weeks, and all of a sudden you can sit
Speaker 1: down and have a proper conversation where you say, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: we're still having a whole lot of fights about this
Speaker 1: and that. What do you reckon we should do? And
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden he's happy to hear you
Speaker 1: because the relationship is more connection rather than correction and direction.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, awesome, sound much fun. Yeah, it sounds like
Speaker 4: a big starting point like it's been a it's been
Speaker 4: a struggle.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, it is. It is.
Speaker 5: It's really hard made. But I love that, doctor Johnston.
Speaker 5: I think the difference between connection direction. You're right so
Speaker 5: many times in that flashpoint you will go towards direction.
Speaker 5: Don't do this, do that, or think that was actually
Speaker 5: when you step back, and it's so hard when it's
Speaker 5: all going so quickly. And I've been in that situation
Speaker 5: at you and Andrew, where there's so much smarter, way
Speaker 5: smarter than we were at twelve, and you're right. When
Speaker 5: they start applying logic back to you, I actually get overwhelmed.
Speaker 5: I actually don't know what to say. You need to
Speaker 5: take five minutes out sometimes to say, look, I just
Speaker 5: need to slow everything down.
Speaker 3: It's just too much. They're overwhelming you, aren't they.
Speaker 4: Dear, that's definitely damn these kids.
Speaker 3: I'm going to call my book. I think that's quite
Speaker 3: what doctor Justin was saying.
Speaker 5: Wow, it's what this doctors said Street doctor Android, Thank
Speaker 5: you very much, Cool Justin.
Speaker 3: That was really good. I love the stuff about.
Speaker 5: Connection and direction, I think, and there'll be a lot
Speaker 5: of mums and dads that have got something from that.
Speaker 3: We got to have for one more Melissa.
Speaker 6: Good morning, Oh, good morning to doctor. I just had
Speaker 6: a question regards my teen daughter. I'm just trying to
Speaker 6: work out how how do I go about speaking to
Speaker 6: her about age appropriate dress. Given their teenage, girls see.
Speaker 4: A lot of.
Speaker 6: Inappropriate probably for their age clothing on TikTok and Instagram
Speaker 6: and things like that, so normally issues as well, but
Speaker 6: I'm just trying to say what can I say?
Speaker 1: Well, So, as a father of six girls and having
Speaker 1: raised four teenagers already, I feel your pain.
Speaker 3: That's the first thing those kids. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The second thing that I want to say, and I
Speaker 1: think it applies to all of us as parents. And
Speaker 1: I don't know whether you were like this or not,
Speaker 1: but I hear a comment like that, and I think,
Speaker 1: what was I like when I was a teenager. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you ever gave your parents a bit
Speaker 1: of a hard time about what you were and weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to wear. But as I think about what you've
Speaker 1: said and what Andrew our previous callers said, sometimes I
Speaker 1: think it's hard to parent than me out of my kids, yes,
Speaker 1: because they're just doing so much of what we did
Speaker 1: and so much what all the other kids are doing now.
Speaker 1: In terms of this specific conversation around dress, the first
Speaker 1: thing that I want to suggest is it's really hard
Speaker 1: to do this, but sometimes we've just got to beable
Speaker 1: as parents. We want to be able to say to
Speaker 1: our kids, I'm getting upset about this, but my upset isn't.
Speaker 3: What really the problem is.
Speaker 1: So whenever we get angry, it comes Anger is a
Speaker 1: secondary emotion, It comes from somewhere else, and the main
Speaker 1: places that it comes from when we're parenting, there are others,
Speaker 1: but the main two places it comes from are either
Speaker 1: fear or sadness. In this case, I don't think that
Speaker 1: it's sadness so much. I think it's probably fear. And
Speaker 1: what would it sound like if you said to your daughter, sweetheart,
Speaker 1: I am I don't know how to say this properly,
Speaker 1: but I am I'm terrified of seeing my little girl
Speaker 1: growing up and wearing these kinds of clothing because of
Speaker 1: what it means. I mean, if you could be that
Speaker 1: vulnerable with her and sit with her and hug her
Speaker 1: and say, I'm losing my little baby girl. You're getting
Speaker 1: so big and I'm scared about what that means, and
Speaker 1: then you can step into this really nice conversation which
Speaker 1: kind of goes back to what I was saying a
Speaker 1: little bit earlier in the show with Christian. These three
Speaker 1: ease of effective discipline where we explore, we explain, and
Speaker 1: we empower. We say, so, why is it that you
Speaker 1: want to wear this stuff? And here's what I'm concerned about.
Speaker 1: What do you think we can do to find a
Speaker 1: level where we can both feel good. You can feel
Speaker 1: like you look hot or whatever it is that your look,
Speaker 1: but I can feel satisfied that you're protecting your virtual
Speaker 1: modesty or whatever it is that you're trying to instill
Speaker 1: in her from a value's point of view, that counsation.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not going to guarantee that you're going
Speaker 1: to get a perfect outcome, but it's going to be
Speaker 1: much more successful than for crying out loud. I've told
Speaker 1: you a thousand times stop wearing those clothes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, help, does that make sense?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's very good. Thinks so much. I appreciate that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a question. We have a lot at the Momentissa,
Speaker 5: I feel for you. Thank you very much, according and hope.
Speaker 4: Thank you all right.
Speaker 3: This has been brilliant to Justin Coleson.
Speaker 5: If people want to find out more, obviously they can
Speaker 5: go on nine now and watch Parental Guidance, which I
Speaker 5: highly recommend it.
Speaker 3: It's brilliant.
Speaker 5: Where else can they find You'll find out more about
Speaker 5: what you've been talking about. I love the stuff about
Speaker 5: connection before direction. Where can they find out more?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Thanks Christian. I'm on Facebook. Dr Justin Courson's Happy Families.
Speaker 1: We've got the number one podcast in the country. Dr
Speaker 1: Justin Courson's Happy Families for parenting and family stuff and
Speaker 1: my website Happy families dot com dot you.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Going to lauch my own parents in one today called
Speaker 3: damn those kids. I like the family.
Speaker 5: That is this show really, doctor justin thank you very
Speaker 5: much for joining us.
Speaker 3: You've been great this morning. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Awesome to be with you. Thanks so much. Brighter Now
Speaker 1: you're listening to the Christian O Carl's Show podcast