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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just

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Speaker 2: wants answers. Now.

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Speaker 3: Hello, this is doctor Justin Courson, the author of six

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Speaker 3: books about how to make your family happier. I'm here

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Speaker 3: with Kylie, my wife and mum to our six daughters,

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Speaker 3: and co hosts of the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Kylie, you're looking like the holidays are starting to wear

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Speaker 1: you down a little bit.

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Speaker 4: Oh no, I'm just in my I'm just in the zone.

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Speaker 1: You're just you know, it's zen. Yeah, it's based out.

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Speaker 3: Well, stay with me, because this one's going to spin

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Speaker 3: everything about holidays on its head. What we're doing because

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Speaker 3: the school holidays is we're spending more time with our family,

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Speaker 3: which means less time in the office and less time

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Speaker 3: on podcasting. But we still want to give you great

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Speaker 3: stuff to make your family happier. So every day in

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Speaker 3: your feed, something really simple and really short and really

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Speaker 3: sweet so that you can spend more time with your

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Speaker 3: family as well and have a happier family.

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Speaker 4: Well, I can't wait to hear what today's tip is.

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Speaker 3: Here it is today. You do sound so chilled out.

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Speaker 3: I've recently.

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Speaker 1: When I say recently, you'll tell me my voice is

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Speaker 1: really calming.

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Speaker 3: About a year ago I finished a book by a

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Speaker 3: guy called Nasim Nicholas Taylor called Anti Fragile, really frustrating

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Speaker 3: book to read, about two hundred pages longer than it

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Speaker 3: needed to be, but it had a fantastic central argument

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Speaker 3: that kept me going all the way to the end

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Speaker 3: in spite of the way it was written. And here's

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Speaker 3: the main argument of this book, anti fragile. In life,

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Speaker 3: there are things that are fragile. Give me one examples,

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Speaker 3: perfect example. Why because they break when there's randomness of

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Speaker 3: volatility or stresses that are placed upon them.

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Speaker 4: Will you drop it?

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Speaker 3: Or if you drop it, well, that would be randomness

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Speaker 3: of volatility or stress. So I think that's okay. Thing is,

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Speaker 3: sometimes people are fragile as well. Sometimes they feel like

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Speaker 3: they've been dropped like glass, and it's not a good

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Speaker 3: way to live Ongoingly. We can't remain fragile as humans,

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Speaker 3: we just won't survive. And what Taylor argues is that

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Speaker 3: we often see the opposite of fragile is resilient.

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Speaker 1: So can you think of something that's resilient?

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Speaker 4: Rubber?

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Speaker 1: Rubber? How did you come up with rubber? You're playing with.

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Speaker 4: A pencil, Well, yeah, just bounces.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, perfect.

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Speaker 3: So to be resilient like rubber means that you stand

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Speaker 3: strong in the face of adversity or tribal challenge.

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Speaker 4: Rubber can get wet, it doesn't change.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you have struggled at a wall. It doesn't

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Speaker 3: break like an eraser. It's kind of strong. If it's resilient,

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Speaker 3: it doesn't break and if it is effected, it bounces back,

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Speaker 3: which is kind of like what rubber does. So it's

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Speaker 3: really great if people are resilient like a rubber. And

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Speaker 3: for those of you who are not in Australia, I

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Speaker 3: know Americans have a different meaning of rubber to what

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Speaker 3: Australians do. So we're talking about an eraser, like a

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Speaker 3: lead pencil eraser. When we say rubber, that's the Australian

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Speaker 3: word for it. It's a rubber.

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Speaker 1: You say, can I borrow a rubber off you please?

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Speaker 3: And now I don't mind if it's one that you've

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Speaker 3: had in your pencil case for however long. You can

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Speaker 3: just borrow somebody's rubber. I'll move on. So there is

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Speaker 3: something better though, according to Taylor. Taylor argues that we

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Speaker 3: don't have a word for the opposite of fragile and

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Speaker 3: our English language, and so what he's basically saying is

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Speaker 3: just because you're not changing because of adversity, So fragility

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Speaker 3: means you're breaking down. And the opposite of fragility should

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Speaker 3: be building up because of adversity, getting stronger instead of

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Speaker 3: being broken down by the adversity. And so he coined

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Speaker 3: the term anti fragile. He basically says, anti fragile people

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Speaker 3: and things grow stronger because of adversity and stress and

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Speaker 3: randomness and volatility.

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Speaker 2: A long time ago, it is a long time ago,

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Speaker 2: when our kids were much younger, we noticed that a

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Speaker 2: few of them just didn't like it when things got tough. No,

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Speaker 2: they really really struggled, and they'd actually stopped doing things

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Speaker 2: because it was like, that's too hard. And so we

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Speaker 2: decided that that particular year we were going to have

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Speaker 2: a family theme, and we decided that we could do

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Speaker 2: hard things together. That was such an awesome year and

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Speaker 2: the kids still talk about it now. Our youngest at

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Speaker 2: the time was baby number four and she was only

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Speaker 2: eighteen months old. You carried her on your back, but

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Speaker 2: we climbed Mount Kosiosco as our we can do hard things.

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Speaker 2: And I just loved how it stretched us. It made

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Speaker 2: us do things that we never thought we could possibly.

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Speaker 1: Achieve, especially the little kids.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, like Howard was Ella al It was about four.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, she was only little, but she walked.

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Speaker 4: She walked.

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Speaker 1: It was amazing altitude. What a champion. Maybe that explains why.

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Speaker 2: I think today's challenge for our families is to do

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Speaker 2: something hard together.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, let's build up our kids' anti fragility these holidays.

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Speaker 3: Find something that's a little bit tough, something that's going

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Speaker 3: to push them a bit.

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Speaker 1: I've got that.

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Speaker 3: Phrase that I use all the time. You got to

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Speaker 3: love the hills because the hills make you strong. That's

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Speaker 3: a good challenge. So how would we do that. Give

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Speaker 3: me one example of what we could do during the

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Speaker 3: holidays to help our kids to be anti fragile.

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Speaker 4: Well, it might be trying a new food.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, nice one.

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Speaker 3: Or maybe heading down to the park and going on

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Speaker 3: that big slide that your toddler has been scared of

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Speaker 3: all this time.

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Speaker 1: Now, remember, don't.

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Speaker 3: Push them into something that's going to traumatize them. Okay,

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Speaker 3: we don't want to. We don't want to total admission.

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Speaker 3: Then I never got to the park again. We want

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Speaker 3: to make sure we don't traumatize them. But but there's

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Speaker 3: plenty of research that shows that if we can help

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Speaker 3: kids to develop that competence, they become anti fragile, which

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Speaker 3: is even better than resilient, and they get stronger.

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Speaker 1: Nice idea, Han, thanks for mentioning.

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Speaker 4: I wonder what we're going to do.

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Speaker 1: We can talk about that in a minute.

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Speaker 3: The Family Podcasts is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media,

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Speaker 3: and our executive producer is Craig Bruce.

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Speaker 1: I am nervous.

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Speaker 3: About what the kids are going to say when we

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Speaker 3: say we've got to do something hard today. If you'd

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Speaker 3: like more information about getting you kids to do hard

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Speaker 3: things or making your family happier or both, you can

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Speaker 3: find it all at happy families dot com dot a