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Speaker 1: Today, A tricky question. A three year old who draws

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Speaker 1: on everything is destructive, takes two walls with a hammer

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Speaker 1: and more. Oh my goodness, what do you do when

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Speaker 1: as soon as you turn your back, the kids get

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Speaker 1: up to mischief? Hello and welcome to today's Happy Families Podcast,

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Speaker 1: Real parenting Solutions. Every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast,

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Speaker 1: we are Justin and Kylie Coulson, and every Tuesday we

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Speaker 1: answer your tricky questions family relationships, well being, discipline screens.

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Speaker 1: If you want to submit a tricky question, all you

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Speaker 1: have to do is go to Happy Families dot com

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Speaker 1: dot a U, scroll down to the podcast section, click

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Speaker 1: the record button, start talking. It's that simple. Or you

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Speaker 1: can send us an email. Podcasts at happy families dot

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Speaker 1: com dot You with your voice note we love hearing

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Speaker 1: your voice. This time no voices, Kylie. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: share this one. It's a long one and I'm going

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Speaker 1: to read it out from Shannon. Here we go. Hi,

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Speaker 1: I'm desperate for some help, but please don't judge me.

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Speaker 1: I have a three year old boy turning four in January.

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Speaker 1: I'm far from the best pairenting example, and I wish

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Speaker 1: I could be better, but I'm struggling. I have two

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Speaker 1: other children, a girl five and a half and a

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Speaker 1: boy seven. My three year old has taken to damaging

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Speaker 1: our house and it has become quite frequent. The other

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Speaker 1: two may have drawn on something once, they had to

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Speaker 1: scrub it clean and they never did it again. The youngest, however,

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Speaker 1: I feel like I've really messed up in his upbringing.

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Speaker 1: So a while back he took to a wall with

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Speaker 1: a hammer out. Then nothing much. He's drawn a couple

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Speaker 1: of little things on the wall here and there, but

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Speaker 1: nothing too major. Then two weeks ago he scribbled luckily

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Speaker 1: with a whiteboard marker on my older kid's toy cupboard

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Speaker 1: and bin. He was made to get it off. Then

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Speaker 1: last week I found he had gotten a stamp and

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Speaker 1: stamped all over the drawers and cupboard runner of our

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Speaker 1: spare room. This again, luckily came off with wipes and

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Speaker 1: he was made to clean it up. He's scribbled and

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Speaker 1: etched into our wooden coffee table with a pen. We

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Speaker 1: then went away for almost a week. When we got

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Speaker 1: home last night, I spoke to him about the drawing

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Speaker 1: on the coffee table and then discovered he had drawn

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Speaker 1: with text on our couch again, he was made to

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Speaker 1: clean this off. We can't get the coffee table stuff

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Speaker 1: off or out without sounding it back. He's been spoken to,

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Speaker 1: yelled at, not the great parenting parts, Sorry and isolated again.

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Speaker 1: I know many would not agree. Sorry. Then this morning

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Speaker 1: I sat at the couch to find he has now

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Speaker 1: drawn a big square outline in the coffee table with

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Speaker 1: a different colored pen. He must have done this last night.

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Speaker 1: Sometime this morning while I was mowing lawns. He's gotten

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Speaker 1: his sister's nail polish. I don't know how, and I

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Speaker 1: have glitter nail polish on my couch and the mat.

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Speaker 1: And now, after having a shower, he's brought the bucket

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Speaker 1: of fire ashes inside and tipped them all over the

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Speaker 1: hall and everywhere around it. I'm glad that you find

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Speaker 1: it funny. Shannon is just falling apart here and you're laughing.

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Speaker 1: As I said, I'm in no way as a model parent,

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Speaker 1: but I'm seriously struggling. My daughter did go through a

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Speaker 1: damaging phase, but not as bad as this. I just

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Speaker 1: don't know how to get him to stop. Can anyone

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Speaker 1: please provide any help? Please? And thank you? Shannon, Shannon.

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Speaker 2: I'm not laughing at you, I promise, but I'm going

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Speaker 2: to give you the best parenting tool for this that

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Speaker 2: you will ever experience.

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Speaker 1: And we haven't prepped this. I've got no idea where

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Speaker 1: you're going with this. I've got so many answers and

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Speaker 1: you've just dived straight in.

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Speaker 2: You need to buy a copy of I'll Do Better Tomorrow,

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Speaker 2: I promise. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, our Friday episodes all about this.

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Speaker 2: Need this, yep. So a couple of things stand out

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Speaker 2: to me.

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Speaker 1: Okay, why don't you go first?

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Speaker 2: Huge. I remember a story that Wally Goddard shared with

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Speaker 2: us about his son Andy.

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Speaker 1: So if you've missed the story about Wally Goddard, He's

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Speaker 1: a man who has been my mentor for the last

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Speaker 1: twenty years and is just one of the wisest parenting

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Speaker 1: people on the planet.

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Speaker 2: He's a professor and family education.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the guys, he's just he's just a gem of

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Speaker 1: a human being. As well.

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Speaker 2: He was babysitting his eldest son.

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Speaker 1: Well no, no, no, he was being dad. He was

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Speaker 1: looking after while mum was out. We could do this

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Speaker 1: all the time. Every time you bring up dads looking

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Speaker 1: after the kids, you call it babysitting.

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Speaker 2: He was at home with the kids while was gone,

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Speaker 2: thank you, and he may not have been supervising as

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Speaker 2: well as he could have.

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Speaker 1: That is a pattern that I picked up with Shannon's email.

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Speaker 2: And after a little while, realizing that things had been

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Speaker 2: very quiet for some time, he walked into the lounge.

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Speaker 1: Trip It's always a problem, isn't it?

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Speaker 2: And Andy had painted on their brand new cream carpet.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it was red paint as World that

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Speaker 1: he used on the brand new cream cut and.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't small. He did like a poster sized picture

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Speaker 2: of a house and a family and sun shining in trees,

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Speaker 2: the whole bit. And this story just endeared me to

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Speaker 2: Wally in one fells whoop when he looked at Andy

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Speaker 2: and he said, Wow, Andy, that is such a beautiful picture.

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Speaker 2: Maybe next time we could find some paper to do

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Speaker 2: it on so that we can keep it and people

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Speaker 2: won't walk all over it. And when I think about

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Speaker 2: everything that Shannon sharing, there's a few things that stand

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Speaker 2: out to me. Number One, usually our kids don't do

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Speaker 2: this if we are supervising them in significant ways. Number Two,

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Speaker 2: if that is the challenge, then we can actually get

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Speaker 2: ahead of the problem because this is coming as a

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Speaker 2: result of either boredom or a desire to be active

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Speaker 2: and move and learn. He's a three year old, so

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Speaker 2: we're dealing with cause and effect right now. He's seeing

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Speaker 2: how his world changes and modifies as a result of

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Speaker 2: his actions. That's huge. But last of all, the recognition

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Speaker 2: that all all of our children, regardless of the fact

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Speaker 2: that we believe we are parenting them all the same,

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Speaker 2: are different and the way we parent them is different

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Speaker 2: because of the season of life we're in, the fact

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Speaker 2: that this is number three in a picture of a

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Speaker 2: family instead of being the first child, a totally different

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Speaker 2: season of parenting, and then adding an extra child, and

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Speaker 2: now we have a third child. It changes everything. So

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Speaker 2: this isn't about bad parenting, and Nora, is this about

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Speaker 2: a bad child? This is literally about a three year

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Speaker 2: old exploring his world in wonderful ways. We're just not

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Speaker 2: loving it, right. I remember when Chanelle and her cousin

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Speaker 2: they would have been around the same.

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Speaker 1: Age, so Chanel is our eldest daughter.

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Speaker 2: They had been really quiet and my sister in law,

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Speaker 2: your sister Karina, and I went looking for them. We

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Speaker 2: couldn't find them anywhere. They had found nail polish, and

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Speaker 2: they had hidden behind the lound room curtains and not

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Speaker 2: only painted their toes which were beautiful bright red, they

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Speaker 2: had painted the floorboards as well. And they were just

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Speaker 2: having fun. So as a parent, I could look at

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Speaker 2: that and go they were being so naughty. They were

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Speaker 2: exploring their world. They were looking in to see how

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Speaker 2: it all works. And my last thing, yeah, my last thing.

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Speaker 2: It looks like and sounds like to me that you

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Speaker 2: have an artist in the making, and if we can

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Speaker 2: tap into that, he's going to create some amazing things,

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Speaker 2: but he needs some guidance.

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Speaker 1: So you've kind of come full circle with the artwork.

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Speaker 1: If we bring it back to the story that Wally

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Speaker 1: told us, and that is that once he said, Andy,

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Speaker 1: that is such a creative drawing that you've like the

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Speaker 1: way he didn't get cranky, he didn't make a big

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Speaker 1: deal about it. You said, well, that's such a creative drawing.

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Speaker 1: I'm so excited that you loved drawing. And then he

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Speaker 1: and Andy together they cleaned it up and Andy wasn't

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Speaker 1: in trouble. Instead, they just cleaned it up and Molly said,

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Speaker 1: you can draw any time, and you can draw with

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Speaker 1: almost any material. You want, but we want to make

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Speaker 1: sure our drawings are on paper, so we can hang

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Speaker 1: them up on the fridge or on the wall.

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Speaker 2: Everyone can see.

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Speaker 1: We can look at them and enjoy them all the time.

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Speaker 1: And we don't draw on the car, but we draw

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Speaker 1: on the on the cardboard or on the paper. And

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Speaker 1: so he provided that additional scaffolding, that additional opportunity for

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Speaker 1: Andy to feel validated for drawing, but be redirected to

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Speaker 1: the right place after the break. I've got a couple

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Speaker 1: of other ideas that that I think you're going to

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Speaker 1: be really useful for your Shannon to help with the

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Speaker 1: newfounded banksy that you have in your home. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: a couple of things as I thought about Shannon's email

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Speaker 1: to us. The first just related to supervision. It seems

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Speaker 1: like this little three year old guy, he's doing this

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Speaker 1: stuff when he's not being supervised, and so it makes

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Speaker 1: me wonder about quality time, how much time, And it's hard.

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Speaker 1: There's so much going on at the time. Parents are exhausted,

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Speaker 1: but three year olds are demanding. There's no way around it.

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Speaker 1: We are currently dealing with an eighteen to twenty month

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Speaker 1: old granddaughter and we are remembering just how at that

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Speaker 1: point in your life. It's a different kind of exhausting

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Speaker 1: to having big kids.

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Speaker 2: It's the kind of my gender goes out the window.

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Speaker 2: That's right, There is nothing else.

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Speaker 1: You've got to be there for them. You've got to

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Speaker 1: be present for them. That's it. The second thing that

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Speaker 1: I want to emphasize is what's going on here is

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Speaker 1: developmentally normal and appropriate. It doesn't mean it's okay, but

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Speaker 1: it's completely normal.

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Speaker 2: And it doesn't mean that he's destructive, absolutely not not

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Speaker 2: a destruction.

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Speaker 1: No, we're not putting any kind of personality, characteristics or

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Speaker 1: attributes here. This is just a creative kid looking for

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Speaker 1: an outlet, not supervised, and he gets attention when he

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Speaker 1: does this as well. Right, So we've got to make

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Speaker 1: sure that we've got an environment set up where he

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Speaker 1: can draw, he can have positive attention regularly, and he

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Speaker 1: can also understand what the limits are. I don't love

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Speaker 1: the whole we make him clean it up thing unless

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Speaker 1: we're doing it together. And it's not a punishment, but

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Speaker 1: rather there's the redirection. So I wanted to emphasize that.

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Speaker 1: And while there are a whole lot of other things

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Speaker 1: that I could share, I am going to share something

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Speaker 1: from a really lovely, lovely writer by the name of

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Speaker 1: Beck Delahoy. Beck has a sub stack that's called Lessons Learned,

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Speaker 1: and she shared this about a year ago. In fact,

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Speaker 1: I've just dragged it up here on the Internet and

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Speaker 1: it was on March the sixth of twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 1: so a year ago. Two years ago, same, same, two

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Speaker 1: and a bit years ago. But it's an article that

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Speaker 1: she wrote that has stayed with me for more than

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Speaker 1: two years. And I just love what she says. So

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Speaker 1: I'm going to share this and we will link to

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Speaker 1: Beck Delahoy's sub stack. This is called blame and shame

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Speaker 1: doesn't solve anything, and I want to read this to you.

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Speaker 1: She says. I have six occupants living in my house, me,

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Speaker 1: my husband, and our three children, and a wicked mouse.

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Speaker 1: The wicked mouse first came along a few years ago

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Speaker 1: when my oldest was a preschooler and learning not to

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Speaker 1: draw on walls. Sound familiar, Shannon. One day crayon just

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Speaker 1: appeared on the wall, but my son assured me that

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Speaker 1: he didn't do it. It was the wicked mouse. This wicked

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Speaker 1: mouse gets up to all sorts of mischief. Sometimes the

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Speaker 1: wicked mouse leaves rubbish on the table. Sometimes the wicked

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Speaker 1: mouse pulls books off the bookshelf and leaves them on

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Speaker 1: the floor. The wicked mouse has been known to unroll

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Speaker 1: all the toilet paper whenever there is an overwhelming amount

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Speaker 1: of chaos or mess. It was probably the wicked mouse

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Speaker 1: who contributed to it. A few months ago, the wicked

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Speaker 1: mouse got up to mischief for the first time in

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Speaker 1: a while. I'd gone upstairs where mister five had been

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Speaker 1: quietly playing at his age. Silence isn't always a sign

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Speaker 1: of getting up to no good. Thankfully, I discovered that

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Speaker 1: there was orange crayon on every imaginable surface. There were

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Speaker 1: orange squiggles on the tiles, on the shower glass, on

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Speaker 1: the toilet lid, around the edges of the bath, on

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Speaker 1: the chest of draws, on the toilet brush, even on

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Speaker 1: the plug. Nothing in the bathroom untouched. It was as

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Speaker 1: though an experiment had been done to see which surfaces

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Speaker 1: a crayon would work on. The answer, it works on

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Speaker 1: all of them. Interestingly, the orange crayon had even been

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Speaker 1: used to leave a message on the child bathroom floor,

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Speaker 1: five letters spelling out mister five's name. There were only

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Speaker 1: two possibilities to what had happened. Either my five year

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Speaker 1: old had gotten creative with a crayon or the wicked

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Speaker 1: mouse was trying to frame him. Now, I probably don't

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Speaker 1: need to say this, Beck Delahoy says, but the wicked

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Speaker 1: mouse doesn't really exist. And it's not that my son

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Speaker 1: was lying when he first blamed war drawings on a

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Speaker 1: wicked mouse. Young children, especially preschoolers, don't really lie, at

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Speaker 1: least not in the way we might do as adults.

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Speaker 1: They just tell us what they wish the truth was, so,

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Speaker 1: my son, when blaming the wicked mouse, was really saying

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Speaker 1: that he wishes that someone else had drawn on the wall,

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Speaker 1: because he already knew that he really shouldn't have done that.

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Speaker 1: I could call him out as a liar. I could

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Speaker 1: shame and blame him. I could punish him for what

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Speaker 1: he'd done so that he'd learn his lesson. But instead

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Speaker 1: of blaming and shaming, I had a different tactic. I

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Speaker 1: called my son upstairs, and this is what was said me.

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't believe what the wicked mouse has done. Come

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Speaker 1: look with me. The wicked mouse drew all over the floor.

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Speaker 1: What a cheeky mouse, mister five. Oh no, the wicked

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Speaker 1: mouse drew on everything. Me, what are we going to do?

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Speaker 1: Can you help me clean it up? Mister five? Okay me,

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Speaker 1: here's a scrubber. Let's get to work. She wraps it

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Speaker 1: up by saying this. My son then spent the next

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Speaker 1: thirty minutes helping me identify every spot that had been

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Speaker 1: drawn on, and for mysterious reasons, he seemed to have

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Speaker 1: a very good idea about where the wicked mouse had scribbled.

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Speaker 1: He personally scrubbed out at least half of the drawings,

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Speaker 1: diligently working with me until every spot of orange was gone.

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Speaker 1: Would he have been so helpful if I had blamed him?

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Speaker 1: Probably not. He probably would have felt so ashamed that

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Speaker 1: he would have hidden his feelings behind defensiveness and anger.

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Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't have been able to engage his cooperation

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Speaker 1: at all. But he shouldn't have gotten away with it.

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Speaker 1: You might think, the thing is he didn't get away

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Speaker 1: with anything. The consequence was the same, He still needed

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Speaker 1: to help clean up. By not blaming him first, though,

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Speaker 1: he learned some really important lessons. We can find solutions

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Speaker 1: without finding someone to blame first. I can be part

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Speaker 1: of the solution, even if I'm part of the problem.

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Speaker 1: I don't need to make others feel bad when something

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Speaker 1: has gone wrong. I can focus on problem solving. We

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Speaker 1: can teach our children without blaming them. They can learn

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Speaker 1: to be responsible for their actions without being shamed for them.

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Speaker 1: I think every family of young, destructively curious kids would

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Speaker 1: benefit from having a guest come and stay. It may

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Speaker 1: be a wicked mouse, a cheeky frog, or a silly pigeon.

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Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear what sort of mischief they

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Speaker 1: get up to. So like I said, beautiful article from

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Speaker 1: beck de la joy on lessons Learned and Shannon I

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Speaker 1: reckon that might help really appreciate the tricky question. If

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Speaker 1: you'd like to submit a tricky question, just go to

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Speaker 1: happy families dot com dot A. You scroll down to

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Speaker 1: where it says podcasts, click the record button, start talking,

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Speaker 1: and we would love to answer your questions on the podcast.

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Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rulant from

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Speaker 1: Bridge Media, and you can find more information and resources

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Speaker 1: to help your family thrive, flourish and be happy at

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Speaker 1: happy families dot com dot au