May 25, 2023 • 18 mins
Justin & Kylie reflect on their week and determine what they can do better next time
Topics discussed in this episode -
- Couple wants to name their baby after the devil
- Justin presents at the Resilient Kids Conference
- Justin spends some quality time with his daughter
- The Tooth Fairy is rich!
- The eldest Coulson daughter is craving attention
- Kylie gets some help around the house
Find us on Facebook at Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families
Email us your questions and comments at podcasts@happyfamilies.com.au
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
time poor parent who just once answers.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Now, I mean, I had a school teacher called mister Bonnett,
and when he had a son, our class voter that
they should call the boy Rusty Rusty Bonnet anyway, And.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Now here's the stars of our show, my mom and dad.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Okay, so this is like take three because every time
I start this podcast recording, but you look at me
like I'm a weirdo.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
A weirdo.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I've been trying to just say hi.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
So many other podcasts I listen to just have the
same intro every week.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, but you want to change it up, I don't
mean to. I just open the mic and start talking.
That's all it is. That's all it is.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
You're just making life out of yourself, reinventing the world.
Every time.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I'm justin I'm Kylie. We are the parents of six
daughters and a baby in utero, will be a grandchild.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
In two fur dugs and yeah for babies.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And we are excited to have you join us on
the Happy Family Podcast today. End of the week. I'm
feeling relief. I'm feeling like I'm really looking forward to
this weekend. This has been the quietest week that I've
had in like three or four weeks. Now. I've been
away so much and I've got stuff to talk about
it and I'll do better tomorrow because I've been a
present parent this week.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, I've got a lot to say about the quiet week,
but I'm happy to hear what you have to say.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
All right. So for those of you who a knew
the podcast, welcome, Thank you for joining us on Friday.
As we get a little bit personal in this pod
and talk about how we're going as parents, what we
can do better, what we've done well, with a focus
on doing better tomorrow, just before we share our stories,
I kind of feel like it's a bit of show
and tell. Really, there was something that popped up in
the news this week, probably better for this week in
(01:45):
Parenting the podcast episode that we do about that, but
I just didn't want to wait, so I'm sharing it now.
A British couple, you're cheating? A British do that? A
British couple to fight to have their son named after
the Devil after a registrar tried to ban them from
using it. This is from news dot Com.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Down they actually get it through.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
The horrified official told them that their four month old
son wouldn't succeed in life, so four months old, before
they've come up with the name, decided to give this
kid a satanic name. Wouldn't succeed in life, said the
horrified official. Dan and Mandy Sheldon went to register the
todd last week after the council office finally opened after lockdown.
Furious dan Ah thirty seven, a plant higher company boss,
(02:27):
lodged an official complaint over how he and Mandy thirty
two were treated at their local office in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
He said, we were really excited to go and get
him registered, but the woman looked at us in us
a disgust. She told us he would never be able
to get a job and that teachers wouldn't want to
teach him. I tried to explain that we're not religious people,
and Lucifer in Greek means light bringer and morning, but
(02:50):
she wouldn't listen. She even told us that it was
I legal to name a child that in New Zealand
and that maybe we could name him something else but
refer to him as Lucifer at home. And I just
thought he's gobsmack with the behavior. I'm just thinking that
there's actually some pretty good research around that shows that
what your name your kids does have some impact on
is associated with their future life outcomes. And I don't know.
(03:11):
I mean, who wants to call their child little Satany
come over here? Even if you don't.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Obviously for them it doesn't have the same reference. But
the reality is for the majesticality society society, it does.
And regardless of how great we try to live our
lives and non judgmental we.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Are, everybody is well.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
First impressions matter, and a name, really, for so many
people is the first impression. You don't even you haven't
even seen his face, but you read his name on
the page, and all of a sudden you've already made
your minder about who this kid is.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Now, we are not into parent shaming. It's one thing
that we really really try to avoid. But what I
want to do in this quick mention and this we'll
leave it here unless there's anything you want to add.
I just want to encourage parents to be thoughtful about
where your name your kids. And I know that actually,
don't just be thoughtful. I'm sure they've been thoughtful about
what to name their child. They even know what it
means in Greek, and it actually is a really nice
name in Greek when you think light bringer or mourning
(04:11):
whatever it was. But like you said, Kylie, the broader
society will judge your child based on that child's name,
and there's good evidence that names that are unusual on
regimes are less likely to get put on the top
of the list. We know with good evidence that the
way your child is named will have an impact on
the quality of their relationships and their quality of life experience.
(04:33):
And I just had to put it out there because
I thought, seriously, do we need to and apparently we
do need to say it explicitly.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
A handful of years ago, I was introduced to a lady.
Her name is Sarah, and as we got talking.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
She's got that spooking it's not.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
As we got talking, she started kind of sharing some
of her life experiences, and somewhere along the conversation she
shared that her last name was Moni, which is a
again not a particularly.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I got it ceremony, ceremony, and you know, I love it.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
She's such an amazing person because she just she acknowledged
her parents had a ridiculously great sense of humor and
she has laughed about it her whole life. But other
kids would have really given her a hard time as
a young kid, and it's just lucky that she has
a great outlook.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Although it was pretty safe as well. I mean, I
had a school teacher called mister Bonnett, and when he
had a son, our class voter that they should call
the boy rusty Rusty Bonnet. Anyway, Today's I'll do better
tomorrow now that we've gotten that off our chests, is
about how we can do better or we've done well.
And you know what, Kylie, I'm going to just jump
straight in with mine and then you can see you
us in a second. I am going to say I
(05:44):
nailed it this week. Really, I've been.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Well after the three weeks you've been away so much
about time.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I've been traveling a lot. There's been a lot of
work happening, but it's been a real treat. Last Saturday,
so six days ago now, we were in Brisbane for
the Resilient Kids Conference. There's me, Karen Young from Hey, Sigmund,
Maggie Dent, and Michelle Mitchell. Wonderful, wonderful conversations about resilience.
(06:09):
All day long, there was like eight hundred parents in
the room. I took a whole bunch of boxes of
books to provide resources to families who wanted to pick
up any of those. And I had the absolute delight
of hanging out with our nineteen year old daughter Ella
for the day. I asked her if she could come
and help sort of run the credit card machine while
I talked to people and signed books and answered questions
and tried to be generally useful. And there was a
(06:32):
break at one point during the day where there weren't
any people at the table. They were all inside listening
to a talk that I'd already heard the previous fortnight
when we were in Lontestin, and Ella and I just
got to go for a walk, sit under the tree,
look up the sky and talk about life. And it
doesn't matter with your child's nine or nineteen, or even
three or four, just having that experience or even one
(06:53):
or two, having that experience going for a walk around
with my daughter and spending the day with her, and
then jumping in the car and driving home and having
her mock my driving because now she reckons she drives
a manual better than me all of that stuff. It
was just so nice and I wanted to highlight the importance.
I mean, I say this all the time. Dollars are
the currency of our economy. Connection is the currency of
(07:16):
our relationships. And feeling that connection helping her to feel seen,
hurt and valued. It was genuinely a highlight of the week.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
It's interesting as we've gone through the last few months
with all of the anks that she's been experiencing, as
she's been trying to work out what she wants to
do with her life and stop out of UNI, drop
out of UNI, and all of those kinds of things.
It's been interesting to watch how she's been navigating it,
and in the process it's actually kind of pulled away
(07:44):
from us quite a bit. There hasn't been any necessarily
any tension there, but we just haven't been included like
we usually are. But you spent that day with her,
and I literally lay in bed with you a few
days later and I said, I feel like we've got
our old back. Like she's just her countenance has changed,
(08:05):
and it's interesting that she's made decisions that fit where
she's at right now, and she's felt like she's had
the autonomy to do it and then being able to
reconnect with you specifically in a really you know, personal
way has just lifted her and it's so beautiful to see.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
As a quick tangent to this, just a reminder for
parents as well, can I be really encouraging for parents
to not control your kids. I mean, I've always been
an advocate of a gap year, but she really wanted
to go. She was absolutely certain that she wanted to
study property economics and architecture, even though she has no
interest in maths economics, she's never shown an inkling of
(08:46):
interest in it before, and it really was hard for
her and she did.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I think often our kids are making decisions based on
what they think is the right decision.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, you know, like.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
As she talked to people, people obviously acknowledged that architecture
was great, but she married it up with property economics
that we just put her in such a better It.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Was a disastrous position. But even though it was a
terrible decision, it hasn't been a bad thing in her life.
She's experienced university life. She's got her head around what
happens at UNI, and she'll be ready when or if,
but presumably when she chooses to go back in a
couple of years time. What also really struck me, though,
and the main point that I wanted to make here,
is she's nineteen. She actually has no idea what she
(09:29):
wants to do with the rest of her life. I
was at a talk at Ormiston College last week and
a demographer from Macrintle Research was there talking about the
number of jobs and the number of careers that the
average person has in their lives now and what the
projections are for the future. Most of us are not
doing today what we thought we'd be doing when we
left high school. The world changes, our lives change, and
we just put so much pressure on our kids. And
(09:50):
I've really enjoyed watching her come to this realization that
she has no idea what she wants to do, and
so at the moment, she's applying for jobs, she's applying
for some apprenticeships. She knows she doesn't want to do
them long term, but she just wants to try stuff.
And so long as she's being productive, she's growing and
she's learning, that's all that really matters. She'll figure it out.
(10:11):
And that was the delightful thing about the conversation, just
taking the pressure off and seeing that she really wants
to grow, she really wants to learn, she really wants
to be productive, and she has no idea where to go.
So she might become a florist, or she might become
a baker, or she might become a hairdresser, or she
might she could do any number of things, or she
might end up doing something for a year or two
and saying I've learned a lot, but I don't want
to do that, and now I'm ready to go back
(10:31):
to UNI. And any of that is fine, so long
as she's productive and she's finding meaning and purpose and fulfillment.
That was That was my older bet. It's Morin and
I really enjoyed it. What about you? Oh, Actually, before
we dive into yours, I've also got to mention that
parents be mindful. This is a conversation about the tooth Fairy,
(10:52):
so you might just want to you might need to
press pause. We had our nine year old, our youngest,
the only one who still has baby teeth, lose a tooth,
and she wrote a note to the tooth Fairy saying
that because it's been such a long time since she
lost a tooth, and because it hurts so much, and
because she's been so uncomfortable. Maybe as a special treat,
because she doesn't have too many teeth left to lose,
(11:13):
the tooth Fairy might leave. And then she specified in
her letter twenty dollars.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Twenty dollars. I don't know how much money I got
it from the.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Tooth Fairy when I was her age, twenty cents or
fifty cent. So I read it at like ten o'clock
at night, and I just cracked up. And she's drawn
a picture for the tooth Fairy and promised another one
if she gets twenty dollars, and it was just this
beautiful note, and I thought I could just leave her
two dollars, which is what I.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Was going to Well, I think I did, did I not?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
No, there was no two dollar coin there? Did you
leave a two dolar coin there?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I left three?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I didn't see it. I just thought, she's going to
wake up and if she's got twenty bucks, she's going
to remember this for the rest of her life, like
it's going to make a day. It's going to become
a core memory about tooth fairies and tooth losing and
all that sort of stuff. So I dropped a twenty
and dropped in twenty dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
You very much have been feeling super abundant.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
My goodness, I can't believe I didn't see you three dollars.
You're so good Anyway, what's your odd a, bet as Morrow?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Well, mine's probably a little bit more boring after the
things that you've shared today. It's really just about resetting
and perspective.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
So our daughter's been married now for four years.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Four years this month. Yeah, and she will.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Often come and visit us, and she gets a little
bit frustrated because she just wants me to drop everything
so that I can be one hundred percent focused on her.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, isn't it funny? She walks into the house and
she's like, why are you doing stuff? I'm here? Is
it with me?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
And do you know what, in my heart of hearts,
I really want to and I do everything I can
to make that possible. But inevitably, what was going to be,
you know, a one or two hour visit turns into
three or four and I just I've got to pick
the kids up from school or somebody in a rings
and they need need my help with something, or you
ring and you've.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Got you know, we've got a podcast to record or
dinner's got to be made, whatever, And so what.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Will usually happen is she'll get involved because she can
see that there's some gaps and there's some places where
she can help, but she's not happy about it. She
really kind of, you know, is a bit disgruntled that
she's here to visit me and it should be all
fun and games, but she's and she doesn't live here,
so she didn't have to help out why her sister's
not doing X, Y and zet. But last week she
(13:26):
actually ended up staying with us. You were away and
Jared was away as well, and.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Jared's her husband for those of you who are not.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Familiar, and so she didn't want to be on her own,
so she said, Mum, can I come and stay with you?
And I said great? And what was what blew me
away was just the shift in her mentality because as
she's lived closer to us over the last few months,
she's actually recognized that I'm not just sitting on my
bum twiddling my thumbs waiting.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
We got stuff going on.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
And so every time she shows up and she just
sees me kind of pretty much with my jog is
on running for tilt. She's really starting to see that
life is busy, and so while she was with us,
she was just she was fantastic. She sat down and
she made out a meal plan and she said, Mom,
can you just check these meals? Are you happy with these?
And I said, yeah, they look great? And she said, well,
(14:15):
why don't I take care of dinner this week? I said,
I few can just put the shopping list together of
all the things that you need. When I do this
dropping tomorrow, I'll get everything that you need for dinners.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
And it was just.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Great to kind of be in this place where for
the first time she was actually recognizing and seeing just
how busy I am on a day to day basis,
and that she could do something to lighten the load
and that actually made.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Her feel good. Yeah, I'm going to just say, he know,
hashtag parenting goals, right, this is what every parent as
they're dealing with the eight year old who won't pick
a thing up of the fifteen year old is going
You mean your daughter came over and cooked meals for
you for the week, Like, how do I get there?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
But what was crazy was at the end of the week,
she was absolutely exhausted. She's halfway through her pregnancy, and
it was a big deal, like, she worked really hard
beside me, but I work just as hard, if not harder.
And at the end of the week she kind of
looked at me and went, I can't believe you do this.
And the reality is we split the.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Jobs, right, But that's the moment, that's the Eureka moment.
The kids are like, Wow, you've done that for the
last twenty years.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
For me, she was exhausted. I was exhausted, but normally
I have to wear the brunt of that entire load
people shed.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Of course you do.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
But I'm just saying what she was doing. So I
know that was probably a bit long winded, but the
reality is what I experienced as I went through that
was just how important our perspective is in the way
we see things. And so there's been so many little
things that have happened through the week where I've kind
of gone to get cranky at them. But as I've
(15:53):
stepped back and kind of tried to see things from
a different perspective, I've recognized the limitations or the bird
and all the challenges that are in place that are
actually creating the storm and the teacup. And so this
week with you now back, we actually sat down for
the first time. I cunt. I can't remember the last
time that we sat down and did it.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
That weekly meeting that we say that we always do,
we haven't done for a couple of months because we've
had so much going on.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, and a few weeks ago on our episode this
week in Parenting, we talked about a divorce lawyers perspective
on what was going on, and it kind of just
it was it was a bit of an uppercut again,
just you know what, we don't do this enough. We
actually need to sit down and plan out our week,
get on the same page, get on the same page.
And so it was just so nice to be able
(16:39):
to have a few hours to sit down with you
Sunday morning and talk about our week, have a look
where things were at, and look at that big list
that Chanelle and I split up but she Noell's not
here anymore now, and how we could just alleviate the
pressure for both of us so that we have a
smooth running week. And I think we've done a pretty
good job.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Made a difference hugely. Well, we need to wrap the
just before we do. I love what you've said about
how there's a developmental reality. No matter how hard you
try your children, whether they're two or twelve, or eighteen
or even twenty two, your children are probably not going
to look at you and say, hey, mum or dad, gee,
I appreciate everything you do for me. And even if
(17:18):
they do, they don't really get it. What I love
most about your story is that at some point all
of us do kind of get what our parents did
for us, and we have the opportunity to express that.
And if you haven't told your parents, go and do it,
because you've had the experience this week of what it
feels like when your parents, when you as a parent,
(17:39):
get told that by a child. We still have plenty
more kids that have got to have that awakening for it. Gee,
it feels good, doesn't it? Like, Yeah, you're seeing You're
seeing what I did. You're seeing what I did.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I think the only other thing that came out of
it was just a recognition that if you feel like
your to do list is just overwhelming, it's okay to
drop a few things off it every now and again.
You know, if two people are exhausted doing one person's less,
then when there's.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Only one of you.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You can't possibly keep up the race day in day out,
and I think it's just really important to remember that
you're only one person. Be kind to yourself, do the
things that have to be done, and let go of
some of the things that don't need to be done.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I hope there's some inspo in that for you. Have
a great weekend. The Happy Families podcast is produced by
Justin Rowland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce our executive producer.
For more information about making your family happier, we are
at happy families dot com, dot you and on Facebook.
Dr Justin Colson's Happy Families
It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
time poor parent who just once answers.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Now, I mean, I had a school teacher called mister Bonnett,
and when he had a son, our class voter that
they should call the boy Rusty Rusty Bonnet anyway, And.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Now here's the stars of our show, my mom and dad.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Okay, so this is like take three because every time
I start this podcast recording, but you look at me
like I'm a weirdo.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
A weirdo.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I've been trying to just say hi.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
So many other podcasts I listen to just have the
same intro every week.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, but you want to change it up, I don't
mean to. I just open the mic and start talking.
That's all it is. That's all it is.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
You're just making life out of yourself, reinventing the world.
Every time.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I'm justin I'm Kylie. We are the parents of six
daughters and a baby in utero, will be a grandchild.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
In two fur dugs and yeah for babies.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And we are excited to have you join us on
the Happy Family Podcast today. End of the week. I'm
feeling relief. I'm feeling like I'm really looking forward to
this weekend. This has been the quietest week that I've
had in like three or four weeks. Now. I've been
away so much and I've got stuff to talk about
it and I'll do better tomorrow because I've been a
present parent this week.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, I've got a lot to say about the quiet week,
but I'm happy to hear what you have to say.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
All right. So for those of you who a knew
the podcast, welcome, Thank you for joining us on Friday.
As we get a little bit personal in this pod
and talk about how we're going as parents, what we
can do better, what we've done well, with a focus
on doing better tomorrow, just before we share our stories,
I kind of feel like it's a bit of show
and tell. Really, there was something that popped up in
the news this week, probably better for this week in
(01:45):
Parenting the podcast episode that we do about that, but
I just didn't want to wait, so I'm sharing it now.
A British couple, you're cheating? A British do that? A
British couple to fight to have their son named after
the Devil after a registrar tried to ban them from
using it. This is from news dot Com.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Down they actually get it through.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
The horrified official told them that their four month old
son wouldn't succeed in life, so four months old, before
they've come up with the name, decided to give this
kid a satanic name. Wouldn't succeed in life, said the
horrified official. Dan and Mandy Sheldon went to register the
todd last week after the council office finally opened after lockdown.
Furious dan Ah thirty seven, a plant higher company boss,
(02:27):
lodged an official complaint over how he and Mandy thirty
two were treated at their local office in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
He said, we were really excited to go and get
him registered, but the woman looked at us in us
a disgust. She told us he would never be able
to get a job and that teachers wouldn't want to
teach him. I tried to explain that we're not religious people,
and Lucifer in Greek means light bringer and morning, but
(02:50):
she wouldn't listen. She even told us that it was
I legal to name a child that in New Zealand
and that maybe we could name him something else but
refer to him as Lucifer at home. And I just
thought he's gobsmack with the behavior. I'm just thinking that
there's actually some pretty good research around that shows that
what your name your kids does have some impact on
is associated with their future life outcomes. And I don't know.
(03:11):
I mean, who wants to call their child little Satany
come over here? Even if you don't.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Obviously for them it doesn't have the same reference. But
the reality is for the majesticality society society, it does.
And regardless of how great we try to live our
lives and non judgmental we.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Are, everybody is well.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
First impressions matter, and a name, really, for so many
people is the first impression. You don't even you haven't
even seen his face, but you read his name on
the page, and all of a sudden you've already made
your minder about who this kid is.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Now, we are not into parent shaming. It's one thing
that we really really try to avoid. But what I
want to do in this quick mention and this we'll
leave it here unless there's anything you want to add.
I just want to encourage parents to be thoughtful about
where your name your kids. And I know that actually,
don't just be thoughtful. I'm sure they've been thoughtful about
what to name their child. They even know what it
means in Greek, and it actually is a really nice
name in Greek when you think light bringer or mourning
(04:11):
whatever it was. But like you said, Kylie, the broader
society will judge your child based on that child's name,
and there's good evidence that names that are unusual on
regimes are less likely to get put on the top
of the list. We know with good evidence that the
way your child is named will have an impact on
the quality of their relationships and their quality of life experience.
(04:33):
And I just had to put it out there because
I thought, seriously, do we need to and apparently we
do need to say it explicitly.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
A handful of years ago, I was introduced to a lady.
Her name is Sarah, and as we got talking.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
She's got that spooking it's not.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
As we got talking, she started kind of sharing some
of her life experiences, and somewhere along the conversation she
shared that her last name was Moni, which is a
again not a particularly.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I got it ceremony, ceremony, and you know, I love it.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
She's such an amazing person because she just she acknowledged
her parents had a ridiculously great sense of humor and
she has laughed about it her whole life. But other
kids would have really given her a hard time as
a young kid, and it's just lucky that she has
a great outlook.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Although it was pretty safe as well. I mean, I
had a school teacher called mister Bonnett, and when he
had a son, our class voter that they should call
the boy rusty Rusty Bonnet. Anyway, Today's I'll do better
tomorrow now that we've gotten that off our chests, is
about how we can do better or we've done well.
And you know what, Kylie, I'm going to just jump
straight in with mine and then you can see you
us in a second. I am going to say I
(05:44):
nailed it this week. Really, I've been.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Well after the three weeks you've been away so much
about time.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I've been traveling a lot. There's been a lot of
work happening, but it's been a real treat. Last Saturday,
so six days ago now, we were in Brisbane for
the Resilient Kids Conference. There's me, Karen Young from Hey, Sigmund,
Maggie Dent, and Michelle Mitchell. Wonderful, wonderful conversations about resilience.
(06:09):
All day long, there was like eight hundred parents in
the room. I took a whole bunch of boxes of
books to provide resources to families who wanted to pick
up any of those. And I had the absolute delight
of hanging out with our nineteen year old daughter Ella
for the day. I asked her if she could come
and help sort of run the credit card machine while
I talked to people and signed books and answered questions
and tried to be generally useful. And there was a
(06:32):
break at one point during the day where there weren't
any people at the table. They were all inside listening
to a talk that I'd already heard the previous fortnight
when we were in Lontestin, and Ella and I just
got to go for a walk, sit under the tree,
look up the sky and talk about life. And it
doesn't matter with your child's nine or nineteen, or even
three or four, just having that experience or even one
(06:53):
or two, having that experience going for a walk around
with my daughter and spending the day with her, and
then jumping in the car and driving home and having
her mock my driving because now she reckons she drives
a manual better than me all of that stuff. It
was just so nice and I wanted to highlight the importance.
I mean, I say this all the time. Dollars are
the currency of our economy. Connection is the currency of
(07:16):
our relationships. And feeling that connection helping her to feel seen,
hurt and valued. It was genuinely a highlight of the week.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
It's interesting as we've gone through the last few months
with all of the anks that she's been experiencing, as
she's been trying to work out what she wants to
do with her life and stop out of UNI, drop
out of UNI, and all of those kinds of things.
It's been interesting to watch how she's been navigating it,
and in the process it's actually kind of pulled away
(07:44):
from us quite a bit. There hasn't been any necessarily
any tension there, but we just haven't been included like
we usually are. But you spent that day with her,
and I literally lay in bed with you a few
days later and I said, I feel like we've got
our old back. Like she's just her countenance has changed,
(08:05):
and it's interesting that she's made decisions that fit where
she's at right now, and she's felt like she's had
the autonomy to do it and then being able to
reconnect with you specifically in a really you know, personal
way has just lifted her and it's so beautiful to see.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
As a quick tangent to this, just a reminder for
parents as well, can I be really encouraging for parents
to not control your kids. I mean, I've always been
an advocate of a gap year, but she really wanted
to go. She was absolutely certain that she wanted to
study property economics and architecture, even though she has no
interest in maths economics, she's never shown an inkling of
(08:46):
interest in it before, and it really was hard for
her and she did.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I think often our kids are making decisions based on
what they think is the right decision.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, you know, like.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
As she talked to people, people obviously acknowledged that architecture
was great, but she married it up with property economics
that we just put her in such a better It.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Was a disastrous position. But even though it was a
terrible decision, it hasn't been a bad thing in her life.
She's experienced university life. She's got her head around what
happens at UNI, and she'll be ready when or if,
but presumably when she chooses to go back in a
couple of years time. What also really struck me, though,
and the main point that I wanted to make here,
is she's nineteen. She actually has no idea what she
(09:29):
wants to do with the rest of her life. I
was at a talk at Ormiston College last week and
a demographer from Macrintle Research was there talking about the
number of jobs and the number of careers that the
average person has in their lives now and what the
projections are for the future. Most of us are not
doing today what we thought we'd be doing when we
left high school. The world changes, our lives change, and
we just put so much pressure on our kids. And
(09:50):
I've really enjoyed watching her come to this realization that
she has no idea what she wants to do, and
so at the moment, she's applying for jobs, she's applying
for some apprenticeships. She knows she doesn't want to do
them long term, but she just wants to try stuff.
And so long as she's being productive, she's growing and
she's learning, that's all that really matters. She'll figure it out.
(10:11):
And that was the delightful thing about the conversation, just
taking the pressure off and seeing that she really wants
to grow, she really wants to learn, she really wants
to be productive, and she has no idea where to go.
So she might become a florist, or she might become
a baker, or she might become a hairdresser, or she
might she could do any number of things, or she
might end up doing something for a year or two
and saying I've learned a lot, but I don't want
to do that, and now I'm ready to go back
(10:31):
to UNI. And any of that is fine, so long
as she's productive and she's finding meaning and purpose and fulfillment.
That was That was my older bet. It's Morin and
I really enjoyed it. What about you? Oh, Actually, before
we dive into yours, I've also got to mention that
parents be mindful. This is a conversation about the tooth Fairy,
(10:52):
so you might just want to you might need to
press pause. We had our nine year old, our youngest,
the only one who still has baby teeth, lose a tooth,
and she wrote a note to the tooth Fairy saying
that because it's been such a long time since she
lost a tooth, and because it hurts so much, and
because she's been so uncomfortable. Maybe as a special treat,
because she doesn't have too many teeth left to lose,
(11:13):
the tooth Fairy might leave. And then she specified in
her letter twenty dollars.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Twenty dollars. I don't know how much money I got
it from the.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Tooth Fairy when I was her age, twenty cents or
fifty cent. So I read it at like ten o'clock
at night, and I just cracked up. And she's drawn
a picture for the tooth Fairy and promised another one
if she gets twenty dollars, and it was just this
beautiful note, and I thought I could just leave her
two dollars, which is what I.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Was going to Well, I think I did, did I not?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
No, there was no two dollar coin there? Did you
leave a two dolar coin there?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I left three?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I didn't see it. I just thought, she's going to
wake up and if she's got twenty bucks, she's going
to remember this for the rest of her life, like
it's going to make a day. It's going to become
a core memory about tooth fairies and tooth losing and
all that sort of stuff. So I dropped a twenty
and dropped in twenty dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
You very much have been feeling super abundant.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
My goodness, I can't believe I didn't see you three dollars.
You're so good Anyway, what's your odd a, bet as Morrow?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Well, mine's probably a little bit more boring after the
things that you've shared today. It's really just about resetting
and perspective.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
So our daughter's been married now for four years.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Four years this month. Yeah, and she will.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Often come and visit us, and she gets a little
bit frustrated because she just wants me to drop everything
so that I can be one hundred percent focused on her.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, isn't it funny? She walks into the house and
she's like, why are you doing stuff? I'm here? Is
it with me?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
And do you know what, in my heart of hearts,
I really want to and I do everything I can
to make that possible. But inevitably, what was going to be,
you know, a one or two hour visit turns into
three or four and I just I've got to pick
the kids up from school or somebody in a rings
and they need need my help with something, or you
ring and you've.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Got you know, we've got a podcast to record or
dinner's got to be made, whatever, And so what.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Will usually happen is she'll get involved because she can
see that there's some gaps and there's some places where
she can help, but she's not happy about it. She
really kind of, you know, is a bit disgruntled that
she's here to visit me and it should be all
fun and games, but she's and she doesn't live here,
so she didn't have to help out why her sister's
not doing X, Y and zet. But last week she
(13:26):
actually ended up staying with us. You were away and
Jared was away as well, and.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Jared's her husband for those of you who are not.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Familiar, and so she didn't want to be on her own,
so she said, Mum, can I come and stay with you?
And I said great? And what was what blew me
away was just the shift in her mentality because as
she's lived closer to us over the last few months,
she's actually recognized that I'm not just sitting on my
bum twiddling my thumbs waiting.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
We got stuff going on.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
And so every time she shows up and she just
sees me kind of pretty much with my jog is
on running for tilt. She's really starting to see that
life is busy, and so while she was with us,
she was just she was fantastic. She sat down and
she made out a meal plan and she said, Mom,
can you just check these meals? Are you happy with these?
And I said, yeah, they look great? And she said, well,
(14:15):
why don't I take care of dinner this week? I said,
I few can just put the shopping list together of
all the things that you need. When I do this
dropping tomorrow, I'll get everything that you need for dinners.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
And it was just.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Great to kind of be in this place where for
the first time she was actually recognizing and seeing just
how busy I am on a day to day basis,
and that she could do something to lighten the load
and that actually made.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Her feel good. Yeah, I'm going to just say, he know,
hashtag parenting goals, right, this is what every parent as
they're dealing with the eight year old who won't pick
a thing up of the fifteen year old is going
You mean your daughter came over and cooked meals for
you for the week, Like, how do I get there?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
But what was crazy was at the end of the week,
she was absolutely exhausted. She's halfway through her pregnancy, and
it was a big deal, like, she worked really hard
beside me, but I work just as hard, if not harder.
And at the end of the week she kind of
looked at me and went, I can't believe you do this.
And the reality is we split the.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Jobs, right, But that's the moment, that's the Eureka moment.
The kids are like, Wow, you've done that for the
last twenty years.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
For me, she was exhausted. I was exhausted, but normally
I have to wear the brunt of that entire load
people shed.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Of course you do.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
But I'm just saying what she was doing. So I
know that was probably a bit long winded, but the
reality is what I experienced as I went through that
was just how important our perspective is in the way
we see things. And so there's been so many little
things that have happened through the week where I've kind
of gone to get cranky at them. But as I've
(15:53):
stepped back and kind of tried to see things from
a different perspective, I've recognized the limitations or the bird
and all the challenges that are in place that are
actually creating the storm and the teacup. And so this
week with you now back, we actually sat down for
the first time. I cunt. I can't remember the last
time that we sat down and did it.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
That weekly meeting that we say that we always do,
we haven't done for a couple of months because we've
had so much going on.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, and a few weeks ago on our episode this
week in Parenting, we talked about a divorce lawyers perspective
on what was going on, and it kind of just
it was it was a bit of an uppercut again,
just you know what, we don't do this enough. We
actually need to sit down and plan out our week,
get on the same page, get on the same page.
And so it was just so nice to be able
(16:39):
to have a few hours to sit down with you
Sunday morning and talk about our week, have a look
where things were at, and look at that big list
that Chanelle and I split up but she Noell's not
here anymore now, and how we could just alleviate the
pressure for both of us so that we have a
smooth running week. And I think we've done a pretty
good job.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Made a difference hugely. Well, we need to wrap the
just before we do. I love what you've said about
how there's a developmental reality. No matter how hard you
try your children, whether they're two or twelve, or eighteen
or even twenty two, your children are probably not going
to look at you and say, hey, mum or dad, gee,
I appreciate everything you do for me. And even if
(17:18):
they do, they don't really get it. What I love
most about your story is that at some point all
of us do kind of get what our parents did
for us, and we have the opportunity to express that.
And if you haven't told your parents, go and do it,
because you've had the experience this week of what it
feels like when your parents, when you as a parent,
(17:39):
get told that by a child. We still have plenty
more kids that have got to have that awakening for it. Gee,
it feels good, doesn't it? Like, Yeah, you're seeing You're
seeing what I did. You're seeing what I did.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I think the only other thing that came out of
it was just a recognition that if you feel like
your to do list is just overwhelming, it's okay to
drop a few things off it every now and again.
You know, if two people are exhausted doing one person's less,
then when there's.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Only one of you.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You can't possibly keep up the race day in day out,
and I think it's just really important to remember that
you're only one person. Be kind to yourself, do the
things that have to be done, and let go of
some of the things that don't need to be done.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I hope there's some inspo in that for you. Have
a great weekend. The Happy Families podcast is produced by
Justin Rowland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce our executive producer.
For more information about making your family happier, we are
at happy families dot com, dot you and on Facebook.
Dr Justin Colson's Happy Families
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!