August 28, 2025 • 14 mins
When a child is upset or angry, it’s easy to think their outburst is about the immediate problem. The real challenge for parents is identifying the deeper emotions driving these reactions. Kylie shares a conversation with her daughter that started as a fight over Roblox but ended with heartfelt tears over a completely different issue.
By taking the time to talk with our kids, we can help them uncover the true reasons behind their strong feelings.
In this episode:
-
Play dates & Roblox
-
14 reasons why....
- Homeschooling
- Need for connection
- Roblox - a tool for sexual predators
- The 3 Es of Effective Discipline: Explore, Explain, and Empower
Related Links:
- Keeping kids safe on Roblox
- Why Your Kids Need a Tribe
- Supporting Autistic Children Course with Dr Justin Coulson & Dr Joey Lawrence
Subscribe to the Happy Families newsletter
Leave a voice memo here or email your questions/comments to 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 (00:06):
We're going to have some problems in today's I'll do
a bit at tomorrow. We're quibbling over whose story Today's
I'll do it at tomorrow is, and it's mine. I
can tell you that right now. The other thing is
if I leave your microphone, if I get it, oh
that's unfair. Let me send it on.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Your stay with us.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
This is doctor Justin Coilson. I'm here with my wife
and mum who our six kids. Had a really cool
experience the other day. We've gone for our bike ride
because you're now getting fit. And following the bike ride,
I went and had my swim down at the local pool,
bashed out a couple of kays in the pool, and
on the way back, I thought, I'll stop and check
the surf, because not that I have time to do everything,
(00:48):
but I'm going to have a look at the surf.
And it was really good, and I wanted to hang
around there for a while, but I had work to do.
But I was standing there and somebody said, oh my goodness,
I can't believe who I'm standing. And I just love
it when people know who I am and want to
say hi, because we've made a difference in their lives
And it was Jess who listened to the podcast visiting
(01:08):
the Sunshine Coast from Melbourne with her husband and they
had a great chat while we watched the surf and
it was just it's just beautiful. I love when people
say hi. Thanks for saying hi, Jess. All right, I'd
about it tomorrow. For those of you who knew to
the pod, this is where we have a look at
the week that was, talk about what worked and what
didn't and how it can be better parents. It's about
intentionality and mindfulness in our parentings so that we can
I don't know, raise happy, resilient kids. That's the goal.
(01:31):
So I guess we're going to have to share this one.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, I've got the piece of paper to prove it's
my story.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, the piece of paper was given to me that
you didn't read this, not that I didn't read it.
It was about timing. It was timing. So here's the deal.
On what day was it? Monday? I think it was Monday.
You had to go down to Brisy. Our youngest two
you took them with you. One of them decided to
stay Grandma's for a couple of days. But our ten
year old Emily got to hang out with one of
(01:57):
her best he's in our old neighborhood. While she was there,
they played roadblocks. I think did they play roadblocks? No,
they talked about roadblocks. They talked about roadblocks and none stop.
And that night, I don't know you'd gone for a
walk with Abby, our second eldest, along the beach, and
Emily came into the office right before I was about
(02:18):
to run a webinar, And right at the start of
the webinar, just before we pressed go, she walked in
and said, Dad, I need to talk to you. Have
to talk to you. And I said, not a great time.
She handed me a piece of paper. She just hates
holding the pencil of the pan, hates writing anything. Winges complains, winds, moans,
and we'll do anything to get out of writing. Except
(02:40):
that on Monday night she had me this list with
fourteen perfectly the best handwriting she's ever done, fourteen beautifully
written statements about why she should have roadblocks. And all
this week, I mean, we've had tantrums, she's run away
from the house. It's been the roadblocks, wars have begun.
(03:06):
That's my story, that's my older. But it's tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
How are you going to be better?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Actually, my very simple take home message is that I'm
still going to say no. Why because sometimes his parents
just got to say no. Because you're interested in protecting
your kids, keeping them safe. That's our job. And when
it comes to issues of kids being online, I'm sorry,
but I know that I know that Emily's the only
kid on the planet who's not on roadblocks. I mean,
she's given us the list of every single one of
(03:36):
her friends who is on roadblocks, and it's a comprehensive list.
And she's also promised us and assured us that she'll
only play in public. She'll play with sound off. She's
not going to friend anybody that she doesn't know. She's
aware of it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
She watched parental guidance.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
She was pro she's aware of the risks, dangers and
concerns that we have. But as a parent, sometimes you
just say no. And she's ten and I said no,
and so I'm the worst out in the world. She
knows that I still love her. We've had cuddles and
we've had good talks, but I'm the worst out in
the world, and my older better tomorrow is I'm okay
with that for now. I mean, it's really sad. Conversations
(04:11):
are ongoing, negotiations have not yet ceased, but I'm feeling
a little bit worn down by it, to be honest,
because this is the thing when parents don't band together,
when parents don't form community. See what I'm doing here,
I'm blaming every parent that's listening to this podcast right now,
the let's their kids beyond roadblocks because I'm struggling with it.
I don't want her to be on there. It's just
(04:32):
it is literally, by design, a place where people with
ill intent, adults with ill intent can access and communicate
with a huge number of children at scale. That's what happens.
And is it likely that our child will be approached?
(04:55):
I don't know, but I don't want to take that risk.
To me, it's too big of a risk. Anyway, that's
my older bit tomorrow. I don't know if that was
a fun one or an inspiring one, or if I
just sound like a big grump kylie, what's your old
habit tomorrow?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, let me read you the list.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Never done one like this before, By the way, I'm
usually upbeat. I'm really inspired. I'm trying to help everyone
feel like, yeah, you can do this. Let's say the list.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Number one, I'll only play Brookhaven with Patrick and my
street friends Jessic, Sasha, Ali, Harper, and Olivia and some
other friends. There's a few in there there are. Number two.
Some games don't even give the talking ability. Number three.
I'm not going to tell someone my whole life story
so that they can kidnap me or say mean things.
Number four. If they say inappropriate things, then I will
(05:48):
tell you, and I can contact roeblocks and they will
be banned forever. Number five. I will ban everyone who
I don't know from my house. Number six. No one
has the same user names, so I will memory all
my friends usernames. Number seven. They have smooth and amazing graphics.
I love this, smooth and amazing graphics.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I've got to be allowed.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Number eight. I can make my own characters looks and
save them, and I can make more. Number nine. There
are no inappropriate clothing options, and you can change your
face and have children and even pets. Number ten. I
won't spend your actual money on roadblocks. Number eleven it's
like living my dream future. And house twelve it'll be
(06:33):
perfect for long car drives. Thirteen. Anyone can watch me
play so nothing bad happens and fourteen everyone has it
all right.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, I've got my own list. Are you ready for this?
This is something that I'm taking from Hindenburg Research. I've
talked about them on the podcast recently. Hindenburg Research is
a stock market analyst company, and they basically point to
companies that are going to be in trouble soon, and
they're holding that Roadblocks will be that.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You've got ninety seconds.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
You're not hijack Hinderberg Research dot com slash Roadblocks Beyond
inflated key user metrics. Hindenburg's in game research revealed an
X rated pedophile healthscape, exposing children of grooming, pornography, violent content,
extremely abusive speech. Number two, Roadblocks is compromising child safety
and order report growth to investigators per their interview with
a former senior product designer who said, and I quote,
(07:19):
if you're limiting users engagement, it's hurting your metrics. In
a lot of cases, the leadership doesn't want that. Number three.
Roadblocks reported a two percent year over year decline and
its trust and safety expenses. Number four. Core of the
problem is that Roadblocks's social media features allow pedophiles to
efficiently target hundreds of children with no upfront screening to
prevent them from joining the platform Number five. For example,
(07:41):
in twenty eighteen, prior to Roadblocks going public, a twenty
nine year old was caught by police with one hundred
and seventy five hours of video footage of Hymn grooming
and engaging in explicit behavior with one hundred and fifty
miners using online platforms, namely Roadblocks. Number six, Media and
nonprofit expose as from twenty twenty three to July twenty
twenty four revealed digital strip club, red light districts, sex parties,
(08:02):
and child predators lurking on Roadblocks. The National Center on
Sexual Exploitation in twenty twenty four labeled roeblocks quote a
tool for sexual predators a threat for children's safety close
quote number seven. Numerous criminal indictments from twenty nineteen through
to twenty twenty four alleged that sexual predators groomed children
in game ranging from eight to fourteen year olds, then kidnapped, raped,
(08:24):
or traded sexual content with them. Next one, Following years
of scandals, Hindenberg performed their own checks to see if
the platform had cleaned up its act. As a test,
they attempted to set up an account under the name
Jeffrey Epstein, only to see the name was taken along
with nine hundred plus variations Let's go again. Many were
Jeffrey Epstein fan accounts, including jeff Epstein's Supporter, which had
(08:49):
earned multiple badges for spending time in kids games. Other
jeff Epstein accounts had the username I groom Miners and
I'm not even going to say the other one because
it's so offensive. It makes me want to weep. And
I can just keep on going and going and going.
We'll link to it. Hindenburg Research dot Com slash roadblocks.
(09:09):
I'm getting passionate, passionate about it. You only gave me
ninety seconds, but I could keep on going. He listen
to this one. In the game Beat Up the Pregnant,
users hated pregnant women to death in a Walmart parking
lot with machetes or killed them with frying pans or
a selection of guns. What about this one? We played
(09:30):
guns Work at Hospital, say the Hindenburg team, where users
can go on a hospital shooting rampage. The game has
more than one point six million visits and remains on
the platform with no age restrictions. The game's thumbnail is
a picture of a terrified pregnant woman. Parents have no
idea how bad this thing is, and that's why their
(09:52):
kids are on there.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I know that there's all sorts of restrictions, I know
there's all sorts of ways that you can keep your
kids safe, and I know that forty million plus kids
are on there every single day. I don't care. I'm
not letting my daughter on there.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Well, thanks for that comprehensive list.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
You're welcome. I'll do better tomorrow. Mate, How are you
going to be odd?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I don't even know where to go from.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Well, you wanted to talk about the list, and you
want to talk about the emotions, and you're right. I
have hijackted and I love hijacked it because I'm so
frustrated with the fact that this product is out there
and it is mass marketed to our kids, and parents
are blase and apathetic and say, no, it'll be fine.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
So the challenge is, it's easy to assume, based on
the fact that Emily has brought me this big, long
list of all the reasons why she should be able
to play Roadbox, that this is about a video game,
but it's actually not and that is the challenge as parents.
Our children give us stimulus on any given day, and
(10:51):
we either accept it for what it appears to be,
or we take the time to explore, explain, and empower
our kids as we recognize what the core root is.
So I sat down with Emily after she had run
away from home for half an hour or so. She
(11:12):
came back and I said, we need to have a
little cuddle, and she came and lay on the bed
with me and we started to talk about her list,
but she got really really upset and didn't want to
and she turned her back to me, and I just said, Emily,
I said, is this really about roadblocks? Or is this
about the fact that you miss your friends? And she
pretty much burst into tears. There are so many awesome
(11:37):
things about homeschooling, and she recognizes it and loves it,
but there are also some really big challenges. She doesn't
like being the new kid in the room. She doesn't
want to invest in meeting new friends if they're not
going to be lifelong friends. There's some really big challenges
for her around this, and so starting to infiltrate new
(12:00):
homeschool groups and things is a really, really big deal.
For her, and so we haven't spent a lot of
time looking in that space. She's spent a lot of
time on her own and she's been really happy doing it.
But as time has gone on, there is this a
deep hohole, this big gape in her life where she
wants her friends, but she's the only one who's not
(12:22):
at school, and it's really really hard to sit there
and navigate that space when there's so many other challenges
going on. So this started off about roadblocks, but it's
actually not about roadblocks. This is about a little girl
who is desperate for connection. And I think the power
comes when we can sit in those hard places with
(12:43):
our kids and have hard conversations and help them to
understand why they're so passionate about whatever it is that
they're talking about. She thought that this was about roadblocks,
but as we explored it together, there was a recognition
and that this is actually not really about roadblocks.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, for the record, I just love everything that you've said,
and I also know it's not about roadblocks, but roadblocks
it's just such a big problem. I want to read
more stats to you. That's how fastrated I am. But
ultimately my older better tomorrow to come out of that
is the answer will be known for her because of
that and more, and because roadblocks won't solve the problem.
(13:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
One of the things she said to me, she said,
I just want to be normal, And I said, what
does that mean? She said, well, I just want parents
who actually don't care what I watch and what I play.
Because that's in her mind, that's what she's seeing. She
just thinks that her friends are allowed to do whatever
they want when they want, which is.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Not the case, no, of course not, but from her
that their parents don't care.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
No, But from her perspective, that's what she sees because
we're putting limitations on her that her other friends don't have.
Just to be normal.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I'll do better tomorrow understanding your kids. And by the way,
that conversation led to some of the best hugs, and
it was beautiful to lay on the bed and just
listen to her and have her pour her heart out
to us. It was a highlight, a highlight of the week.
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
Bridge Media. I hope you have a great weekend. We'll
be back with you on Monday.
We're going to have some problems in today's I'll do
a bit at tomorrow. We're quibbling over whose story Today's
I'll do it at tomorrow is, and it's mine. I
can tell you that right now. The other thing is
if I leave your microphone, if I get it, oh
that's unfair. Let me send it on.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Your stay with us.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
This is doctor Justin Coilson. I'm here with my wife
and mum who our six kids. Had a really cool
experience the other day. We've gone for our bike ride
because you're now getting fit. And following the bike ride,
I went and had my swim down at the local pool,
bashed out a couple of kays in the pool, and
on the way back, I thought, I'll stop and check
the surf, because not that I have time to do everything,
(00:48):
but I'm going to have a look at the surf.
And it was really good, and I wanted to hang
around there for a while, but I had work to do.
But I was standing there and somebody said, oh my goodness,
I can't believe who I'm standing. And I just love
it when people know who I am and want to
say hi, because we've made a difference in their lives
And it was Jess who listened to the podcast visiting
(01:08):
the Sunshine Coast from Melbourne with her husband and they
had a great chat while we watched the surf and
it was just it's just beautiful. I love when people
say hi. Thanks for saying hi, Jess. All right, I'd
about it tomorrow. For those of you who knew to
the pod, this is where we have a look at
the week that was, talk about what worked and what
didn't and how it can be better parents. It's about
intentionality and mindfulness in our parentings so that we can
I don't know, raise happy, resilient kids. That's the goal.
(01:31):
So I guess we're going to have to share this one.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, I've got the piece of paper to prove it's
my story.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, the piece of paper was given to me that
you didn't read this, not that I didn't read it.
It was about timing. It was timing. So here's the deal.
On what day was it? Monday? I think it was Monday.
You had to go down to Brisy. Our youngest two
you took them with you. One of them decided to
stay Grandma's for a couple of days. But our ten
year old Emily got to hang out with one of
(01:57):
her best he's in our old neighborhood. While she was there,
they played roadblocks. I think did they play roadblocks? No,
they talked about roadblocks. They talked about roadblocks and none stop.
And that night, I don't know you'd gone for a
walk with Abby, our second eldest, along the beach, and
Emily came into the office right before I was about
(02:18):
to run a webinar, And right at the start of
the webinar, just before we pressed go, she walked in
and said, Dad, I need to talk to you. Have
to talk to you. And I said, not a great time.
She handed me a piece of paper. She just hates
holding the pencil of the pan, hates writing anything. Winges complains, winds, moans,
and we'll do anything to get out of writing. Except
(02:40):
that on Monday night she had me this list with
fourteen perfectly the best handwriting she's ever done, fourteen beautifully
written statements about why she should have roadblocks. And all
this week, I mean, we've had tantrums, she's run away
from the house. It's been the roadblocks, wars have begun.
(03:06):
That's my story, that's my older. But it's tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
How are you going to be better?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Actually, my very simple take home message is that I'm
still going to say no. Why because sometimes his parents
just got to say no. Because you're interested in protecting
your kids, keeping them safe. That's our job. And when
it comes to issues of kids being online, I'm sorry,
but I know that I know that Emily's the only
kid on the planet who's not on roadblocks. I mean,
she's given us the list of every single one of
(03:36):
her friends who is on roadblocks, and it's a comprehensive list.
And she's also promised us and assured us that she'll
only play in public. She'll play with sound off. She's
not going to friend anybody that she doesn't know. She's
aware of it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
She watched parental guidance.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
She was pro she's aware of the risks, dangers and
concerns that we have. But as a parent, sometimes you
just say no. And she's ten and I said no,
and so I'm the worst out in the world. She
knows that I still love her. We've had cuddles and
we've had good talks, but I'm the worst out in
the world, and my older better tomorrow is I'm okay
with that for now. I mean, it's really sad. Conversations
(04:11):
are ongoing, negotiations have not yet ceased, but I'm feeling
a little bit worn down by it, to be honest,
because this is the thing when parents don't band together,
when parents don't form community. See what I'm doing here,
I'm blaming every parent that's listening to this podcast right now,
the let's their kids beyond roadblocks because I'm struggling with it.
I don't want her to be on there. It's just
(04:32):
it is literally, by design, a place where people with
ill intent, adults with ill intent can access and communicate
with a huge number of children at scale. That's what happens.
And is it likely that our child will be approached?
(04:55):
I don't know, but I don't want to take that risk.
To me, it's too big of a risk. Anyway, that's
my older bit tomorrow. I don't know if that was
a fun one or an inspiring one, or if I
just sound like a big grump kylie, what's your old
habit tomorrow?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, let me read you the list.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Never done one like this before, By the way, I'm
usually upbeat. I'm really inspired. I'm trying to help everyone
feel like, yeah, you can do this. Let's say the list.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Number one, I'll only play Brookhaven with Patrick and my
street friends Jessic, Sasha, Ali, Harper, and Olivia and some
other friends. There's a few in there there are. Number two.
Some games don't even give the talking ability. Number three.
I'm not going to tell someone my whole life story
so that they can kidnap me or say mean things.
Number four. If they say inappropriate things, then I will
(05:48):
tell you, and I can contact roeblocks and they will
be banned forever. Number five. I will ban everyone who
I don't know from my house. Number six. No one
has the same user names, so I will memory all
my friends usernames. Number seven. They have smooth and amazing graphics.
I love this, smooth and amazing graphics.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I've got to be allowed.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Number eight. I can make my own characters looks and
save them, and I can make more. Number nine. There
are no inappropriate clothing options, and you can change your
face and have children and even pets. Number ten. I
won't spend your actual money on roadblocks. Number eleven it's
like living my dream future. And house twelve it'll be
(06:33):
perfect for long car drives. Thirteen. Anyone can watch me
play so nothing bad happens and fourteen everyone has it
all right.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, I've got my own list. Are you ready for this?
This is something that I'm taking from Hindenburg Research. I've
talked about them on the podcast recently. Hindenburg Research is
a stock market analyst company, and they basically point to
companies that are going to be in trouble soon, and
they're holding that Roadblocks will be that.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You've got ninety seconds.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
You're not hijack Hinderberg Research dot com slash Roadblocks Beyond
inflated key user metrics. Hindenburg's in game research revealed an
X rated pedophile healthscape, exposing children of grooming, pornography, violent content,
extremely abusive speech. Number two, Roadblocks is compromising child safety
and order report growth to investigators per their interview with
a former senior product designer who said, and I quote,
(07:19):
if you're limiting users engagement, it's hurting your metrics. In
a lot of cases, the leadership doesn't want that. Number three.
Roadblocks reported a two percent year over year decline and
its trust and safety expenses. Number four. Core of the
problem is that Roadblocks's social media features allow pedophiles to
efficiently target hundreds of children with no upfront screening to
prevent them from joining the platform Number five. For example,
(07:41):
in twenty eighteen, prior to Roadblocks going public, a twenty
nine year old was caught by police with one hundred
and seventy five hours of video footage of Hymn grooming
and engaging in explicit behavior with one hundred and fifty
miners using online platforms, namely Roadblocks. Number six, Media and
nonprofit expose as from twenty twenty three to July twenty
twenty four revealed digital strip club, red light districts, sex parties,
(08:02):
and child predators lurking on Roadblocks. The National Center on
Sexual Exploitation in twenty twenty four labeled roeblocks quote a
tool for sexual predators a threat for children's safety close
quote number seven. Numerous criminal indictments from twenty nineteen through
to twenty twenty four alleged that sexual predators groomed children
in game ranging from eight to fourteen year olds, then kidnapped, raped,
(08:24):
or traded sexual content with them. Next one, Following years
of scandals, Hindenberg performed their own checks to see if
the platform had cleaned up its act. As a test,
they attempted to set up an account under the name
Jeffrey Epstein, only to see the name was taken along
with nine hundred plus variations Let's go again. Many were
Jeffrey Epstein fan accounts, including jeff Epstein's Supporter, which had
(08:49):
earned multiple badges for spending time in kids games. Other
jeff Epstein accounts had the username I groom Miners and
I'm not even going to say the other one because
it's so offensive. It makes me want to weep. And
I can just keep on going and going and going.
We'll link to it. Hindenburg Research dot Com slash roadblocks.
(09:09):
I'm getting passionate, passionate about it. You only gave me
ninety seconds, but I could keep on going. He listen
to this one. In the game Beat Up the Pregnant,
users hated pregnant women to death in a Walmart parking
lot with machetes or killed them with frying pans or
a selection of guns. What about this one? We played
(09:30):
guns Work at Hospital, say the Hindenburg team, where users
can go on a hospital shooting rampage. The game has
more than one point six million visits and remains on
the platform with no age restrictions. The game's thumbnail is
a picture of a terrified pregnant woman. Parents have no
idea how bad this thing is, and that's why their
(09:52):
kids are on there.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I know that there's all sorts of restrictions, I know
there's all sorts of ways that you can keep your
kids safe, and I know that forty million plus kids
are on there every single day. I don't care. I'm
not letting my daughter on there.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Well, thanks for that comprehensive list.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
You're welcome. I'll do better tomorrow. Mate, How are you
going to be odd?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I don't even know where to go from.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Well, you wanted to talk about the list, and you
want to talk about the emotions, and you're right. I
have hijackted and I love hijacked it because I'm so
frustrated with the fact that this product is out there
and it is mass marketed to our kids, and parents
are blase and apathetic and say, no, it'll be fine.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
So the challenge is, it's easy to assume, based on
the fact that Emily has brought me this big, long
list of all the reasons why she should be able
to play Roadbox, that this is about a video game,
but it's actually not and that is the challenge as parents.
Our children give us stimulus on any given day, and
(10:51):
we either accept it for what it appears to be,
or we take the time to explore, explain, and empower
our kids as we recognize what the core root is.
So I sat down with Emily after she had run
away from home for half an hour or so. She
(11:12):
came back and I said, we need to have a
little cuddle, and she came and lay on the bed
with me and we started to talk about her list,
but she got really really upset and didn't want to
and she turned her back to me, and I just said, Emily,
I said, is this really about roadblocks? Or is this
about the fact that you miss your friends? And she
pretty much burst into tears. There are so many awesome
(11:37):
things about homeschooling, and she recognizes it and loves it,
but there are also some really big challenges. She doesn't
like being the new kid in the room. She doesn't
want to invest in meeting new friends if they're not
going to be lifelong friends. There's some really big challenges
for her around this, and so starting to infiltrate new
(12:00):
homeschool groups and things is a really, really big deal.
For her, and so we haven't spent a lot of
time looking in that space. She's spent a lot of
time on her own and she's been really happy doing it.
But as time has gone on, there is this a
deep hohole, this big gape in her life where she
wants her friends, but she's the only one who's not
(12:22):
at school, and it's really really hard to sit there
and navigate that space when there's so many other challenges
going on. So this started off about roadblocks, but it's
actually not about roadblocks. This is about a little girl
who is desperate for connection. And I think the power
comes when we can sit in those hard places with
(12:43):
our kids and have hard conversations and help them to
understand why they're so passionate about whatever it is that
they're talking about. She thought that this was about roadblocks,
but as we explored it together, there was a recognition
and that this is actually not really about roadblocks.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, for the record, I just love everything that you've said,
and I also know it's not about roadblocks, but roadblocks
it's just such a big problem. I want to read
more stats to you. That's how fastrated I am. But
ultimately my older better tomorrow to come out of that
is the answer will be known for her because of
that and more, and because roadblocks won't solve the problem.
(13:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
One of the things she said to me, she said,
I just want to be normal, And I said, what
does that mean? She said, well, I just want parents
who actually don't care what I watch and what I play.
Because that's in her mind, that's what she's seeing. She
just thinks that her friends are allowed to do whatever
they want when they want, which is.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Not the case, no, of course not, but from her
that their parents don't care.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
No, But from her perspective, that's what she sees because
we're putting limitations on her that her other friends don't have.
Just to be normal.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I'll do better tomorrow understanding your kids. And by the way,
that conversation led to some of the best hugs, and
it was beautiful to lay on the bed and just
listen to her and have her pour her heart out
to us. It was a highlight, a highlight of the week.
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
Bridge Media. I hope you have a great weekend. We'll
be back with you on Monday.
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