November 19, 2025 • 13 mins
Schoolies can feel like a runaway train of risk, pressure, and “everyone else is doing it.” But your teen does have options—ones that are safer, more meaningful, and genuinely unforgettable.
In this episode, Justin and Kylie share powerful ways to reframe the end-of-Year-12 celebration, build intention, and offer your teen experiences they’ll remember for all the right reasons. From once-in-a-lifetime trips to simple, joy-filled adventures closer to home, you’ll get practical, confidence-boosting ideas you can start planning at any age.
KEY POINTS
- Why schoolies culture isn’t a rite of passage your teen needs.
- How intention and values help guide safer, healthier choices.
- Clever alternatives that still feel exciting, independent, and celebratory.
- Trips with parents, extended family, or friend groups that build connection — not chaos.
- Affordable options, big-dream options, and ways to start planning years ahead.
- How to talk to kids about celebrations while honouring freedom and safety.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“High school is done — that is worth celebrating. But celebration doesn’t have to mean chaos. It can be meaningful, memorable, and still full of freedom.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- 5 Essential Conversations to Have With Your Teen Before Schoolies [Article]
- Get Set for Schoolies withPaul Dillon [Podcast Episode]
- Community & church-run schoolies alternatives
- Family traditions like “Sweet Sixteen Trips”
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Start the conversation early — schoolies ideas form long before Year 12.
- Ask your teen what they want from an end-of-school celebration (freedom? adventure? connection?).
- Brainstorm alternatives that align with your family values and your teen’s personality.
- If planning a bigger trip, start saving as a team — years ahead if possible.
- Explore friend-group or community-group options to add excitement, safety, and shared memories.
- Remind your teen that opting out of schoolies isn’t missing out — it can be levelling up.
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):
This weekend. The action starts on the Gold Coast and
in other places around Australia schoolies celebrations comments. Now, we
know that most people who are listening to the Happy
Families podcast are not sending their year twelve students off
to schoolies. But today's episode is about planting seeds for
how you can have great conversations with your kids to
help them to make safe, healthy choices when it comes
(00:28):
to what's coming up for school is, and really to
paint the picture that schoolies is not the be all
and end all necessary right of passage for every student
finishing year twelve. In fact, we're kind of, how would
you say it, honey, anti? Are we anti schoolers? We're
not big fans of schoolies and we've discouraged our kids
from going.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I think it's really important to have some kind of celebration,
but I wouldn't call it schoolies, right.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
So we're going to talk in today's podcast about how
you can set your kids up for success with either
schoolies by attending or finding alternatives that are going to
work really really well to keep your kids safe and
healthy at a really, really pivotal time of their lives.
Useful for parents of kids at any age. Stay with us.
(01:12):
Hello and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, where you
get real parenting solutions every single day on Australia's most
downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Coulson, parents
have six kids. We've got our fourth daughter finishing year twelve. Well,
I think she's finished. I think the last exam's done.
She's out, she's done, it's all over. We've got the
formal in two days. First day of school is so
(01:33):
the kids are going to be missing that and honey,
it's all happening. We've only got two to go. I
only got two more kids to get through high school.
You look tired.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I'm trying to come up with a clever response, but
I think I just need.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
A pat on the bat and a good lay down. Yeah,
a good laydown, maybe some valiant All right, So today
we're going to talk about school. Is do your kids
need to go? What if they're being to go and
you don't want them to go? I mean, okay, there's
a bunch of different groups. If you're kilfey kids to
go to schoolies and they want to go to school,
is this is not the podcast for you? But if
you've got younger kids and you're watching what happens at
(02:06):
school is and you're just thinking, I don't think this
is in my children's best interest to be there. This
is your podcast, And whether your kids are in prep
or Hindi or first grade, or whether they're in high
school or getting towards the pointy end schools, conversations are
going to come up. And that's what we're going to
discuss today.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I think one of the most important things that we
talk about often is just intention and purpose, and no
matter where your kids are in their stage of schooling,
being prepared for this big event is really important. And
the more intention we have around it, the more we
can be prepared and actually be excited about this rite
(02:43):
of passage for our kids as opposed to dreading it.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we've got four kids who are
now finished high school. None of them have gone to schoolies.
I didn't go to SCHOOLI you didn't go to schoolies.
We're not a schoolies family. And I think it's because
it just doesn't sit with who we are. It doesn't
sit with our morale, with our values. We don't love
the idea of eighteen and seventeen year old kids running
around the Gold Coast at two o'clock of three o'clock
(03:07):
in the morning, completely off their face and looking four
opportunities to make decisions that they will probably regret the
next day and that could actually have catastrophic consequences throughout
the rest of their lives. Am I getting caught up
in the media news beat up? Maybe, But I've heard
enough horror stories to know that while a lot of
people go to schoolers and have a great time, there
are plenty of kids who go to schoolers and don't.
(03:28):
So we've literally just sat down with our kids and said,
we don't want you to go to schoolings, but we'd
love to work with you on alternatives that could be interesting.
And today we present to you four or five alternatives
that could be interesting that may sway your kids away
from schoolings.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
We have a tradition at our house when the kids
turn sixteen, they get two weeks of unfiltered time with us,
you and me. No one else comes along. It's just
them and us, and it is probably one of the
most talked about holidays in our family.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
The girls look forward to anticipation.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Much are talking about it. I know that we're not
talking about sweet sixteen. But if this is something you
haven't done before, this could actually be a really special
thing that you could create a tradition of excitement and
anticipation around a trip that you get to do with
your child.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's a really big one. Now, I
want to highlight a couple of the ideas that were
want to share. To require some finances, and that may
not work for you because your family's just not in
that situation.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
So we've got there in Kinder. You've got lots of times.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, that's right. You can save a lot of money
in the next ten or fifteen years or there about,
and you.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Can actually get your children involved.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
In the savings completely. Yeah. In fact, we've done that
with some of our kids when they want to go
on a different kind of a trip, so we've we've
brought them in, Kylie. I want to extend from your
sweet sixteen idea. A couple of years ago, one of
our friends, his son was finishing year twelve and really
wanted to go to schools with his buds, and dad
just said, I really don't want you to be there.
I'm concerned about what could happen, and I want you
(05:02):
to be safe and healthy. But I've got an idea.
And so with a couple of the other dads of
this boy's best mates, the three dads planned a trip
for the three boys and the six of them went away. Now,
you can do this in Australia, you can do it overseas.
You can do it with a surfing trip. You could
do with a fishing trip, you could do with a
camping trip. You could These guys they all ran their
(05:22):
own businesses and were in a situation where they had
the funds. They went to the US and they watched
basketball and baseball and football games, and they just toured
around a couple of US cities and went to a
whole lot of sports things. And did I mean this
was a trip of a lifetime kind of stuff, which
was I mean, the boys just said this was way
better than going to schoolies.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
When I heard our friends talking about this, I was
just ecstatic, just the idea that dads would rally together
and brilliantly put something together that would be not only
meaningful for their sons, but to be able to experience
it together. It just I was just in awe of them.
I thought it was awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, let me go on a little bit of rand
a little bit of tangent here. Boys need good masculine
role models in their lives and for dads to take
the time out of their busy work lives to sacrifice
time and money to take their kids away. It doesn't
have to be NBA games in the US. I mean
that is kind of extra, but depending on your situation,
you could do any number of things.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
This is also like building their village, right. It's helping
them to see other other good men in their lives
who are role models, who are going to be there
and support them.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And yeah, I just loved it.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So I've let my imagination get away from me a
little bit. And as I made some notes here that
I didn't tell you about it, I wrote down Japan, USA, Barcelona,
Berley and Balley. It doesn't matter, like just that they're
all really aspirational and then maybe they're too big. But
for many families, with planning, and that's why we're having
this conversation now because at school is time. But most
people who have got U twelve kids aren't listening to
the podcast. People with young kids are listening. With planning,
(06:54):
you can start to set the agenda. You can organize
the friendship group, you can organize the mums or the dads.
You could do a mums and girls trip and you
can go and do a retreat in Orbud in Bali,
or you can head across to Queenstown. And like, there
are so many things and with planning, years of planning,
you can save the money, you can make the bookings,
you can get everyone excited and it creates this tradition. Yeah,
(07:15):
our family does this thing when we graduate high school
because school is isn't for us. I'm going to quickly
extend that as well with a follow up and that
is just family trips, so rather than just being mum
and a child who's just graduated, or dad and a
child who's just graduated. I also reckon there's real value
in getting families together. And just recently I've done a
(07:36):
lot of traveling around Australia for my speaking. Just recently
I was in a part of the country that the
Murray River flows through and they were telling me about
how popular it is for people to hire houseboats and
go down the Murray River. I was on the New
South Walest Central Coast recently and people will talking about
how people hire houseboats and go up and down the
Hawksbury River. A few years ago as a family, we
(07:58):
went to the Whitsun and we hide a boat and
we just cruised around the with Sundays. Doing something like
that with one or two or three families is another
really amazing way that we can maximize that we can
boost our children's anticipation for what schoolers can be while
still avoiding the chaos and realistically some of the carnage
(08:19):
that occurs when you get a bunch of seventeen thousands
of seventeen and eighteen year olds and all the toolies
as well together After the break, Kylie, I know you've
got a couple of others that you want to share,
and one or two last ideas to help you to
make plans to help your kids look forward to a
schoolies experience that's a little bit different, a little bit
more wholesome, and hopefully a little bit more healthy. This
(08:48):
is the Happy Families Podcast. If you're enjoying the pod,
please like and review the podcast. We love those five
star reviews. They help other people to find the pod
and make their families happy. Up today, talking about the
different ways that we can celebrate school is with our
kids with them, or set things up so that they
can be successful but not be in risky situations so much.
I think it's been a productive conversation. Kyle, You've got
(09:10):
another one that you wanted to run through.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So I didn't do school, as you've already acknowledged that.
But I grew up in New Zealand, and when I
was ten, we moved to Australia. I had never actually
gone back to New Zealand, so as a seventeen year
old freshly out of high school, my mum and dad
chose to send me to New Zealand with my best friend,
and I went and stayed with all of my relatives
(09:33):
that I hadn't seen for it felt like a lifetime
and got to reconnect with my cousins and see a country.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
That I loved. But I loved it from a ten
year old's point of view.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I got to experience it as a fresh adult, and
that was an experience that I remember for all the
good reasons. And I think that lots of us have
opportunities where we've got either really good family friends on
the other side, or family that our kids could actually
go and have an experience on their own or with
(10:04):
a friend and experience life in.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
A different way.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, teens just love being able to get out of
the house and have some independence. So most of our
ideas so far have been about the kids being with us,
and that can be a really great bonding experience. But
sometimes they just want to hit the open road.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Ah, you're so funny. Our third daughter, she just wanted
to go on a road trip. She took a can
full of friends. They slept in their car.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
They so uncomfortable, but they were palmed. They're like, we're
sleeping in the back of the car. It's going to
be awesome. Like that is not awesome.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
And their idea of a road trip was literally taking
a left turn if they saw something that took their fancy.
Like they they kind of had a loose idea of
where they were going to end up, like from point
A to point B, but anything in between could happen,
and they just had a blast.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Same daughter wanted to go on a road trip with
me recently, and that's when I realized. My idea of
a road trip is you get on the road and
your trip to where you're going. Her idea of a
road trip is it doesn't really She looked at.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Me, and she said, do you like doing road trips
like this? Mom?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
She's like, do we have to keep on driving? Can
we not just stop? Because that looks interesting? I'm like, no,
we're not stopping. We're going somewhere.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And the last idea I've got for you is if
you're part of like a church group or a community group,
often they will actually put on their own events for
their kids.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And so our church for the last twenty plus years
has put on a schoolies trip for everyone who shares
the same values. Friends are welcome as well, but it's
basically if you're coming along, then you buy into what
we're about, which means that X, y, and z these
things don't happen. It probably always going to be some
rule breakers, but generally, but generally speaking, you're sending your
kids off with some adult supervision, minimal, but some adult supervision,
(11:46):
but a whole bunch of kids that shared their values,
which means that they feel comfortable, they can be themselves
and they're not going to experience the same risks that
they might if they went to a regular schoolies celebration.
So I guess this will come too. You've got options.
They can be team focused schoolies, or they can be
parents facilitated schoolies. Ultimately, there's something to celebrate here. High
(12:11):
school is done, and this is a reason for kids
to let their hair down and breathe a little and
even do some stuff independently. I'm all for that, but
it's also an opportunity to celebrate with people that you
love and build relationships and meaning and move in a
positive direction. So hopefully the ideas that we've shared today
will give you some things to consider as your kids
(12:32):
get older and start talking about what schools could be
for them. One more thing that I might add, not
every child wants to go to schoolies like some kids
just want to stay home and work. This is a
great opportunity to earn a whole lot of money. They've
got part time jobs. They're worried about asking their boss
for time off, but if they get stuck in and
do a whole lot of work, they can probably save
a couple of thousand bucks over the next few weeks,
and they can go towards their new car, or the
(12:53):
fit out of the back of their van, or a
wholeiday that they are saving up for at a non
peak period without two or three or four or ten
thousand other schools, So just a bunch of ideas there
that could be useful when it comes to your kids
and schoolies and end of year twelve celebrations. We hope
that this has given you some info and some ideas
for making your family happier. Thanks so much for listening.
The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
(13:15):
Bridge Mediat. Mimhammonds provides research, admin and a whole lot
of other support. If you'd like more info about making
your family happier, you can visit us at happy families
dot com dot a.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
You
This weekend. The action starts on the Gold Coast and
in other places around Australia schoolies celebrations comments. Now, we
know that most people who are listening to the Happy
Families podcast are not sending their year twelve students off
to schoolies. But today's episode is about planting seeds for
how you can have great conversations with your kids to
help them to make safe, healthy choices when it comes
(00:28):
to what's coming up for school is, and really to
paint the picture that schoolies is not the be all
and end all necessary right of passage for every student
finishing year twelve. In fact, we're kind of, how would
you say it, honey, anti? Are we anti schoolers? We're
not big fans of schoolies and we've discouraged our kids
from going.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I think it's really important to have some kind of celebration,
but I wouldn't call it schoolies, right.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
So we're going to talk in today's podcast about how
you can set your kids up for success with either
schoolies by attending or finding alternatives that are going to
work really really well to keep your kids safe and
healthy at a really, really pivotal time of their lives.
Useful for parents of kids at any age. Stay with us.
(01:12):
Hello and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, where you
get real parenting solutions every single day on Australia's most
downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Coulson, parents
have six kids. We've got our fourth daughter finishing year twelve. Well,
I think she's finished. I think the last exam's done.
She's out, she's done, it's all over. We've got the
formal in two days. First day of school is so
(01:33):
the kids are going to be missing that and honey,
it's all happening. We've only got two to go. I
only got two more kids to get through high school.
You look tired.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I'm trying to come up with a clever response, but
I think I just need.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
A pat on the bat and a good lay down. Yeah,
a good laydown, maybe some valiant All right, So today
we're going to talk about school. Is do your kids
need to go? What if they're being to go and
you don't want them to go? I mean, okay, there's
a bunch of different groups. If you're kilfey kids to
go to schoolies and they want to go to school,
is this is not the podcast for you? But if
you've got younger kids and you're watching what happens at
(02:06):
school is and you're just thinking, I don't think this
is in my children's best interest to be there. This
is your podcast, And whether your kids are in prep
or Hindi or first grade, or whether they're in high
school or getting towards the pointy end schools, conversations are
going to come up. And that's what we're going to
discuss today.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I think one of the most important things that we
talk about often is just intention and purpose, and no
matter where your kids are in their stage of schooling,
being prepared for this big event is really important. And
the more intention we have around it, the more we
can be prepared and actually be excited about this rite
(02:43):
of passage for our kids as opposed to dreading it.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we've got four kids who are
now finished high school. None of them have gone to schoolies.
I didn't go to SCHOOLI you didn't go to schoolies.
We're not a schoolies family. And I think it's because
it just doesn't sit with who we are. It doesn't
sit with our morale, with our values. We don't love
the idea of eighteen and seventeen year old kids running
around the Gold Coast at two o'clock of three o'clock
(03:07):
in the morning, completely off their face and looking four
opportunities to make decisions that they will probably regret the
next day and that could actually have catastrophic consequences throughout
the rest of their lives. Am I getting caught up
in the media news beat up? Maybe, But I've heard
enough horror stories to know that while a lot of
people go to schoolers and have a great time, there
are plenty of kids who go to schoolers and don't.
(03:28):
So we've literally just sat down with our kids and said,
we don't want you to go to schoolings, but we'd
love to work with you on alternatives that could be interesting.
And today we present to you four or five alternatives
that could be interesting that may sway your kids away
from schoolings.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
We have a tradition at our house when the kids
turn sixteen, they get two weeks of unfiltered time with us,
you and me. No one else comes along. It's just
them and us, and it is probably one of the
most talked about holidays in our family.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
The girls look forward to anticipation.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Much are talking about it. I know that we're not
talking about sweet sixteen. But if this is something you
haven't done before, this could actually be a really special
thing that you could create a tradition of excitement and
anticipation around a trip that you get to do with
your child.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's a really big one. Now, I
want to highlight a couple of the ideas that were
want to share. To require some finances, and that may
not work for you because your family's just not in
that situation.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
So we've got there in Kinder. You've got lots of times.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, that's right. You can save a lot of money
in the next ten or fifteen years or there about,
and you.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Can actually get your children involved.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
In the savings completely. Yeah. In fact, we've done that
with some of our kids when they want to go
on a different kind of a trip, so we've we've
brought them in, Kylie. I want to extend from your
sweet sixteen idea. A couple of years ago, one of
our friends, his son was finishing year twelve and really
wanted to go to schools with his buds, and dad
just said, I really don't want you to be there.
I'm concerned about what could happen, and I want you
(05:02):
to be safe and healthy. But I've got an idea.
And so with a couple of the other dads of
this boy's best mates, the three dads planned a trip
for the three boys and the six of them went away. Now,
you can do this in Australia, you can do it overseas.
You can do it with a surfing trip. You could
do with a fishing trip, you could do with a
camping trip. You could These guys they all ran their
(05:22):
own businesses and were in a situation where they had
the funds. They went to the US and they watched
basketball and baseball and football games, and they just toured
around a couple of US cities and went to a
whole lot of sports things. And did I mean this
was a trip of a lifetime kind of stuff, which
was I mean, the boys just said this was way
better than going to schoolies.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
When I heard our friends talking about this, I was
just ecstatic, just the idea that dads would rally together
and brilliantly put something together that would be not only
meaningful for their sons, but to be able to experience
it together. It just I was just in awe of them.
I thought it was awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, let me go on a little bit of rand
a little bit of tangent here. Boys need good masculine
role models in their lives and for dads to take
the time out of their busy work lives to sacrifice
time and money to take their kids away. It doesn't
have to be NBA games in the US. I mean
that is kind of extra, but depending on your situation,
you could do any number of things.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
This is also like building their village, right. It's helping
them to see other other good men in their lives
who are role models, who are going to be there
and support them.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And yeah, I just loved it.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So I've let my imagination get away from me a
little bit. And as I made some notes here that
I didn't tell you about it, I wrote down Japan, USA, Barcelona,
Berley and Balley. It doesn't matter, like just that they're
all really aspirational and then maybe they're too big. But
for many families, with planning, and that's why we're having
this conversation now because at school is time. But most
people who have got U twelve kids aren't listening to
the podcast. People with young kids are listening. With planning,
(06:54):
you can start to set the agenda. You can organize
the friendship group, you can organize the mums or the dads.
You could do a mums and girls trip and you
can go and do a retreat in Orbud in Bali,
or you can head across to Queenstown. And like, there
are so many things and with planning, years of planning,
you can save the money, you can make the bookings,
you can get everyone excited and it creates this tradition. Yeah,
(07:15):
our family does this thing when we graduate high school
because school is isn't for us. I'm going to quickly
extend that as well with a follow up and that
is just family trips, so rather than just being mum
and a child who's just graduated, or dad and a
child who's just graduated. I also reckon there's real value
in getting families together. And just recently I've done a
(07:36):
lot of traveling around Australia for my speaking. Just recently
I was in a part of the country that the
Murray River flows through and they were telling me about
how popular it is for people to hire houseboats and
go down the Murray River. I was on the New
South Walest Central Coast recently and people will talking about
how people hire houseboats and go up and down the
Hawksbury River. A few years ago as a family, we
(07:58):
went to the Whitsun and we hide a boat and
we just cruised around the with Sundays. Doing something like
that with one or two or three families is another
really amazing way that we can maximize that we can
boost our children's anticipation for what schoolers can be while
still avoiding the chaos and realistically some of the carnage
(08:19):
that occurs when you get a bunch of seventeen thousands
of seventeen and eighteen year olds and all the toolies
as well together After the break, Kylie, I know you've
got a couple of others that you want to share,
and one or two last ideas to help you to
make plans to help your kids look forward to a
schoolies experience that's a little bit different, a little bit
more wholesome, and hopefully a little bit more healthy. This
(08:48):
is the Happy Families Podcast. If you're enjoying the pod,
please like and review the podcast. We love those five
star reviews. They help other people to find the pod
and make their families happy. Up today, talking about the
different ways that we can celebrate school is with our
kids with them, or set things up so that they
can be successful but not be in risky situations so much.
I think it's been a productive conversation. Kyle, You've got
(09:10):
another one that you wanted to run through.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So I didn't do school, as you've already acknowledged that.
But I grew up in New Zealand, and when I
was ten, we moved to Australia. I had never actually
gone back to New Zealand, so as a seventeen year
old freshly out of high school, my mum and dad
chose to send me to New Zealand with my best friend,
and I went and stayed with all of my relatives
(09:33):
that I hadn't seen for it felt like a lifetime
and got to reconnect with my cousins and see a country.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
That I loved. But I loved it from a ten
year old's point of view.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I got to experience it as a fresh adult, and
that was an experience that I remember for all the
good reasons. And I think that lots of us have
opportunities where we've got either really good family friends on
the other side, or family that our kids could actually
go and have an experience on their own or with
(10:04):
a friend and experience life in.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
A different way.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, teens just love being able to get out of
the house and have some independence. So most of our
ideas so far have been about the kids being with us,
and that can be a really great bonding experience. But
sometimes they just want to hit the open road.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Ah, you're so funny. Our third daughter, she just wanted
to go on a road trip. She took a can
full of friends. They slept in their car.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
They so uncomfortable, but they were palmed. They're like, we're
sleeping in the back of the car. It's going to
be awesome. Like that is not awesome.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
And their idea of a road trip was literally taking
a left turn if they saw something that took their fancy.
Like they they kind of had a loose idea of
where they were going to end up, like from point
A to point B, but anything in between could happen,
and they just had a blast.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Same daughter wanted to go on a road trip with
me recently, and that's when I realized. My idea of
a road trip is you get on the road and
your trip to where you're going. Her idea of a
road trip is it doesn't really She looked at.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Me, and she said, do you like doing road trips
like this? Mom?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
She's like, do we have to keep on driving? Can
we not just stop? Because that looks interesting? I'm like, no,
we're not stopping. We're going somewhere.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And the last idea I've got for you is if
you're part of like a church group or a community group,
often they will actually put on their own events for
their kids.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And so our church for the last twenty plus years
has put on a schoolies trip for everyone who shares
the same values. Friends are welcome as well, but it's
basically if you're coming along, then you buy into what
we're about, which means that X, y, and z these
things don't happen. It probably always going to be some
rule breakers, but generally, but generally speaking, you're sending your
kids off with some adult supervision, minimal, but some adult supervision,
(11:46):
but a whole bunch of kids that shared their values,
which means that they feel comfortable, they can be themselves
and they're not going to experience the same risks that
they might if they went to a regular schoolies celebration.
So I guess this will come too. You've got options.
They can be team focused schoolies, or they can be
parents facilitated schoolies. Ultimately, there's something to celebrate here. High
(12:11):
school is done, and this is a reason for kids
to let their hair down and breathe a little and
even do some stuff independently. I'm all for that, but
it's also an opportunity to celebrate with people that you
love and build relationships and meaning and move in a
positive direction. So hopefully the ideas that we've shared today
will give you some things to consider as your kids
(12:32):
get older and start talking about what schools could be
for them. One more thing that I might add, not
every child wants to go to schoolies like some kids
just want to stay home and work. This is a
great opportunity to earn a whole lot of money. They've
got part time jobs. They're worried about asking their boss
for time off, but if they get stuck in and
do a whole lot of work, they can probably save
a couple of thousand bucks over the next few weeks,
and they can go towards their new car, or the
(12:53):
fit out of the back of their van, or a
wholeiday that they are saving up for at a non
peak period without two or three or four or ten
thousand other schools, So just a bunch of ideas there
that could be useful when it comes to your kids
and schoolies and end of year twelve celebrations. We hope
that this has given you some info and some ideas
for making your family happier. Thanks so much for listening.
The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
(13:15):
Bridge Mediat. Mimhammonds provides research, admin and a whole lot
of other support. If you'd like more info about making
your family happier, you can visit us at happy families
dot com dot a.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
You
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