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July 21, 2025 • 15 mins

What happens when your child becomes the parent — even just for a day? In this episode, we unpack last night’s Parental Guidance challenge, where kids were asked to care for a realistic baby doll, revealing what they’ve learned from their parents’ example. From “cry-it-out” methods to family role clarity, and even the silent weight of unappreciated parents — this conversation is a wake-up call for every mum and dad. Are you raising future chair stackers, or scorekeepers?

KEY POINTS:

  • Kids reflect the parenting they see — sometimes in ways we don’t expect.
  • Why “cry-it-out” for babies is controversial and why we generally recommend avoiding it (especially under 6 months).
  • The hidden harm of parenting with threats and power-centred comments.
  • The trap of seeking validation from your children instead of giving without expectation.
  • Why clarity in family roles, self-awareness, and communication are critical.
  • The concept of raising “chair stackers” — children (and future adults) who see and meet needs without keeping score.

QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:

"If there was one gift I could give every parent, it would be the gift of self-awareness — the ability to see how your children experience you." - Justin Coulson

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

  • Upcoming book: Boys by Justin Coulson (on raising “chair stackers”).
  • More parenting resources at: happyfamilies.com.au

ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS:

  1. Reflect honestly: What do your kids see and learn from the way you react under stress?
  2. If you’ve used cry-it-out methods, consider alternatives and seek support if you’re struggling.
  3. Have a conversation with your partner (and even your kids) about family roles and whether everyone feels the load is fair and balanced.
  4. Let go of the need for validation from your kids — parenting is about giving.
  5. Start encouraging the “chair stacker” mindset in your kids by modelling it yourself.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
The last big episode of Parental Guidance Season three, Episode
four hit the screens last night. Hopefully you're able to
watch it. Really important conversation around mental health issues to
do with our children, young people, but even ourselves. There
was so much in this Hello, Welcome to the Happy
Families Podcast, Real parenting Solutions every Day. This is Australia's

(00:26):
most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Coulson. Kylie,
so much to talk about. We're going to tackle a
couple of the big topics from last night across this
week on the podcast. Let's just do a quick catch
up on who our parents are.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Josh and Cassie we are the life school parents. We
live in our caravan.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
We learned from real life experiences while giving our kids freedom.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Nick and Sophia we're the positivity parents, where confidence is key.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Elvi and Sean the idea authoritative parents.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
We have high expectations children were set to strict rules
and boundaries and.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
Mandarin has Son.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
We are the hard way parents.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
We do things the hard way, no shortcuts. It's hard
on us, but grateful the kids. So our brand new
week and we've turned our attention to mental health how
camparents lay a strong foundation for good mental health for
their children. Right now, mental health issues among kids and
young adults are at an all time high. Australia is

(01:29):
in the middle of a mental health crisis, particularly for
young people, with stress, anxiety, depression and self harm all
on the rise. As parents, the strongest defense is helping
kids build emotional well being, connections and resilience. And Kylie,

(01:50):
this is what our first challenge was.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
We gave them a realistic toddler doll to look after.
Do they know how to be nurturing towards the baby?
How to meet its needs? So what have your kids
picked up from you? The role models in their life?

Speaker 5 (02:07):
How do you really parent?

Speaker 4 (02:10):
To find out give your children a chance to act
as parents.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
The new baby is waiting? Are you ready? Why don't
stop crying?

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Why if they live it here? And just way to
stop crying?

Speaker 3 (02:27):
We did implement cry out approach really strictly.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Twelve month of cry out approach.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Even though Stacey cry really loud up to an hour,
we still pretend not hearing that.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Where I know I have had for you?

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 5 (02:54):
For you.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
So Carli, first off, let's talk about the authoritative parents
and how they've responded to having this screaming, annoying little doll.
It makes a lot of noise. But what did you
identify as you were watching that?

Speaker 5 (03:10):
I think Elvie has made no apologies for the kind
of mother that she is, and she's acknowledged that compliments
and nurturing don't come naturally to her.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, really high expectations, quite strict.

Speaker 5 (03:25):
Yeah, and as a result, I wasn't surprised at all
to see the way the girls responded to the doll.
I firstly, don't think they actually took the challenge seriously,
I would agree at all, and so I think it's
probably a little bit unfair to judge them entirely based
on their unwillingness to engage in the activity.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yep, completely agree.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
But it was pretty hard to watch to just, you know,
hear them making fun of the baby while the baby
was crying and suggesting that they were just going to
leave the baby until it cried it out. As a mum, obviously,
my heart's kind of aching a little bit knowing that
a baby cries for a reason, and our job is

(04:13):
a parent, the nurturer, the care is to find out
what's wrong.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
So on the TV show, I had to be very
careful about what I said around things like crying it out.
But let me be a little bit more direct here
on the pod. I feel like we can say stuff
on the pod that we probably wouldn't say on national TV.
I don't know why it's different, because we've got a
lot of people who listen to the pod as well.
So I'll be really really direct about this. Number One,
the evidence around crying it out is challenging. There's some

(04:38):
evidence I think that's reasonable that says that it's better
if you don't do it, but overwhelmingly it's really hard
to find evidence one way or the other. The real
issue is that as parents, we hate it. It absolutely sucks.
The other thing that I did say on the show,
and I was really clear about this, is if your
child is under the age of six months, you should never, absolutely, ever,
under no circumstances should you be using a cry it

(04:59):
out method. I did say in the room, and they
didn't quite have the chance to elaborate on it because
of timing in the show. But there is going to
be an argument for cright out if your well being
is suffering, like if you've got post another depression. If
you are not coping, if you're stress and anxiety levels
through the roof. Sometimes you just need to get enough
sleep and that might mean using that technique. Personally, I

(05:22):
don't like it. I'm generally opposed to it except in
the rarest of circumstances. But these kids that's their go to,
And I think it's because I've got parents who are
fairly strict. It's like, stop it, or there's no iPad,
that kind of thing, right, Number one, don't give a
baby an iPad. But number two, kids learn what they
live and if you live with threats, and if you

(05:42):
live with assertive, power centric comments, then you will learn
that and mimic that. And that's what we saw there
and it's definitely worth the conversation. However, what we really
need to talk about is what happened with the positivity parents.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Who was mummy? Who was daddy? Your mom?

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Dad is changing?

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Bonnie?

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, don't you think mom should have done most of
the work.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Who dresses you in the morning, he addresses you for dance?

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Who dresses you when you finish dance?

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Like?

Speaker 2 (06:18):
The only time dad dresses you is maybe if he
gives you a shower.

Speaker 5 (06:21):
We got that and.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
Like dad does, and then.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
I address you all the time.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
Dad dresses us at night, and it was.

Speaker 5 (06:35):
I don't think you do.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Are you just like competing though, like with like who
cares who's doing it?

Speaker 2 (06:42):
It's got nothing to do with competition. It's got to
do with I'm taking care of my child. And I
hope she knows that. I just wanted her to be truthful.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
Was that about accuracy or is it more about you
needing validation?

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Part of me was like, she honestly doesn't think Dad
is the one dressing I'm with them twenty four hours
a day, raising a human that I want to be
truthful and honest.

Speaker 5 (07:11):
Oh this was hard to watch, and you really hit
the mark when you suggested to Sophia that she actually
wasn't as interested about her child being honest and truthful
from her own perspective. She needed the validation that she
was doing everything.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
I mean, there's the truth and then there's how you
see it and how I see it. And some people
are closer to the truth higher levels of self awareness,
some people have lower levels of self awareness. We actually
had another intervention, you know how last week I went
out with the life school parents and we had a
conversation about reading and their children's literacy. Well, we also
had another conversation about this topic with Nick and Sophia. Unfortunately,

(07:55):
again because of timing, we just couldn't quite squeeze it
in and it didn't work with everywhere else the show
is going. But this idea of self awareness, the willingness
to hear another person's perspective and recognize that from their perspective,
they're probably right, and to be humble enough to recognize
that sometimes our perspectives are seen through our own filters.
It's just so important. If there was one gift that

(08:16):
I could give every single person on the planet, it
would be the gift of self awareness. That might be
catastrophic and devastating for some people to discover where they're
really at. But as a parent, it's so important that
we can see how we are responding to our children,
that we can have that mirror held up to us
and have that level of self awareness.

Speaker 5 (08:35):
I think that the challenge we have as parents is
we know how much effort we're putting in, we know
how much we're sacrificing, we know how much we're giving
up for our children, and when our children don't recognize that.
It's like a sucker punch to your heart. It's so
hard to be giving all day, every day and not

(08:59):
have anyone notice what's going on.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, and that's that conversation that I had in the room, right,
that was that conversation around as a parent, I actually
believe this. Your role as a parent is to give
and given, given, given, given, not get anything in return.
It's an unfair relationship. It's completely unequal relationship. It always
has been and it always will be. That's the nature
of parenting. And when you start demanding appreciation, when you

(09:21):
start demanding some sort of equal input, you just end
up being frustrated and disappointed and feeling like being a
parent's the worst job ever.

Speaker 5 (09:29):
But I don't think our children should know how much
we give up for them.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
They can't know. That's the point that I made in
the room. They actually can't know.

Speaker 5 (09:37):
But I don't think it's fair to want them to know,
Like would you ever want them to know, like the
challenge and the hardship that you go through for them,
Like I don't want my child ever carrying that weight.
I want. All I want them to know is that
everything I did was in the name of love.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Wouldn't mind if they did the dishes now and then.

Speaker 5 (09:57):
That would be nice.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, but that's the key point, and I'm really glad
to raise that. All right after break a little bit
more to talk about that came from the Positivity parents.
One thing to consider in your relationship is clarity around
roles and responsibilities. And that's what I would pick up

(10:19):
on now in terms of the challenge that the Positivity Parents'
kids got involved in. So in our case and seemingly
mostly in theirs as well, it's the more traditional model.
But to me, the most important point that I want
to make here is that having good communication around how
the household functions, that's the critical point.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
As positive parents, we definitely do fall into a traditional
family role.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
I stay at home.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
I do all the things that you know mum does,
Guy cook, Kai clean, I shoup. I take care of
the kids. I take them absolutely everywhere.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
I take care of Nick.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
It is a traditional role. And then again it's not
because he'll then load the dishwasher.

Speaker 5 (11:05):
Hey, I'm not not feeding her mother, here, go wash
the dishes. No, you wash the dishes. The dad always
washed the We have regular conversations with our children about
when these kinds of conversations need to take place. It's

(11:28):
not once you're living together. No, No, that is way
too late. We actually encourage our kids to start having
those kinds of conversations the division of responsibility while they're dating.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, like not on the first date, but as you
start to get into a more serious relationships, like so,
who's going to work? And how are they going to work?
And what if we both want to work?

Speaker 5 (11:49):
And what if I don't want to work? Or what
if I want to stay home and look after the children.
Do you have a problem with that? And who's going
to take out the rubbish and who's going to mow
the lawn? Like it seems like like trivial conversations until
you're living it and you recognize that you are not aligned.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
So something that I've written about in quite a lot
of detail in my upcoming Boys book is that we
encourage our daughters to look for the chair stackers. And
what we mean by that is it's pretty well recognized
and acknowledged, And we talked about this a lot of
the podcast that as a general rule, the emotional load
and the cognitive load is carried primarily by mum in
the household is often unseen, and much of it you

(12:29):
can't put on a to do list. And so our
conversation with our girls is look for the chair stackers.
That is, at the end of the night, when the
event's over, who's stacking the chairs. Because the guys that
sign up to stack the chairs, the guys that see
the need and fulfill it, the guys that provide a bonus,
extra value. They're the guys you want to look out
for because when you end up in a long term relationship,

(12:51):
when you get married, you want the guy who's the
chair stacker. You want the guy who doesn't need to
be asked what to do. You want the guy who
sees that there's a need and he goes and satisfies it. Oh,
it looks like my wife is working late tonight. I
better go and get on with dinner. I don't need
to ask what is going to be for dinner. I'm
just going to go and make the decision because I'm
capable of doing it. I've got a brain in my

(13:11):
head and I can do that stuff. Look for the
chair stackers.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
I'm really glad you shared that. I think too often
couples go into a relationship thinking that fifty to fifty
and even split is the way to go. And the
challenge with that is if I'm doing what I consider
my fifty percent, but the other person isn't, why would
I want to pick up their load because I'm already
doing my full amount?

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah? Yeah, I don't think scorecards work in marriage. There
has to be You can't have a passenger parent, somebody
who's literally along for the ride like that. That's unfair.
But if you're both working as a team, I mean,
I believe in the one hundred hundred marriage right behind.

Speaker 5 (13:53):
Well, sometimes I give one hundred and twenty percent, other
times it's you. I think about a team, right and
if one of our players breaks leg he's on the sideline,
does that mean he's not part of the team anymore?
Does that mean he's not pulling his weight? The team
rally around him in spite of the fact that he's
not there. They fill in the gap until he's able
to get back on track.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
And they don't look at the poor guy and get
all resentful and say, oh, for goodness sakes, just get
up and do it anyway, Like there's a willingness to
work as a team I guess is at the heart
of it ches Stackers. I mean, this was a really
interesting conversation. I was absorbed by what happened in this challenge.
It seemed like it was fairly basic stuff, looking after

(14:32):
a doll, how much you're really going to learn. I
know that they don't all take it seriously, but it
led to some really fascinating conversations. Speaking of there was
one more family our life school parents, the family of
five boys. They were pretty rambunctious, and I don't know
that they took it extremely seriously. It looked like they
were having just a lot of fun with this particular challenge.

(14:55):
But the conversation that happened after they did the challenge,
that's when this happened. And I'm really anti that boys
will be boys.

Speaker 5 (15:02):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
It really does stereotype type of behavior that is not okay.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
That's tomorrow on the Happy Families podcast, which is produced
by Justin Roland from Bridge Media. We really appreciate Craig Bruce,
our executive producer for this parental guidance series, and Mimahammond,
who provides additional support and admin. The Happy Families podcasts
will be back tomorrow If you'd like more information and
more resource to make your family happier, you can visit
us at Happy families dot com. Do AU
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