October 19, 2025 • 17 mins
Your child smashes a TV. Or floods the bathroom. Or writes off the car. What now?
In this episode, Justin and Kylie unpack one of parenting’s trickiest questions: should our kids pay for the damage they cause? You’ll hear real family stories, a breakdown of natural vs logical consequences, and a powerful mindset shift that helps kids take ownership without shame — and keeps relationships intact.
KEY POINTS
- Why “natural consequences” aren’t the same as punishment
- How to teach accountability without blame, guilt, or control
- The “OAR vs BED” principle: helping kids own mistakes and grow from them
- When (and how) to talk about reparations or paying for damages
- How to balance compassion, responsibility, and fairness
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“Discipline isn’t about punishment. It’s about problem solving — together.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- Happy Families Membership
- 10 Things Every Parent Needs to Know by Dr Justin Coulson
- Entitled [Upcoming Live Webinar]
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- When something breaks, pause before reacting.
- Ask: “What does my child need right now?” — not “What consequence fits this?”
- Guide your child toward ownership, accountability, and reparation.
- Keep the relationship more important than the thing.
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):
Every now and again. Children make mistakes, they break things,
they have accidents, and sometimes those things are costly. Should
we be making our children pay for the thing they
broke for the accident that they were a part of
today's conversation natural consequences, accountability and what's fair when it
(00:28):
is their fault or when it's not their fault. We'll
try to answer those questions so that you can navigate
those tricky situations whenever they occur. In just a sec
it's next on the Happy Families podcast. Hello, Welcome to
the Happy Famili's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions. Every single day.
(00:48):
It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast, where Justin and Kylie Coulson. Today, Kylie,
you've asked for the start of the pod. You have
an incident to discuss.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I was talking with some mum friends the other day
and a situation came up. One of my friend's sons
had invited his friend over to play and they were
in the lound room playing with the Wii and the
controller slipped out of his friend's hand and smashed their
(01:22):
brand new TV.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So when I hear you say that, my initial response
is the controller slipped out of his hand, so that
that that strikes me as questionable, Like.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So the mum actually saw it happen.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Oh okay, so it is legit.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So it is legit, okay. And she knew that there
was there was no you know, monkey business going.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
On having a hand trum because he's losing How old
the kids eight? Oh gosh? Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And so her question that she posed to all of
us was, I've never been in a situation where anything
like this has happened before. Do I ask the parents
to replace our TV?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Mm hmm? What was the census?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
The overwhelming response was no, you can't do that. But
there was definitely conversations around the fact that if it
was me, I would be letting the parents know about
the incident, and I would be hoping that they would
offer to kind of help out in some way.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Okay, Well, let me ask you would you agree with that?
Would you let the parents know, Hey just wanted you
to know this happened today, or would you just let
it be? Would you expect that they should be paying
for the TV, especially you've got a brand new TV.
TV's sometimes very expensive. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So I think that relationships matter more than things and
it would depend on the relationship I had with the family,
That's the first thing. And then secondly, I wouldn't be
expecting an eight.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Year old to cough up three or four grand.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Obviously, But I would also like to think that together
as parents, we could think of a way that they
could feel like they have contributed to helping restore something
that they broke, because, regardless if it was an accident
or maliciously done, kids carry the guilt of the experience
(03:17):
more times than not, and giving them a way that
they can make restitution for what has taken place helps
them to feel like they're a good contributor. Okay, So
we've never actually had this experience happen in our home
at all.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Our children have never broken anything accidentally or maliciously.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
No, we haven't had any friends really that have done
any damage.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I thought you're gonna say, we've never had any friends.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
No, but our kids have definitely, and probably more so
with cars. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Well at the other end of the spect we're going
to talk about that a little bit later. So, yeah,
where do we go from here?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, what would you have done if it was if
it was us?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Okay, So I think that I'm really cautious of using
the word consequences because whenever I hear the word consequences,
it usually relates to how should I punish a child?
But there's definitely something to discussed here.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
So why don't you break it down for us? What's
the difference between a natural consequence or a logical consequence?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Okay, so a natural consequence is when the remote flies
out of your hand and hits the TV. It breaks
the TV, and now we don't have a TV anymore.
That's a natural consequence. A logical consequence is completely different.
Let me break it down even more. I think that
it's worth spenning them in on this because I hear
about this on the blogs all the time. I hear
about this on social media all the time, and it's
really important to make the distinction between them. It's one
(04:39):
that I find troubling. I've got to be honest, because
to me, this distinction reveals how adults continue to manipulate
and coerce children even when they think they're being progressive.
So natural consequence, that's what happens on its own without
any adult intervention. You don't wear your jacket, you get cold,
you don't eat, you get hungry. These are not consequences
(05:03):
that are imposed by anyone. They just unfold you naturally. Yeah,
you treat people unkindly in the playground, you likely won't
have any friends. But we need to be careful about
standing back and smugly saying h I knew that was
going to happen, while your child suffers like you're trying
to teach them a lesson. A lot of parents will say, well,
(05:24):
you're just going to experience the natural consequences, and to me,
a compassionate, loving parent will intervene. The natural consequences of
playing too close to the road either you might get
hit by a.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Car, but you'd never do that.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Of course, the natural consequences of placing your hand on
the hot stove is you will burn your hand, and
a parent would say, well, I would never let my
child do that because the stakes are too high, the
risk is too great. I still think that when we
can see quite clearly the natural consequences of AB or C,
it's worth some level of intervention so we can say
to our children, I'm nervous about this. For you, the
natural consequences of you, as a fifteen year old going
(05:59):
out and drinking too much alcohol is that you are
going to hurt yourself or somebody else eventually. This is yeah,
that's right. It's not going to end well here, and
so we do need to I think, intervene and prevent
natural consequences because there are better ways to learn lessons.
Smug I told you so. Ism isn't in the best
interest of our kids. Logical consequences, though, this is where
(06:22):
things get really insidious. So logical consequences are punishments that
are dressed up in reasonable sounding clothing. And what I
mean by that is adults impose them, but then they
claim that they're somehow natural or inevitable. For example, if
you don't put your toys away, I'm going to take
(06:42):
them away for a week, or I'm going to take
the iPad away from you. If you're late to dinner,
you don't get to eat. So that's not a logical consequence.
That's an arbitrary penalty. That's the punishment yeah, that adults
have invented and then enforced because they think that it's
going to teach you less but it teaches all the
wrong lessons. And my question here is, well, why do
(07:03):
kids need to suffer consequences at all? The entire framework
assumes that children only learn through suffering, which is it's
patently false. It's based on behaviorism, which is an old
form of psychology, the idea that we have to manipulate
people through punishments and rewards. But kids are thinking, feeling
people who are trying to make sense of the world,
(07:24):
and they need our help, not our clever punishment schemes.
So for the rest of this conversation and after the break,
we're going to pick this up. Instead of asking what
consequence should I impose because the TV was broken by
their remote control, or because the window was broken, or
the vase was broken by a wayward ball, or somebody
being careless, or because somebody put their shoulder through the
wall because they were wrestling too roudly, or maybe even
(07:46):
they were angry. Instead of saying what consequences should impose?
I think it's much more effective to say, what does
this child need right now? How can I help them
to learn? Discipline is about problem solving, So what problem
are we trying to solve together? That creates a relationship
based on collaboration and trust rather than control, And that's
kind of what I'm working towards. So after the break.
(08:08):
I'm going to talk about why we need kids to
use their or and get out of bed. That sounds exciting,
doesn't it. And we're also going to talk about those
things where things really do happen by accident versus those
things that happen out of anger with intent, and whether
or not problem solving might actually need to include some
form of reparation. So that's coming up in just a sex.
(08:29):
Stay with us. We're talking punishments and consequences and what
to do when mistakes happen or when damage or breakage occurs.
Maybe it's a laptop that's been broken, or perhaps a
car has been crashed, depending on the age of your child,
(08:51):
or maybe.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Or they've left their school jumper at school and lost
it this is like the fourth time this year, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Or perhaps it's Mother's Day and the kids have decided
to give you a bath. They've turned the taps on,
and then they've forgotten to turn the taps off, and
they've flooded downstairs, which happened in our house a few
years ago and cost thousands of dollars in replace.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So I was followed by a twelve hundred mass.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So what do we do here? What do we do
about this. One of my favorite phrases to talk to
parents about is using your ore and getting out of bed.
So the kids when they hear me talking about this,
they roll their eyes like this has been hit so
many times in our house. But when the kids do
something wrong, they often go to blame, excuse, and denial.
That is, they get into bed, blame, excuse, denial. And
(09:38):
I'm really big on saying no, no, no, no, you need
to use it or here, own it, be accountable, show
some responsibility, ownership, accountability, responsibility, Oh a R, that's your ore,
bed blame, excuse and denial. And what I'm really looking
for from a pairing point of view is if my
children are in bed, then they can't be taught, they
(09:58):
can't problem solve, they can't figure out a way to
make sure that this doesn't happen again.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, it's not their fault. So they're not willing to
take responsibility for it. They're not willing to recognize the
part that they may have played in it. There's no
conversation to be happening.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, no accountability and ownership. So what I'm interested in
is what part did you play here? And how can
you own that how can you be accountable? How can
you be responsible? That's what adults do, That's maturity.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
So I'm thinking about the story that we shared last
week on the pod where you destroyed dinner.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yes, thank you for pointing that out. Again.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, I'm sharing it because I don't think it matters
what age you are. We make a mistake. Yes, how
did you feel at the end of that process?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So, I mean, I spent two and a half hours
on dinner and I was devastated. I was absolutely I
was heartbroken because I was so looking forward to the meal.
It was late at night, we were all exhausted and hungry,
and I really I felt like I actually felt like
but instead we laughed and I said, I've completely ruined this.
I was a little bit angry at our twenty one
(11:07):
year old daughter who had told me to buy condensed
milk rather than coconut milk, and I rang her and
told her. But then she felt awful. She almost burst
into tears on the phone. And I felt awful for
bringing guilt into that conversation because it was an honest
mistake on her part, and so I just owned it.
I said, guys, I've ruined dinner. Pizza is on me tonight.
We're eating pizza. What sort of pizza do you want?
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So often when we find ourselves in a place where
somebody makes a mistakes, someone breaks something, whatever, our natural
response is to get angry right and we lay on
the guilt because we want them to understand and recognize
the price that that mistake has cost. And yet you
already knew it. Yes you're an adult, but it doesn't
(11:51):
matter whether you're an adult or a child. You recognize
and feel the guilt and the weight of that mistake.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
So let me share to other egs apples from our family.
We've shared this on the podcast many times, but if
you're a new listener, here's the short version. On day
one of our eldest daughter getting her l's, she asked you, Kylie,
if she could go for a drive, even though I'd
said I'll teach her tonight, Please say no, just take
her to school. You acquiesced, you gave in. She wrote
off the car within the first few minutes of being
behind the wheel, and we just gave her a hug
(12:21):
and said, you know what, mistakes happen. People matter, things don't.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And then the tough flub was you said, you're going
to get in the car and drive.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
That's right, You're going to have to learn to drive
a manual and I will get another one by tonight
and we'll figure this out. We were poor UNI students.
We didn't have the resources for it, but we made
it happen, and now she can competently drive a manual
vehicle and has done for about ten years. The second example, though,
is a twenty one year old daughter who was driving
late at night in my brand new Kia Serato GT
(12:50):
and she hit a kangaroo and wrote my car off.
I think I'd done like twenty thousand kilometers on it.
All theirs it was only it was only very, very new,
and we had explained to all the kids that once
you get a driver's license, if you crash the car,
you will be responsible for the excess for the young
driver excess. We'll cover anything else that's required if necessary,
(13:10):
but you cover the excess, and we did ask her
to do that. There was nothing malicious. It was an accident.
She can't control the kangaroo. She was being attentive. But
she was twenty one years old, she had a part
time job, she had money in the bank, and we
just said, this one's not on us insurance. We'll cover
the rest of the car, but you had the crash
and there is a price to be paid. I don't
(13:30):
know if we did the right thing by the way.
Maybe we did, maybe we didn't. As I'm sharing the story,
I'm feeling quite guilty about the fact that we charged
a twenty one year old a young driver excess. Maybe
we shouldn't have, but in that case, we thought, well,
what needs to happen here. Our daughter needs to understand
that there are costs associated with crashing a car, and
she's very lucky that with a brand new car, a
forty thousand dollars car, it's only going to cost her
(13:52):
two and a half grand.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
When I think about all of these scenarios that we've
spoken about, to me, it always comes down to the
age of the child, the circumstances we find ourselves, and
what's actually happened. So I don't feel guilty that we
charged our twenty one year old the excess because we
had explained to her that part of the risk of
(14:14):
driving a car was that you could be in an accident,
and whether or not you were responsible for that accident
or not, there is an exit there is an excess.
So she understood the risks.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
And she was older and she had the cash. Although
it's still really hurt her.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It really hurt her. Yeah, but she learned really important lessons.
And I think that so often as parents we want
to save our kids from having these experiences and learning well.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I mean, we had another daughter who had three crashes
and that ended up costing her about eight thousand dollars
and we did not lift her out of that. We
just said, you forgot to put the handbrake on, or
you drive up the back of somebody or whatever. The
third one I can't even remember the third one now,
and we just said, this is the price of driving
(14:58):
a car and having an accident, and unfortunately you will
have to carry that cost. Here's the thing problem solving again.
Instead of saying what consequences should impose, we want to
ask what does this child need? How can I help
them learn? What problem are we solving together? And so
we've there's value in having the conversation ahead of time.
(15:18):
With some things you can like driving a car, but
there are also accidents. I just want to emphasize this.
Sometimes that problem solving may include reparations but it should
be worked out together. If our children through a controller
at a TV. Sorry, we're playing a game and a
controllers slipped out of their hand and hit a TV
and broke it in a friend's home and we found
out about it, I would say to the friends, guys,
this is a really awkward and tricky situation. I'm not
(15:41):
sure the best thing to do here, but i would
like my child to make some form of a contribution
to reparations here, and I'd love to bring them in
on it. What do you think would be appropriate? Like,
can they wash cars and mow lawns for a few weeks?
They Can they do something here that's going to help.
I can't expect an eight year old to buy a
new three thousand dollars teave, And as the parent, I
(16:02):
don't necessarily feel responsible for it. The kids were playing
a game. Accidents happen, But I'd like my child too
make sure that they're not in blame, excuse, in denial,
and to have a level of ownership, accountability, and responsibility.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
But that's what's so important about this process. It's about the.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Conversation, about the conversations.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It's actually about the conversation.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, not how much money comes out of one wallet
and goes into another. There we go. We solved the
problems of the world today. I really enjoyed that. That's
a fun thought exercise. I'm glad we've got to talk
about that one. Hey. Tomorrow on the pod, we're going
to talk about those tricky conversations that we encourage you
to have with your kids on Sundays. We've got a
tough question coming up that's tomorrow, and a whole lot more.
(16:40):
Oh Mummy, wine time. I've got an interview on Wednesday
with Victoria Vanstone, the host of the Sober Awkward podcast.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
If you don't mind a tipple, I.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Think that you might enjoy that chat and a whole
lot more. All happening this week on the pod. Thanks
so much to Justin Rulan, who produces the podcast, Mim
Hammond's Looks after reesa admin and other support and if
you'd like more info about making your family happier, we'd
love for you to visit us at happy families dot
com dot you or check out our socials Doctor Justin
Colson's Happy Families on Instagram and Facebook.
Every now and again. Children make mistakes, they break things,
they have accidents, and sometimes those things are costly. Should
we be making our children pay for the thing they
broke for the accident that they were a part of
today's conversation natural consequences, accountability and what's fair when it
(00:28):
is their fault or when it's not their fault. We'll
try to answer those questions so that you can navigate
those tricky situations whenever they occur. In just a sec
it's next on the Happy Families podcast. Hello, Welcome to
the Happy Famili's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions. Every single day.
(00:48):
It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast, where Justin and Kylie Coulson. Today, Kylie,
you've asked for the start of the pod. You have
an incident to discuss.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I was talking with some mum friends the other day
and a situation came up. One of my friend's sons
had invited his friend over to play and they were
in the lound room playing with the Wii and the
controller slipped out of his friend's hand and smashed their
(01:22):
brand new TV.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So when I hear you say that, my initial response
is the controller slipped out of his hand, so that
that that strikes me as questionable, Like.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So the mum actually saw it happen.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Oh okay, so it is legit.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So it is legit, okay. And she knew that there
was there was no you know, monkey business going.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
On having a hand trum because he's losing How old
the kids eight? Oh gosh? Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And so her question that she posed to all of
us was, I've never been in a situation where anything
like this has happened before. Do I ask the parents
to replace our TV?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Mm hmm? What was the census?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
The overwhelming response was no, you can't do that. But
there was definitely conversations around the fact that if it
was me, I would be letting the parents know about
the incident, and I would be hoping that they would
offer to kind of help out in some way.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Okay, Well, let me ask you would you agree with that?
Would you let the parents know, Hey just wanted you
to know this happened today, or would you just let
it be? Would you expect that they should be paying
for the TV, especially you've got a brand new TV.
TV's sometimes very expensive. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So I think that relationships matter more than things and
it would depend on the relationship I had with the family,
That's the first thing. And then secondly, I wouldn't be
expecting an eight.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Year old to cough up three or four grand.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Obviously, But I would also like to think that together
as parents, we could think of a way that they
could feel like they have contributed to helping restore something
that they broke, because, regardless if it was an accident
or maliciously done, kids carry the guilt of the experience
(03:17):
more times than not, and giving them a way that
they can make restitution for what has taken place helps
them to feel like they're a good contributor. Okay, So
we've never actually had this experience happen in our home
at all.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Our children have never broken anything accidentally or maliciously.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
No, we haven't had any friends really that have done
any damage.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I thought you're gonna say, we've never had any friends.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
No, but our kids have definitely, and probably more so
with cars. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Well at the other end of the spect we're going
to talk about that a little bit later. So, yeah,
where do we go from here?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, what would you have done if it was if
it was us?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Okay, So I think that I'm really cautious of using
the word consequences because whenever I hear the word consequences,
it usually relates to how should I punish a child?
But there's definitely something to discussed here.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
So why don't you break it down for us? What's
the difference between a natural consequence or a logical consequence?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Okay, so a natural consequence is when the remote flies
out of your hand and hits the TV. It breaks
the TV, and now we don't have a TV anymore.
That's a natural consequence. A logical consequence is completely different.
Let me break it down even more. I think that
it's worth spenning them in on this because I hear
about this on the blogs all the time. I hear
about this on social media all the time, and it's
really important to make the distinction between them. It's one
(04:39):
that I find troubling. I've got to be honest, because
to me, this distinction reveals how adults continue to manipulate
and coerce children even when they think they're being progressive.
So natural consequence, that's what happens on its own without
any adult intervention. You don't wear your jacket, you get cold,
you don't eat, you get hungry. These are not consequences
(05:03):
that are imposed by anyone. They just unfold you naturally. Yeah,
you treat people unkindly in the playground, you likely won't
have any friends. But we need to be careful about
standing back and smugly saying h I knew that was
going to happen, while your child suffers like you're trying
to teach them a lesson. A lot of parents will say, well,
(05:24):
you're just going to experience the natural consequences, and to me,
a compassionate, loving parent will intervene. The natural consequences of
playing too close to the road either you might get
hit by a.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Car, but you'd never do that.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Of course, the natural consequences of placing your hand on
the hot stove is you will burn your hand, and
a parent would say, well, I would never let my
child do that because the stakes are too high, the
risk is too great. I still think that when we
can see quite clearly the natural consequences of AB or C,
it's worth some level of intervention so we can say
to our children, I'm nervous about this. For you, the
natural consequences of you, as a fifteen year old going
(05:59):
out and drinking too much alcohol is that you are
going to hurt yourself or somebody else eventually. This is yeah,
that's right. It's not going to end well here, and
so we do need to I think, intervene and prevent
natural consequences because there are better ways to learn lessons.
Smug I told you so. Ism isn't in the best
interest of our kids. Logical consequences, though, this is where
(06:22):
things get really insidious. So logical consequences are punishments that
are dressed up in reasonable sounding clothing. And what I
mean by that is adults impose them, but then they
claim that they're somehow natural or inevitable. For example, if
you don't put your toys away, I'm going to take
(06:42):
them away for a week, or I'm going to take
the iPad away from you. If you're late to dinner,
you don't get to eat. So that's not a logical consequence.
That's an arbitrary penalty. That's the punishment yeah, that adults
have invented and then enforced because they think that it's
going to teach you less but it teaches all the
wrong lessons. And my question here is, well, why do
(07:03):
kids need to suffer consequences at all? The entire framework
assumes that children only learn through suffering, which is it's
patently false. It's based on behaviorism, which is an old
form of psychology, the idea that we have to manipulate
people through punishments and rewards. But kids are thinking, feeling
people who are trying to make sense of the world,
(07:24):
and they need our help, not our clever punishment schemes.
So for the rest of this conversation and after the break,
we're going to pick this up. Instead of asking what
consequence should I impose because the TV was broken by
their remote control, or because the window was broken, or
the vase was broken by a wayward ball, or somebody
being careless, or because somebody put their shoulder through the
wall because they were wrestling too roudly, or maybe even
(07:46):
they were angry. Instead of saying what consequences should impose?
I think it's much more effective to say, what does
this child need right now? How can I help them
to learn? Discipline is about problem solving, So what problem
are we trying to solve together? That creates a relationship
based on collaboration and trust rather than control, And that's
kind of what I'm working towards. So after the break.
(08:08):
I'm going to talk about why we need kids to
use their or and get out of bed. That sounds exciting,
doesn't it. And we're also going to talk about those
things where things really do happen by accident versus those
things that happen out of anger with intent, and whether
or not problem solving might actually need to include some
form of reparation. So that's coming up in just a sex.
(08:29):
Stay with us. We're talking punishments and consequences and what
to do when mistakes happen or when damage or breakage occurs.
Maybe it's a laptop that's been broken, or perhaps a
car has been crashed, depending on the age of your child,
(08:51):
or maybe.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Or they've left their school jumper at school and lost
it this is like the fourth time this year, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Or perhaps it's Mother's Day and the kids have decided
to give you a bath. They've turned the taps on,
and then they've forgotten to turn the taps off, and
they've flooded downstairs, which happened in our house a few
years ago and cost thousands of dollars in replace.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So I was followed by a twelve hundred mass.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So what do we do here? What do we do
about this. One of my favorite phrases to talk to
parents about is using your ore and getting out of bed.
So the kids when they hear me talking about this,
they roll their eyes like this has been hit so
many times in our house. But when the kids do
something wrong, they often go to blame, excuse, and denial.
That is, they get into bed, blame, excuse, denial. And
(09:38):
I'm really big on saying no, no, no, no, you need
to use it or here, own it, be accountable, show
some responsibility, ownership, accountability, responsibility, Oh a R, that's your ore,
bed blame, excuse and denial. And what I'm really looking
for from a pairing point of view is if my
children are in bed, then they can't be taught, they
(09:58):
can't problem solve, they can't figure out a way to
make sure that this doesn't happen again.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, it's not their fault. So they're not willing to
take responsibility for it. They're not willing to recognize the
part that they may have played in it. There's no
conversation to be happening.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, no accountability and ownership. So what I'm interested in
is what part did you play here? And how can
you own that how can you be accountable? How can
you be responsible? That's what adults do, That's maturity.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
So I'm thinking about the story that we shared last
week on the pod where you destroyed dinner.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yes, thank you for pointing that out. Again.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, I'm sharing it because I don't think it matters
what age you are. We make a mistake. Yes, how
did you feel at the end of that process?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So, I mean, I spent two and a half hours
on dinner and I was devastated. I was absolutely I
was heartbroken because I was so looking forward to the meal.
It was late at night, we were all exhausted and hungry,
and I really I felt like I actually felt like
but instead we laughed and I said, I've completely ruined this.
I was a little bit angry at our twenty one
(11:07):
year old daughter who had told me to buy condensed
milk rather than coconut milk, and I rang her and
told her. But then she felt awful. She almost burst
into tears on the phone. And I felt awful for
bringing guilt into that conversation because it was an honest
mistake on her part, and so I just owned it.
I said, guys, I've ruined dinner. Pizza is on me tonight.
We're eating pizza. What sort of pizza do you want?
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So often when we find ourselves in a place where
somebody makes a mistakes, someone breaks something, whatever, our natural
response is to get angry right and we lay on
the guilt because we want them to understand and recognize
the price that that mistake has cost. And yet you
already knew it. Yes you're an adult, but it doesn't
(11:51):
matter whether you're an adult or a child. You recognize
and feel the guilt and the weight of that mistake.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
So let me share to other egs apples from our family.
We've shared this on the podcast many times, but if
you're a new listener, here's the short version. On day
one of our eldest daughter getting her l's, she asked you, Kylie,
if she could go for a drive, even though I'd
said I'll teach her tonight, Please say no, just take
her to school. You acquiesced, you gave in. She wrote
off the car within the first few minutes of being
behind the wheel, and we just gave her a hug
(12:21):
and said, you know what, mistakes happen. People matter, things don't.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And then the tough flub was you said, you're going
to get in the car and drive.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
That's right, You're going to have to learn to drive
a manual and I will get another one by tonight
and we'll figure this out. We were poor UNI students.
We didn't have the resources for it, but we made
it happen, and now she can competently drive a manual
vehicle and has done for about ten years. The second example, though,
is a twenty one year old daughter who was driving
late at night in my brand new Kia Serato GT
(12:50):
and she hit a kangaroo and wrote my car off.
I think I'd done like twenty thousand kilometers on it.
All theirs it was only it was only very, very new,
and we had explained to all the kids that once
you get a driver's license, if you crash the car,
you will be responsible for the excess for the young
driver excess. We'll cover anything else that's required if necessary,
(13:10):
but you cover the excess, and we did ask her
to do that. There was nothing malicious. It was an accident.
She can't control the kangaroo. She was being attentive. But
she was twenty one years old, she had a part
time job, she had money in the bank, and we
just said, this one's not on us insurance. We'll cover
the rest of the car, but you had the crash
and there is a price to be paid. I don't
(13:30):
know if we did the right thing by the way.
Maybe we did, maybe we didn't. As I'm sharing the story,
I'm feeling quite guilty about the fact that we charged
a twenty one year old a young driver excess. Maybe
we shouldn't have, but in that case, we thought, well,
what needs to happen here. Our daughter needs to understand
that there are costs associated with crashing a car, and
she's very lucky that with a brand new car, a
forty thousand dollars car, it's only going to cost her
(13:52):
two and a half grand.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
When I think about all of these scenarios that we've
spoken about, to me, it always comes down to the
age of the child, the circumstances we find ourselves, and
what's actually happened. So I don't feel guilty that we
charged our twenty one year old the excess because we
had explained to her that part of the risk of
(14:14):
driving a car was that you could be in an accident,
and whether or not you were responsible for that accident
or not, there is an exit there is an excess.
So she understood the risks.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
And she was older and she had the cash. Although
it's still really hurt her.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It really hurt her. Yeah, but she learned really important lessons.
And I think that so often as parents we want
to save our kids from having these experiences and learning well.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I mean, we had another daughter who had three crashes
and that ended up costing her about eight thousand dollars
and we did not lift her out of that. We
just said, you forgot to put the handbrake on, or
you drive up the back of somebody or whatever. The
third one I can't even remember the third one now,
and we just said, this is the price of driving
(14:58):
a car and having an accident, and unfortunately you will
have to carry that cost. Here's the thing problem solving again.
Instead of saying what consequences should impose, we want to
ask what does this child need? How can I help
them learn? What problem are we solving together? And so
we've there's value in having the conversation ahead of time.
(15:18):
With some things you can like driving a car, but
there are also accidents. I just want to emphasize this.
Sometimes that problem solving may include reparations but it should
be worked out together. If our children through a controller
at a TV. Sorry, we're playing a game and a
controllers slipped out of their hand and hit a TV
and broke it in a friend's home and we found
out about it, I would say to the friends, guys,
this is a really awkward and tricky situation. I'm not
(15:41):
sure the best thing to do here, but i would
like my child to make some form of a contribution
to reparations here, and I'd love to bring them in
on it. What do you think would be appropriate? Like,
can they wash cars and mow lawns for a few weeks?
They Can they do something here that's going to help.
I can't expect an eight year old to buy a
new three thousand dollars teave, And as the parent, I
(16:02):
don't necessarily feel responsible for it. The kids were playing
a game. Accidents happen, But I'd like my child too
make sure that they're not in blame, excuse, in denial,
and to have a level of ownership, accountability, and responsibility.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
But that's what's so important about this process. It's about the.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Conversation, about the conversations.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It's actually about the conversation.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, not how much money comes out of one wallet
and goes into another. There we go. We solved the
problems of the world today. I really enjoyed that. That's
a fun thought exercise. I'm glad we've got to talk
about that one. Hey. Tomorrow on the pod, we're going
to talk about those tricky conversations that we encourage you
to have with your kids on Sundays. We've got a
tough question coming up that's tomorrow, and a whole lot more.
(16:40):
Oh Mummy, wine time. I've got an interview on Wednesday
with Victoria Vanstone, the host of the Sober Awkward podcast.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
If you don't mind a tipple, I.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Think that you might enjoy that chat and a whole
lot more. All happening this week on the pod. Thanks
so much to Justin Rulan, who produces the podcast, Mim
Hammond's Looks after reesa admin and other support and if
you'd like more info about making your family happier, we'd
love for you to visit us at happy families dot
com dot you or check out our socials Doctor Justin
Colson's Happy Families on Instagram and Facebook.
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