October 30, 2025 • 12 mins
When your kids shut down or seem totally uninterested - whether it’s a conversation, a hobby, or music lessons - it can feel like you’re wasting your time (and money). But this week, Justin and Kylie share two powerful reminders that patience, play, and connection go further than pressure ever will.
From a heartwarming drum lesson breakthrough to a car trip conversation that turned a reluctant teen into a chatterbox, this episode will make you rethink what “progress” really looks like in parenting.
KEY POINTS
- Why letting kids explore without rigid outcomes can create lasting motivation.
- The surprising benefits of range - letting kids tinker, dabble, and find their spark.
- How to turn “silent car rides” into meaningful, laughter-filled conversations.
- Why structured lessons and “by the book” learning don’t always lead to love or creativity.
- The simple mindset shift that makes family connection feel natural again.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“It’s not about an outcome. It’s about giving your kids the space to explore - because you never know where it will lead.” — Kylie Coulson
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- Relationship Rules by Dr Justin Coulson
- Range by David Epstein
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Let them play. Focus less on outcomes, more on enjoyment and exploration.
- Ask better questions. Try open-ended conversation starters on long drives or walks.
- Be patient. Creativity and connection grow slowly—don’t rush the process.
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 (00:05):
Hello, this is The Happy Family's podcast. It's Friday and
we feel good about that. Hopefully you do as well.
The weekend's just around the corner, and every Friday on
the Happy Families Podcast we reflect on the week that was,
what worked, didn't It's called all to do about it?
Tomorrow we try to figure out how we can be
more intentional and I don't know, just figure out this
parenting thing. What's working, what's not and why and how
(00:26):
do we do more of the stuff that works. Today
a win for me as I figured out how to
have conversations with my kids when they don't really want
to talk at all. Plus, Kylie has had an insight
in terms of why we spend all this money on
extra curricular activities when it looks like the kids aren't
enjoying it. Nothing's happening. Stay with us. Hello and welcome
(00:50):
to The Happy Families Podcast. Real Parenting Solutions every single
day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast, where Justin and
Kylie Colson. Normally a whole lot of housekeepings, Kylie, but
today there's none. There's literally none. We're at the end
of the month, last day of October and there's nothing
to get excited about. Our old do better tomorrow. So
it's straight over to you. What is your big aha,
(01:11):
your insight, your whoopsie? What have we got?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Samily has only had a few extracurricular activities booked in
this year, and one of them has been music lessons.
We found a teacher who happens to live in our street,
which makes this amazingly convenient.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
No more rushing to get into the car her up. We'
going to be late. It's just up you go, and
she walks like one hundred and fifty meters up the
street and she's there.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It's great, amazing. But what is extra special about her teacher, Dan,
is that he has just this incredible way to work
with busy kids. He doesn't sit them down and expect
that they're going to do forty five minutes of this hardcore,
you know, intensive practice. He actually has a studio setup
and they will move from the drums to the guitar
(01:56):
to the piano and just tinker.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Before you talk about wherever you go to go here.
This has been a source of frustration for me because,
as somebody who learned music the traditional way, sitting in
front of the piano and learning how to read notation
and learning the structure of chords and that kind of thing.
I find it really frustrating that Emily can't read music.
And yet everything that I know from scientific research, especially
(02:21):
David Epstein's book Range, is that the more kids just
play around with a whole lot of stuff, the more
they figure out what they like, the more they come
to a nice broad understanding of everything, like range, breadth.
It gives them depth over time. And she's only eleven
right now. We just care about her enjoying it. Nevertheless, Well,
I really.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
The parent who's paying the bills, and you're wanting to
have an outcome. You're wanting to.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
See grade eight.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I want G eight piano. Come on, you want to
see that this is a good investment.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
And so we've definitely had conversations out had the last
little while because we invested in a drum kit, and
I would say that we get very little.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I might just add it was an electric drum kit,
because there was no way that we were going to
have a real thing in the house.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Oh my god, But she doesn't play it very often.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
No drives me up the wall.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
And when we started lessons Dan actually said to her,
what is it that you're interested? And she said, I
just want to learn the drums, And he said, what
about the guitar, what about the piano. She's like, nope,
just the drums, like completely.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Close, really rigid, concrete.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
And then she would come home and she'd be like, mum,
guess what I learned today, and she'd get on the
piano and I'd be like, yea, what's going on. I'm
paying for drum lessons.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And then and your fingering is all wrong, like this
is not right. That's how I'm feeling, like, come on.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Anyway, long story short. A couple of days ago, Dan
sent me a video and I can't stop watching this video,
nor can I get the grin off my face. This
kid has picked up this drum beat and she's literally
playing alongside her teacher who's singing and playing the guitar,
and she just looks like an absolute pro.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah. I love watching this. Here comes the field. You're ready,
(04:43):
so good, so good? Hang on, we need we need
to finish.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Oh my god, there we go.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I just it's pretty fun when you've got this. Childhood
doesn't seem to be interested, doesn't seem to be practicing
doesn't seem to have any motivation for it at all.
And then you get a video and she's jamming with
the music teacher in the studio up the.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Road, and I think for me, just going through that
process of you know, kind of finding someone who's going
to be a good match and then having an expectation
of what it's going to look like, and it doesn't
come close to meeting the expectations. You wanted her to
learn music and be able to read it and go
through this very formalized, structured process of lessons, and what
(05:32):
she's got is this mismatched mixed match, like just just
almost it feels like ad hoc lessons that have created
this space for her to explore and to try new
things in a really relaxed setting. She doesn't feel like
(05:52):
she has to perform for anyone, and she's really enjoying
the process.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah. So in that Range book that I was talking
about some stuff on this kind of thing, and I
have to keep reminding myself of this because it just
doesn't fit with what I think should be happening. But
in the book, he's really clearly the research seems to
indicate that getting that range, getting that breadth. Eventually she'll
figure it out. You don't want to pick too early.
And so one of our other daughters plays the guitar,
(06:19):
and she started the guitar and quit the guitar at
least four times and drove us up the wall and
still really didn't quite work out in notation or anything.
But what's happened is they've learned to be creative with
the music and they're really into making up their own stuff.
Whereas I learned to play by the book. But that's
all I can do. I have no idea how to improvise.
I've got no idea how to make stuff up and compose.
(06:41):
I just my brain hasn't been taught to do that.
Because I sat down and I did the Suzuki memo,
I just learned, you read this, you listen to that,
you play this way. And honestly, I didn't like it,
and so I didn't stick with it, and now I
kind of regret it. But I watched what the kids
can do. I know this is you're I'll do better tomorrow,
but I didn't mean to hijack it. But watching that,
(07:04):
it just it gets me excited again. It's like, this
is why you pay the money, and it's okay if
the kids aren't following the quote unquite traditional pathway. What
are you smiling at? You're laughing at me? Well, I'm
waxing lyrical about our daughter's drumming.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
No, I just watched all of the girls. They've done
things very differently, and they've been very sporadic with their
music lessons. But the other day, when I was doing
a bit of a clear out, I messaged down and
I said, I needed one of the guitars really strung.
Do you think that you could do that? And he said, yes,
send it up, that's fine. He brought it back and
that afternoon our eldest daughter showed up. It was her
(07:36):
guitar I completely forgotten seven years. And she came into
the living room and she picked it up and she
just started strumming like I've never heard her play like this,
And she was so excited that not only could she
remember playing this song, but that she had her guitar.
And I said, you can take it home, that's one
(07:56):
last thing.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
But she was pumped. Yeah, so old do better tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Is the takeout messages, the investment of time for your
children to explore. It's not actually about an outcome. It's
actually about giving them the opportunity to explore options.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Love it.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
It's so important because you have no idea where you're
going to end up.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Brilliant. Hey, after the break, I nailed it. I nailed
it with a child who did not want to talk
on Sunday morning. Just nailed it. Can't wait to tell
you that's next. You're back. This is the Happy Family's podcast.
If you enjoy what you're hear, give us follow and
(08:41):
share the podcast with your friends so that they can
make their families HAPPI erup, Kylie Miyol. Do Better Tomorrow
is a really simple one. In my book Relationship Rules,
I've got all these conversation starters. Part one is about
how we're supposed to talk, things like put your device down,
like stop, look and listen, meet each other's eyes, that
kind of thing. Part two of the book is what
should we talk about? Part three is about having tricky conversations.
(09:02):
So on Sunday, I had to drive like two and
a half hours down the road. It was a long drive.
I was very excited about it. A couple of kids
had to come with me. They weren't excited about it either,
and I said, you know what we're going to do.
We're going to go through relationship rules. We're going to
go through part two, and we're just going to answer
all these questions and have these conversations. And our fifteen
year old daughter and our eighteen year old daughter looked
(09:23):
at me and rolled their eyes and they were like, really,
like do we have to? And I said, yeah, yeah,
actually we do. I opened up the book. I asked
the first question, what are you looking forward to? That
was it? An hour later we were still talking about
just that question. Our fifteen year old daughter did not
want to be involved. She had misery all over her face.
(09:44):
I'm not looking forward to anything. I'm looking forward to
when I can ride a horse again. But as Annie
and I talked about what we were looking forward to,
the conversation just took on a life of its own,
and we're in so many different directions. And that required
me to ask questions of Annie and for her to
really be willing to elaborate. Oh, we had such fun.
I can't believe I just said, like, I sound like
I'm my grandma or something like that. We had such fun.
(10:06):
I feel like I like I'm reading and needed Blaton book.
But we had such fun, and then the second question
and the third question, and pretty soon we're talking about
if you're reading a book and you get up to
the and it's a book of your life, and you
get up to today, do you keep reading to find
out what happens next year and the year after and
next decade, and do you keep reading or do you stop?
And really just so many fun questions. We got to
(10:29):
some of the values questions and they're like, not boring,
keep going. They just want to do all the fun ones.
But Kylie, two and a half hours passed in an instant,
and we just had this great conversation all the way
out there, lots of fun, lots of laughter, and even
the recalcitrant, reluctant, unwilling, moody, gripey, fifteen year old ended
(10:49):
up getting right into it and enjoying it. So my
old better tomorrow is grab a copy of relationship Rules
and start, I'm just kidding, start having conversations with the
kids about things that are fun and compelling an interest.
Just start, just invite them into conversations, ask them questions,
and then keep that conversation going by asking more questions.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well, it sounds like I should have been in your car.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
What did you talk about in your car dating?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
And well the serious.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the problem. Right, We've got
so many kids and we've gotten our big car because
we didn't think we need a big car anymore. But
every now and again we've got to go somewhere a
long way and we've got to take two cars because
we don't have a big car. There's an older better tomorrow.
Make sure you're upside or downside at the right time.
Don't go to the world conversations where the kids can
be fun. You've just got to really make the effort,
and we did that. Anyway. We hope that there's some
(11:40):
inspiration for you here, whether it has to do with
getting the kids involved in extra activities like music lessons
or just having those fun conversations. There's just delight and
joy in family life, and we hope you're finding plenty
of that, especially this weekend. Baby Family's podcast is produced
by Justin Ruhland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides research,
admin and others, and if you'd like more resources to
(12:01):
make your family happier, like the book Relationship Rules, you'll
find it. All of Happy families, dot com, dot au,
Hello, this is The Happy Family's podcast. It's Friday and
we feel good about that. Hopefully you do as well.
The weekend's just around the corner, and every Friday on
the Happy Families Podcast we reflect on the week that was,
what worked, didn't It's called all to do about it?
Tomorrow we try to figure out how we can be
more intentional and I don't know, just figure out this
parenting thing. What's working, what's not and why and how
(00:26):
do we do more of the stuff that works. Today
a win for me as I figured out how to
have conversations with my kids when they don't really want
to talk at all. Plus, Kylie has had an insight
in terms of why we spend all this money on
extra curricular activities when it looks like the kids aren't
enjoying it. Nothing's happening. Stay with us. Hello and welcome
(00:50):
to The Happy Families Podcast. Real Parenting Solutions every single
day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast, where Justin and
Kylie Colson. Normally a whole lot of housekeepings, Kylie, but
today there's none. There's literally none. We're at the end
of the month, last day of October and there's nothing
to get excited about. Our old do better tomorrow. So
it's straight over to you. What is your big aha,
(01:11):
your insight, your whoopsie? What have we got?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Samily has only had a few extracurricular activities booked in
this year, and one of them has been music lessons.
We found a teacher who happens to live in our street,
which makes this amazingly convenient.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
No more rushing to get into the car her up. We'
going to be late. It's just up you go, and
she walks like one hundred and fifty meters up the
street and she's there.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It's great, amazing. But what is extra special about her teacher, Dan,
is that he has just this incredible way to work
with busy kids. He doesn't sit them down and expect
that they're going to do forty five minutes of this hardcore,
you know, intensive practice. He actually has a studio setup
and they will move from the drums to the guitar
(01:56):
to the piano and just tinker.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Before you talk about wherever you go to go here.
This has been a source of frustration for me because,
as somebody who learned music the traditional way, sitting in
front of the piano and learning how to read notation
and learning the structure of chords and that kind of thing.
I find it really frustrating that Emily can't read music.
And yet everything that I know from scientific research, especially
(02:21):
David Epstein's book Range, is that the more kids just
play around with a whole lot of stuff, the more
they figure out what they like, the more they come
to a nice broad understanding of everything, like range, breadth.
It gives them depth over time. And she's only eleven
right now. We just care about her enjoying it. Nevertheless, Well,
I really.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
The parent who's paying the bills, and you're wanting to
have an outcome. You're wanting to.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
See grade eight.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I want G eight piano. Come on, you want to
see that this is a good investment.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
And so we've definitely had conversations out had the last
little while because we invested in a drum kit, and
I would say that we get very little.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I might just add it was an electric drum kit,
because there was no way that we were going to
have a real thing in the house.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Oh my god, But she doesn't play it very often.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
No drives me up the wall.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
And when we started lessons Dan actually said to her,
what is it that you're interested? And she said, I
just want to learn the drums, And he said, what
about the guitar, what about the piano. She's like, nope,
just the drums, like completely.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Close, really rigid, concrete.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
And then she would come home and she'd be like, mum,
guess what I learned today, and she'd get on the
piano and I'd be like, yea, what's going on. I'm
paying for drum lessons.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And then and your fingering is all wrong, like this
is not right. That's how I'm feeling, like, come on.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Anyway, long story short. A couple of days ago, Dan
sent me a video and I can't stop watching this video,
nor can I get the grin off my face. This
kid has picked up this drum beat and she's literally
playing alongside her teacher who's singing and playing the guitar,
and she just looks like an absolute pro.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah. I love watching this. Here comes the field. You're ready,
(04:43):
so good, so good? Hang on, we need we need
to finish.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Oh my god, there we go.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I just it's pretty fun when you've got this. Childhood
doesn't seem to be interested, doesn't seem to be practicing
doesn't seem to have any motivation for it at all.
And then you get a video and she's jamming with
the music teacher in the studio up the.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Road, and I think for me, just going through that
process of you know, kind of finding someone who's going
to be a good match and then having an expectation
of what it's going to look like, and it doesn't
come close to meeting the expectations. You wanted her to
learn music and be able to read it and go
through this very formalized, structured process of lessons, and what
(05:32):
she's got is this mismatched mixed match, like just just
almost it feels like ad hoc lessons that have created
this space for her to explore and to try new
things in a really relaxed setting. She doesn't feel like
(05:52):
she has to perform for anyone, and she's really enjoying
the process.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah. So in that Range book that I was talking
about some stuff on this kind of thing, and I
have to keep reminding myself of this because it just
doesn't fit with what I think should be happening. But
in the book, he's really clearly the research seems to
indicate that getting that range, getting that breadth. Eventually she'll
figure it out. You don't want to pick too early.
And so one of our other daughters plays the guitar,
(06:19):
and she started the guitar and quit the guitar at
least four times and drove us up the wall and
still really didn't quite work out in notation or anything.
But what's happened is they've learned to be creative with
the music and they're really into making up their own stuff.
Whereas I learned to play by the book. But that's
all I can do. I have no idea how to improvise.
I've got no idea how to make stuff up and compose.
(06:41):
I just my brain hasn't been taught to do that.
Because I sat down and I did the Suzuki memo,
I just learned, you read this, you listen to that,
you play this way. And honestly, I didn't like it,
and so I didn't stick with it, and now I
kind of regret it. But I watched what the kids
can do. I know this is you're I'll do better tomorrow,
but I didn't mean to hijack it. But watching that,
(07:04):
it just it gets me excited again. It's like, this
is why you pay the money, and it's okay if
the kids aren't following the quote unquite traditional pathway. What
are you smiling at? You're laughing at me? Well, I'm
waxing lyrical about our daughter's drumming.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
No, I just watched all of the girls. They've done
things very differently, and they've been very sporadic with their
music lessons. But the other day, when I was doing
a bit of a clear out, I messaged down and
I said, I needed one of the guitars really strung.
Do you think that you could do that? And he said, yes,
send it up, that's fine. He brought it back and
that afternoon our eldest daughter showed up. It was her
(07:36):
guitar I completely forgotten seven years. And she came into
the living room and she picked it up and she
just started strumming like I've never heard her play like this,
And she was so excited that not only could she
remember playing this song, but that she had her guitar.
And I said, you can take it home, that's one
(07:56):
last thing.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
But she was pumped. Yeah, so old do better tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Is the takeout messages, the investment of time for your
children to explore. It's not actually about an outcome. It's
actually about giving them the opportunity to explore options.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Love it.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
It's so important because you have no idea where you're
going to end up.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Brilliant. Hey, after the break, I nailed it. I nailed
it with a child who did not want to talk
on Sunday morning. Just nailed it. Can't wait to tell
you that's next. You're back. This is the Happy Family's podcast.
If you enjoy what you're hear, give us follow and
(08:41):
share the podcast with your friends so that they can
make their families HAPPI erup, Kylie Miyol. Do Better Tomorrow
is a really simple one. In my book Relationship Rules,
I've got all these conversation starters. Part one is about
how we're supposed to talk, things like put your device down,
like stop, look and listen, meet each other's eyes, that
kind of thing. Part two of the book is what
should we talk about? Part three is about having tricky conversations.
(09:02):
So on Sunday, I had to drive like two and
a half hours down the road. It was a long drive.
I was very excited about it. A couple of kids
had to come with me. They weren't excited about it either,
and I said, you know what we're going to do.
We're going to go through relationship rules. We're going to
go through part two, and we're just going to answer
all these questions and have these conversations. And our fifteen
year old daughter and our eighteen year old daughter looked
(09:23):
at me and rolled their eyes and they were like, really,
like do we have to? And I said, yeah, yeah,
actually we do. I opened up the book. I asked
the first question, what are you looking forward to? That
was it? An hour later we were still talking about
just that question. Our fifteen year old daughter did not
want to be involved. She had misery all over her face.
(09:44):
I'm not looking forward to anything. I'm looking forward to
when I can ride a horse again. But as Annie
and I talked about what we were looking forward to,
the conversation just took on a life of its own,
and we're in so many different directions. And that required
me to ask questions of Annie and for her to
really be willing to elaborate. Oh, we had such fun.
I can't believe I just said, like, I sound like
I'm my grandma or something like that. We had such fun.
(10:06):
I feel like I like I'm reading and needed Blaton book.
But we had such fun, and then the second question
and the third question, and pretty soon we're talking about
if you're reading a book and you get up to
the and it's a book of your life, and you
get up to today, do you keep reading to find
out what happens next year and the year after and
next decade, and do you keep reading or do you stop?
And really just so many fun questions. We got to
(10:29):
some of the values questions and they're like, not boring,
keep going. They just want to do all the fun ones.
But Kylie, two and a half hours passed in an instant,
and we just had this great conversation all the way
out there, lots of fun, lots of laughter, and even
the recalcitrant, reluctant, unwilling, moody, gripey, fifteen year old ended
(10:49):
up getting right into it and enjoying it. So my
old better tomorrow is grab a copy of relationship Rules
and start, I'm just kidding, start having conversations with the
kids about things that are fun and compelling an interest.
Just start, just invite them into conversations, ask them questions,
and then keep that conversation going by asking more questions.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well, it sounds like I should have been in your car.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
What did you talk about in your car dating?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
And well the serious.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the problem. Right, We've got
so many kids and we've gotten our big car because
we didn't think we need a big car anymore. But
every now and again we've got to go somewhere a
long way and we've got to take two cars because
we don't have a big car. There's an older better tomorrow.
Make sure you're upside or downside at the right time.
Don't go to the world conversations where the kids can
be fun. You've just got to really make the effort,
and we did that. Anyway. We hope that there's some
(11:40):
inspiration for you here, whether it has to do with
getting the kids involved in extra activities like music lessons
or just having those fun conversations. There's just delight and
joy in family life, and we hope you're finding plenty
of that, especially this weekend. Baby Family's podcast is produced
by Justin Ruhland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides research,
admin and others, and if you'd like more resources to
(12:01):
make your family happier, like the book Relationship Rules, you'll
find it. All of Happy families, dot com, dot au,
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