November 20, 2025 • 19 mins
A huge week in the Coulson household — ADHD dilemmas, graduation milestones, big Roblox safety updates, and a brutally honest conversation about whether homeschooling is finally over. In this episode, we unpack the emotional load of parenting when life feels stretched thin, and why the choices we make for our kids rarely come with simple answers.
KEY POINTS
- ADHD medications, family wellbeing, and the real question behind parental burnout
- Why “child problems” are often “environment problems”
- A major Roblox safety update parents need to know about
- Graduation highs, formal prep… and food poisoning
- A heartfelt mother–daughter conversation about going back to school
- How exploration conversations help kids feel heard (and make decisions they trust)
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
"We’ve got to stop blaming the child — most of the time it’s not a child problem, it’s an environment problem."
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- ADHD episode (“Halloween ADHD Overdiagnosis”)
- Sammy Tamimi’s Searching for Normal and Naughty Boys
- Happy Families Podcast feedback: podcast@happyfamilies.com
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Pause and ask: Is this really a child issue, or is the environment overstretched?
- Revisit routines — sleep, movement, screens, food — before jumping to quick fixes
- Try an “exploration conversation” with your child when emotions are high
- Stay curious, not certain — especially with big decisions
- Monitor new Roblox age-check and chat-safety changes if gaming is in your home
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):
It's Friday. This is the Happy Families Podcast. We're so
glad you're back. Thanks for joining us. Today is homeschooling
over for the Colson's a big conversation in our Old
Do Better Tomorrow episode, plus more from this week in Parenting.
Oh my goodness, we've got a big roadblocks update, massive news,
massive news for our eighteen year old daughter, and some feedback.
(00:28):
We've been getting more feedback on the pod lately in
our episodes than ever before. Some feedback that we must
share about ADHD and medication, and a whole lot more.
It's the Happy Families Podcast. Stay with us, Good day,
Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Real parenting solutions every
single day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are
(00:49):
Justin and Kylie Coulson. We're the parents of six kids
on the author of a bunch of books, and the
host of a TV show on Channel Line that hopefully
you have seen and loved parental Guidance. And today, Kylie,
we're kicking off our Old Do Better Tomorrow with this
week inherenting. Thank you Jr. For making me sound so,
(01:11):
I don't know, really big, so big, not really that
big A couple of things we need to go through.
Number one, Kylie, so my old a better tomorrow. I'm
just going to do it now. I've been sick. I've
had food poisoning all week. I've been in bed. I
have not had any interactions that have been worth sharing
with anybody, especially on the pod. It's been horrible, and
it's been a big week for our eighteen year old.
(01:31):
Our first bit of this week in parenting, this is
not national news. This is just our news.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Graduation done, finished, finale, it's all over.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
We've just got the formal tomorrow night, which is a
bit of an affair, and then we never have to
talk about this child in school again. And we are
so relieved. So that's this week in paring. You went
to the graduation. I stay at home, and.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I'm sure that you willed yourself to be sick for that.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I've been to so many of these things. I mean,
I really wanted to be there for her, but I'm
not sorry that I wasn't there for it.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
How was it everything you expected?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Perfect? Perfect?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
All right?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Second thing for this week in parenting, I can't believe
how fast the time's gone. But two weeks ago we
did an episode that created a lot of feedback emails,
podcasts at happy families dot com dot a you, or
you can send us a voice note to the same
address podcast at happy families dot com dot you. Well
you just got a happy failies dot com dot you
and push the button and start talking. It's really really easy.
First off, an email, This one came through from Liz,
(02:32):
who said, I found your recent Halloween episode on ADHD
absolutely brilliant. I too, have read Sammy Timmy's book Searching
for Normal and Naughty Boys in Pursuit of a Theoretical
Spy and to what I feel intuitively about ADHD therapy
talking the growing mental health explosion. As a mum of
a son that has withstood a barrage of teachers telling
me to put my son on medication, I found your
insights spoke to my soul. Thank you for being a
(02:54):
forever curious learner and being open to other ideas. It's
refreshing in a world of false certainty. That was from Liz.
We didn't get any negative feedback. We only got positive
feedback on that episode, which I was surprised by because
it's a really provocative and challenging topic, but a thoughtful
question came through today's Not a Doctor's Desk episode. It's
not a tricky questions episode, but I think we can
(03:16):
answer this one really fast, and it just highlights the
complexity and the challenge around that particular topic and why
it was one of our most listened to episodes in
recent months. Here's the question that came through.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I really liked the episode you guys just did on
the ADHD medication research, and I understand from what you
presented that there can be a lower quality of life
for children who do take ADHD medication.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
And I know that missus Happy Families said that, you know,
a lot of the time it feels like children are
medicated for the convenience of their parents. But what I
would love to hear your thoughts on is what about
quality of life for parents? I mean, I think most
parents probably wouldn't want to medicate their child just to
make their own lives easier. But when the ADHD is
(04:04):
at a point where everyone's quality of life is impacted,
what are your thoughts on that. So, you know, kids
are struggling at school, relationships are being impacted, there's fights
all the time at home. Parents are just struggling to cope.
Where does that sort of fit in your experience and
your thoughts?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'd really really love today.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So thoughtful, heartfelt question, really tricky stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I think it's really important for parents to know that
we're not the experts in everything, and you are the
expert in your family. You have to make decisions that
feel right for you and your children. Like we've got opinions,
we've got experience in so many different areas, and we
(04:51):
have experience with our children specifically, but each family has
to kind of work through these things and gather the
information that feels right to them and make a decision
that's going to make a difference in their lives. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So, I mean, on top of experience and opinion, I've
got more than twenty years of experience doing this work now,
and my response is a little bit different to yours.
I'm probably a little bit more I don't know, I
don't know polarizing with my response? Am I polarizing person?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I remember being a young mum and being lost a
lot of the time and trying to make decisions and
everyone's got an opinion and it's so loud, and.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
See the specialist and then yes, and the specialist tells
you stuff, but then you listen to the podcast, and
I'm saying, well, actually, the research is saying something the
specialist clearly, and research shows that specialists aren't reading the research.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
But the challenge is I stopped listening to my own voice.
I stopped listening to what felt intuitively right for me
and my child. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I still don't know that intuition is always going to
be right either. Sometimes we need to rely on the
research and the research. So here's how I'd respond, which
is just a little bit counter to you. And I'm
not saying that you're wrong. I'm just I have I
have a different response to this, and my response is
as follows. If you are struggling.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
With a child who is medicated and are not medicated,
she's asking.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, so do I put my child on medication because
things are crazy? I'm going to say, we've got to
stop blaming the child, and we've got to stop diagnosing
the child, because this is not a child problem. In
most instances, this is an environment problem. And so I'm
going to say, as impossible as it sounds, and I
don't know how you do it in practical terms, because
everyone's got two or three jobs and everyone struggling to
(06:36):
pay the mortgage, all the rant and cost of living
and the kids and school and whatever. But I would
be saying, what can you do to get off the
hamster wheel? What can you do to start playing the
game by different rules? Everyone says that your kids have
to go to school, that they have to sit in
this round hole and act like this square peg or
whatever it is. And my question is why. So we
(06:59):
had similar struggles early on with our daughter and we said, well, well,
I'm going to play that game anymore. And yeah, there's
an element of privilege when you can say, well, we've
got a parent who was able to stay at home
and become a full time homeschool parent.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I'm just going to push back. It might feel like
privileged to some people, but it's totally turned my life
upside down.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, completely, Like it's not I haven't.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Made this decision because it makes my life easier in
so many ways. It complicates my life beyond belief. It
would be so much easier, so much easier for me
to send us to school.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Not to mention the fact that you've had jobs in
the past and you might like to work, and now
that's just not an option, like, and our family wouldn't
mind if you were doing that. We could do it
with an extra dough every now and again, especially with
Christmas comes, I don't.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Spend time with friends. I have stopped doing all of
the things that bring me joy. Yeah, Like, this is
not I get a little bit antsy when we're kind
of talking about being privileged to make the decision. This
has actually been a really hard decision.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So what I'm really getting at here, though, is this
is a This is an environmental thing more often than not,
and if you can change the environment, get rid of screens,
make sure the diet's good, is sleep happening, Is there
enough physical activity. I'm looking at all of those things
first before I'm saying let's medicate.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And I agree entirely. I think that too often we
just want the quick fix because we feel stretched. We're stretched,
our lives take so much from us, and often as
parents we've kind of got little to give our kids
at the end of the day. Yeah, yep, so we've
got We've got the whole mix wrong.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Hopefully that's a helpful quick answer. It's it's not a
tricky question. Episode. This is a This Week in Parenting housekeeping.
Let's let's just do the quick round up. There's one
more piece of this week in parenting news that I
need to run through that is very important. Roadblocks. Oh
my goodness, Roadblocks in the news again. Roadblocks has contacted
(08:58):
me directly. I've had some fairly strong things to say
about Roadblocks over the years, and they have shared some
recent communications about some changes that are happening, and I
just think it's important that I pass those on because
if you're a parent who's been listening to the podcast
for a long time and have taken the same approach
that we have that our children are not going to
be on roadblocks, you might want to know about it.
So basically, what they're doing now as a result of
(09:20):
the December ten changes, even though the government is not
mandating that Roadblocks do this, Roadblocks is currently not on
the list. What they are doing is that they're requiring
a facial age check for all users who are accessing
chat features. Now, let me say that again. All users
who are accessing chat features now require a facial age check.
(09:42):
So they're technically the first online gaming or communication platform
to do that. It's already kicked off. It started a
couple of days ago. Literally this week, users can voluntarily,
and let me just emphasize, voluntarily complete an age check
to secure chat access ahead of the upcoming requirements. They're
(10:02):
doing it here in the Netherlands and New Zealand, which
I think is quite interesting, and they're planning on rolling
about globally in January. Now what does that mean? Why
does that matter? What it means is that they can
now implement what they're calling age based chat. So basically,
your child uploads an image of themselves, right, and then
they will be put into groups according to age groups,
(10:25):
So you can only chat with people in your age
group under nine, nine to twelve, thirteen to fifteen, sixteen
to seventeen, eighteen to twenty or twenty one and over.
You can chat with those in your own age group,
oh sorry, and similar age groups as appropriate. So this
I'm sorry. There's one other thing that's worth highlighting here.
To keep their youngest users safe, chat in experiences will
(10:48):
be turned to default off if you're under nine unless
a parent provides consent after an age check. So there's
a few other things in there that we don't have
time to talk about in today's pod, but roadblocks of
each out and they've said we're trying, we're doing something here.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well, it's always nice to know that someone's trying. How
do you think this will impact kids' safety moving forward?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So whenever I hear the idea of trying, I'm reminded
of master Yodoran stars cry not do, I'll do not.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
There is no try.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I think that these are positive changes. The proof is
in the pudding. It's not going to change my mind
about allowing our daughter on roadblocks. There are still too
many other problems in terms of the conversations that happen,
the games that are available on the platform, the content
that's available. They are saying now that they're going to
be putting limits on mature content and external link sharing,
(11:42):
that they're going to be increasing parental controls for visibility
and customization, proofs in the pudding. I'm not willing to
trust them yet. I don't think that they've done anything.
I don't think any tech company has done anything that says, oh, okay,
they've got my child's best interest at heart. I truly
don't believe that they. I'm not a screens bad kind
of person. I'm a life and childhood is good kind
(12:06):
of person, and I don't think that this is the
necessary part of a healthier, happy childhood. So I wanted
to pass it on because they are making improvements, and
I want to give some credit where credit's due. I
don't think the credits are nearly big enough or good enough,
and I don't believe that they're going to move the
needle in a meaningful way, although it is a start
and I'm pleased about that. Right, that's it for our
Oh my goodness, our housekeeping. Our fifteen year old got
(12:28):
crankapp me the other day. She said, Dad, I don't
like older better tomorrow anymore. There's too much housekeeping and
enough stories about us. So after the break, is our
youngest going to keep on homeschooling? You've had a conversation.
It's your old do better Tomorrow's story. We'll find out
more next. Stay with us. We're back. This is the
(12:54):
Happy Family's podcast, Kylie, What is your old do better
Tomorrow's story? Since I don't have one?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
If my conversation with you before the break about how
homeschooling actually has completely I don't want to say turned
my life to upside down, but it's completely changed the
way I get to live my life and I get
to the end of the year, and I do feel
burnt out, and I do feel really disconnected from the
people that I love and care about, and so I
(13:21):
get into this mindset where it would be really really
nice to kind of hand her back over to the
system and get somebody else to do the hard yards.
And at the same time I was having those feelings,
she got invited to go back to her school with
one of her school friends and attend a school event,
and imed an out about it, and I thought, you know,
is this just gonna kind of create more challenge for
(13:43):
her and struggle as she tries to work out what
she wants to do moving forward, or is this going
to be exactly what I need. She's going to go back,
want to be there, and we just hit the button
and you know, kind of pay the bills. But I
decided that I just I needed to give her opportunities,
and so I let I know that her friend had
asked if she wanted to go. She actually didn't want
to go on the beginning, but she changed her mind
(14:04):
and so she went along, and she came home and
she was really really excited and she said, Mom, I'm
thinking I want to go back to school in year
six or maybe year seven. But I you know, I'm
really I need you to know. I want to go
back to my old school. I don't want to do
a new school anyway. I left it for a day
or two, and I thought, I'm just going to tap
back in with her about this. And so I went
in and I said, do you think we could have
(14:26):
an exploration conversation. We're just going to explore a couple
of thoughts. I said. It doesn't mean that anything's going
to change. I said, but I'd really love to understand
how you're feeling. She said, sure, Mom. And I said,
the other day you told me that you want you
wanted to go back to school in year six or
year seven. I said, well, do you know that year
six means next year, so you're gonna have it. You're
gonna have the Christmas break and then you start year
(14:47):
six work. And she said, oh, yeah, I don't want
to go back to school next year. And I said,
can you tell me a bit more about that. I said,
if we were to sit down and work out the
reasons that you would go back to school, like, what
are the pros for you? What stands out the things
that you feel like you're missing out on. She did
such a great job. She was able to rattle them
off really quickly. She just said that she really misses
(15:08):
hanging out with her school friends, so for her, that's
a pro. She gets to see her friends every day.
She loves the fact that at school there's structured learning,
which she experiences at home, but she does it with others,
so she's got the community at school. She highlighted that
at school she gets to plan the playground every day,
(15:28):
so she's moving her body, that she's got access to
a library every day. This was really important for her,
and that her time was always taken up at school.
So I said to her, Okay, well that's a great list.
I said, why wouldn't you want to go back to school,
and she said, they're only might but I could get bullied,
(15:48):
Like I might get bullied, and I might be mistreated
by people at school. And really I struggle sometimes listening
to the teacher, so I might get in trouble. I
don't like getting in trouble. I'm like, okay, anything else
She didn't have anything else. I'm like, okay, I said,
can you tell me what it is that you love
about being at home. And this actually blew me away
(16:09):
because she had this beautiful list for going back to school,
like it sounds.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Like, yeah, it's like decision, but the list.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
About staying home, like rattled off her tongue, is just
like so fast. And she just said, I love that
Mum's my teacher. I love that I can get most
of my learning done in about two hours each day.
That it's flexible, and it means that if I want
to be able to spend time with my friends in
the morning, I can do my school work in the
afternoon or vice versa. I love that I get to
(16:38):
do it at home in an environment that feels good, safe,
and familiar to me. She said that she has great
friends in her homeschooling community, and she loves that she
can catch up with them pretty much whenever she wants.
She's got lots of free time to be creative and
do things that really fill her cup, and she's got
more available time to do work around the house so
(16:59):
she can earn some money. She's pretty entrepreneurial.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
In that regard, well entrepreneurializing. I want money for mum
and dad.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
So I said to her, well, that's a really big list.
I said, what are the cons and she said, screens
are a really big issue. She really struggles to self
regulate when it comes to the use of screens, which
means there's constant tension between her and ies. I try
to help her navigate that space. She sometimes gets bort
because she's on her own a lot, and then sometimes
(17:33):
feels like the lessons that she's working on and not
engaging enough for her. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
That's that's been a big downside of one of the
curricula that we're involved with. Is it just feels like
it's school at home. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And so I looked at that list and I said, so,
what do you think we should do? And she said,
I want to stay home next year And I said okay,
I said, and what about starting school in year seven?
She said, yeah, I think that that's what I want
to do. So at this point, we've got another year.
And I want to say I'm ecstatic, right, I want
(18:06):
to say that I'm so glad that she's come to
this decision for herself. The reality is, I would love
her to have the communal learning that she misses. I
would love her to have that in an environment that
enables her to tap into her strengths and her uniqueness,
(18:30):
and it's really hard to find something like that in
a system. And so while I would love for her
to have those things, I'm so grateful that right now
she knows in her heart that what we're doing is
actually the very thing that she needs right.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Now, really important conversations. To be able to take the time,
sit down, and to do the exploration, knowing that there's
no expectation at the end of it. It just helps
the kids to open up. They feel so heard and
seeing the fact that you took notesn't it It means
they really pay attention to what they're saying, like they
really think about the discussion. Kytie, our time is up.
But I've just had a realization for the first time
(19:07):
in eighteen years, we're going to only have two kids
at school next year. I know we've got a daughter
doing year eleven and a daughter doing year six next year.
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. That means in two years,
but down to one child at school, not that I'm
wishing for years. Oh my goodness. Thanks so much for listening.
We hope that you've enjoyed our conversation today about roadblocks ADHD,
(19:30):
school stuff and a whole lot more. Have a great weekend.
The Happy Family podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
Bridge Media, Mim Hammond's provised research had min and all
of our other support and if you'd like more info
or if you'd like to get in touch, just go
to Happy families dot com dot au
It's Friday. This is the Happy Families Podcast. We're so
glad you're back. Thanks for joining us. Today is homeschooling
over for the Colson's a big conversation in our Old
Do Better Tomorrow episode, plus more from this week in Parenting.
Oh my goodness, we've got a big roadblocks update, massive news,
massive news for our eighteen year old daughter, and some feedback.
(00:28):
We've been getting more feedback on the pod lately in
our episodes than ever before. Some feedback that we must
share about ADHD and medication, and a whole lot more.
It's the Happy Families Podcast. Stay with us, Good day,
Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Real parenting solutions every
single day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are
(00:49):
Justin and Kylie Coulson. We're the parents of six kids
on the author of a bunch of books, and the
host of a TV show on Channel Line that hopefully
you have seen and loved parental Guidance. And today, Kylie,
we're kicking off our Old Do Better Tomorrow with this
week inherenting. Thank you Jr. For making me sound so,
(01:11):
I don't know, really big, so big, not really that
big A couple of things we need to go through.
Number one, Kylie, so my old a better tomorrow. I'm
just going to do it now. I've been sick. I've
had food poisoning all week. I've been in bed. I
have not had any interactions that have been worth sharing
with anybody, especially on the pod. It's been horrible, and
it's been a big week for our eighteen year old.
(01:31):
Our first bit of this week in parenting, this is
not national news. This is just our news.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Graduation done, finished, finale, it's all over.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
We've just got the formal tomorrow night, which is a
bit of an affair, and then we never have to
talk about this child in school again. And we are
so relieved. So that's this week in paring. You went
to the graduation. I stay at home, and.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I'm sure that you willed yourself to be sick for that.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I've been to so many of these things. I mean,
I really wanted to be there for her, but I'm
not sorry that I wasn't there for it.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
How was it everything you expected?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Perfect? Perfect?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
All right?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Second thing for this week in parenting, I can't believe
how fast the time's gone. But two weeks ago we
did an episode that created a lot of feedback emails,
podcasts at happy families dot com dot a you, or
you can send us a voice note to the same
address podcast at happy families dot com dot you. Well
you just got a happy failies dot com dot you
and push the button and start talking. It's really really easy.
First off, an email, This one came through from Liz,
(02:32):
who said, I found your recent Halloween episode on ADHD
absolutely brilliant. I too, have read Sammy Timmy's book Searching
for Normal and Naughty Boys in Pursuit of a Theoretical
Spy and to what I feel intuitively about ADHD therapy
talking the growing mental health explosion. As a mum of
a son that has withstood a barrage of teachers telling
me to put my son on medication, I found your
insights spoke to my soul. Thank you for being a
(02:54):
forever curious learner and being open to other ideas. It's
refreshing in a world of false certainty. That was from Liz.
We didn't get any negative feedback. We only got positive
feedback on that episode, which I was surprised by because
it's a really provocative and challenging topic, but a thoughtful
question came through today's Not a Doctor's Desk episode. It's
not a tricky questions episode, but I think we can
(03:16):
answer this one really fast, and it just highlights the
complexity and the challenge around that particular topic and why
it was one of our most listened to episodes in
recent months. Here's the question that came through.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I really liked the episode you guys just did on
the ADHD medication research, and I understand from what you
presented that there can be a lower quality of life
for children who do take ADHD medication.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
And I know that missus Happy Families said that, you know,
a lot of the time it feels like children are
medicated for the convenience of their parents. But what I
would love to hear your thoughts on is what about
quality of life for parents? I mean, I think most
parents probably wouldn't want to medicate their child just to
make their own lives easier. But when the ADHD is
(04:04):
at a point where everyone's quality of life is impacted,
what are your thoughts on that. So, you know, kids
are struggling at school, relationships are being impacted, there's fights
all the time at home. Parents are just struggling to cope.
Where does that sort of fit in your experience and
your thoughts?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'd really really love today.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So thoughtful, heartfelt question, really tricky stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I think it's really important for parents to know that
we're not the experts in everything, and you are the
expert in your family. You have to make decisions that
feel right for you and your children. Like we've got opinions,
we've got experience in so many different areas, and we
(04:51):
have experience with our children specifically, but each family has
to kind of work through these things and gather the
information that feels right to them and make a decision
that's going to make a difference in their lives. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So, I mean, on top of experience and opinion, I've
got more than twenty years of experience doing this work now,
and my response is a little bit different to yours.
I'm probably a little bit more I don't know, I
don't know polarizing with my response? Am I polarizing person?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I remember being a young mum and being lost a
lot of the time and trying to make decisions and
everyone's got an opinion and it's so loud, and.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
See the specialist and then yes, and the specialist tells
you stuff, but then you listen to the podcast, and
I'm saying, well, actually, the research is saying something the
specialist clearly, and research shows that specialists aren't reading the research.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
But the challenge is I stopped listening to my own voice.
I stopped listening to what felt intuitively right for me
and my child. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I still don't know that intuition is always going to
be right either. Sometimes we need to rely on the
research and the research. So here's how I'd respond, which
is just a little bit counter to you. And I'm
not saying that you're wrong. I'm just I have I
have a different response to this, and my response is
as follows. If you are struggling.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
With a child who is medicated and are not medicated,
she's asking.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, so do I put my child on medication because
things are crazy? I'm going to say, we've got to
stop blaming the child, and we've got to stop diagnosing
the child, because this is not a child problem. In
most instances, this is an environment problem. And so I'm
going to say, as impossible as it sounds, and I
don't know how you do it in practical terms, because
everyone's got two or three jobs and everyone struggling to
(06:36):
pay the mortgage, all the rant and cost of living
and the kids and school and whatever. But I would
be saying, what can you do to get off the
hamster wheel? What can you do to start playing the
game by different rules? Everyone says that your kids have
to go to school, that they have to sit in
this round hole and act like this square peg or
whatever it is. And my question is why. So we
(06:59):
had similar struggles early on with our daughter and we said, well, well,
I'm going to play that game anymore. And yeah, there's
an element of privilege when you can say, well, we've
got a parent who was able to stay at home
and become a full time homeschool parent.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I'm just going to push back. It might feel like
privileged to some people, but it's totally turned my life
upside down.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, completely, Like it's not I haven't.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Made this decision because it makes my life easier in
so many ways. It complicates my life beyond belief. It
would be so much easier, so much easier for me
to send us to school.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Not to mention the fact that you've had jobs in
the past and you might like to work, and now
that's just not an option, like, and our family wouldn't
mind if you were doing that. We could do it
with an extra dough every now and again, especially with
Christmas comes, I don't.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Spend time with friends. I have stopped doing all of
the things that bring me joy. Yeah, Like, this is
not I get a little bit antsy when we're kind
of talking about being privileged to make the decision. This
has actually been a really hard decision.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So what I'm really getting at here, though, is this
is a This is an environmental thing more often than not,
and if you can change the environment, get rid of screens,
make sure the diet's good, is sleep happening, Is there
enough physical activity. I'm looking at all of those things
first before I'm saying let's medicate.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And I agree entirely. I think that too often we
just want the quick fix because we feel stretched. We're stretched,
our lives take so much from us, and often as
parents we've kind of got little to give our kids
at the end of the day. Yeah, yep, so we've
got We've got the whole mix wrong.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Hopefully that's a helpful quick answer. It's it's not a
tricky question. Episode. This is a This Week in Parenting housekeeping.
Let's let's just do the quick round up. There's one
more piece of this week in parenting news that I
need to run through that is very important. Roadblocks. Oh
my goodness, Roadblocks in the news again. Roadblocks has contacted
(08:58):
me directly. I've had some fairly strong things to say
about Roadblocks over the years, and they have shared some
recent communications about some changes that are happening, and I
just think it's important that I pass those on because
if you're a parent who's been listening to the podcast
for a long time and have taken the same approach
that we have that our children are not going to
be on roadblocks, you might want to know about it.
So basically, what they're doing now as a result of
(09:20):
the December ten changes, even though the government is not
mandating that Roadblocks do this, Roadblocks is currently not on
the list. What they are doing is that they're requiring
a facial age check for all users who are accessing
chat features. Now, let me say that again. All users
who are accessing chat features now require a facial age check.
(09:42):
So they're technically the first online gaming or communication platform
to do that. It's already kicked off. It started a
couple of days ago. Literally this week, users can voluntarily,
and let me just emphasize, voluntarily complete an age check
to secure chat access ahead of the upcoming requirements. They're
(10:02):
doing it here in the Netherlands and New Zealand, which
I think is quite interesting, and they're planning on rolling
about globally in January. Now what does that mean? Why
does that matter? What it means is that they can
now implement what they're calling age based chat. So basically,
your child uploads an image of themselves, right, and then
they will be put into groups according to age groups,
(10:25):
So you can only chat with people in your age
group under nine, nine to twelve, thirteen to fifteen, sixteen
to seventeen, eighteen to twenty or twenty one and over.
You can chat with those in your own age group,
oh sorry, and similar age groups as appropriate. So this
I'm sorry. There's one other thing that's worth highlighting here.
To keep their youngest users safe, chat in experiences will
(10:48):
be turned to default off if you're under nine unless
a parent provides consent after an age check. So there's
a few other things in there that we don't have
time to talk about in today's pod, but roadblocks of
each out and they've said we're trying, we're doing something here.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well, it's always nice to know that someone's trying. How
do you think this will impact kids' safety moving forward?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So whenever I hear the idea of trying, I'm reminded
of master Yodoran stars cry not do, I'll do not.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
There is no try.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I think that these are positive changes. The proof is
in the pudding. It's not going to change my mind
about allowing our daughter on roadblocks. There are still too
many other problems in terms of the conversations that happen,
the games that are available on the platform, the content
that's available. They are saying now that they're going to
be putting limits on mature content and external link sharing,
(11:42):
that they're going to be increasing parental controls for visibility
and customization, proofs in the pudding. I'm not willing to
trust them yet. I don't think that they've done anything.
I don't think any tech company has done anything that says, oh, okay,
they've got my child's best interest at heart. I truly
don't believe that they. I'm not a screens bad kind
of person. I'm a life and childhood is good kind
(12:06):
of person, and I don't think that this is the
necessary part of a healthier, happy childhood. So I wanted
to pass it on because they are making improvements, and
I want to give some credit where credit's due. I
don't think the credits are nearly big enough or good enough,
and I don't believe that they're going to move the
needle in a meaningful way, although it is a start
and I'm pleased about that. Right, that's it for our
Oh my goodness, our housekeeping. Our fifteen year old got
(12:28):
crankapp me the other day. She said, Dad, I don't
like older better tomorrow anymore. There's too much housekeeping and
enough stories about us. So after the break, is our
youngest going to keep on homeschooling? You've had a conversation.
It's your old do better Tomorrow's story. We'll find out
more next. Stay with us. We're back. This is the
(12:54):
Happy Family's podcast, Kylie, What is your old do better
Tomorrow's story? Since I don't have one?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
If my conversation with you before the break about how
homeschooling actually has completely I don't want to say turned
my life to upside down, but it's completely changed the
way I get to live my life and I get
to the end of the year, and I do feel
burnt out, and I do feel really disconnected from the
people that I love and care about, and so I
(13:21):
get into this mindset where it would be really really
nice to kind of hand her back over to the
system and get somebody else to do the hard yards.
And at the same time I was having those feelings,
she got invited to go back to her school with
one of her school friends and attend a school event,
and imed an out about it, and I thought, you know,
is this just gonna kind of create more challenge for
(13:43):
her and struggle as she tries to work out what
she wants to do moving forward, or is this going
to be exactly what I need. She's going to go back,
want to be there, and we just hit the button
and you know, kind of pay the bills. But I
decided that I just I needed to give her opportunities,
and so I let I know that her friend had
asked if she wanted to go. She actually didn't want
to go on the beginning, but she changed her mind
(14:04):
and so she went along, and she came home and
she was really really excited and she said, Mom, I'm
thinking I want to go back to school in year
six or maybe year seven. But I you know, I'm
really I need you to know. I want to go
back to my old school. I don't want to do
a new school anyway. I left it for a day
or two, and I thought, I'm just going to tap
back in with her about this. And so I went
in and I said, do you think we could have
(14:26):
an exploration conversation. We're just going to explore a couple
of thoughts. I said. It doesn't mean that anything's going
to change. I said, but I'd really love to understand
how you're feeling. She said, sure, Mom. And I said,
the other day you told me that you want you
wanted to go back to school in year six or
year seven. I said, well, do you know that year
six means next year, so you're gonna have it. You're
gonna have the Christmas break and then you start year
(14:47):
six work. And she said, oh, yeah, I don't want
to go back to school next year. And I said,
can you tell me a bit more about that. I said,
if we were to sit down and work out the
reasons that you would go back to school, like, what
are the pros for you? What stands out the things
that you feel like you're missing out on. She did
such a great job. She was able to rattle them
off really quickly. She just said that she really misses
(15:08):
hanging out with her school friends, so for her, that's
a pro. She gets to see her friends every day.
She loves the fact that at school there's structured learning,
which she experiences at home, but she does it with others,
so she's got the community at school. She highlighted that
at school she gets to plan the playground every day,
(15:28):
so she's moving her body, that she's got access to
a library every day. This was really important for her,
and that her time was always taken up at school.
So I said to her, Okay, well that's a great list.
I said, why wouldn't you want to go back to school,
and she said, they're only might but I could get bullied,
(15:48):
Like I might get bullied, and I might be mistreated
by people at school. And really I struggle sometimes listening
to the teacher, so I might get in trouble. I
don't like getting in trouble. I'm like, okay, anything else
She didn't have anything else. I'm like, okay, I said,
can you tell me what it is that you love
about being at home. And this actually blew me away
(16:09):
because she had this beautiful list for going back to school,
like it sounds.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Like, yeah, it's like decision, but the list.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
About staying home, like rattled off her tongue, is just
like so fast. And she just said, I love that
Mum's my teacher. I love that I can get most
of my learning done in about two hours each day.
That it's flexible, and it means that if I want
to be able to spend time with my friends in
the morning, I can do my school work in the
afternoon or vice versa. I love that I get to
(16:38):
do it at home in an environment that feels good, safe,
and familiar to me. She said that she has great
friends in her homeschooling community, and she loves that she
can catch up with them pretty much whenever she wants.
She's got lots of free time to be creative and
do things that really fill her cup, and she's got
more available time to do work around the house so
(16:59):
she can earn some money. She's pretty entrepreneurial.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
In that regard, well entrepreneurializing. I want money for mum
and dad.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
So I said to her, well, that's a really big list.
I said, what are the cons and she said, screens
are a really big issue. She really struggles to self
regulate when it comes to the use of screens, which
means there's constant tension between her and ies. I try
to help her navigate that space. She sometimes gets bort
because she's on her own a lot, and then sometimes
(17:33):
feels like the lessons that she's working on and not
engaging enough for her. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
That's that's been a big downside of one of the
curricula that we're involved with. Is it just feels like
it's school at home. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And so I looked at that list and I said, so,
what do you think we should do? And she said,
I want to stay home next year And I said okay,
I said, and what about starting school in year seven?
She said, yeah, I think that that's what I want
to do. So at this point, we've got another year.
And I want to say I'm ecstatic, right, I want
(18:06):
to say that I'm so glad that she's come to
this decision for herself. The reality is, I would love
her to have the communal learning that she misses. I
would love her to have that in an environment that
enables her to tap into her strengths and her uniqueness,
(18:30):
and it's really hard to find something like that in
a system. And so while I would love for her
to have those things, I'm so grateful that right now
she knows in her heart that what we're doing is
actually the very thing that she needs right.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Now, really important conversations. To be able to take the time,
sit down, and to do the exploration, knowing that there's
no expectation at the end of it. It just helps
the kids to open up. They feel so heard and
seeing the fact that you took notesn't it It means
they really pay attention to what they're saying, like they
really think about the discussion. Kytie, our time is up.
But I've just had a realization for the first time
(19:07):
in eighteen years, we're going to only have two kids
at school next year. I know we've got a daughter
doing year eleven and a daughter doing year six next year.
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. That means in two years,
but down to one child at school, not that I'm
wishing for years. Oh my goodness. Thanks so much for listening.
We hope that you've enjoyed our conversation today about roadblocks ADHD,
(19:30):
school stuff and a whole lot more. Have a great weekend.
The Happy Family podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
Bridge Media, Mim Hammond's provised research had min and all
of our other support and if you'd like more info
or if you'd like to get in touch, just go
to Happy families dot com dot au
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