December 4, 2023 • 21 mins
It's almost the end of the year so we thought we'd look back at the top 5 Happy Families episodes that you listened to in 2023.
Here's how it played out:
- #721 - Defusing Explosive Children
- #679 - Managing Fatigue as a Parent
- #674 - The Power of Habit
- #673 - Family Goal Setting
- #706 - Gentle Parenting: Is It a Fad or Fabulous?
We're so glad that so many people are listening to the podcast and finding value in the information that's being provided!
Find us on Facebook at Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families
Email us your questions and comments at podcasts@happyfamilies.com.au
Find out more about becoming a Happy Families member at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
once answers.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Now, it's been a really big year on the Happy
Families podcast. As we move towards a conclusion for the year,
we thought that it might be interesting to have a
look at our biggest podcast of the year, Kylie. Number
of downloads this year approximately, did I tell you four million?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Actually it's higher. Wow, We're not for four point five
million downloads for the year. That's why we're celebrating, I
think so. I mean, if you do the maths on that,
let's say it's close en up to five million, five
million across fifty weeks. It's one hundred thousand downloads a week.
It's a lot of downloads. We're talking about lots and
lots of people listening to the podcast, which means we're
adding value to people's lives. Today, we wanted to talk
to you about the most value adding podcasts we've done
(00:49):
all year. That is the podcast that you listen to
the most because obviously they made the biggest impact, the
biggest difference, the biggest change in your family. So we're
going to count down five four three two one our
fifth most listened to podcast this year.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Was number seven hundred and six was a review of
gentle Parenting. You had a conversation with doctor Mona Dellahook.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah, we talked about what gentle parenting is. She actually
doesn't like the term gentle parenting. It's not very well defined,
so she calls it responsive parenting. And I really liked
what she said here.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
When certain people heard the word gentle parenting. And it's
not just my book. There's been quite a few books
in the last you know, five or so years on
this kind of new way of parenting as opposed to
maybe what we would think about as traditional parenting. Right,
so we might think of traditional parenting as more authoritarian,
(01:45):
and that would include maybe the parents as the ultimate experts,
and it might include punishments or rewards, but it would
kind of focus on behaviors, on surface behaviors, and parents
kind of judging behaviors is good or bad and then
having a certain response to those behaviors. And so the
(02:08):
word gentle parenting really doesn't describe a certain parenting style.
I think it's more of a catch all phrase for
this new type of parenting. And as you know, coming
out of the positive psychology movement in the nineteen nineties,
positive parenting has come on board, and that is, I
think a reaction that parents have to maybe the way
(02:31):
they were raised or their grandparents were raised right, which
wasn't very steeped in a knowledge of child development and
emotional literacy and all that good stuff. One article that
was written about gentle parenting said something like, so are
these gentle parents never saying no? And are these gentle
(02:53):
parents letting their kids throw rocks at cars as they
drive by? You know? And there is I think this
this conception that gentle parenting is parenting that is coddling
or never or doesn't have any sort of boundaries, and
that's really not the case. But people I think who
(03:16):
are concerned that parenting approaches don't have a level of
boundaries and parents as the guide and as the authority,
mistake that word. So it's not coddling in my opinion.
And the research that I'm particularly interested in and wrote
my book about is actually i sub a topic of
(03:38):
gentle parenting, which is responsive parenting that's linked in the
literature to a lot of great things, a lot of
great pieces of development, especially resilience.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You also touched on the math of gentle parenting taking
more time than normal parenting.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
This doesn't necessarily take longer once you get into the
hang of it. It actually helps children develop more cooperation.
So while it sounds like labor intensive in the beginning,
the main thing is our mind shift. Because when a
child sees a soft look on your face when they're
(04:15):
refusing to put their shoes and socks on, and they
see you go from saying hurry up, we gotta go
out the door where you're gonna be late to school,
to oh, sweetheart, these getting these shoes and socks on,
and then now we got to we're rushing so fast,
mommy or daddy. I'm being really really rough right now.
(04:37):
I'm really kind of yelling and I'm upset. You know what,
Let's slow things down for a second and then look
at them with care and concern. It's amazing how that
emotional contagion of calmness helps children calm. So it's not
doesn't necessarily take more time, but I think it also
(04:57):
takes a mind shift.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
That was episodes seven hundred and six, a review of
gentle Parenting with doctor Mona Dellahook and the fifth most
listened to podcast episode of our entire year, Our number four.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Was all about family a goal setting.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Who would have thought goal setting was that cool that
everybody wanted to listen to podcast episodes About that, we shared.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Some personal insights into our girls and their idea of
setting goals to start running and increase their fitness at
the start of the year.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
It started, well, I've got to say we didn't follow
up as well as we probably should have, and well,
the best way to set goals is to start from
the bottom up, and I want to share a clip
from that in just a sec. There's also going to
be follow up, and we didn't talk much about follow
up because well, we didn't do a.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Lot of follow up.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
But we are seeing progress and I'm excited to use
what we talked about in episode six seventy three about
film goal setting to recalibrate for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
His what we had to say about.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
This family goals start best bottom up, and I think
the best way to get a bottom up conversation going
about goals is to sit down with the kids and
have one of those family meetings. We've talked about it
so many times on the podcast. We ask three questions
what's going great, what's not going so well? What should
we focus on? And just by asking those three questions,
(06:17):
you're basically saying to the kids, all right, we're doing
a whole lot of stuff really well, handful of things
that we can improve on. If we were to improve
on one or two of those things, what would they be.
And that's essentially where we've come to with our kids'
fitness goals. They've decided that health and fitness needs to
be a higher priority. I asked them what they wanted
in terms of their goals. They want to be able
to run five k's in less than thirty minutes, and
(06:39):
so now we're creating a system around that to get
to that goal.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
And that's pretty much it.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Kylie, what else would you add to a conversation about
how to set family goals other than saying, hey, kids,
what do you think? And then how do we set
up a system around that?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I think one of the most important things when it
comes to goal setting is there needs to be accountability.
There needs to be check in points or else where.
Just having a conversation about something that we'd like to
see happen, but that there isn't any intention set on
how we can record progress, how we can actually acknowledge progress.
(07:13):
And without the recognition of progress, it's really hard for
motivation to stay high and for our desires to continue
to improve. The podcast that comes in at number three
was six hundred and seventy four and it was all
about the power of habits.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, so we were talking about the twenty mile March,
the habit that you can create every day that will
help to make you a better parent.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Honestly, when you say it, it seems like it's too easy.
It actually seems like it's too easy, and therefore it's
not going to work.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
It's kind of like writing a book. Though. If I
get up every day and I write a certain number
of words, within a couple of months, the book is written.
I've got to do all the research, I've got to
do all the planning, but just writing those words every
day and suddenly you've written a book, an entire book
that you've written.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
It's phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
How that works. Parenting's the same. It's just that the
metrics aren't quite as obvious. Like you can't get up
and run five k's every day and say, all right,
I'm going to be a good parent because I ran
my five k's, but that five K run metaphorically is
when the kids are angry, I don't shout, or when
I need to.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Talk to my children, I walk into.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
The room and I meet their eyes, or I mean,
pick your thing, whatever it is that you want to change,
It's about getting it right today, but also tomorrow and
also the day after, and getting it right every single
flipping day for twenty years until they finally are adults
and you've gotten to write consistently. Is that ongoing investment,
creating the habit. That's how we make our families function.
(08:47):
That's how we become better parents. I really really like
that episode. I think there's so much there as families
try to get things together and make things work.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Number two, We're getting close. Number two was all about
managing fatigue.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
It's the podcast every parent needs, because every parent it's
just so I mean, I'm tired. It's the end of
the year.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I'm always going to say, how do you feel like
we've done managing the fatigue this year?
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Reasonably?
Speaker 5 (09:16):
Well?
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Reasonably? Well, Look, there was something that you said.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
You were talking about you and your friends talking about
how your exhaustion was at an all time high.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
You know, I've been having conversations with lots of people
about this lately because I am feeling exhausted. I feel
like I've hit rock bottom in a way that I've
never hit before. I can hear it in your voice,
and there's just this acknowledgment that you know, we have
been through some of the hardest couple of years, not
collectively as a human race, dealing with just so much
(09:54):
uncertainty and stress and anxiety around you know, COVID and
jobs and you know whether or not there's enough food
on the shelves at the shops. There's just been so
much to deal.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
With, and now we're dealing with the economic insecurity of
interest rate hikes and so.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
On, and all of that insecurity and instability has taken
a physical and mental toll on everybody.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
So I reckon, though, Kylie, that we were tired before COVID,
Like I think part of the condition.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
As a parent specifically, I mean, I think tiredness is
across the board everybody. Everybody experiences it to some level.
But as a parent, I think that you know, you
sign up for a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So do you remember when we had little kids? Do
you remember how how tiring. It was when we had
kids that were like one and two and three.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I was so exhausted that I would often wake up
at about one o'clock in the morning, still on the ground,
after having tried to pad off a child and wondering
why you hadn't come and woken me up to take
me to bed because you had fallen asleep in bed
waiting for.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Me, or patting another child off in another room or
something like that. I mean, you were so tired when
you were pregnant with our second child. We had like
a two and a half year old pregnant with our
second one, and we were at a Billy Joel concert
Brisbane and attainment center, like in two thousand and I
guess two thousand and one, two thousand and two, and.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
You fell asleep, fell asleep in a rock concert. That's
so exhaustion is.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
But so how do we manage fatigue as a parent?
How do we get the balance right? Before we share
some solutions, I want to share one quick metaphor that
I found really useful, and that is the metaphor of
a tightrope walker. So I don't think that a tightrope
walker is ever what you might call perfectly balanced. Instead,
they were in a process of constantly balancing, always adjusting,
(11:48):
moving a bit to the left, a little bit to
the right as they move make their way across the tightrope,
and the eye energy on the end of.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
The word tells us it's active.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, it's a process. It's something that we have to
be continually doing. I think that's why it's exhausting trying
to get this balance right. It's never quite right, but
we're always in the process of balancing.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I just love that metaphor because when I think about,
you know, family life in general, whether it's dealing with
fatigue or you know, kind of dealing with children's behavior
challenges or eating, whatever it is, it's constantly changing. Just
when you think you've got the mix right, just when
you feel like you're spot on, everything's going right, which
(12:31):
is that whole balance right, You're on the tightrope and
you feel like, oh, I've got.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
This, I've got Oh no, I don't. Well, I sway
to the other side every now.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
And again, I'm feeling balanced, and then one of the
kids will come and say, Dad.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
That's exactly right. And there's just there's so many moving.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Parts and we talked about three pillars of managing fatigue.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Solution number one it was getting more sleep.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
We're doing okay with that, but it's.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Just well, I did fall asleep before you putting the
kids to bed last night.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Actually had and rescue you because I fell asleep and
discovered when I woke up thinking my bed doesn't feel right.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
You were in bed with one of the kids.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I don't know if that counts as getting more sleep
when you actually fall asleep in the middle of doing something.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Solution number two was improving diet. Hey, we're making this
progress there. Hopefully twenty twenty four will be good for that. Well,
you're looking at me, funny. I haven't eaten any rubbish
food like I'm fully off processed sugary snack treat sort
of stuff except on day starting with their sweet on
day starting with this.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Only, and I think I'm doing really well with that.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I think you are too.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And number three was a tension management.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
It was a great podcast episode.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
We're not going to talk about any more of that
right now because we need to get to number one,
but if you want to check it out, our second
most listened to podcasts of the year, Managing Fatigue, episode
number six hundred and seventy nine.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Kylie, let's do it number one, number one.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
What do you think it is?
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Well, I know what it is because I put this together.
You're so funny. You're so funny.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I love that you asked me that that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, it was all about diffusing explosive children.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, great conversation. In fact, it was a two parter,
but the second part, I guess didn't quite make it
in the top five.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
It was still in the top ten. But I had
a chat with the.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Author of a book called The Explosive Child, Dr Ross Green.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
He is just a that's a title that's going to
get people wanting to read.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, it's great title of a book, but it's also
a really, really great book. And he and we have
different ways of expressing the same thing. And some people
they really love what I do. Some people they really
love what Ross does. But he's just such a lovely guy.
We talked about how his parents we need to keep
our emotions in chair so that we can help our
children in a useful way.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
Emotion regulation is huge. Life is full of anxieties and
frustrations and sadness. These are all good emotions because they
can prepare tell us into action, says the research. But
the other thing the research says is that if we
feel those emotions too strongly, they can shut us down
(15:10):
and make it harder for us to think. So those
are the global skills. The research has identified literally hundreds
of skills frequently found lacking in kids with social, emotional,
and behavioral challenges. Why do I say kids do all
if they can, Because if you have those skills, you're
probably doing pretty well, and if you don't, you'd very
(15:33):
much like to be doing well, but something's getting in
your way.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
This interview was really helpful, and I have found as
I've tried to I'm going to say, I'm going to
use the word master, I'm not even close to being there,
but recognizing just how powerful it is to keep my
emotion in checks as I'm trying to deal with children's
big emotions has played a huge part in some of
our most successful moments as parents. This year, we.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Also talked about ways that we can work with a
child that struggles with psychological flexibility.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
I don't know if that is a skill that can
be taught through direct instruction, though I know many people try.
I think it is a skill that is taught more
through a process, and the process that we use to
enhance that skill is problem solving, solving problems collaboratively. So
let me just rewind the tape a second. The kids
(16:27):
who we're thinking about right now don't look bad all
the time. They only look bad some of the time.
When do they look bad when expectations are being placed
upon them that they're having difficulty meeting. That could be
anything from difficulty turning off the xbox to come in
for dinner, to difficulty getting out of bed by seven
(16:49):
am to go to school, to difficulty eating what mom
or dad has made for dinner. Those are all expectations.
If a kid is having difficulty meeting and expectation, we
have a problem that needs to be solved. We call
those unsolved problems. And as you know, but maybe some
(17:09):
of your listeners don't, the collaborative and proactive solutions model
articulates a very systematic way of solving problems collaboratively and
proactively with kids. So the good news is that once
a problem is solved, it doesn't cause concerning behavior anymore.
That's good both the problem is solved and the concerning
(17:33):
behavior has subsided. Both very good things, but the process
of solving problems with kids collaboratively and outside the heat
of the moment proactively also gives kids practice at models
for them and enhances the very skills that they're lacking.
(17:56):
So now to your question. In the case of flexibility adaptive,
Let's say we've got a kid who's a very concrete, literal,
black and white, rigid thinker. They've already got the solution
of that problem, right, but we don't want to hear
about their solution yet. We want to hear what's making
it hard for them to meet the expectation. First, it
(18:19):
would sound like this, I've noticed you've been having difficulty
brushing your teeth before going to bed at night. What's up.
That's the beginning of the first of the three steps
that are involved in solving a problem collaboratively. Let's say
this very rigid kid then says, oh, no, no, no, I'm
in trouble brushing my teeth before I go to bed
at night. I've got my way of doing it, and
(18:40):
that's my way of doing it. That's not any typical response, right.
The parent would then say, yes, but I'm interested in
knowing what's hard for you about meeting that expectation. Now
we're on a different subject. Now we're not on the
kid's solution. Now we've rewound the tape a little bit.
(19:00):
It back to what's making it hard for them. In
the second step, the adult is entering their concern into
consideration why we think it's important that the expectation be met.
In the third step, we're putting our heads together and
collaborating on a solution, but one that addresses the concerns
(19:20):
of both parties. So what happened in that process for
that kid number one? They felt heard this is not
my solution versus your solution. It's let's hear your concerns.
Let's hear what's getting in your way. Then I'm going
to tell you my concerns. So we're listening to each other,
we're modeling, we're practicing, listening, empathizing, taking another person's perspective.
(19:48):
And then when we get to that third step and
we discover that the kid's original solution and the adult's
original solution could not conceivably address the concern of both parties,
and that we need a different solution, Well, the kid
has just gotten one rep in the skill of flexibility, adaptability,
(20:12):
also one rep on problem solving, one rep on frustration tolerance.
And if we did this proactively instead of the heat
of the moment, probably some skills that are going to
help them regulate their emotions down the road if we
get them good enough at this. So in answer to
your question, I told you it was going to take
a while. How do you teach skills when you're implementing
(20:34):
collaborative and practice solutions by solving problems collaboratively and proactively,
just by engaging kids in that process, we model practice
and enhance those skills. I should mention one other thing.
It's not just the kid who's getting practice at those skills.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
This was such a fantastic episode and I can see
alright it was.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Number one, Yeah, number seven, twenty one.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
If you want to go back and have a listen,
We will put all the details for these episodes in
the show notes because they will make your family happier. Hey,
we so appreciate that you've listened to today's podcast.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Tomorrow, I want to share with you one of the
most important articles that I've read this year to.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Help make your family happier. Join us for the podcast tomorrow,
It's been a big year.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, there's a lot of good work that's been done
and a lot of families that have been helped. We
so appreciate your feedback as well podcasts at Happy families
dot com dot au. The Happy Family's podcast is produced
by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
executive producer. Like I said, tomorrow a really important episode
about making your family happy across summer based on one
of the most important articles that I've read this year.
And for more information about making your family happier, don't
(21:45):
just listen to the podcast, visit our website, Happy families
dot com dot you and become a Happy Family's member
today
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
once answers.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Now, it's been a really big year on the Happy
Families podcast. As we move towards a conclusion for the year,
we thought that it might be interesting to have a
look at our biggest podcast of the year, Kylie. Number
of downloads this year approximately, did I tell you four million?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Actually it's higher. Wow, We're not for four point five
million downloads for the year. That's why we're celebrating, I
think so. I mean, if you do the maths on that,
let's say it's close en up to five million, five
million across fifty weeks. It's one hundred thousand downloads a week.
It's a lot of downloads. We're talking about lots and
lots of people listening to the podcast, which means we're
adding value to people's lives. Today, we wanted to talk
to you about the most value adding podcasts we've done
(00:49):
all year. That is the podcast that you listen to
the most because obviously they made the biggest impact, the
biggest difference, the biggest change in your family. So we're
going to count down five four three two one our
fifth most listened to podcast this year.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Was number seven hundred and six was a review of
gentle Parenting. You had a conversation with doctor Mona Dellahook.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah, we talked about what gentle parenting is. She actually
doesn't like the term gentle parenting. It's not very well defined,
so she calls it responsive parenting. And I really liked
what she said here.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
When certain people heard the word gentle parenting. And it's
not just my book. There's been quite a few books
in the last you know, five or so years on
this kind of new way of parenting as opposed to
maybe what we would think about as traditional parenting. Right,
so we might think of traditional parenting as more authoritarian,
(01:45):
and that would include maybe the parents as the ultimate experts,
and it might include punishments or rewards, but it would
kind of focus on behaviors, on surface behaviors, and parents
kind of judging behaviors is good or bad and then
having a certain response to those behaviors. And so the
(02:08):
word gentle parenting really doesn't describe a certain parenting style.
I think it's more of a catch all phrase for
this new type of parenting. And as you know, coming
out of the positive psychology movement in the nineteen nineties,
positive parenting has come on board, and that is, I
think a reaction that parents have to maybe the way
(02:31):
they were raised or their grandparents were raised right, which
wasn't very steeped in a knowledge of child development and
emotional literacy and all that good stuff. One article that
was written about gentle parenting said something like, so are
these gentle parents never saying no? And are these gentle
(02:53):
parents letting their kids throw rocks at cars as they
drive by? You know? And there is I think this
this conception that gentle parenting is parenting that is coddling
or never or doesn't have any sort of boundaries, and
that's really not the case. But people I think who
(03:16):
are concerned that parenting approaches don't have a level of
boundaries and parents as the guide and as the authority,
mistake that word. So it's not coddling in my opinion.
And the research that I'm particularly interested in and wrote
my book about is actually i sub a topic of
(03:38):
gentle parenting, which is responsive parenting that's linked in the
literature to a lot of great things, a lot of
great pieces of development, especially resilience.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You also touched on the math of gentle parenting taking
more time than normal parenting.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
This doesn't necessarily take longer once you get into the
hang of it. It actually helps children develop more cooperation.
So while it sounds like labor intensive in the beginning,
the main thing is our mind shift. Because when a
child sees a soft look on your face when they're
(04:15):
refusing to put their shoes and socks on, and they
see you go from saying hurry up, we gotta go
out the door where you're gonna be late to school,
to oh, sweetheart, these getting these shoes and socks on,
and then now we got to we're rushing so fast,
mommy or daddy. I'm being really really rough right now.
(04:37):
I'm really kind of yelling and I'm upset. You know what,
Let's slow things down for a second and then look
at them with care and concern. It's amazing how that
emotional contagion of calmness helps children calm. So it's not
doesn't necessarily take more time, but I think it also
(04:57):
takes a mind shift.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
That was episodes seven hundred and six, a review of
gentle Parenting with doctor Mona Dellahook and the fifth most
listened to podcast episode of our entire year, Our number four.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Was all about family a goal setting.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Who would have thought goal setting was that cool that
everybody wanted to listen to podcast episodes About that, we shared.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Some personal insights into our girls and their idea of
setting goals to start running and increase their fitness at
the start of the year.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
It started, well, I've got to say we didn't follow
up as well as we probably should have, and well,
the best way to set goals is to start from
the bottom up, and I want to share a clip
from that in just a sec. There's also going to
be follow up, and we didn't talk much about follow
up because well, we didn't do a.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Lot of follow up.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
But we are seeing progress and I'm excited to use
what we talked about in episode six seventy three about
film goal setting to recalibrate for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
His what we had to say about.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
This family goals start best bottom up, and I think
the best way to get a bottom up conversation going
about goals is to sit down with the kids and
have one of those family meetings. We've talked about it
so many times on the podcast. We ask three questions
what's going great, what's not going so well? What should
we focus on? And just by asking those three questions,
(06:17):
you're basically saying to the kids, all right, we're doing
a whole lot of stuff really well, handful of things
that we can improve on. If we were to improve
on one or two of those things, what would they be.
And that's essentially where we've come to with our kids'
fitness goals. They've decided that health and fitness needs to
be a higher priority. I asked them what they wanted
in terms of their goals. They want to be able
to run five k's in less than thirty minutes, and
(06:39):
so now we're creating a system around that to get
to that goal.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
And that's pretty much it.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Kylie, what else would you add to a conversation about
how to set family goals other than saying, hey, kids,
what do you think? And then how do we set
up a system around that?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I think one of the most important things when it
comes to goal setting is there needs to be accountability.
There needs to be check in points or else where.
Just having a conversation about something that we'd like to
see happen, but that there isn't any intention set on
how we can record progress, how we can actually acknowledge progress.
(07:13):
And without the recognition of progress, it's really hard for
motivation to stay high and for our desires to continue
to improve. The podcast that comes in at number three
was six hundred and seventy four and it was all
about the power of habits.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, so we were talking about the twenty mile March,
the habit that you can create every day that will
help to make you a better parent.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Honestly, when you say it, it seems like it's too easy.
It actually seems like it's too easy, and therefore it's
not going to work.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
It's kind of like writing a book. Though. If I
get up every day and I write a certain number
of words, within a couple of months, the book is written.
I've got to do all the research, I've got to
do all the planning, but just writing those words every
day and suddenly you've written a book, an entire book
that you've written.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
It's phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
How that works. Parenting's the same. It's just that the
metrics aren't quite as obvious. Like you can't get up
and run five k's every day and say, all right,
I'm going to be a good parent because I ran
my five k's, but that five K run metaphorically is
when the kids are angry, I don't shout, or when
I need to.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Talk to my children, I walk into.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
The room and I meet their eyes, or I mean,
pick your thing, whatever it is that you want to change,
It's about getting it right today, but also tomorrow and
also the day after, and getting it right every single
flipping day for twenty years until they finally are adults
and you've gotten to write consistently. Is that ongoing investment,
creating the habit. That's how we make our families function.
(08:47):
That's how we become better parents. I really really like
that episode. I think there's so much there as families
try to get things together and make things work.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Number two, We're getting close. Number two was all about
managing fatigue.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
It's the podcast every parent needs, because every parent it's
just so I mean, I'm tired. It's the end of
the year.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I'm always going to say, how do you feel like
we've done managing the fatigue this year?
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Reasonably?
Speaker 5 (09:16):
Well?
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Reasonably? Well, Look, there was something that you said.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
You were talking about you and your friends talking about
how your exhaustion was at an all time high.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
You know, I've been having conversations with lots of people
about this lately because I am feeling exhausted. I feel
like I've hit rock bottom in a way that I've
never hit before. I can hear it in your voice,
and there's just this acknowledgment that you know, we have
been through some of the hardest couple of years, not
collectively as a human race, dealing with just so much
(09:54):
uncertainty and stress and anxiety around you know, COVID and
jobs and you know whether or not there's enough food
on the shelves at the shops. There's just been so
much to deal.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
With, and now we're dealing with the economic insecurity of
interest rate hikes and so.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
On, and all of that insecurity and instability has taken
a physical and mental toll on everybody.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
So I reckon, though, Kylie, that we were tired before COVID,
Like I think part of the condition.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
As a parent specifically, I mean, I think tiredness is
across the board everybody. Everybody experiences it to some level.
But as a parent, I think that you know, you
sign up for a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So do you remember when we had little kids? Do
you remember how how tiring. It was when we had
kids that were like one and two and three.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I was so exhausted that I would often wake up
at about one o'clock in the morning, still on the ground,
after having tried to pad off a child and wondering
why you hadn't come and woken me up to take
me to bed because you had fallen asleep in bed
waiting for.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Me, or patting another child off in another room or
something like that. I mean, you were so tired when
you were pregnant with our second child. We had like
a two and a half year old pregnant with our
second one, and we were at a Billy Joel concert
Brisbane and attainment center, like in two thousand and I
guess two thousand and one, two thousand and two, and.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
You fell asleep, fell asleep in a rock concert. That's
so exhaustion is.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
But so how do we manage fatigue as a parent?
How do we get the balance right? Before we share
some solutions, I want to share one quick metaphor that
I found really useful, and that is the metaphor of
a tightrope walker. So I don't think that a tightrope
walker is ever what you might call perfectly balanced. Instead,
they were in a process of constantly balancing, always adjusting,
(11:48):
moving a bit to the left, a little bit to
the right as they move make their way across the tightrope,
and the eye energy on the end of.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
The word tells us it's active.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, it's a process. It's something that we have to
be continually doing. I think that's why it's exhausting trying
to get this balance right. It's never quite right, but
we're always in the process of balancing.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I just love that metaphor because when I think about,
you know, family life in general, whether it's dealing with
fatigue or you know, kind of dealing with children's behavior
challenges or eating, whatever it is, it's constantly changing. Just
when you think you've got the mix right, just when
you feel like you're spot on, everything's going right, which
(12:31):
is that whole balance right, You're on the tightrope and
you feel like, oh, I've got.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
This, I've got Oh no, I don't. Well, I sway
to the other side every now.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
And again, I'm feeling balanced, and then one of the
kids will come and say, Dad.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
That's exactly right. And there's just there's so many moving.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Parts and we talked about three pillars of managing fatigue.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Solution number one it was getting more sleep.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
We're doing okay with that, but it's.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Just well, I did fall asleep before you putting the
kids to bed last night.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Actually had and rescue you because I fell asleep and
discovered when I woke up thinking my bed doesn't feel right.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
You were in bed with one of the kids.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I don't know if that counts as getting more sleep
when you actually fall asleep in the middle of doing something.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Solution number two was improving diet. Hey, we're making this
progress there. Hopefully twenty twenty four will be good for that. Well,
you're looking at me, funny. I haven't eaten any rubbish
food like I'm fully off processed sugary snack treat sort
of stuff except on day starting with their sweet on
day starting with this.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Only, and I think I'm doing really well with that.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I think you are too.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And number three was a tension management.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
It was a great podcast episode.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
We're not going to talk about any more of that
right now because we need to get to number one,
but if you want to check it out, our second
most listened to podcasts of the year, Managing Fatigue, episode
number six hundred and seventy nine.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Kylie, let's do it number one, number one.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
What do you think it is?
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Well, I know what it is because I put this together.
You're so funny. You're so funny.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I love that you asked me that that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, it was all about diffusing explosive children.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, great conversation. In fact, it was a two parter,
but the second part, I guess didn't quite make it
in the top five.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
It was still in the top ten. But I had
a chat with the.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Author of a book called The Explosive Child, Dr Ross Green.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
He is just a that's a title that's going to
get people wanting to read.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, it's great title of a book, but it's also
a really, really great book. And he and we have
different ways of expressing the same thing. And some people
they really love what I do. Some people they really
love what Ross does. But he's just such a lovely guy.
We talked about how his parents we need to keep
our emotions in chair so that we can help our
children in a useful way.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
Emotion regulation is huge. Life is full of anxieties and
frustrations and sadness. These are all good emotions because they
can prepare tell us into action, says the research. But
the other thing the research says is that if we
feel those emotions too strongly, they can shut us down
(15:10):
and make it harder for us to think. So those
are the global skills. The research has identified literally hundreds
of skills frequently found lacking in kids with social, emotional,
and behavioral challenges. Why do I say kids do all
if they can, Because if you have those skills, you're
probably doing pretty well, and if you don't, you'd very
(15:33):
much like to be doing well, but something's getting in
your way.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
This interview was really helpful, and I have found as
I've tried to I'm going to say, I'm going to
use the word master, I'm not even close to being there,
but recognizing just how powerful it is to keep my
emotion in checks as I'm trying to deal with children's
big emotions has played a huge part in some of
our most successful moments as parents. This year, we.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Also talked about ways that we can work with a
child that struggles with psychological flexibility.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
I don't know if that is a skill that can
be taught through direct instruction, though I know many people try.
I think it is a skill that is taught more
through a process, and the process that we use to
enhance that skill is problem solving, solving problems collaboratively. So
let me just rewind the tape a second. The kids
(16:27):
who we're thinking about right now don't look bad all
the time. They only look bad some of the time.
When do they look bad when expectations are being placed
upon them that they're having difficulty meeting. That could be
anything from difficulty turning off the xbox to come in
for dinner, to difficulty getting out of bed by seven
(16:49):
am to go to school, to difficulty eating what mom
or dad has made for dinner. Those are all expectations.
If a kid is having difficulty meeting and expectation, we
have a problem that needs to be solved. We call
those unsolved problems. And as you know, but maybe some
(17:09):
of your listeners don't, the collaborative and proactive solutions model
articulates a very systematic way of solving problems collaboratively and
proactively with kids. So the good news is that once
a problem is solved, it doesn't cause concerning behavior anymore.
That's good both the problem is solved and the concerning
(17:33):
behavior has subsided. Both very good things, but the process
of solving problems with kids collaboratively and outside the heat
of the moment proactively also gives kids practice at models
for them and enhances the very skills that they're lacking.
(17:56):
So now to your question. In the case of flexibility adaptive,
Let's say we've got a kid who's a very concrete, literal,
black and white, rigid thinker. They've already got the solution
of that problem, right, but we don't want to hear
about their solution yet. We want to hear what's making
it hard for them to meet the expectation. First, it
(18:19):
would sound like this, I've noticed you've been having difficulty
brushing your teeth before going to bed at night. What's up.
That's the beginning of the first of the three steps
that are involved in solving a problem collaboratively. Let's say
this very rigid kid then says, oh, no, no, no, I'm
in trouble brushing my teeth before I go to bed
at night. I've got my way of doing it, and
(18:40):
that's my way of doing it. That's not any typical response, right.
The parent would then say, yes, but I'm interested in
knowing what's hard for you about meeting that expectation. Now
we're on a different subject. Now we're not on the
kid's solution. Now we've rewound the tape a little bit.
(19:00):
It back to what's making it hard for them. In
the second step, the adult is entering their concern into
consideration why we think it's important that the expectation be met.
In the third step, we're putting our heads together and
collaborating on a solution, but one that addresses the concerns
(19:20):
of both parties. So what happened in that process for
that kid number one? They felt heard this is not
my solution versus your solution. It's let's hear your concerns.
Let's hear what's getting in your way. Then I'm going
to tell you my concerns. So we're listening to each other,
we're modeling, we're practicing, listening, empathizing, taking another person's perspective.
(19:48):
And then when we get to that third step and
we discover that the kid's original solution and the adult's
original solution could not conceivably address the concern of both parties,
and that we need a different solution, Well, the kid
has just gotten one rep in the skill of flexibility, adaptability,
(20:12):
also one rep on problem solving, one rep on frustration tolerance.
And if we did this proactively instead of the heat
of the moment, probably some skills that are going to
help them regulate their emotions down the road if we
get them good enough at this. So in answer to
your question, I told you it was going to take
a while. How do you teach skills when you're implementing
(20:34):
collaborative and practice solutions by solving problems collaboratively and proactively,
just by engaging kids in that process, we model practice
and enhance those skills. I should mention one other thing.
It's not just the kid who's getting practice at those skills.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
This was such a fantastic episode and I can see
alright it was.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Number one, Yeah, number seven, twenty one.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
If you want to go back and have a listen,
We will put all the details for these episodes in
the show notes because they will make your family happier. Hey,
we so appreciate that you've listened to today's podcast.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Tomorrow, I want to share with you one of the
most important articles that I've read this year to.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Help make your family happier. Join us for the podcast tomorrow,
It's been a big year.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, there's a lot of good work that's been done
and a lot of families that have been helped. We
so appreciate your feedback as well podcasts at Happy families
dot com dot au. The Happy Family's podcast is produced
by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
executive producer. Like I said, tomorrow a really important episode
about making your family happy across summer based on one
of the most important articles that I've read this year.
And for more information about making your family happier, don't
(21:45):
just listen to the podcast, visit our website, Happy families
dot com dot you and become a Happy Family's member
today
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