March 2, 2023 • 19 mins
Justin & Kylie reflect on their week and determine what they can do better next time
Topics included in this episode -
- Mom explains why she doesn't teach her kids about 'stranger danger' and it makes a ton of sense
- Kaboose App
- Justin shares some feedback from a listener about the Roald Dahl episode
- Justin & Kylie enjoyed the Richard Marx concert
- The Coulson's say goodbye to their 2nd daughter
Find us on Facebook at Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families
Email us your questions and comments at podcasts@happyfamilies.com.au
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
wants answers.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Now spoiler alert as well, we didn't have a night
off without the kids. In the end, we had to
take a couple of kids to Brisbane whe us they
had to stay at the grandparents. We did a whole
lot of extra running around. We didn't get the hotel room.
We ended up staying at your parents. It wasn't quite
the night away that we wanted. It was anything but.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
And now here's the stars of our show.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
My mom and dad. Every Friday on the Happy Families podcast,
we do this thing called I'll do Better Tomorrow, and
we're going to talk about doing better tomorrow Today. Shortly,
we just reflect on the week that was and figure
out how it can be better. Parents. My name's Justin.
I'm here with Kylie, my wife from UM to our
six kids. Today though we've got a few housekeeping things
(00:48):
to take care of.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Kylie, can I have your housekeeping list? Please? Can we
swap for.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
The day housekeeping?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I see, I know where you're going. You like my
housekeeping better than your housekeeping because you get to.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Sit in air condition room while you do your housekeeping.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
You're saying that your housekeeping is different to mine.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I've done the dish just three times today already.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
That's a lot. That is a lot. I think that
I am the dishwasher in our home though, especially since
our dish yeah, well I was at work. Was at work. Hey,
So a couple of housekeeping things that really I'd like
to get into. The first one it just comes down
to this idea of stranger danger. I want to play
something that popped up on Upworthy the other day. This
is from an Instagram account owned by the Marsi Whalen.
(01:32):
We talk about how kids can stay safe, how we
can help our kids to be safe on the podcast.
Every few months. We make sure we bring it up.
It's an important topic, but it's sometimes nice to just
hear someone else talk about it, same concepts but a
slightly different way. And I thought this was important. It
doesn't need an entire podcast, but it's a great reminder
for every parent when it comes to issues of kids
(01:54):
safety and strangers. This is what the Marsi Whalen had
to say about stranger danger.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Here's why Dan and I don't teach our girls about
strangers or stranger danger and while that can be healthy,
and I understand where it's coming from. Right. Parents are
trying to protect their kids, keep them safe. But most
people are good people, and we want our girls to
be outgoing and have conversations with people and to in general,
you know, be hospitable to those around them. And so
instead of talking about strangers, we talk about strange behavior.
(02:26):
Because the thing is children are most often abused or
hurt by people they know, whether it's a close family
member and acquaintance, it's very rarely a stranger. And so
I want my kids to understand what strange behavior is.
Asking them to keep a secret, Oh, this is just
between you and I, don't tell your parents. That's strange behavior.
Asking them to go somewhere with their mom and dad
strange behavior. And my girls understand what to look for.
(02:47):
Whether it's in somebody they know really well or somebody
they don't know at all, it's categorized as strange behavior,
and therefore their red flags go out. Anybody can have
strange behavior, whether we know them or not, and when
that starts to happen, they are immediately to come to.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I love this. We talk about tricky people in our
house a lot and this notion that it's not so
much strangers because could be anyone. But when we kind
of get into these situations where it just feels a
bit icky, it doesn't it just feels tricky. We're not
used to this particular way of behaving. Then these are
(03:24):
people we want to be wary of.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
So we will linked to this in the show notes.
The idea that an adult would ask a child for help,
or that an adult would say this is just a
secret between the two of us, especially when it's not
a benign secret, like here's what I'm getting Mum for Christmas.
They're tricky kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, I love it. I think it's a really intuitive
and powerful way to teach our children to keep them safe.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
The Massy Whalen on Instagram is where you'll find it,
but we will link to it in the show notes. Now,
second piece of housekeeping is a new app that I
think many parents will be interested in. Again, rather doing
an entire podcast, I just want to let the word
be out there. There's a new app called cab Caboose
is changing lives. It gives people who have asd add
(04:11):
and other neurodiversion conditions a safe and supported place to
find their tribe and create meaningful relationships. From the media release,
Caboose was built by a Melbourne mum who had a
child who just struggled through his adolescent years because of
his neurodiversity, like massive, massive challenges and basically the way
the award winning app works is it matches people who
(04:35):
are neurodivergent with others of a similar age who have
the same interests, so they can form a bond and
they can relate to them. And there's a whole lot
of identity verification, consistent monitoring, so it's secure, it's supportive,
and it's helping thousands of people around the world to
find friends and mentors and employers. Just finding your tribe
when you're neurodivergent, it's so much harder than being neurotypical,
(04:58):
and this is an app that seems to be be
really helpful there. It's a new social media app called Caboose.
We'll link to it in the show notes. A quick
caveat on this we haven't tried it, we don't know
exactly how it works. But Michelle Ridsdale, the Melbourne mum
who has put it together, seems to have done a
really nice job on it, and Kylie, I'm going to
say it looks like the kind of app that parents
(05:21):
would really respond well too, and kids who are neurodiverse
would really respond well too.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
What's your other bit of housework?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
You're saying that like you don't want to it's not housework.
It's housekeeping. It's housekeeping. So we received some feedback. I
want to just mention the feedback. We got an email
from Beth h. Beth said, in fact, she sent us
a voicemail, but it was just a bit too long
for us to play. But she basically said the episode
that you did about Roald Dahal and censoring of books.
(05:51):
She said, I don't like Roll Dally either. I don't
like him one a little bit. But can we have
a broader conversation about the content that kids are reading
and watching for entertainment purposes? Because Roll is horrible, and
so is so much other stuff that's out there for kids,
including a whole lot of Disney stuff. And I thought,
you know, I've got a good point, and I just
want to acknowledge the email. I don't know when in
the next little while we'll get to an episode about that,
(06:13):
but I thought she was under something and I wanted
to mention it. There is one more housekeeping item. If
I may miss happy.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Fan, we'll get the dust cloth out come on.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Okay, last week I made a really big deal that
you and I were getting a night off from the
kids and we were going to go and see a
concert at q Pac Richard marks.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Spoiler alert. I stayed away.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You did spoiler alert as well. We didn't have a
night off without the kids. In the end, we had
to take a couple of kids to Brisbane with us.
They had to stay at the grandparents. We did a
whole lot of extra running around. We didn't get the
hotel room. We ended up staying at your parents. It
wasn't quite the.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Night away that we wanted.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
It was anything but a couple of other points. Number one,
I think that I might be the only person on
the planet, well you and I together, who are not
into lots of swearing. Like even Richard Marx, he's like
a sixty year old soft rocker. I can't believe how
many swear words he used in his concert, like.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
He was very explicit.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Everybody seems like you watch a TV show, it's just
so much swearing everywhere. Anyway, outside of that great show,
had a really fun night. I don't think that you
enjoyed it as much as I did, and I wouldn't
say I loved it, but it was a really nice show.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Do you know what I did enjoy it?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
What did you enjoy?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I enjoyed that you held my hand be whole night
and that I actually got to watch the concert through
your eyes because there were moments where I could just
see your whole face lit up and you just you
loved it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I love love music. It really connects with me.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Favorite song for you, hands down, it was when You
Loved Me. I've never heard the song before, but he
shared the fact that when he was writing the song
and recording it in his home studio, his three young
boys at the time independently came and told him that
they liked the song.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So I've got to jump in really quickly. His Curnam
is Mars and he made a joke on the night
that he's got three sons and they are therefore the
Marx Brothers, like the comedy troup the Marx Brothers with
Groucho Marx and well.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
He also told us that John Farnam got some skit
as well, so skid marks.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, that's terrible. I do remember you saying I do
remember him saying that now that you mentioned it. Anyway,
So there's this song.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Anyway. It's actually a really lovely song. But each of
the boys had come and told him independently that they
really liked the song, and so when he was coming
out to do this tour, he actually had this brainwave
and thought, what if I get the boys together, because
they're all in their own write accomplished musicians, and get
them to record the song with him. And what I
(08:38):
loved was he obviously was singing live, and the boys
were up on the screen.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah, playing the video in the background.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And I loved seeing number one that they were so
uniquely their own person and yet when they sang, they
were so himny. It was just like one voice and
to see, you know, he shared little bits and pieces
about who they were and what they were up to
in their lives, but it just it was so I
loved the unity that it created. And obviously the song
(09:04):
has this beautiful message of love.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
At a great pairing moment as well. He's a sixty
year old rocker hanging out with his thirty year old
sons or they're around about thirty years old and they're
still together. They're still hanging out there making music together.
They're being involved in one of his lives. It was
a really nice moment. I'm with you. I thought that
was great. My favorite moment of the night was the
final song of the night.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I mean, in the final fifteen songs, I.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Was so good. So we're not going to boy with
heaps of detail, but to be brief at the end
of the night, he's a guitarist, right, but I didn't
know that he could really play the piano. I mean,
anyone can play if you sit down and fiddle around,
you can play right here waiting. That was the last
song of the night, and you might kind of think, oh,
what a boring way to finish, Like that's a slow song,
it's a ballad, but his biggest hit. But he sits
(09:49):
down at the piano and the crowd just goes wild,
and he goes, I know, what are you thinking? You
think that you know? And how predictable here I am
playing right here wanting on the piano. But that's not
actually what he did. He sat down on the piano.
He's actually quite a pianist. He just started playing a
whole lot of songs like this.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
One that's taking you back, and the whole crowd is like, man,
he can sing, and he can play the piano as
well as the guitar, and then he got funny, just kidding, and.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Then he just started blasting, like you said, like another
I don't know, eight songs on the piano. He didn't
play the whole thing. He just played little snippets here
and there, bit by bit, and finally, after leading us
on for I think it must have been I do know,
four five minutes something like that. So he's got everyone
laughing and having a ball, and then finally there it is,
(10:54):
and the crag goes well, and he got trained at
the crowd because he'd been joking a lot, so he
was actually really entertaining. He was a lot of fun.
And I still think it was a oh gosh, listen
to that song, How good is it? Oh Jesus, all right,
we'll stop there, and the whole crowd saying it was
(11:14):
the big taught song to end the night, and everyone
loved it. And that's the end of our housekeeping. So
four big things we got feedback. We've got the autism
app caboost We've got the importance of not talking about
strange danger, and we got to have our night away
without the kids. That ended up not being a night
away without the kids, but we still at least got
to watch a concert. So much for old do better tomorrow.
(11:35):
We need to talk about what we've learned about parenting
in the last week. Otherwise people are going to feel
ripped off. I hope this hasn't been overly indulgent. There's
only one indulgent thing. The rest of it was important.
Let's do that now.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So I don't know what you were planning on talking about,
but we've had a really, really big week in our house.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I'll guarantee it was the same thing. It was that
really big thing where our daughter went away to the
UK for eighteen months and we said goodbye to We're
at the airport. We're never going to see her again.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So for the last few weeks, I'll do better tomorrow.
I've specifically have shared how hard it is to kind
of let go, and each of our children are going
through different stages of that letting go process. But like
you suggested on Monday, we actually said goodbye to Abby,
our second daughter, and we've been waiting for this for
(12:18):
quite some time. This has been a decision that she's
really had to wrestle with for many years. And what
I thought was actually going to be really hard was
just beautifully peaceful. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So for people who are not familiar with what's going
on in our church, kids go away when they're eighteen,
nineteen twenty something like that. They go away and spend
some time as missionaries for well, I mean, it's not compulsory,
it's completely voluntary, but they paid their own way. And
while they're gone, there's no dating, there's no movies, there's
no I don't know, like recreation and swimming and hanging out.
(12:54):
It's just you go there and you work like proper
missionary work, irving others. And it's a really big deal too.
I mean, in Abbey's case, she's flown literally to the
other side of the world. She's left the twenty eight
to thirty degree sunshine coast, beautiful summer weather, and landed
(13:15):
in four degrees four degrees at leeds four. I mean,
we don't even know what four degrees feels like, and
that's their maximum. That's crazy. And she's going to spend
the next eighteen months doing missionary work, putting off any
desires that she has for what she might want for
her life, and literally focused on helping other people. I mean,
it's a really big deal and she's doing it literally
(13:36):
on her own. She got on the plane and said goodbye,
and that was it.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
In preparation to her going, she actually spent a week
at home doing missionary training. So because of the time lapse,
she was up at midnight, studied all through the night,
and would go to bed pretty much once I took
the kids to school in the morning. And as I
watched her go through this process, so I was saying,
this is ridiculous. She should just get on the plane
(14:02):
and like get over there and just be there face
to face and deal with everything. But it was interesting
watching it all kind of unfold and just seeing her
able to kind of ease her way into this hard thing,
like this is hard. It is really seeing her ease
her way into it still within the comfort of her
own home. And what I watched was this kid who
(14:23):
I was thinking, how the heck is she going to
make it through eighteen months? Grow up run in front
of me, and she took on each challenge like headfirst
and just gave it everything to the point where she
got to the stage where we got dropped her off
at the airport, and they weren't really any tears, Like
she was so excited to get on that plane and
(14:47):
get over there and meet these people who she's seen
online for the last week and they're going to become
her buddies for the next three weeks before she actually
goes out there and does it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, she did have a bit of a cry apparently
once she got on the and realized this is actually it.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
No, she was she was fine because she flew from
her richie door and then she went to Sydney, met
up with your parents. She was all good. She got
through customs on the other end and she.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Lost lost it. She lost her emotions and she lost it.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
She called me just sobbing, she said, I think it's
finally hit me. But was so beautiful, and you talk
about tricky behaviors instead of tricky people and stranger danger
and all of that. What I loved was your mum
actually was standing in line with her check her into
the next phase of the trip, and she kind of
just noticed a woman behind her, and so she reached
(15:37):
out to her asked where she was flying to, found
out that they were actually going through all the way
to Manchester together, and so she just acknowledged that Abby
was traveling for the first This is literally the first
time she's got on a plane traveling alone, traveling alone,
and she had multiple stopovers, stopping in Sydney, then stopping
in Qatar, and then finally arriving in Manchester and hoping
(15:57):
someone's going to be there to meet her, and having
no idea, honestly, no idea what this was going to
look like. And so this woman, Amanda, bless her heart, yeah, Angel,
she just checked in with Abby at each stop, made
sure she was okay. Abby had no idea what to
do with the currency she had in her pocket.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
She bought her food when they arrived in Katar, I mean,
how good is that?
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And then we got to the other end and Abby
was down a bag. So she took two suitcases. One
suitcase did not arrive, and she had actually said to
Amanda after a first one arrived and Amanda got her,
She's like, I'm okay, you're welcome to God. She said, no, no,
I'll make sure everything's right before I leave, And only
to find out that her second bag didn't come through,
and so she was able to take her through to
(16:38):
baggage claims make sure everything was sortid. They found a bag,
they know where it is and she will have it
in a few days. And she has no class and
she's in.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Four degree where But you know what I love about
that is we can trust people around us, whether we're
dealing with little kids or big kids, we can trust
people around us. There are good people there. And ultimately,
what we're experiencing, and I guess the reason that we
wanted to share it in our podcast today is you
raise these kids for twenty years or eighteen years or
whatever ends up being, and then one day they push
(17:08):
off out into the world. And it's really sad in
so many ways to see them go. It really, even
as we talk about it now, I'm affected by it.
But it's also thrilling. It's so exciting to see these
kids that we send our heart into the world and
off they go, and she's doing it. She's living her
(17:31):
life now. It's like that little bird that got pushed
out of the nest and it started to fly.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
What I've noticed, you know, this is now the second
time we've said goodbye to a child, and it was
the same with baby number one. As they progress and
I'm preparing myself to say goodbye when the time's right,
it actually just feels amazing. It feels amazing to know
that you've actually prepared this child enough that they're ready
(17:58):
to jump, yeah, to jump, and they're excited about what
the world has installed for them, and I just I do.
I feel so much excitement and anticipation. I can't think
of a better place that I or a better thing
that she could be doing with her life right now.
And she's excited, and she's doing it because she wants to,
not because I've given her this arbitrary list of this
(18:20):
is what you need to do to become an adult,
or this is this is next steps for you. What
do you want to do with your life? This is
what I want to do. That's amazing well, and we
are here to support you all the way.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Our time is up for today's podcast, but I'm glad
we got to share that. I might also add that
first child that we sent off into the world, she
got married and she's living her life now. She and
her husband have recently moved to the Sunshine Past and
it looks like she's moved back in because they're over
at our place three nights a week for dinner and
two mornings a week for breakfast. And it's kind of like, oh,
(18:49):
hang on, have you got your own place or not.
They're like, yeah, but we like your place better than
cooking is really good. They go away, but they come back.
That's our older better tomorrow for today. Anything I'll see
you on to add before we wrap up.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rowland from
Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. Thank you
so much for listening to the podcast. We really hope
that you enjoy what you hear and that it helps
you to find the joy in your parenting journey. Thanks
for listening. For more information, you can check out Happy
families dot com dot au. Oh and a quick reminder
(19:24):
as well, if you want to be more resilient as
a parent, next Thursday night. Next Thursday night, we're going
to be putting on a free webinar for you. That's
the ninth of March free webinar, The Resilient Parent. This
is not a parenting webinar. This is a webinar for parents,
not about raising kids, but about being more resilient yourself.
(19:45):
All the details that you need are at our Facebook
page doctor Justin Colson's Happy Families
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
wants answers.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Now spoiler alert as well, we didn't have a night
off without the kids. In the end, we had to
take a couple of kids to Brisbane whe us they
had to stay at the grandparents. We did a whole
lot of extra running around. We didn't get the hotel room.
We ended up staying at your parents. It wasn't quite
the night away that we wanted. It was anything but.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
And now here's the stars of our show.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
My mom and dad. Every Friday on the Happy Families podcast,
we do this thing called I'll do Better Tomorrow, and
we're going to talk about doing better tomorrow Today. Shortly,
we just reflect on the week that was and figure
out how it can be better. Parents. My name's Justin.
I'm here with Kylie, my wife from UM to our
six kids. Today though we've got a few housekeeping things
(00:48):
to take care of.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Kylie, can I have your housekeeping list? Please? Can we
swap for.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
The day housekeeping?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I see, I know where you're going. You like my
housekeeping better than your housekeeping because you get to.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Sit in air condition room while you do your housekeeping.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
You're saying that your housekeeping is different to mine.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I've done the dish just three times today already.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
That's a lot. That is a lot. I think that
I am the dishwasher in our home though, especially since
our dish yeah, well I was at work. Was at work. Hey,
So a couple of housekeeping things that really I'd like
to get into. The first one it just comes down
to this idea of stranger danger. I want to play
something that popped up on Upworthy the other day. This
is from an Instagram account owned by the Marsi Whalen.
(01:32):
We talk about how kids can stay safe, how we
can help our kids to be safe on the podcast.
Every few months. We make sure we bring it up.
It's an important topic, but it's sometimes nice to just
hear someone else talk about it, same concepts but a
slightly different way. And I thought this was important. It
doesn't need an entire podcast, but it's a great reminder
for every parent when it comes to issues of kids
(01:54):
safety and strangers. This is what the Marsi Whalen had
to say about stranger danger.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Here's why Dan and I don't teach our girls about
strangers or stranger danger and while that can be healthy,
and I understand where it's coming from. Right. Parents are
trying to protect their kids, keep them safe. But most
people are good people, and we want our girls to
be outgoing and have conversations with people and to in general,
you know, be hospitable to those around them. And so
instead of talking about strangers, we talk about strange behavior.
(02:26):
Because the thing is children are most often abused or
hurt by people they know, whether it's a close family
member and acquaintance, it's very rarely a stranger. And so
I want my kids to understand what strange behavior is.
Asking them to keep a secret, Oh, this is just
between you and I, don't tell your parents. That's strange behavior.
Asking them to go somewhere with their mom and dad
strange behavior. And my girls understand what to look for.
(02:47):
Whether it's in somebody they know really well or somebody
they don't know at all, it's categorized as strange behavior,
and therefore their red flags go out. Anybody can have
strange behavior, whether we know them or not, and when
that starts to happen, they are immediately to come to.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I love this. We talk about tricky people in our
house a lot and this notion that it's not so
much strangers because could be anyone. But when we kind
of get into these situations where it just feels a
bit icky, it doesn't it just feels tricky. We're not
used to this particular way of behaving. Then these are
(03:24):
people we want to be wary of.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
So we will linked to this in the show notes.
The idea that an adult would ask a child for help,
or that an adult would say this is just a
secret between the two of us, especially when it's not
a benign secret, like here's what I'm getting Mum for Christmas.
They're tricky kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, I love it. I think it's a really intuitive
and powerful way to teach our children to keep them safe.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
The Massy Whalen on Instagram is where you'll find it,
but we will link to it in the show notes. Now,
second piece of housekeeping is a new app that I
think many parents will be interested in. Again, rather doing
an entire podcast, I just want to let the word
be out there. There's a new app called cab Caboose
is changing lives. It gives people who have asd add
(04:11):
and other neurodiversion conditions a safe and supported place to
find their tribe and create meaningful relationships. From the media release,
Caboose was built by a Melbourne mum who had a
child who just struggled through his adolescent years because of
his neurodiversity, like massive, massive challenges and basically the way
the award winning app works is it matches people who
(04:35):
are neurodivergent with others of a similar age who have
the same interests, so they can form a bond and
they can relate to them. And there's a whole lot
of identity verification, consistent monitoring, so it's secure, it's supportive,
and it's helping thousands of people around the world to
find friends and mentors and employers. Just finding your tribe
when you're neurodivergent, it's so much harder than being neurotypical,
(04:58):
and this is an app that seems to be be
really helpful there. It's a new social media app called Caboose.
We'll link to it in the show notes. A quick
caveat on this we haven't tried it, we don't know
exactly how it works. But Michelle Ridsdale, the Melbourne mum
who has put it together, seems to have done a
really nice job on it, and Kylie, I'm going to
say it looks like the kind of app that parents
(05:21):
would really respond well too, and kids who are neurodiverse
would really respond well too.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
What's your other bit of housework?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
You're saying that like you don't want to it's not housework.
It's housekeeping. It's housekeeping. So we received some feedback. I
want to just mention the feedback. We got an email
from Beth h. Beth said, in fact, she sent us
a voicemail, but it was just a bit too long
for us to play. But she basically said the episode
that you did about Roald Dahal and censoring of books.
(05:51):
She said, I don't like Roll Dally either. I don't
like him one a little bit. But can we have
a broader conversation about the content that kids are reading
and watching for entertainment purposes? Because Roll is horrible, and
so is so much other stuff that's out there for kids,
including a whole lot of Disney stuff. And I thought,
you know, I've got a good point, and I just
want to acknowledge the email. I don't know when in
the next little while we'll get to an episode about that,
(06:13):
but I thought she was under something and I wanted
to mention it. There is one more housekeeping item. If
I may miss happy.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Fan, we'll get the dust cloth out come on.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Okay, last week I made a really big deal that
you and I were getting a night off from the
kids and we were going to go and see a
concert at q Pac Richard marks.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Spoiler alert. I stayed away.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You did spoiler alert as well. We didn't have a
night off without the kids. In the end, we had
to take a couple of kids to Brisbane with us.
They had to stay at the grandparents. We did a
whole lot of extra running around. We didn't get the
hotel room. We ended up staying at your parents. It
wasn't quite the.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Night away that we wanted.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
It was anything but a couple of other points. Number one,
I think that I might be the only person on
the planet, well you and I together, who are not
into lots of swearing. Like even Richard Marx, he's like
a sixty year old soft rocker. I can't believe how
many swear words he used in his concert, like.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
He was very explicit.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Everybody seems like you watch a TV show, it's just
so much swearing everywhere. Anyway, outside of that great show,
had a really fun night. I don't think that you
enjoyed it as much as I did, and I wouldn't
say I loved it, but it was a really nice show.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Do you know what I did enjoy it?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
What did you enjoy?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I enjoyed that you held my hand be whole night
and that I actually got to watch the concert through
your eyes because there were moments where I could just
see your whole face lit up and you just you
loved it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I love love music. It really connects with me.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Favorite song for you, hands down, it was when You
Loved Me. I've never heard the song before, but he
shared the fact that when he was writing the song
and recording it in his home studio, his three young
boys at the time independently came and told him that
they liked the song.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So I've got to jump in really quickly. His Curnam
is Mars and he made a joke on the night
that he's got three sons and they are therefore the
Marx Brothers, like the comedy troup the Marx Brothers with
Groucho Marx and well.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
He also told us that John Farnam got some skit
as well, so skid marks.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, that's terrible. I do remember you saying I do
remember him saying that now that you mentioned it. Anyway,
So there's this song.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Anyway. It's actually a really lovely song. But each of
the boys had come and told him independently that they
really liked the song, and so when he was coming
out to do this tour, he actually had this brainwave
and thought, what if I get the boys together, because
they're all in their own write accomplished musicians, and get
them to record the song with him. And what I
(08:38):
loved was he obviously was singing live, and the boys
were up on the screen.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah, playing the video in the background.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And I loved seeing number one that they were so
uniquely their own person and yet when they sang, they
were so himny. It was just like one voice and
to see, you know, he shared little bits and pieces
about who they were and what they were up to
in their lives, but it just it was so I
loved the unity that it created. And obviously the song
(09:04):
has this beautiful message of love.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
At a great pairing moment as well. He's a sixty
year old rocker hanging out with his thirty year old
sons or they're around about thirty years old and they're
still together. They're still hanging out there making music together.
They're being involved in one of his lives. It was
a really nice moment. I'm with you. I thought that
was great. My favorite moment of the night was the
final song of the night.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I mean, in the final fifteen songs, I.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Was so good. So we're not going to boy with
heaps of detail, but to be brief at the end
of the night, he's a guitarist, right, but I didn't
know that he could really play the piano. I mean,
anyone can play if you sit down and fiddle around,
you can play right here waiting. That was the last
song of the night, and you might kind of think, oh,
what a boring way to finish, Like that's a slow song,
it's a ballad, but his biggest hit. But he sits
(09:49):
down at the piano and the crowd just goes wild,
and he goes, I know, what are you thinking? You
think that you know? And how predictable here I am
playing right here wanting on the piano. But that's not
actually what he did. He sat down on the piano.
He's actually quite a pianist. He just started playing a
whole lot of songs like this.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
One that's taking you back, and the whole crowd is like, man,
he can sing, and he can play the piano as
well as the guitar, and then he got funny, just kidding, and.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Then he just started blasting, like you said, like another
I don't know, eight songs on the piano. He didn't
play the whole thing. He just played little snippets here
and there, bit by bit, and finally, after leading us
on for I think it must have been I do know,
four five minutes something like that. So he's got everyone
laughing and having a ball, and then finally there it is,
(10:54):
and the crag goes well, and he got trained at
the crowd because he'd been joking a lot, so he
was actually really entertaining. He was a lot of fun.
And I still think it was a oh gosh, listen
to that song, How good is it? Oh Jesus, all right,
we'll stop there, and the whole crowd saying it was
(11:14):
the big taught song to end the night, and everyone
loved it. And that's the end of our housekeeping. So
four big things we got feedback. We've got the autism
app caboost We've got the importance of not talking about
strange danger, and we got to have our night away
without the kids. That ended up not being a night
away without the kids, but we still at least got
to watch a concert. So much for old do better tomorrow.
(11:35):
We need to talk about what we've learned about parenting
in the last week. Otherwise people are going to feel
ripped off. I hope this hasn't been overly indulgent. There's
only one indulgent thing. The rest of it was important.
Let's do that now.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So I don't know what you were planning on talking about,
but we've had a really, really big week in our house.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I'll guarantee it was the same thing. It was that
really big thing where our daughter went away to the
UK for eighteen months and we said goodbye to We're
at the airport. We're never going to see her again.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So for the last few weeks, I'll do better tomorrow.
I've specifically have shared how hard it is to kind
of let go, and each of our children are going
through different stages of that letting go process. But like
you suggested on Monday, we actually said goodbye to Abby,
our second daughter, and we've been waiting for this for
(12:18):
quite some time. This has been a decision that she's
really had to wrestle with for many years. And what
I thought was actually going to be really hard was
just beautifully peaceful. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So for people who are not familiar with what's going
on in our church, kids go away when they're eighteen,
nineteen twenty something like that. They go away and spend
some time as missionaries for well, I mean, it's not compulsory,
it's completely voluntary, but they paid their own way. And
while they're gone, there's no dating, there's no movies, there's
no I don't know, like recreation and swimming and hanging out.
(12:54):
It's just you go there and you work like proper
missionary work, irving others. And it's a really big deal too.
I mean, in Abbey's case, she's flown literally to the
other side of the world. She's left the twenty eight
to thirty degree sunshine coast, beautiful summer weather, and landed
(13:15):
in four degrees four degrees at leeds four. I mean,
we don't even know what four degrees feels like, and
that's their maximum. That's crazy. And she's going to spend
the next eighteen months doing missionary work, putting off any
desires that she has for what she might want for
her life, and literally focused on helping other people. I mean,
it's a really big deal and she's doing it literally
(13:36):
on her own. She got on the plane and said goodbye,
and that was it.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
In preparation to her going, she actually spent a week
at home doing missionary training. So because of the time lapse,
she was up at midnight, studied all through the night,
and would go to bed pretty much once I took
the kids to school in the morning. And as I
watched her go through this process, so I was saying,
this is ridiculous. She should just get on the plane
(14:02):
and like get over there and just be there face
to face and deal with everything. But it was interesting
watching it all kind of unfold and just seeing her
able to kind of ease her way into this hard thing,
like this is hard. It is really seeing her ease
her way into it still within the comfort of her
own home. And what I watched was this kid who
(14:23):
I was thinking, how the heck is she going to
make it through eighteen months? Grow up run in front
of me, and she took on each challenge like headfirst
and just gave it everything to the point where she
got to the stage where we got dropped her off
at the airport, and they weren't really any tears, Like
she was so excited to get on that plane and
(14:47):
get over there and meet these people who she's seen
online for the last week and they're going to become
her buddies for the next three weeks before she actually
goes out there and does it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, she did have a bit of a cry apparently
once she got on the and realized this is actually it.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
No, she was she was fine because she flew from
her richie door and then she went to Sydney, met
up with your parents. She was all good. She got
through customs on the other end and she.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Lost lost it. She lost her emotions and she lost it.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
She called me just sobbing, she said, I think it's
finally hit me. But was so beautiful, and you talk
about tricky behaviors instead of tricky people and stranger danger
and all of that. What I loved was your mum
actually was standing in line with her check her into
the next phase of the trip, and she kind of
just noticed a woman behind her, and so she reached
(15:37):
out to her asked where she was flying to, found
out that they were actually going through all the way
to Manchester together, and so she just acknowledged that Abby
was traveling for the first This is literally the first
time she's got on a plane traveling alone, traveling alone,
and she had multiple stopovers, stopping in Sydney, then stopping
in Qatar, and then finally arriving in Manchester and hoping
(15:57):
someone's going to be there to meet her, and having
no idea, honestly, no idea what this was going to
look like. And so this woman, Amanda, bless her heart, yeah, Angel,
she just checked in with Abby at each stop, made
sure she was okay. Abby had no idea what to
do with the currency she had in her pocket.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
She bought her food when they arrived in Katar, I mean,
how good is that?
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And then we got to the other end and Abby
was down a bag. So she took two suitcases. One
suitcase did not arrive, and she had actually said to
Amanda after a first one arrived and Amanda got her,
She's like, I'm okay, you're welcome to God. She said, no, no,
I'll make sure everything's right before I leave, And only
to find out that her second bag didn't come through,
and so she was able to take her through to
(16:38):
baggage claims make sure everything was sortid. They found a bag,
they know where it is and she will have it
in a few days. And she has no class and
she's in.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Four degree where But you know what I love about
that is we can trust people around us, whether we're
dealing with little kids or big kids, we can trust
people around us. There are good people there. And ultimately,
what we're experiencing, and I guess the reason that we
wanted to share it in our podcast today is you
raise these kids for twenty years or eighteen years or
whatever ends up being, and then one day they push
(17:08):
off out into the world. And it's really sad in
so many ways to see them go. It really, even
as we talk about it now, I'm affected by it.
But it's also thrilling. It's so exciting to see these
kids that we send our heart into the world and
off they go, and she's doing it. She's living her
(17:31):
life now. It's like that little bird that got pushed
out of the nest and it started to fly.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
What I've noticed, you know, this is now the second
time we've said goodbye to a child, and it was
the same with baby number one. As they progress and
I'm preparing myself to say goodbye when the time's right,
it actually just feels amazing. It feels amazing to know
that you've actually prepared this child enough that they're ready
(17:58):
to jump, yeah, to jump, and they're excited about what
the world has installed for them, and I just I do.
I feel so much excitement and anticipation. I can't think
of a better place that I or a better thing
that she could be doing with her life right now.
And she's excited, and she's doing it because she wants to,
not because I've given her this arbitrary list of this
(18:20):
is what you need to do to become an adult,
or this is this is next steps for you. What
do you want to do with your life? This is
what I want to do. That's amazing well, and we
are here to support you all the way.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Our time is up for today's podcast, but I'm glad
we got to share that. I might also add that
first child that we sent off into the world, she
got married and she's living her life now. She and
her husband have recently moved to the Sunshine Past and
it looks like she's moved back in because they're over
at our place three nights a week for dinner and
two mornings a week for breakfast. And it's kind of like, oh,
(18:49):
hang on, have you got your own place or not.
They're like, yeah, but we like your place better than
cooking is really good. They go away, but they come back.
That's our older better tomorrow for today. Anything I'll see
you on to add before we wrap up.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rowland from
Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. Thank you
so much for listening to the podcast. We really hope
that you enjoy what you hear and that it helps
you to find the joy in your parenting journey. Thanks
for listening. For more information, you can check out Happy
families dot com dot au. Oh and a quick reminder
(19:24):
as well, if you want to be more resilient as
a parent, next Thursday night. Next Thursday night, we're going
to be putting on a free webinar for you. That's
the ninth of March free webinar, The Resilient Parent. This
is not a parenting webinar. This is a webinar for parents,
not about raising kids, but about being more resilient yourself.
(19:45):
All the details that you need are at our Facebook
page doctor Justin Colson's Happy Families
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