June 7, 2025 • 36 mins
Tim Beveridge is joined by Principal Psychologist at Umbrella Wellbeing, Dougal Sutherland.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News talksb
stand Um, your brother, your bra.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
She's my sister, don't you.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Will beleeve?
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Yes, welcome back. This is the Weekend Collective. That dismal
piece of music was chosen by my next guest, whichween
say that with the uh. I'd say that with my
tongue slightly in my cheek. Anyway, this is the Weekend
Collective and as you know, I like to let our
guests choose a bit of our music, and which accounted
for all the country music we had in the panel
with Jenny Vernon and Paul Spoonley. And by the way,
(00:58):
if you've missed any of our previous hours, we get
them up online pretty quickly. Son, go and check them
out on the News TALKSBI website or on iHeartRadio button.
Right now, this is the parent Squad and we would
have a chat about Okay, well you will have if
you follow the news vaguely. You can't have missed the
tragedy around the run It Straight game where a young
(01:19):
man or On Sattathwait died after playing it in his backyard.
And look, we're not going to dwell on that, but
as we know, when you're a kid, you do things
that maybe if you thought about it a couple of times,
you wouldn't or if you thought a bit more about
the consequences. And the question is, so, no matter how
hard parents try, kids are always going to do unwise
(01:42):
or dumb things. Is it possible to mitigate that risk?
Is it something where parents can have a voice in
stopping their kids or giving them that little voice in
their head that goes, hang on, tim, do you really
think you should do that? And how do you do
that if you're a parent, But also if you're listening,
what was the dumbest thing you ever did in your
(02:03):
youth that you thought, you know what, I should have
listened to my mum or my dad and I wouldn't
have got myself in so much trouble. But I didn't,
and I went ahead and did it anyway. And there
we go. That's I'm luckily I'm still around to tell
the tale, but to discuss that and other things. He
is principal psychologist at Umbrella Well Being and as we know,
has terrible taste of music. And his name is sorry, no,
(02:25):
I'm just kidding. It's actually not a bad song. Google,
It's just a way of just a way of loosening
up for the show. How are you.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Good, mate, I'm very good. I was just enjoying that
lovely piece of music and the.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
House Martins, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It is? Yeah, yeah, from way back in the day,
back in the mid eighties.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
I think, I'm sure that's been covered a few times
by different bands. I was thinking, I know that tune,
but maybe.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, it's not their original. They covered it off somebody
else from the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah, that's yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
It was just big because they were all singing a
cappella and it was like, oh my gosh, who's ever
sung that before? This is nineteen eighty four, So yeah, no.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Need to apologize for a terrible taste of music.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It is.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
Hey. By the way, hey, this is completely trivial before
we get into the If you ever want to have
a bit of a laugh, there's a website called the
Pudding dot com okay, and you can give it access
temporarily to your Spotify and or your Apple Music or whatever,
and it goes in and it looks at everything you're playing,
and it basically just pulls you apart on your musical
(03:26):
days I do it every now and again just to
tell me how transic I am.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Oh, that sounds that. That sounds like it sounds like
something I'd have to have a bit of courage to do,
because because I find myself getting very defensive over my music,
I think.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Oh, oh my god, I've really taken it backwards today. No,
you have no.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I think it was when I was When I was
growing up in the eighties, there was a lot of
militancy I think around music. You were you know, you
were into this music, and if you were into this music,
you couldn't be into that music.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
And a lot of it was political. It was tribal, it
wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, yeah, it very much was. I can remember, you know,
a lot of my kids at school, the kids at
high school were into you know, sort of Bond Jovi
and def Leppard and all those terrible hair metal bands,
and then it was like, no, there's no way on
listening to that, And it was it was very very tribal.
And I think I've sort of grown up with that
(04:20):
sort of sense of having to defend my honor or
about about my musical choices. But I'm loosening up. I'm loosening,
are you. I'm not sure, well a little bit. You
should have seen me back in the day, really, were you?
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something to be a punk.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I was too too young to be a punk, but
more in that sort of new wave, you know, kind
of the Smiths and very independent music and very this
is amazing and we you know, give the big finger
to the main stream and that kind of stuff. So
it was that punk ethos but but but not not
quite punk itself. But yeah, it was.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
You tell that with your parents to go dound to dinner,
to the neighbors or something. Were you the child that
your parents were like, oh, for goodness, please, dog, look,
can you not wear that shirt?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Look? I did turn into that, but later on one
time it was actually one of the first times I
meet my parents in law. I just had my hair
cut really short and dyed bright orange, and possibly in retrospect,
wasn't the best move, but there you go. I was
only twenty or twenty two or something.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Well, these the people who became your parents in law.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, it was obviously got through
that test, I'm assuming, Well, yeah, no, I got through
the test. I got you know, it came out the
other side. We've been happily married for almost thirty years.
So yeah, thirty years. Next year.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
You got married when you were about eighteen. You look
a young chap, look at you.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, not quite early twenties. Twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I think twenty three were very bad to be given
you twenty three plus quick arithmetic.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Everybody knows that I was and that I was born
young enough to be in the Dunedin long and in
Judinal study, right, so everybody can figure that out. Remember
we talked about.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
This, Yes, I love that that you're actually part of
that study. Now, by the way, before we get into it,
people are going, what's Google talking about? The dned and
Longitudinal Study is a study where that which is very
forward thinking because the people who see the benefits of
the study, many of them probably wouldn't have lived to
it the scientists who set it up. But it was
basically tracking a whole lot of outcomes in about a
(06:30):
thousand children's lives who are born at a certain time.
You know what's happened in their lives, what's their health,
what's their diet and all those sort of things, and
where they are amazing isn't it.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Oh, it's one of the longest, not only one of
the longest running studies in the world, but also one
of the studies that's kept something like ninety percent of
its original participants, which is one of its major achievements.
So yeah, we got followed up every two or three
years and we're still being followed up. I went back
last year, although now they're calling it the aging study,
(07:01):
not the developmental.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Just like god that there's not something you needed to
be told, is it? Ah, that's brutal.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I know.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
The Aging Study, high doogle?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I know it's like, oh, is that where I've got
to in life? But I just got to own it.
I am getting older and that's okay.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Good on you. Okay, what's the dumbest thing you did
as a kid and could your parents have stopped it?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I was thinking about that. The dumbest thing I can
remember that springs to mind. There was a group of us.
We were wandering around Dunedin's streets and we wanted to
get from one place to another. Rather than go over
the hill, we went through a train tunnel and the
train tunnel was alive. You know, there were trains going
through the tunnel, and so we just bowled through, and
that we were having all these debates about, oh, if
(07:46):
you get stuck in a train tunnel, you've got to
push yourself against the wall because the train sucks you under. Oh,
freaking each other out. Could my appearance have stopped me?
But probably not. But you know, I could feel inside,
I could feel that horrible sort of sense of this
is not right, this is not right, this is not right.
I did it anyway, I didn't. I didn't love it,
(08:08):
I must say, but it was pretty freaky.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah, Because I'm wondering if the reason we put this
in for a discussion is because well, obviously we've seen
the tragic events that told and I actually I would
rather we launched off another news story, but it is
in the media about people doing unwise things, because it just,
you know, I just have nothing, but you know, deepest
sympathies to the family, satisfay, and so let's push that
(08:34):
to one side, because I can think of dumb things
I did where in fact that I'll be honest, the
dumbest thing I did was, you know, I was on
an age of my traveling for a sports tournament. I
think when I was seventeen, and my parents let me
have the car and I just with and I was
driving friends and I just drove way too fast and
(08:56):
I look at a particular corner I went round, and
if there'd been a truck coming the other way, we
wouldn't be here because I'd underestimated it. I wasn't following
the law properly, and I was lucky to get away
with it. And that's the stuff that I think terrifies. Yes, cars,
I mean they are death machines if you do if
you make the wrong decision.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's so many things, and it's
that teenage years, isn't it too, The chasing of the adrenaline,
the wanting to do something that's crazy, and the importance
of your friends. I think too, that's that sense of
really strong peer pressure in your teenage years. I mean
that was my example when I talked about my example
of going through the train tunnel. Everybody else was going
(09:36):
to do it, so I could not do it. So yeah,
very much that sense of peer pressure. Felt super uncomfortable
about it, and that could have ended up quite tragically.
For there was about half a dozen of us said
I think there, so yeah, it's it's it's a it's
a really tricky time. I think.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
I think, well, actually, I think through our initial discussion,
there is a different way to frame that question. I mean,
it's it's an easy one to say, how do you
stop your kids doing dumb stuff? But I think the
bigger question is possibly because I don't think kids do necessarily,
I don't think they genuinely do generally do dumb things
in isolation, I think is the question better framed is
(10:16):
how do you compete with the influence of your children's peers?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah? Nice, Yeah, I agree. I think it's partly how
do you overcome that and also how do you get
them to listen to that their conscience for one of
a better term insight, because I knew when I was
walking through that train tunnel that wasn't the right thing
to do, but I wasn't brave enough to be honest,
I wasn't to be able to stand up and say, oh,
this is stupid, guys, I'm not going to do it. So, yeah,
(10:41):
competing with the peer influence, listening, listening to that wise
in a voice that we all have at some point,
and raising kids so that they can actually stand up
to that and say no, this doesn't feel right to me,
I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Yeah, because I think. I mean, I guess it is
about how you help your kids.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I mean it.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Always comes back to this as well. It's not what
you do right then when they're confronted with a peer
group that are a little challenging, I guess it's how
do you Is it about giving them the confidence that
they don't need the affirmation of that peer group all
the time of now, I mean, how do you do
or that?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, look, I think so. I think it's that sense
of self confidence or being comfortable, being able to stand
up and say, hey, look that I don't feel okay
about that. But that is a huge thing for a
teenager to do when a teenager is typically searching for,
you know, for friendship and recognition and belonging and gosh,
if I say this, I might you know, I might
(11:40):
be thrown out of the group.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
And that it's that age where it is part of
their evolution as human beings that there's a natural pulling
away from their parents.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent absolutely, And the seeking of
adrenaline and thrills and not being very good at forecasting
long term consequences either because your brain is still developing,
so it's really battling against a whole lot of things.
I don't think it's impossible, but I think it is hard.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Look, we love your calls on this. I mean, look,
if you wanted to share with us a story, I
think sometimes if there's nothing better than sometimes hearing about
bad mistakes of others, because in fact, is that one
of the is that one of the sort of approaches
to take is that to share with your kids the
bad mistakes you've made, or stories stories of whoa I mean,
(12:27):
I keep on thinking of, you know, going back far enough.
The brother's grim fairy tales were written, I think one
to freak people out just for entertainment, but I think
as well, they all had a message about stranger danger
or don't do this, or the boy who cried wolf
and because he actually doesn't get to that kid despite
what Disney does with it, that kid gets eaten by
(12:50):
the wolf.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
They're not that they are grim those I was listening
to a podcast about it, and their explanation was that
they were collecting those tales to establish sort of some
element of what is common law and our society, what's
the common understanding? And the tales were were we're folklore
about representing those sort of basic fundamental principles of law
(13:15):
and society before it was written down, which was quite
an interesting take on it.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
But yeah, I know we've digressed a bit. But if
you won't want to google the original Brothers Grimm's fairy tale,
brace yourself because it's you know, I mean, it makes
Tarantino a lot pretty harmless, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Even Hansel and Gretel. You know, it's like, jeez, leuis
what the heck were they doing? Oh? He was being
kept in a cage so he could be cooked in
an oven. What are we telling our kids? No?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And then they tempt the witch into the oven, I think,
and they shut the door and she gets she gets cooked.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Anyway, And sleep tight, darling, because I won't have any
bad dreams now.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
It's actually gosh, there's so many questions that are coming
out of this. But how, I mean, how do you
get your kids to just have that little voice that
does make them think twice? There's a joke that exists
in our family now. There's a family friend of my
wife's family, and the running gag is because when I
(14:18):
get together, we sometimes have a have a you know,
in the evening, we have a chat, we have a
whiskey or something, and because the conversation always flows, I'm
maybe have another whiskey and then another one. And I
jokingly have nicknamed him as Bad Goofy because you might
remember that the Disney there was Good Goofy and Bad Goofy,
and Goofy would have come up, Goofy would have that
(14:38):
moment where something would happen. There'd be Good Goofy on
his shoulder, going, oh, Goofy, don't do this, because this
is what will happen if you do this, and everyone
will be angry with you and you'd be a good person.
Then Bad Goofy was going, come on, give it a go.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It's that attraction and the teenage years, isn't it to
doing that kind of the band stuff, the stuff that
your parents say no, don't do, I think you can
be two. Parents can be too strict, and that actually
push kids into doing more antisocial stuff. If they're really, really,
really staunched with the rules, you can get the whole
reverse effect by pushing kids much closer towards that. So
(15:16):
it's a real going back to brother's grim, it's a
real goldily locked sort of area. Not be too soft
and not be too hard.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Well, I think that ties into I mean, there's so
many themes that ties into, doesn't it. But I would
have thought that, actually, that's that's one of the big ones.
In fact, if you are one of those parents who
are becoming more and more authoritative, you are pushing your
children into a situation where they are going to be yep,
that mum and dad can get stuffed. I'm doing this
one to assert my independence. Yeah two, but I'm not
(15:44):
thinking of the consequences because it's all about you, mum
and dad, and I'm going to make my own decision.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah, absolutely, yep, yep, one hundred percent. And at the
other end, if your two lacks, if your kids are
roaming around the streets at whatever are and you don't care,
it's like, well, no, gee, surprise, surprise, they've gotten into trouble. So,
you know, parenting teens are such a delicate balancing act,
I think, and nobody gets it right. And you know,
as we mentioned earlier, battling against a whole lot of
(16:11):
natural kind of developmental things as well. So it's super hard,
super hard.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
We want your cause on this eight hundred and eight
text nine two nine time. We've got one text here
just before we go to the break about how do
you stop your kids making Okay, I'm not going to
put it in a trivialized way, how do you stop
your kids doing really dangerous stuff that can really either
affect their lives in the ultimate Neggard way that they
lose theirs or that they end up making a bad
(16:39):
decision that affects them for the rest of their lives.
Because they've got a text here that says we were
obviously taught not to drunk, a drive drunk or tired,
et cetera. But one year our school brought home brought
in a woman in her mid twenties who'd been a
successful businesswoman before falling asleep at the wheel and is
now severely disabled. She spoke to us about her life
before and her life now, and showed us photos of
(17:01):
her in hospital in the crash, and we were all
very responsible drivers after that. They I mean, as are
those actually those are real life stories? Yeah? Do they resonate?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Well?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
I think they might.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I think it depends who's telling them, So that might
have been a really nice example of somebody who's just
that slight bit older who would be seen as a
role model by teenagers, whereas if it was their parents,
they're unlikely to buy into that. So I think getting
the right and that can that might be really useful.
Thing is is your team as you a young person,
(17:37):
do they have some friends who are slightly older who
are just that slight bit more responsible? And that might
be from a community group or a sports club or
a church group or something like that, But just that
is there somebody that they will listen to because they're
not going to listen to you as parents?
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Probably right? We love your cause on this. Also, what
was the dumbest thing you ever did? And do you?
I mean? Is it? Is it a case of trying
to pass your lessons on to your kids by saying,
look I tried this and this is what happened and
hopefully it sinks that way. I eight hundred eighty ten
eighty text nine to my guest is Google Sutherland from
Umbrella Well Being and we'll be back in just a moment.
(18:14):
News Talk they'd be yes, News Talk said be that's
the parents squad with Google Southerland talking about how do
you stop kids doing dumb things I eight hundred eighty
ten eight or sharing your story about the dumb thing
you did and what might have changed it for you
and yeah, let's take your cause. Dean Hello.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Yeah, yeah, it just strikes me as a little bit
crazy that people don't let their kids grow up with
them and learn from the sort of silly things that
you do do in your life. They sort of tend
to try and I don't hide it.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Do you mean parents who don't like to admit the
stupid things that yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
Yeah, yeah, and they don't actually have their kids around them.
A lot a lot of people actually ship them out
too much. You know, our kids have always wanted to
come home and pull whatever whatever it is, you know,
on the weekends and that sort of thing. They were
all grown up now, but yeah, they know it was
stupid thing or even done in my life. I mean,
you know, you sort of hope that the hope that
(19:09):
they can bloody loan that way. I think people, I think.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
There's something to that because there are some parents who
like to maintain their authoritarian sort of figure in a way,
then they don't like to admit that they were kids
and they did dumb stuff as well. What do you
reckon doogle?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah? I agree, I think especially you know Deane, your
point about them just growing up with you, just so
that it's not a it's not something weird. It's just
they see you and all your your warts and all
really and and and hopefully that does rub up rub
off on them in some ways. They can see that
you're not perfect.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
You also do a little bit. You're sort of want
your kids to do a little bit better than you
do crap. I just mean, you know, you hope you
can at least prove on bloodies blood and too many
people don't bother ye.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You're trying to leave your kids a little bit better
than you were, and then hopefully their kids will be
a little bit better than they were.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Of course, I think Dean, what happens is is if
they find out that, oh, hey, Dad, you did this
and you haven't shared that with them, it robs you
of the chance to say, guess what what you're trying
to do now? I did it when I was young
and it played out really badly for me, and I
don't want you to because if they find out through
other means, you've robbed yourself of that opportunity, haven't you.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, yeah, yeah, it's quite It's an
easy way to get your kids to talk anyway. I
mean a lot of people don't. Yeah, And we've always
said because of it's a massive accidence in my life.
And these kids have seen the reason, the results of them,
and so on and so on and so on, and
I mean, yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
That's good stuff, Dean, thanks for sharing that with us. Yeah, Google, Yeah, no,
I agree.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
I think it's that, yeah, that they can see that
you've and they've seen the consequences, especially young, especially when
they're young. Maybe as a teen it might be a
different thing, but especially when they're young, if they see
that those things have happened, they can understand a bit
more of the consequences. I think great opportunities for kids
to learn.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Let's go to Irene. Hello.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
Yes, So I was just rung to say. When I
was young, and very young, my brother was about five
or six and I was about seven, and we played
with these We used to play cowboys and Indians and
we had this lino and the dad had us in
the shed and we had a sheath knife and we
were trying to stab the one er hied in it,
(21:26):
and the other one was try stabbing their stabbing to
see if we could catch the air. Oh my god,
and we're only young and I and for eighty years
I have thought of that and wondered how stupid we
were and how stupidly innocent we were doing it.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Yeah, well you're alive to tell the tale. Iran Thinker.
Oh my goodness. Actually, the old bow and arrow when
we were kids growing up, I mean it's amazed. I
mean we were we actually had bows and arrows, which
had you could, you know, I don't know if we
I don't know if my brother tried to use me
as target price or not. I'm not sure. I don't
(22:06):
think so.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I remember, you'd remember when things like pohas and tom
thumbs and all those sort of things were and you
just throw them at each other, And it was like.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
I don't think we'd do that. Actually, that was one
of the ones where the school back in the days
of double happies and tom thumbs and thunderbolts, which were
really yeah expensively, you wouldn't want to throw too many
of those around. But no, we had photos, color photos
shown to us at school of people with eyes blown out. Yeah, yeah,
(22:37):
I remember something.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, there was like the fireworks lady or something like that,
and she came round and talked about fireworks going off
in somebody's pocket and setting their whole trousers on fire.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
That makes me nervous, terrible. Well, actually, this is Here's
the thing. There is something in I mean, is there
something in I don't know what the language how I
should describe this, but in traumatic examples where people might
go all that's because these days everything carries a warning
like or you know, this may contain scenes that were
(23:09):
upsetting to some of you, as I wonder if we're
overplaying that stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Look, I was thinking too more about the role of influencers.
Actually social media influencers. They're the people that you know,
young people are looking at and what are they saying
about this sort of stuff. I think you can get
two graphics sometimes that you actually put people off and
they don't look at it or they just get freaked out.
But I think the role of influencers is huge, and
there's always been influencers. Let's not pretend it's a new
(23:34):
social media thing. You know, in my day, before social influencers,
there were still people that influenced me socially. So I
think they've got a big role to play as well,
because they're just that little bit older and you look
up to them and you want to be like them.
And that's that's harticles, because you can't control who those are. Necessarily.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Just before we go to our next caller, this is
just a text to share someone's the dumbest thing. Dumbest
thing I did was when I was about seventeen, A
group of us wanted to get from Cook's Beach to
Fitty Younger, but we missed the last fairy, so we
borrowed Mark have Friends dinghy and an outdoor motor from
a outboard motor from a shed close by, and eight
of us went over to and back much later. Doesn't
(24:15):
sound dangerous, but it was the time of the Alaskan
earthquake and the tides were way high and running very fast.
The water was about two inches below two inches below
the top of the boat, no life jackets, and I
was sure we were all going down, going to drown.
Crazy crazy thing to do.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, yeah, those teenage years, aren't it. That's just your go.
If only we could just put the kids away until
they were twenty five. But we can't. We can't, we can't.
And that's and that's the reality of it is, you know,
kind of going back to Dean's point, who have you
got in your life? Who are the kids looking at?
Who are their role models? Who are they seeing and
what are they learning from those? And I think just
(24:55):
that's so crucial just to put in the hard yards
during those pre teen years, because that'll pay off, well,
hope as much as it can in the teenage years.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Right, let's take some more calls. Pete god A, it's peedy,
how are you good things?
Speaker 7 (25:09):
I'll tell you a true story and I don't believe it.
It's definitely a true story. I have got an arrows
from me nose. What we're what we're doing is on
the farm in the winter time, and the were neighbors
and the farmers was the dry period of the cows
and putting. His dad was putting these tournament tournament spacely
(25:30):
swee the space on the tray and me and Ivan
we were shooting, had the barren arrow, and he thought,
rather than wasting a lot of time firing the arrow
and retrieving it, so we thought, oh, what we'll do
is we'll save that time. Is you go one end
of the paddic, I'll go on the other end, and
(25:51):
we'll shoot it to each other, not deliverately, trying to
aim at each other, but a little bit. What we
thought we're doing is doing it at probably half a
dozen times is working out well, and then we probably
be two or three minutes away from each other, you know.
They picked it up and should each other again. And
then the son got in my eye and he's young
hand and I can't bear the son got in my
(26:16):
eye and I went through my outside of me nose.
He went to the middle section, you know, and I
just sat there and then was the lucky lucky it was?
It was a target area hit. We had one hunting are.
If I lost that ord lost me nose or probably
would have been dead. So what was what was on
the So he yelled out to his daddy's putting the
tournaim the sweee on the trailer on his portray of
(26:38):
the tractor. So cut along through it shortly and all
the way back on the back of the farm, all
the way to the house, and he rung up the
doctor and he was over the doll up phones and
and rang up Well, we ain't got one thing to do.
You come down and put them inside the car, which
is pretty hard, and you got the air and you.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Well you didn't try to You didn't play that game again,
did you, Pete.
Speaker 7 (27:01):
So so what happened was the coming back on the
going back all the way to the back to the
back of the farm to their house and bring up
the doctor and he said, you're not fighting arrows to
each other anymore, are you.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
All?
Speaker 7 (27:19):
The doctor said, just just slide there, just standing them up.
He called it in tell them to lay down or
laid down for probably about twenty minutes, and they just
stroyed up and got up and walked away.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Well, I think you're pretty lucky, Pete. But thank you
for that lovely story. They'll probably have a few people wincing.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, that's terrible.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Actually, thanks for you. I appreciate the call. You know,
somebody's just texted the obvious questions about the boy racer behavior.
So we see that stuff, and I would suggest that, well,
I think there's probably a lot of kids who you're
around town, you think that's going to be doing this.
You go along because you're curious, and you get the
ones who are bit closely involved. But then you get
(28:01):
somebody gets the legs run over or hit by a car.
Any take on the psychology or what.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
We can do about that, Well, you know, there's a
lot of and I'm not think we need to think
about the age of those of boy racers too. I
think I think they're older them, you know, I think, yeah,
some of them at least will be teens. But there
is that whole you know, let's flock to it because
it's exciting, it's interesting, and everybody else is do I
think it's a nice counter example of who have you
(28:29):
gotten your kids? Who is in your kid's life, who
are they looking up to? And if they're looking up
to other sort of twenty three twenty four year old
boy racers, then not surprising that they might become you know,
influenced by that.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
Well what can you do about that?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Then?
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Okay, they're drifting into a crowd. You think this is
I mean, there'll be stories about people who shifted towns. Well, okay,
we're just going to have to move, We're going to
shift schools, whatever, neighborhoods.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, it's tough because of course, if you immediately say
to them, don't hang around with them, then of course
that's a bit like a red rag to a ball,
and of course they'll hang around with them. There there's
look at I don't know what to do in the
exact moment. I think, you know, there's a lot of
work to do beforehand around who are they hanging out with,
who are they being involved with, what are they doing
with their spare time, and maybe also an opportunity for
(29:18):
parents to look at them at their own behaviors as well.
I don't have you know this is who knows. But
if parents are are inadvertently reinforcing or giving the thumbs
up to that behavior as well, who knows what's going on.
But I think you've just got to be really careful
around who's around you or who's around the kids, and
who they're hanging out with.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
We're going to take a quick break back into the ticket.
It's twenty one minutes two six news talks that we
don't forget the sports. Yes, welcome back to the Weekend
(30:01):
Collective on tim Bevers. My guest is doctor Dougal Sutherland.
He's principal psychologist today Umbrella well Being. By the way,
if you want to check out the Umbrella Wellbeing and
get in touch umbrella dot org dot NZ. I mean
you get there eventually if you just type an umbrella
well being. But if you type an umbrella you possibly
will get what the French called a parapluy, which is
the umbrellas full rain.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
You get, you get blunt umbrellas. I think was the
first thing you think, So yes, sorry, I was thinking
about the boy racer things, and you know, that was
just one before the break, and I remember one somebody
and I thought it was quite wise. They're interviewing some
boy racers who were saying, hey, look, we just want
sort of the adrenaline of the fast cars. And what
somebody had done, a community had done, is they said, okay, look,
(30:44):
we accept that you really like this, but let's give
you some guardrails. So let's give you a safe place
to do this, with some broad adult supervision. So I
think they set them up on a race track or
something with some with some oversight, and I wonder if
that's part of it too, is saying hey, look, we
accept that you want to take some level of risk,
but let's put some guard rails around you so that
(31:08):
it doesn't end up in a tragic situation. So that
that's I was just thinking about that something.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Yeah, you're right, I think that, and then you find
out that there are some who actually that's enough for
and there are some for whom the illegal give it
and giving it to the cops. Element is that is
the main appeal, and you still get those other sides
of it, and that's when.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you're probably you know, sort of
the sheep from the goats. They're a little bit of think.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Hey, are girls or boys worse at thinking ahead and thinking, hey,
maybe don't do that.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Boys tend to be worse at it. They tend to
be more Yeah, they tend And part of that, and
this is a huge generalization, but the prefront or cortex,
that bit of the brain that gives you that self
control is slower to develop in boys than girls. And
I think we often see that. You just see that.
You know, everybody says old girls develop faster, you know,
they're mature, quicker, and they that's there's some truth in that.
(31:59):
So so boys do tend to be a little bit
slower in that department. I think too. There's some people
are just into thrill seeking a lot more than other people.
There's you know, there's a thrill seeking type of personality
and they love it and and that was never one
of mine. But yeah, some people are just into taking
risks and enjoy the thrills a lot more than other people.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
I think a lot of these conversations we have DOO
will also come back to as also reminding parents just
to take time to talk to their kids. Yes, because
I think you know that they're busy on devices and
they you know, they get busier and busy, and I
think we have a generation of kids who extracurricularly speaking,
I would guess all my kids certainly are busier than
(32:41):
I was. I focused on one sport and flogged it
to death. Yeah, okay, a bit of music as well,
but I mean my kids do ballet, you know, netball, choir, music,
blah blah blah. It's like, oh, just trying to find
a quiet moment. Yeah, yep, yep. It is busier and live.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
I definitely agree, you know that. I think I think
there's just more options, which there's nothing wrong with that,
but it was certainly and there's also something good about
kids getting bored and just figuring out stuff to do,
although obviously that can go awry.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
That's sometimes the where these dumb ideas. Hey, let's try
and shoot arrows at each other and catch it with
their hands.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Gosh, when Pete was talking, I remember that how I
broke both my arms on a farm bike when I
was thirteen.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Oh well, okay, I think as a salutary lesson, you
should share that to us before we wrap up.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
We were just I was on the back of a
quad bike and I was leaning back on both my arms,
and we were shooting down the paddock, counting haybales. I
can't remember why we thought that was a good idea,
and we hit a ditch. It wasn't a huge ditch,
and my arms basically acted as shock absorbers when and
so I came out and both my arms were well, yeah,
(33:52):
and it was I blacked out for five minutes or so,
I think due to the pain. And then, of course
I was fourteen with two casts, and I couldn't shower
myself or doing anything else like that, which is exactly
kind of the wrong developmental age. So I had to
be showered by my parents and toileted by my parents.
For a good success.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
There's hopefully someone's listening. They'll be thinking, oh, there's a
one way to write a by one time for one
more quick call.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Jeff, Hello, bog Yeah, get mate. You know these boy
racers are really you know, I lock what's happening. You know,
we just didn't do so many stupid things. You know,
these young guys think going out there and do burnouts
(34:40):
and this and that and causing trouble. And there's one
hundred police that went into love And I used to
live in Levan for seventeen years and it just turned
into a terrible town. So we cannot let these guys
run a town. They're not they're not kids anymore.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Well, I think in that case, you're right, Jeff. You
I mean, I think that's people. That's why people are
seeking constant just for that sort of behavior. I mean,
are we have we got light on consequences with our
kids as well? Do you think Google? Sound like I'm
not my generator an excer, But you know, I.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Was just thinking back about the stories from Pete Irene
and Dean about the crazy things that they did when
they were when they were younger, and that they sounded
like a generation older than me. I don't know. I
think I think there are no I think I think
we've been we've generally got a safer society. That would
be my impression. But maybe that means that people don't
(35:38):
learn so much. But we don't want to people. We
don't want to have to use sort of terrible consequences
for people to learn from. So it's a delicate balancing act,
but I think, yeah, I think there is. We do
need to be thinking about people's safety.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
Hey Doogle. Always great to talk to you, mate, Really
appreciate your time today. And if people want to go
and check out your work or get in touch, it's
umbrella dot org dot that's the one. Excellent. Hey, thanks
so much for your time.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Thanks mate, appreciated talk.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Cheers, Bye bye. We'll be back with Christopher Reeve. I
keep on referring to MS Superman because those who are
old enough to remember the original Superman Christopher Reeve spelt
slightly differently. But he'll be with us on a second
to rap Sport. This is News Talk said B. It's
eleven minutes to six.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
For more from the weekend collective, listen live to News
Talk Said B weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News talksb
stand Um, your brother, your bra.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
She's my sister, don't you.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Will beleeve?
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Yes, welcome back. This is the Weekend Collective. That dismal
piece of music was chosen by my next guest, whichween
say that with the uh. I'd say that with my
tongue slightly in my cheek. Anyway, this is the Weekend
Collective and as you know, I like to let our
guests choose a bit of our music, and which accounted
for all the country music we had in the panel
with Jenny Vernon and Paul Spoonley. And by the way,
(00:58):
if you've missed any of our previous hours, we get
them up online pretty quickly. Son, go and check them
out on the News TALKSBI website or on iHeartRadio button.
Right now, this is the parent Squad and we would
have a chat about Okay, well you will have if
you follow the news vaguely. You can't have missed the
tragedy around the run It Straight game where a young
(01:19):
man or On Sattathwait died after playing it in his backyard.
And look, we're not going to dwell on that, but
as we know, when you're a kid, you do things
that maybe if you thought about it a couple of times,
you wouldn't or if you thought a bit more about
the consequences. And the question is, so, no matter how
hard parents try, kids are always going to do unwise
(01:42):
or dumb things. Is it possible to mitigate that risk?
Is it something where parents can have a voice in
stopping their kids or giving them that little voice in
their head that goes, hang on, tim, do you really
think you should do that? And how do you do
that if you're a parent, But also if you're listening,
what was the dumbest thing you ever did in your
(02:03):
youth that you thought, you know what, I should have
listened to my mum or my dad and I wouldn't
have got myself in so much trouble. But I didn't,
and I went ahead and did it anyway. And there
we go. That's I'm luckily I'm still around to tell
the tale, but to discuss that and other things. He
is principal psychologist at Umbrella Well Being and as we know,
has terrible taste of music. And his name is sorry, no,
(02:25):
I'm just kidding. It's actually not a bad song. Google,
It's just a way of just a way of loosening
up for the show. How are you.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Good, mate, I'm very good. I was just enjoying that
lovely piece of music and the.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
House Martins, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It is? Yeah, yeah, from way back in the day,
back in the mid eighties.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
I think, I'm sure that's been covered a few times
by different bands. I was thinking, I know that tune,
but maybe.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, it's not their original. They covered it off somebody
else from the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah, that's yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
It was just big because they were all singing a
cappella and it was like, oh my gosh, who's ever
sung that before? This is nineteen eighty four, So yeah, no.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Need to apologize for a terrible taste of music.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It is.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
Hey. By the way, hey, this is completely trivial before
we get into the If you ever want to have
a bit of a laugh, there's a website called the
Pudding dot com okay, and you can give it access
temporarily to your Spotify and or your Apple Music or whatever,
and it goes in and it looks at everything you're playing,
and it basically just pulls you apart on your musical
(03:26):
days I do it every now and again just to
tell me how transic I am.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Oh, that sounds that. That sounds like it sounds like
something I'd have to have a bit of courage to do,
because because I find myself getting very defensive over my music,
I think.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Oh, oh my god, I've really taken it backwards today. No,
you have no.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I think it was when I was When I was
growing up in the eighties, there was a lot of
militancy I think around music. You were you know, you
were into this music, and if you were into this music,
you couldn't be into that music.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
And a lot of it was political. It was tribal, it
wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, yeah, it very much was. I can remember, you know,
a lot of my kids at school, the kids at
high school were into you know, sort of Bond Jovi
and def Leppard and all those terrible hair metal bands,
and then it was like, no, there's no way on
listening to that, And it was it was very very tribal.
And I think I've sort of grown up with that
(04:20):
sort of sense of having to defend my honor or
about about my musical choices. But I'm loosening up. I'm loosening,
are you. I'm not sure, well a little bit. You
should have seen me back in the day, really, were you?
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something to be a punk.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I was too too young to be a punk, but
more in that sort of new wave, you know, kind
of the Smiths and very independent music and very this
is amazing and we you know, give the big finger
to the main stream and that kind of stuff. So
it was that punk ethos but but but not not
quite punk itself. But yeah, it was.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
You tell that with your parents to go dound to dinner,
to the neighbors or something. Were you the child that
your parents were like, oh, for goodness, please, dog, look,
can you not wear that shirt?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Look? I did turn into that, but later on one
time it was actually one of the first times I
meet my parents in law. I just had my hair
cut really short and dyed bright orange, and possibly in retrospect,
wasn't the best move, but there you go. I was
only twenty or twenty two or something.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Well, these the people who became your parents in law.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, it was obviously got through
that test, I'm assuming, Well, yeah, no, I got through
the test. I got you know, it came out the
other side. We've been happily married for almost thirty years.
So yeah, thirty years. Next year.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
You got married when you were about eighteen. You look
a young chap, look at you.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, not quite early twenties. Twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I think twenty three were very bad to be given
you twenty three plus quick arithmetic.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Everybody knows that I was and that I was born
young enough to be in the Dunedin long and in
Judinal study, right, so everybody can figure that out. Remember
we talked about.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
This, Yes, I love that that you're actually part of
that study. Now, by the way, before we get into it,
people are going, what's Google talking about? The dned and
Longitudinal Study is a study where that which is very
forward thinking because the people who see the benefits of
the study, many of them probably wouldn't have lived to
it the scientists who set it up. But it was
basically tracking a whole lot of outcomes in about a
(06:30):
thousand children's lives who are born at a certain time.
You know what's happened in their lives, what's their health,
what's their diet and all those sort of things, and
where they are amazing isn't it.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Oh, it's one of the longest, not only one of
the longest running studies in the world, but also one
of the studies that's kept something like ninety percent of
its original participants, which is one of its major achievements.
So yeah, we got followed up every two or three
years and we're still being followed up. I went back
last year, although now they're calling it the aging study,
(07:01):
not the developmental.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Just like god that there's not something you needed to
be told, is it? Ah, that's brutal.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I know.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
The Aging Study, high doogle?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I know it's like, oh, is that where I've got
to in life? But I just got to own it.
I am getting older and that's okay.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Good on you. Okay, what's the dumbest thing you did
as a kid and could your parents have stopped it?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I was thinking about that. The dumbest thing I can
remember that springs to mind. There was a group of us.
We were wandering around Dunedin's streets and we wanted to
get from one place to another. Rather than go over
the hill, we went through a train tunnel and the
train tunnel was alive. You know, there were trains going
through the tunnel, and so we just bowled through, and
that we were having all these debates about, oh, if
(07:46):
you get stuck in a train tunnel, you've got to
push yourself against the wall because the train sucks you under. Oh,
freaking each other out. Could my appearance have stopped me?
But probably not. But you know, I could feel inside,
I could feel that horrible sort of sense of this
is not right, this is not right, this is not right.
I did it anyway, I didn't. I didn't love it,
(08:08):
I must say, but it was pretty freaky.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah, Because I'm wondering if the reason we put this
in for a discussion is because well, obviously we've seen
the tragic events that told and I actually I would
rather we launched off another news story, but it is
in the media about people doing unwise things, because it just,
you know, I just have nothing, but you know, deepest
sympathies to the family, satisfay, and so let's push that
(08:34):
to one side, because I can think of dumb things
I did where in fact that I'll be honest, the
dumbest thing I did was, you know, I was on
an age of my traveling for a sports tournament. I
think when I was seventeen, and my parents let me
have the car and I just with and I was
driving friends and I just drove way too fast and
(08:56):
I look at a particular corner I went round, and
if there'd been a truck coming the other way, we
wouldn't be here because I'd underestimated it. I wasn't following
the law properly, and I was lucky to get away
with it. And that's the stuff that I think terrifies. Yes, cars,
I mean they are death machines if you do if
you make the wrong decision.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's so many things, and it's
that teenage years, isn't it too, The chasing of the adrenaline,
the wanting to do something that's crazy, and the importance
of your friends. I think too, that's that sense of
really strong peer pressure in your teenage years. I mean
that was my example when I talked about my example
of going through the train tunnel. Everybody else was going
(09:36):
to do it, so I could not do it. So yeah,
very much that sense of peer pressure. Felt super uncomfortable
about it, and that could have ended up quite tragically.
For there was about half a dozen of us said
I think there, so yeah, it's it's it's a it's
a really tricky time. I think.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
I think, well, actually, I think through our initial discussion,
there is a different way to frame that question. I mean,
it's it's an easy one to say, how do you
stop your kids doing dumb stuff? But I think the
bigger question is possibly because I don't think kids do necessarily,
I don't think they genuinely do generally do dumb things
in isolation, I think is the question better framed is
(10:16):
how do you compete with the influence of your children's peers?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah? Nice, Yeah, I agree. I think it's partly how
do you overcome that and also how do you get
them to listen to that their conscience for one of
a better term insight, because I knew when I was
walking through that train tunnel that wasn't the right thing
to do, but I wasn't brave enough to be honest,
I wasn't to be able to stand up and say, oh,
this is stupid, guys, I'm not going to do it. So, yeah,
(10:41):
competing with the peer influence, listening, listening to that wise
in a voice that we all have at some point,
and raising kids so that they can actually stand up
to that and say no, this doesn't feel right to me,
I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Yeah, because I think. I mean, I guess it is
about how you help your kids.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I mean it.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Always comes back to this as well. It's not what
you do right then when they're confronted with a peer
group that are a little challenging, I guess it's how
do you Is it about giving them the confidence that
they don't need the affirmation of that peer group all
the time of now, I mean, how do you do
or that?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, look, I think so. I think it's that sense
of self confidence or being comfortable, being able to stand
up and say, hey, look that I don't feel okay
about that. But that is a huge thing for a
teenager to do when a teenager is typically searching for,
you know, for friendship and recognition and belonging and gosh,
if I say this, I might you know, I might
(11:40):
be thrown out of the group.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
And that it's that age where it is part of
their evolution as human beings that there's a natural pulling
away from their parents.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent absolutely, And the seeking of
adrenaline and thrills and not being very good at forecasting
long term consequences either because your brain is still developing,
so it's really battling against a whole lot of things.
I don't think it's impossible, but I think it is hard.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Look, we love your calls on this. I mean, look,
if you wanted to share with us a story, I
think sometimes if there's nothing better than sometimes hearing about
bad mistakes of others, because in fact, is that one
of the is that one of the sort of approaches
to take is that to share with your kids the
bad mistakes you've made, or stories stories of whoa I mean,
(12:27):
I keep on thinking of, you know, going back far enough.
The brother's grim fairy tales were written, I think one
to freak people out just for entertainment, but I think
as well, they all had a message about stranger danger
or don't do this, or the boy who cried wolf
and because he actually doesn't get to that kid despite
what Disney does with it, that kid gets eaten by
(12:50):
the wolf.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
They're not that they are grim those I was listening
to a podcast about it, and their explanation was that
they were collecting those tales to establish sort of some
element of what is common law and our society, what's
the common understanding? And the tales were were we're folklore
about representing those sort of basic fundamental principles of law
(13:15):
and society before it was written down, which was quite
an interesting take on it.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
But yeah, I know we've digressed a bit. But if
you won't want to google the original Brothers Grimm's fairy tale,
brace yourself because it's you know, I mean, it makes
Tarantino a lot pretty harmless, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Even Hansel and Gretel. You know, it's like, jeez, leuis
what the heck were they doing? Oh? He was being
kept in a cage so he could be cooked in
an oven. What are we telling our kids? No?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And then they tempt the witch into the oven, I think,
and they shut the door and she gets she gets cooked.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Anyway, And sleep tight, darling, because I won't have any
bad dreams now.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
It's actually gosh, there's so many questions that are coming
out of this. But how, I mean, how do you
get your kids to just have that little voice that
does make them think twice? There's a joke that exists
in our family now. There's a family friend of my
wife's family, and the running gag is because when I
(14:18):
get together, we sometimes have a have a you know,
in the evening, we have a chat, we have a
whiskey or something, and because the conversation always flows, I'm
maybe have another whiskey and then another one. And I
jokingly have nicknamed him as Bad Goofy because you might
remember that the Disney there was Good Goofy and Bad Goofy,
and Goofy would have come up, Goofy would have that
(14:38):
moment where something would happen. There'd be Good Goofy on
his shoulder, going, oh, Goofy, don't do this, because this
is what will happen if you do this, and everyone
will be angry with you and you'd be a good person.
Then Bad Goofy was going, come on, give it a go.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It's that attraction and the teenage years, isn't it to
doing that kind of the band stuff, the stuff that
your parents say no, don't do, I think you can
be two. Parents can be too strict, and that actually
push kids into doing more antisocial stuff. If they're really, really,
really staunched with the rules, you can get the whole
reverse effect by pushing kids much closer towards that. So
(15:16):
it's a real going back to brother's grim, it's a
real goldily locked sort of area. Not be too soft
and not be too hard.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Well, I think that ties into I mean, there's so
many themes that ties into, doesn't it. But I would
have thought that, actually, that's that's one of the big ones.
In fact, if you are one of those parents who
are becoming more and more authoritative, you are pushing your
children into a situation where they are going to be yep,
that mum and dad can get stuffed. I'm doing this
one to assert my independence. Yeah two, but I'm not
(15:44):
thinking of the consequences because it's all about you, mum
and dad, and I'm going to make my own decision.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah, absolutely, yep, yep, one hundred percent. And at the
other end, if your two lacks, if your kids are
roaming around the streets at whatever are and you don't care,
it's like, well, no, gee, surprise, surprise, they've gotten into trouble. So,
you know, parenting teens are such a delicate balancing act,
I think, and nobody gets it right. And you know,
as we mentioned earlier, battling against a whole lot of
(16:11):
natural kind of developmental things as well. So it's super hard,
super hard.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
We want your cause on this eight hundred and eight
text nine two nine time. We've got one text here
just before we go to the break about how do
you stop your kids making Okay, I'm not going to
put it in a trivialized way, how do you stop
your kids doing really dangerous stuff that can really either
affect their lives in the ultimate Neggard way that they
lose theirs or that they end up making a bad
(16:39):
decision that affects them for the rest of their lives.
Because they've got a text here that says we were
obviously taught not to drunk, a drive drunk or tired,
et cetera. But one year our school brought home brought
in a woman in her mid twenties who'd been a
successful businesswoman before falling asleep at the wheel and is
now severely disabled. She spoke to us about her life
before and her life now, and showed us photos of
(17:01):
her in hospital in the crash, and we were all
very responsible drivers after that. They I mean, as are
those actually those are real life stories? Yeah? Do they resonate?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Well?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
I think they might.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I think it depends who's telling them, So that might
have been a really nice example of somebody who's just
that slight bit older who would be seen as a
role model by teenagers, whereas if it was their parents,
they're unlikely to buy into that. So I think getting
the right and that can that might be really useful.
Thing is is your team as you a young person,
(17:37):
do they have some friends who are slightly older who
are just that slight bit more responsible? And that might
be from a community group or a sports club or
a church group or something like that, But just that
is there somebody that they will listen to because they're
not going to listen to you as parents?
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Probably right? We love your cause on this. Also, what
was the dumbest thing you ever did? And do you?
I mean? Is it? Is it a case of trying
to pass your lessons on to your kids by saying,
look I tried this and this is what happened and
hopefully it sinks that way. I eight hundred eighty ten
eighty text nine to my guest is Google Sutherland from
Umbrella Well Being and we'll be back in just a moment.
(18:14):
News Talk they'd be yes, News Talk said be that's
the parents squad with Google Southerland talking about how do
you stop kids doing dumb things I eight hundred eighty
ten eight or sharing your story about the dumb thing
you did and what might have changed it for you
and yeah, let's take your cause. Dean Hello.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Yeah, yeah, it just strikes me as a little bit
crazy that people don't let their kids grow up with
them and learn from the sort of silly things that
you do do in your life. They sort of tend
to try and I don't hide it.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Do you mean parents who don't like to admit the
stupid things that yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
Yeah, yeah, and they don't actually have their kids around them.
A lot a lot of people actually ship them out
too much. You know, our kids have always wanted to
come home and pull whatever whatever it is, you know,
on the weekends and that sort of thing. They were
all grown up now, but yeah, they know it was
stupid thing or even done in my life. I mean,
you know, you sort of hope that the hope that
(19:09):
they can bloody loan that way. I think people, I think.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
There's something to that because there are some parents who
like to maintain their authoritarian sort of figure in a way,
then they don't like to admit that they were kids
and they did dumb stuff as well. What do you
reckon doogle?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah? I agree, I think especially you know Deane, your
point about them just growing up with you, just so
that it's not a it's not something weird. It's just
they see you and all your your warts and all
really and and and hopefully that does rub up rub
off on them in some ways. They can see that
you're not perfect.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
You also do a little bit. You're sort of want
your kids to do a little bit better than you
do crap. I just mean, you know, you hope you
can at least prove on bloodies blood and too many
people don't bother ye.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You're trying to leave your kids a little bit better
than you were, and then hopefully their kids will be
a little bit better than they were.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Of course, I think Dean, what happens is is if
they find out that, oh, hey, Dad, you did this
and you haven't shared that with them, it robs you
of the chance to say, guess what what you're trying
to do now? I did it when I was young
and it played out really badly for me, and I
don't want you to because if they find out through
other means, you've robbed yourself of that opportunity, haven't you.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, yeah, yeah, it's quite It's an
easy way to get your kids to talk anyway. I
mean a lot of people don't. Yeah, And we've always
said because of it's a massive accidence in my life.
And these kids have seen the reason, the results of them,
and so on and so on and so on, and
I mean, yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
That's good stuff, Dean, thanks for sharing that with us. Yeah, Google, Yeah, no,
I agree.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
I think it's that, yeah, that they can see that
you've and they've seen the consequences, especially young, especially when
they're young. Maybe as a teen it might be a
different thing, but especially when they're young, if they see
that those things have happened, they can understand a bit
more of the consequences. I think great opportunities for kids
to learn.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Let's go to Irene. Hello.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
Yes, So I was just rung to say. When I
was young, and very young, my brother was about five
or six and I was about seven, and we played
with these We used to play cowboys and Indians and
we had this lino and the dad had us in
the shed and we had a sheath knife and we
were trying to stab the one er hied in it,
(21:26):
and the other one was try stabbing their stabbing to
see if we could catch the air. Oh my god,
and we're only young and I and for eighty years
I have thought of that and wondered how stupid we
were and how stupidly innocent we were doing it.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Yeah, well you're alive to tell the tale. Iran Thinker.
Oh my goodness. Actually, the old bow and arrow when
we were kids growing up, I mean it's amazed. I
mean we were we actually had bows and arrows, which
had you could, you know, I don't know if we
I don't know if my brother tried to use me
as target price or not. I'm not sure. I don't
(22:06):
think so.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I remember, you'd remember when things like pohas and tom
thumbs and all those sort of things were and you
just throw them at each other, And it was like.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
I don't think we'd do that. Actually, that was one
of the ones where the school back in the days
of double happies and tom thumbs and thunderbolts, which were
really yeah expensively, you wouldn't want to throw too many
of those around. But no, we had photos, color photos
shown to us at school of people with eyes blown out. Yeah, yeah,
(22:37):
I remember something.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, there was like the fireworks lady or something like that,
and she came round and talked about fireworks going off
in somebody's pocket and setting their whole trousers on fire.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
That makes me nervous, terrible. Well, actually, this is Here's
the thing. There is something in I mean, is there
something in I don't know what the language how I
should describe this, but in traumatic examples where people might
go all that's because these days everything carries a warning
like or you know, this may contain scenes that were
(23:09):
upsetting to some of you, as I wonder if we're
overplaying that stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Look, I was thinking too more about the role of influencers.
Actually social media influencers. They're the people that you know,
young people are looking at and what are they saying
about this sort of stuff. I think you can get
two graphics sometimes that you actually put people off and
they don't look at it or they just get freaked out.
But I think the role of influencers is huge, and
there's always been influencers. Let's not pretend it's a new
(23:34):
social media thing. You know, in my day, before social influencers,
there were still people that influenced me socially. So I
think they've got a big role to play as well,
because they're just that little bit older and you look
up to them and you want to be like them.
And that's that's harticles, because you can't control who those are. Necessarily.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Just before we go to our next caller, this is
just a text to share someone's the dumbest thing. Dumbest
thing I did was when I was about seventeen, A
group of us wanted to get from Cook's Beach to
Fitty Younger, but we missed the last fairy, so we
borrowed Mark have Friends dinghy and an outdoor motor from
a outboard motor from a shed close by, and eight
of us went over to and back much later. Doesn't
(24:15):
sound dangerous, but it was the time of the Alaskan
earthquake and the tides were way high and running very fast.
The water was about two inches below two inches below
the top of the boat, no life jackets, and I
was sure we were all going down, going to drown.
Crazy crazy thing to do.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, yeah, those teenage years, aren't it. That's just your go.
If only we could just put the kids away until
they were twenty five. But we can't. We can't, we can't.
And that's and that's the reality of it is, you know,
kind of going back to Dean's point, who have you
got in your life? Who are the kids looking at?
Who are their role models? Who are they seeing and
what are they learning from those? And I think just
(24:55):
that's so crucial just to put in the hard yards
during those pre teen years, because that'll pay off, well,
hope as much as it can in the teenage years.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Right, let's take some more calls. Pete god A, it's peedy,
how are you good things?
Speaker 7 (25:09):
I'll tell you a true story and I don't believe it.
It's definitely a true story. I have got an arrows
from me nose. What we're what we're doing is on
the farm in the winter time, and the were neighbors
and the farmers was the dry period of the cows
and putting. His dad was putting these tournament tournament spacely
(25:30):
swee the space on the tray and me and Ivan
we were shooting, had the barren arrow, and he thought,
rather than wasting a lot of time firing the arrow
and retrieving it, so we thought, oh, what we'll do
is we'll save that time. Is you go one end
of the paddic, I'll go on the other end, and
(25:51):
we'll shoot it to each other, not deliverately, trying to
aim at each other, but a little bit. What we
thought we're doing is doing it at probably half a
dozen times is working out well, and then we probably
be two or three minutes away from each other, you know.
They picked it up and should each other again. And
then the son got in my eye and he's young
hand and I can't bear the son got in my
(26:16):
eye and I went through my outside of me nose.
He went to the middle section, you know, and I
just sat there and then was the lucky lucky it was?
It was a target area hit. We had one hunting are.
If I lost that ord lost me nose or probably
would have been dead. So what was what was on
the So he yelled out to his daddy's putting the
tournaim the sweee on the trailer on his portray of
(26:38):
the tractor. So cut along through it shortly and all
the way back on the back of the farm, all
the way to the house, and he rung up the
doctor and he was over the doll up phones and
and rang up Well, we ain't got one thing to do.
You come down and put them inside the car, which
is pretty hard, and you got the air and you.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Well you didn't try to You didn't play that game again,
did you, Pete.
Speaker 7 (27:01):
So so what happened was the coming back on the
going back all the way to the back to the
back of the farm to their house and bring up
the doctor and he said, you're not fighting arrows to
each other anymore, are you.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
All?
Speaker 7 (27:19):
The doctor said, just just slide there, just standing them up.
He called it in tell them to lay down or
laid down for probably about twenty minutes, and they just
stroyed up and got up and walked away.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Well, I think you're pretty lucky, Pete. But thank you
for that lovely story. They'll probably have a few people wincing.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, that's terrible.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Actually, thanks for you. I appreciate the call. You know,
somebody's just texted the obvious questions about the boy racer behavior.
So we see that stuff, and I would suggest that, well,
I think there's probably a lot of kids who you're
around town, you think that's going to be doing this.
You go along because you're curious, and you get the
ones who are bit closely involved. But then you get
(28:01):
somebody gets the legs run over or hit by a car.
Any take on the psychology or what.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
We can do about that, Well, you know, there's a
lot of and I'm not think we need to think
about the age of those of boy racers too. I
think I think they're older them, you know, I think, yeah,
some of them at least will be teens. But there
is that whole you know, let's flock to it because
it's exciting, it's interesting, and everybody else is do I
think it's a nice counter example of who have you
(28:29):
gotten your kids? Who is in your kid's life, who
are they looking up to? And if they're looking up
to other sort of twenty three twenty four year old
boy racers, then not surprising that they might become you know,
influenced by that.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
Well what can you do about that?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Then?
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Okay, they're drifting into a crowd. You think this is
I mean, there'll be stories about people who shifted towns. Well, okay,
we're just going to have to move, We're going to
shift schools, whatever, neighborhoods.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, it's tough because of course, if you immediately say
to them, don't hang around with them, then of course
that's a bit like a red rag to a ball,
and of course they'll hang around with them. There there's
look at I don't know what to do in the
exact moment. I think, you know, there's a lot of
work to do beforehand around who are they hanging out with,
who are they being involved with, what are they doing
with their spare time, and maybe also an opportunity for
(29:18):
parents to look at them at their own behaviors as well.
I don't have you know this is who knows. But
if parents are are inadvertently reinforcing or giving the thumbs
up to that behavior as well, who knows what's going on.
But I think you've just got to be really careful
around who's around you or who's around the kids, and
who they're hanging out with.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
We're going to take a quick break back into the ticket.
It's twenty one minutes two six news talks that we
don't forget the sports. Yes, welcome back to the Weekend
(30:01):
Collective on tim Bevers. My guest is doctor Dougal Sutherland.
He's principal psychologist today Umbrella well Being. By the way,
if you want to check out the Umbrella Wellbeing and
get in touch umbrella dot org dot NZ. I mean
you get there eventually if you just type an umbrella
well being. But if you type an umbrella you possibly
will get what the French called a parapluy, which is
the umbrellas full rain.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
You get, you get blunt umbrellas. I think was the
first thing you think, So yes, sorry, I was thinking
about the boy racer things, and you know, that was
just one before the break, and I remember one somebody
and I thought it was quite wise. They're interviewing some
boy racers who were saying, hey, look, we just want
sort of the adrenaline of the fast cars. And what
somebody had done, a community had done, is they said, okay, look,
(30:44):
we accept that you really like this, but let's give
you some guardrails. So let's give you a safe place
to do this, with some broad adult supervision. So I
think they set them up on a race track or
something with some with some oversight, and I wonder if
that's part of it too, is saying hey, look, we
accept that you want to take some level of risk,
but let's put some guard rails around you so that
(31:08):
it doesn't end up in a tragic situation. So that
that's I was just thinking about that something.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Yeah, you're right, I think that, and then you find
out that there are some who actually that's enough for
and there are some for whom the illegal give it
and giving it to the cops. Element is that is
the main appeal, and you still get those other sides
of it, and that's when.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you're probably you know, sort of
the sheep from the goats. They're a little bit of think.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Hey, are girls or boys worse at thinking ahead and thinking, hey,
maybe don't do that.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Boys tend to be worse at it. They tend to
be more Yeah, they tend And part of that, and
this is a huge generalization, but the prefront or cortex,
that bit of the brain that gives you that self
control is slower to develop in boys than girls. And
I think we often see that. You just see that.
You know, everybody says old girls develop faster, you know,
they're mature, quicker, and they that's there's some truth in that.
(31:59):
So so boys do tend to be a little bit
slower in that department. I think too. There's some people
are just into thrill seeking a lot more than other people.
There's you know, there's a thrill seeking type of personality
and they love it and and that was never one
of mine. But yeah, some people are just into taking
risks and enjoy the thrills a lot more than other people.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
I think a lot of these conversations we have DOO
will also come back to as also reminding parents just
to take time to talk to their kids. Yes, because
I think you know that they're busy on devices and
they you know, they get busier and busy, and I
think we have a generation of kids who extracurricularly speaking,
I would guess all my kids certainly are busier than
(32:41):
I was. I focused on one sport and flogged it
to death. Yeah, okay, a bit of music as well,
but I mean my kids do ballet, you know, netball, choir, music,
blah blah blah. It's like, oh, just trying to find
a quiet moment. Yeah, yep, yep. It is busier and live.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
I definitely agree, you know that. I think I think
there's just more options, which there's nothing wrong with that,
but it was certainly and there's also something good about
kids getting bored and just figuring out stuff to do,
although obviously that can go awry.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
That's sometimes the where these dumb ideas. Hey, let's try
and shoot arrows at each other and catch it with
their hands.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Gosh, when Pete was talking, I remember that how I
broke both my arms on a farm bike when I
was thirteen.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Oh well, okay, I think as a salutary lesson, you
should share that to us before we wrap up.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
We were just I was on the back of a
quad bike and I was leaning back on both my arms,
and we were shooting down the paddock, counting haybales. I
can't remember why we thought that was a good idea,
and we hit a ditch. It wasn't a huge ditch,
and my arms basically acted as shock absorbers when and
so I came out and both my arms were well, yeah,
(33:52):
and it was I blacked out for five minutes or so,
I think due to the pain. And then, of course
I was fourteen with two casts, and I couldn't shower
myself or doing anything else like that, which is exactly
kind of the wrong developmental age. So I had to
be showered by my parents and toileted by my parents.
For a good success.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
There's hopefully someone's listening. They'll be thinking, oh, there's a
one way to write a by one time for one
more quick call.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Jeff, Hello, bog Yeah, get mate. You know these boy
racers are really you know, I lock what's happening. You know,
we just didn't do so many stupid things. You know,
these young guys think going out there and do burnouts
(34:40):
and this and that and causing trouble. And there's one
hundred police that went into love And I used to
live in Levan for seventeen years and it just turned
into a terrible town. So we cannot let these guys
run a town. They're not they're not kids anymore.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Well, I think in that case, you're right, Jeff. You
I mean, I think that's people. That's why people are
seeking constant just for that sort of behavior. I mean,
are we have we got light on consequences with our
kids as well? Do you think Google? Sound like I'm
not my generator an excer, But you know, I.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Was just thinking back about the stories from Pete Irene
and Dean about the crazy things that they did when
they were when they were younger, and that they sounded
like a generation older than me. I don't know. I
think I think there are no I think I think
we've been we've generally got a safer society. That would
be my impression. But maybe that means that people don't
(35:38):
learn so much. But we don't want to people. We
don't want to have to use sort of terrible consequences
for people to learn from. So it's a delicate balancing act,
but I think, yeah, I think there is. We do
need to be thinking about people's safety.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
Hey Doogle. Always great to talk to you, mate, Really
appreciate your time today. And if people want to go
and check out your work or get in touch, it's
umbrella dot org dot that's the one. Excellent. Hey, thanks
so much for your time.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Thanks mate, appreciated talk.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Cheers, Bye bye. We'll be back with Christopher Reeve. I
keep on referring to MS Superman because those who are
old enough to remember the original Superman Christopher Reeve spelt
slightly differently. But he'll be with us on a second
to rap Sport. This is News Talk said B. It's
eleven minutes to six.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
For more from the weekend collective, listen live to News
Talk Said B weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
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