With fifteen books to her name. On the topic of parenting, I'd say our next guest, there's somewhat of an expert.
You never know who you're going to get with your child. It's like a puzzle. We can't see the picture. But I wanted you just be reassured that all every child actually wants is to be loved, accepted and valid as they are.
God, che's good, Please, welcome to the show.
Maggie Dance Maggie, Dan's good morning.
Hi guy, how are you?
Where do you want to start?
Jason, Maggie, Why did I have three children and put myself in this situation?
No, no, look, no worries. Look I think you know when there were days I locked myself on the toilet, So what was I thinking? Like, what the heck? Did I know what's going to be this hard? And then I just said four paral voice like yeah, so that's normal, right, because raising little humans who are unpredictable and developmentally unable to be the compliant, beautiful, well behaved children we thought the world was. You know, if you said my kids are never going to do.
Yeah, right, Like, so I've got a eleven, nine and three year old and friends of mine have got teenage daughters and they're like, we're in the tough years now for daughters. Yeah, well, I think boys by the time boys hit fifteen sixteen, we're just happy to ride our bikes at the server.
That's if we can get them up the screen nowadays though, so and that's the other challenge we have. The world has kind of I think I put a thing up the other day on my Facebook page about how we've stolen boyhood off boys here we have because we've made them have to be safer and actual fact, natural consequences of boys falling out of trees and falling off their bikes and you know, all of that is how they learned not to make that choice next time, and now
we aren't letting them do it. For their capacity to take risks, and that was really one of the things on I think episode three isn't as developed and they're not as resilient. You know, we've still got biological wiring and the testosterone means they're still supposed to be out hunting mammoth.
Yeah.
I was explaining to one of my boys who's nine the other day. I'm like, mate, I used to go off on my pushbike for six hours. Don Mum and Dad, that's me no idea, ray Am, I'd come back because I was hungry, I'd et and I'd be gone again. And I'm just watching his little mind blind like really like.
Yeah, yeah, And they're probably looking at you, going how dangerous was that?
D Yes, Yes, I'm like, I'm encouraging you to do it. Get out of here.
So it's called safetyism, and it's one of the things that we keep on challenging. And that's one of the things I love in this episode to you know, remind everybody that they're meant to be doing risky stuff as they navigate through childhood so that they're able to navigate fire later, they're able to hear they're in a warning system that says, no, mate, last time you jumped off that balcony, hurt yourself. See not doing it today. And I think, you know, this is one of the challenges.
We want to overprotect them because that's our job, because you look like the lousy parent when your kids right up the top of that tree and you're not following them down right.
Yeah.
Nowadays, man, man, the judgment.
Now the role of a life time parenting is and I hope that I become a dad one day, right, Jay, soon, I've got I've got a question for you. I mean, clearly, it is the role in the honor of a lifetime, right yep. But it's hard.
Yeah, it's exhausting. Yeah, it is exhausting.
But then there'll be moments like yesterday, you know, we're not we do a bit of prep for this show in the afternoon. Hard to believe, Meggie, I know, but I was like, you know what, I'll do all my work late tonight. I just want to sit down and play, you know, with my eight year old, you know. And when you get those moments, it's my wife and I look at each other and go, go it's a bloody rollercoaster. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like one minute, I'm just
going how do I get myself in this situation? And the other minute, I'm happy to pause on the world and just build lego.
That's exactly what it is. And it's always been like that. And so what we keep I keep saying to parents, what are you're doing now? Your leans is on what I'm doing wrong. It's not what you're doing right. And it's you know, in the midst of COVID. I kept sending parents, you can't work full time with the kids doing schooling. Put a good movie on, get the popcorn out, cuddle up on the couch, and those kids to remember COVID might have been crap, but we actually hung out
and did stuff together. They're hungry for connection with parents, and you know, when it's all it is is correcting me and telling me. And that's why the adolescent years are so tricky, because so much of the stuff is happening that they don't know, which causes them to be
confused and angry and stressed and mixed up. And then we're going to come down hard because they're not done something when we never know that there is a psychological fragility inside them and they're desperate, just desperate for someone to say it's okay. It happens to wall of it.
So, Maggie, we talk so often about parents and hating a break from their children. Do children need a break from their parents? Sometimes?
You know, there's a whole generation here that are in their bedroom more than any other previous generation, and they're getting away from their parents in a way right because they're meant to individual way into a new human coming over the bridge to adulthood. But now what they're doing, they're doing it in the bedroom, but they're not in a social situation, not in a real situation, so they're ending up with lower social and emotional capacity.
It's escapism as opposed to independence.
In their view, they think they're more connected, but what we now know, and this comes up in today's episode, they're actually lonelier and more socially connected, and yet they want to spend hours doing it because it's at a distance. But it's all it's not all good, and it's not
all bad. But when it's bad, it's really bad. And I think if you watch, you'll get the smack in the face of what AI is doing in our team space and the capacity to do really harmful things even though it might seem like a bit of fun for an immature boy. Can you see once again through their lens. I just thought I'd take a picture and put boobs on it. Yeah no, mate, no, mat that's really harmful for the girl that you've done.
That's funny.
You're just going back on what you're talking about before, where it's like, you know, people would think I'm crazy if I was like mate to take your bike, get out of here for six hours, go riding. You'd be like, oh, it's a dangerous world out there. But then, and I know this has come up before, But then we give them a laptop and they're doing They've got access to much more dangerous stuff and.
People, way more dangerous. And then, and I think that's the challenge, because we think they're safe in our house, technically they're actually.
It's yeah, it's crazy, and it's the change.
In the punting, which is why it's a chasm, not a good generation gap.
I wanted to ask you about something that you brought up in the past. You flagged that sometimes at the end of the day, kids will come home from school and they'll just melt down, won't they, Maggie. They're just like you know, nothing will make them happy, even the drive home from school.
I'm like, God, you really just turned on me now, Maggie. You've said in the past to look at it differently.
You've said, rather than looking at it and going, oh, they're angry, you suggest looking at it in a way that they actually feel safer around us.
Get yeah, So if we hold in all our biggest feelings, then we actually overload our nervous system and become really volatile anywhere. So when they come home and it's the meltdown in the car for younger kids, and it's that
one in the kitchen, you're that words, Mary whatever. What that is is actually an incredible gift, is that they know that that's safe enough to discharge this duff that's inside them that well they want to get out because you are still going to be able to love them after that, right and in that moment, if we can hold the ground and go, you know, pat your little On'm nailing it what they love me the best without going how dare they speak to me so disfull having
a groundew gate to because that's the previous generation.
But I guess that's my question.
When we're calm, we come back in and so it easy look like you had a hard day, and usually that's when they'll either make an apology or they'll feel lousy. I can't do it in the heat of the moment, because that's my question.
I guess, like you know, I was having an absolute block one kids, one of the kids the other day, and this is after school, and I had your voice in the back of my head going.
To comment, how lucky am I that I'm bringing yelled out? Not who feels comfortable?
And then I had to go, Okay, I'm going to approach it like that, But how long do you let that go for?
Do you know what I mean? Surely it's telling that rewarding behavior ready?
No, no, no, that's the lens you're going through the behaviorism lens. Aren't I rewarding that behavior? No, I'm showing them that I am completely safe. However, what I'm going to do when everyone's a little bit calmer and if I've said things I shouldn't have said, the repairing of the rupture was not something we ever did in pre this generation, and that's what we've come in with. Oh man, I've just you know, of course that's not the dad
I want to be. Or and we let them completely calm down and we might go back in with like I said to Jesture, kind of saying, wow, that was a big blow up. Hey, once they're.
Calm, yeah, Like so do you think just walking away adding distance at that point?
I think it depends. So when they're really calm, if they look make Ifhyby a fly off like that again to want me to stay there, yeah, right, walk away. So in other words, we're going to use We're going to work together to work out how do I support you when your immature brain has flipped its lips right, because they won't do it at school, Jason, hold it in until they get home, right, and that's after the boy's gone and had a pool. Before he can do that.
You need you need Maggie on speed dialing.
Oh, absolutely, forget that. Maggie. We've got a spare room. I don't know if you're looking to get out of your door it, but i'll tell you what you know what.
I don't know if you want to move in after this last bit. But I thought I would ask Maggie about remember the issue I've got with the.
Three year old at the moment.
So Maggie, our three year old Archie. We call him the liability.
Can I just start right there? You are manifesting his reality. So I would say, he's just wonderful and see the change.
He's a wonderful liability.
Mag Let's rebatch him. Is the shining light of your life.
It's shining light. Let's keep that in mindment.
I play this next audio because he's developed a little bit of a habit now at the age of three, on the weekend, I'll go, hey, achie, I'm doing dinner.
Should we do noodles or dumplings? And this is his common response at the moment. That was him in the.
Okay, and guess what he's let that word from. So at the end of the day, Oh my god, there's such mirrors. And it's one of the scariest bits is that we think they don't hearers, and of course quite often they use it an extremely appropriate place.
Trying not to laugh at that.
Trying not to laugh is the hardest bit. So we're we're just going to kind of not make a bit. So the more you make a thing about it, the more likely it's going to stay. And we just very gently go high five for noodles or dumplings. Were just moves through it. So it's not going to be a big thing. But sometimes around the dining table and to say, look, you know, you know how we've got to keep the words. We really try. There's some words that we're not meant
to say. This reminds a whole table three year olds. And then we gradually diminish the capacity for that to become quite such a habit and then they can sometimes literally forget to use it. But you've got to give him other words to use in that space or another action to do when you asked it. So that's say you've got it. You've got to get a bit creative and so get the older ones to play with you on that one. So what are we doing to do it?
And they go, yeah, that's that one, whoa whoa, yeah, a different word, and then it becomes a fun thing. There's a neural pathway in the brain. We can always change old habits by inhabiting them, but we have to create a new habit to go over the top.
Now that you say, Now that you say they're like sponges and it's a mirror, it makes sense because when he said that, he was on a Lilah with a margarita and it.
Was like looking in a mirror, which is a terrifying Maggie, congratulations on this series.
It is an absolute were back in the chair. But Juso, I was really really excited to be a part of organizing it. And most of my friends are in the show.
All right, there's some great people. Amana Keller, Cake, Richie. We love nazim As well. Maggie Dan join us on the the role of a lifetime finale It Can Binge It All on ABC I View Maggie, we love you. Next time you're in Melbourne, pop past the studio.
Let's do it.
I'll give you three kids to take home.
As a get Maggie. Jason Laurens Lauren Wake Up Feeling Good A number one hundred Jason Lauren Fly on Socials