Hi, I'm Louise Ari and I'm Francisca Rudkin, and welcome to season five of our New Zealand Here podcasts The Little Things. Thanks for being with us.
Welcome to our podcast and we're here to figure out life little things, the everyday stuff that can feel surprisingly big at times. We chat with experts who help us make sense of it all, and sare ideas that we think matter no matter what age or stage you're at. And I think of this as a shortcut through all the noise straight to the good stuff that makes a difference.
Okay, we've got one of our favorite guests back today. I'm going to introducem Early dtor Justin Colson. He is back for another episode. Last time he joined us, he gave us some beautiful, simple and effective advice on raising our kids. Remember the whole love you no matter what? That was in early twenty twenty four. I could have sworn it was longer ago, but that's because so much has probably happened since we last spoke to him. Well,
our kids have kind of flywn the coop, Well they have? Yeah, No, that's so true. One, you know, Mike, one of my kids is about to finish their first year at Union. One's about to finish school, and I'm excited about that.
It's quite a wild staring. I'm excited.
And conversations change between yes, having a school age child at home under your roof to having you know, the semi kind of young adults.
But the worry never goes away for a parent or for our young people.
Do they know My oldest has just finished his university degree and is starting work and I still, you know, keep a pretty not a super close eye on things, but I worry from time to time. And yeah, I just I guess I think how far our kids have come since we spoke to Justin, and also kind of how far we've come. You know, each child leaving is different.
You know.
I was weepy and said when the oldest left, and less weepy and said when in the middle one, which is not a reflection on her, that's that's me learning to live things. Then she threw us for a loop on a couple of things and worked through those, and I guess, yeah, it's all just time and experience, isn't it.
So we thought we'd get Justin back today to talk a little bit about how we support our kids with their worries, with what their concerns are. Have you do in preparation for this podcast? Did you actually ask any of your kids what they worry about these days?
Sure?
Did?
Yeah, and you'll see as we as the conversation hopefully unfills with Justin. But the big ones for my kids are the pressure of social media, not so much worrying about getting scammed and that kind of stuff, just just more kind of almost like they want to say, leave me alone, just leave me alone. And I'm like, you can, you can get it to leave you alone. But they're not there yet, so I don't know how it all works.
I don't know how they got sacked, and I don't know what the addiction of the DOPA meant any of that, But that is a worry for them. Other than that, you know, they worry about the normal things.
Will I get a job? Will I have some money? Will I you know? Will somebody love me?
I had two completely different reactions from my children. One struggle to find anything to worry about, which kind of which is great, sums that child up perfectly happy, go lucky and everything. But at she then said to me, I worry about the things that are directly in front of me. I worry about the what is directly in front of me now, like I just want to finish, finish university. I need to find somewhere to live next year. I'd like to have a job so I can pay.
For all this.
So, you know, my son is very much what's the problem in front of me? What do I need to get? Sort of wanted to do, that's what that's what I worry about. My other child was very much along the lines of I worry about everything, but that was potentially to be expected. It was a pretty stupid question for me to ask. But then she said something I thought
was really interesting. She says, I don't worry about the things I can control, and I've worked out what I can control of my life, and that's mostly things to do with me. I can control my grades and how while I do at school, if I work hard. I can control my social media. I can just be off it and choose what I want to be on. I
can control this. So has gone out of their way to take control over the things they worry about, and then the things they worry about other things they have no control over, and that the world is filled with idiots, and I've said, you're just going to have to be a little bit of radical acceptance is going to be required there. But yeah, but completely different, so not so worried about the things directly in front of her that are about her. She's like, no, I'll just take control
of those. But it's all the other things. The two quite different.
So yeah, and I think I relate to both those things. You know, it probably is no point to worrying about things you can't control, but I think we all full victim to it.
Occasionally.
That's what she does. She worries about all the things she can't control.
Yeah, yeah, No, I have a family member like that, and I don't really worry about them.
I mean, you know, they'll work it out.
But I guess what we're trying to establish is what is it that we have We laid those foundations for those for the kids to make good decisions like that about what they can and can't control. What other forces are are there out there that we may not be able to relate to because of our agent stage, And what advice would we have for people going forward?
Absolutely so today we're going to dive into the challenges young people are faith in today's world, how best to support them, especially if they're no longer under our roof or on the cusp of independence. So from sort of mental health, social media to belonging in academic pressure.
So, as we mentioned, we so enjoyed this guest of advice around offsprings at all ages, and we've asked doctor Justin Colson to talk to us again. Justin is the founder of Happy Families dot com dot au and a leading parenting expert, international speaker and author of nine best selling parenting books. He's a pH d in psychology and provides evidence based strategies which we love here on the little things and advice for parents. And he's a parent of sex, so he's put it all to the test.
Welcome Justin.
It's so nice to be with you, Louise Francesca. Thanks for having you back. I'm properly stoked to be here.
We're very excited to have you. Are nine best selling books. You'd be busy, haven't you.
I've got another one coming out next year. It's about raising teenage boys.
Oh we love that.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
I'm so excited. As we're having this conversation. It's with the publisher. They're going through the manuscript and it's coming out early to mid next year, sort of May June next year. It's going to be called Boys. It's going to have my name all over the front of it. And I think it's probably the most important book that I've ever written.
I think it potentially could be too, although the others have been also very important. Justin today we don't want to be talking for young people, but you know, a little bit of research does show that there seems to be some things around what young people are worrying about these days. And you know, today we're just sort of looking to support the people supporting the young people, I
suppose in a sense. So shall we start maybe with kind of mental health, because I think last time we spoke to you about forty five percent of kids we're receiving a diagnosis of anxiety. I don't imagine that that has improved, But do you think we're rising to the occasion and meeting the need at these children?
So this is a really provocative topic, and my views on this are a little bit left of center, right, My views of this are not in the mainstream, and I really come at this quite differently to how most people are coming at it. What do I mean by that? If I ask you if you're doing okay? Let's say've said this to your Francisca.
Are you okay? Like you are you doing all right?
You pause and you look at me and go, yeah, I think so, I'm like, no, really, like, deep down I want to have a prop conversation with your Francesca, you are you really okay? And so you start to search your soul, you search your heart, and you go, well, there are a few things. I'm like, let's talk about
those things. And so you tell me that you're struggling with one of the kids, or you're struggling with something that's going on at work, or Louise has just been ticking you off for the last few weeks and you've had enough, right, And so the longer we dwell on this, the more I poke and prod and pry into your anxieties and your challenges and your sadnesses and your strife and turmoil and your adversity and the randness and volatility
that the world has thrown at you. By the time that conversation's finished, you look at me and going, oh, my goodness, I just feel so refreshed, right, you're going, I'm exhausted, and unfortunately research this is not a popular thing to say, but research shows that our talk therapies are generally ineffective. There are some people who are helped sometimes buy them. So I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath. What I'm not saying it's all a
waste of time or money. But unfortunately, what's happened is the more we talk about mental health problems, the more people we seem to find with mental health problems, the more money we pour into awareness raising, the more people become aware. And this is not meant to sound glib, it's not meant to sound lighthearted, but we worry too much about our worries and the surefire way, the guaranteed way to make somebody miserable, or to make yourself miserable,
is to ruminate. The more you ruminate, the more you chew over the injustices of the world, or the inflationary crisis or the housing crisis, or the fact that all of the New Zealand's movie to Australia and there's no jobs anywhere, or the more you worry about how many kids have got anxiety, the worse it gets Now Again, I'm not saying that anxiety isn't real or depression isn't real. That's certainly not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is the more you talk about it, the more you find it.
And unfortunately, we now have what I would consider to be strong I don't know if conclusive is always hard to say when it comes to science, because science has never actually concluded. But we have strong evidence that mental health interventions in school at a global scale creates more problems than it solves. That is, the mental health training that kids are getting in school is not reducing anxiety.
We're seeing more of it.
We're finding that investing more money into talk therapies is not reducing or curing mental health challenges. We are finding that it continued. It's plateaued in the last year or two. I mean, we've seen it going up and up and up and up for the last ten or fifteen years. It seems to have plateaued in the last year or two,
which is I guess good news. But basically my position on this is there is so much goodness in the world, and if you focus on that, then you're going to typically find that life feels pretty good.
There is a lot of badness.
In the world as well, and if you focus on that, you're generally going to find that life is pretty bad. I do this activity when I'm doing my presentations in person. I just did one last night, and I get a broom handle, take the broom off the handle, and I just got a broom handle, and I.
Ask for a volunteer.
They come up to the front of the room and I asked them to balance the broom handle on their fingertips. I mean, it's light, so you can hold it on your fingertips. But the rule is you have to look at your fingertips while you're doing it. Now, if you try this later today, I guarantee you don't find this nearly impossible. Right you're looking at it fingertips. The broom handle's up there somewhere, and you look at your fingertips and the broomhandle goes every Usually it falls and clocks
them on the forehead or something like that. It's very funny. Everyone has a laugh and that's okay. Now do it again, but this time to look at the top of the broom handle, so they stretch their fingers right out. They stretch their arm out, they put the broom handle on their fingertips, they look at the top and all of a sudden they can balance the broom handle on their
fingertips and it doesn't clock anyone in the forehead. You gravitate where you look madts in life, and from a psychological point of view, if you are looking at your fingertips all the time, then you're going to bang into walks, You're going to have things clock you on the head.
It's going to hurt.
There's got to be a fine line there too, though it doesn't there justin because it's really important. We're also listening to our teenagers and listening to our kids and not just brushing off concerns or worries. Because there are kids, obviously, as you mentioned, who genuinely do have anxiety or concerning depression.
Or they've got things that they're worried about. You need to be hurt the right way.
Yeah, I'm so glad that you raised that, because I don't want this to be a glib dismissal of children's concerns, fears and worries.
That's not helpful either.
This is not polly you know, Pollyanna, the children's storybook with skipping through fields full of flowers and the sun's always shining and everything's always perfect.
That's not real either.
There's a really simple balance, and that is that when our children are having a hard time, we look at them and we make sure number one, that we're regulated in a good space to talk to them, and then number two, we say something along these lines. It sounds like this is pretty tough for you, and simply by saying that, our children going to go yeah. And so we can give them a hut and say do you want me to be with you and chat about it
or I just want some space. That's the third thing to say, do you want me to be with you or do you just want some space? And sometimes our kids will say no, I just need you to leave me alone.
So let them alone. I would recommend that you don't leave them alone with a screen.
That's not going to be beneficial to them, that won't usually help, But just leave them alone because they've said I want some space, and so that's fine to leave you alone, but I'm going to check in on you again, surely, just to make sure you're okay.
This is always them. Nope, they can come back to you.
That is so true, and that's how things kind of tend to roll earn our household as well. They don't want me to fix that. They don't want me to tell them a whole lot of things to do to make things better or why don't you do this? They don't want to be told what to do or anything. They just want to be heard. And I kind of want to be understood and validated a little bit and fear to just support and kind of, as you say, love them no matter what.
Yeah, so let's talk about that for just a sec. It's really really important. I look at relationships with our kids, in fact, with anybody like a bucket. Okay, So if you've got a bucket, you've got one or two things in the bucket. You've either got water in the bucket or you've got air in the bucket. Buckets are for carrying water, not air. So let's imagine that the water that goes into the bucket is connection. Okay, the relationship
bucket should be full of connection. Connection. Here's my definition. This is important feeling seen, hurd and valued. So when you think about your time with your kids, how much time do they feel seen hurt and valued? And how much time do they feel something else? The air in the bucket is correction and direction. So water is connection.
Air is correction and direction. Correction and direction is I know you're feeling down, but if you just did this, if you hadn't listened to me yesterday, what about this for a night. It's where we start telling them how to live their lives. It's where we say, your shoes, your bedrooms are mess, clean it up. I've asked you to do it for the last five days and I'm ready to crack. That's correction and direction, right. Connection is you seem to be having a tough time, Let's have
a chat about this. Connection is where we see here and value them. So just pause and consider your day so far. What's your interaction with your kids been? Has it been correction and direction or has it been connection? How much water has gone into the relationship bucket?
Mine?
Mine has just been nothing but flowers and petals. And but I already got one child home and now and two have lived, and I can the quality of parenting that one child is getting now fast and fast is what the other do? I hope they're not listening, got but I'm sitting here grinding my a little bit, because you know, my children do have what I would call tells,
and I just know something's kind of up. One of them gets like beside himself chatty for a while, and you go, he's kind of spiring a little, you know, and you do watch and wait, and then you just a gentle chickens. But it is a little bit harder when they're not under your roof. But you know, you are still the abyst person.
Do you know what I mean by that?
I do. I've got three who are in their twenties, one who's married with a baby, and two who are very much living their best lives now, and well, I just love how the relationship changes. And it does like anyone who's listening to this pod and going, oh my goodness, my kid's dropping me crazy. I've got an eleven year old and a seven year old and a thirteen year old,
and I'm Reade's throddled them. I promise you, if you can, if you can hang onto that connection, if you can remember to put water in that bucket every day, one day, they grow through this and they come back to you in ways that are just delight and Louise, I even love that you're saying that there's these tells like this child of yours starts to get chatty. So when that happens,
it's really really tempting as a parent. And this is actually I've mentioned three steps already, right, and be regulated yourself checking and so you seem to be having a tough time, and then offer your space or the presence, depending on what they need. The fourth thing is to just give them the space to to process what's going on a little bit. Sometimes I'll do that by chatting
to you. Sometimes they'll do that by going for a walk or just laying in their room with their eyes closed and covering in their head with a pillow and need some ice cream. And then the last thing that you do is your problem solve. See I don't let them stay in it. It might be a day, it might be a week, but at some point you say, all right, we've had a bit of time to processes, but we need to talk about action steps.
I'm here to support you. What are you thinking?
And it's critical that you don't step in and start telling them what to do. Regardless of their age, whether they're three or twenty three. Your job is not two and you use this word before fix them. No one likes to be fixed. Instead, your job is to say, well, let's see if we can come some ideas. What are you thinking? And you just let them If they're stuck, you give them some time. But eventually, as a parent, you're like, I've actually got some ideas and you just
want to give them the ideas. Here's what you do, you save them. I've got an idea that might be useful. Are you open to hearing it? You get their consent? Now do you need their consent?
Of course not. You're their parents. You can say what you want.
But when you ask for permission, then they open up their hearts to what you've got to say. When they say yes, please tell me now, they're receptive. If you just start telling them without that permission, they close down.
They're like, you're saying I'm a problem.
You're saying I don't have the confidence to fix this. As soon as you've got there, not of approval yet, please tell me. All of a sudden, they're going, hm, my parents might know something, and I'm willing and ready to listen.
It's so true. We just had a situation last night actually, and my kid was pretty upset about some things and concerned about some things, and we just sort of lay they're a made a joke about if you had a bit of a laugh and a cuddle, and didn't really talk about her anything. And then after a while I said, look, there are some options, you know, if you want, you could do this and this, but you've go and have
a think about it and let me know. Came back a few hours later, it had I think pretty much done that, like on the bed with a bill, IM over her how to think about it when actually I think that would be a good idea. Let's do that. And then if I do that, and it just she felt like she was taking control. There were her decisions, she made the you know, and it all sort of unfolded exactly like I thought it would.
I do think, I do think there are some quite unique revelations to that come out when your children do leave home, especially if they've gone they're quite young, they're sort of eighteen, they've gone to university, so they're still dependent, right, but they have left time. I learned, to my horror that my child took everything I said as if it was an absolute God given truth. And I don't know how I didn't know that, but I kind of thought i'd tell her something, she'll form her own opinion.
She didn't.
She's like, no, Mums said this was a mistake, and now I think it's a mistake. And it was all too late by then that the decision had been made, the move had been made. Mums always said this was going to be a mistake, and it was a mistake. Now I didn't use those words it's going to be a mistake. I said, you had better decide this for yourself, because it's your life and you're going to have to
live with the consequencesy of your decisions. And yet my sister said to me, who lives down in the town that my daughter's living, And she said, Louie, you've got to understand everything you say. She thinks it's true. Oh shit, do you think we're all making that mistake or is it just me?
I think it really comes down to the individuals. Like some kids, you can say stuff and they won't believe it at all. Right, they really do think that you, as a parent have no idea what's going on in the world.
And there are other kids.
I've got a couple myself who they take what I'm saying literally, and so.
It really depends on the child.
It depends on your credibility with the child, how much they trust you. My definition of trust this is an important one t us just believing that the other person is going to act in your best interests. So, Luise, what's really going on here for you is that you've got this child who's saying, I trust my mum implicitly. I know that everything that my mum says is focused on my best interest. So therefore I'm going to take that on board and go with it. I'm just going
to internalize it. It's in the bag. It's done really important that we're mindful that if our children do trust us to that level that we are. The technical term for this process that we've been describing over the last ten minutes or so is autonomy support, and so it's
critically important that we support our kids autonomy. The more we do that, the more they develop their own values, the more they develop their own way of viewing, seeing, considering the world, their own perspectives on that, and that makes all the difference.
When they're in a situation where they can't rely on us, they start to figure it out for themselves and that's the goal.
Of course, it's not just their parents they listen to teenagers, but also their peers. And there's a lot of social concern, isn't there That they have a lot of concerns about fitting and about wearing the right thing, about you know, looking the right way in things, and that comes from you know, and probably I would imagine a lack of trust actually in their friends and their peers and things.
As a parent, how do you sort of support your kids when they can be so swayed by their peers and what's happening around them in those kind of social environments.
So there are two things that I want to pick up on here.
First of all, you use the phrase fitting in, and our kids really do want to fit in. You imagine that you walk up to a group of people, they're standing in a circle, and you want to fit in. To fit in, you usually have to contort yourself somehow. You've got to get your shoulder in there, get your arm in there, You've got to sort of shove your body through, and eventually you might be able to fit in.
Compare that term belonging, When you walk up to that circle and you belong the circle just opens up wide and you step into it, and that's where you are.
My wife and I when we move from New South Wales to Queensland.
And years ago, Kylie was sitting in the front seat of our car talking to her sister who lived nearby, and our little girl, who was at the time of maybe three or four years of age, Emily. She was sitting in the backseat and Kylie was complaining a little bit to her sister. She was saying, we've been here in Queensland for this many months now and I don't really quite feel like I fit in anywhere. I don't
really feel like I'm in anyone's circle. And then she started mentioning all the different circles that she is, a middle aged woman was trying to work her way into. There was the school mums, we have a church community that we're a part of, and there's the neighborhood, and there's this, and there are four or five different circles, and she said, I just don't quite feel like I fit into any of the I don't feel like I'm
really in any of these circles. And from the backseat of the car, my little four year old Emily says, mommy, you're.
In my circle.
Oh too cute.
I know, but that really emphasizes the difference between fitting in and belonging, Like, you don't have to worry when you belong. And so when we see our children contorting themselves, hating themselves inside out to fit in, a conversation around fitting in versus belonging is in order. When you belong you don't need to change who you are. You don't need to consider your values, you don't need to betray your identity so that you can be part of what
everyone else is doing. And so I encourage my kids to think to themselves, when I'm with these people, do I get to be who I truly am? Am I accepted? And do I feel like I get to be the best version of me when I'm around these people? And if not, then perhaps I'm trying to fit in somewhere that I don't actually belong.
Requires bravery to do that, doesn't it.
Oh it's so hard for a child, honestly.
I mean, we talk all the time about kids and their mental health challenges.
If you talk to a school psychologist.
You talk to anybody who's working with children and young people, the overwhelming number one thing.
It's not climate change.
Kids aren't showing up in psychology clinics and saying the world's going to end, the nations are going to flood. That's not what they're saying. They're saying, I'm really struggling with my friends. That's what they're worried about.
And that's exactly why we want to speak to you today, because that we want to get to the heart of those of what's really in front of our kids at this age and stage. And I think that's what I wish, and I know this is Pollyanna thinking, is just because I just think, well, they are must half the time, particularly in that university environment that go into the halls of residents and stuff. They're all contorting themselves and it's
just like, let it go, guys. But then I guess we've all done it at some point and then we do fall naturally into those places where we belong or we need to go seek them out.
It's both highlighting on this luise.
Identity is developed through hardship, It's developed through bashing up against difficulties and values clashes. That's when you like when we talk about identity development, the adolescent and early adult years at a time where we forge our identity, where we develop the characteristics that will very much carry us through the remainder of our lives.
It's a really and for time for identity development.
From let's say twelve or thirteen through the twenty two or twenty three. I mean, we're all still developing as we age. You and I are going through our own identity development processes even now. But we are pretty much who we are, and we're usually pretty satisfied with that, and most of it comes from what happened in our
teenage years and our early adult years. The way that you develop your identity is by having your values questioned and working out where you stand, and so that contorting and that trying to fit in and that, but what about and those mistakes that they'll make. That's a necessary part of working out who you are. Sometimes you don't realize that, Let's pick a really simple one. You don't realize that you value health until you get absolutely blotto
on the weekend. You wake up with a hangover, you can't remember what you did, and you just think, actually, that's not who I am. You don't necessarily recognize the values that you have around friendships until you spend some time with people who who are disrespectful or who are deviant and delinquent and break things, and you're like, actually, is it not my people?
Right?
So going through those those hard times is actually necessary to forge identity.
We shouldn't be pushing our children into them. They'll find them on their own.
But what matters then is that they've got they've got good examples around them of how life can be. And that's just a that's a joy to watch. I'm thinking of my son in law. We were not very impressed with my son in law when we first met him.
When, oh my goodness, and I tried to talk.
To him about something and he was quite disrespectful and insulting to me. He told me that I was kind of actually clueless. I might have book smarts, but I didn't have street smarts. He was very patronizing and really gave me a heart time, and I really wanted to punch him in the jaw, honestly. I mean that's how I felt. I'm a parenting expert. I'm not supposed to do that. I've got a PhD. Psychology, I know better, but I wanted to do it anyway. But I value
peace and harmony. And so what's beautiful, though, is that over the years, as he's gotten to know us, he feels like our family is his family more than his family of origin, because over time he's realized, oh, hang, I no, I value that more than I value what I came from.
And we have the.
Most beautiful, rich, delightful, joyful relationship with our son in law now.
And we could not have predicted.
That eight years ago when we first met this guy, and I wanted to tackle him and put my shoulder into his sternham and drive him backwards through the jip rock wall behind him. Go Den, And it's all changed. And it's because over time, if your children have that relationship, if you can develop the trust, if you can build the connection, they will find themselves in circumstances and they think this seemed enticing, but it doesn't compare to what
I found elsewhere. I value what I found elsewhere more than I value what I've got here with the boys or with the girls. And I'm going to leave this and go where I belong.
Yeah, and we've got to, I guess, have that courage of our convictions that we've given them the examples and the trust models and things like that whilst they've been living under our roof and with us for that time, that they'll go out and sort of model that at some point down the line when they've tried everything else and their life outside of the home.
Yeah, what's that proverb?
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when years old, he will not depart from it.
There would go just And I'm really keen to talk to you about expectations because I think a lot of young people worry about the expectations that their parents have of them, or their teachers might have of them, that
their friends might have of them. I have a child that required quite a lot of die and I was interested in the various different people that we spoke to the first questions to both myself and my child were about parental expectations, because they were pretty much telling me that, you know, the majority of anxiety in children is due to a parents' expectation. I was hugely relieved to see my daughter to shut them down and me letly go
wrong path, that's not it. She has no expectations of yourselfe I've got a few, But I was sill hugely relieved about that. But I think as parents we don't want to often we don't admit maybe how much expectation we put on kids or you know that obviously we want our kids do well and to be living their best lives. And you know, but it's there, isn't it.
Yeah it is.
There's three kinds of perfectionism, and what we're really getting at here is this perfectionism idea. So first of all, was define perfectionism. Perfectionism is a kind of anxiety. The way that I define it, There are technical, academic definitions, but the way that I define perfectionism is perfectionism is the terror that our humanity will expose us as unlovable. Right, So if I feel that my mistakes, my humanness, my fallibility,
will make me unlovable, then I struggle with perfectionism. Now, there are three types of perfectionism. That's what's known as self oriented perfectionism. This is where you've got these unrealistic self evaluations and you're really punitive to yourself, like I have to be perfect, I have to get it right, and we're putting it on ourselves. Francesco, what you were
describing is known as socially prescribed perfectionism. That is that the social context is excessively demanding and other people are going to judge me harshly. I've got to get their approval. I have to meet their expectations. So the clinician working with your daughter is basically saying you on the receiving end of socially prescribed perfectionism and the people around you hammering you. And then there's a third kind, which is
other oriented perfectionism. And that's when we are not necessarily perfectionistic ourselves, but we expect everyone around us to be perfect. Most of us struggle with other oriented perfectionism on the roads.
Yes, totally, you know what I mean.
Now here's what's really interesting.
I do a lot of work in very high achieving, high expectation schools, especially girls schools, and a lot of those girls are struggling with all three forms of perfectionism. They're struggling with self oriented perfectionism because they just expect so much of themselves have been taught to but they're also on the receiving end of other oriented perfectionism, and the teachers and the parents living embodiment of socially prescribed perfectionism.
So this is usually the environment where we do see the most anxiety and where we do see the most depression, and we do see the most kids saying I can't go to school today and do that example that are all presentation because I'm so anxious and all the medical certificates start coming out and that kind of thing. I guess this sort of goes back to something that we talked about in the last conversation you and I had, where our kids need to know that.
We love them no matter what.
Those the three most important words that our kids can hear are not I love you, it's the next three, no matter what. So, if we go back to Francesca's question, the number one thing that kids complain about to struggle with with psychologists is their friendships.
But one of the next most common responses to.
Question as and surveys about why kids are anxious is the pressure that they're feeling to be more, do more, have more, and they often get that from their parents. And so by letting our kids know that they are loved no matter what, that they're making a contribution that they matter much more than the things or the accouterments of life they accumulate.
That's I think.
That's the central thing, right, that their value is not predic hated on their year thirteen results the university course that they get into the fact that they choose not to go to university at all. Right, I mean, we just put so much unnecessary pressure on them. Can I go on a two minute tangent?
Go on?
Okay, gap years, gap years.
We put so much pressure on our kids to do really well as they finish high school so they can get it to university. Now, if you have a look at the population of either New Zealand or Australia, what we find is that in terms of adults with university degrees, it's about a third about a third of adults. What that tells me is that there are a lot of adults who are making meaningful contributions, raising families and having an impact on community in society that don't have university degrees.
So can we please just get it in our heads that university is not the be all and end all. Moreover, moreover, university is than what they're doing today compared to what they used to do. Kids are not getting great educations at universities anymore.
Is complicating that even further.
So, what I encourage my kids to do is take gap years, multiple gap years, and so long as they are doing something productive. They're not allowed to sit around on the living room floor and scroll TikTok or play Fortnite. They have to be doing something. But so long as they are busy and active and producing, I wanted to take two or three gap years.
What I found when I was a university lecturer is that.
When a school leaver put up their hand to ask a question in a lecture or tutorial a university, the school leaver's question was almost always is this going to be an exam? But when a mature age student put up their hand, it was almost always can we go deeper on this?
I really want to understand this.
So university, in my opinion, university is not for kids. University is for adults, right because if you go to university as a kid, you've already done the ten years of school, you're over it and you just want to get through with life. But a mature age student who's gone back wants to get Uni through them so they can give more and make.
More of life. That's a completely different mindset.
Yeah, No, I like that, Rand. I'm a big supporter of the gap year and not feeling the need that you have to be able to know exactly what you're going to do for the rest of your life and find everyone else and just have some life experiences and things.
Range and breadth leads to better outcomes, and the data on gap years is actually really compelling.
People do better when they have gap years.
You're listening to the little things and our guest on the podcast today is parenting expert and founder of Happy Families dot com dot au, doctor Justin Colson, talking about what our teens worry about and how we can help them navigate the world with Actually.
Before the break, you were talking about gap years and knowing what they want and that you mentioned not allowed to sit around on the floor with your TikTok. You know, social media is the one thing that we didn't have, right so when we often say compare things to for our children for something that's happened to us, that is
one thing that we didn't have in our day. As we often find ourselves saying, I talk to my kids about what they worry about, and one of the things they said was that social media used to be fun. Instagram used to be fun. Now it feels instructional, almost bossy, and definitely judgmental. And it's I'm now clicking that it may also fit into this perfectionism model, as that socially
prescribed perfectionism. One of the things that my son say was, you know, you get these the algorithm sends you these videos of you know, everyone gets the same twenty four our days.
What are you doing with yours?
You know? And instead of being like, wow, yeah, you know, it's the more you get it, the more you feel like a a loser. So, given it as something we didn't have, and perhaps we had it in different ways, I don't think we did. I don't remember anybody making the most of every second of the every day. How do we help them with that one? Any ideas?
So I'm increasingly convinced.
I mean I've flip flopped on this a lot over the years, but in the last two to three years I've really really settled as the research evidence has become increasingly compelling. I think that many, if not most, of the challenges that our young people are experiencing. Certainly, the growth in challenges that we've seen in terms of the exponential rise in mental health challenges has to be at
least attributed in some measure to what's happening online. I think the Internet brings with it a host of benefits, but for our children and young people it is breathtakingly destructive. So the Australian government's decision two from December tenth, twenty twenty five, disallow children under the age of sixteen to have a social media account, is a really important step to recognizing that we have got some problems and the
social media is at the core of it. Louis, your observation is a right, and young people are increasingly saying this is not helping us. But they can't get away from it. They don't know how to get away from it. It's just it is absolutely compelling, as so destructive. My central advice to young people who want high levels of well being in their lives is to disable as much
of the Internet from your telephone as you can. So get rid of your social media accounts from and apps from your telephone, get rid of news websites and chat sites from your telephone. Just don't have your phone letting you do anything other than navigate, maybe listen to some music and make phone calls and texts.
That's it.
If you still want to have those accounts, by all means have them on your laptop, because you don't use your laptop the same way as you do your phone. But by reducing your access to those platforms, you will find that your wellbeing will increase. You'll find that you're less anxious, you're less drawn in, you're less compelled and addicted. It's just going to be better. As a fifty year
old adult. I've made those decisions, and I cannot tell you how peaceful my life is because I don't have those accounts.
It's really interesting because when I ask my kids, you know what they worry about? They had they both came back with quite different answers. And my daughter just looked at me like I'd ask the stupidest question because she's neurodivergent with anxiety, and she just went, well, everything, mum, everything.
But then she made a really interesting point. She says, I no longer worry about the things I can control, So she doesn't worry about social media because she has made the decuse put so many restrictions in place that she only accesses what she wants, or people can only access from her, you know what she wants them to see she's taken control of that. She doesn't worry about her studies because she's like, I just take control of my study, and I work and I get the grades.
It's not a problem. I just thought that was a really interesting perspective from her. If I can control it, I don't worry about it, and then she just worries about everything else, which generally has nothing to do with her.
Now, I'm going to say something that I know is going to upset some people, and that's fine. That's just that's how life is. We're allowed to have different opinions and views. I can't control what's happening in Israel and Palestine. I can't control what's happening in Ukraine and Russia. I can't control who the President of the United States is, or the Prime Minister of New Zealand or Australia. I can't control those things, and so therefore I choose not
to trouble my mind with them. Now, are there things that we should be upset about and worried about it in the world? I guess there probably are. But since I can't control those things, and since I have limited to zero leverage on any of those things, what I choose to do instead is I control what I can control, and you know what I can control. I can control how effectively you work with your children to help them
feel supported and loved and to be raised resilient. I can control that, And I can control how I engage with my family. I can control how many books I'm writing and what I'm writing about. I can control those things. So I maintain a very loose, top level idea of what's going on in the world, because I think it is good to be somewhat informed, but I don't get caught up in it. And that's how you reduce anxiety by not worrying about what you aren't going to benefit from worrying about.
You know, that's great advice.
I know that it's a hot button topic. I have it the whole world.
No, No, it probably makes sense.
It's kind of a vice I probably need to hear about now. Yeah, I listened to way too many podcasts before the American election, knowing that the outcome would be what it was anyway, So what was the point? That's right, There are a couple of other topics we just wanted to head on. I guess we're running out of time, but like drugs and alcohol risky behavior basically drugs and alcohol.
Is it the same as everything else? If we've set them up in the home with values and expectation, can we hope should we just hope that they take that out there when they leave.
There's some good news here, and that is that young people are drinking and taking drugs less than they ever have. I mean, there's a little bit of a bump here and there, depending on which substance you're talking about, but generally speaking, the trend is downward, and it has been for about thirty or forty years, like compared to when we were being raised, kids are doing all of that a whole lot less. There's also a negative to that.
It's because they're lonelier than ever. They're sitting at home on their screens, staring at TikTok and so the good news is they're not making the dumb decisions. The bad news is they're not out there with friends making the dumb decisions. So it's kind of a double edged sword here. Here's what we know about sensation seeking and impulse control. First of all, sons are much more liking to do dumb things than daughters.
And now now we're talking about averages here.
There are some very very risk averse boys and there are some very very highly sensation seeking girls.
But generally speaking, that's the pattern that you'll find.
Number Two, you'll find that kids are with their friends, they are much more likely to do dumb things versus when.
They're on their own.
So your friends matter, who you choose to spend time with is vitally important in terms of your safety and health outcomes. And Third, the conversations that we have with our kids are vitally important. So here's something that we do in our family. By the way, I'm making myself sound really perfect, I promise I make a lot of mistakes. But something that we do really really well in our family is every Sunday we sit down with our kids for a fifteen minute tricky talk. We talk about tough topics.
It's tricky talks. It's tough topics. Every Sunday, it's fifteen minutes. The kids began when we started doing this, they would complain, they would roll their eyes, they would winge and moan.
They hated it, hated it.
And we would say, that's all right, We've got some treats on the table and it's only going to be fifteen minutes. And today the topic is pornography, or today the topic is consent, or today the topic is drinking alcohol, or today the topic is one day. When of the kids asked about STIs, it was a Friday and she said, Dad, what's an STI?
Can we talk about STIs Sunday? Yeah?
I said, you know what, Sunday is two days away and we've only got two minutes in the car. Now, how do you feel about that? We'll talk about it as a family And she's like, yeah, that'd be great. And so the kids all showed up for ready to talk about Sti's. And what's fascinating is that once the kids know that they're going to get a treat and we're gonna have a bit of a chat, and the
expectation is that they will communicate during this. Once they get their head around and you've done it a few times and they realize that it's not scary, they look forward to it.
The STI conversation ended up going for about forty five minutes. They didn't want it to stop.
It's a really good conversation before they leave home.
I'm telling you it.
Is so and you get to say, so, what are your friends talking about, what's happening at school?
What are you seeing online?
You tell us what you're curious about, and then we'll bounce some ideas around. And then when they say, well what about this, she said, well what do you think? So this is not a parent lecture, this is a what do you think? And what are the ramifications? What's the outcome? What's downstream of that? And how could you be safe if that was to happen to you?
What decisions can you?
And so these conversations are literally conversations. And if the kids sit there and don't say anything and shrug their shoulders, you're like, guys, let's just enjoy the milkshake then, and we'll try this conversation again next week, like you can't coorse it. But once they know that this is a conversation, not a lecture, the conversations never go fifteen minutes and the kids start to look forward to it.
I'm always intrigued when my kids pick up on deciding it so you can't, let's talk about that, and off they go. And I'm often the one that gets the point where I go, yeah, enough, it's all good.
Yeah, we've done.
We've nailed this, guys. Can we just guys get back to my book?
This is great.
Hey, Justin, I can't thank you enough. Always really appreciate your time. I know you're incredibly busy. Cannot wait for the new book.
Boys.
Just simply boys, right, Yeah.
I haven't worked up the subtitle yet. Find it's on the shelves. There'll be a subtitle, but just boys.
I think that sums it up quite well. Very easy to remember. Always always wonderful to talk. Thank you so so much, Thank you, Justin.
You guys have got a great pod and it really has pleasure to be with you.
Thanks so much, Thanks so much, so lovely to have Justin back on the podcast, Louise.
Definitely, and right from the outset he set the tone really didn't he that we weren't yeah, we weren't going to sort of downward spiral into the worries of the world. It was more of a looking at the top end of the broom conversation, which I really enjoyed.
I never tired of him talking about how to address tricky moments with teenagers and things, you know, starting with your regulate yourself, you check in, you give them space or give them space to process and the problems of I never get tired of hearing him talk about that.
He's got that sort of that reassuring a tone as well, that you sort of we don't have to be perfect with perfectionism. In fact, it seems like it might be a bit of a myth. Myth his wrap up of that perfectionism thing. I found that really really useful. That's definitely a takeaway for me to think about when I'm parenting.
Yeah, but I also think we recognize it in so many kids, right. Oh, God, you know, you look around at your kids, and you look around at all their friends and their mates and stuff like that, and those three versions of perfectionism you sort of could there are very good examples right in front of you. I think we could all probably.
Oh, they applied to so many aspects of life. That and the other one was fitting in versus belonging. That was I don't know why that came as such a revelation because it's totally logical. But I haven't really thought about it like that before.
No, but I still think the belonging is really hard.
Oh.
I think you have to be really brave to find that place where you belong and I think it can take a long time, and I think it can be a hard road to get there, and I don't think we should ever forget that.
No, And I think that's why we do end up making fast friends with people and then a couple of months later coming well, you know, I'm talking about myself. Here was I thank you? You thought they were a bit off at the start. Prinches never happens. Never happens.
If you'd like to hear more from Justin Happy Families dot com dot au. He's got the nine Box as well, and of course he's got boys coming next year as well, which will be very popular. Has he week been any moments of joy, well, revelations or apropos to what we've been talking about today. My son had an opportunity to go on the Spirit of New Zealand and even though gastro ripped through the boat, which sounded like a nightmare, it was exactly as Justin was talking. I just kept
thinking about all the points that thing had. It seems crazy to have to take forty children away and lock their phones up, take them on the high season for them to connect, But connect they did, and find belonging. They did and probably found people that they didn't get along with, but they had to for a few days, it's right, So it kind of hits all those marks.
I really really admire that trust for their perseverance in keeping that those that ship going uh and if you do get an opportunity to go on it, they help. They can help with funding and all sorts of things. So I do highly recommend it, not as a punishment, by the way, but as a as a as an opportunity to put put phones down, connect and do something
useful punishment. I'd like to reiterate something that Justin said actually about you know, there's a there's that period where you look at your kids as they're sort of turning into tweens and teenagers, and you think, oh my godness, we're not all going to make you know, we're not all going to get through this alive. This is this is going to be, this is tough, this is fall on and he said that, you know, but those gorgeous
young kids, you know, come back to you. And this week I've just noticed that one of my kids who you know, you try and encourage them sort of, you know,
get organized and get things done. And then I just I've come to the conclusion You've told me this a lot that you know, some young adults will just get around to doing things when they actually have to, And I've just I've sat back and I was saying to get little frustrated, but then this week act Action Action stations and there's productivity and things are getting sorted and I'm like, I'll there you go.
It happens.
It happens. You just sometimes got to leave them to it to sort out their own their own things, and it gets a point where they've got to get it done and things get done. Yeah, and give you some a little bit of credit for this. So I'm just not going to worry about something which is not worth me worrying about. I'm gonna try, no doubt two o'clock one morning, it'll still it'll on your mind there.
Yeah.
Hey, thank you for joining us on our New Zealand Herald podcast series, The Little Things. We hope you share this podcast with the parents in your life so we can all have the tools to keep the conversations rolling, those tricky talks as our young people face their own challenges in the world.
You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and for more episodes from us on other topics, heat to insid Herald, dot co, dot zed and we'll catch you next time on the Little Things