Speaker 1Observe. The North American dad. 50s. Great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, Dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling. No hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply. Hello and welcome to the How Not To
Speaker 2Screw Up Your Kids podcast, the bucket-emptying episodes. I'm your host, Dr. Mary Han, psychologist and parenting expert. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode, Stop Making Life Easy. Children need friction to make their lives easier. To develop resilience is all about some of the things that we might be doing inadvertently that is sabotaging all of our efforts to build and encourage our children to become more resilient. And then therefore, because we're sabotaging it, that frustration that we feel when our children don't dig deep, when they give up when things get difficult. And what we're really going to cover is how some of the things that we might be doing without even realizing it are sort of surrounding and basically ending up giving us these situations where our children just simply say, I can't do this. I won't do this. Because of these little things that we do that sabotage, that get in the way, and often comes from, 100% comes from that place of love. You know, we've all been there where our child is trying to do something and they start doing it and then it doesn't quite go to plan and they totally lose the plot or they just say, that's it, I can't do it. And then they walk away and we sort of think, my goodness me, if you could just do it. And then they walk away and we sort of think, my goodness me, just try that little bit harder, things will be different. And you'd be fine. But we just can't get them to do that. So I'm going to give you some five tips here. So five things that we might be doing, five things that we can change the way that we're approaching it, that might just begin to make a significant impact and shift. But I think first of all, I want to talk about this idea. So in essence, the idea for this episode came from an article that I read talking about this notion of friction. And I really loved the way that this article kind of presented it, because when we look at our lives as we live in, you know, the year 2026, so much of our lives, the way that we go about organising things, the way that we go about just living our day to day lives are pretty frictionless. Yeah, from our phones, we can order our lunch, we could order our dinner, we can organise flowers to be sent, we can send presents, we can do all of our shopping. Pretty much from clothes to food, to provisions. And there's no friction, because everything is just easy. We can check our bank balance, we can transfer some money. Now, whilst that is fabulous, and then it, you know, it gives us back a huge amount of time, because we're not, you know, when I think back about my mother, when I was younger, in order to provide our meals, and my mother didn't drive, she would have to walk to the shops. Thankfully, they weren't that far away, 20 minute walk, she would walk to the shops with her list, having considered all the food and the meals that she was going to prepare, she would then have to go to various different shops, because there wasn't one shop that did everything. And she would have to then purchase those items against her list. And payment back in those days required a physical checkbook or a card, whereas nowadays or cash, whereas nowadays, we can do it even from our phone, would have then required taking it back. And more often than not, cooking the meal from scratch, and then planning timing and the rest of it. So I'm just trying to give you an example of how much that has changed. Whereas now we could probably look online for a recipe. And we could even order a recipe box, which would then weigh out and measure all of the things that we needed. Or we could just simply order a ready made meal or something that was half done that we could then just put in the oven. So when we think about the things that our children see us doing, a lot of the time, we're not going to be able to do that. A lot of it has there is no friction. And it's exactly the same with our children. If they're getting bored, they can instantly entertain themselves, either with something that they can watch on a digital device or on television. Or the toys that they're playing with are such set up in lots of ways that that reduces some of the friction to there's less of this, you know, having to use huge amounts of creativity, because toys themselves have developed in such a way that they almost have a very clear frictionless way of going about playing with them. And so what happens is when our children see us modeling a life that is frictionless, so there is no huge amount of effort, they're not, you know, they're not seeing that challenge that can cause issues. So I want you to be thinking when we're talking about friction, and how important that is to develop resilience, I want you to be thinking about friction and things like effort, having to wait for something, being, unclear about how you go about tackling a particular problem or a particular situation. Friction may well be about collaboration, you're needing to get other people on board in order for something to happen. Friction includes unpredictability. So you name it, when you start thinking of some of those terms, and the definition of friction, we can really see why friction is a really good thing when it comes to developing our children's resilience, because resilience is all about being able to bounce back from setbacks, and be able to have another go. And to understand that setbacks and failures are part of that learning process. And so if we can create more friction in our children's lives, you know, the byproduct of that is that we develop their resilience. And therefore, when they're in situations that they find challenging, or things don't quite go according to plan the first time, they're much more likely to then have another go. You know, the brain isn't wired to throw on an effortless life. It's wired to grow through challenge, because that's where those neural connections come into place. Where it's easy, and it's effortless, it's almost becomes this automatic that it doesn't build those connections in the brain in the same way. So what are the things that we might be able to do? Okay, so I'm going to give you five things that I want you to think about, and then I'm going to give you five things that I want you to think about, and then I'm So that might be, without any sort of fanfare, but it may well be that we choose to take up something new, something that we're not particularly good at, something that we've not tried. And for our children to observe us going through that friction process of learning, of that effort, of that delay, of that lack of clarity, of that unpredictability. And over time, when we stick with this, and this is obviously, so it's important when we think about what friction might we introduce, what new thing might we try, because what we want to do is we want to model not only that we're taking something new that we don't know, and giving it a go, but we're persevering. You know, grit, which is part of that notion of resilience, is all about sustained and prolonged activation and willingness to persevere with something that does not necessarily carry on. So that's the first thing is thinking about, you know, when children are observing us, if they are seeing that basically life is frictionless, because it's our whole life is dictated from our phone, even, but in some instances, we can even switch lights on and off, we can manage our heating from our phone. So it's just thinking about what might we be able to introduce. So that's number one. Number two are just simple things that we can do on our day to day, like where we can introduce friction in a really easy way without sitting our children down for any long discussions about anything, we could just simply decide, you know what, I'm going to ensure that my children have to wait a little longer than usual, before I relieve any discomfort. So that discomfort could be that they're waiting for your time, that discomfort could be that they're waiting for your attention, that discomfort could be that you're playing a game. And, you know, we take away that friction, because we ensure that they win. So it's just thinking about what are some of the things that we very quickly relieve our children's discomfort, maybe your children are still learning how to do up their shoes. Maybe it might be even putting their wellies on, you've got young, a toddler, but trying to put wellies on, and we jump in too quickly to help them when they're being frustrated. Could we just wait maybe a second longer, and then two seconds longer than three seconds, we're building up that space. space. to allow there to be some friction. Because actually, what might even happen as we expand and build that friction in, our children might just persevere that little bit longer. And then there we go, our little 18 month old suddenly is able to put their wellies on. They may not be able to. But what we're trying to do here is, these are real, where we can get those super easy quick wins by just simply saying, right, I'm going to just leave it, count to three in your head before you then act. So it's not about leaving our children flailing around in huge discomfort, being unable to sort of soothe themselves. But it's just simply, could we wait just that little bit longer before we provide a solution, before we give them that time, attention or help in that way? So number one is about modelling. Number two is about, can we just simply press pause and wait? Number three, I've just simply written in my notes here, boredom, please. So can we get out of the way when our children feel frustrated and bored? Yeah, can we just change our mindset and reframe this notion of our role is not to be like, let me entertain you to our children all of the time. Boredom is a really important part of children's development. It develops curiosity, it develops imagination, and all those sort of creativity skills. But it also relaxes that resilience muscle because it creates friction. And from friction, action can therefore, you know, they can take action. So there's friction because I'm bored and I don't know what to do. And if they're allowed to sit with that boredom for enough time, they will then find ways to be able to fill that void. Whereas when we rush in too quickly, even if we're not saying, well, let me entertain you and let's do this. But instead, we say, well, let's do this. You could do this. You could do that. You could do this. We're already restricting. We're smoothing the path. We're getting rid of some of the friction, not all of it. But what we're doing is we're restricting that creativity because we've contained it within the options that we've given them. Now, if you have got a child who you currently does, you know, who currently has absolutely no friction, the minute that they're bored, you immediately jump in to do something. First of all, absolutely no judgment. Secondly, you're doing probably what a lot of parents are doing. So if we're in that situation, then offering options initially may well be a transitionary phase that we go through so that they're not totally overwhelmed with this sort of like, I just don't absolutely don't know what to do. And then you may end up with a child that's hugely emotionally dysregulated. So instead, we may well offer options. But the end goal that we've got to consider is actually, and that reframe, I mean, in our mindset is I'm being a really great parent by encouraging my children to be bored and allowing them to find through their own internal creativity and capability something that they can do. So number three is boredom, please more. Number four is allowing our children to resolve conflict themselves because conflict is friction. Yeah. And when we go in to resolve it. We take that friction away. And we want to ensure that our children have a bit more friction. So it could be, and you know, I'm a big fan of this, you know, I have every faith that you can resolve this with your siblings. So it's about, can we step out of the way when it comes to sibling arguments, as long as there's no fisticuffs and there's no danger to them. But can we have true faith through our actions and allow our children to go through that friction of trying to resolve conflict themselves? Yeah, that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point. To resolve sibling conflict, rather than refereeing and getting involved in scenarios around property, toys, sharing, can we just let them resolve it amongst themselves? Now, that may not always be possible, because the escalation is as such, that that just wouldn't be a sensible or safe thing to do. But I want you just to be thinking about, where do I resolve conflicts for my children, where they really are capable, because more often than not, your children are resolving conflicts with their friendships at school, and therefore have the capability to negotiate, to manage conflict, to have those discussions that we might not necessarily be giving them the opportunities at home. So that's number four. And then number five is don't rush in to fix either disappointments or setbacks. So some of the things that we could do is, our children can speak to their teacher if they haven't done their homework. Why are we explaining why they haven't done it? And that this isn't punitive. This isn't a, you are going to have to explain to your teacher why you've not done your homework. It's not that it's just simply a case of what we typically do is we then rush in, or we write a special note to say, you know, Johnny wasn't able to do his homework, he had a really exhausting day, or, you know, we battled around getting it done. But actually, what we could simply do, or they forgot it. So we haven't been able to do it is that we just simply allow them to go in and communicate if the teacher asks, well, where's your homework, Johnny? Where's your math sheet? And then they have to just have that conversation. Again, it's friction that we're encouraging. And the resilience in that aspect is that it's not as bad as they think. And, and, but they have to explain why it hasn't been done. But it isn't like this, the earth doesn't swallow them. There isn't this huge shouting from the teacher. There's a discussion, and then a change of expectation is either made, whether that's a, okay, on this occasion, it's fine, or a right, well, you need to get it done tonight. So there's that ownership piece. So it could be about the teacher, or, you know, we're ensuring that their bags are organized, or that their room is organized, or if they've forgotten something, or if they've not been invited to a party. And instead, because they've not been invited to a party, we've decided to lavish them with some amazing treats that day, so they don't feel, upset that they're the one that's not at the party. It's really thinking about, can I just step back a bit? Because the discomfort that my child is going through, the friction that they're experiencing, is a real growth. Because what that then does is when we then find ourselves in those scenarios, where we're encouraging our child to try something new, or to persevere with something that they're finding difficult, all of those choices that we've made around, you know, rushing in to fix, not allowing them to do what they want, not allowing them to do what they want, not allowing them to resolve conflict, rushing in too quickly, rather than letting them wait that little bit longer, always trying to keep them entertained, and us also modeling a frictionless life. That's where those decisions then play out in terms of our child then not having that resilience. When we make those difficult decisions in the moment to wait that little bit longer, to model to our children, the fact that we are trying new things and persevering through that. When we make those difficult decisions in the moment, to wait that little bit longer, we are giving ourselves, over time, it doesn't happen overnight, nothing worth anything happens overnight. We're playing the long game here. But when we make those small decisions on a day-to-day basis, we see the positive impact that that has on our children's resilience. And then longer term, we get less of that frustration when our children simply give up. So I hope that that gives you at least something. In those five, you will find one thing within there that you think, actually, you know what, I could, I could do that. That's something that's, that's manageable, that doesn't feel super uncomfortable, doesn't feel really tricky. And actually something that I think I can see, it would have a really big impact, because maybe I'm doing other things that are just not currently working. And so why not? Let's give it a go. And of course, if you're going to give it a go, I would love it if you will let me know how you are getting on. Because I always love to hear how you get on with these bucket emptying episodes, as well as the longer episodes. And of course, if you have listened to this episode, and it's resonated with you, and you thought, oh, I think I know somebody who would also benefit from listening to this, then do please share this episode. And if you have not yet done so, then if you could just take a moment to rate and review the podcast, it will help us so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So, until next time.
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