Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

Do you lose your cool with your kids? Do you feel like you’re constantly yelling? In this week’s podcast episode I share my top 4 tips for keeping our anger in check and stay calm and be kind to our children (even when we think they don’t deserve it). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

No parent is perfect. We have all been totally terrible parents at some time or other. This week’s podcast episode is a humorous look at what makes a totally terrible parent (and a gentle reminder of how to be a great one). If you’d rather be a totally awesome parent rather than a totally terrible one, take advantage of our special offer to save $50 off my 21 Days to a Happier Family online video...

We all know the phrase “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” And while this may be the case for adults (but not always), unfortunately, when it comes to our children, it’s just not true. The words we use with our children when they are displaying challenging behaviour can be just as damaging as if we were smacking them. Scientists have found that the same areas of t...

Do we need to teach our kids to “toughen up”? Are we molly-coddling our kids too much? We all want our children to succeed but we are often so tired or busy that it’s often easier to do things ourselves. Unfortunately, this takes away all those small opportunities for our children to develop resilience. In this episode Dr Justin Coulson explores the idea of resilience and de-bunks some common myth...

In this podcast episode Dr Justin Coulson will help you discover your child’s love language so that you can always make sure they know they are loved. Inspired by The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, Dr Justin identifies the two major love languages that everyone speaks – TIME and UNDERSTANDING – and explores the three additional love languages – TOUCH ME, TELL ME, SHOW ME – which differ from...

Studies show that Australian kids aren’t doing enough active play and aren’t taking part in as much active transportation as they used to (eg. walking or riding a bike to school). The current obesity epidemic in Australia is just one symptom of this. In this podcast episode Dr Justin discusses the reasons why Aussie kids are not spending enough time outside, the detrimental effect that this has on...

When life puts you in a tight spot, don’t ask, ‘Why me?’ Instead, stand tall and say, ‘Try me!’ We’ve all heard the term ‘Post Traumatic Stress’ but what about ‘Post Traumatic Growth’? What if instead of letting life’s challenges and difficult times make us anxious and stressed, we focused on how the experience would strengthen us? This simple change in perspective can be extremely empowering as i...

When you’re a parent who works full-time, or even part-time, how do you prioritise connection with your kids? Whether we work from home or outside the home, our children want us in their lives and we want to be in their lives. But of course, that’s not always possible. It’s not always practical to go to every school event and sports game. How do we know which ones matter most? And how do we overco...

Think of the times that your parenting has been its best. Those times where you were unconditionally there for your child and it felt right. Show Notes When I ask parents to tell me about those times, these are the answers I hear: * Dinner time conversations * Holidays with no agendas * Weekends at the park or the beach * Playing games in the lounge room * Walking and talking * The last ten minute...

In this podcast we’re looking at how to make the Internet Invasion – the Screen Tsunami – less cumbersome, exhausting, and outright punishing on the entire family. Show Notes Screens are here to stay and our kids are all over them! They know more than us in many cases, and they want to be on there! And when I ask parents what their biggest challenge is with tech, the answer is almost universal – w...

For episode 14 of the Happy Families podcast we’re looking into discipline. What is it? How is it working for you? What makes for the best kind of discipline? We’ll investigate the 7 reasons punishments don’t work, and take a close look at what great discipline is all about. Show Notes A new segment starts in this episode: 60 second psychology. Today’s research article looks at the impact of paren...

In today’s podcast: Innocence lost. We’re talking about the public health crisis that is pornography and the way that it’s affecting our children. Note – In this podcast I’ll be discussing content that is of a highly sensitive nature. In the past few weeks I attended a conference about pornography and the way it harms young people. On Tuesday February 9, activist group Collective Shout hosted Aust...

Show Notes I speak to people almost every day who are struggling with their family relationships. Parents are tired of their children’s challenging behaviour. Children are stressed and struggling to live up to the perfection their parents demand. And frankly, some of the families I deal with are in real trouble… I remember one parent of a teenager who was tremendously aggressive, and I could not d...

In this week’s podcast – Do you know someone who is always right? They can’t be convinced otherwise, even when they’re absolutely wrong. Show notes To start off this podcast, we’re going to get a little deep, and investigate how we do this as parents, and what it does to our children. I hope you’re open to exploring a little inside yourself, and considering how you see the world… because this is g...

Is there a way to be happy that feels best for you? Do you seek happiness in the same predictable patterns? Over recent decades, researchers have considered the different ways we might be oriented to happiness. They’ve developed a model of 3 orientations – or pathways – to happiness and we’ll explore them briefly in today’s podcast. Show notes I think it’s fair to say that we all want to be happy…...

Forgiveness is a challenge. Someone does something you don’t like. Forgiving them is not a typical reaction. Whether it’s as simple as having someone cut you off while you’re driving, or something as dramatic and horrific as being hurt, or having a loved one taken from you. Some might say, “Why should I forgive?” And others might say, “I refuse to forgive.” This podcast looks at what forgiveness i...

We usually think that we’ll be ‘happy’ when we get that thing. It might be a job, a degree, a child, a child at school, a car, the house, the holiday, or something else we’re pining for. In this week’s Positivity Podcast, we take a look at something a little bit bizzare. While those things can – and do – make us happy, there’s something else much bigger, much more powerful, and far more life-chang...

In this positivity podcast, I’m talking ‘optimism’ – not so much the glass is half full kind of optimism – although that’s important. Rather, I’m talking about looking for good things to come. And I’ll share some strategies to help you – and your children, your staff, or your students – to be more optimistic. For my Ask Dr Justin segment I’m answering a question from a mum who is thinking about le...

In my last few podcasts I’ve talked about the problems with praise – and promised I would address the issue in full in a podcast. Now a warning – this one is a little sciencey, and I do talk about a lot of research. But that’s because praising children is something we’ve been told to do for decades, so for someone to say not to do it – well, that’s kinda weird. I’ll also help out a parent who is s...

In this week’s podcast we’re taking a look at the remarkably controversial topic of pocket money for kids.  It seems like there’s no shortage of opinions about what age, how much, whether there should be increases and how often, whether it should be tied to chores… and so on. And parents devise some pretty elaborate pocket money schemes! I should know, because I’ve got one. In today’s podcast I’m...

In last week’s podcast, we were reminded of the wonderful things we can say to our children to build them up, make them feel amazing, grow their resilience, and improve family life. This week, we’re turning the tables and looking at some of those things we say to our kids in the heat of the moment – or because we don’t know any better – that can really hurt them. In this podcast, I’ll share 5 thin...

The words we say have enormous impact on our children. All too often we get preoccupied and distracted, and struggle to talk with our children in the loving way they need. It’s one thing to eliminate the negative, but we need to know what to replace it with. In this podcast, I’ll share 5 things our children need to hear from us as often as possible. Show notes What are the five things our children...

Gratitude is a virtue that has received a LOT of attention from researchers in the past decade or thereabouts. It seems as though the most sure-fire way for many people to become happier is to be grateful. And because gratitude is such a simple concept for most people to understand (and because most people are fairly grateful anyway), it is a simple principle to practice in family life to improve...

Welcome to this first episode of the Happy Families Podcast. In this episode, I’ll be chatting about habits around our routine that can make our family stronger and happier. Strong, happy families don’t happen by accident. We don’t wake up, do whatever we feel like, and magically have a family that functions just fine. Happy and strong families are the product of consistent, proactive efforts on t...