Ever feel like you’re stuck in the loop of “How was your day?” and hearing “meh” in response? Justin and Kylie share research-backed strategies for having meaningful conversations with your children, including five core questions that build emotional intelligence and resilience. Learn why timing and technique matter more than the questions themselves, and discover how these conversations can significantly reduce anxiety and depression in children.
Key Points:
- The power of well-timed, meaningful conversations
- How conversations build executive function and emotional regulation
- The connection between parent-child discussions and mental health
- Why traditional questions often fail to engage kids
- The importance of timing and technique in family discussions
Research Highlights:
- Harvard's Center on the Developing Child: Back-and-forth conversations build executive function
- Minnesota longitudinal study: Regular meaningful conversations improve emotional intelligence
- Arizona State University: 48% lower rates of anxiety and depression in kids who have regular meaningful discussions with parents
Quote of the Episode:
"Sometimes when we're having difficult conversations, we handle the conversations better if we're actually doing something side by side." - Kylie Coulson
The Five Core Questions:
1. What are some things you're most excited about for 2025?
2. Is there anything you're nervous or worried about this year?
3. What's something you'd love to learn or try this year?
4. When do you feel most like you?
5. What qualities do you admire in others and which ones would you like to develop in yourself?
Key Techniques:
- The WAIT Principle (Why Am I Talking?)
- Using strategic silence
- The power of "Tell me more"
- Avoiding problem-solving unless asked
- Side-by-side conversations
Best Times for Conversations:
- During dinner
- Bedtime
- Walking together
- Car rides
- Over breakfast
Resources Mentioned:
- Harvard's Center on the Developing Child research
- Minnesota longitudinal study
- Dr. Suniya Luther's research at Arizona State University
- happyfamilies.com.au
Action Steps for Parents:
1. Choose the right timing for conversations
2. Practice the WAIT principle
3. Use side-by-side activities for difficult discussions
4. Create regular conversation opportunities at dinner
5. Focus on listening rather than problem-solving
Asking great questions and having great conversations with our children can help build emotional regulation and emotional intelligence, and it's associated with lower anxiety and depression in our kids. How good is that? Goday? Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, Real parenting Solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting pod. We are Justin and Clybek Coulson and today on the pod, how to get your kids talking about stuff that matters, real stuff, real conversations. We've got five core questions to ask your kids during whatever conversations you're having at dinner, in the car, or maybe when you're having bedtime snuggles.
How many times have you asked your kids how their day went?
And being back with her fine Mah, I asked one of our kids that question the other day. Lazy question and I got lazy answer. You know what she said to me. This was our ten year old. She goes, eh, mid, I was like, holy smokes.
So often we ask questions so our kids just shrug off, yeah, totally nothing standard answers. So in our home we've been really really intentional about asking questions at dinner time.
Yeah, our dinner conversations are some of my favorite discussions of the day.
And we have six daughters, so we're never lacking for conversation. Actually, I've got a.
Joke for you, yep, not I know where you're going with this. Who's there interrupting? Caw interrupting can So everyone else is laughing at that, I think, But for some context, this was a joke that we heard on The Victor of Dibley, like twenty five years ago or something like that.
And it describes every dinner conversation in our house.
There is it's rare that there are less than two people talking at anyone time, just six daughters. So much noise, so much conversation.
So much so that we're now when my parents come to visit, they're used to having very very quiet, sedentary, very dates, and then they come to our house and they kind of get a headache when they sit at the dinner table with us. This is so much conversation.
They've almost stopped coming to our house. Let's be honest. Good questions get great answers, and lazy questions get lazy answers. So kylie before we hit the questions and help everyone to fire up the conversations. The questions are not all dinner conversations. By the way, some of these are really personal and quite intimate questions that we've got for you today. But before we hit the questions, I want to share three evidence based reasons that these conversations matter.
Are you trying to push in a doctor's desk?
Not just it really matters. I mean, we've got I got a PhD answer in college, and I'll like to tell people that this stuff matters, all right. Number One, everyone loves talking to their kids. I mean, it's such a delight, it's such a thrill to ask them great questions. But we've got to know how to do it. First piece of research that matters here. This comes from Harvard Center on the Developing Child, Long and Channel research shows that supportive back and forth conversations one of the most powerful builders of executive function and emotional regulation in kids. So executive function is the ability to think things through, to delay gratification, to be planful and considered, to take other people's perspective. I mean, it's just having these conversations does so much for our children's brains, from the earliest ages right through into their teens and twenties. It's a profoundly important thing to do.
We actually watched this play out so beautifully with our fourteen year old the other day. She's desperate to go on a free range horse ride.
Right, yeah, So she's volunteering at Glenworth Valley on the New South Wales Central Coasts. She goes down there a couple times a year and just spends a couple of weeks looking after horses, and as part of the volunteer process she gets some free trail rides. But once you've been there long enough, they let you go on a trail ride all on your own. They call it free ranging.
And she really wants to do this thing, but I just don't feel like she's ready for it yet. And she knew that asking mission to have me sign the authority form was a really big deal.
When I was here, right Joel had just forged it, and so she.
Came to me. She said, Mom, I'd really like to have a conversation with you about the opportunity to go free ranging. And I said, ah, I said, I don't think you're ready for that. And I was busy and I wasn't in a position to sit down with her at the time, And so she said I could see the emotion boiling up inside her. So she calmed herself down and she came back to me about five minutes later, and she said, I'd really like it if we could sit down and have an adult conversation about this, please, Mum. And I said okay. So I took some time to just kind of let her emotions set all a bit more, and then we sat down together and I said to her, tell me what you're thinking, and she said, I know this is a really big deal. She said, I recognized that there's danger involved and I haven't been writing for very long, and that it could be really hard for you to say yes. But I want you to know that these are the reasons why I think I should be allowed to do it. And so she talked through it, and I said, well, I'm going to need to talk to Doubt about it, and I probably actually I'm going to talk to your big sister who used to work there, and see if she's got a contact down there who's seen you ride, because at this point I don't have any visuals. I don't know what your writing ability is at the moment. I said, are you okay with that? And she said, yeah, that's fine. So I had the conversations and I came back to her and I said, look, I still don't feel comfortable with it, and she was really really upset, but she also recognized that this was important and that the way she responded was also important and would impact her capacity moving forward to have this opportunity. As a result of that, we were able to work out a way that she could actually do it, and her big sister's going to take her and she's so excited about it. But it was the maturity that she had because of the conversations we've had previously, that she was able to sit in that hard place and recognize that mom and dad love me enough that they're willing to go through this with.
Me, even without being interrupting. I can't see and cow on the podcast. It sounds so bad. The second research factories and other than emotion regulation and executive function building, a Minnesota longer channel study of risk and adaptation found that children who experienced regular, meaningful conversations with parents showed significantly higher levels of emotional intelligence and stronger relationship skills in adulthood.
Again, that conversation, it just played out so beautifully.
Number three there was some of the research from Arizona State University. This is doctor Sania Luther who found that these conversations act as a protective factor against mental health challenges. This is so important to me that we emphasize this so much research from all around the world, not just this Arizona State University research shows that kids that are having regular, meaningful discussions with their parents are significantly less likely to have depression and anxiety during adolescents. In this particular research, forty eight percent lower rates of anxiety and depression. These big numbers. This is a really significant thing, and it basically comes down to my parents are available, my parents are willing to listen. My parents are engaging with me on stuff that matters to me. They care about me. It's the conversations that build resilience and help our children to thrive. So, Kylie, with that as background as to why this matters, why don't you run through the five questions that I've picked as the most important things we can talk to our kids as the year kicks off.
Number one, what are some things that you're most excited about for twenty twenty five.
So I put this question in here because when you ask kids, what they're looking forward to, what they're excited about. We build hope and optimism. Hope and optimism inoculate against depression and anxiety. Yesterday we talked about resetting for twenty twenty five on the pod, and that's what these kinds of questions do. What are you excited about? Gets you focused on where we're headed and creating new patterns and new ways of doing things.
Number two, is there anything you're nervous or worried about for this year?
This one's important. Probably not around the dinner table, because the dinner table should be a bit more light and fun, like what are you excited about? But maybe in the car or maybe bedtime. If you've picked up that your child is a little bit nervous because of any number of reasons. Inviting them to open up in an appropriate environment helps them to feel safe, that they get to feel this too, And then we can move from what's known as emotion focus coping, which is probably what our kids are doing. They're focused all about how they're feeling, and we can move to problem focus coping, which says, all right, let's develop some strategies, like as parents, it's not our job to do the strategy, but it is our job to support our kids as they develop the strategy, and this is a great question for allowing and facilitating that.
Number three, What's something you'd love to learn or try this year?
I just love this one for creating opportunities to support your kids and seeing them in large. We're so focused on helping our children to be happy, and I think that's the wrong focus. I know that's a really harsh and maybe even critical thing to say, but if you want your kids to be happy, just give them ice cream for breakfast, let them sleep into whenever they want, let them play video games. That makes them happy, right, Obviously that's hedonic happiness. It's short term, but happiness is a short term thing. I'm more interested in enlargement. How do I help my child to develop, to be enriched, to enlarge their own lives in the lives of others, And that question, what's something you'd love to learn or something you'd love to try this year is about enlargement and enrichment.
Number four is probably my favorite. When do you feel most like you? Yeah?
Why do you like that one? I've got some reasons myself, But why do you like that one?
I just love it because in asking that question, you are literally giving them the opportunity for you to see all of them. It's such a It's a question that says I want to know you, I want to know all of you, And I just think that that's so enlarging and en daring to a relationship.
I was going to talk about identity development and friendship and understanding hobbies and things, but I like your answer way more.
And the fifth one, number five, what qualities do you admire in others and which ones would you like to develop in yourself? I love this one too.
Yeah, go ahead, I love this one too.
Because I think it's really important for us to have conversations around the positive attributes of others. It's really helpful for our kids to be able to look outside themselves. We've given them an opportunity to be introspective, and now this is an opportunity for them to actually look outside of themselves, recognize and acknowledge the goodness in others, and then how they can implement those qualities in themselves.
That's a really really healthy attribute to have to see the goodness in others without envy and jealousy, but rather to just appreciate great people in their lives.
Yeah, it's cultivating gratefulness.
After the break, how how we're supposed to get these conversations working, especially when the kids are a little reluctant to open up, Kylie, Let's talk about two basic and practical ways to get these five conversations working. In fact, regardless whether it's these five questions or any other questions that you want to have with your kids, I think that there are two things that every parent needs to know. Parents will often say to me, I asked my kids how their day was, and they don't give me anything. They say merh or it was fine, as we mentioned at the start of the podcast, and I think that it has a lot to do with the two things that I want to discuss now. The first is timing and the second is technique. Let's talk timing. You and I have talked about this a lot in our home.
We've used the example of asking the kids how their day was. Generally speaking, we either do that as soon as they get in the car or as soon as they walk in the door after.
School, right, And the example that I always use when I'm running my workshops is when you walk in the door after a long day at work, or when you jump into the car after a long day at work and there's somebody with you who says, hey, how was your day. Do you have a look at them and say, I'm so glad you asked let me tell you all about it. No, of course not. Everyone looks at me. And last, when I say it in a workshop, they're like, oh no. When I walk in the door, I'm just like, let me breathe, give me a minute, I need to recalibrate. Let me like. As adults, when do we feel like talking.
When the pressure is off, when there's food.
Yeah, that's right, something in my belly, and preferably when I'm either sitting down or laying down, and so we're having the conversations at the right time. After school doesn't work, and when we're in a flap or a fluster or they are, it doesn't work.
So for us, the times that have actually worked the best around the dinner table. If we get things right and we have a stress free meal at dinner time, the conversation doesn't stop. It's wonderful.
And we've created that over the many years of saying what were you're grateful for today? What made you feel great today? Who were you kind to today? Who did you help today? Who helped you today? How did you show some self control today? How did you demonstrate whatever it is? What did you achieve today?
Yeah?
What's the thing you learned? By asking these questions at the dinner table when everyone's feeling good, they've got food, and everybody's taking their turn. It's taught the kids to really really I mean, they've become some of the most cherished parts of our day.
And then the second time, actually, to our disappointment, sometimes is actually bedtime. We're ready to close our eyes, and the kids just want to keep talking.
Question again.
They feel safe, Yeah, they feel connected and they want to share. Our kids want to share with us. But just picking the wrong times.
I didn't mean to talk over you, but bedtime has become the wrong time for us, because now that we've got kids who are in their teens and older, with the exception of Emily, our youngest, we go to bed before them all. Now we're officially that old, they're officially that young or that old or whatever it is, and we can't keep up. We can't stay up, so we try to have our conversations not at bedtime. But when you've got younger kids, bedtime is just oh, it's sacred, isn't it. I don't know, it's just the best. We've also created some other traditions around outside of dinner time. Just going for a walk with the kids is something so good about for a walk and having a chat with no agenda. And we've talked about this in the pod before, but I've developed a stronger relationship, specifically with our son in law by having regular breakfast chats. So I take him out for breakfast once a month, though actually I've been pretty slack lately. It's been a lot less than that. But we used to go up for breakfast once a month, and I'm going to start again this weekend to have breakfast chats where there's no agenda, but we're just enjoying being in one other's company and eating good food. Food seems to go a hand in hand with conversation a lot when it comes to timing, so timing car drives, family walks, bedtime, breakfast, that sort of thing. So that's timing. The second one is technique, Kylie. There's a saying that girls do things face to face and boys do things side by side. I think the girls are much more likely to have face to face conversations. But even as a dad of six daughters, I've discovered that our daughters are pretty happy to have side by side conversations a lot as well. They seem to do really well with both.
I think that when you're having difficult conversations in general, I don't think it's just kids. I think that in general, we actually handle the conversations better if we're actually doing something side by side. So whether it's gardening where we're just you know, pulling some weeds together, we're side by side, we're going for a walk along the beach, we're riding our bikes. Just times where we can do something together that doesn't require brain power but enables us to not have to think entirely about the words that we're saying.
There's a principal, Kylie that I think is a really powerful technique. Once you get the children talking, you've asked them a good question, they're opening up, they're sharing. It's called the weight principal wait, and weight is an acronym for why am I talking. If you open your mouth when your children are talking, you need to shut it again and just ask yourself, why am I talking? Because this is their opportunity. When I wrote my book Misconnection, Why your teenage daughter hates you, expects the world and needs to talk. The overwhelming response I got from girls when I said what do you want your parents to know? Was I just need you to listen. So using silence, effectively pausing when they've stopped talking, maintaining the silence so that they can add more information, It can be so so so important.
The next one is following up with tell me more, Get curious. When our kids have things to tell us, get curious, ask them what can you tell me more about this?
Yeah? Yeah, And they love it. They're like, oh my goodness, my parents are truly listening.
And lastly, don't try and solve their problems unless.
They actually ask right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They just want you to listen.
Exactly, And when they do have a problem, going back to what I was talking about before, you can facilitate their problem solving by saying, well, that sounds like a pretty tricky situation. What do you think would be the best way forward? If they say I don't know, you say, oh, well, I'm here for you. If you have any ideas, and if you need any ideas, let me know and I'll be glad to help out. So those are five useful questions and two really powerful strategies. Timing is everything and getting your technique right to have helpful, positive conversations with your children. We will put those questions into the show notes. Hopefully you've noticed our new and improved show notes this year. We've been working very hard on them for the last well two days. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rulan from Bridge Media. We would love it if you would leave us a rating and review. When you leave those five star ratings and reviews, it makes it easier for other people to find the podcast. Really genuinely makes the difference go hard with the five stars to a brand new year. We'd love your help with that. A five star rating and review would help so much. If you'd like to know more about making your family happy, we've got all the resources that you need. Please visit us at happyfamilies dot com dot au