Paddock Talks

G’day. I’m Col.

Before anything else, you should know what I am. I’m not real. I’m a computer-generated character, and the voice you’re hearing is a computer’s. What I’m good for is telling it how it is, the way everyday people see it.

I’m not a counsellor, either. I’m not a psychologist. The way I tell it, I sheared sheep for thirty years, then I taught at TAFE, and now I’ve got a grandkid at my kitchen table most days. So I’m not going to tell you what to do with your kid. I’m going to tell you a few things the people who do this for a living worked out, and I’m going to tell them the way I’d tell them over the fence.

Here’s the first thing. You’re not here because you stuffed up.

(pause)

You’re here because you love a kid who’s having a hard run. You’ve tried things. Some of them didn’t work. That’s not failing. That’s parenting.

Now. A story from the sheds.

A wet sheep won’t shear. Doesn’t matter who you are. Best gun in the district, and a wet sheep will still clog your combs and cut the animal and ruin your day. The young blokes used to blame the handpiece. They’d blame the sheep. They’d blame the weather. The old blokes just looked at the sky and said, ‘Wet ones. Pen ’em up. Tomorrow.’

Half of what you’re about to do in these talks is working out what’s a wet sheep, and what’s you.

So, two ideas.

The first one’s about glasses. Not these ones. The ones you can’t see. Everyone looks at their kid through a lens, and the lens is made out of your own life. How you were raised. What you’re scared of. What somebody once said about kids like yours.

Your kid won’t get out of bed. Through one lens, that’s lazy. Through another, that’s a kid who’s scared of failing, so he’s not going to try. Through another, that’s a kid who was on his phone till three because something’s eating at him and he couldn’t sleep.

Same kid. Same bed. Three different mornings, depending on the glasses.

And the glasses decide what you do next. Lazy gets a yelling. Scared gets a different conversation altogether.

I’m not asking you to pick the right lens. I’m asking you to notice you’ve got one on. Notice, and try another pair on before you act.

Oh, and your kid’s wearing a pair too. About you.

The second idea’s about paddocks. Three of them.

The house paddock is what you control. Your words. Your tone. The rules of your house. What you do when you’re angry. Whether you look after yourself.

The next paddock over is what you can influence. Their choices. Their mates. How school goes. You can’t walk in there and move the stock yourself. You can only call them, and they come if they trust you.

And the back country is what you can’t control. What they finally decide. Other people. What’s already happened.

Most parents I know with a kid doing it hard are out in the back country every night, carrying the whole lot on their shoulders. And they’ve got nothing left for the house paddock, which is the only one they can actually work.

So this week, when you’re wound up, and you will be, ask two things. What glasses have I got on? And which paddock is this in?

You don’t have to get the answer right. Just ask.

That’s me. See you at the next one.

G’day.

My brother-in-law Russ smoked for forty years. His wife tried. His doctor tried. His kids hid his smokes and stuck pictures of black lungs on the fridge. Every one of them made him smoke harder. I watched Russ light up out of pure spite more than once.

Then one day, at sixty-one, he just stopped. Nobody said a word to him that day. He’d been out on the boat with his grandson, and the boy asked him why he coughed like that, and Russ didn’t have an answer. And that was it.

Well. Nearly it. He had one at a wedding the next year. Then he stopped again.

That’s how change goes. For everyone. Not just Russ.

There’s a couple of researchers, Prochaska and DiClemente, who spent years watching people change. Smokers, as it happens. They worked out people don’t change in one go. They move through stages. And the thing that helps at one stage backfires at the next.

First stage, they’re not thinking about it at all. ‘There’s no problem. You’re the problem.’ Sound familiar?

Then they’re thinking about it. ‘Yeah, maybe. But.’ Everything’s a ‘but’.

Then they’re deciding. ‘I reckon I might try.’

Then they’re doing it.

Then they’re keeping it going, which is quieter than you’d think.

And then, and this is the bit nobody puts on the poster, a lot of people slip. And they go round again. That’s not the end of it. That’s part of it.

Here’s why it matters to you. If your kid’s in that first stage, and you’re doing what you’d do if they were deciding, making plans, ultimatums, ‘from Monday you will’, you’ll get Russ. You’ll get somebody lighting up out of spite.

At the first stage the job is different. The job is keeping the relationship alive, and keeping them safe. That’s it. I know that feels like doing nothing. It isn’t. You’re holding the gate open for the day they walk through it.

When they’re thinking about it, you listen to both sides, the ‘yeah’ and the ‘but’. When they decide, you help them make it small, and make it theirs. When they’re doing it, you notice. Not ‘about time’. Just notice.

And when they slip, you don’t say ‘I knew it’. You ask what they learnt.

One more thing. You’re in one of these stages too, about how you respond to your kid. You might be at ‘yeah, but’. That’s all right. Same rules apply to you.

This week, pick one thing you want to change in your kid. Have a guess which stage they’re at. Then do one thing that helps at that stage, and nothing that backfires.

Russ is seventy now. Still off them. Mostly.

See you at the next one.

G’day.

I’ve got a grandson who can talk the ears off a donkey about Minecraft. Ask him about school and you’d think he’d taken a vow of silence.

‘How was school?’ ‘Good.’ ‘What’d you do?’ ‘Nothin’.’

Sound familiar?

I went fishing with my old man a lot as a kid. He never said much. But he taught me one thing I’ve never forgotten. You don’t catch a fish by throwing rocks at it. You sit. You’re quiet. You put something in the water it actually wants. And you wait.

Talking to a teenager’s the same. The harder you chase the conversation, the deeper it swims.

There’s a way of talking that people in this line of work use, called motivational interviewing. A bloke called William Miller and another called Stephen Rollnick worked it out. I’ll give you the fishing version.

Here’s what they noticed. People believe what they hear themselves say, a lot more than what they’re told. So when you argue for change, a kid who’s unsure argues the other side. And every time they say it out loud, ‘school’s pointless’, ‘everyone drinks’, they believe it a bit more. You’re helping them build the case against you.

The urge to jump in and fix it has a name. The righting reflex. Every parent’s got it. I’ve got it. The job is to sit on it.

So what do you do instead? Four things.

Ask questions that can’t be answered with a yes or a no. Not ‘did you go today?’, but ‘what’s school like at the moment?’

Notice what’s true and good. Not gushing. ‘You got up this morning even though you were wrecked.’ That’s it.

Say back what you heard. This one feels strange. Your kid says, ‘I’m sick of everyone being on my case.’ And instead of ‘well, if you’d just’, you say, ‘Sounds like you’re over being the one who’s always in trouble.’ Then you stop. And you let the silence sit.

(pause)

Let it sit.

And every now and then, sum it up. ‘So school’s boring, the maths teacher’s on your back, but you miss your mates. Have I got that right?’

Now listen for the good bit. Somewhere in most conversations, a kid’ll say something that leans toward change. ‘I wish I could play footy again.’ ‘I reckon I could pass if I went.’ When you hear it, and this is the hard part, don’t pounce. Don’t say ‘well then!’ Say it back to them. ‘You’d like to be playing footy again.’ And ask for a bit more. ‘What would that take?’

And when they push back, and they will, don’t push harder. ‘You’re not convinced it’s a problem. Fair enough.’ That’s not giving in. That’s leaving the line in the water.

This week, have one conversation with your kid with no advice in it. None. Afterwards, rough count: did you say back more than you asked?

My grandson told me last week he’s worried about a kid at school who gets picked on. I didn’t say a thing except ‘that sounds rough’. He talked for twenty minutes.

Best fish I’ve caught in years.

See you at the next one.

G’day.

My old man never once told me he was proud of me. Not once. Not when I first shore two hundred in a day. Not when I got married. Not when my daughter was born.

But every morning in shearing season, there was a thermos on the ute. And it was already hot.

(pause)

That was him. It counted.

I tell you that because a lot of parents think the only way to be close to your kid is the big talk. The deep and meaningful. And if you’re not having those, you’ve lost them.

You haven’t. There’s more than one way of being near someone.

People who work with families draw it as four rings, one inside the other. It’s a teaching picture, not a science. But it’s a good picture.

The middle ring is sharing something deep. Grief. Joy. The thing you’re frightened of. That’s rare. And it should be.

The next ring out is talking it through. Sorting a problem. Making a plan. Properly listening.

The next ring out is just being around. Same room, not much said. You’re cooking, they’re at the bench on their phone. A long drive. ‘I’m here if you want to talk.’

And the outside ring is apart, but still there. You’re at work, they’re at school, and you’re still in their day. The lunch is packed. Their photo’s on the fridge. Your name’s in their phone as something nice. The thermos is on the ute.

Now, four rules.

Every close relationship needs all four.

Too long in any one ring goes wrong. All deep talks is exhausting. Ask anyone who’s been married a while. And all outside ring is just flatmates.

You need permission to move closer. You can knock on the door of the next ring in. You can’t kick it down.

And the one I want you to take home: when things are tense, the outer rings are the way back in.

Say your kid’s wagging school. Your gut says go straight to the middle. Sit them down, find out what’s really going on. And they shut the door. Of course they do. You tried to go straight to the middle without being let in.

So come in from the outside. Breakfast is on the table whether they go or not. No silent treatment. That’s the outer ring.

Drive them somewhere, footy, a mate’s place, and don’t bring it up. Just be in the car. That’s the next ring.

Then one calm day: ‘What’s the worst bit of school right now?’ And listen. Listen for what the wagging is doing for them. Are they dodging someone? Can’t keep up? Too tired? Is it the one place they feel in charge?

And if one day they tell you the real reason, that’s the middle ring. They let you in. Your job that night is to hear it. Not to fix it. Fixing can wait till morning.

Watch how they react at each ring. A shrug, a joke, a walk-out. Every one of those is telling you how safe it feels to talk. Ask yourself what’d make it a little bit safer.

This week, try one small thing in each ring. The middle one’s optional. You can’t book it.

My old man’s been gone twelve years. I still make a thermos every morning.

See you at the next one.

G’day.

I’ve put up a lot of fence in my time. Here’s what I know about fences.

A good fence does two jobs. It keeps the stock off the road. And it shows them where the good feed is.

A fence that’s all barbs and no gate isn’t a fence. It’s a trap. And no fence at all, well, you’re picking them up off the highway at two in the morning.

Your rules are fences. So let’s check the wire.

A researcher called Diana Baumrind spent years watching how parents raise kids, and what she found comes down to two dials. How warm you are. And how firm you are.

Warm and firm: clear rules, the reasons explained, you listen, and you follow through. That’s the one decades of research say works best for kids.

Firm but not warm: ‘because I said so’. You’ll get a kid who behaves while you’re watching. When you’re not watching, look out.

Warm but not firm: all love, no fence. It feels kind. But the kid has to go looking for the edges on their own, and they usually find them in the worst places.

And neither: checked out. That’s usually a parent running on empty. I’ll come back to that in the last talk.

Nobody lives in one box. I certainly didn’t. When I was tired I went straight to ‘because I said so’. When I felt guilty I went soft. The trick is knowing where you drift when you’re worn out.

So what’s a boundary? It’s a line between what’s okay and what isn’t, and what happens when it’s crossed. Everyone’s got them. You have. And your kid has too. Their room. Their phone. Their body. Their mates. A kid who has their boundaries respected learns to respect yours.

The fence moves with age. A seven-year-old’s fence is close to the house. A sixteen-year-old’s is further out. The whole job of the teenage years is moving that fence out, a panel at a time, as they earn it.

When a boundary gets crossed, and it will, here’s what a consequence that works looks like. They knew about it before. Not something you invented at eleven o’clock at night when you’re furious. It’s connected to what happened. It’s in proportion, and it’s got an end date. You carry it out calmly. And then, and this is the bit people forget, it’s over. Back to normal. No grudge.

One more thing about fences. You don’t only check them when something’s got out. You walk the line when everything’s fine, too.

Same with your kid. Catch them doing the right thing and say so. Out loud. Specific. ‘You texted me when your plans changed. That’s exactly it.’ Do that a lot more often than you correct them. A kid who only hears from you when something’s wrong learns to stop listening.

And under the whole fence line, holding every post up, is listening. That’s the ground the fence stands in.

This week, write down the three rules that matter most in your house. For each one: does your kid know it? Do they know what happens if it’s crossed? And has that actually happened, calmly, every time?

Check the wire. Fix a strand or two.

See you at the next one.

G’day.

Drought of ’94. Our dam got down to a puddle and a mud crack. I used to go out every morning and just stand there, looking at the dry bit. As if staring at it would help.

My neighbour Bev came over one day and watched me doing it. And she said, ‘Col. Where’s the water still coming in?’

I said, ‘It’s not.’

She said, ‘Go and look.’

Down the back corner, under the tea-tree, there was a trickle. Barely anything. But it had been running the whole time, and I’d never once gone to look, because I was busy staring at the problem.

We dug that trickle out. It carried us through to the rain.

There’s a way of working with families called solution-focused. A couple called Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg built it. And the whole thing rests on Bev’s question. Where’s the water still coming in?

Every problem has exceptions. Times it was smaller. Times it didn’t happen at all. Those times are where the answers already live. You don’t have to know why the dam went dry to find the trickle.

So, four questions.

The exception. ‘When was the last time school went a bit better? What was different that day?’ Not why was it bad. What was different when it was better.

The scale. ‘Out of ten, where are things at?’ Whatever they say, say it’s a three, you ask, ‘What makes it a three and not a one?’ Because something’s holding it at three. That’s the trickle. Then: ‘What would a four look like?’ Not a ten. A four.

The morning after. ‘Say you woke up tomorrow and things had come good overnight. What’s the first small thing you’d notice?’ Small things. Somebody says good morning. The school bag’s by the door.

And the coping one. ‘This has been hard for a long time. How have you kept going?’ Because they have. And so have you.

Those work just as well on yourself. The scale’s the quickest check-in I know. Where are me and my kid at, out of ten? What’s holding it there?

This week, ask yourself the scale question. Then, on a calm day, ask your kid one exception question. Take whatever answer you get. Even ‘I dunno’. Especially ‘I dunno’. That’s them thinking about it.

Bev’s gone now too. That trickle’s still running.

See you at the next one.

G’day.

This is the heavy one. So I’ll be straight with you from the start.

Parts of this one aren’t mine to say. I’m a shearer, not a nurse. So I’m going to talk about the bits a parent can hold. Then I’m going to walk off, and this page hands you over to what the people who do the rest for a living say. There’s no shame in making that call. None. I’ve made it.

First bit. Your kid’s drinking, or using, and they’re not ready to stop.

Remember Russ and the smokes? If your kid’s at that first stage, no problem, you’re the problem, then no amount of fear is going to stop them tonight. So the goal changes. For now, the goal is three things. Alive. Safe. And still talking to you.

That’s not approving. That’s keeping the gate open.

In practice it looks like this. You know who they’re with and how they’re getting home. And you make a deal. The no-questions-tonight deal. ‘Ring me. Any time. I’ll come and get you. We’ll talk tomorrow.’ And then, and this is the hard bit, you keep your end of it. You pick them up, and you don’t say a word in the car.

You make sure they know that ringing triple zero for a mate is always the right call. And what an emergency looks like: can’t be woken, breathing funny, fitting, badly confused.

Eat first. Water. Don’t mix things. Never leave a mate on their own.

Australia’s had a name for this for a long time. Harm minimisation. The national drug strategy’s built on it. It’s not giving up. It’s keeping them alive till they’re ready.

Second bit. Too wound up, and too shut down.

You know when a mob gets stirred up in the yards. Dogs barking, someone yelling. You can’t do a thing with them. Can’t draft them, can’t count them. You wait. You let them settle.

People are the same. Everyone’s got a zone where they can think and feel and talk all at once. A bloke called Dan Siegel called it the window of tolerance. Go over the top of it and you’re in fight or flight. Heart pounding, yelling, can’t hear a word. Drop below the bottom and you go flat. Numb. ‘Whatever.’ Switched off.

Kids who’ve had frightening things happen to them often have a narrower window, and they tip out of it faster.

Nobody learns anything outside that window. Nobody negotiates. And that includes you.

So the big talk waits till you’re both back inside it. First bring things down, or up. Fewer words. Slow breaths, longer on the way out. A walk. A glass of water. Feet on the floor. Talk later. Later is fine.

Now. The third bit. When it’s more than a rough patch. When you’re worried your kid might hurt themselves, or doesn’t want to be here.

That one’s not mine. I’m going to walk off now, and the next part of this page says it plainly, with the numbers you need. Please read it. Put the numbers on the fridge, even if you never need them.

You don’t carry this one alone. Nobody should.

G’day. Last one.

I want to tell you about the dumbest thing I ever did in a shed.

Big day. We were behind. I’d skipped breakfast, skipped smoko, and by early arvo I was running on nothing but stubbornness. And I took a strip of skin off a ewe. Then very nearly off my own thumb.

The boss sat me down on a wool bale and handed me a sandwich and said, ‘You’re no good to anyone empty, Col.’

He was right. And you’re no good to that kid running on fumes.

Looking after yourself isn’t selfish. It’s maintenance. Same as the ute. You don’t skip the oil change because you’re too busy driving.

Self-care sounds like bubble baths. Mostly it isn’t. It’s the boring stuff. Enough sleep. Decent food. Moving your body. Time with people who are good for you. Something that makes you laugh. One thing a day that’s just yours. And the doctor’s appointment you’ve been putting off for eight months. Yes. That one.

Here’s how you know the tank’s running dry. Shorter fuse with your kid. Snapping at the people you love. Bad sleep. No energy. Can’t think straight. And that feeling that nothing’s ever going to change.

If that sounds like your week, this talk matters more than the other seven put together.

One thing before I go. It’s called mindfulness. I thought that was for people in activewear. It’s not. It just means paying attention to what’s happening right now, without having to judge it or fix it. There’s good evidence it helps a lot of people with stress. It isn’t a cure, and it doesn’t suit everybody. But five minutes is a fine start.

So let’s do some. Right now. Wherever you are.

Sit. Feet flat on the floor. Notice the floor pushing back.

Three slow breaths. Longer on the way out.

(pause)

Now find five things you can see. Four things you can hear. Three things you can feel: the chair, your clothes, the air. Two things you can smell. One thing you can taste.

(pause)

Notice what your mind keeps wandering back to. You don’t have to do anything with it. Just notice it’s there. Then come back to your feet.

One more slow breath.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

(pause)

That’s the last talk. So here’s the last thing.

They’re called Paddock Talks for a reason. When the season’s bad, a drover doesn’t sell the mob and he doesn’t force it. He takes them down the long paddock, the stock route along the road. Slow. Where the feed is. Keeps them moving till the rain comes.

You’ll walk bits of that paddock more than once. And when the rain comes, and it does, you won’t remember the day it turned. You’ll just notice the feed’s back.

Look after yourself. Look after that kid.