Kristi McVee (00:00)
We're raising a generation of kids with more freedom than ever before, but less direction, less resilience, and for a lot of them less purpose. And if you've got a son or you're raising boys, you've probably felt it. Something is not quite right. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Justin Coulson to talk about what's really going on with boys today, why so many are struggling, and what we actually need to do as parents to change it. Because this isn't about blaming kids.
It's about stepping up. It's about being there for them and having the conversations that matter. So let's get into it.
Kristi McVee (00:30)
Hello, Justin, how are you? I'm glad, I'm glad because I, yeah, do you know you've been on my list for a long time and I was like, I wonder if Justin would have time to chat to admit little old me over in WA and here we are. You said yes straight away and I was like, yay.
Justin (00:32)
my goodness, I'm so excited to talk to you, Kristi. I love podcasts. I love these conversations.
Yes.
Two things. First of all, I love the work that you do. I'm such a fan. And secondly, I love WA. I mean, people can listen to the podcast everywhere, but I'm going to be in WA twice in term two. I've got, I've got a few days in Perth and then I'm shooting off to Karratha. ⁓ wow. Yeah. I was there last year as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just love going into,
Kristi McVee (01:00)
Oh nice.
Oh, I worked in Carartha as a copper. I was a police officer. Yeah, sorry. When you go out, have you been up there before?
Yeah, so it's a different little world,
communities.
Justin (01:16)
regional areas where people
like me don't normally go. And there's such an appreciation every time I do it. then, and then later in the month or later in the term, I'm in Bunbury, I'm in Perth, in Mandurah, and I'm also shooting off to Broome. I'm spending some time in Broome. So running, running seminars for people in schools and for profits and organizations all over the place. So I love it. It's normally three or four times a year. Love the, love the West. If it wasn't so far away, I'd probably live there.
Kristi McVee (01:28)
⁓ yep.
That's amazing.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I mean, look, you're going all over. Like I used to live in Port Hedland. I grew up in Port Hedland, worked in Karratha, Bumbury. I live in Bumbury right now. So, you know, like it's you're coming all over the place, but in WA, but it's a great place to like explore. That'd be great.
Justin (01:58)
We're having brunch when I come to Bunbury.
Brunch and Bunbury.
I like the sound of that. Brunch and Bunbury. I like it.
Kristi McVee (02:04)
Brunch and Burry,
there's some great brunch places. We're very lucky down here. We've got some of the most like freshest, like primary producers. during COVID, none of us were scared of running out of food because we've got farms everywhere here. So we were like, we'll be right.
Justin (02:13)
yeah,
Yes, you should succeed you really could in the in the West, you've got everything you need. You've got the iron ore, you've got the oil, the natural gases, and you've got the food. I was in Bunbury last, I was down at Margaret River Bunbury and busso and I rented a surfboard I wish I could remember the name of the surfboard shop. It was a little independent shop. Just the yelling up and went up. There was like four and a half five meters well coming through marks.
Kristi McVee (02:25)
Ahahaha!
Yeah, yeah, we're pretty happy.
Are you?
Justin (02:45)
And it was blown out and windy and terrible, but bunker bay was pumping and, and I got a whole bunch of really fun waves. just had it. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we're not here.
Kristi McVee (02:48)
Mwah.
wow. Yeah, we're very lucky. We're not here to talk about
that, but we're here to talk about kids and parenting and all things good. You know, I really when we last saw each other and we were in South by Southwest Sydney, you were talking about your new book and and that you were writing. You were talking about it back then about writing.
Justin (03:09)
I've been doing that sleeping for four years!
Kristi McVee (03:14)
that you
were writing a book about boys, right? And I thought there was no one better than you to talk about, you know, how we can help our boys in today's environment and society and stuff like that. But before we go there, in case one of my listeners or any of my listeners don't know about you, I'm sure they do. But can you just explain how you became Dr. Justin Coulson Happy Families?
Justin (03:16)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, sure. Okay. First of all, I haven't seen the run sheet for today, so I'm delighted to talk about that.
Kristi McVee (03:40)
There is none. We don't run
one. We just like, I was about to say raw dog it, but that's not the right term. We just like run it however.
Justin (03:47)
Okay,
so in a nutshell, and, gosh, like when I tell this story on stage, sometimes it can go 15 or 20 minutes. So let me try and keep. I was, I hated school, wanted to be a radio announcer, didn't try at school, actually completely in an every way failed school, like Scotland, bottom 15 % of New South Wales kind of fail. And, and had a really successful radio career. If you've ever listened to the radio, you know,
Kristi McVee (03:55)
All right, we'll keep it there like compressed one.
⁓ I remember that.
Wow.
Justin (04:13)
it don't have to be very smart at school to do well on air. And I knew that and so I had a about a decade long radio career ended up at one of the biggest radio stations in the country at the time was Brisbane's B 105, where I was doing mornings, I was looking after the music at the radio station had a wife and a couple of kids by then I was in my mid to late 20s. And I was very, very good at work. And then I would go home and have no idea what was going on. was I would I would go so far as to say I was failing as a father.
Kristi McVee (04:40)
So.
Justin (04:40)
Mainly because I hadn't done well at school. I didn't understand anything about psychology. And like most people, just figured you figure out relationships as you go. And it just wasn't working. I had a couple of really negative, awful incidents. And as a result, my wife, Kylie, who is normally very patient kind, made it really clear that if things didn't change, then she would have to be quite active in making changes. And they weren't the kind of changes that either of us really wanted her to be making. So
Kristi McVee (04:45)
Tooth.
Yeah.
Yeah, right.
Justin (05:06)
having done a little bit of soul searching and inner work and being that a little bit older, I was 27, I think 26, 27. There we six, seven, six, seven. I just can't believe I said that. I left my radio career, I walked away from it. I was having a few moral quandaries at work anyway, I didn't feel like some of the stuff that I was being asked to do on a sat well with who I was morally, I just started to work out your identity. Yeah, yeah. And so
Kristi McVee (05:15)
No.
Yep. And ethically. Yeah.
Justin (05:32)
I quit and I went back to school. I had to go to TAFE and did a year at TAFE. And then went into the university system where I discovered that I was smarter than I thought. Well, actually, I don't think there's such a thing as smart or dumb, but I was much more motivated being at university with wife and now three kids and a mortgage than I had been at high school when I just wanted to be a radio announcer. And I absolutely blitzed it. Graduated my four year psychology degree with first class honors all the way through. was working two and three jobs and
Kristi McVee (05:55)
Wow.
Justin (05:58)
like cutting furniture in furniture trucks on weekends and working at Colorado selling shoes and shirts and like just I was literally working two or three jobs at any one time working sorry studying full time. Kylie was at home with three kids, four kids by the time I finished the degree. ⁓ And anyone who's ever done anyone who's ever done a psychology degree would know that you don't actually learn anything about parenting when you do a psychology degree and that you can't do anything with a psychology degree once you've done it.
Kristi McVee (06:03)
Wow.
Wow, ⁓ gosh.
No.
No, that's
right. I did find that out from someone who was doing a psychology degree and they're like, we literally cannot practice psychology yet.
Justin (06:32)
Gonna do
at least another two years after you do the degree. So at this point, I'm five years deep, I say to Kylie, hun, I just got first class honors, it seems that I'm doing really well here. But my degree is functionally and practically worthless unless I either get a master's or a PhD. Kylie asked me what the difference was. I said, well, master's is two years, a PhD is anywhere between three and four years. She said, could you do the master's? And I said, I'd love to but no, I'm doing PhD.
Kristi McVee (06:56)
You addicted to like the learning, like you were doing so well, you're obviously really good at being in that university environment. You must've got addicted to like that creative process, that space.
Justin (07:07)
Such a wonderful place to be. Yeah, I really loved it. So anyway, I did the doctorate became a university lecturer, had our fifth child while I was doing the PhD. And after a couple of years of doing some some lecturing and tutoring at the uni, decided to start a business. And that's what I've done for the last 15 to 20 years. I've traveled the country given talks written books, I've got like 11 or 12 books, we've got the number one, the most downloaded parenting podcast in Australia. And I've got that TV show that you might have seen on channel nine.
Kristi McVee (07:30)
Yeah.
Justin (07:33)
parental guidance where we've done three seasons now and people just love it. So that's me in a nutshell. don't think I got to 90. I think I went more than 90 seconds, but I did it as quick as I
Kristi McVee (07:37)
Yeah.
That's okay.
It's okay. We will forgive you for that. I think though, you know, it's interesting that 26, 27 year age group, like when you hit there, it's like, I think in your early 20s, especially, I don't know about you, but you sort of like you just going with what you think everyone you're meant to do. Everyone sort of you get this, you know, we get told what we have to do, what jobs we should do, what careers we should do. And then you get to an age and you're like, hang on a second.
Why am I doing all of this when I don't like it or I don't want to do it or it doesn't fit anymore? And so that, you know, just before you hit 30, you sort of have this. And I think it's also the brain development, right? 25, 26, your brain sort of goes into the you're actually technically an adult for some people, not all. So, yeah, I think your brain's fully developed then too.
Justin (08:29)
Yeah, a couple of things on that. First off, there's enormous individual variability. There are some people who really do have their identity foreclosed. They're told what to do by their parents and they just follow it. There are other people who are really individualistic and no one can tell them anything. And then there's everybody in the middle. But I think there's this standardized path that everyone expects to take. And there's just a process. You've got to do school that standardized and you've got to do uni that standardized or go and get a trade. And then you've got to get into the workforce.
Kristi McVee (08:53)
Yeah.
Justin (08:54)
Girls seem to do it better than boys, but I'm a really big fan of a gap year. In fact, I'm a fan of several gap years. Parents, shudder when I say this. There's, there's a tremendous need because we want kids to get ahead as fast as they can. Like it's a race. Hello. I didn't leave school after I did my doctorate and what have you until I was 36 because I started when I was 27. I did nearly nine years of study and it hasn't, has it slowed me down?
Kristi McVee (09:03)
I'm a fan.
Justin (09:18)
I've had such a rich and fulfilling life. I've had delightful career experiences. I would not change it. I just wouldn't. So I've told all of my kids gap years, I don't care how you do in year 12. Not important to me at all. Gap years, go to uni if that's what you want to do when you know that that's what you want to do, which might be 22 or 20. I've got one daughter who went back to uni at 25. Another one who went back at 22. And I've got two who are sort of working out where they want to go and what they want to do. And so long as they're productive, I don't care.
But gap years is so important for growing up. Now, one more quick thing that you said, Kristy, there's a belief that our brain becomes neurologically mature somewhere around about 25 to 27, maybe 24, 23 for girls and 25, 26, 27 for boys. Some recent research published at the start of 2026 is now calling that into question and suggesting that neurological maturity may not occur until our early 30s. and that...
Kristi McVee (09:46)
Yeah, well, that's right.
⁓ I'm
going to say my husband didn't mature until he's nearly 40. I'm just going to say maturity, it's based on, I think also experiences. Experience makes a big difference for maturity as well.
Justin (10:12)
What is this? ⁓
it comes down to a range of things you've what do you value? Like a lot of people don't know what they value their values are given to them. And suddenly they hit this this age somewhere between I'm going to say 22 and 42, where they go, actually, that's not who I am. This is why we see people literally turning their lives on their head and giving them a good shake. They're like, this is what I thought I was supposed to do all my life. And it's not me. And isn't that wonderful? It's just a shame that it takes so long. But there's no wasted experience. And so long as you can be
I think that there's real value in just getting as much range of breadth as you can. Take the pressure off the kids. We've got higher levels of anxiety than we've ever had since measurement was taken with our young people. And a whole lot of it is related to what if I can't get into uni or what if I can't get the right job and what if I can't save enough money for a house? Literally, this may sound cavalier, but I think the data is actually on my side. Take a few gap years, go and live life.
Kristi McVee (11:11)
Hmm.
Justin (11:14)
however you need to live it, ideally being somewhat productive, but go and live life. And then when you have a sense of who you are and what you want to do, the research evidence shows that people who have taken gap years, they step back into a university setting and they have every bit of success, if not more success than the people who went straight in from school. They have higher completion rates. Like they just do better at uni because they're ready. When I was a uni lecturer,
Kristi McVee (11:35)
They're ready.
Justin (11:37)
The kids that come straight out of school, they put up their hand to ask a question. I'd say, yeah, what's your question? I'd say, is this going to be on the test? Whereas when a mature age student put up their hand to ask a question, they had questions about the content. They wanted to know what does this mean? How does that relate to what we talking about half an hour ago? I was reading this in the textbook and I'm trying to understand. And it was, it was rich and it was deep and it was delightful. Kids straight out of school are like, I just got to get through uni so I can get on with life. But kids.
Kristi McVee (11:43)
No.
Bye.
Justin (12:03)
not kids, mature age students, they're saying I got to get uni through me so I can make more of life so that I can give more to life. It's just a totally different mindset. As a mature age student, and then a lecturer, I can I can tell you now that gap years are good.
Kristi McVee (12:10)
I hear you.
Yeah, I hear you. Look, my before we started Press Record, I mentioned about my husband, you know, getting cancer at 44. And he's always you know, he was when he was a kid, he wanted to be an engineer, but his parents pushed him into becoming a tradesperson. And so he started a trade and he was really good. He's got autism. He's really good. He's very hyper focused on his career. He was, you know, taking those steps to become this and everything else. And then
Justin (12:24)
Thank you.
Kristi McVee (12:43)
when you when something big like this happens, I guess, and some people it happens younger, some older, whatever, but it kind of pulls the rug out from under you. And he said to me recently, he said, I've never really decided what I wanted to do. He wanted to be an engineer, he actually ended up becoming an engineer in through his job, through his trade, he became a project manager and stuff like that. But
He said, I never really got to decide what I wanted. Like I always did the sport my parents told me to do. I did the, all of the things that he felt he had to do because that's what they, they told him to do. And so you become really good at following everyone else's ideas, thoughts, beliefs of what you should do, but you never really get to sit with it. And it was really interesting. He said it to me and I sat there and I was like, Whoa, okay. What would you want to do? And he goes, well, that's the thing. When you don't get a choice, you stop.
believing in having one or you stop dreaming.
Justin (13:36)
There's really interesting psychology around this as well. And that is that, so people think that we want freedom. We want lots and lots of freedom. We want to be able to choose whatever we want. We want full utter complete autonomy. But the research seems to indicate that if you have too much choice, it's paralyzing. It's we actually need structures. need a sense of borders and boundaries and frameworks. And we need to have limits on what we can do. And
Kristi McVee (13:50)
It is.
Justin (13:59)
it's really important as parents that we don't make those limits too tight, but also that we don't make them too expansive. There's principle that I teach parents all the time. It's called autonomy or autonomy support. Actually, autonomy is a basic psychological need. And I talk a lot about autonomy support. And parents when they hear that they're like, I'm supposed to just it's carte blanche my kids can
Kristi McVee (14:16)
No, that's not true. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.
Justin (14:21)
That's not autonomy. And I think it's worthy of some explanation here. So when you get in the car and drive, Kristi. My presumption is that even in Perth, even when there's no one on the road, you still drive on the left-hand side. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (14:32)
Yeah, you still follow the rules, the road traffic rules. That's what they call it.
Justin (14:34)
You follow the rules. So you
technically you have no freedom. have no independence around that. That is the law. If you don't do it, you're to kill someone or you're going to get fined. You're going to go to prison. Like it's, it's going to work out badly, but you're not following the rules because you're going to get in trouble for breaking the rules. You followed the rules because you understand the rationale. You understand the why you, the word that I really want to hammer home is you endorse the rules. And so because you buy into and endorse the rules,
Kristi McVee (14:49)
Mmm.
Yes.
Justin (15:02)
You volitionally step into a controlled context and say, you know what government control me. think that is important that we all drive on the left-hand side of the road in Australia because otherwise it'll be carnage. And it's the same with our kids. And it's the same. We've, sort of gone into this career conversation, but I'm thinking about our teenagers. ⁓ we have all these conversations and our young people here, where do you want to go? What do you want to do with life? It's really easy to foreclose on them and say, this is what you will do. And I've talked to so many kids.
Kristi McVee (15:06)
Yes.
Yeah.
and our young people.
Yeah, well that happened to
me. Like you're going to go, yeah. My parents were like, and I'm like, I was in the nineties by the way, everyone. My parents were like, computers are the way to go. You need to learn computers. You need to go into computer stuff. need to go into, and I ended up falling into administration. So that's what I did until I got to six, seven, 26, 27, and then had my child and became a police officer. So there you go. Like, I mean, I wouldn't have been ready for a police officer.
Justin (15:31)
Are really
Right, yeah.
Kristi McVee (15:58)
police career anyway. the thing is, is I think that a lot of parents we go, ⁓ this is what they're good at. Let's push them towards this. Yet, yet they're good at it, but they might not enjoy it. And, or, you know, and I love the, the autonomy stuff and like the supported autonomy, because what I saw in policing is, if you give children full autonomy with no boundaries and restrictions, they then go and make very big chaotic mistakes that cost them a lot.
Justin (16:05)
Mmm.
Hang on.
And cost society. Yeah, yeah.
Kristi McVee (16:26)
Whereas, yeah,
yeah. And like you get 18 year old men, first time they're allowed to go and drink and they're, you know, full of alcohol and bad manners and they have never been in a fight before, but yet they're picking on the biggest guy in the pub because they've never ever been shown that you don't go start a fight with someone you know you can't win, you know.
Justin (16:45)
You don't just
certify it, like just...
Kristi McVee (16:47)
You don't start a fight, but you don't start a
fight with someone you know you can't win with. Right. And I used to see young guys, you know, getting turfed out of clubs and acting really poorly up because they got told no and all of this stuff. And it's generally, unfortunately young men. And so this is where this autonomy, this supported autonomy, it's about, Hey, this is, and I was really big on consequences with my daughter. Not in that I was holding her to a consequence, but I was like,
you realise that everything has a consequence and we choose the consequence when we choose to what we do with it.
Justin (17:21)
Yeah, yeah, my parents used to say when you pick up a stick, you pick up both ends. Right. So and I'd be like, no, because you can drag the stick along the ground. They're like, yeah. Right. So if we go back to the whole identity stuff and career stuff, there are a couple of things here. First off, young men will not feel good about their lives if they are not doing anything that is worthwhile. So let me let me go back a step. Every single person is
Kristi McVee (17:28)
I wish that you weren't getting the rule. You weren't getting that lesson yet, but it's true.
Justin (17:45)
quite unquite worthy, right? Humanity, by virtue of your humanity, you are worthy. However, however, if we do not do things that help us to feel worthy, regardless of our innate worth, we feel unworthy. And too many of our boys are failing to launch. There are too many non thriving young boys and young men. And they're not thriving because unfortunately they're sitting in the garage or they're sitting in their bedroom staring at a screen and vaping.
Kristi McVee (18:01)
young.
Justin (18:09)
Uh, and living off mom and dad, they're not doing anything productive. They're not doing anything challenging. They're not doing anything hard unless you call leveling up on fortnight hard. And I don't call that hard or productive. And so, so what happens there is we give them too much choice and a, uh, either a paralyzed, I don't know what to do or B they're sucked into a world that has been designed to entrap them to, to harness and
Kristi McVee (18:16)
Heh!
No.
Justin (18:37)
absolutely take over their psychology to literally neurologically hijack them. What we need to do instead is work with them and help them to understand what choices they have at their disposal that are within appropriate parameters. And so this means that we talked them from the age of about 13 and 14 about being productive. They don't have to know what they want to do. In fact, I would discourage it. What I would encourage is, kiddo,
over the next few years, you're gonna work through high school, you might like it, you might hate it. Either way, if you finish high school, here's the rationale, here's the reason that I want you to buy this. Because if you finish high school, you will earn over the course of your lifetime, at least $300,000 more than somebody who doesn't finish high school and probably a lot more than 300,000. Somebody who finishes versus non-complete, a minimum $300,000. If you can get a university degree, you'll earn about half a million.
to a million more and if you go beyond that even more again. This has massive social and economic consequences and besides that, whether you like it or not, from a social and mating perspective, the data shows that girls tend to look across and up economically and educationally. So if a girl's looking for a mate, she looks across and up, she does not look down. So if she's got a university degree, as a general rule, she's not looking for somebody who didn't finish high school.
Kristi McVee (19:48)
Yes.
Justin (19:54)
She may choose somebody who's qualified in other ways, such as a tradie, there's an economic viability there. But girls looking across and up on both economics and on education as a general rule. And unfortunately, what that means, given that for every 10 young women who finish high school, we have somewhere between seven and eight young men finishing high school.
Kristi McVee (19:59)
and providers.
Justin (20:17)
And given that for every 10 young women who go to university, we have between six and seven going to university. And we only have about six graduating from university for every 10 young women. What that means is that women are looking across and up and they're not seeing anything. There are too many. And again, this is a terrible term to use, but I'm to use the term anyway, non-viable in the eyes of these young women, too many non-viable young men who are basically saying, the women are saying, well, where are all the guys? And unfortunately,
when you add into the mix too many boys and young men who don't know how to behave themselves with consideration, grace and courtesy, as I've written this book, somehow I've ended up on my book.
Kristi McVee (20:53)
No, no, we want to talk about your book because you've been writing that book for four years and and it's an
important book.
Justin (20:59)
I've lost count of the number of women and girls who have told me that they do not want or need a man in their life because they're not a man won't show up and be a bonus. He's going to be a drain. He's going to be a cost. He's going to require more of her than she's willing to give. She's not going to get back nearly what she gets because she's looking across and up and going, where are they? there's only across and down. And I don't like the look of that. ⁓ So,
Kristi McVee (21:09)
I know.
Yeah, it's true.
It's true. I talked to my daughter about this. Like I used to say to her if the, you know, like I think generations before us, you know, it was a different generations, different, different, but we're, we're educated women now. Like we have rights. We were allowed to buy property. We don't have to, we can have our own bank accounts. Like there's a whole different, and we're not going into that. But what I'm saying is, is that as a mom of a young girl,
I was having conversations about healthy relationships and all of these things from 10. And so when we talk to our young people, need to make them realize that it's not about what other, you you need to be, and you pointed it out, you need to be happy with who you are and you need to feel like you're contributing. So therefore, if you're not contributing and if you haven't got anything to bring to the party, then no one else is going to think that either.
Like no one else is going to want you.
Justin (22:14)
So let's take that back
to autonomy support. Our job as parents is to work with our children, young men and our young women and offer them guidance, but not tell them what to do. So here's the general conversation that I would recommend. Hey kiddo, have you got any thoughts about what you'd like to do after school? Or even do you plan on finishing school? And once you get some information you've explored a little bit, you might want to explain a couple of things. He might say, well,
statistically, you're going to do better if you do finish school. And if you get some sort of certification, you're just going to be better, you're going to be more viable, you're going to learn skills, you're going to be more valuable in the marketplace, you're going to earn more money, you're going to feel like you're making more of a contribution. And that's the other really interesting thing. When you upskill, when you get certified, when you get a degree, when you get your qualification, your trade, your tickets, whatever those things might be, when you get them, you feel like you're going to do something worthy. So you feel more worthy, you feel better about yourself. To close the link on what I was saying before.
Kristi McVee (23:02)
Yeah, got you.
Justin (23:06)
So it doesn't really matter what you do. What matters is that you're productive. Take a gap year, have fun, maybe do some travel, learn what it's like to earn minimum wage and decide whether you like that or not. And if you're fine with it, then that's fine because there's plenty of people who earn minimum wage who make a great contribution to society. But if you want more than minimum wage, then we've got to work out how you can get the support you need so that you can move in that direction. And then the other thing that I really emphasize is it's a little bit... ⁓
Kristi McVee (23:09)
Yes, exactly.
Yes.
Justin (23:30)
It's hard to say it and I haven't lived it. So I feel a little bit hypocritical. I really believe that we should be encouraging our children to choose careers where there is a reasonable expectation that they will be financially viable in that career. to become an author or an Instagrammer or a YouTuber, to become a professional sports person or a photographer or a restaurateur, to become a gamer or a streamer. Like when you do those things,
Kristi McVee (23:43)
Yes, I get you. I understand it.
Yeah.
Justin (23:56)
my sense, well, not my sense, statistically, you're less likely to earn the money that you need so that you can function so that you can survive. You want be an artist, that's great, but who's going to put food on the table? How are you going to get the commission? How are going get the work? So I generally, this is a little bit, maybe a little bit rude, but I call these vanity careers. when we're
Kristi McVee (24:06)
Exactly.
Hmm. And only 1
% of them actually succeed. Like we've got to, we've got to be like, it's a common thing at the moment. I don't know if you hear this, probably, I'm not sure, but I hear it from young women, especially, I'm just going to go and be someone on OnlyFans, right? And I always, I always go, well, all more power to if you want to, like I never say look, that's
Justin (24:17)
probably lit.
Kristi McVee (24:36)
whatever, but more power to you. But did you know that only less than 1 % of those people are actually successful? Most of them are paying to be on those platforms and they're earning nothing. So unless you have something that you and ethically all of the other things that go along with it, but most people are not successful. Most people are not successful on YouTube, gaming. And so we need to be keep it real with our kids. another thing that I
always was taught is you never leave a job unless you have a job to go to. So for me, I taught that to my daughter, right? Yeah, it's easy to get a job if you've already got one. And also there's no, there's no slacking off, right? You either is it's you go to another job and you go from one job to the next or you're going in. So one of the rules in our house was if you're not working, you're volunteering. And if you're not working, you're doing something here and you're working here. So my daughter,
Justin (25:05)
You need to get another job if you don't have one. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (25:28)
She's like, I don't want to help around the house. I'm not, I'm going to go get a full-time job and I'm just going to go and work. And so she went straight from school into full-time work. She's having a gap year. She doesn't know what she wants to do next, but she's learning, she's experiencing, and that's all kids really need, young people need.
Justin (25:44)
Again, they have freedom to choose what they're going to do within the constraints of your earning or learning, your volunteering, you're doing all of these things. You can choose whatever you want within those constraints. And what's fascinating is that for the most part, when we teach this to our kids, especially from a younger age, they're much more likely to buy into it. Let me go back to just finish that career thread for a moment. So what I generally advise is go and get a qualification or a certification in an area where...
Kristi McVee (25:49)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Justin (26:06)
pretty much every single person who wants to do it can get a job in it if they want to like 95 % of the people who want to be an accountant will get a job as an accountant. 95 % of the people who want to be a car mechanic or a builder carpenter are going to get the job. They've just got to get the certification then they're away or the degree and then they're away. And once you've done that, then get good at it. Get into the top 10%. And you'll never want for anything you'll also you'll also gather all of the rewards that come from being
in the top five or 10%, which will mean that you get a charge of premium for your services. It'll mean that your books are always full. It'll mean that you get recognized at conferences or at industry awards and that kind of thing, because you're doing outstanding work. If you don't like it, if you're bored by it, once you've secured some level of financial foundation, that's when you can say, all right, well, what else could I do? For example, I still don't own my house or anything like that. We still got a mortgage and all that sort of stuff, but I'm starting to look at what it would.
cost me and how I could fit into my schedule, learning how to become a bicycle mechanic.
Kristi McVee (27:05)
Wow,
because you love learning, I can tell.
Justin (27:09)
I love learning and I love bicycling and it's just something that I'd really love to know how to do.
I've made sure that I've got the financial security that I need so that doing that isn't going to come at a tremendous cost to me. I just think that's what
Kristi McVee (27:18)
Yes, yes. You've still got things
that you need to do. There's responsibilities that you need to fulfill so that you can do that. Yeah.
Justin (27:25)
Yeah, got kids at home and banks
will foreclose if I don't pay my mortgage payment. Let me just talk about following your passion for a second. I don't have a problem with kids wanting to follow their passion, but they've got to be productive and they've got to be taking steps towards it. And if they're doing that, then I'd say go for it. Because all of that will give them experience, it will give them that range and breadth that they need, and it will help them to make something of themselves. I would just say that it's going to be much, much harder. And the one thing that I'm not willing to do is you've indicated you're not willing to do
Kristi McVee (27:29)
Exactly.
Justin (27:52)
is I'm not willing to support my children while they sit at home on the couch and navel gaze. It's just not going to happen.
Kristi McVee (27:56)
⁓ no, no. Well, it wasn't
allowed for me. I, you know, like, I mean, most people who listen to my podcast know that I was like, I would, there was no slacking in my house and I was actually out of home by 15 bought my own house by 18. You know, like, so it's, it, and it, well, not really, I was kicked out, but it wasn't because of me. It was, it's a whole thing, but
Justin (28:11)
Wow. See, that's impressive.
Well,
getting the house by 18. That's impressive. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (28:22)
But
I bought a house for 18 and three months. And it was because I worked in real estate. I had a full-time job working in real estate and I knew that renting was dead money. Also we were told, right? And so I wasn't going to rent something. I was going to buy something because, and back then in the 19 late nine, nine, nine years, we could, you know, buy a house for 96,000. Our kids are in a much different situation today, but it.
Justin (28:45)
They are, but you
know what I'm going to say, and this is going to make me deeply unpopular with everybody, Chris, if your kids are disciplined and willing to work the tails off and, make smart choices, they can actually still get into the market. I've got, I've got two kids now who are one who's in the market. One who's about to be this, this is still doable. It's hard. I'm not, I'm not arguing for a second that it's not hard, but with good financial advice, great guidance from parents.
Kristi McVee (28:49)
You
Justin (29:10)
Maybe a little bit of a leg up if you can. I mean...
Kristi McVee (29:13)
some tenacity too, like not giving up because it's not easy.
Justin (29:15)
Yeah,
I'm astonished at what my kids did. So my eldest daughter and her husband, they got married young. They bought a place, realized that they didn't like how much it was costing to live in it. So they went and moved in with some friends of theirs, and they rented out their unit. And over the course of three years, the unit appreciated in value as everything does over time. And when they were able to sell that unit, they had enough money to literally move out of the
Kristi McVee (29:30)
Mm. ⁓
Yeah.
do the next thing.
Justin (29:41)
Yeah. And they bought, they bought themselves a house and I'm watching my, my second daughter now make preparations with her husband as they step into a similar, similar decision making. And what I would say is no, it's not as easy as it used to be. I'm not trying to say anyone can do it however they want. But what I am saying is with discipline, as you said, with tenacity, with good guidance and with a really clear goal, it's extraordinary what young people can achieve. And.
Kristi McVee (29:57)
Yeah.
Justin (30:07)
I look at my kids, they're doing way better than I ever did. I'm so impressed.
Kristi McVee (30:10)
Yeah. And I think also I do say sometimes you have to see it to be it right. Sometimes. So we do have to model something that I mean, from my situation, I was talking about this the other day, like everyone's really worried with what's happening in the world. Very, very real issues going on in the world. And I was like, well, got it has and when you work in policing, you do know that it's messy underneath like there's this like, there's this under
Justin (30:28)
It's always been messy though.
Kristi McVee (30:36)
under layer of like society and stuff and people are really in it all the time. And so you kind of get used to living with chaos. But I was saying to like, grew up in a caravan in the eighties because my family didn't have money. They were like, we were living on like the poverty line. And I'm like, I'm happy to live in a caravan. If that means I've got a roof over my head and I can, I can afford it. I'll happily live back in one. But I think though, again, like
kind of going off the topic, but it's really, doesn't, your situation is changeable, it's moveable. I think when we get really stuck in that mentality that it's hopeless and we don't want our kids to feel that way. We don't want our kids to think everything's hopeless, there's nothing they can do because then they get stuck sitting on the couch. They get stuck in that moment where they don't think anything's possible and we want kids to think things are possible and doable.
Justin (31:28)
Here's one
of the most profound psychological theories that I've ever come across. It's called hope theory. If you don't feel hopeful, you feel hopeless, you just use the word. So let's talk about what builds hope. You need three things. Number one, you need a goal. And there's too many of our young people, both men and boys and girls, young men and young women who don't actually have any clarity. So many of them just feel lost, literally like, what do want to do? I don't know. What do you enjoy? I don't know. And I blame screens.
For a large part of that, not entirely, but for a large part of that. If you don't have to do the inner work, then you never work out what your values are. If you don't work out what your values are, you don't work out what it is that you want, what you're seeking to achieve, what you're striving for. So the first thing that you need to have, if you want to have hope is clarity around your direction, your vision, your goal, your purpose. The second thing is pathways. It's one thing to say, I want X, I want to be a billionaire. But if you don't have any pathway to billionaire status,
then you'll become hopeless very, very quickly. And usually, whatever the goal is, whether it's to become a bricklayer or a stonemason or a hairdresser, whatever it might be, when you consider where you're headed, there's usually multiple pathways, I want to go and get a degree, but I failed high school, guess what, there's so many pathways in university, I want to get a trade, but it doesn't seem like there's anyone willing to take on apprentices. We lose.
Kristi McVee (32:39)
Yeah, there is.
Do a pre apprenticeship. Pre apprenticeships, TAFE.
Justin (32:47)
Traineeships, there's work experiences,
Kristi McVee (32:48)
Yeah.
Justin (32:49)
volunteering. There's so many ways to get, I've got a daughter who's just gotten a ⁓ school-based traineeship, apprenticeship thingy, what's it. She couldn't get a job to save herself in the area that she wants to be in, but because of school and work experience, she developed some relationships and now she's got a job doing what she loves because there are so many pathways to get in there. So you need goals and then you need pathways.
Kristi McVee (33:08)
Yeah.
Justin (33:13)
And then the last thing you need is this thing that psychologists call agency. So agency is basically if you're walking along a pathway and you bump into a wall, do you believe that you can find another pathway? Can you get out the shovel and start digging and get under the wall? Can you pull out the carabiner and the ropes and tie some knots and climb over it? And if you've got those three things, you'll be hopeful. I think that so many of our young people are struggling because they are without hope.
Kristi McVee (33:27)
I'm over.
Justin (33:35)
They don't have goals. They don't have pathways. They don't have the self belief to walk along the pathways to the goals. And yet if we can sit down with our kids and work through this with them, it's extraordinary what we can do and how fast they progress in the direction of their dreams.
Kristi McVee (33:36)
you
Yeah. Yeah. And I think also, you know, I always reminded my daughter, I didn't finish school. Like I got kicked out of home at 15. I did. I finished year 10 and 11 and then I had to go into full time work to support myself. So I didn't finish school, but yet I at 27 decided to pick or 28 decided to become a play stuff. So went to TAFE, did some TAFE studies because I hadn't been to school in over 10 years.
got into the police, became a detective, have an advanced diploma in police investigations, became an author. The thing is that anything is possible when you want it and you've got all of those three things, that hope, that pathway, and there is pathways. They miraculously appear when you stop saying that they're not there. so, yeah.
Justin (34:32)
Yeah.
So politically impolite thing to say insensitive thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway. We've got to step out of our victim hood. And what I think has happened in the last 20 years, maybe 30 years is we've increasingly focused on labels and diagnoses and reasons to blame everything external. And there is no denying that there are a whole lot of external factors that make life harder. I'm not saying that those things don't exist. And I'm not saying that.
labels and diagnosis don't exist either. I'm not, I'm not actually saying that. What I am saying is in spite of it all, in spite of the ADHD or the autism, in spite of the setbacks or growing up in poverty or living in a caravan, in spite of not finishing high school, in spite of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, can find millions of examples around the world of people who have risen far beyond anything anybody would ever have expected because they refuse to be defined by their past, by their history, by their diagnosis, by their label, by their circumstances. And
Kristi McVee (35:20)
Yes.
Yes.
Justin (35:28)
Once again, when we have these conversations with our kids, we don't have to dive into all that sort of stuff. We just have to say, what would you like to do? What do you value? Where do if a kid wants to know what they want to do with their lives? My suggestion is that they follow their curiosity. What are you? What are you so curious about that rather than staring at a screen and playing fortnight or GTA or scrolling tick tock, what are you so curious about that you would actually read a book on a Friday night instead of going out to a party?
Kristi McVee (35:42)
Yes.
Yes.
Justin (35:55)
And that's what happened with me in psychology. just, I literally, if I could turn my screen around and show you my bookshelf, which is set up here in front of me.
Kristi McVee (36:02)
You would be reading books or...
Justin (36:04)
I've got a lifetime supply of psychology textbooks and, and technology content here. And, it's still not enough because in my bedroom, my bedside table is stacked with about 30 books that I've ordered that I still haven't quite worked through. Helping kids to tap into the thing. And, and it's really hard to find that sometimes, especially when you keep on getting distracted with screens. Last thing I'll say about screens, cause I know that this is an area that you, you so passionate about. I consistently bemoan, grieve.
Kristi McVee (36:06)
Hahaha
Last
Justin (36:30)
the enormous lost human potential that is caused by screens. How many kids could or should have would have been inventors or academics or doctors or architects or builders of the latest grand design or pro surfers or Formula One drivers or bakers or hairdressers, so many different things, but instead TikTok.
Kristi McVee (36:34)
I agree.
Whatever.
Justin (36:54)
grabbed them by the brain cells, shook them and didn't let go. So much lost human potential. And what have you
Kristi McVee (37:00)
Well, the good
thing is is that we've got with the good thing is, that when they, because we did just see someone win a court case in the U S saying that they, know, so it, but here's the thing. It's not the end. It's just means that they can come back at 26 or 27 and go, actually, I want to become a psychologist. I want to do anything because we're not humans aren't stupid. But the one thing I did want to say is
Justin (37:09)
⁓ yes.
Kristi McVee (37:26)
⁓ It's a reason, not an excuse is what I used to say to my daughter. might make your, you know, with regards to autism and ADHD, she's dealt with both. My husband's dealt with both. It's a reason why it might be a little bit harder, but it's not an excuse for why you can't do something. So that's what I said to her and I say to him and they don't get much leeway with me. They're like, if...
Justin (37:48)
I
say to my kids, don't complain about the results you didn't get for the work you didn't do. Which is...
Kristi McVee (37:49)
Yeah.
Yeah. And the, and it's the truth, right? It's the truth.
can't sugar coat it. Cause you can't sugar coat it. can like try and help them see it without being like, like so blunt, but bluntness actually can be quite helpful too. So.
Justin (38:04)
Well,
it's always couched in a lot of empathy and usually served up with a chocolate milkshake. ⁓ Yeah, there's an arm around this. ⁓ That's right.
Kristi McVee (38:10)
And like, it's okay, but you didn't work hard. So sorry, that's kind of your fault. I know
I'm empathetic to a point and then I'm like, I don't have any empathy left if you're the reason why you've got that result.
Justin (38:19)
Yeah.
What I was writing the book about boys while I was writing. ⁓ I just, I in fact, I've still got it here. ⁓ let me, let me just pull this off the wall. I'm to have to break something. think, hang on a sec. Let me just, it's breaking. Here you go. Can you hear the clunking and the breaking here? ⁓ I've just ripped the gyproc on the top. Do the work, do the work, because that is, that is how you do it. ⁓ and now I've got to, now I've got to patch up my wall.
Kristi McVee (38:25)
Yeah, tell us about the book.
don't break anything.
I did! ⁓ my goodness. ⁓ no. Do the work.
Yeah. ⁓
no, but that's the thing. Do the work and our young men and our young people in general, but girls do it better. They pick themselves up quicker. They get on with it quicker. But our young men need us to hold them to account and let them do the work. know, like let's not rescue them as much as we have been because that's not going to help them.
Justin (39:05)
There's
this metaphor that I've been using a lot lately around resilience and it's as follows. Our children are going to come across dragons. There's dragons everywhere. You remember the old pirate stories, here be dragons or maybe not pirates, but whatever. The old folk tales, here be dragons. And there are dragons in our lives and our job is not to slay the dragons for our kids. Our job is to prepare our children to be dragon slayers. I don't know, hopefully this conversation has been useful in providing some support and some guidance around that.
Kristi McVee (39:17)
Yes, yeah.
Yes.
Well, I think it will and I think it starts much younger than we realize. our kids from, because I feel and I think we had this conversation at South by Southwest. I think we expect too much from our little kids and not enough from our teenagers. And I think, you know, like we really put a lot on little kids to have better behavior and to do this and to do that. Yet.
Justin (39:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kristi McVee (39:55)
When they get to teenagers, it's like hands off and leave them alone and let them get on with it. And you're like, hang on a second. And my experience in the police is that that's actually really detrimental. It can be very detrimental to their future. you know.
Justin (40:08)
I'll tell you what
I do in my family. is a little bit extra and I can't help myself but
Kristi McVee (40:11)
I'm gonna.
But
it's probably because you've got the experience that you know that this is important too.
Justin (40:18)
Every Sunday, the kids know that at 830, we're sitting as a family around the table and they hate it and they come in and they complain and they roll their eyes and sometimes they've literally gotten out of bed and you can smell their breath across the table. It's so bad. Yeah, that's right. No, yeah. And, and we have like this 15 minute Sunday chat. The kids just know this is what we do every Sunday, 8:30. It's, it's compulsory. You can moan and groan all you like, but it's compulsory. And we just pick a different topic every week. ⁓
Kristi McVee (40:26)
8.30am you're saying? I thought 8.30pm? Really? That's late.
and
Justin (40:46)
We talk about the stuff that they're confronting at school. We talk about the stuff that's in the media. We talk about stuff that we're worried about. talk about mental health. talk about consent. We talk about alcohol and other substances. You name it. We talk about it. And, and it is kind of open mic night as well. Right? Like the kids are allowed to ask whatever they want. And generally we just, ask them a few questions. We share a couple of thoughts and then we just see where it goes. Yeah. Sometimes it's good 10 minutes and other times they're still there 45 minutes later, even though they complained about it. And.
Kristi McVee (40:53)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's awesome.
open the table. Anyone.
Justin (41:14)
What we're doing here is we're talking about character, we're talking about morality, we're talking about values, we're talking about, you endorse these rules? Here's what they'll do for you if you follow. We talk about careers and study and gap years and STIs, you name it, it gets compensation. we have watched our children, maybe a story to finish up, about a year ago when I was writing the boys book, I was working on a definition of healthy masculinity. How do we give boys a model of what it is to be a healthy man?
And I settled on this a healthy man is someone who helps the people around him to feel safer and stronger. All right, safer and stronger. Can the guy that you're with help you to feel safer and stronger? Now, if I had a son, I would be, I would be that would be on repeat. It's all I'd be saying safer and stronger, safer and stronger. Can you help people be safer and stronger? Full stop in a story. But I have daughters and they need to hear it as well. So we had that conversation. Fast forward a few months, maybe six months or something. My daughter, one of the daughters, one of the girls has got a boyfriend about
Kristi McVee (41:44)
I know.
Yes.
Justin (42:06)
Four or five weeks later, she breaks up with him. comes home, she's crying, she's sad, she's sobbing. I'm like, must've been tough four weeks in, but it must've been serious, very, very upset. And she really feels big emotions all the time. I said, hey, how come you broke up with him? And get this, she said, dad, when I was with him, I did not feel safer and stronger. When we were alone, he was always putting me to be inappropriately intimate. We barely know each other and he's just put the pressure on from day one. And when we're together, he's
Kristi McVee (42:18)
Yeah.
⁓
Justin (42:33)
telling jokes at my expense. He's just putting me down and denigrating me. I didn't feel safe and it feels strong. I felt small and insecure.
Kristi McVee (42:38)
wow.
But you
had modeled that and shared that with her for so long, she knew it was not right.
Justin (42:47)
Right. And so that's, that's the power of doing that. Is it easy for every family? No. Is it doable for every family? Maybe not, but finding ways to have these conversations regularly where you're talking about morality, where you're talking about endorsement of safe, healthy values. This kind of stuff is what helps us to raise flourishing, flourishing, thriving young men and women.
Kristi McVee (43:04)
100%.
Well, what a great, that is the best. Like I love that your daughter, first of all, I don't like that she went through that, but how amazing is that she was able to stand up for herself and know that this person is not making me feel safer and stronger. And that's all we want for our boys and our girls. No one has a little baby and gives birth to a little child and goes, I don't really care if you're an asshole kind of thing. Like, you know what I mean? You want your child to grow up and be that safe and strong person, that one that fights for the
Justin (43:27)
You
Kristi McVee (43:35)
people who can't fight for themselves. One of the things I said to my daughter all the time was, is it's our job as, because we have voice and we have our autonomy and everything, it's our job to stick up for those who can't stick up for themselves. And so she became that little battler in the playground sticking up for everyone and it put a big target on her back, but she's strong enough to handle that. And so again, all of those values that we instill on our kids, they've helped them become the best adults, the most supportive,
amazing humans and hopefully happy humans and happy families. So thank you Dr Justin, so lovely to see you and so where can everyone find your books, your 11 books and your stuff?
Justin (44:18)
So ⁓ what I would say is just if you're interested in the boys book, it's available for pre-order now and pre-orders actually determine the success of a book. So if you can jump on a booktopia and just press the pre-order button, because it would be amazing. The book is called boys building strong young men from the inside out by me, Justin Coulson. The rest of my stuff, just Google me. I'm very easy to find and happy families website. Yeah, of course. The podcast, all that sort of stuff.
Kristi McVee (44:37)
the happy families. Yeah, yeah. The podcast
is pretty awesome too. So yeah, that's where they'll find you. I'll make sure everything's in the show notes as well though. And when does it come out officially?
Justin (44:48)
Great stuff.
is officially at June 16. So it's not far away. It's really, really close. And like I said, pre-orders make a huge difference. So I'm not super proud to beg. I'm begging, I'm begging, I'm groveling. This is the right time. Yeah, this is the right time for this book. People need this book. And I know that I've written something that's going to be helpful. So I'm pretty excited.
Kristi McVee (44:52)
Not far away.
I'll make sure. Yeah, yeah, I'll make sure that people know about it.
or our
girls and boys need this kind of connection, this kind of collaboration, we need to work together with our young people to make them because otherwise they go through life feeling so shit, literally bad. They don't feel great. They don't feel valued and valuable. And so it's not a great life when you feel like that. So we want them to have good lives.
Justin (45:31)
Well, awesome chatting with you. Thanks, Kristi.
Kristi McVee (45:33)
You do. No worries.
Kristi McVee (45:36)
If this conversation got you thinking even a little bit, then that's exactly where change starts because raising kids who are confident, capable and grounded, it doesn't happen by accident. It happens through the conversations we're willing to have and the standards we're willing to hold.
And I think what stood out most for today is this, our kids don't need us to control their lives, but they do need us to guide them, challenge them and help them build lives they actually feel proud of. If you want to dive deeper into Justin's world, I'll link everything in the show notes, including his new book, Boys, which I truly believe is an important read for parents right now.
And if you're ready to start having better, more meaningful conversations with your own kids, this is exactly what my work is about as well. Because protecting kids isn't just about what we stop, it's about what we teach. So thank you for being here and I'll see you in the next episode.
