Episode 132: Want To Keep Active Kids Busy? Keep Them Curious with Melinda Mulcahy

Children  0:00  
We think you should know that Imperfect Heroes podcast is a production of Little Hearts Academy USA. 

DJ Stutz  0:09  
Welcome heroes and heroines to Episode 132 of Imperfect Heroes Insights into Parenting, the perfect podcast for imperfect parents looking to find joy in their experience of raising children in an imperfect world. And I'm your host DJ Stutz

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Imperfect Heroes Insights into Parenting, where we explore the extraordinary world of parenting. And I'm DJ Stutz, your go to early childhood specialist. I'm a podcaster and author and a parent coach. And there are some changes coming this year to the podcast, and to my coaching business Little Hearts Academy USA, and you will be learning more about them as the year goes on. But first, I wanted to let you know that we are adjusting our focus a little bit to be just more specific. This is something that is very close to my heart. And so we are going to be spending some time helping each other laser in on using values and morality as we work to raise independent, kind and successful children. You will be hearing more from me on solo episodes. And I would love to have some of my listeners on the show as well just discuss the day to day joys and challenges of raising these little gifts from God that sometimes feel more like a porcupine in a balloon factory. So keep listening and share with your friends. And you'll be getting some more details if you would like to come on the show and just have a conversation with me. 

And I'll bet you have at times when you have wished you could just get your kids interested in something for a little while so you could finish something up. Maybe it's dinner or the laundry, or just grab a quick shower. Well, my guest today has an answer for that. And it's curiosity. Have you noticed that when your kids are really curious about something, they become so very engaged? Well, being curious is more than just asking an endless array of questions. It's wanting to dive deeper and understand more. It's up to us as parents to build and develop this life saving, problem solving and relationship strengthening skill in our children as well as ourselves. Melinda Mulcahy, don't you love that name, has been studying curiosity for over nine years, she comes to us from Wales, love Wales have a little personal connection there. And she has found that at the base of all great minds in the past, and in the present is curiosity. There's so much to learn. So let's get started. 

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for choosing to spend the next little bit of time with Imperfect Heroes. And before we get started, I just want to let everybody know and remember that I have my new book out, it's called Roman is bigger. And if you're interested in getting it, it's a children's book, I wrote it from a teacher's point of view. So it's perfect for group settings if they're on the carpet, but it's also a great story book for parents. But it's about the importance of vocabulary, and how knowing the right words to say to express yourself really does help you feel better and bigger. And it's about this little boy Roman, who is learning about those skills in his life. And so the link to get the book is going to be in the show notes. But you can always just get it through the website as well, which is www.littleheartsacademyusa.com. 

And today, we are talking about one of my very favorite topics because I think the answers to the world's problems are solved through this topic. Give me a problem. And you're going to solve it through this and they just curiosity. And so my guest today is Melinda Mulcahy. And another thing I'm very excited about is she's from Wales, which is where my heritage is from. And we've had some great conversations about Wales and our favorite things about there as one of the places one of the few places I've been outside of the United States. And so, Linda, thank you for coming. And so why don't you just talk to us a little bit about what you do. And then when you're done talking about who you are and what you do. I'd love for you to just kind of express what curiosity is because I think there's What people think it is, there's that dictionary definition. But then there's the reality of what it truly is. So let's go with their.

Melinda Mulcahy  5:09  
Well, thank you so much for having me, I'm so excited. And I am really, really impressed about your book. So let's start with, because language is so important, so important. And I actually think if you can get the language, right, the language that you just articulate out of your mouth, but what you say to yourself, makes such a massive difference, and will significantly impact your life. So that's the first thing. And I really believe that just by tweaking your language, little tweaks, using curiosity, questioning, if that is the right way to speak to yourself, if you're talking to yourself in a language that the brain understands, then that will really improve your life. So that's the very first thing. So let's talk about language, because that's such a big subject. And I'll try and keep it as simple as possible. But Curiosity has always been known as a bad thing, right. And yet, when we look at the dictionary's definition, and interest or a desire to know, learn or explore, now, since I've been looking into curiosity, I firmly believe there's a lot more involved in just that little concept. For instance, if you want to begin to feel you need curiosity, if you want to make an inquiry about something, you need curiosity. So there are many, many aspects. Observation is one, if you want to be mindful, you need to be curious. In fact, so far, I've actually identified over 70 benefits for curiosity. For instance, let's look at happiness. The you cannot be happy without a degree of curiosity. So what's really going on there? Let's look at that in more detail. We have a particular caveat that we all adhere to in our life. And that caveat is the measurement of risk over reward. The brain is constantly measuring, we don't even know that we do it, it's so fast that we have no idea that we're doing it. And yet just highlighting this, you'll begin to realize that we are doing it in fact, you're doing it right now, as you're listening to this, you're constantly your brain is constantly measuring this risk reward. Now, what's going on is that majority of the time, the risks outweigh the rewards. And you can even just look at the way that we say it risk over reward when what we need to start doing is because we're no longer having to survive anymore, we've surpassed the concept of survival. And so we need to start turning that around. And how do we do that by using language. So language plays a massive part in the equation of risk or reward. There's lots of things going on within this process of thinking I use the word process because it is a phenomenal process. When you are thinking you are going through lots and lots of bits of information, bits that happened in the past bits that happen when you would to bits, arguably, some may say that even bits that happen in your ancestors past. So here's a really, really mind blowing thing we have been developing since the Big Bang. That's it. We have you and I have taken since the Big Bang to get here. How mind blowing is that? So we need to really look at these processes that we take for granted. And what's going on is that we are assuming all this information we're assuming we think we know. And yet, we weren't really taught how to think how to measure this risk or reward when we were children in school. We were taught how to add art we were taught how to read and how to write. But we weren't taught the most fundamental mechanism, which is how we think and is that it's a big, big process. And of course, it involves your language center, as it's becoming aware, slowing down this map because it is a massive process. I call it the brain battle equation, because we're constantly battling against not just our own brain, we're also battling against what's going on in the body as well. And so it's about taking that process, really slowing it down and then pulling it apart so that we can see what's going on so that we can start to think in more effective ways we can start to you Use our language center as it's intended. Because because we weren't taught how to think. And what's going on, is that we can now begin to use our evolutionary design as it was intended. We don't need to suffer anymore, we can start to look at growth and improvement because the cost in the equation of just survival, there is always improvement. Every time you've survived something. There's always learning, there's always adaptation and improvement for the future. So it's how can we utilize that process in a way that benefits us that makes us grow and develop in more positive ways? So I hope that kind of answers the question of how curiosity is significantly involved in the whole process of everything we think, feel and do. Yeah.

DJ Stutz  10:49  
And I love how you were bringing up just how being curious about how we feel and thinking and using language to that. So instead of thinking, I'm mad, it's like, Am I really mad? Or am I more angry? Or am I furious? Mad may not cover it.

Melinda Mulcahy  11:08  
And when I was listening to Yeah, what am I responding to? Is this true? Is this real? Or is this just me reacting? Because actually, someone triggered me. And then why did that happen? Yeah. So I

DJ Stutz  11:24  
remember talking to my grandson, my youngest grandson, who is currently four, and he has a sister who is seven. And we were visiting, and they're getting ready for school. And he was just having this total meltdown. He was furious. And I was watching because his mom was tending to a need that his sister had. And I could see from just sitting back and watching that he felt like he wasn't being heard. Yeah. And mom really did need to attend to the sisters need at the moment. That was an important thing. And so I pulled him over. And I'm like, Lachlan, I'm wondering, I said, How are you feeling? And he's like, I just, you know, he just didn't even have words. He's mad, like a four year old would be right. And I just think it, are they adorable, and especially when they're your grandkids, they're just even more adorable. But I'm wondering if you're mad, because your mom is talking to Amara, and you want her to talk to you? And he thought for a minute goes, Yes, that's why I'm mad. But once we could identify it, puts some words to it. He could calm down.

Melinda Mulcahy  12:47  
Yeah, and I see what you just did there as a couple of things. You diverted his attention. That's yessing. So one of the elements of disrupting kids thought processes immediately through curiosity by asking that question, I firmly believe one of the best ways to interrupt doesn't matter if it's a child, or an adult. I've used this time and time again, the best way to dissolve a situation is I'm curious, or I wonder about. And the reason why is that immediately diffuses the situation because first of all, you're suggesting that you're listening to them. So they begin to feel like I'm being heard. And that is a phenomenal human need. Everybody wants to be heard everybody. And so just by triggering that, you are able to then immediately defuse that situation, the fact that you've used I wonder, or I'm curious to either either, either words, your curiosity is very similar to wonderment. In fact, I believe that curiosity is the mechanism that triggers wonderment. But it's the language either way, it's great. And that diffuses any situation I used to use it on my daughter, or she would have a force nine temper tantrum, and the only way to to handle it is go, Ah, wow, I wonder about this and the brain would go up, and she'd be diverted away. And that was the only way I could get her to calm down. Because kids at that age don't have the language development yet. They are unable to identify what's really going on. So that was a great thing that you did fabulous. I love it. Yeah. Makes them feel special. being heard makes people feel special. It's not just the kids, teenagers as well. I've got two teenage kids now and it's like, Hey, I wonder I wonder about this or wonder about that. Or I'm curious. It always done that question

DJ Stutz  14:47  
with then once he's calmed down enough, then you can say what was it you wanted to talk to mom about? Yeah, yeah. And then he's able to because he's calmed down enough. He's able to Oh, Oh, well, it was this. And then I can help him a little more than I would have before. And to, I think it's being able to look at someone like when a child comes home from school and says, jelly is so bad, and he was being mean to so and so. And he doesn't share and he doesn't. And so instead of saying, oh, yeah, Joey's just bad kids, stay away from him. Right? Instead of that, coming up with that, I wonder question. Really? I wonder why that is happening with Joey. Wow,

Melinda Mulcahy  15:33  
oh, maybe you could say, Well, I wonder what you could learn from Joey's behaving? Yeah,

DJ Stutz  15:39  
there's a ton of Wonder questions that you could come up with that would then help your child to become more socially adept in managing conflict.

Melinda Mulcahy  15:48  
So let's look at what happens when we ask these questions, because you've just brought me to a really interesting concept that very, very few people know because when you're in curiosity, the minute that you ask that question, first of all, your curiosity is the is the mechanism that triggers the question, and I'll pull apart the the actual concept of curiosity in a minute. But first, I just want to say that when you are in curiosity, when you are using that energy, because it's an energy state, first and foremost, what happens is that you down regulate your stress hormones. So immediately the stress comes down. It's proven to down regulate stress hormones, and then you're able to engage your neocortex part of the brain, obviously, I know that the child's neocortex is not fully formed at that point, but that doesn't matter, you're still bringing the stress levels down. And you're still engaging the conscious part of the brain to start thinking more effectively. And that is vital. And when you do that, you also can improve resilience for the future. So there's a number of effects, physiological and neurological effects that Curiosity has, and has been proven, for instance, to reduce risks of dementia. So there are real studies now proving the impact of curiosity for your physical health, and your neurological health, neurological health being the brain health. Now, if we were to look at a question, let's break that down. Because it's really important that people understand this. Every day, we ask, What do I want for dinner? And isn't it interesting? What when we ask that question, how we just naturally go through a process of Well, let's look in the fridge, let's look in the cupboard, and so on and so forth, we assume. And yet within that question is infinite potentiality. So what is infinite potentiality? It goes beyond potential potential, meaning that, you know, what is available to potential is when you know what's available to potentiality is everything else? All right. When we ask that question, there are three parts that question I'm going to go into in a moment. But what that question does, is, opens up potentiality, but only if you're conscious of it. And that's the difference. So what's going on is that 95% plus of the time, we're in this state of assumption, we assume everything, we're in automatic mode. And so the questions that we ask if you want to change things, the questions that you ask, first of all, are really, really important. But what's also important is engaging your neocortex part of the brain, which is your conscious brain. And the reason why is because this is the part of the brain that's able to rationalize much more. So let's look at that question. What being a question. So what why, how? Where is the mechanism of a question? Okay. And that is very, very significantly linked to curiosity, because most people say that curiosity is questioning, but it's only one part of curiosity. The next important part is, what do I want? So want is your desire. And this is the mechanism for interest. If you're interested in something, you're desiring something, you're wanting something now that is the mechanism that triggers these feel good hormones that feel good. So this is dopamine. Now we're involving the neurochemical of dopamine. Let's just look at dopamine for a minute. Because dopamine was always associated with the reward. It was known as the reward chemical. But actually new science shows that it's the promise of reward, not the reward itself, so you do not get a hit of dopamine. Dopamine is a feel good mechanism that can really drive you forward. But the reason Why people are stuck on their phones. Doom scrolling is because they're getting hits of dopamine, and it keeps them there. So that is the negative side of curiosity. There's always polar opposites. There's always good bad. There's always good curiosity and bad curiosity. That to me is the Doom scroll is the negative side of curiosity. And so when we look at this concept more, we realize that we're stuck in this loop, your body starts to become addicted to that. And that's something that really you need to break as soon as possible. So whenever you notice, if you're kind of over scrolling or overdoing anything for that matter, then it becomes an addiction. And there's a lot of science on this. Andrew Hoberman talks about this on his podcast, and this can significantly disrupt our whole being, and we get more angry, you know, there. So there is a lot of negative elements that are involved in too much dopamine because we're not using dopamine in the way it was intended, which we come into the next part now. So what is it intended for? I said to you, dopamine is now the promise of rewards. So what is the reward? That's the goal. So what's going on in that question, going back to that question, what do I want for dinner? Dinner is the goal. All right. Okay. Excellent. So this is quite lengthy, but I just want to make sure that we're understanding this whole process, because when you begin to understand curiosity in this way, you can then use it to your advantage, you can capitalize on it, which is amazing, because this will give you the edge in life, I guarantee it. So what's going on is now you have the feel good hormone of dopamine working for you to reach your goal, your brain is wide open, your stress hormones are down so you don't have to feel the fear and do it anyway. Yeah, yeah, fear responses down, you've now got your dopamine working for you towards your goal. And it's as simple as that. You can ask yourself any question, and your brain is the faithful servant, it will do its very best to find the answer for you, or something like it. And so you can ask this question, you can ask your brain at any time, if you want to find the answer. The question is, what is the kind of question that you're asking which we go back now to your concept of language, which is key. So beginning to understand how we can use language to power us towards what we want, or something even better? Your goal. So going back to now looking at a really, really, really good question, I think, a killer question for me the best question you can ever ask this tops, any question ever. And this is, how can I improve this? Let it how can I improve this? So it doesn't matter what situation you're in? Your brain will go, oh, I need to improve it. But if you're saying, I've got bills to pay, how am I going to find the money? You're never going to get there? And you will notice, if you ask the wrong questions, when you become aware, your brain starts to go in circles and it becomes quite frantic. And that's what happens in stress. But when you're in curiosity, by asking the right question, you cut through all that. You cut through all that negativity, and your brain just goes up, okay, your body goes, This feels good. And you start looking then for the positive, how you can improve it. And there's no better question. I guarantee it. Once you start using that question, it is epic. I tell you now, so even when you're with your kids, and you might be in a difficult situation, but a really great thing to start with. Well, I'm really curious, how can we improve this? Or how can we learn from it, but always how can we improve? And to me that it's just, it's just amazing. Use your watch magic with that. I tell you,

DJ Stutz  24:08  
Oh, trust me. I believe that with all my heart, I've used it in my classroom with my kindergarteners and turning it over to them. For an example, I had someone that was a specialist, and she needed to run an activity in a classroom. She asked if she could use mine. I'm like, Oh, of course. And the principal was in my classroom observing her. And I had a little boy who's just known for doing his thing. And struggling with keeping his attention. And where he sat. He was near just a pocket chart, you know, that had some little things in it. And he was so enthralled with this pocket chart. He was struggling with paying attention to what was going on. And he was drawing attention from the other kids too. And I had been sitting by the principal, but I got up when I was sat by him. And I was like hey, buddy is Looks like you're having trouble paying attention sitting here. And he just kind of looked at me. And I said, Do you think you could find another place to sit where you can pay attention to Miss Katie? And he thought for a minute, because, yeah. And I had, they're just little squares with numbers on them. You know, I called them sit up ons. And so I said, can you take your sit upon and move it to where you think you can pay attention? Yeah. And so then he looked around and moved it. So now he became in charge. Curious, right? About where's that I can sit? And I can be successful. He's in charge. Right. And so when you move that, and I was curious to about, I wonder what he's going to come up with? Yeah, came up with the perfect answer for him. It was the perfect answer for him. You

Melinda Mulcahy  25:48  
know, what's amazing, is just how you're able to talk to kids in that way. Wouldn't it be great if you could talk to yourself in that way?

DJ Stutz  25:56  
Oh, you know, you know, so true. Have you ever heard of this theme? Everything I needed to learn about life I learned in kindergarten?

Melinda Mulcahy  26:06  
So cool. Yeah, I probably wouldn't agree with that. The kindergarten when I went to, but they're a little they're a little tough.

DJ Stutz  26:13  
Oh, you just needed to be in my class.

Melinda Mulcahy  26:16  
Yeah, but again, you know, neurodiverse kids, I mean, I'm nearly diverse. So I've got ADHD, apparently, I don't buy into those sort of things. I do know that only now I'm very aware of my dyslexia. I'm quite quite severely dyslexic. But I always use it to my advantage. I don't buy into it, I know that there are issues, there are things that are much harder for me. But overall, I've got the blessing of a mind that can start to think of bigger concepts, you know, yeah. Because you

DJ Stutz  26:46  
look at things in a different way than the average person. Because you have that, I look at that as a blessing. Honestly, yeah. And there are a lot of blessings that come with some difficulties. But you have this great ability and opportunity to look at something from a different point of view that most people aren't going to see.

Speaker 2  27:07  
And I think one of the things I always did in my work is that I would constantly go to my managers and say, but you know, you could do it this way, this would be much better, you could improve it by doing it this way, you can prove it by doing that needs to drive them crazy. And they and I get into trouble with my managers for suggesting better ways of doing stuff, you know, because I could actually see the computations in my head would be, you know, if you did, this would be much, much quicker, or, and this comes to looking at curiosity in another way, because one of the benefits is productivity and accuracy. So when you're in a deep state of curiosity, and now obviously, you're going to be seeing as a kindergarten teacher, you're going to be seeing really pure curiosity, and how they come to their conclusions so much faster with such accuracy. And again, if we could take that into the workplace, when that'd be amazing. But what's really interesting is just how kids developed so fast. And there's been a lot of talk about the reason why kids learn so much is because they're in a trance state. They're in theta, brainwave state, and alpha when they're between zero and seven, but nobody is giving any credit to curiosity, which is the fundamental building block of humans. It's kind of like, Oh, Hello, is anybody seeing curiosity? No, it's just because everyone's in a theta state. Well, but it does go to show that when you are in deep curiosity, you come to conclusions, you find answers much, much, much faster than you would in fact, I remember somebody who was a very famous entrepreneur I was listening to it was a clubhouse chat. And the funniest thing was when he was talking to me. Oh, that was I think it was with NASA, something to do with NASA. And then I was on the chat there. And one of the things you said is you've got a problem, so give it to a child. Now, isn't that amazing? Oh, yeah. Oh, true. I know. Yeah. And the reason why is because this so curious. Yeah. So again, this what curiosity does is it gets rid of all your biases, we need to stop assuming we need to stop assuming we know stuff. And we need to think again, I continually talk about thinking again, by we said earlier ask the question, is this true? Now, if something's bothering you, is this true? What's going on? First of all, because you need to know something's something you need to be aware of something. So therefore curiosity is intrinsic to emotional intelligence, the ability to self regulate, and again, it all goes back to curiosity. In fact, I firmly believe now after studying it for about four or five years, and I've been obsessively studying it because I don't belong to any university. In fact, I didn't even never even went to university. So my findings are purely from me being really curious when I I got to a point in my life. And I was like, What is this, and I pulled it apart, I became curious about curiosity. And I became quite obsessed with it, to be honest with you. But what I decided to do was really investigate it from a point of view that I don't have anything to prove, other than helping myself. Whereas if you look at Academia, again, they're biased because they've got something to prove. And again, this goes back to ego. Whereas when you're in curiosity, there's a guy called Steven Kotler who talks about flow, you know, the the only way to get into flow, the only way to learn more effectively, and that will be Jim quick. They all say, You got to be curious. So what all I'm trying to do is I'm just trying to blow up, you know, well, if curiosity is always there, at the basis of science, blow it up, you surely we should be understanding it, we should be aware of it, we should be conscious of it so that we can then capitalize on it, we can use it to our advantage. And when we do Harvard Business School talks about, well, they've determined that curiosity is the number one success trait to have. Yeah, so if it's always there, and it's, it's coming up all the time, why aren't we conscious of it? Why aren't we talking about it?

DJ Stutz  31:14  
Right? Well, in fact, my dad was a world renowned professor of electrochemical engineering, and Mike, okay, it out, whatever. But he was into that research on cold fusion that was going on about three years ago. And I remember talking to them and saying, I mean, really, what are the odds that this is going to work? And he said, Oh, it's about 80%, that it won't. And I'm like, so why are you bothering is, because there's that 20%. And I'm curious as to his curiosity was always there. He taught at UCLA. For years, he got his doctorate at Berkeley, and taught at UCLA. And then after I got married, he moved over to Brigham Young University, but he had people who came from all over the world just to study under him. And he always had at least three labs going with different experiments and doing things but curiosity was definitely part of him. And even with it only having a 20% chance of success. But let's see what happens and try all these different things. There's a chance there's a chance, there's, you're saying, there's a chance, right is the chance and

Melinda Mulcahy  32:25  
yeah, they get, and that's gonna be enough to trigger your curiosity. And interestingly enough, Warren Buffett, He attributes his entire success. In fact, a lot of high achievers attribute their success to curiosity was interesting. What he says is that curiosity is the mechanism that keeps you going. And that's exactly what your father is just, well, you know, what he was able to do, because it continually drives you forward to wanting to know, to want to know, to want to know. So there's a phenomenon called the Zig Ziglar act. I think, sidenote, I think that's a side effect. And that is this wanting to bridge the gap of knowledge. And that's what drives

DJ Stutz  33:05  
so I do believe that curiosity is how we fall in love that someone piques our interest. And it's like, oh, I want to learn more about that person. Yes. And you take the time you invest the time into watching them and seeing how they react to how do they get mad? That's a good thing to know. How do they react when they're around kiddos? If you want to have a family? And how do they react when they're around their family? And you're bringing in all this data? Because you're curious about them. And then that's how you eventually fall in love. It's all based on curiosity. Yeah. And

Melinda Mulcahy  33:40  
of course, it absolutely makes the other person feel really good. And when they feel good, I've seen this. I've seen this so many times. It's unbelievable. I've seen how it works. And it's magic, when it works. When there's that beautiful glow between the two people, it can even happen. And this could be sort of, I don't know if you've ever been in a networking environment, or live networking environment with business, and people kind of walk into the room. And you can see the introverts walk into the room. And they're like that. Oh, but the same thing applies. There's a professor, I think her name is Vanessa Van Edwards who talks about to captivate people's attention very quickly. And of course, it's all based on curiosity. And essentially, you just need to kill a question. You just need one question. And as long as that question makes them feel good and feel comfortable, and when you ask the right question in the in the right way, with curiosity, I make it seem complicated. It's not complicated at all. But you do need that curiosity. And when you show because as I said, it's an energy energy state. So when you're showing that you're really curious, like you and I have been having this wonderfully curious conversation back and forth. And you can tell we're both curious about each other. And it's, it's beautiful to see because when we start to I'm engaged with you, and you're engaged with me, and it just makes life beautiful. Fully it really, really does. Yeah, it does.

DJ Stutz  35:03  
Let's just talk for just a quick second about. We're so busy oftentimes. And I know we don't mean to do it as parents, but we're quashing curiosity so often with our kids. Don't climb on that or don't touch that. So my girls, my sons are amazing, too. But I'm just so surprised at my girls, how they, I was always afraid of insects. I was always afraid. Oh, yeah, I don't, I don't want to look at it, get it away from me kind of a thing? And they're like, Oh, what is that? They see lizard.

And I was always like, oh, lizard. And they're like, let's catch it. And now even with our phones, we

have so much information. You can even like take a picture of a spider real quick in their apps. Is this poisonous? Is this something that's gonna hurt us? And then you know, and if it's no, we can touch it. We, I mean, they would put it on their hands. And their kids then are more adventurous than they do take risks, and they try more things. And I'm so proud of them for that attribute, as parents because we want them to be safe and whatever, and I get in that. But how much of their curiosity are we stealing from them when they're interested in something? So my middle daughter Rocky, her oldest Sylvan has the thing about ladybugs, he thinks that ladybugs are so cool. And he knows about larvae and all of this and and she got this on video and sent it to me. But she was showing no to ladybugs, we're doing what two ladybugs might do, right. And he's like, Mom, what are they doing?

She said, Well, they are working together to create new ladybugs is how she put that and he literally goes, Oh, that's so sweet. And so she went and bought you can purchase like 300 Ladybugs at a gardening store and let them loose. But wow. So yeah, yeah. So she, yeah, yeah. And so she went and bought 300 ladybugs and let them loose in their backyard. And he got to document and he was like maybe five, four. I don't think he was in school yet. So then he could see the larvae and documenting how they were growing. And I happened to come visit at some point. And he was telling me all about, oh, here's some larvae over here. Let me show you where they are. And and then these have grown up and may have this and he's telling me all of these things because he showed a curiosity about Ladybug and she just fed into that. Here we go. Let's go buy 300 It was like six bucks. And they had all these ladybugs in their backyard. Yeah, but I just give kudos to them for my oldest daughter, Candace, when she would grab a garden snake and hold it up for the kids and let the kids hold it and, and I'm like, Candace, it's not gonna hurt us. It's just a garden snake. I think it's a snake. And just like out who cares? And I mean, but how wonderful to engage that curiosity? And what are we doing as adults to quite often you

Melinda Mulcahy  38:13  
can, and you can either nurture that curiosity, or you can squash it. And let's give parents first of all, a big whoop, because it's hard going really hard and it's constant. But sometimes, actually what we think is easier to squash, that curiosity ends up being much harder in the end. Because what goes on is that very often, if you do squash that curiosity, it will come back to bite you. Whereas if you nurture that curiosity that will give them just enough information, and they will go away with that. Chances are that will keep them curious for quite some time. They'll do their own work on that they'll do their own thinking on that it'll keep them occupied. And then they may come back for an occasion or Or what about this? Or what do you think about this? And and then you would just give them that little bit more of a curiosity question. And then off they go again. So it actually works out better in the end that you does crush it. Yeah, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. For my grandkids,

DJ Stutz  39:20  
the best thing that they would have is a little bug catcher that you can buy for. If you get them on $1 sale, you can get them for real cheap, and say, here's here's a bug catcher go. They're out for hours. Yard. Yeah.

Melinda Mulcahy  39:34  
Well, you know, kids, kids have to keep busy. Because they're constantly learning kids have got great, fantastic minds, their minds are open, and they have to keep occupied. And what happens on the other hand, if they don't keep occupied, that's when they get into trouble, right and sometimes into really big trouble. And so what's interesting is if you look at the statistics, for instance, for teenage kids who get into Horse riding, teenage kids are getting horse riding generally speaking of really good kids. And the reason why is because they've got an incredible hobby, which keeps them curious and occupied curious to look after the horse, and curious about them, you know, learning and learning their skills and things like that. And that level of curiosity keeps me out of trouble. So the next time if you want to squash curiosity, just think yourself, do you want the easy route? I always say, do you want the easy route or the hard route? Because actually, the easiest route is curiosity. Yeah, I guarantee it. Absolutely.

DJ Stutz  40:32  
Absolutely. Yeah. So gosh, we could go on forever. I just love talking to you and sharing,

Melinda Mulcahy  40:40  
too. Well, it's a great read stories. Oh,

DJ Stutz  40:43  
thanks. I, I tend to go off on all my stories, but I love it. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. So anyway, Melinda, why don't you tell us about how we can get a hold of you and learn more about you? And what can my listeners and watchers do to connect?

Melinda Mulcahy  41:02  
Yeah, sure. I've got a website called curious you.com. I'm literally just about to launch a seven step thinking system. And that takes people through the process of learning how to think in a way that serves them. And that involves their evolutionary design, how to understand that more effectively, so that you can start living a better quality life. So that's my curious Thinking course. I also am about to launch some tips and tricks and hacks on YouTube and Instagram, and I think it's Tik Tok, and a few of those, so just type in melindam, olcay into any of the TIC TOCs, or Instagrams, that kind of thing. And you can find me there.

DJ Stutz  41:41  
Easy peasy plastic. Yeah, sounds great. I hope everyone takes some time to check it out and learns how to embrace that curiosity in their lives get curious.

Melinda Mulcahy  41:51  
And that's the thing I always say hashtag get curious. Absolutely.

DJ Stutz  41:55  
Absolutely. And so I always ask my guests the same question as we conclude things in the podcast question. So get curious. Yeah, we know that there are no perfect parents or never has been never will be. But how would you describe maybe a successful parent,

Melinda Mulcahy  42:15  
in my experience, giving kids time, I think one of the greatest things that you can do, and it's something that I did with my kids, and I have a great relationship with my kids, is sit down for dinner. And ask them questions. If you just gave them that time. Honestly, they will significantly improve it. So it's just make dinner time, a great time to just get curious about each other. How was your day? What did you do? And let them talk? That's it. Get curious.

DJ Stutz  42:48  
Get curious, get curious about their day, thinking who their friends are, what they're doing? Absolutely, you're spot on. Thank you so much. So Melinda, thank you so much for being a part of our program and imperfect heroes, and I so appreciate it. So for those of you who want to connect with her, all that information is going to be in the show notes. And until next week, let's find joy in parenting. Bye, everyone. I don't know if you noticed it. But during our conversation, Melinda shared an incredibly powerful question. And she said the best question to ask in any situation is, how can I make this better? Now think about it. That question just embodies curiosity in action. It's not just passively observing. It's about actively seeking improvement, seeking progress, and solutions. Melinda has a seven step thinking system that empowers individuals to view situations positively and ask better questions. She helps to unlock infinite potential and find better outcomes. So if you would like to know more about Melinda Mulcahy, and what she has to offer, all of her information is where Yep, in the shownotes. And while you are there, just hit the Follow button to make sure you are getting in on all of the amazing episodes that we have each week. And if you like what you heard in today's podcast, just be sure to rate and review and tell a friend. It's so easy and it helps us reach more families. And remember, you can always check us out on YouTube and rumble and those links are yep, you guessed in the show notes. So next week, I am talking with Kaylee Mettler and this year as we are focusing on teaching our children values and morals. We are looking at getting Getting our children outside and what we can teach there and what they can learn there. So check it out in the sea and until next time, let's find joy in parenting.

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