# FAFO Parenting Is Breaking Your Connection

An episode of [Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1082244480), 3 Mar 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/b69b2795-5503-4de1-ac91-af460017906e/4db679b6-6970-4bed-91b2-b3f3017ab112/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=a05f1702-0c0e-4b0f-8014-af460017907c

It’s the parenting trend everyone’s talking about — and it might be doing more harm than good. “FAFO parenting” (mess around and find out) is being framed as the antidote to gentle parenting. Tougher. Harder. No-nonsense. Let kids face the consequences and toughen up. But here’s the problem: when parenting swings from one extreme to another, kids don’t get stronger — they get disconnected. In this episode, Dr Justin Coulson unpacks where FAFO parenting came from, why it’s exploding across media in the UK, US and Australia, and what it reveals about our cultural moment. Most importantly, he explains why harsh, hands-off “let them learn the hard way” parenting quietly erodes the very thing children need most: security and connection. If you’re feeling burnt out, frustrated, or tempted to go hardline — listen before you do. KEY POINTS • FAFO parenting is a backlash against years of gentle, emotion-focused parenting influenced by thinkers like John Gottman. • Parenting trends swing like pendulums — but extremes rarely serve children well. • “Mess around and find out” often carries an implicit threat and emotional withdrawal. • There’s a difference between natural consequences and punitive, emotionally distant parenting. • Children need security, predictability, and autonomy support — not harsh detachment. • Connection builds resilience. Disconnection breeds defiance or insecurity. • You can hold firm boundaries without being cold or cruel. QUOTE OF THE EPISODE “FAFO breaks the connection. And connection is the heart of what makes families tick.” RESOURCES MENTIONED • Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child – John Gottman • Parenting ADHD Course – happyfamilies.com.au ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS • Pause before you punish. Ask: Am I teaching — or reacting? • Use natural consequences wisely. Stay warm and present while holding the boundary. • Make rules collaboratively where possible. Autonomy increases buy-in. • Separate emotions from behaviour. Validate feelings, guide choices. • Protect the relationship first. Correction works best when connection is strong. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:06] Speaker 1: There's a brand new parenting style that everybody seems to
[0:09] Speaker 1: want to talk to me about. I've been interviewed in
[0:12] Speaker 1: the UK, in the USA and all over Australia about
[0:16] Speaker 1: FAFO parenting. Now, Kylie and I are non swearers, but
[0:20] Speaker 1: the first F in FAFAX parenting is one of those
[0:23] Speaker 1: swear words that we don't say and you probably don't
[0:25] Speaker 1: want your kids sayings. F around and find out. This
[0:29] Speaker 1: is a new tough love kind of parenting style that
[0:32] Speaker 1: is exactly the opposite of gentle parenting. And today I'm
[0:36] Speaker 1: going to unpack why it's all the rage, where this
[0:39] Speaker 1: has come from, and why every journalist in the country
[0:42] Speaker 1: has been on the phone to me in the last
[0:44] Speaker 1: month to talk about FAFA parenting. Stay with us. That's next. Gooday,
[0:51] Speaker 1: Welcome to the Happy Families podcast where you get real
[0:53] Speaker 1: parenting solutions every single day. This is Australia's most downloaded
[0:57] Speaker 1: parenting podcast. We are justin and Kylie Cours and the
[0:59] Speaker 1: parents have children and we are going to talk about
[1:03] Speaker 1: FAFO parenting today. Kylie. Recently another reporter was in touch
[1:09] Speaker 1: about FAFO parenting wanting to know all the details. So
[1:12] Speaker 1: I've just written down all the questions that I've been
[1:14] Speaker 1: getting from reporters over the last few weeks about this
[1:18] Speaker 1: parenting style that is sweeping the world by storm. I've
[1:20] Speaker 1: handed them to you. You're going to be our reporter extraordinary.
[1:23] Speaker 1: You might even have some comments and stories to share.
[1:25] Speaker 1: Let's go, let's pick this apart and find out why
[1:28] Speaker 1: this is all over social media and on all of
[1:31] Speaker 1: the major news media sites.
[1:38] Speaker 2: Well, thank you for spending time with me today, doctor Justin.
[1:40] Speaker 1: When you do this, I haven't really.
[1:44] Speaker 2: Heard a lot about this fafou parenting.
[1:46] Speaker 1: That's because you also deleted social media and you don't
[1:48] Speaker 1: watch the news. But yes, it's everywhere.
[1:50] Speaker 2: How would you describe it?
[1:52] Speaker 1: So this is the tough love parenting. It's kind of
[1:54] Speaker 1: like the pendulum has swung so, I don't know, a decade,
[1:58] Speaker 1: maybe more ago, probably two decades ago, there was that
[2:02] Speaker 1: whole tough love kids just have to do as they're told.
[2:05] Speaker 2: I mean, this is all that was last generation.
[2:07] Speaker 1: Traditional parenting is another generation. But things come in trends, right,
[2:11] Speaker 1: like mustaches. I'm going to offend half of the male
[2:15] Speaker 1: population and probably a whole bunch of females.
[2:16] Speaker 2: I talk about mullets, then if you're going to.
[2:18] Speaker 1: Mullets, mustache is the same thing. Right in the eighties,
[2:21] Speaker 1: everyone had them. They're stupid. I mean, why do you
[2:24] Speaker 1: want to have this little bit of fuzz above your
[2:25] Speaker 1: top lip and nothing else. I tried to grow one
[2:28] Speaker 1: once upon a time, and you just said get rid
[2:29] Speaker 1: of it, and you were right, Kylie. Just like bad
[2:33] Speaker 1: hairdoos and bad facial hair, parenting also goes in trends.
[2:38] Speaker 1: So over the last ten to fifteen years, we've become
[2:41] Speaker 1: increasingly gentle. In fact, I would say that started in
[2:43] Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties when John Gottman wrote Raising an Emotionally
[2:46] Speaker 1: Intelligent Child and started talking about the power that comes
[2:50] Speaker 1: from validating our children's emotions. And what's happened since nineteen
[2:53] Speaker 1: ninety seven. We're now I can't do maths very well,
[2:56] Speaker 1: but I'm thinking this is thirty years down the track.
[2:59] Speaker 1: We have made emotions king, and when a child is
[3:02] Speaker 1: having an emotion, we have to validate that emotion, and
[3:04] Speaker 1: we have to therapeutically analyze that emotion with a child.
[3:07] Speaker 1: And frankly, we tell our children that they should believe
[3:09] Speaker 1: what their emotions are telling them, because emotions give us truth,
[3:12] Speaker 1: which is unhealthy, unhelpful, it's a lie. Emotions are liars.
[3:17] Speaker 1: They give us information, but that information is not always accurate. Nevertheless,
[3:22] Speaker 1: as a result of the backlash to gentle pairing, I mean,
[3:25] Speaker 1: if you watch Parental Guidance season one, two, or three,
[3:28] Speaker 1: you would have seen a lot of really soft, gentle
[3:31] Speaker 1: cotton wooling and bubble wrapping of children in some of
[3:34] Speaker 1: those parenting styles. And what that has basically done is
[3:37] Speaker 1: it's made a lot of people really mad about the
[3:39] Speaker 1: way kids these days are being raised. And so the
[3:41] Speaker 1: backlash means that we've got to go from one extreme
[3:44] Speaker 1: to the other. So one pole is gentle parenting and
[3:47] Speaker 1: FAFO parenting. If I won to find out is basically,
[3:51] Speaker 1: if you really want to test me, test me, and
[3:53] Speaker 1: I'll show you where the boundary is, and I'm going
[3:54] Speaker 1: to do it in a really unkind, nasty way.
[3:57] Speaker 2: Would you suggest that this is a direct result of
[4:00] Speaker 2: parents just feeling really burned out and looking for permission
[4:03] Speaker 2: to just let the kids do whatever they want? Yeah,
[4:07] Speaker 2: is that where we're going?
[4:08] Speaker 1: I mean, partly, yes, this might sound a little odd,
[4:11] Speaker 1: but I think it's also a reflection of our times.
[4:13] Speaker 1: It's a reflection of our broader socio political climate. So
[4:17] Speaker 1: we're seeing increasingly that people like Nigel Farage in the
[4:20] Speaker 1: UK and Donald Trump in the US and strong men
[4:24] Speaker 1: and I'm using the word men on purpose because they
[4:26] Speaker 1: generally are strong men kind of political leaders are shifting
[4:31] Speaker 1: the political discourse and hardening it and coarsening it and
[4:35] Speaker 1: making people feel like, well, it's a dog eat dog
[4:37] Speaker 1: world out there, and we need to be top dog.
[4:40] Speaker 1: And I think that that kind of trickles down into
[4:42] Speaker 1: things like business and our living rooms. So to me,
[4:46] Speaker 1: this is a little bit political, it's a little bit
[4:49] Speaker 1: socio cultural. And yeah, I think sometimes parents are just
[4:53] Speaker 1: so sick of going hang on these little people who
[4:56] Speaker 1: are knee high or waist high or chest high. They
[4:59] Speaker 1: don't dict eight terms, And I'm sick of being dictated
[5:01] Speaker 1: to by an eleven year old or an eight year
[5:03] Speaker 1: old or a three year old. I'm the adult in
[5:05] Speaker 1: the in the relationship, and I'm just going to stamp
[5:07] Speaker 1: my authority. It's really ineffective, by the way, But I
[5:10] Speaker 1: kind of think there's a confluence of all of these factors.
[5:14] Speaker 2: So from what I understand, everything you've shared FAFO parenting
[5:18] Speaker 2: claims to allow children to experience the consequences of their
[5:22] Speaker 2: own actions.
[5:23] Speaker 1: Yeah kind of yeah, yeah, Well are they really experiencing
[5:27] Speaker 1: the consequences of their actions or are they experiencing parents
[5:31] Speaker 1: who are just sick of who are going to impose
[5:35] Speaker 1: consequences because they don't like what the kids are doing.
[5:37] Speaker 1: I mean, it could be a bit about it.
[5:38] Speaker 2: I kind of get the impression, and maybe I've got
[5:40] Speaker 2: it completely wrong. But if we're going to just allow
[5:44] Speaker 2: kids to do whatever they want, right and then experience
[5:47] Speaker 2: the consequence the consequences, then this is actually just neglectful,
[5:51] Speaker 2: disengaged parenting.
[5:52] Speaker 1: In some ways. But there's there's a bit of acrimony,
[5:54] Speaker 1: there's a bit of animosity. There's a bit of anger
[5:57] Speaker 1: associated with as well.
[5:58] Speaker 2: Well, are we creating the consequence for our chu?
[6:01] Speaker 1: It's both.
[6:02] Speaker 2: Are they experiencing it? Because so I'm.
[6:05] Speaker 1: Going to start calling it matho parenting, because mess around
[6:08] Speaker 1: and find out just is more consistent with our values, right,
[6:10] Speaker 1: So matho parents will approach these challenges in a couple
[6:15] Speaker 1: of ways. First off, there's the you want to touch
[6:18] Speaker 1: the hot stove, well mess around and find out. You
[6:20] Speaker 1: want to play with a ball in the house, Well
[6:22] Speaker 1: mess around and find out, right, So there's just the
[6:25] Speaker 1: you're going to experience the consequences. You don't want to
[6:27] Speaker 1: do your essay, you don't want to do your assignment,
[6:29] Speaker 1: you don't want to do your homework, mess around and
[6:31] Speaker 1: find out you don't want.
[6:31] Speaker 2: Okay, So my seven year old decides that they're going
[6:33] Speaker 2: to play cricket in the house and they smash the
[6:36] Speaker 2: front window.
[6:37] Speaker 1: Well, that's where it switches from. You're going to experience
[6:40] Speaker 1: the natural consequences of doing dumb things like saying horrible
[6:43] Speaker 1: words to your friends, or being rude to the teacher,
[6:46] Speaker 1: or mess around and find out. There's that. But then
[6:48] Speaker 1: the second one is if you mess around with my rules,
[6:51] Speaker 1: you'll find out what the consequences will be. So there's
[6:54] Speaker 1: that that punitive approach as well. It's not just an
[6:58] Speaker 1: abrogation of parental responsibility. Just socialize your kids and you're
[7:01] Speaker 1: just going to say you figure it out, jump on
[7:03] Speaker 1: the e bike and ride down the street on the
[7:05] Speaker 1: wrong side with three people on the back. Just mess around,
[7:07] Speaker 1: find out, and then the police will pull you over. Well,
[7:10] Speaker 1: your problem, your fault. Now you've learned your lesson, Okay,
[7:12] Speaker 1: So that's the this is not my problem approach. But
[7:15] Speaker 1: then there's also the this is my problem approach and
[7:18] Speaker 1: you've messed around and now you're going to find out
[7:19] Speaker 1: how I feel about it, So it actually goes in
[7:21] Speaker 1: both directions.
[7:23] Speaker 2: Well, I'm just really curious about how we're going to
[7:26] Speaker 2: move forward, like, how do parents navigate this? Yeah kind
[7:29] Speaker 2: of trend because it's going to come up more and more, right,
[7:31] Speaker 2: We're going to we're going to be experiencing it as
[7:35] Speaker 2: our children socialize with other families. How do we safeguard
[7:40] Speaker 2: our kids against it? How do we work through it?
[7:42] Speaker 2: How do we come to our own conclusions?
[7:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that right after the break Solutions
[7:47] Speaker 1: for MATHO slash FAFA Parenting, We're back. This is the
[7:58] Speaker 1: Happy Family's podcast where you get real parents solutions every
[8:01] Speaker 1: single day. Is this parenting style working? I mean, when
[8:05] Speaker 1: you hear this, you've been married to me and heard
[8:08] Speaker 1: me go through the books and the podcasts and the
[8:10] Speaker 1: talks and all that sort of stuff for years. I'd
[8:13] Speaker 1: love to get a non expert perspective when you hear
[8:16] Speaker 1: about this Before I sort of step into what I
[8:18] Speaker 1: would really like to say, what's your initial response to
[8:22] Speaker 1: this style of parenting? This hard? Nosed.
[8:26] Speaker 2: It just makes me angry, like, it makes me really angry,
[8:30] Speaker 2: I feel, and I said it earlier in my comments.
[8:34] Speaker 2: I feel like this is just an abdication of parental
[8:38] Speaker 2: responsibility because I'm allowing my kids to make their own
[8:43] Speaker 2: choices and they'll find out for themselves what's right or wrong.
[8:47] Speaker 2: Without recognizing developmental appropriate stages of life, cognitive function and development,
[8:56] Speaker 2: there's no safeguard. There's no security in that for our children.
[9:00] Speaker 1: It feels like there's a lack of warmth. It's this,
[9:02] Speaker 1: it's just this really harsh concept. I mean, this could
[9:07] Speaker 1: actually be done nicely and it could be healthy. And
[9:10] Speaker 1: I've not had this thought at all until today. I've
[9:12] Speaker 1: done too many interviews and not even said this once.
[9:15] Speaker 1: But like, mess around and find out has an implicit
[9:19] Speaker 1: threat in it, right, there's this idea that you can
[9:23] Speaker 1: mess around and it's going to hurt you too bad,
[9:26] Speaker 1: so sad you should have listened to me, but you
[9:28] Speaker 1: chose not to. There's that kind of I don't know,
[9:30] Speaker 1: there's almost like an arrogance.
[9:31] Speaker 2: There's an but there's also lots of things that our
[9:34] Speaker 2: children could participate in that don't necessarily hurt them in
[9:38] Speaker 2: the moment.
[9:38] Speaker 1: Or other people, right, and they can learn great lessons
[9:41] Speaker 1: from them.
[9:42] Speaker 2: Well, no, they're not going to learn anything because there's
[9:44] Speaker 2: no consequences in the moment.
[9:45] Speaker 1: Well there's that too, Okay, Okay, But if.
[9:47] Speaker 2: My child starts smoking a vape as a seven year old,
[9:51] Speaker 2: I mean, that's what we're dealing with. Right, You've got
[9:52] Speaker 2: a parent who's saying you can work it out. My
[9:56] Speaker 2: child starts doing that, they don't recognize any significance and
[10:00] Speaker 2: impact in their decision in the moment, of course, right.
[10:03] Speaker 2: But over three years, four years, five years, six years,
[10:07] Speaker 2: fifty years of that behavior, that's when the consequence is
[10:11] Speaker 2: really hit. There's no security, there's no safeguard. It just
[10:16] Speaker 2: feels like you're throwing them into the big wide world
[10:19] Speaker 2: without any preparation. That's what it feels like.
[10:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, sometimes it's caring, other times it doesn't.
[10:24] Speaker 1: Like I had a surf trip last year. I went
[10:27] Speaker 1: to Sumatra, Indonesian Ireland, and like, if you've driven in Indonesia,
[10:32] Speaker 1: it's an experience. But in the particular place that I went,
[10:38] Speaker 1: had a fly to the airport and then it was
[10:39] Speaker 1: a six hour drive and this road like there's just
[10:43] Speaker 1: houses everywhere along this road. There's people all over the place.
[10:46] Speaker 1: And as we drive along this road with no shoulder
[10:50] Speaker 1: and no footpaths because the infrastructure just doesn't exist in
[10:52] Speaker 1: this part of Indonesia, probably most of Indo, there's kids
[10:56] Speaker 1: right next to the road, right next to a thousand
[10:59] Speaker 1: million mopeds and motorcycles and cars and trucks. And I
[11:02] Speaker 1: said to the driver, did you grow up here? He
[11:06] Speaker 1: said yeah. I said, how did your parents teach you
[11:08] Speaker 1: about road safety? And he didn't say it in these words,
[11:13] Speaker 1: but he basically gave me this fa faux mafo idea
[11:16] Speaker 1: mess around and find out. He said, they didn't. They
[11:18] Speaker 1: just let us figure it out and kids. I mean,
[11:22] Speaker 1: I guess some kids end up worse for wear as
[11:24] Speaker 1: a result of that, But he said, most kids just
[11:26] Speaker 1: figure it out. They learned that it's not safe to
[11:28] Speaker 1: be on the roads. Now, this does my head in.
[11:31] Speaker 1: But there's no explicit teaching. There's no parental stepping in
[11:35] Speaker 1: and actively teaching children to stay away from the road.
[11:39] Speaker 1: I can't comprehend this.
[11:41] Speaker 2: No, But each of the times we've visited villagers and
[11:44] Speaker 2: things like that, families are very insular. They stick together.
[11:48] Speaker 2: They're quite especially in the heat of the day, which
[11:51] Speaker 2: is when you're going to see traffic.
[11:52] Speaker 1: Well maybe, I mean I was watching kids on the side.
[11:55] Speaker 1: I'm talking two year olds on the side of the
[11:56] Speaker 1: road with no adults in sight. Like it was doing
[11:59] Speaker 1: my head in. So I'm not arguing that we should
[12:02] Speaker 1: do that, by the way, and not even slightly. But
[12:04] Speaker 1: what I'm highlighting really is that children will learn life's lessons.
[12:09] Speaker 1: Natural selection will select for genetics that orient us away
[12:15] Speaker 1: from dangerous things. Apparently, although again this e byte thing
[12:18] Speaker 1: that's going bonkers everywhere we turn at the moment maybe
[12:21] Speaker 1: argues against that.
[12:22] Speaker 2: Well. A couple of weeks ago, we had a conversation
[12:24] Speaker 2: all about resilience specifically in our children and how it's relational.
[12:30] Speaker 2: I just feel like, based on everything we're talking about today,
[12:34] Speaker 2: where's the resilience for our children? Because it's the tough
[12:38] Speaker 2: en up princess kind of, you know, white knuckle it
[12:40] Speaker 2: through life kind of conversation we're having here because there's
[12:44] Speaker 2: no one guiding them.
[12:45] Speaker 1: And I think that's the critical thing if we were
[12:46] Speaker 1: to bring it right back to basics, and we need
[12:48] Speaker 1: to because we can't talk all day. Children need security,
[12:52] Speaker 1: they need predictability. They need clear rules and boundaries. They
[12:55] Speaker 1: had parents who work with them rather than do things
[12:57] Speaker 1: to them, and FAFA is fundamentally about I'm going to
[13:00] Speaker 1: do things to you or I'm going to live do
[13:02] Speaker 1: things to you, depending on which way it goes. If
[13:05] Speaker 1: you want to mess around, if you don't want to
[13:07] Speaker 1: follow the rules, it's just this this blase a. Oh well,
[13:12] Speaker 1: I mean I've told you what's going to happen. You're
[13:14] Speaker 1: going to do the wrong thing and to stay on screens. Well,
[13:16] Speaker 1: I'm just going to take your phone off. You're going
[13:17] Speaker 1: to cut it off. I'm emotionally distant and uninvolved. I
[13:23] Speaker 1: don't know that that's a healthy way to be. Like
[13:25] Speaker 1: I said, we've gone from one end of extremes to
[13:28] Speaker 1: the other. The stuff we talk about consistently on the pod.
[13:31] Speaker 1: Build a relationship with the kids, work stuff out, recognize
[13:34] Speaker 1: it when they're having big emotions. It's not usually about you,
[13:36] Speaker 1: it's about them. Just be with them and say, I
[13:38] Speaker 1: know this is hard, we'll figure it out once you're
[13:40] Speaker 1: feeling okay, and then problem solved. So that they understand
[13:43] Speaker 1: that there are expectations and rules. Get them to make
[13:47] Speaker 1: those rules as much as possible, and then support them
[13:50] Speaker 1: to live them. I don't know why we keep on
[13:52] Speaker 1: complicating parenting and why the media, Well, the media loves
[13:55] Speaker 1: these narratives because it gets eyeballs. That's my take. I
[14:00] Speaker 1: don't know if that's helpful, but I wanted to talk
[14:02] Speaker 1: about FAFO parenting, MATHO parenting, mess around and find out,
[14:07] Speaker 1: don't do it. Don't do it unless you're exhausted and
[14:09] Speaker 1: you've had enough and you're having a bad day. But
[14:11] Speaker 1: then apologize and don't do it again. That's that's kind
[14:14] Speaker 1: of well.
[14:15] Speaker 2: I really appreciate your time to say, just.
[14:18] Speaker 1: So that you've got back to report mode.
[14:19] Speaker 2: I am going to assume that if we want to
[14:22] Speaker 2: have strong, healthy relationships with our children that last well
[14:25] Speaker 2: and truly once they leave our home into that adulthood,
[14:30] Speaker 2: that finding a way to develop an autonomy supportive.
[14:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, or explain in power, you got.
[14:38] Speaker 2: It, We're going to experience a lot more joy and
[14:40] Speaker 2: happiness in our families.
[14:42] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, FAFO breaks the connection. You said it before,
[14:44] Speaker 1: and you'll bang on. Connection is the heart of relationships
[14:48] Speaker 1: and the heart of what makes families tick. The Happy
[14:51] Speaker 1: Family's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media.
[14:55] Speaker 1: Mim Hammonds provides our admin and other support and if
[14:58] Speaker 1: you'd like more info to make your fan are we happier,
[15:00] Speaker 1: particularly and fall about how to not do the fafo
[15:03] Speaker 1: mafo thing when it comes to raising an ADHD child.
[15:06] Speaker 1: Check out our Parenting ADHD course online now at happy
[15:10] Speaker 1: families dot com dot au

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