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So do you have a child who misbehaves often? No matter what you do, it's like you can't get through to this child. Like, you can't keep doing this. You've tried all the consequences. You've run out of them. You've tried bribing you try yelling and screaming. You try the really sweet approach. None of it works. Today I want to give you the real key to changing your child's behavior. And it actually has nothing to do with your kids, which is actually very liberating. So that's what we're going to discuss on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. Welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us@celebratecalm.com if you need any help. Reach out to our son, Casey. C A s e y celebratecalm.com Tell us about your family. What are you struggling with? We will help you with this. So here's what I want to get into today, and it's prompted by a bunch of emails we've been getting from people who are like, hey, I'm one program into your entire package and I can tell it's already changing our family and it has nothing to do with changing our kids, but instead it has everything to do with changing ourselves. Look, this is very, very basic, right? In a way, which is the the only person in life that you can control is yourself. And it's very liberating because of the success of your family. If the happiness of your life is dependent on changing other people's behavior or opinions or thoughts, you're in trouble, you're going to be very frustrated and you're going to frustrate other people and it leaves you actually powerless. Right? The more we try to control other people, the less control we actually have. But I know why we do it, right? It's natural. There's no blame or guilt. We all do it. But it's this illusion of, well, if I just kind of manage my kids and do everything for them and I set them up and I send them to the right preschool and I'm with it, it doesn't work. And you found that. And with the strong will child. Look, here's something interesting. With your more compliant kids, it does work. And so it lulls us into the sense of like, well, I did it with my compliant kids and it worked. But the truth is, it wasn't your controlling everything that helped your more compliant kids. They're kind of fine without parents. They're just going to do the right thing in life. That's the path they're on. They're going to go to school and follow directions and study and do their best and get good grades and go on to college. But that's not because of you, right? It lulls you into that false sense of like, I am such a good parent. And then you have the strong willed child and you're like, I don't know anything anymore. And so it backfires on the strong willed child the more you try to do that. So the only person in life that you can control is yourself. And I want to teach you how to do that because look, it will change you. It will change you from the inside. You will break generational patterns and you will be liberated inside from having to watch moms and dads. But a lot of times moms of managing all the family get togethers, right? A lot of you are on like we are on group threads with your family and you know, all of our families are dysfunctional and so you get pulled into that thing. Oh, what if we do that? Like our anchor true is not going to be happy and my sister gets really upset when we do this and we're about to go on vacation with the whole family and now I've got to manage everybody else's emotions and I've got to protect my child. It's exhausting and it doesn't work. So I want to liberate you from that. Second principle is this. The quickest way to change your child's behavior is. Is to first control your own. And you've seen this every day. The more when you tell your kids, guys, got to go, got to go, got to go, they go more slowly. They're not rejecting you, they're rejecting your anxiety. Because when you're in a rush, when you're in an anxious mode, watch when you start to. When you start to get that clipped tone, guys, we have to. If I have to tell you one, your kids are sensitive. They're pattern seers. They. They know what's about to happen, and they know when your voice and your tone changes. Well, that's when you're becoming impatient and you're about to lose it. So if they just push your buttons, they're in complete control because you just lost control of yourself. But when you can approach it and you're in control of yourself, man, you see situations more clearly and you problem solve. So just think about this. Sometimes our discipline is simply frustration. I can't believe that you do that. How many times do I have to tell you? And so we're disciplining. In a way, it's out of our frustration. It's all about my frustration with a child misbehaving, which is kind of their job as children, because that's how they learn and they grow up and then we get to teach them. So I like to be able to switch from. See, as long as I'm frustrated, I'm not teaching. I'm just kind of lashing out. And I'm kind of, in a way, saying, I don't know what to do with you. Strong willed child, please just do for once, do what I asked you to do. And so I want you to feel confident. I want you to feel in control of yourself. So you say, oh, I know exactly why this is happening, and I have a plan for that. Because now instead of just being frustrated and lashing out or trying different things, now I can actually teach. Because discipline means to teach. Think about this also, right? The more you try to lecture, the more you lecture your kids, the more they do the opposite of what they want you to do, because your lecture is just filled with anxiety. The more you care about something, the less they do, the more you push, the more they resist. So let's go through four different areas where you can learn to control yourself, and it will have a huge impact on your family. Number one, get control of your own control issues. All of Us have control issues. We all complained of, oh, my child has control issues. So do you. That's why you have power struggles. And so there's no blame and no guilt. I hope you hear that. There's nothing I don't like being said, oh my gosh, I have control issues. We all do. That's what keeps us alive. And that's what for many of you. And so be kind to yourself as you talk through this and go through this. I don't like heaping more pressure on people. Many of you have control issues because you had to. When you were a kid, you were raised in a dysfunctional home. Maybe one of your parents was an alcoholic and what you learned early on was, oh, if I don't take charge around here as a very little kid, we're going to be in trouble. And so it served you really well when you were a child because you had a chaotic environment. Think about this. You, you grew up in a chaotic environment in which you couldn't count on the adult or adults in your life. And so what you learned very quickly was, oh, if I take control of certain areas of my life, well, now I have at least I have some order and some predictability. Well, that's really healthy and helpful when you are a kid. So that served you well. So when you're working through your past trauma and your childhood trauma, you be nice to that little kid in there who is basically at the core of who you are. Because look, I know as a guy, I'm basically just a grown up kid. I still am basically the seven year old now. I've learned some self control and I've learned how to be a grown man and a grown up, but inside a lot of it is still there. So I want you to be kind to yourself and not beat yourself up because, oh, I have control issues. No, it served you really well as a kid, but now that you are an adult, it sabotages your relationships with everyone around you because you're always trying to control situations and control everybody else and then you get all stressed out about it. So let's work on some of those things. So I want you to do this, I encourage you, let's just practice this. Practice for one. Practice imperfection. Leave. Leave the home without everything being perfectly put away and set up. I know some of us, like how many of you do this before you go to bed at night? You clean your kitchen sink, make sure it's all put away because here's what you're saying inside, I can't control my kids. Or my spouse. Everything else in life is chaotic, but my kitchen sink is spotless and it gives you this sense of order and peace inside. So sometime leave like one plate in the kitchen sink for a couple hours. And I'm not being funny with that. For some of you, that's very hard. Like you just got triggered. Like, no, I can't do that. We used to practice and we still do at times. Practice. How many of you do this thing of like, oh, kids, go ahead and decorate the Christmas tree, but you can't wait for them to go to sleep so that you can fix it and make it all symmetrical. One year we purposefully left our Christmas tree just a little bit askew and everybody would come over and be like, hey, did you know that, like your Christmas tree is leaning? And we're like, yeah. And if that triggers you, that's your issue. Right? We just lived with it. You'll notice on my Instagram videos, sometimes I'll have the captions like covering my face and I leave it there on purpose. Why? Just to practice this. That I don't have to control everything. You'll notice on the podcast we don't have any intro music. I make mistakes as I go throughout this. I'm not going back and editing everything. So I, I like it to be a little bit more organic. It's me practicing, not controlling everything here. So Mrs. Calm told me yesterday, I wish I had begun drinking AG1 sooner. My stomach has felt so much calmer and I'm more regular. My AG one in the morning provides some consistency I really crave. And that's one reason I love my AG1. It's an easy, healthy daily routine. No messes, no blenders. We put one scoop of AG1 into a bottle of water, shake it up and start our day with 75 vitamins, probiotics, prebiotics and whole food sourced ingredients. Check out a Special offer@drinkag1.com Calm Look, I've got more energy, better mental clarity, and AG1 supports my immune health. And that's why I've been partnering with AG1 for so long. Be an AG1 couple like us. AG1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3 and K2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So check out drinkag1.com calm to get this offer. That's drinkag1.com calm to start your day with a win. So we just moved into a new home with no landscaping, so we were thrilled to discover Fast Growing Trees. They take the hassle out of creating your dream yard. No more wasting your weekend driving around being overwhelmed by big garden centers that don't have what you want. Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the US with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers, including us. Get your plants delivered directly to your door in just a few days. Their alive and thrive guarantee ensures your plants arrive happy and healthy. Plus, you get support from trained plant experts on call to help you choose and care for the right plants. This spring, Fast Growing Trees has the best deals for your yard, up to half off on select plants. Plus, listeners to our show get an additional 15% off their first purchase when using the code calm at checkout. That's an additional 15% off at fast growingtrees.com using the code CALM fast growingtrees.com Calm offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Here's a really cool principle. When we step back as parents. When we step back as parents, when we step back from micromanaging our kids, because we like to say, well, I'm just teaching them. No, you're not. Most of the time, you're just micromanaging them. And nobody likes to be micromanaged. So when we step back as parents and we give our kids some space, then they actually have room to step up and be responsible for themselves. See, as long as I'm trying to, I'm kind of controlling everything and I'm on them and micromanaging. I'm kind of being responsible for their success in life. So, one, they can't learn from mistakes, because sometimes we don't let them make mistakes. And two, if they are successful, it's not because they did it. It's because you were there doing it. So you may need to apologize and say, look, I need to apologize. I've been on you. I lecture you. I micromanage you all the time. And inadvertently, I think I've led you to believe that you can't get ready in the morning, that you can't take care of your schoolwork, that you can't do these things without me being there to do it with you or for you. Because the truth is, I believe you are capable of doing it. See, that phrase alone is fantastic. You know what? I believe you're capable of handling this yourself. Now, do you really believe that? No, because you have good reason not to. But look, some of this has occurred because you have tried to control your kids so much that, that it's Handicapped them. No blame or no guilt. We just have to stop it. And they don't feel confident doing things themselves because what if they do something by themselves and it's not exactly right and then you're on them? Well, what they learn is I can't do it. So start using that phrase, I believe you're capable. Step back so they can step up. We go through this in the Stopping Power struggles with the Strong Willed Child program, which is part of the packages, man, go through that one because it is so good at helping your kids flourish and build their confidence. So let's practice a couple more things. Practice letting your kids do things differently than you would do them. See, that's going to be hard because your way is the better way, the more efficient way, but it doesn't mean it's the only way. And so what I ask you to do is you don't relinquish having very clear boundaries and expectations. I want all those things. I want very clear boundaries, expectations and rules and home. I'm very clear on that. But what I relinquish is I relinquish my control over how you get things done, not whether you get things done. Look, I don't care how you get your homework done. Do it in a weird way. I don't care. I give you some ownership over that. So let's practice that. Because what you're doing is fostering your child's independence, their critical thinking, and you give them some space to learn from mistakes. So that's enough for that area. Some of you controlling yourself, man, is going to be really hard, but once you do it, you've got it. And what I encourage you to do is let's take the summer and do this. Because during the summer we don't have the pressures of school. We don't have to get up really early in the morning and rush around all day. We've got a little bit more time. So focus this summer on this. I encourage you, if you get one of our packages, all the packages come with the 30 days to calm program. I would dive into that deeply and work on that. Work on that. Instead of focusing on your kids, you focus on, oh, there's another one of my triggers and I take you through. Basically what I did was that all the therapy that I went to that cost me thousands of dollars and all the things that I learned and just the things that I know myself put into place, I put that into the program so you don't have to spend thousands of dollars and do all of that. And by look, this one program is worth the cost of the entire part, cost of the whole package. And you get like 14 programs with that. So what you will learn is your triggers. Okay, so usually what happens is I get triggered, I react this way. So we take you through, hey, what if we did the opposite of what you normally did? We'd probably get the opposite result from your kids. It will free and liberate you. So it's really, really cool. But let's do that this summer. Number two, what I want you to work on controlling your own anxiety. All parents have parental anxiety about their child's future. Especially if you have a strong willed child. Because right now it doesn't look so good. You're wondering like, oh, how is, like it's as early as like preschool. You're going to get a call from the preschool you are and you're going to think like, oh my gosh, how much is my daughter going to be successful? She can't even sit still in circle time. And you project out into the future. If you have a middle school child who's sitting in that hoodie sweatshirt for 18 straight days and your high schooler is doing the bare minimum just to get by, and your child in elementary school just hits some second or third grade and work starts getting harder and you find out like, oh, when work gets hard, they just shut down, they won't push through. How are they going to be successful in life? And what happens is you begin to focus relentlessly on the negative. You know what, if you would just apply yourself, you know what, you really need to bear down on that. And everything becomes negative. And your child learns very quickly this about your anxiety. Your anxiety is a beast that cannot be satisfied. No matter what I do the there's always more. And so what I will learn is I'm not even going to try anymore because I can't satisfy your anxiety. We could do a whole podcast on that. Really kind of give some thought, meditate on that idea of what your anxiety does. Again, no blame, no guilt. You know why you have anxiety? Because you love your children more than you love yourself and life itself. And you want them to be happy and successful in life. And you see them not living up to your standards or up to school standards, and you see them making mistakes and so you just kind of jump on them. And you get and see anxiety isn't teaching because anxiety, here's the difference. When you're anxious, you feel compelled to jump in and lecture. See, when I'm in control of myself and I see my child mess up, I can say, okay, I get it. Makes sense. They mess up. They were impulsive. I will come along and I will teach them and I will problem solve. See, this is the voice of stability, of I'm confident. I know how to help you with this. See, the lecturing voice and the anxious voice is, I'm really kind of anxious and nervous about how you're doing with this. And I got a call from the school, and so I'm feeling compelled to talk to you again about this and again and again. That's the anxiety speaking. And I want you to learn how to deal with your own anxiety, because otherwise what will happen is you will dump your anxiety all over your kids and they will feel it and they will reject it. And so it's a really cool thing when you can start to learn, like, okay, I'm not anxious about this. I can problem solve. I want you to start speaking. Instead of speaking anxiety over your children about their future, even at middle schooler in the hoodie sweatshirt, start speaking truth over them, which is affirmations of what they're already doing. Well, hey, I've noticed you're really good at seeing patterns. You're really good. Your critical thinking skills and of seeing patterns. That's why you're so good at chess and checkers. That's why you're so good at building with Legos. It's why you're so good at arguing with me. And yeah, I know that irritates me sometimes, but the truth is, you're a really good thinker. And the hard part for you is that you have all these skills that you don't get grades for because you're great at thinking, you're great at building. You can build a robot. You can do all these creative things. You're awesome with older people. When you're out in the adult world, you just kill it. And everybody comes back and says, man, your son, your daughter, is such a delight to be with. And they're so responsible. So I see that it's in there. And see you're starting to give your child a vision of who they can be, not just the behavior they're exhibiting. Now, that's what a confident parent does. I look and I say, you know what? I've got the patience and the perspective to know this is going to change. I already see that in you. I can see it when you're out in the real world. You kill it one day, man. When you get a vision for your life, you're going to put all these traits together and you're just going to kill it. See, that counters your anxiety. Number three, body posture. This is a very quick one I know you're going to reject and it's going to be like, oh, that's silly, that's stupid. I don't care. It works. I do. What works? Here's what changed me right away. I used to walk into a room and my body posture was such like my chest puffed out and my arms up in the air and I would start to, I was like Italian, right, With my hands and I would start talking and all it did was create instability. Picture this picture, let's just say a mom talking to her teenage daughter. Mom standing with her hands on her hips. Is anything positive about to come out of mom's mouth? No. Because when you stand on your hips, right, you're looking, you're not going to be like, you know what, honey, I'm really proud of your choices. No, you're about to have an argument and we trigger our kids with our body posture all the time. So here's something to try for the next few days. Just try this. Chaos is going on in your home. Siblings are fighting. Your child's being defined. Walk into a room and sit down. If you want to take a step further, lay down in the middle of the living room floor. Even if you have toddlers or even if you have teenagers, try it sometime. I guarantee you will change the entire dynamic of that situation. Not by controlling your child's mouth or attitude or behavior, but simply by changing your body posture. Your kids are going to stop what they are doing and look at you like, what's my mom or dad doing laying down on the floor or just sitting with legs crossed? It does something to your tone of voice, which we're going to get to next. When you sit down, you breathe in. It's really hard to sit down and scream or yell at a child. If you do that, then you need therapy. I'm kidding. But that, that's. It changes something and, and you begin to take back control of situations. Not by controlling other people, but by controlling yourself. I'm just going to leave it at that. I've got a lot more in the programs on different ways to do that tone of voice. You've heard me talk about this. I want to hit this in a big way. It's critical with a strong willed child. You cannot go to the. Once you start, Once you start getting emotional like this and your voice, see, this is kind of begging and I'm frustrating. After All I do for you, that never ends well because your kids are never going to be like, mom, we just realized that you're overwhelmed and stressed because you do too much for us. I just talked to my brother and sister and we determined you do way too much. They're never going to say that that's your issue. That's another childhood pattern. You may have had a mom or a dad who did everything for everybody else and nothing for herself. And she said it was selfless, but it's a form of manipulation. If I do everything for you, then you owe me to behave and do what I ask you to do. No blame and no guilt. But that's what's really going on under there. And you got that maybe from childhood of like, well, if I just do everything for everybody else, that gives me a sense of control and if I just behave really well, well, then I'll get acceptance from my mom or my dad that my siblings didn't. Seems really smart to do as a child. But it's sabotaging you now. So I also want you in the programs to go through the straight talk for stressed out moms program because we go through how to be assertive, how to be a confident mom who takes care of herself. Because the truth is, if you don't care enough about yourself to take care of yourself emotionally, physically, spiritually, in every way, why would anybody else care about you? Because you train other people to care for you by how you care for yourself. See, it's not about demanding respect from other people, it's about demonstrating self respect. But that's another podcast, so that kind of tone of voice doesn't work. The really sweet tone of voice where we talk in a question mark because we're kind of afraid of our kids reaction. That's condescending. It sounds like weakness to your kids. It's patronizing. They don't. The strong willed child does not respect that tone of voice and will walk all over you. But when I come in like this, fear and intimidation my way or the highway approach, which comes naturally to me, that's what was my career military dad. All your kids know is you're not even control of yourself. I'll just push your buttons and you'll start talking about what it was like when I was a kid, my dad would have never put and it just makes you sound weak again. So right in between there is this tone of voice which I model every podcast, even matter of fact tone. I talk to a 3 year old, 13 year old, 33 year old, the Same way, even matter of fact tone. When I praise kids, I praise them in an even matter of fact tone because when you make too big a deal out of it, it creates pressure on the strong will child and they'll reject your praise. When I speak like this, it's really, really grounding. It is why I appreciate you listening to the podcast, because I can model that. It's what I try to do on our Instagram videos is give scripts and it's why I really, really want you to listen to the programs over the summer. It comes on an easy to use Apple right on your phone. Your spouse, your parents, the grandparents who are often judgmental. We'll send it to them. They can listen this summer as well. If you have a step parent. I have moms and dads who send this to their ex and sometimes they're even receptive and listen to it. But you all get to listen. It lasts forever. You never lose this. I encourage you, let's do this over the summer as you do this, as you go through the programs, the 30 days to calm, especially email me if you're stuck on a trigger, because I will help you with that trigger. Right? Like, one of my biggest ones was when Casey would dawdle. So my natural response. So here's how I break it down, okay? When my son or daughter dawdles, here's what comes up in me. Well, I kind of feel like a failure as a parent because if I was a better parent, they would be on time. And now I feel bad because I don't like being on time because I was raised in a career military family. And if you're not five minutes early, you're 10 minutes late. And how are you ever going to be successful in life if you're not punctual? And I have all these control issues, right? And so it starts to trigger me. And when I get triggered, what happens? I get a different tone. Casey, get downstairs. Look, if I have to tell you one time, one more time, and what happens, My anxiety rises, they feel my control issues, so they do the opposite. The more they do the opposite, the more I double down on the consequences. And then a child is like, look, if I'm just going to lose everything I own, then let's just do that because I really don't want to go where you want me to go anyway. And it just escalates every single time. So I begin doing the opposite of what I'd normally do. And sometimes that is using connection with a child. Connection changes behavior more quickly than anything else. I've done this example of yelling up to my daughter Grace, Grace, get downstairs. Grace. Grace. If I have to tell you one more time, and it just blows up. But sometimes when I walk into Grace's room and just say, hey, honey, you know what? I'm tired too. I don't really want to go, but let's just meet me in the car in three minutes. And then on the way back, we'll stop and we'll do some cool experience. When I go and connect, I lead my child, I lead them. See what we try to do sometimes. And I know this is veering off the path, but think about this. It's us against our kids. And we're standing over here saying, you need to come over here. And the strong willed child will reject that almost every single time. And we'll blame them, and rightly so. Sometimes they're just defiant and difficult, and sometimes they're resistant. I get that. I'm not denying that. But sometimes when we do it like, I'm over here, you need to come over here. They just resist that. But sometimes when I walk to them, well, think about this conceptually. I enter into their world and I draw them back out. When I went to my daughter Grace's room, I identified with her. It took me 15 seconds. That's all. And I said, you know what? I'm tired. I don't really want to go either, but we have to. Hey, let's go get in the car. I went in, I found her where she was, and instead of trying to convince her. Juani, it's really important to listen to your parents, honey. It's really important for you to go to the dentist office. Because if you don't go to the dentist, they don't care about any of those other. Any of those lectures. And it sounds condescending. You know what else it sounds like? It sounds like you don't even understand what's really going on. That's a big deal to these kids. When I come in, I'm like, I know that you're anxious about going to this new place. And I would be too, of course. Of course you don't want to go. That new place, it's filled with unknowns. I wouldn't want to go eat. See, now I've gone in, I've met them where they're at. I didn't give in. I didn't say, well, because you're anxious or you don't want to go, we don't have to go. I didn't say that. I went in identified with them for 15 seconds. And then I drew them out and I led them. See, your kids will follow you if you lead them, but they're not going to follow you if you're leading with. Come on, go, go, go, go, go. Come on. I've got all these issues, so I've said enough on that. You get the point. This summer, let's become new people. So when the craziness of the next school year begins, you're on top of your game and you've done the deep work and you've done this. I promise you, if you dig into this, it becomes addictive because you're like, oh, man, I didn't even control my child. I controlled my body posture or my tone of voice, and it had an effect on my child. That's power. That's powerful. That's really cool. And now, instead of all the power struggles, which no blame, no guilt, you probably create as parents, we. I'll put, we. We create 70% of the power struggles because of all these issues. So let's dig into this. Let's do it. Go to the website. Get. Either. Get. Get to get everything package. You have everything. It's. You know what a couple people have told us. They're like, we spent thousands on therapy. We've spent thousands on online programs. Your program is basically the cost of one or one and a half trips to a therapist's office. But we're learning so much for one program or for the Strong Will child program. It's like eye opening of, oh, we've misunderstood our kids motives. Or the ADHD university program is like, oh, we didn't understand that's how our child's brain works. And now we have tools for school and for homework. And there's a screens program motivating kids, the no BS program, which is awesome. As your kids get a little bit older, there's a program for dads. You know what's great? Because it's me, short and sweet, telling your husband, here's your script. Here's what you do. And men really like that. And so. And there's 14 programs. So take advantage of that. If you need help financially, be bold. Don't be shy about that. Reach out to us. We will help you. We want you to have the tools to change your family and you get to break generational patterns so your kids don't have to go through this with their own kids. Hey, thanks for listening. Thanks for subscribing. Thanks for sharing the podcast and doing the hard work to change. Really proud of you. For doing that. And I have utmost respect for you for doing that. Okay, Love you all. Bye.