Kirk Martin (0:00)

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Christmas is over and now everyone is together and so situations are escalating. You've got everybody is tired, they're not sleeping well, all the kids are amped up, they're off their regular routine, probably eating poorly. There's all this pressure to have a great time with family. You've got judgmental family or family who's just watching you do your parenting with a strong willed child. Siblings are together all day, all night long. You know, it's even harder sometimes spouses are together all day and all night long because usually you're not together that much and that's going to cause some issues. And what I want you to know is this is perfectly normal. It would be weird if people were emailing like, man, everything's just going so smoothly. Everybody's getting to get along so well together. My spouse and I are on the same page and we're disciplining and doing everything perfectly aligned. That would be weird. So I want you to know this is normal. But I'm doing this extra podcast now because I want to give you some de escalation reminders over the holidays. So this may be a little bit more disjointed because I didn't write all this out. I have some notes and I've got some really good things that are going to help you. 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@celebratecolm.com and we have extended our Christmas sale because you need it. And so here are some Proactive things that you can begin doing now. And then I'll give you some tools to use in the moment when it's hitting the fan. So I'm just going to throw out some random things here. One is split up the kids. Sometimes, if you can, you could. One parent takes one or two kids and the other parent takes the other kids and just. You just get some separation time. Never feel guilty about doing that. If you're a single parent, have an uncle, a grandparent, take one or two of the kids. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Get outside. I don't care if you're in Minnesota or Alaska. Get outside. Exercise, fresh air, changes moods, mix it up a little bit. When you're indoors all day together, everybody will irritate each other. Why? Because that's just human nature and sometimes just mixing it up. Even if you do a treasure hunt, just throw some stuff out in the, out in the snow and have your kids go find it. Throw some food out there. They'll love foraging for food. I'm kind of being facetious, but not really. A lot of your kids, if you were like, hey, bet you can't eat like a cow or, or a dog outside. I'm going to throw some Mac and cheese out on the ground. Many of you have kids who would love doing that and it's not going to hurt them, so just do it. It's fun. But you can do treasure hunts of all kinds outside. Get outside and play some. It just changes things and they need that sensory exercise a lot. Come up with some kind of structure if you want to this time. You could do a thing where, say there's five or six days you have left in this. Come up with a rough plan of like, hey, Tuesday, Taco Tuesday, it could be on Wednesday, is going to be some kind of game day where you play a specific kind of game, whether it's board games, which are not always fun with strong will kids because they change the rules of game, cheat and quit. But it could be that you go to a certain place on certain days, service project, doing something for grandma and grandpa or someone down the street. It could be a day where you, where you run a little business and set something up to make a little bit of money with the kids. It could be art project day, right? Just come up with some kind of loose structure to it so they have something to count on. Make a rough plan maybe for the next day so at least you start the day with some successes. Remember, during this time it's all chaotic. Give Your kids something they feel in control of. I would also build in some downtime because sometimes during the holidays we're like, hey, we're going to go to a museum, then we're going to go to a movie and then we're going to do this. Build in some structured boredom time where they just have time to themselves. Even if your kids, if you're visiting with family or families visiting, find some spaces. Even if you allow your child to go up and just sit alone in, in your closet, many of your kids would love that. They just need some decompression time. And so do you. Remember, don't feel bad about taking time away from extended family. You don't have to spend every minute together for three or four days or a week. Take your own kids out and just do something you enjoy doing. Sibling issues. Look, rough housing perfectly okay within reasonably safe boundaries. Many of you grew up, you were an only child or I get the emails, a lot of like, well, I only had sisters. Look, kids are supposed to roughhouse. Roughhousing is really, really important for your kid's brain development. Just make sure it's not one child bullying or picking. We don't want one child who's just constantly picking on the other one. But if a couple kids are willingly roughhousing, just know that to get hurt, right? That's nor they're going to cry. That's not fair. It's part of, it's a normal part of childhood and they need to do it. And if your husband is involved with it, there's a lot of research on how important it is for dads to play and roughhouse with their kids. And there's a release of all kinds of bonding chemicals in the brain that happen during that time. You can put boundaries, say, hey, if you guys are going to roughhouse, you have to do it outside. So I've done a ton on siblings, so look up those podcasts. If you have our programs, we have an entire program on stop sibling fights. Listen to that over the holidays, by the way, let your kids listen that if you want to do a punishment, so to speak. You know, we don't do punishment. We teach through discipline. But if you wanted to call it a punishment, make your kids listen to that and say, you guys are going to be siblings for the rest of your lives. You listen to this, you come back to us with a plan. And I'm not doing this to be self serving. We are getting so many emails from parents who are having their kids listen to even the adult parenting part of the programs, not just the kids ones. And the kids are finding it enlightening and they're coming up with solutions. I just got an email from a mom. She's like, I am a Muslim mom in a different country. We're in Australia. And every day after school my kids, we listen to the programs and they find the situations relatable and it gives them ideas enough that wasn't meant to be a commercial. I mean that as a very real strategy that this is an important thing to do, teaching your kids. It's really cool. So here are a couple more sibling ones. Look, you can, with the siblings you can just say, look you guys, we have two options. I can give you guys some space and you can figure it out and show me that you're growing up, that you're mature enough, or I can just come in and I can make the decisions for you and I can just separate you. I can take things away. Tell me what you want to do because I want to teach through the discipline time. I'll do one quick sibling thing. Let's say this. They're fighting, squabbling in the living room instead of coming in. You know what? I buy guys all these toys. I bought you all these great stuff for Christmas and you can't even play well together for 20 minutes, right? You're just adding your own drama. And usually we're like, you go to your room, you go to your room sometime, walk into the living room. This is a great de escalation thing for any situation. Walk in the living room and lie down on the living room floor or just sit in a chair. Just try it sometime. You will change the entire dynamic of the situation. Not by changing siblings, your kids behavior, but by controlling your own first because they're going to look at you like, what are you doing? You are weird. And now you have taken back control of this situation. And you can look at the provoking child because there's usually the strong will provoking child. And that child just needs a lot of brain intensity. So that child picks on his or her siblings because they get the reaction. So I can say, hey, I know what's going on in here. You've got this amazing brain and it's really intense and you like intensity. And one of your biggest enemies in life is boredom. When you get bored, you pick on your siblings, but that doesn't work well for you because then you lose all your stuff and get in trouble. But I've got to go get started on dinner. I'm going to go for a walk I'm going to go do X if you want to come join me. I bet we could come up with three different ways for you to stimulate that brain in positive ways. Because you know what I know about you? You've got a big heart, you love helping other people, and you love money. Not in a bad way. Your kids are born entrepreneurs. So if you want to come help me, I bet we could come up with three different ways for you to earn some money. And then with that money, we could donate some of that to something like St. Jude's because they help kids with cancer. And I'll even match whatever you give. See, now I'm teaching that child how to use his or her brain in a positive way. And then I can teach the other child who's always reacting to this child how to control themselves. Now, the best way to teach them is when you learn how to control your own reactions to them. Okay, so let's move on to kind of in the moment when stuff is hitting the fan. How do we handle that? So we've talked on the podcast about how many of us have kids who are super picky about how their clothes feel. And that's why I'm thrilled that Meundies is bringing their unbelievably soft underwear to kids. Meundies Kids has the softest kids undies on the market thanks to four way stretch fabric that feels three times softer than cotton. And Meundies Kids are tagless, which is perfect for our kids with sensitive skin. While most kids underwear brands are boring and itchy, Meundies Kids puts the fun back in underwear with crazy prints and patterns. From unicorns to dinosaurs to penguins to pizza slices. Check out the brand new Meundies Kids line today. To get 20% off your first order plus free shipping, go to Meundies.com Calmpod and enter promo code CALM POD. 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Their attitude doesn't cause you to react. Just know the kids are going to be a little bit more emotional during these times. You're going to have meltdowns. So know that. Know that it's normal. I want you as moms and dads to practice your own self care. And this isn't like, oh, just do self care stuff. No, it's really important. It is a strategy that I use because if I don't take care of myself, I will then react too much. And now my kids have to take care of my emotions for me because I didn't take care of myself proactively. So whatever it is for you, whether it's getting up a little early and going for a run, doing some kind of exercise, having quiet time, reading scripture, whatever it is, meditation, whatever it is for you, do that so that you are prepared. Now here's a big one I want you to remind you of. And this is kind of why I want to do this podcast. Do not double down in the moment stuff is going to happen. Your kids are going to do things wrong. They're going to have a bad attitude, they're going to misbehave, they're going to steal stuff from their siblings and from you. Whatever it is, they're going to lie and we're going to go initially, you're going to go with the consequences, right? And you're going to start down that path and then your child isn't going to listen to you or they're going to come back at you with attitude or they're going to start screaming more. And that's usually when we as parents say, you know what, you already lost this for one week. You keep that up, you're going to lose it for two. Or because you just reacted that way and you didn't apologize to your sister right away. Now I'm going to add on extra consequences to you. Now here's what I want you to know. Don't do that. I'm hearing parents doing that all the time and all it does is escalate the situation until it's like a four hour blow up. You've been there before, it may have happened earlier today for you. Don't double down when you see that cycle start to happen. It's kind of like that. Well, if you don't, or if you do, here's what's going to happen. Catch yourself. Just catch yourself. I want you in that moment. Walk away. Here's a quick one. I need to go to the bathroom. Because that gives you a minute and a half to go to the bathroom and just calm yourself down. Change the environment, Go for a ride, say, oh, you know what? I just remembered we forgot something from the store. Do you want to go along with me? And I've just changed the dynamic there a little bit. I'm getting some movement. I'm moving out of that tense place where I'm looking at this kid and this kid has a bad attitude, is not listening to me, is disobeying me, is right. All these things and they're not responding to it. And we just keep escalating. I want you to practice de escalating. There's nothing wrong with walking away in that moment or going for a drive to get something from the store or going and grabbing a couple tacos from Taco Bell, whatever it is, during that moment. Here's another one that you can do. Oh, you know what I remember? I just remembered I need some help with something in the garage in the backyard. Do you think you could move that for me? Are you strong enough to lift that? That would really help me out in that moment, create a success. Well, aren't we just letting the child get away with things? No. You don't have to take care of every single issue in the next minute and a half. A lot of us as dads fall into that pattern because we're like, I'm just going to nip this in the bud. And you just nipped it in the bud and caused a four hour meltdown. And you and your wife aren't talking to each other anymore. There's no blame and guilt in any of this. This stuff is hard. So if nothing else from this podcast this week, learn how to step away and not double down on your consequences. And escalating. Learn how to reset yourself. Come up with your own plan. What is your reset? Part of mine was sitting down because it was really hard for me to continue yelling while I was sitting in a chair or reclining. Some of it was always, I always had the go. I always had some go to plans. Have, like a fire drill. What is your go to plan? Not if, but when your kids begin to get upset and things escalate. Do that. Remember things we've been through before in the midst of it always Give kids something they're in control of. They're upset because they lost control of something. Give them something to inc they're in control of. Create a success, something they're good at doing. That's that. Hey, you think you can move that for me? Can you lift that? Can you pick that up? Hey, look, I don't care in the moment. If you just throw some food or something outside and see if they can find it, that would de escalate the situation because once it's de escalated, now we're back to a rational state and we can actually discipline. Remember to give positive intensity. Yeah, of course you'd be upset about that. Of course you'd be frustrated. Of course you would feel that way. That's validating with intensity. And remember to use movement. Motion changes emotion. So two more quick things. Read the moment. I want you to learn how to read the moment. Because there are moments here where everybody is tired, hungry, they're out of your structure. It's not the time to go full bore into discipline in that moment. That is a time where you de escalate first, where you get a good night's sleep, you have them take a nap, you get someone food. Remember, feed your kids. Sometimes feed yourself. Because when we used to visit some of our relatives, they just had terrible food, food. And we just, they just keep food around the house. We're like, we're hungry. So plan for that. Look, I like simple stuff. It doesn't have to be like, here's your 10 step calming thing. Here's one. Go get something to eat. You'll feel better. And so read the moment and realize you don't always have to address things right now. And here's the final one I want you to focus on for the rest of this week. Bond with your kids over something because you know what's happened during the holidays, you've probably been distracted, right? By if you're with extended family, you're paying way more attention to the relatives you haven't seen in a long time because you're a gracious, wonderful person and you've kind of been distracted and the kids have been over here doing their thing. So it doesn't have to take a long time. But if you will proactively give your kids, especially the strong will kids, some. Some focused emotional intensity that resets something inside of them where you get down on the floor with little kids, or if it's a teenager, you go with a drive and get something to eat with them. Because teenagers are almost always hungry and you Give them, let's just say 12 minutes of your undivided attention, of your emotional intensity, where you're like, oh, that's really cool. Hey, can you show me how that works? Have them show you something even if you're not interested. Look, I'm a realist. A lot of kids stuff is just boring. I don't really care about that toy, that thing that you got, that new app that you got on your phone. Act interested, ask questions, be curious. Hey, what does that do? What can you do with that? How does that work? Hey, could you help me set this up? I need an app on my phone. Could you help me set that up on my phone? Bond with them and create a success. Do something you enjoy doing or they enjoy doing, and do it together. So that the end of that 12 minutes, and obviously if you can do it for 30 minutes or an hour, an afternoon, splitting up the kids, whatever it is, I guarantee you, after you bond with your kids and you enjoy them and you create a success and you're able to say, man, that's really cool, you're really creative. How did you figure that out? Remember, go to a thrift store with your kids, the kids who love to build stuff, go and just get old electronics for $3 and let them take it apart and do that together with them. Even if you don't enjoy it, that will change their behavior more than anything else. So let's wrap this up, let's be proactive. Let's get outside some, create some successes, split up your time a little bit. Remember to eat, try to sleep, get your exercise in, in the moment. Don't double down, walk away from it. De escalate. Listen to the previous podcasts or if you have our programs, listen to those to help you more with that and learn. And let's do some bonding with our kids. That will help immensely. Okay? Enjoy the rest of your time off from school because next week we've got anxiety coming with your kids getting back to school. When they go back the night before school, school, they're going to have. Their stomachs are going to be upset. So plan for that. Know that that's going to happen. But for right now, let's enjoy your family time. Learn how to de escalate. These are new skills. Bond with your kids, and I think the rest of your week will go much better. If you need help with anything, reach out to us. If you need help financially getting our programs, we've got the Christmas sale, we're going to extend that. But if you need additional help just let us know. We're a family. We're not a business. We're a family. We want to help you out. Okay? Love you all. Bye.