Kirk Martin (0:00)

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This is a great Mother's Day gift and right now Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15 inch calendars by going to skylightcow.com calm go to skylightcal.com calm for $30 off your 15 inch calendar. That's S-K-Y-L-H-T C A L.com calm so you're in a hurry, trying to get out the front door for an important appointment, but your child is struggling to put on his shoes or the same hoodie sweatshirt he's worn for 10 straight days. Or maybe the jacket you're forcing your daughter to wear because it's chilly outside. But your child is frustrated, muttering and saying this jacket is stupid. And you begin to allow your child's frustration to frustrate you. So your tone gets shorter, your body posture changes, and you either think or say the following. Why do you have to make everything so difficult? Difficult? I don't have time for this. We're running late. I paid $75 for that. And if you rip it, you're going to pay for a new one. It's cold out. This doesn't have to be such a big deal. Just put your jacket on. You know what? If you're not ready in the next 30 seconds, you're going to lose your video games for three days. And so then you lean in and you try to help, but it just makes it worse. And now two frustrated people are inches apart and this never ends well. Look, I think 80 to 90% of issues with our kids are not even really behavior issues. They are our anxiety issues. When we try to control the child's mood and behavior, it backfires every single time. The real issue is that anxiety and pressure that's coming from within you and that is the only thing you can change or control in this situation. So what if we spend our time trying to fix that instead of your child? Well, here are other situations. Perhaps you're out and about with your daughter at lunch with a friend, but you need to leave to pick your son up and your daughter is dawdling. Or maybe you're going to pick your son up from his friend's house, but it's a school night and you need to make this quick. But it's not. How about rushing out the door to go to a doctor's appointment with your daughter, but she won't come downstairs? Well, that is what we are going to discuss on today's episode, the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us@celebratecalm.com so a few caveats. I am not going to discuss getting kids out the door in the morning to go to school because I've covered that many times recently. Look up the August 14th episode, and I've done that in the past. Usually that's an anxiety issue. On the August 4th and 7th podcast, I talked about creating successes and giving kids tools to succeed with the morning treasure hunt or foraging for their breakfast in addition to giving kids ownership of their choices. And I've shown you how to use the tough approach, kind of that time for time approach without yelling or creating drama. In this episode, I want to give you five different tools so your toolbox is filled with different options and strategies to help in everyday situations. And as an aside for those who already have the Get Everything package, I'm currently updating the discipline program and I'm adding a new discipline cheat sheet. So watch for that being automatically downloaded into your app in the next couple weeks. And I'm super excited about that. So here's the deal. Many of you have strong will kids who are natural dawdlers. They move slowly, they procrastinate, they take their time. And it doesn't mean you can't get them moving more quickly. We go through that a lot. But you are not going to change their very nature. And if you are a type A freak like I am, because I am, you know that rushing them will make them move more slowly, partly because these kids don't like to be pressured. They don't want to be stood over. And they know that your anxiety will cause them to be. Look, it causes you to be perpetually dissatisfied with them. And I did that to our son Casey when he was young and all it ever did is create more resistance, more meltdowns. And he knew that I just wasn't happy with him. A lot of time that just doesn't work well. So we'll focus on controlling our own anxiety, our own agenda, and I'm going to give you some scripts. So let's roll. Situation number one. I love this one. And this is about slowing down and getting out of your own anxiety. So let's say a mom and daughter are out to lunch with say one of your friends. And it's great, but you look at your watch and you notice, oh, I need to go pick up my son from school or from taekwondo practice after school. And so you're like, honey, we need to go put your jacket on. And so she dawdles a little bit. And as you're kind of walking out the door, she stops and she's looking at this accordion aquarium, this little aquarium, little fish tank in the restaurant. And so you look back and you say, honey, come on, we need to go. And remember, look, your tone is always good. Honey, come on, we need to go. And then when she doesn't respond within like half a second, you're like, honey, honey, we need honey. And you can hear that, you can feel it with inside you. And what I want you to start to recognize is as soon as you get kind of that clipped little tone that always creates power struggles and your kids will resist. Honey, honey, if you do not get over here right now, you are not going to your play date with your friend this afternoon. And then that usually results in a meltdown. So what if instead of just that clip tone and trying to make her come from afar. And look, here's what else happens. Sometimes we'll walk over and I had this happen when Casey was little. You kind of reach for her arm, but she pulls her arm up within the jacket and you just grab jacket and pull on it and then she twirls out of it. And now you're frustrated because you've got everybody in the restaurant looking because apparently your daughter is defiant, disrespectful, and won't listen to you. What are you doing wrong? You are going to experience that with strong willed kids hundreds of times in their childhood. And so you have to just know that and realize I can't react out of my own embarrassment and frustration because it always escalates. So what if instead you catch yourself and you say, okay, I've been here before, I've seen the past 33 times I've tried to pressure or yell at my daughter. It didn't work. So you walk over, you get down on one knee and you look into that aquarium and you say, oh, wow, those fish are really beautiful, honey. Which one is your favorite? And your daughter says, mommy, I really like the neon ones. And now watch what you get to do. You're giving your daughter intense emotional engagement. We've talked about that. That's what they're looking for. Oh, wow. That, those neon ones, they are beautiful. They just pop in there. And now you can transition because your kids aren't really good at transitions and say, oh, honey, you know what? We have a pet store close to us on Saturday morning. We've got the whole morning free. We could go there and look for like 30 minutes, for an hour, hour at the fish there. But right now, let's go get your brother. And on the way, why don't you tell me what other fish you like in there? If you ever had a fish, what kind would you want? Now I'm drawing and leading her. But instead of the intense emotional engagement coming from, young lady, you better get over here right now. And causing a big scene, I gave her positive emotional intensity in that situation. I kind of call this the 22 second solution. Because if you picture from the time that you walk over Neil and engage with her, it takes about 22 seconds, but I get her out to the car. Okay, here's a very common one. And this again happened with us all the time. So here's the scene. You allow your son to go over to his friend's house and you allow it on a Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening before school. And again, you know, your kids aren't great at transitioning. So it's always a power struggle. But you let your child stay later than usual, right? Because you're usually like, oh, we need to get them home at 5 or 6, because then we've got to do, we've got to eat, we got to get a bath or a shower, we've got to get bedtime, maybe do a little bit of homework time. And so because you love your child, you're like, well, I'll give them a little more time than usual. So you show up at the house to pick your child up. Now watch what's happening inside of you. And this is all of us. So there's no blame or guilt on the way there. I. I'll just put it in my terms. I am hell bent on one thing. When I get to Aaron's house, I am going to take my son, get my son out of there as quickly as possible because I already gave him extra time and we don't have a lot of time to spare and school night. And if my son doesn't get a good night's sleep, then he's going to be a bear in the morning and it's going to be awful. So when I'm walking up the steps to little his friend Aaron's house, my brain is on fire. I don't really care about what they did that day. I'm not really interested in small talk with Aaron's parents. I want to get my kid, get them out there, out of there. And you know how this works. I walk in and say, hey, case, you need to get your shoes on, we need to go. And their first response, but, you know, we just need a few more minutes. And. And now what do we do? Lecture? You know what? I already gave you an extra hour. And now it's late and we still have to get home. We've got to eat. And by the way, when you try to explain things and convince them, it gives them fuel to argue with you because now your child's gonna be like, oh, we don't have to eat dinner because I already ate at the Johnsons. They fed me. And inside you're kind of like crap. And so now and then, and then we have to get a bath, we gotta get a shower, we gotta finish up a little homework, and we have to get to bed because it's a school night. And I know what you're thinking, but they're never going to say, you know what, mom, dad, you're right. I just had the most fun imaginable for a kid over the past three hours, and I'm all amped up. But after you explained all the logical reasons we need to get home and do all those things I hate doing, like taking a shower and going to bed so that I can get ready to go to that place that I dread tomorrow morning. It all makes sense. I'll grab my stuff quickly because I don't want to ruin your agenda. And I'm so grateful that you gave me that extra hour. Like that's never going to happen. And so again, you have a choice here. You can keep going down that path. And I know as a dad and a lot of you as moms, struggle with this as well because of the way you were raised. I'm the authority figure here. When I walk into Aaron's home and I tell my son to get his shoes on and go, he needs to get his little. I was going to say a swear word, shoes on, and get in the car. That's the way it's supposed to work. And I would love if it worked that way with strong willed kids, but it doesn't. And so I deal with reality. And as I'm walking up the stairs, I'm starting to instead prepare myself and say, okay, what did that calm guy say to do? And instead of it all being all about my agenda, now, I walk in and I say, oh man, did you have the best time ever at Aaron's house today? And then your child's gonna be like, yeah, dad, mom, you know we did. They let us go up on the roof and we jumped off the roof onto a trampoline and then we did a backflip into the pole. It was the coolest thing ever. And then you get to say, that is amazing. I hope they have good insurance. And you can say this. You acknowledge it. You meet your child where he or she is, because they're excited because they just had this great time with their friends. And I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's normal. They're kids, your kids. It would be weird, right? Think about this. What if your child called you like 20 or 30 minutes early from being with their friend and say, hey, mom, Dad, I just realized it is a school night and I really need to get home and get prepared so that I get a good night's sleep so I'm ready for school tomorrow. That would be weird. It'd be really cool, but it would be weird. And it's not ever happening. So I realize, look, normal human nature is, I'm picking my child up from his friend's house. So now why not enter in? So if you can think of this phrase and concept instead of me standing over here and saying, I have my agenda. I know you're excited about things, but I'm going to overrule yours. Come do what I tell you to do over here. I enter into the child's world where they are, and then I give them that intense emotional engagement and then I lead them back out. See, I love that. I use it all the time with other humans, not just kids. So do you guys have the best time? Yeah, mom, it was awesome. You know what? That is way cool. You know what? I've got an idea. On the way home, let's come up with a plan to have Aaron over at our house this week so we can keep all this fun going. So get in the car and I'll work it out with Aaron's parents see, I enter into the child's world. I know, look, I still got done what I wanted done, which is what I got him out of there quickly. But when I control myself, it actually goes more quickly and I build my relationship with my child at the same time. It's one of the key things in our discipline program, because I'm redoing that one, is you can get your kids to listen to you and respect you and still build your relationship. And that's cool because good discipline should lead to a better, more better, closer, more trusting relationship with your child. When we moved to our home, we were quoted a cost of over $20,000 for some trees and shrubs, but we just saved 90% with fast growing Trees and they helped us get the exact privacy in flowering trees and shrubs for our specific climate. And it's delivered right to our door in days. Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the US with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers, including us. They take the hassle out of creating your dream yard. Their alive and thrive guarantees ensures your plants arrive happy and healthy. Plus 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 fastgrowingtrees.com using the code CALM fast growingtrees.com Calm offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. So let's geek out together for a minute over gut health because I'm really into this. I just learned that prebiotics are the food that help fuel the growth of healthy bacteria, the probiotics in your gut. So you have to have both. And that's why AG1 helps my digestion, calms my stomach and keeps me regular. Look, I've loved my morning AG1 routine for years, long before AG1 became a wonderful partner to the podcast. It's a quick, easy win because I start my day with 75 vitamins, probiotics, prebiotics and whole food sourced ingredients. I just don't have that stomach distress anymore where that bloating, you know, that kind of interferes with your day and puts you on edge. Plus my weight is down. I've got energy for this hiking season. I'm drinking my Ag one right now while I'm recording this and I think you should as well. 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, which I love, 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 be kind to your gut. Okay, here's another tool. Connection. You've heard me say it a million times. Connection breeds more cooperation. Connection changes relationships more than just about anything else. So let's say I've got a daughter named Grace and we need to go to a doctor's appointment. I walk in and I say, hey, Grace, come downstairs. Come on, we need to go. Crickets. I don't hear a thing. Hey, Grace, honey, come on downstairs. You know we gotta go. Nothing. The. My tone gets a little bit more clipped. Great, Grace. And eventually, Grace, if I have to tell you one more time, and you know where this goes, because you're gonna have to tell her like eight more times. And then it becomes this seesaw and this battle back and forth between. If you don't, I'm going to give you X consequence. Look, consequences don't change behavior. They that. Well, they don't, because this has nothing to do with a consequence. And so sometimes, not every time, but sometimes I will do this. I take those few extra steps to her bedroom and I walk in and maybe I sit down. And I know this is hard for you because you're like, we don't have time to sit down because we need to go. I will promise you, sometimes when you sit down, you will help your kids move along more quickly just by controlling your body posture. It is really cool to watch how it works. So maybe I don't have to. But I sit on her bed or I stand and I say, hey, honey, you know what? I don't want to go to this appointment either. I'm tired. It's been a long week. But we have to go. So on the way, why don't we talk about X or Y? Something interesting to her. Maybe she's into Taylor Swift. We can talk about the latest song that she likes the most and why we can't afford tickets to the Arrows tour. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter to me. But here's. Here's the point. Instead of just rushing in or yelling at your daughter to come and threatening a consequence, instead, I connected with her. And even just acknowledging I don't want to go either, do you know how good that feels? Because you know what? You really Just said. You really just said what she's thinking in her head that I just really don't want to go. And now you just verbalized it and you connected with her. And then you said, but we have to go. And now you gave her a prompt. You gave her a way to connect. You invited her. Look, I am fine at times with a little bit of soft bribery where you say, you know what, it's been a long week, let's just go. You know what? On the way home, let's stop at Dairy Queen, let's get an ice cream. Is that bribery? I don't think so. It's connection. It's an invitation to connect. And it's a bonding experience. Sometimes when we do things we don't like, we reward ourselves. Do you always reward with food? No. But to get a blizzard, I'll go anywhere with you. So think about that. This week. I'm just going to keep this one short and sweet connection, connection, Connection. Dads out there. This was the hardest one for me to crack because I am a natural. And some of the moms, too. I'm a natural authoritarian. Like, hey, you're going to. You know what? You get in the car right now. That is second nature to me. But it ruined the relationship. And I ended up yelling at my son and giving consequences. And it was a never ending cycle when I finally learned how to control myself and connect. Man, I can remember so many times. I remember this one time we had to go to. We were going downtown in Nashville. We used to go downtown and feed homeless people on Friday nights. And one day, Casey had left his sweatshirt. Favorite sweatshirt, you know what they are at the gym. And I was like, it's fine, we'll get it tomorrow. Just get. Come on, we got to go. I don't want to be late to this because I didn't want to be late. Because when I was a kid, you couldn't be late because my dad was career military. If you're not five minutes early, you're 10 minutes late. So it was deep down inside of me, you can never be late. And so Casey would always kind of try to be late and I could ream him, right? Like we're about to go do something nice for other people. So I'm going to yell at you to get you there. I just remember thinking, his sweatshirt's important to him. And so I entered into that and said, oh, yeah, you know what? I'd hate losing my sweatshirt, too. Hey, do me a favor. If you load up the water and the food in the car right now. We'll stop at the gym on the way downtown and get your sweatshirt. Boom, it was done. Okay, here's a really cool one. I love this one. So, as many of you know, we had 1500 kids in our home over the course of a decade. Usually 8, 10, 12, 15 kids at a time. We would take them to the pool some days to try to wear them out. Usually didn't work, but you can try it. Load bricks in a backpack and throw them in the pool, see if that works. But oftentimes, they were playing building with Legos. We were doing a project, and I say, guys, listen, we need to get ready. Time to go to the pool. And I would come in and say, you know what? You need to stop what you're doing, pick up the Legos, go upstairs, put your swimsuit on, suntan lotion on, grab your towel, move. And what I was creating was anxiety in that situation. And so all it ever resulted in was me yelling for five minutes and, like, following kids around. Did you get your sunscreen on? Did you do this? And instead, one day, I did this. I walked into the living room, I put a swim towel around my neck, and I sat by the front door, and I didn't say a word. And I just observed. One by one, the kids would look up, and they saw what they saw. The leader of the home, the authority figure with a swim towel around his neck. And what did they know? Oh, it's time to go to the pool. The kids already knew what to do. They knew to put their suntan lotion on their swimsuit and grab their towel. They knew that. And so I didn't have to badger them. What I was doing was leading them. I was drawing them to me. I will tell you, sitting is an extremely powerful tool, and it will get your kids do things more quickly. I promise. If you were to go anywhere this coming week, like, to a daycare, anywhere there are kids and you just sit on the floor, you will instantly be surrounded by children. Because when you're sitting, they know you're not going to yell at them, and you have time to listen to them. And they love that. And I've done this with teenagers before. Even sitting and coloring at a table will draw teenagers to you because you're not giving eye contact, you're not lecturing, you're not yelling. It's cold. Cool. So one by one, all the kids would get ready. And they came. They got ready more quickly because they wanted to come sit next to me and tell them what they were building or what they were interested in because I was listening to them. So try that this week. Sometimes sit draw kids to you rather than trying to push them. You've already found with a strong willed child, whether they're 4 or 14 or 34, if you push them, they'll resist even more. Okay, I love this one. This is about giving kids space. So I want to show you a really cool situation. This is like a mom with her daughter at a horse barn and her daughter's struggling to get her expensive boots on and she starts digging her feet into them and she's flailing with her boots and saying, these boots are stupid. And mom reacts the way most of us would do. Honey, stop being so childish. You've put your boots on a thousand times. If you would just do it the way I taught you, it wouldn't be so hard. You make things so difficult, I swear. You know what? If you can't do this with a good attitude, then we're just going to go home and you can forget riding your horse today, all those things. And you know these kids because they're very particular about things. And this is a girl who loves being with horses because they're very therapeutic and being with animals is awesome because she's not always great with humans, so it's really important to her. But she's like many of our kids, has sensory issues and her socks don't feel the right way today. And the way she put the boots on. And so she's just frustrated and she's like, these are stupid boots. And mom's like, you will not call your boots stupid. They cost me $475. You'll never ride again. You've been there before, maybe even today. So this always results in a meltdown, mom and daughter. Now mom ends up giving a consequence that she doesn't want to really want to keep because it's very therapeutic for daughter to ride and it's a nightmare. But what if mom controlled herself and gave her daughter some space to get ready? What if mom picked up her cell phone just, oh, honey, I'm getting call, I need to take this. But I know that you can handle this yourself. I love those phrases. Hey, I believe you're capable of getting your boots on, handling this yourself. And I guarantee you when you step away and you infuse the moment with confidence instead of your own anxiety and frustration, your child will figure it out herself because you just said, oh, I believe you're capable of doing this. And they are. Will your daughter do it perfectly no, but she doesn't have to. That's your issue. You have to work on your perfectionism. Some of you create power struggles because your kids do things, but it's not up to your expectations the way you want it done because you were a star student and you expect your child to be a star student. And what your kids rightly and smartly know is because it means so much to you, you will always kind of be displeased with me, and I won't ever please you. And so in this situation, when you stepped away from that, it gave the daughter an opportunity to process her frustration without being micromanaged and corrected and lectured and embarrassed. None of us want people standing over us. You don't want your boss at work or your spouse standing over you when you're struggling. Just saying, you know what? If you would just do it the way that I do it, it would be better. That's not what you want. So why do you have to control your kids moods? Why can't your child be frustrated and then you give them some space to work through that? Why can't your child learn to deal with it on their own so they develop some resilience and that ability to know, oh, I got that done. Why do you have to fix it? None of us like that. So no guilt, no blame. The simple truth is this. If you really want to stop the power struggles in the home, you have to change your own reactions. And if you do that, I promise you and your family will be changed. You'll fight a lot less, and you'll be changed for generations to come. So quick, let me do one more quick one. Because as I was doing this, I saw on Instagram someone asked about homework time and standing over your child. So quickie. So instead of standing over your child and saying, honey, come here, I need to show you all the things you got wrong on your worksheet. And I'm going to stand over you. Just say this. Hey, nice job on your math worksheet. I circled number four, number seven, number nine, number 13. Hey, I've got to go do the laundry. I'm going to start with dinner. If you need some help, just let me know. But I know you're capable of doing this. And then you step away and let them wrestle with it their own work and be frustrated and say, this is stupid. I hate doing the math homework because you won't hear that because you stepped away. Try that sometimes. Space. Very powerful. So go through the different tools that we went through today. Practice them this week. I think you'll find it really helpful. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing the podcast. Thanks for being engaged on Instagram. If we can help you in any way at all, please let us know. We know this is really hard. We honor you and respect you for all that hard work. Just let us know how we can help. Okay? Love you all. Bye.