Transcript
Kirk Martin (0:00)
Hey moms and dads, don't you just.
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Kirk Martin (1:20)
Do you have a child who procrastinates, who's impulsive, disorganized, maybe unmotivated? Do you have a child who pushes thing doesn't want to follow the rules? Well of course you do. That's why you're listening to this podcast. And so if you're a normal parent, you are going to get anxious about whether your child is going to be successful in life and you're going to project out into the future and think, how is this child ever going to be successful? Who is going to hire this child? Who would possibly marry this child? And you're projecting into the future, imagining your child living in the basement until he's 29 and now you're a failed parent. This is very common. So if you've had these thoughts, you're not alone. So that is what we're going to discuss on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin. You can find us@celebratecalm.com if you need help, reach out to our son, Casey. C A s e y celebratecalm.com Tell us about your family, ages of kids. What are you struggling with? We get together as a family, we discuss it. We will email you back very personally, very quickly and with specifics that will help you out. That's our that's our mission. So having anxiety as a parent usually begins look before your child's even born. But it really kicks in as early as preschool or kindergarten when you get that first email or phone call from school, which I promise you will get if you have a strong willed child. Your daughter refuses to follow directions. She gets up out of her seat and she walks around the classroom, which is what a 5 or 6 year old should be doing at that age. I really want you to know that, not be thrown off by that. Or you get the dreaded, well, your son won't sit still in circle time again. Your son shouldn't be sitting perfectly still in circle time at that age. But schools and society and churches are filled with all kinds of arbitrary standards and expectations that have no basis in reality. None of that is normal according to natural development and they have nothing to do with future life success. But in the moment it seems so dire. I remember our world crumbling, literally crumbling inside when we began getting emails and calls from teachers about Casey. Oh, what's the matter with him? I mean, if he can't sit in circle time, how's he going to be successful in life? Do we need to medicate him? No, but maybe. Well, maybe we just need to talk to him about his behavior and when that doesn't work, well then we need to just come down, threaten him with consequences. I mean, we have to get through to him somehow, right? We can't keep getting calls from school and you get so confused and afraid and begin projecting way into the future. And then finally I stepped back from it all and thought, wait, why should a little kid be able to sit still in circle time anyway? And then my counterintuitive, slightly rebellious, non conformist side came out, had a little courage and said no, circle time is stupid. After, right after you're five or six, you never have to sit in a circle, completely still, legs cross, crisscross, apple size. Nobody at your office is going to be like, hey Jeremy, Susie, three o'clock in the conference room, circle time. Right? It's an arbitrary standard and I recognized that we were getting sucked into this mode of parental anxiety whereby you magnify everything you think is wrong with your child, especially when other people are telling you that this is wrong with your child. And because you love them so much and you don't want them to fail and you want them to succeed, so you begin to ruthlessly try to fix everything that's supposedly wrong with them. Only to their credit, our parents didn't do that. They've let us fail and grow up and mature and learn because they knew that we would change over time. But you're going to have to battle this because there's a lot of pressure on you as a modern day parent right from an early age. You have to get them into the right preschool so they can be prepared. And you have to teach them eight foreign languages and you have to do everything. No, you don't have to do all of that. So let's do this. Maybe you have a middle school aged boy and use that in particular. I know what that kid is doing right now at this moment. If this is, if you're listening to this on a school night and you're at home, here's what your middle school age boy is doing. Well, I know what he's not doing. He's not doing homework, he's not doing his chores. He's probably sitting in the same hoodie sweatshirt that he's worn for the past 17 days playing video games, because that's what they do. But you're going to get freaked out because here he is and this was Casey. He's like this blob who just sits there. He does the minimal work necessary just to get by and he's capable of so much more if he would just apply himself. So you begin to lecture and talk to him about his attitude and his effort and his grades and he promises to do better, but then he doesn't. And so you have endless talks with your spouse late at night over this. And you wonder how's he ever going to leave our home? What's going to happen to this child? And so you turn the screws on him tighter, right? I know what I did as dad. Well, we just, you know, all this soft stuff, we're just trying to be nice. We just need to do old school and we're just going to take away everything. I didn't get on this kid, I'll turn him around. It never works with these kids. And so you begin to take away more privileges and that doesn't work. And you work yourself into despair, frazzled, concerned and not knowing what to do. And every time you lecture, the more your child resists, right? You've seen this. The more you lecture, the more your child resists or just shuts down until he finally says inside, screw you. Because he knows no matter how much he brings that math grade up, you'll never really be satisfied because there's always more and he could always be doing better. And your anxiety about his future is like an anchor around his soul. It's an anchor around your child's confidence and it is an anchor around your relationship that will drag you down. And that's when you finally get so scared you call me. So I have to. And then I have to tell you this is about your own parental anxiety. This is a sure sign of it when you use phrases like, well, if you would just apply yourself, I will encourage you, caution you. This is one of the least motivating phrases ever that will actually cause a kid to shut down very quickly. Because the assumption is that your child isn't trying. And that's usually wrong. Because either your child is trying and the work is just hard or they're struggling or your child simply doesn't care. So why try? Besides, what if I turned that around on you? What if I said to you, you know, if you would just apply yourself, you'd be thinner or richer or more successful? I know that sounds jerky, but that's what it sounds like to your kids. It's not motivating. Here's another parental anxiety phrase. You just need to do your best at everything. We don't care about your grades. We just want you to give your best effort. I hate that. It is a very misguided sentiment. None of you listening to this, not even me, give your best effort at everything. Nobody does, nobody can. You can't do your best at everything. You prioritize often joke at live events that I can look out and see that Most people didn't give their best effort at the gym and I don't either. I could work out much harder, but I choose not to. Why? Because I don't care enough about getting a six pack to put in the effort to do it. I don't give my best effort. I give my best effort at the things that are important and the things that I care about. Because you have to prioritize in life. That's how it works. So that's parental anxiety that'll cause your kids to shut down. So let me give you some perspective, some tools, and then a really cool script to use with your strong willed child.