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Calm Parenting Podcast
Defiant, Disrespectful Child: A Script to Repair Your Relationship #464
00:22:54
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So I'll start with a confession that many of you have heard me say before. I did not like our son when he was young. He was so challenging. Everything was hard. Putting your shoes on, eating, going to bed, doing schoolwork. He was really emotional with these really intense meltdowns and all it did was provoke my own immaturity. It was not his issue, it was my issue and it forced me to grow up. And so but I spent the first like seven years of his life just trying to fix and change him until I finally discovered that I was the one that needed to change. But in that process, I nearly destroyed our relationship and I nearly destroyed our son. So how can you recover from this when you and your strong willed child are opposites? Or worse yet, you're just alike. Or maybe you have a spouse who just is not connecting with your strong willed child and you can see this divide starting to happen. Or it's well along its way. How do you repair that? That is what we're going to discuss on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us in our big spring sale celebrate calm.com so many. Look, we've been through this that most of the outbursts from your strong willed child are going to sound an awful lot like defiance and disrespect and sometimes they are. But as we've seen, sometimes the root of it is anxiety. Anxiety, Right. The anxious child is nervous about unknowns, doesn't want to go to that new place, so they lash out. You're stupid. I hate you. Taekwondo is stupid. And that had nothing to do with being defiant. It was just an anxious kid. And so we can use that insight to build a closer, more trusting relationship with a child and give your child tools to overcome their anxiety. But sometimes the defiance is caused by a broken relationship. And so I'm going to reference some bad language in this episode just one or two times. I won't actually say the word, so it's not going to be that bad. But I just wanted you to know as a heads up, if you have a child who has been hurt or feels like an outcast in your home or misunderstood, think about sharing this episode with them because it may open up some conversations. Totally up to you. So this is a true story. It's one that's honestly been repeated since the very beginning of time. It's the story of a father with two sons. And one is the prodigal or strong willed son and the other one is the more compliant golden child. And this happened right in middle America, right in Minnesota. Now it doesn't sound a lot like Minnesota nice in the moment, but this is reality and it happens in a lot of our homes. So let's set the stage. Mom, dad and two sons are having dinner. By the way, this could be a mom and daughter, a mom and son, a dad and daughter, but this is just the way it rolled, right? So we've got this family sitting down and we've got the typical strong willed child like many of us have, who's never really lived up to parents expectations, always does things the hard way, argues, makes everything difficult, has his own opinions, doesn't like school and he just kind of struggles. And then you've got the more compliant good child who does everything that's expected of him. And the relationship between dad and the strong willed child is strained. And the relationship between husband and wife is also strained because mom's been the mediator managing the emotions of her son and her husband for years, managing, kind of taking the temperature of the home and running interference. And that will cause a lot of problems in your home. It will cause resentment, will cause adrenal fatigue and it's not sustainable. So there's always this underlying tension in the family. And then you can throw in all the self doubt between the parents like oh, are we letting this strong willed child get away with things. Why can't he be just like his brother? What would our parents have done in this situation? What are we doing wrong? Look, people are going to judge you. All those things come into the mix. So dad asks his strong willed child to do something for him after dinner. And his request is not met with the requisite enthusiasm that dad wants and expects that he gets from his other child. So the dad says, I don't know why you have to make everything so difficult, son. Your brother never gives me any problems. To which the strong willed child replies, F you dad. And storms off from the kitchen table and goes and slams his bedroom door. Now he did use the actual F word there. And dad of course begins yelling and threatening and taking away all privileges and. And mom and the compliant son are once again caught in the middle of this drama. So a few thoughts. I know these kids are tough, I do get it. But you absolutely must work through your own issues and learn how to accept your strong willed child on a deep level. And I mean to truly accept them, not just tolerate them, not just put up with them. You're going to have to learn how to understand them and really accept them as they are. And I'm not talking about putting up with abusive behavior, letting them do whatever they want, staying on screens all night. I'm not talking about that. I mean on a very personal level, this has to happen, otherwise it will result. What will happen is the death of self confidence, the death of self acceptance, the death of vision and motivation, and ultimately the death of the relationship. And you know what else is going to happen in homes like this? This teenage boy will shut down and grow angry because he knows and kind of has internalized. I'm the bad kid, the black sheep, the one who's always been difficult, who's never lived up to your expectations, even though he's probably a very bright, insightful and even good hearted kid to others. That's part of the struggle for us right as parents is you see these things in your kids. You're like, this is a kid who will stop on the street and give all of his possessions to homeless people or who's really good with animals or maybe little kids who when other adults talk to you like, oh man, he is such a great kid, he's so responsible, so respectful and yet you don't see that in your home. And so some kids will turn this anger inward and self sabotage their lives. Sometimes they'll do it to get back at the parents. See, you've always thought I was a Loser. Never the good one. Well, now you're going to get exactly what you thought and wanted, and I'm going to live down to your lowest expectations. What are you going to do about it? Take away my screens? Fine. I'll just sit in my room and do nothing for the next six months. And you can't force me to do anything. Sure, send me to military school. I'll try to escape and get kicked out, and I'll be right back here. So, look, this dynamic, it'll also kill your marriage. There's no way around this. I know these kids are challenging, pigheaded, don't always listen. They push the limits. They're mouthy. Got it. You're justified in feeling frustrated and angry at them. But we're the grown adults, and this is the most important job of your lifetime. If you don't find a way to repair this relationship, to accept this child as he or she is, they will seek your elusive acceptance well into their 50s and 60s, and it can be devastating. So back to our scene. Was this defiance and disrespect shown to the dad? Yes, of course. Do we just excuse it because the child is upset and hurt? No, but we do have to understand context. This reaction by this child is driven by pain. There's a pleading nature to the tone. Listen how he said it. F you, dad. See, what I hear is you've never accepted or liked me, dad. You've always liked my brother more. I can never live up to your expectations, so just F you. Right. That's a pleading tone. That's the voice of a broken relationship. And you have to distinguish between these things. And so in this instance, it is not the defiance and disrespectful that needs to be addressed primarily. Rather, it is the underlying pain. It is the underlying broken relationship that needs to be addressed. See, once you take care of that, everything else kind of falls in place. And we've dealt in other podcasts with just pure, outright defiance. I think there's one from May 2024 on outright refusal. Listen to that one. It's fantastic. I've been through other ones. We have an entire program called Stop Defiance and Disrespect. But that's not what is happening here. One of the reasons I'm so proud of you as moms and dads, is you're working so hard at this. And the dad who told me this story reacted. At first, he was wrong. And what I used to do back in the day was double down on this. Well, I've already messed up I may as well just vent all of my resentment and frustration at this kid and I'll turn this into a 16 hour fight. And I want to caution you with that because when I was immature before I changed, I had a lot of resentment toward our son. And when he would even do one small thing wrong, oh, I would be like, oh, I'm going to take advantage. You know what? You leave your stuff all over the place, you don't study for school, you talk back to your mom and all of this will come out. And there was this. It was kind of sabotaging my relationship with him. And I just want you to be aware of that and work on your own resentment underneath. Again, we're not talking about excusing behavior, but we do want to understand the root of this. So the cool thing is this dad handled it differently after he first messed up.
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You are going to mess up. So the dad said, I had come home stressed. There was talk of layoffs at my job. And so I took that shot at my son at the table. And I knew instantly I'd stepped in it. And I. And so I reacted. I did my yelling routine, but then I remembered your voice saying, reset. And moms and dads, I want you to have a reset routine. So the dad said, look, I'm just learning this. So my new routine is I go to the garage. It's a quiet space. It's my space. I move things around to work off the stress. Organizing some shelves gives me something I can control in that moment, since apparently I can't control my mouth or my son. And I like that humility there, right? And so he said, I just, I pulled up your app on my phone and I pushed the button. It's always a good reminder. And you were mentioning humility, and that's such a tough concept for me. It's foreign to everything I have been taught. So I had this war raging inside me, beating myself up, but also so angry at this kid and also feeling a little bit helpless. But I knew I had to take the humble approach or we'd have another blowout. And look, this dad would have been justified in laying into his son because the kid had just dropped the F bomb on him, right? Isn't this parenting awesome? Isn't this what you pictured when you were planning your family? But being justified doesn't mean it's right. And it will never work, because humility breaks down walls. So I want you to know, wrestling with these ideas is normal. You're coming up against, like, what you were taught as a child. You're hearing your parents think, like, you're letting this kid get away with things. What would have happened when you were a kid, when this happened? So this is all normal moms and dads. You're not doing anything wrong with this so. But what you can do is something entirely different, which is what this dad did. And it was awesome. Okay, so let's picture this. Stand there with the dad in the garage with that war going on his head. You have been there. You may be there later today. So let's walk with this dad. Just picture this as he trudges upstairs to talk to his son. The weight of years of a broken relationship, all these words between them, making every step heavy with regret and anger and foreboding. And now picture what's happening on the other side of this bedroom door. Your child feels the same thing. He knows he shouldn't have said that to his dad. And now dad knocks on the door, and this is a subtle act of respect for his son's privacy, even though it's not warranted after just what happened, right? This dad had every right to march up those stairs, barge through the bedroom door that he paid for because it's his home and because of what his son had just said to him. But this isn't about being right or proving your point or disciplining your child. It's a relationship that is your child on the other side of that door. So the dad knocks on the door, and this is such a subtle act of respect and humility for a son who doesn't always warrant that. And the dad stays outside the room because walking in through the door in this situation, it's just too much tension, it's too heavy, it's too much. Neither of them can stand to look at each other right now. So the dad does the smart thing and he stands outside the door. And I guarantee this is what the dad said he's going through is, oh, man, I'm the adult. I'm owed an apology right here. I shouldn't have to be doing this right now. And he's right about that. But he humbles himself anyway and says, son, I'm sorry I yelled at you and said those things. I was wrong, and I'm sorry for how I've treated you so differently. Look, I'm going to go leash up the dogs right now and go for a walk. And if you want to come join me, I promise I won't lecture you and I'll listen to you. That's what we talk about all the time. And the dad had told me when he was in the garage, he was like, oh, okay, I'm trying to remember now. Motion changes emotion. Invite my son to be with me, because his whole life I have sent him to his room. Whether I told him to go or we had a blow up and he ran there himself. We've always been disconnected. And I remembered no eye contact. I don't need to have a face to face discussion with him. So the dad came up with this of like, oh, okay, I'm going to walk the dogs and invite my son. So the dad told me he walked away and he felt this war still raging inside. You're going to feel conflicted. He felt humiliated because the kid is supposed to respect him as the authority figure and he shouldn't have to be doing that. That's not how we were raised by our parents. But he was also proud of himself for handling it this way. So he leashes up the dogs and he's standing outside in the Minnesota cold, wondering, why should I be the one apologizing? Why isn't this kid down here already? What am I going to say to him? But he stays there and he waits. And after a little while, his son slinks outside, just as uncomfortable, just as awkward, just as embarrassed, and of course not wearing a jacket, just his hoodie. This kid knows that when he dropped the F bomb on his dad, that there was going to be heck to pay for that. So they begin walking with years of tension between them. And because the dad had taken the humble approach, the son actually broke the ice. Dad, I feel like you don't like me as much as you like my brother. Boom. There that look. This hurting kid finally said what had been hiding under the surface for four years, right? You don't like me as much as you like my brother or you just plain don't like me. And you're going to be tempted to think no way the kid would say that, but I will virtually guarantee this will happen. I was an old school dad who didn't have any of these tools. And when Casey and I would have conflict, guess who initiated talking? Not me. It was Casey, the strong willed kid who, who wanted to make it right. He'd say, dad, we need to talk about this. Why? Because there was a yearning in my son. And we've talked about this in recent years together on some of our long hikes. And he told me, he said, dad, I was desperate to have you accept me and understand me. I knew deep down I had to have a good relationship with my dad. And man, that'll just kill you inside. When I realized that I deprived him of that with my own pride. He was desperate for my acceptance and my affection and me and knowing that I believed in him. And then I was connected to him and he knew that on a deep level, you have to have that. And so he came to me. So when this kid came outside and he initiated and said, dad, I feel like you don't like me as much as you like my brother. That rings true to me. So watch. Be there in the scene. This father and son are now walking, or maybe mom, it's you with a son or a daughter. But they're together side by side, right? Not standing across from each other, next to each other. And the dad seizes on his son's confession, admits, son, I love you every bit as much as I love your brother. I just have a hard time connecting with you, and I'm sorry for that. And they walked and talked, and he was able to say, I see so much of myself in you, and it brings back all the pain I've experienced. And I don't want you to make those same mistakes that I made because I do love you. And so I'm tougher on you. And I haven't always done this, right? But if you'll. Now there's where I start to choke up, right? But if you'll give me a chance, I'd like to start over. I'd like to see if we can start doing one thing together that you really enjoy. And the reason I choked up is because those are virtually word for word what I had said back to Casey back in the day. And I know this sounds like a Hallmark movie, but it's not. It's real life. And the conversation will be awkward, but the humility of the parent, of the father breaks down the walls. And his son says, dad, I'm sorry for the language. I'm sorry I was disrespectful, and I'd like to try better. And so they begin to actually, for the first time, have a conversation. Because we live, even with our spouses, we live with so many things underneath the surface that we just don't say. And day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year go by. So here are a couple strategies. I pulled these from the no BS program. It's in the get everything package to rebuild your relationship with your child. Number one, take an interest. Moms and dads take an interest in one thing your child is interested in. We talk about this. You enter into their world instead of standing over here and saying, hey, care about the things that I care about? No, you get interested in what they're interested in, even if you hate it, which you likely will, like their video games, their horrible music, whatever they watch on YouTube or if they like to create or build things your child may enjoy. Things you're actually interested in. So that's a bonus. You could watch movies or documentaries about these interests. Ask questions, be genuinely curious. My son's interests were test driving cars and playing World War II video games. So what I would ask, hey, I'm curious. What is it about this video game that you like so much? Why are you so good at it? What gives you an advantage versus your opponents? What is it about cars that interest you and make you run down the street? When a Ferrari goes by, what do you like better, Ferrari or a Lamborghini? I spent a lot of time doing that, and even today. Look, he's grown. And I just went to a talk at a local brew pub on Avalanche Recognition because Casey skis in the backcountry, and it's interesting. Even as a grown adult, he always says, dad, thank you for taking an interest in what we're interested in, because I went with he and his wife. Even though you don't ski in the backcountry, they appreciate that. What about this horrid music do you like so much? I'm kind of kidding, but what about this music? Find out why they connect with certain things. You will learn what makes your child click. Look, we're getting long, so I'll wrap this up. Here's one more cool bonding strategy. Ask your child to teach. Use something. Because their whole lives were always showing and teaching and lecturing. But ask them to teach you something or show you how to do something on your phone or with technology or something they're good at. It lets them have a little bit of control and mastery over something. It builds confidence. When you open yourself up and let your child teach you something, there is something very magical and beautiful that happens. Look, sometimes the worst moments of defiance can lead to the greatest bonding and learning opportunities. I nearly destroyed my relationship with Casey, but now we are so incredibly close. And I think that's probably precisely because we worked through all of these hard issues together. We wrestled with it. We wrestled with each other. You can do this. I would encourage you. Listen to this episode. Listen to this episode twice. Binge past episodes go through our downloadable programs. Right now it comes on an app on your phone, and I can give you scripts and action steps to take in the moment. It's way cheaper than therapy or divorce. Look, thank you for listening to this podcast. Thank you for subscribing, for sharing it with others. Thank you for working so hard to change. I have so much respect for all of you really digging into this, because this is the hardest work you will ever do in your life. All right, Love you all. We'll talk to you next time. Bye.