A (13:14)
Some of us act as cops in our home, right? Like we're always looking for our kids to do something wrong. And if you have a strong willed child, it's like they're on house arrest because they're in trouble all the time. Or maybe we're the judge who's always meting out sentences or maybe we're the attorney arguing with them. Instead of being that for a week, be a detective. Look, you have strong willed kids. They're like little enigmas. They're filled with all kinds of these dichotomies, right? Really big heart toward other people and then venom spews toward you can't hear anything or focus when it's something they're not interested in. Oh, but if they're interested, they can hyper focus for hours. And so I want you to observe them because here's what a detective does. Comes in, observes, notices patterns. It's a huge one for these kids. Part of what changed my relationship with Casey was I began to notice patterns. Oh, he always seems frustrated when, when he's anxious, definitely when he didn't eat. And I would notice patterns. And that helped me to problem solve because what does a detective do? He's not trying to lock people up. He's pro or she is problem solving often. Actually, I've worked with quite a few detectives that are women and their, their sense of seeing patterns and understanding nuances, man, they could. And human nature. Oh, it's a really cool thing. I love talking to detectives because anyway, they have a lot of insight into human nature. Have that insight, observe, notice patterns and clues and problem solve. So you go from being the cop or the judge sentencing your child, instead you're the detective who problem solves. Here's a really good One I like this one. Instead of just being the person who's the chief disciplinarian in the home. Because that's what I thought my job was. I'm chief disciplinarian in the home. My job is to walk in. Just discipline all the time. And sometimes we get in this mode of, well, I've just got a discipline instead of being the person who disciplines, be the giver of wisdom, be the problem solver. So I want to shift from always thinking, oh, I need to come into the situation. I need to hand out some discipline. No, I need to problem solve. Let me give you an idea. Here's how we do it at work. Look, if any of you have employees or younger colleagues at work, if they mess up, look, we're not going to come in with that permissive, oh, it's okay that you didn't follow through and work hard on that. I know it's rough. No, I'm not going to do that. That's too soft. That's making an excuse. But I'm also not walking in. You know, totally ruined that project. You're probably going to get fired. That's not good either. But sometimes we do that with our kids. You know, you keep messing up, you're going to lose everything you own. Go to your room. And it doesn't even teach them anything. Discipline means to teach. But what if with that employee, that younger colleague at work, I walked in and said, hey, I've seen some of the past projects. You've got a good head on your shoulders. This last project, not up to standards. So do me a favor, grab a notepad, come into my office. We're going to come up with some different strategies. I'm going to show you how to work this in a different way. What am I doing? I'm problem solving. I'm teaching. I'm building confidence. I am showing them a different way to do it. One of my questions I ask myself when I'm disciplining a child is, am I showing or teaching them a different way? And one of the other ones is, am I building a closer, more trusting relationship with my child? Because good discipline should lead to good to a child changing, having tools to change, and a closer relationship. So watch. For the next week, I come into this situation. Look, it's going to happen within hours of you listening to this podcast. That's why I like this. It's why I like the new app that we have for the programs. You can literally keep it playing on your phone 247 while you're awake. Even if you're not listening to everything, you're hearing the tone. You know what else is cool that happens? Play it. And sometimes your spouse will hear it. And, you know, it's even cooler when your kids hear it because they'll be like, what are you listening to? And then you don't get to listen to this. It's all parenting tricks, which it isn't. And then they're going to want to listen more, and they're going to be like, oh, yeah, mom, that's dad. That's how you do it. That never works. This guy's right, Right? And then you can problem solve, and it leads to really cool conversations where they can listen to Casey's program. But I want you to come into the situation that's going to happen within hours. Instead of going reacting and going into discipline mode, go into problem solving mode. And here's a couple other ones. Correct. From correcting all the time to connecting. Right? Corny. I know, but it's easy to remember, hey, instead of correcting, what if I just connected with my child right now? I bet it would go better from me against you trying to get you to listen to me and do what I want you to do to me coming alongside you to help you. Instead of instilling fear in my child, I instill wisdom. So how do we apply this? I'm going to go through two common situations in your home and apply this. It's kind of cool. Okay, so here's the first one. Say this was very common in our home. I would walk into the house, into the room, and I'd hear Casey yelling at my wife. Well, that's a big trigger for me as a guy. So let's go through how we handle this so personally for me, let's go through how I handled it, as in dad mode. And then how would I do it if I were the quarterback or the leader or the firefighter or the ER doctor? So I hear my son yelling at my wife. Triggers me. I walk into the room as dad. My body posture is kind of leaning forward. I'm kind of like a little bit of intimidation mode. I'm upset. Hands on my hips or arms, gesticulating. My. My voice is getting out of hand, right? And I come in, you know what case? How many times do I have to tell you? You don't yell at your mother. And then I would start laying into him. You know what? You never pick up your toys. You're behind on your schoolwork. You didn't cut the grass like I told you to. There was a time at which I would lay into Casey because I was resentful toward him. And. And the name of this podcast is how to discipline your kids without being angry or permissive. The anger part is real here. And usually anger comes from resentment. I was resentful toward Casey when he was little because I had a false expectation when I became a dad that I would just do. I would bark out orders, tell the kids what to do, and they would just do it. And Casey's a strong willed kid and he wouldn't. And everything was difficult. Putting your shoes on, going to school, going to bed, eating dinner, everything was hard and I was resentful. And if I'm being honest, it's because him being strong willed Casey, pushing back caused me to have to dig deep inside myself and work on myself emotionally. That's hard. I'm a guy. I can work hard. I can outwork just about anybody. Works easy for me. You know what's hard? Ugh. Digging deep in there and challenging my assumptions about how this is supposed to be. And wrestling with. Am I letting him get away with things? Like, my dad would have done it this way. Am I letting him get away because this isn't the way it's supposed? That was hard. And I was resentful because Casey brought up all this discomfort. Honestly brought up all the immaturity in me, and it has caused me. The beautiful thing, if you can embrace it, is I am a totally different person because we had a strong willed child. They're an absolute gift. If you stop fighting them over everything and start working on your own control issues and are just honest about it and just say, yes, I have control issues. I like things done a certain way and I have parental anxiety about their future and I lecture too much and I yell too much. Good, that makes you normal. Now let's get about changing that. So watch that resentment coming up. Right? And some of us have. After all I do for you, I cook and I clean. I do. That's your issue that you got from your parent. Maybe your mom did that. Now you're doing it. Break that generational cycle. It's a subtle form of manipulation. Because I've done so much for you, you owe me to listen, to behave. Just watch that. No blame, no guilt. Let's work on that stuff this summer. Then I would begin to escalate. You know what? Keep it up. Keep it up, Case. And I could see the look on his face. His face, his face was all red. He was emotionally gone. But I would lean into it, like, keep it up. You know what? You already lost your video games one week. You want to make it two. And a strong will child's gonna be like, let's just make it four. Because they're gonna call your bluff, because they know you can't live that way anyway. They know better. And so I would escalate it and I would keep going until he finally said something disrespectful to. To me and then went up to his room and slammed his door. Why? Because then I could feel justified when I walked down and told my wife, did you hear what your son just said to me? Yes, fully justified. My son was disrespectful. But guess what? I'm the one who escalated it. And what I was really telling my son back then was this. Casey, I need you to behave and do exactly what I tell you to do. Because if you don't do exactly what I tell you to do, and if you don't behave, I'm not sure I can behave. And you do not want to see me angry. I hope there's a little bit of an ouch there. I don't do blame or guilt, but I want these things to sting. Why? Because what I was doing to my son back there was literally killing, murdering our relationship and murdering my son inside. And it was all because of my immaturity and I couldn't control myself. And that's what happens, because I felt powerless. So I reverted back to what I'd always known. So let's do it differently. What if I walk into that situation as the quarterback or the firefighter, the ER doctor, emt. So now there's a scene. There is fire in that kitchen as my son is yelling at my wife. But instead of rushing in, I walk in, I assess the situation. It's on fire. My goal is to put out the fire. I always want to de escalate before I discipline. How do you deescalate? I've done a lot of podcasts, so I'm not going to do it all. Motion changes, emotion, giving kids, often giving kids a mission or something they feel in control of. Huge tone of voice, absolutely essential. So when I walk in as the quarterback, See, when I'm the quarterback, I'm walking up to the line of scrimmage, I'm like, oh, this is an all out blitz. I better call an audible. Because the play that I've always done before, moms and dads, especially dads, right? Dads were like, you know what if I just do it this way one more Time, maybe he'll get it. It hasn't worked for the last three years or 13 years. You've got to change your strategy. You can't keep running, you can't keep calling the same play in your playbook if the defense already knows what's coming. So I come up and I call an audible, different play. And I say, hey, Case, I've got a football. When you're ready, if you want to come outside and play catch, I'll help you with whatever you're struggling with. Hey, I'm going to go dump the Legos on the floor in the living room. When you're ready, if you want to come in and build with me, that'd be awesome. I did this. I've done this example before with a kid who likes to fish. So I said, oh, you know what? Hey, Case, just remembered we're going fishing this weekend. Hey, when you're ready, meet me in the garage and we'll sort through, we'll organize the fishing lures. Why? That gives the child something he or she is in control of. And I also love going out, getting in the car, older kids. I love being able to say, hey, Case, listen, I forgot to get something at store. Listen, in three minutes. I love specific time limits. It's very grounding. Specificity is grounding. Hey, in three minutes, meet me in the car, we'll run up to the store, grab that, and then we'll stop at Taco Bell on the way home and get something to eat. Why? Because, kids, my son was always hungry and now I'm riding in a car, there's no eye contact and I'm able to connect with him in all these cases, what am I doing? I'm leading the child to calm. I'm connected with them. And now I'm teaching and showing and problem solving. See how that works? Shift this week from being mom or dad to what if I am this other person and I assume that role? Here's the second example. This is a cool one I love. So this real world example we just dealt with. A girl is freak starting to freak out because there's camp next week and she doesn't want to go because she's not going to know anyone. And there's a lot of anxiety. So she's starting to hem and haw about it. Well, the parents, naturally as parents, as the anxious parent, sometimes we start to say, or a reactive parent, we go to, you know what, that's non refundable. We already spent all that money. You're going and you know that doesn't work with a strong willed child. They're like, I don't care, it's your money. What are you going to do, send me to my room for the week? I'd rather go there. And then the permissive parent is like, well, it's okay, I'll call and see if we can cancel the camp. And then you're giving in. And I don't want to do that either. Because the best antidote to anxiety is repeated voluntary exposure to things that make you anxious. So now we try to do all these things. Now your daughter's lashing out at you, verbally calling you names. And now you react to that. You're like, well, that's disrespectful, young lady. Give me your phone. And so what started as some simple anxiety over going to a new place now becomes disrespect and defiance and lost phone. And now you are on a, whatever, the highest alarm, 10 alarm fire that you have. Instead of handling it as we normally do, as mom and dad, what if you come in as that ER doctor or that emt, and mom says very confidently, oh, honey, you know what? You should be anxious and nervous about going to that camp. Listen, hey, grab us a snack. I'm going to grab a notepad. Let's list all the different reasons you should want to stay home, that you should not want to go to that camp. I'll even add a few that you probably haven't even thought of. I'll show you. Let's list them all down on a piece of paper. And then here's watch. Here's what's important about this. I'll get to the next part. Intensity. Sometimes. I was talking to this couple the other night and they were like, oh, well, our therapist had told us, like, no, you just ignore and you don't give them any energy to it. And I was like, well, I don't give energy to tantrums, but that's rational when it's irrational like this. I was like, no intensity during this moment. Of course you don't want to go to that camp. See, it's a lot better than Juanie. I think you'll really enjoy it. I bet you'll meet a. See, now you're trying to convince them it doesn't work. The intensity makes kids feel heard, like you really understand. So when I say, hey, I'm going to grab a notepad, get a snack, come over here, let's start listing down. Yeah, there's all kinds, kinds of reasons you shouldn't want to go. That's normal. What you're feeling is normal. Now let's list what is the worst possible outcome that can come from going to camp. List that out in one of the programs you get in the package. It's called Straight Talk for Kids. It's our son Casey talking as a kid to your kids to help them control their impulses and emotions. But he takes you through this of listing what's the worst thing that can happen and then you list the upside. Hey, honey, here's what happens when I get anxious like this too and a little bit nervous. All I notice is the negative. But let's list the upsides because you could meet a new friend. There might be someone there that struggles more than you do and you ride in and you're the hero to that person and you helped someone else with that big heart of yours enjoy a camp that they've never been able to go to. Then you're going to feel confident and proud of yourself. And we can email that camp leader right now if you want because here's another tool to deal with anxiety. If you have a mission to focus on, man, that's awesome because you're really good at X. So why don't we ask the camp leader if they have a job that you could do when you go there? Maybe you could go an hour early and help them set up for that camp. Maybe you could help them with the younger kids because you rock with younger kids. Love you. See, now I've entered into her world and confidently helped to put out that fire. It's just very counterintuitive. And so that's the hard part with the strong willed kids is that it's all counterintuitive. And so that's why I encourage you go through the programs because we teach you how their brains work and it's really cool. I have to give credit. A mom named Haley reached out. She said, I love your programs because there are no ads. Totally get that. I get that ads are annoying. I appreciate those of you who just listen through the ads or play them at one and a half times speed. It's just how it works. There are scripts in the, in the programs. It's very systematic. The programs give me a lot more time to go through situations from five or six different angles. There's a lot more brain science and say the ADHD university program and also workbooks. So let's do this over the summer, over the next few weeks while we're celebrating the wedding stuff. Really dig into this, work at it because the more that you do this, it's like reps. As a quarterback, the more you throw the ball, the more game experience, the better you get, the easier it is. So let's shift from just being the authority figure to being the leader in the home. Who's the leader you like to emulate? Is it a platoon captain? Is it an ER doctor? Is it the quarterback? Will go from being cop to detective. And here's the one I really like. For the next 24 hours, every time you have an opportunity to lecture or discipline, instead go into problem solving mode, I guarantee you the outcome, your kids will receive it so much better. It's cool. Hey, thank you for listening to our podcast. Thanks. For those of you who are on Instagram, it's a really nice little community there in the midst of icky social media. Very supportive parents because this is hard and you guys are used to being judged. So thank you for that. Thanks for sharing the podcast. We do appreciate it. All right, happy Father's Day to the dads out there. Love you all. Bye.
