A (0:00)

So we have a nephew that's really bright but he struggles in a couple classes and I asked him why he enjoys using IXL learning programs so much. He said with IXL he can learn at his own speed and do it independently. And you know, our kids like figuring things out on their own. He likes the video tutorials and learning games that explain new concepts in a way he understands. And he said, IXL makes me feel smart again. I encourage you to check out ixl.com kirk to learn how IXL can enrich your homeschool curriculum from K to 12. IXL gives your kids tools to be successful and allows them to explore any topic in any grade level. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. Calm Parenting podcast listeners get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com Kirk Visit ixl.com Kirk to get the most effective learning program at the best price.

B (1:07)

So this time last year I got Mrs. Calm One Skin facial moisturizer and eye cream for Valentine's Day. She was just frustrated with the complexity and unkept promises of her skincare routine.

A (1:18)

You know what that's like.

B (1:19)

Since then we both have noticed how moisturized and better our skin looks with One Skin. Even in the winter our skin is just happier and healthier looking. Plus One Skin is so easy to.

A (1:32)

Use even with a busy schedule.

B (1:34)

It's founded led by an all woman team of skin longevity scientists and One Skin is redefining the aging process with their proprietary OS1 peptide, the first ingredient proven to help skin look, feel and behave like like its younger self. We think it's a great Valentine's Day gift so you can get 15% off with code KIRK@OnSkinCo. That's 15% off at OnSkin Co with Code Kirk. Please let Oneskin know that we sent you. Invest in the health and longevity of your skin with Oneskin. Your future self will thank you.

A (2:15)

So do you have picky eaters at home? Do you have kids who resist just about everything you want them to do? So there are power struggles over food and sometimes dinner time is one of the parents getting upset of like you need to sit still at the dinner table. We're going to enjoy dinner together as a family and apparently you're not. Do you have kids who are struggling with potty training who are resisting that? And maybe you have a new baby who is coming along so your toddler is regressing. What about kids who sneak food at night? And then we've got sleep issues because you've got kids who have very busy brains, they've got anxiety. Some of you have kids who have night terrors, kids who get out of the bed 18 times, or kids who want to sleep in your bed. And it's exhausting. And sleep is tough because it is a time of day when you are most exhausted and least patient. So it just evolves into all of these power struggles. So if you struggle with those things, you are normal. So that is what we're going to discuss on today's episode of the Calm Parenting podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us in our winter sale@celebratecalm.com so I just recorded a brand new program on eating, potty training and sleeping. It's a couple hours long. And so I just want to give you some insight into strong will kids here. So Casey and I are talking about this and I'm like, this is a really good program. Parents struggle with this. We could sell this as a separate program. And what I love, here's what I didn't love about Casey when he was younger. He always spoke up. These kids are very assertive. They tell you bluntly what they think. But the beautiful thing is when they get older is they're the same way, but they have so much more wisdom. And so he's not afraid to speak up to me. I'm his dad. I'm his boss in some ways, right? Like, and so he will speak up. And we were talking, he said, dad, here are a couple of things you have taught me throughout life. One is you under promise and you over deliver. People have invested money in our programs. Why don't we just give this for free to people who've always invested in our programs? And he said, you've always taught us that generosity is always a good thing. And he said, so I'm not. Now here's the cool part. He said, I refuse to to sell this to people who've already invested in our programs. And so here's the thing with a strong willed child. This is my company, it's my organization. I can do whatever I want. But Casey will dig in on principle and say he gets this look on his face when we're. Because we occasionally like argue over things, right? We're having debates over what are we going to do. Not on this one so much. But his face changes and it gets kind of rigid and he's like, dad, dad. And you can see he's like a, he is born in May. He is a Taurus. You can see like the, remember the old cartoons where the smoke comes out of the bull's nostrils? That's our son. And that's why I love our son. So here's what we decided. Casey decided, but we decided is for those of you who already have our program, say the get everything package or one of the bundles, younger kids or older kids bundle, we have already put this into your, your app. It's downloaded there. So if you go into the app, this new program is there and you just go listen to the whole thing. So on this podcast, I wanted to try to fit in as much as I can, and maybe I'll do an extra podcast on it if you like this one. But let's just jump into this. I'm not going to be able to go in as much detail as I do on the programs, but I'll try to give you some highlights of this so you know, the number one thing you can do in every situation with a strong will child is to control your own anxiety. Look, when it comes, when will it ever work? If someone followed you around like, hey, do you need to pee? Do you need to poop? Do you have, do you have to go, is it time now? You want to try? You want to try? You'd be constipated, too. The same thing with pushing kids, with sleep, with eating. It doesn't work. And part of the beautiful part of this is I want you to prepare yourself and know, hey, sleep, bedtime is going to be a struggle. And so I know that going in so I can prepare for that. And I know potty training is going to be hard. And so when there's an accident, I'm not freaked out by it. Because your kids are very sensitive and they pick up on your disappointment on any negativity. If you and your spouse are irritated at each other during these times and disagree, oh, they will pick up on that. And so it will work against you, but you have control over that. I love this part. Working with human nature. One of my favorite podcasts ever was called something like, you can't force your kids to eat your ideas or your food because your kids by nature almost always reject what you want first before they can own it themselves. So one of my favorite things that we ever did with food, I was working with his family and their son just wouldn't slow down to eat. I was like, get some protein bars or make your own. Leave them all over different parts of the house, out by the swing set, by his fort, and let your child, when he's Hungry, he'll just be able to grab that. And it worked. You know how they knew it worked? Because they found his wrappers on the ground and on the floor in the house. Because, you know, that's how your kids are. But that's an idea of working with their nature to get them to eat. So a few things with food real quickly. One is I don't want you to feel guilty. You can be the best parent ever and you can have a very picky child and I don't care about your judgmental relatives. This is very common with our kids because a lot of our kids have anxiety issues. Well, anxiety causes your stomach to be upset and some of your kids have gut issues. And so I want you to see a naturopath, a functional medicine doctor, someone who can get to the root of this. But I don't want you to feel guilty because I see it on Instagram all the time. Oh, if you really cared about your children, you wouldn't feed them X or. Yeah, look, some of you are just very, very busy. You have a hard enough time just getting your kids up in the morning, putting their shoes on and going to school. So to fight over this constantly, I don't want you to do it. Do I want your kids and you to eat healthy? Of course. And I go through that in the program, a lot of how to do that. But I don't want you to feel guilty for this. So a couple practical things I would do. If you have younger kids, feed them early. You. I understand the beautiful part of like, we have family dinner time and it's our bonding opportunity and we talk and it' Great. Well, for some of you, that's not your experience, your experiences. I'll just put it how it was in our home. I would get upset. Okay, you sit still at the table, sit up, eat all of your food. And I was just correcting them all the time. And now my wife had to jump in and manage the emotions of the home and of the dinner table. And so if your child struggles, younger kids feed them early, just let them eat early. Then you and your spouse can eat dinner in peace and enjoy it while the kids are playing. It's with strong willed kids. I want to free you, liberate you to do what works for your kids and don't try to do what everybody else is supposedly doing. Big thing with your kids, teach them how to cook. I don't want to make separate meals for your kids all the time. If you do that and it makes it easier for you. Good. No Judgment. But I want to, from an early age, teach these kids how to cook. Are ADHD kids, and strong will kids actually really, really good at cooking. And they like it because they get to take all these varied ingredients and mix it. There's a sensory aspect to it and there's a creativity. There's an immediate benefit to a gratification of, I took these ingredients and I put them together and now I can taste it. Just know that they're not going to follow a recipe and they're probably not going to clean up. But teach them that life skill and say, hey, you don't have to eat this meal, but I'm not fixing you something separate. So I'll teach you how to cook. You know, what's the most important thing for me with food besides modeling it? Just model it, model it, model it. If you eat healthy, if you are a grateful person, if you're generous and kind to other people, if you exercise and take care of yourself, your kids will inherit your DNA in that way and replicate that one day, just not your own timeline. But I really want to teach my kids how food affects their bodies. See, rather than like, well, I'm just going to give you another lecture about how important it is to eat. They don't care about those lectures. And they're never going to say, like, man, I'm glad you mentioned that again, mom, because now, the 18th time you said it, the light bulb went off and I realized how smart you are. What I want to teach them is, hey, recognize how your body feels, how your brain feels when you eat certain foods, because over time, I want them to know, you know what, I'm not going to eat that because I don't feel good when I eat that, but I do feel good when I eat this. See, that's your ultimate win. But remember, I do want to go for gut issues. I mentioned that a little bit. In the programs we go through kids who sneak food at night, and we go through a lot more on teaching your kids how to own food themselves without creating a lot of stress. By the way, teens and tweens, this is what may be your experience. They come home from school, they open up the refrigerator and stand there, let all the cold air out. It's going to frustrate you. And then they may grab a bottle of milk or orange juice and drink right from the jug and it's gross to you. And then they're going to grab a snack and throw the wrapper down on the counter and go up to the room, and then they'll come down for dinner. They might eat quickly and say, can I be excused to go back up to my room? And then later that night, way after bedtime, they come down, do the same thing at the fridge. Very, very normal. You know what I like doing with teens? Bond with them over food. Because these kids, I like going out and grabbing. Heard me say, when they're upset, let's go grab a couple tacos, let's go get a smoothie. Sometimes taking them out to do their homework and get a meal late at night. Why they like staying up late and they're always hungry. And it's a fantastic time to bond with them over food. Okay, potty training. Let me just throw in a few things. And again, you know, I'm going fast because I want to fit a lot in here. Is this weight. You have to wait until your child is ready. You can't force potty training. Throw away all those stupid, arbitrary things that everybody else tells you. Like, well, by this certain age, they should be able to potty train. Every human is different. Every kid is different. You will know when they are ready because they start getting kind of like, oh, they want their diaper changed and they start moving toward the potty right by themselves. But wait until they're ready. Control your anxiety over this. I want you to normalize the accidents. The accidents are going to happen, so expect it. Because if you react with, I don't know why that happened. Why couldn't you wait? Why did you pee on the floor? Well, now all that stress is going to cause them to stop up. I would have a private place. Create a. Try, try creating a private place, place for them to do their business. Because these are kids who don't like to be watched all the time. They want to figure it out on their own. I would even consider putting like a little potty in a closet somewhere. A lot of our kids like confined spaces. See, can you hear? You're working with their nature instead of just trying to read a book and do it like all the other kids did it. So let them take a closet and you can hang up like little fairy lights, little lights. And you can hang things on the wall and you can have books in there and puzzles. Make it a place that they want to. To be. And here's the thing. When your kids do start to be successful with potty training, don't make too big of a deal out of it. I know you're going to read that in all the books. Like, oh, we're going to throw a celebration because you went potty. Do that with your compliant, easy kids. But the strong will kids, I would go very low key, almost like you expected. Like, hey, nice job with that. But if you make it too, big deal.