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Kirk Martin (16:33)

Okay, question Letting go of wanting to control everything my 12 year old daughter with my 12 year old daughter and assert my position. So I know this mom, she's a really good mom and she's working really hard at this. So kudos to your mom. You're an awesome mom. One I don't need you and you don't need to assert your position. One it doesn't work. It's one of those phrases like, well, I just need to confront this person about their behavior. Okay, good luck with that. I'm going to bet you $100,000 that it's not going to go well because people don't like to be confronted about their behavior. I can talk to them, but confronting people, it's just one of those things of mom, let go. Why do you have to assert your position? You've been modeling good behavior for your daughter for 12 years. She's at that time of life where she needs to now integrate that into her own life and she's going to push back. Why? Because she needs space. And because kids at that age and many of you have 4 year olds who are doing this. The strong Willed child wants to own it. They want to own their choices and decisions. And it's what you want ultimately because you're not raising a child, you're raising an adult. And so this is a good time, mom, to step back a little bit. Know, you know what? I've done my job. I've lectured my daughter about 8,000 times already. By age 12, I don't need to do that anymore. So what I like to do when kids get to that age is give them context and perspective. So instead of look when they're little, I tell them what to do. Here's what you need to do. When kids get older, I give them context and perspective. Hey, just something to think about. I found in life that when I do X or when people do X, it just tends to work better. Then you walk away and you give them space to consider your wisdom. You just drop some wisdom in their lap. But instead of standing over them expecting them to say, mom, where did you get that wisdom? You're so smart, I can't wait to do what you want me to do. Instead, I step away and I put it in the child's court. Now they wrestle with it on their own without you standing over them trying to make them do it or be grateful for your wisdom. So let go of thinking that you can convince your daughter that your way is best. It doesn't work. It won't ever work. You've already done your job by modeling for her how to handle life. Continue to do that. Be a resource. Walk by. With teenagers, I don't talk a whole lot. I say short, little concise phrases and then I walk out of the room because I'm basically dropping a little bit of wisdom and then I'm letting it sit there instead of going on and on and on. And I'm letting them incorporate it into their life. I like going low key every time you want to lecture your child. Instead, praise her for a specific action or choice she's made lately or a specific attribute that she has. So you can still talk, but you shift from lecturing her and trying to convince her that you're right. And even when you use this tone with a 4 year old or 14 year old, it's really annoying.

Mrs. Calm (20:02)

So stop it.

Kirk Martin (20:03)

It doesn't work. Be the grown up, be the adult. Talk to them like adults. You're really good, mom. Just chill a little bit and stop asserting your position. So it's funny the phrases people, you know, that we all use. Here's a good one. Getting teenagers to be helpful around the house and actually take responsibility for their chores. I've got a 15 year old who refuses to help or do anything in the house. I have two good options for you. Number one, go hardcore and declare martial law if simple things aren't done. This is that standard thing I do where I say, hey, here's the deal. I run three services in the home. A meal service, a taxi service, along laundry service. I'll do my three chores, you do your three chores. Or in the case of a strong will child, half a chore. Because that's better than the zero that they're doing now. But it's very clear of, hey, you do your chores, I take care of my responsibilities, right? Even you don't. I don't take you to soccer practice, I don't take you to buy food. I'm not doing these things for you. And so that is hardcore martial law, but with no drama. I'm just letting you know how things run in the house. I'd encourage you to create a written list of their chores or things you expect so you don't have to talk and annoy your child with your annoying voice. Because the teenage voice is annoying and to a teenager, any adult voice just about as annoying. So I just don't talk a lot. There's no need to because otherwise it just provokes a lot of fights. And so if you lay that out very clearly, hey, I do three things around here. I asked you to do three things. You don't do your three things. I'm not going to take your place, not going to feed you. Then just do what you said you were going to do with no drama, no lectures. You know what, I told you what to do. You know we had a contract. None of that. Just be matter of fact, keep your promises. I promised you that if X didn't get done, I wasn't going to do X for you. Now here's my honest answer. It's not going to work for most of you because most of your kids don't really care. They'll just go and they'll steal car keys or they'll call a Neighbor or their 17 year old friend to come pick them up, take them to get food. So here's my honest answer. With most strong will kids, I would let this go if they are responsible outside the home. And I'll just tell you our very real experience with Casey as a teenager. Casey was not that awesome as a kid. He was not that great around the house. What he was, was exceptionally responsible outside the home. What were we raising him to be a respectful man, young man in the real world. I'm not training him to be a good kid. This is a really good point. But I'm not going to go off on it too much because we don't have a lot of time. This is supposed to be short. I'm not raising a kid to be a responsible kid. I'm raising a. You're raising your children to be responsible in the real world. And some of your kids are. They're just not that awesome at home. So by age 12, he already had a job and he was working pretty hard reffing ice hockey games. He showed up on time, he did the time clock well. He was respectful to his boss. He worked extra games. He worked really hard. He told his boss because I told him this, I will do any game ref, any game that you want that all the other rest don't want to officiate. I'll come in early, do the early games nobody else wants to do. So guess what? He started being given assigned a lot of games, making a lot of money. He also helped. There was an older couple down the street from us and he would go down to their house and help them because he was pretty tall and he could reach things and they were older, they couldn't get up on stools and do things. And Casey loved that they got along so well and he was helping them. And he also did work outside sometimes around the house, things that he was good at doing. And so here's what we said. We just said those are his chores. His chores as a 12, 14, 15 year old kid are to work a job, to help other people and sometimes occasionally do stuff around the house or outside that he was good at doing. He kicks butt. Now he's a 30 year old young man, he kicks butt in the real world. He is running the largest catering company in Jackson Hole, Wyoming while he works full time for me. Why? Because he wasn't always an obedient kid or even a great kid in our home. But he always kicked butt in the real world and that's what's important. So take that however you want to take it. What advice do you give your middle school child who constantly struggles with kids picking on him? He's not the sports kid, so he's in the minority. He has a few friends, they're just not any of his classes. Okay, a couple of things. It's very, very common. Most of the kids I work with, they do not do well in sports. If it's sports, it tends to be an individual Sport like swimming, gymnastics, taekwondo, even ice hockey, which is a team. But it's also kind of very individual and very physical. They're good at very physical things. So here are a couple things. One, I would normalize that. Middle school stinks. It is the hardest. I would tell my son, which is what I told my son, this is the hardest time of your entire life. Middle school stinks. It is an aberration. Middle school life will never happen again for the rest of your life, ever. It's a weird time of life where everybody's hormonal, where you're in between being a little kid and being a grown up. Everybody's awkward. It's weird. Don't worry about it. It is normal that it is okay that you are struggling with other middle school kids. It's normal and even preferable. You know why? Because middle school age kids don't have a lot of their stuff together. The truth is that you are going to spend three years in middle school, but 60 years as an adult. And you don't necessarily like connecting with middle school kids because they're dopey and they're into things that you're not really into. And you are an old soul. You're better. Have you ever noticed that you get along really well with older people and older kids, by the way? Our kids are also very good, usually with younger kids and animals. And so guess what? When you're an adult, you get to choose friends of any age. Right now you're stuck kind of with idiot kids your own age that you're not interested in. So it's normal to gravitate toward older people or to hang out with the animals and little kids. I get that. But when you're adult, your friends are going to likely be older and more mature. So just get through these years and know that it's going to be okay and there's nothing at all wrong with you. Then I would also look for that mission and mentor thing. We talk about letting him find his place and space, finding a couple key friends, having a teacher give him a job or get. Here's a good one. Give kids a special mission. Not a chore in school, but a special mission. Doing something they're good at. Pulling your child aside and saying, oh man, Benjamin, you are awesome at doing X. Hey, could you and Frankie over here, could you guys stay after class one day and help me with this project? Well, they like being helpful, especially things they're good at doing. And now the teacher just paired him with another kid in class doing something special. I like that a lot. Another one was general bad attitude for a preteen or teen. Again, fairly normal mission and mentor. Really, really helpful because it gets them looking outside of themselves. Final question, I believe. Oh, I have one where I just have the answer. Seriously, stop doing so much for your kids. I don't remember what the question was, but just try that this week. Stop doing so much for them and instead look at your kids and say, I believe you're capable of doing that by yourself. I believe you're capable of handling that frustration. It's a great phrase to use. So, final one, this is a really good dad. And I like this dad, has worked really hard on himself. He's name's Scott and I have a lot of respect for Scott. And if all the men out there worked as hard on themselves as Scott has, man, everything would be different in our society. So this is a good man. But he's got a seven year old who loses it and then starts slamming and throwing things. And of course he does because there's potential damage to the home. But more of it is we get. And this dad said this, it's the uncontrolled anger and a fear that it can eventually escalate to more than just fear, throwing pillows and slamming doors. And I get that right? Especially around the holidays. And know that your kids are off their schedule, they're extra tired like me, they're eating a lot of extra sweets and some different things. So they're just going to be off. So, you know, just take things, ratchet things down a little bit. Ratchet your expectations down a little bit so everybody can chill. So a couple things, because I know other parents want this one. Address my friend here who asked this question. He already knows this one, but I'm doing it for other people. Give intensity. When kids get intense, this is counter intuitive, but we often go and we start talking like this. Hey, it's okay. It sounds dismissive and sounds like you're not taking them seriously. I like giving kids intensity when they're intense, but I give them positive intensity and I often validate in intense. Oh, man, are you. I'd be frustrated too. That is oftentimes very calming. Now here is a weird one. I've been through this on a lot of podcasts and all of our materials. We go through how to calm kids by doing something intense with them, whether that's doing jumping jacks or something very physical. I have a weird idea for you and it's this. When they go and they throw something, I want you to Go and throw something off also. Just try it. There's something very therapeutic, actually, about throwing things. I can feel it myself. I know I'm the calm guy, but occasionally I get frustrated. And when I get over the top, you know what my first instinct is? I want to throw something. Like, it's usually my phone, but I'm too cheap to throw it really hard because I don't want it to break, because then I'll feel like an idiot, and it'll cost a lot of money to break it, and I didn't buy the warranty for it. So if I throw it and I have done this, I will often throw it at the sofa. You know why? Because the sofa's soft, and I'm not an idiot. When I lose it, I try to stay a little bit under control. But there's something very therapeutic about throwing something. So I was doing this phone consultation with this couple a couple weeks ago, and I said, hey, I've got an idea for you. Which is weird, but think about this. This isn't a situation where your child goes from, like, 0 to 100 very quickly, and you can't have. That was like, hey, let's identify your feelings. Which doesn't work anyway. And so in that moment, I want to match the intensity. So I told this couple, I was like, you almost always have eggs in the fridge. Go grab a couple eggs from that carton in the fridge and say, hey, follow me. There's some intensity there. There's purposefulness. And then you go outside and you throw those eggs against something, especially if it's not going to cause the siding of your house to be discolored or hurt somebody else's car. Throwing eggs is kind of cool because it feels good in your hand. You throw it, it splats. And there's something about that. I know that may be weird, but you could set up some things in your basement, in your backyard, where you have cans set up and you throw. You have some tennis balls out there, and you throw them and you knock those cans off because it feels good. There's something concrete about hitting something off of something else. You get the sound. You get the, you know, even hitting something, you know, punching bag, all those things are great. Even feeling that, like, vibration in your hand, the sound of it completing a task sometime of. That's why I have. For a lot of our kids, shoveling mulch, digging holes, doing very physical work is very, very therapeutic. And this is why I love one of our ideas. You'll hear if you listen to the dad's program is for a dad to come home from work one day or come out of his home office. Say, guys, I am frustrated. I had a really hard day at work. I'm so PO'd. All these things have been going wrong in my day. Will you guys do some push ups with me? And I guarantee you if dad gets down on the floor, moms, you can do this too. But I like doing this with dads. Is dad gets down on the floor and starts doing push ups, I guarantee you little kids are going to start doing push ups with him. Now your strong willed child is going to be like, bet you can't do 20. Dad, get down lower. Can I hop on back your back. If they're not too heavy, just do it. And here's what's cool. The dad in the home has now just modeled what things don't always go my way. I get frustrated, I'm disappointed. And instead of throwing things and hitting things and yelling at people and slamming the front door, my dad does his push ups or whatever it is that you do physically. That's great modeling. But for the dad who asked this, I think I try both. The intensity of the positive intensity, I'd be frustrated too. And then let's do something like grabbing a couple eggs or having a plan. I like to have things. You know, your child is like this. So have a plan for how to deal with the when he's emotionally on fire, it's like having a plan in your home. Hey, if our home catches on fire, here's our plan. Here's our escape plan. You practice it. This is what we do. So when someone is emotionally on fire in the home, how do you handle that? Okay, I gotta stop. This ended up being 30 minutes. I hope you find this helpful. I will put this on the Facebook page for those who are on there. I know there are some people who ask some other questions and I will get to those on maybe another podcast. But if we can help you in any way, reach out to our son, Casey C A s a y celebratecolm.com he'll help you out. We do have our Christmas sale. We're going to extend it. Why? Because why not? And look, even if we don't just email Casey and say, hey, I need, I need your resources. Here's my budget, here's what I can do. Can you work with me? And Casey's answer will always be, of course I can work with you because you're not my mom and dad. Because he's like your kids. I'm kidding. But he will help you. So, hey, if we can help you with anything else, please let us know. Love you all. Bye.