Calm Parenting Podcast - 2 Ways to (Re)Build Your Relationship With Your Strong-Willed Child

Episode Date: June 25, 2023

2 Ways to (Re)Build Your Relationship With Your Strong-Willed Child To my shame, I didn’t like our son when he was little and nearly destroyed my relationship with him. I struggled with how to connect with him. These kids are tough and it doesn’t help that we’re all flawed from our own childhoods. No one gives you an instruction manual for raising these kids. So we put one together! Here are two concrete, powerful action steps from the No B.S. Instruction Manual to rebuild a strained relationship. Need more help? Visit https://celebratecalm.com/products to purchase the Get Everything Package at the lowest prices of the year. Want to work with Kirk directly? Schedule a phone consultation here: https://celebratecalm.com/call-kirk/ Questions? Email [e-mail] and Casey will help you personally.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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no multiple step protocols, just simple scientifically validated solutions. The secret is One Skin's proprietary OS1 peptide. It's the first ingredient proven to switch off the aging cells that cause lines, wrinkles, and thinning skin. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company. By focusing on the cellular aspects of aging, OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get started today with 15% off using code Kirk at OneSkin.co. That's 15% off at OneSkin.co with code K-I-R-K. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So please support our podcast and tell them we sent you. To my shame, I did not like our son when he was little, and it nearly destroyed my relationship with Casey, a relationship that I cherish to this day. And I struggled with how to connect with him. I struggled with how to understand him, right? Because it was just, there were so many

things. It's just every day seems so difficult. Just putting your shoes on had to be difficult. Any changes and plans resulted in a big meltdown. I didn't realize at the time that he got that from me, right? And he had to control other people. It was kind of bossy and demanding, wanted to be in control. You couldn't play board games with Casey because he changed the rules of the game, cheat or quit like many of your kids do, or enforcing justice. That's not fair, right? Everything just seemed to be very difficult, and there were arguments over literally everything, right? Schoolwork was difficult, bedtime, mourning, right? He'd procrastinate. All these different things just built up, and I wasn't mature, and so I blamed it on him, right?

I was in that if then well if our son would just start doing X our home life would be good and I'd be a good dad Well now I'm placing all the power in the hands of the child I'm giving up responsibility for my own choices my own responses, right that if then thing instead of saying no I Have a choice I. I can parent him differently. I can look at him differently and I can begin to understand him and I can begin to change myself. And that's what ultimately changed our relationship and our family. And so I know a lot of you feel the same way. And I know a lot of dads, right? We struggled because we thought, well, I'm going to have a kid. We're to connect over sports but then you have a child who doesn't want to participate

in team sports right and these kids I know they're tough and it doesn't help that we're all flawed from our own childhoods and no one gives you an instruction manual for raising strong little kids everybody just tells you the same thing well you just need to be firm and tough and fall through on your consequences your kids will behave, it's not true because your kids don't care about consequences, right? And all it does is drive you further apart. So in this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast, I'm going to give you two very concrete and what I believe are very powerful action steps from the No BS Instructional Manual because we wanted to create an instruction manual for these kids so that you can build

your relationship in a deeper way with this child or in many cases rebuild a strained relationship. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin. I'm founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you need help with anything, reach out to our son Casey. This is very same Casey I talk about all the time. He is a young man now and he is very helpful towards you, right? He's just like your kids. Not always great for you, but he's awesome for other people. But I will tell you, it is a beautiful thing when you can connect and when you can ultimately really understand your strong-willed child. You will have a bond with them that I believe will be very, very close. Case and I battled a lot, right? But we've rebuilt that relationship and it is tight now and is a very meaningful relationship because we get each other.

And I believe that's what is in store for you and in the future with you, with your strong-willed child, that you will be very, very close. These kids have big hearts. They're very deep kids. They're old souls. And so once you connect, you can connect in a very deep way with these kids.

So contact Casey at C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your kids. What are you struggling with? Ages of the kids. We get together as a family. We talk about it. We reply back to you, usually very quickly and personally. So here are 25, I'm sorry, there are 25 very specific action steps that we go through in

our No BS program. But the following are action steps number 14 and number 18. And I picked these two because I love them and because I think they're very, very powerful. And you may need to listen to this twice, right? And I'm going to put in the newsletter that goes with this, I'm going to do the first one. I'll write it down for you. So if you don't have that, again, look on the website or it's free. Just ask Casey about it. So I believe this may be the most powerful step there is.

It has a very deep, even spiritual quality to it. And it's going to affect you and your kids. So I'm just going to verbalize some of these things that I want you to begin internalizing. In some case, you could even say these things to your strong-willed child in the right time, of course, right? So here are a bunch of them. I release you from thinking that you have to be like me. It's very, very powerful because underneath the surface of what we do a lot with our kids is a lot of the discipline, a lot of things we get frustrated is because they're so different from us at times. And there's

an underlying thing of like, you need to be just like me. You need to do things the way I tell you to do because I'm the authority figure in the home. Most efficient, effective way to do it is this way. And if you're going to be successful in life, you need to do it this way. And I want you to release your kids from thinking that they have to be just like you. I release you from thinking you have to do things the way I would. That is a huge one because I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that the strong-willed child is not going to do things the way you want them to do it. Now, it doesn't mean you let them do whatever they want. Not at all. This is not permissive parenting. I have very clear boundaries, but I give my kids, I give my kids space to do things. I give them space to do things, but do them differently than I would do it as long as we

accomplish the same task. It's a very different thing and I want you to really internalize that as well. Give them some space. They're not going to do it your way and that's a good thing because we want to raise independent kids who know how to operate in this world and who know how to think for themselves. That's what we want but we don't always parent that way. I release you to be the person you're supposed to be. Not the person I wanted you to be. Not the one I put on you externally. I release you to be the person you're supposed to be. I'll add one here. I release you to be the person you're supposed to be. Not the one who's most convenient for me, right? That's a really important thing. No blame, no guilt in anything that we do,

but sometimes as parents, we just want a convenient kid and I don't want to have a convenient kid. I release you to be who you are supposed to be, not to be a little me, right? I release you from thinking you need to be just like your siblings. You don't. You're supposed to be different, and I'm glad that you are. And I'm going to ask you to really wrestle with this because this is as old as mankind. The setting apart of siblings as competition, comparing siblings has had disastrous consequences since the beginning of written history, Cain and Abel.

I release you from thinking you need to be just like your siblings. This happens all the time with our kids because they're strong-willed kids. They internalize, I'm the bad kid. I'm the dumb kid. Please listen to the previous podcast because we go through why kids internalize that. Just did one on discipline, how we need to change our entire focus with our kids

from instead of like, well, I need to discipline them to no, I need to teach them how to problem solve, right? And I need to create successes and build their confidence with discipline. Discipline usually destroys confidence and good discipline should build your child's confidence, right? And I encourage you, that's why I encourage you to go through the Calm Parenting Program, get the everything package, whatever you want to do. I don't care, but go through it because we teach you how to do that.

It's really important that your kids know that they have their own space and place within the family and they're not less than their really good sibling who always gets good grades and behaves really well. I release you from the false expectations of society because there are a lot of those. And I ask you to forgive me for comparing you to others. I release you from the artificial timelines

that society and schools propagate. There's no one path. And kids who have busy brains have great ideas and they're deeper processors of information. And that's why you connect better with adults. That's why you excel in the adult world. And so I take the pressure off of you to conform to someone else's arbitrary timeline. I free you from the comparison to others. If you bloom a little later, know that when you do bloom, it will be spectacular. So take your time. Don't force it. And you'll know when it's time to go to the next step.

That would be an hour-long podcast in itself, right? Of all the artificial timelines that we put on our kids. And so I encourage you, begin to internalize these things. I release you to discover and follow the path you are supposed to take. Not the path that I want you to take. Not the path that others have wanted you to take. Forgive me for trying to make you be like everybody else. I want you to be uniquely you. We need your creativity, your ingenuity. We need your perspective. Look, all of these we could break down into an hour. I release you from following arbitrary

rules and expectations that you know inside are simply not right. I release you instead to do what's right. I release you from thinking that grades and behavior are the most important qualities to develop, when in fact it's your persistence, your compassion, ingenuity, your creativity, your desire to help others that will make you wildly successful in life. Add your own qualities there, right? Your own independent thinking, right? Your own willingness to challenge assumptions, to take risks. Those are the qualities that we need to be, for lack of a better word, incubating, cultivating in our kids. But we fall into this trap of like everything's about good grades and good behavior.

That's what we measure our kids against for 18 years. And then we wonder why they don't feel good about themselves and they feel like failures and they're not motivated anymore. You wouldn't be motivated either, right? If we said, hey, I'm gonna take the two qualities that are your two greatest weaknesses and then I'm going to grade your entire life

on just those two qualities. Nobody gets a job in an industry or gets a job in which the requirements are things that you're really not good at, right? You play to your strengths. So I encourage you to help your kids understand that and to reset your own expectations. I do this from a young age. I do it with a toddler, right? Release them from your expectations as a toddler, right? This is more internally for you, not so much to say to them. But the truth is toddlers are supposed to make messes and explore and be silly.

Their job description is not to be productive and efficient, right? So release them from that. And I can't tell you how important this is, this releasing. I've had to do this even with Casey as he gets older. He and I are a lot alike, but we also have significant differences. And he's grown up thinking he needs to be like his dad to do Celebrate Calm the way I've done it. But that's not him. See, his unique giftings are very different from mine. So I continually have to release him and say, Casey, I release you to do this, to do your work, to do your life the way you're supposed to do it, not the way I've done mine, right? And so that's very powerful and very important.

And by the way, now would be a good time to release yourself from the false expectations you have labored under as a spouse, as a parent, as a person of faith, right? I release you from thinking that your job is to make your kids happy and do everything for them, right? I want you to be free of these false expectations that, well, if you were a good parent make your kids happy and do everything for them, right? I want you to be free of these false expectations that, well, if you were a good parent, your kids would behave all the time. It's a horrible expectation. And a lot of you feel guilt for that. And you feel like you've been bad parents and you've been judged by people.

And I want you to be released from that so you can actually enjoy parenting and you can enjoy your kids even with all of their flaws and all of your flaws. So here's step number 18. That last one, man, man, you could spend, you've really got to dig into that one because that's going to be, that's not something you say one weekend. Hey, I want to release you from all these things, right? It's some of it is a process that you're going to have to even internalize within yourself. But let's go to step number 18. Enter into their world. And here's a bonus.

Let your child teach you something. So think about this. Most of the time, we put all of our energy into trying to get our kids to do things we care about. Study, organize, get good grades, have good manners, behave well, clean up, do chores, listen. And there's nothing really wrong with that, right? But it's all consuming. And these kids naturally resist that. And it hasn't worked to this point, has it? So why not change and do the opposite? Enter into

your child's world. Be curious about what they're interested in. Because we kind of just, we kind of fake that, right? We kind of act like it, but in the back of our head, we're like, hey, nice that you're interested in that. Nice with your little curiosity stuff over there. Hey, but we got chores to do. We got homework to do. You got to behave well and get good grades, right? So be curious about what they're interested in, right?

Like, you know that child who lays off the sofa upside down? Instead of being irritated by it, walk in the living room and lay upside down next to him. Experience it with him or her. See how he views the world. I'm curious. You see the world in such a different way, and I want to understand it. I've spent too much time trying to change you, but I actually want to see the world the way you do. I could actually learn from you and then be quiet and listen. I want you to bond with your child and here's a

fantastic way to do it. Bond over music your child likes. Now here's the hard part. I'm 99% sure you're going to hate their music. It's probably rap or electronic dance music or something you just don't like. So one night while fixing dinner, just try this once, blast some of their music. Just do it. And your child will get off his screens and come ask, what are you doing? And look, it's okay to lie here. Just say this. Hey, on the way home from work, I was listening to the radio and they were talking about this rap artist and his story. And I was curious about his life story. So I wanted to listen and learn exactly why his music is so repulsive.

I'm kidding. Don't mention that part. But I wanted to learn why his music, why he talks about that in his music. And I do mean this. I would do this. So you can think awful things about that. But then say this, I'm curious, what is it about his or her music that resonates with you? And then listen, listen, listen without making snide comments or correcting or trying to change your child's opinion. Listen to them

and relax with that rigidity. See, I guarantee if you're like me, you're rigid and you resist everything that's so different about your kids. Look, I'm not talking about trying to be cool and smoking weed with your kids. That's immature and wrong. I'm talking about entering into your child's world and learning, appreciating, being curious, and finding ways to bond and enjoy this child. Don't allow your fear to drive your child away from you, from the very person whose wisdom he or she needs most. I'll share an example of how we did this. I do that in a lot of the case studies in the No BS program, but here's one. I use this with Casey to rebuild our relationship, and I called it agenda-free time.

Every Saturday morning, I do what Casey was interested in, which was going to car dealerships and test driving different cars. And I hated it, but it was agenda-free time. We didn't talk about his attitude, his behavior, his school performance, any of that. We simply enjoyed time together doing something he was interested in. I encourage you, do that. Even if you hate it and you don't want to. Even if your child doesn't deserve it. And dads, this is huge for you. Do it. It just can't be about what you are interested in. And if you don't do this, I guarantee you're going to regret it when you're older. Now here's one more really great strategy related to this. Let your child teach you something. See, we're so busy with life and so busy ordering our kids around that they feel like robots, but these are bright kids. So if you want to connect with them

and have them actually come to you and listen, then listen to them and ask your child to teach you something, even if you aren't interested. Fake it. Ask them to show you something with technology or how to create something. I promise you, your child will appreciate this more than you know, and it's a way to bond with them. Look, I've said this a million times. You're justified in feeling angry and frustrated, annoyed by your strong-willed child. You're justified, right, in all of these feelings. But just punishing them and getting on them all the time and lecturing doesn't work and it makes things work. So do the opposite. Enter into your

child's world instead of demanding that they pursue what's just interesting or important to you. So let's begin doing, let's do these things this week. Begin releasing your child from all of these limiting expectations and start this when your kids are young. And summer, great time to rebuild your relationship because there's no school pressure. Hopefully you have a little bit more time. I encourage you go through the 25 action steps in the No BS program. It's on sale now at CelebrateCalm.com or it comes free in the Get Everything package. I encourage you just get everything. That way you've got everything. Look, it's a little more, maybe a little bit less than one trip to a therapist's office. And look, we believe in therapy, but therapy for a lot of our kids, you just waste a couple thousand dollars because they go in there and they manipulate the therapist and tell

them what they want to hear, right? Or they just say, I don't know. I don't know. I'd rather you learn how to connect with your kids and do this. So if we can help you in any way, reach out to us. Reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Let us know what you're struggling. We will help you.

Thank you for doing this. Thanks for listening. Love you all. Bye-bye.