Calm Parenting Podcast - 3 (Actually 5!) Quick Ideas For Dads & Moms

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

3 (Actually 5!) Quick Ideas For Dads & Moms When you thought about having kids or adopting, you didn’t say, “I bet we are going to have a really strong-willed child who fights us over everything, and that will cause us to fight and grow apart. Can’t wait!” But here you are. So here are 5 quick tips to help de-escalate situations and get your kids to listen. Our Black Friday Sale Ends This Weekend! Take advantage of the Lowest Prices of the Year at https://celebratecalm.com/black-friday/ Want to book a LIVE EVENT in 2023?! We are now booking IN PERSON and Zoom events for schools, PTAs, churches, synagogues, corporations, and agencies! Simply email Casey@CelebrateCalm with LIVE in the subject line and he'll share a one-page proposal within hours. It's EASY! Questions? Need help deciding on the best tools for your family? Email [e-mail] and Casey will help you personally! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And every day is going to be a power struggle. And then you and I are going to begin to not like each other very much because we didn't really discuss our parenting styles and what our childhood was like. And then all of a sudden we're going to pull apart. We're going to fight each other and the kids are going to divide us. And then our whole home life is going to be miserable. Like you didn't have that thought. But it's kind of what's happened, right? So how do you fix that? How do we change that?

The original idea of this podcast was going to be titled Three Quick Ideas for Dads. But these ideas work for moms. And I don't want to give you just three ideas. I actually just thought of a couple other bonus ones. So here they are. And part of the backdrop is you have these kids. And in many cases, in my case, I began to pull away from my son because I didn't like him and because I couldn't control myself. And when you don't have a relationship, you can't discipline because they're not going to listen to you. And I had to rebuild that relationship. A couple quick ideas for rebuilding. One is music.

Take an interest in your child's music. I know you hate their music. It's awful. Just like your parents hated your music and their parents hated theirs. You don't have to encourage it, but at least be curious and ask your child why they like that music. Listen to it sometimes. Just try that. It's a good way to bond. Another way, ask your child to teach you something because our kids go through their entire childhood teachers parents coaches leaders teaching them teaching them telling what to do lecturing give them an Opportunity say you know what? I'm curious. Could you help me with this? Could you show me how that works? I have a dad that I was working with and he's he doesn't like Apple products He liked the MacBooks.

And so he's a Microsoft guy and it's a security thing for him. But his son loves Apple products. Well, he digs in because he's a man, and that's what we do. We're like, well, those things aren't safe, and I'm not going to talk about those. I was like, just take an interest. Just say, hey, you're really curious about these Apple and these MacBooks. Why? What are you curious about them for?

Why do you like the functionality? And just listen or let them teach you how to do something on your phone. Let them teach you. It is a way to bond and it's really cool. So with that said, let's get into the real meat of this, what I was looking to on this podcast. For those who don't know, I'm Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. Backstory, I have a very strong-willed son, almost destroyed

our relationship, but by learning how to control myself first, I rebuilt that relationship and we have an awesome relationship. And he is a tough kid, but I'm also a tough dad. And we had 1,500 of these strong-willed kids in our home. So the short story is we know what we're doing with these kids and this stuff works. So dig in and do it. If you need help, reach out to that kid, Casey. That's our son. C-A-S-E-Y. CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your family. We'll help you out. Go on to Celebrate Calm. Get the Calm Parenting Package. Why? Because it'll help your family. Now, if you want to be miserable and continue ruining your relationship, then don't do that. But if you want really practical stuff that works, in the Calm Parenting Package, there's a program called Straight Talk for Dads,

because I like talking directly to dads, and that's what I'm going to do right now. I like giving you on the Straight Talk for Dads, it's 24 hours of when you get up in the morning, do this. When you come home from work, do this. And I give you scripts to use. It's really cool. So three things for dads. Moms, you can apply too. One, men respect other men who are cool and calm under pressure, right? If you're in the middle of a war, you don't want your platoon captain saying, oh my gosh, they're shooting at us. What do we do? But we often flail, right? As parents, sometimes as dads, we do that. If you like football, you want your football team's quarterback to stay cool and calm under pressure. Because if your team is down by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, you don't want your quarterback coming into the huddle.

You know, we're down by two touchdowns. You don't know what route to run. You keep fumbling. Let's go score. Nobody's following that guy. You want the guy who walks into the huddle confidently, takes a knee. By the way, for dads of younger kids, come home from work or out of your home office and take a knee. It changes your body posture and your tone of voice, and you lead your kids from that posture. It's really cool. Just try it. And that quarterback says, guys, we're down by two touchdowns. We're going to march down the field, execute our play, score, get the ball back. We're going to score again. And the best quarterbacks, you will see them, they don't get flustered on the field. Men, moms too, when we're at work,

we can handle the pressure. Something's going wrong. Sales are down. Competitors coming in. We have to problem solve. And we kick in. We're like, you know what? I'm going to dig into this. I'm going to problem solve. I'll stay and work for 24 hours. I'm going to solve this problem because we're good at that. For some reason, we open the front door of our homes and we lose it. They're just Legos on the floor and we can't handle the disorder. We start yelling. There's a problem and we run from it or we try to use fear and intimidation like I did. It doesn't work. So here's an idea. Come home and talk to your kids like they're a business colleague. Because at work, you don't freak out on your employees or your colleagues. Otherwise, they don't trust you and they won't follow you. That younger employee,

what do you do? You take him or her under your wing and you walk down the hallway and you say, you know what? You're doing a really good job. Here are a couple areas where you need to step up, but I believe you're capable. So this week, be the coach. Try being a coach of your child. Because what are we as men? Well, I just have to be the strict disciplinarian. And I'm going to take everything personally and think everything my son does or daughter does, they're just disrespecting me because I get offended easily like an NFL wide receiver. Now, look, if you're offended at that, then you got to work on that.

Because you are like that. You know why? Because you're a man. That then you got to work on that because you are like that. You know why? Because you're a man. That's the definition of a dad. That's what we all do. But you need to change that, right? And so instead of just thinking like, well, my job is just to discipline all the time. No, your job is to teach. Discipline needs to teach, but we're usually punishing and getting upset. And what we're really telling our kids is you better behave because if you don't, I'm going to get angry and yell. True. It's what we teach our kids. I want to teach them. I know what's going on. I can handle this. I got it. You're

having a problem in school. You're having a problem with your friends. Look, I've been through this stuff before. Let me give you some of my wisdom. That's a coaching kind of thing. And I think it will take some of the pressure off of you. Second thing, I like this analogy. So I'm doing a phone consultation with the dad. I'm doing a lot of phone one-on-one stuff with men now because I love it. We'll set up like 20 minutes, just 20 minutes. Cause guys, we can get to a lot of stuff very quickly. You don't need to, you don't need to go through all your stuff. Just like, Hey, tell me what to do. And I'm like, here's a script. Go do this, dad. Fist bump.

Good. And so I'm doing this a lot, like once a week or every two weeks on a certain time of the day. Or I'm doing stuff. I'm texting guys every two days like, hey, remember this. Do this. So talk to this dad. And he's not really buying into it. He's not getting it.

He's like, well, my son just needs to do what I told him to do. I was like, I get that that but you can't control yourself so I pivoted and I was like hey I'm just curious what kind of jobs have you had what do you do and he goes well I used to be um animal welfare and I was like oh so like dogs that are out in the wild like you had dog catcher and he's like yeah and I was like hey that's interesting so'm curious, if you had a wild dog out in the neighborhood and you had to go find it, how did you approach the dog? And he's like, well, you know, you can't just come running up onto it because then it'll create a defensive response and it'll attack you. And I was like, interesting. And he's like, yeah, so you know, you come up and

you get down on a knee. And he was like, oh, I see what you're doing. I was like, exactly. You know intuitively what to do with a dog who is angry and afraid because that dog is angry and afraid and that's why it's lashing out. And guess what? Your child is probably angry and a little bit afraid. So what if you took the same approach

to approaching your child that you did in your job? His other job was, guess what? A fireman. Guess what a fireman does? He puts out fires. So we went through the whole process of like, hey, when there was a fire, you knew what you were going to do. You had a process. You didn't like run right into the building. You problem solved. You figured out. You had a routine. So next time your child is emotionally on fire, why don't you have a routine? And why don't you problem solve? And why don't you put out the emotional fire like you did as a fireman? So guys, moms, think about the job that you're in. You may be a teacher. You might be a nurse. You might be an occupational therapist. You could be a're in. You may be a teacher. You might be a nurse. You might be an occupational therapist.

You could be a business executive. You could be whatever it is, an engineer. Take the same principles that work at work and apply them to working with your child. And then the third thing I want to say is going to be very direct, but it comes from a place of compassion. And I hope you're not offended by this, but sometimes when speaking to men, my tone and language is a little bit more intense direct, but it comes from a place of compassion. And I hope you're not offended by this, but sometimes when speaking to men, my tone and language is a little bit more intense because

that's what I respond to better. I like a guy who says, you know what? You've got to grow up, Kurt. That's what my mentors tell me. So I just told this to a dad on a phone consultation, and I hope you will receive this. Stop asking your son to deal with your childhood crap that you haven't had the courage and strength to deal with as a grown man. Isn't that true? You're putting on. I was putting onto my son who I love and who you love your child. I was putting all of my childhood that I got from my dad onto my son and expecting him to deal with it when I hadn't had the courage or strength or the tools to deal with that as a grown man. And I'll give you the tools because I say this out of

compassion. Here's another one. You keep saying your child won't push through when things get hard, but you won't either because you complain that your son won't give his best effort. Well, neither are you because when things get hard, do you know what I did? I ran and hit because that's what I learned as a kid to hide from conflict because my parents fault all the time. I want you to dig in. You want your son to push through when things get hard. Well, it's time for you to do that. You keep saying your child is the issue. Well, it's my child. He's the issue. If my daughter would just do. And you keep denying the dysfunction you've carried from your own childhood, maybe your mom or your dad. I promise this will only change when you admit that you need to change yourself first. Nothing else is going to change.

You have to change yourself first because that's what grownups do. Otherwise, you're dumping on a nine-year-old or a six-year-old or a three-year-old or a 14-year-old what a 39-year-old man won't even address. It's unfair. It's wrong. So when you're ready to do this, I will help you because I know it's hard work. That little boy inside of you, and I know that sounds weird to you, but there's a little kid inside of you that's hurt. It's probably hurt deeply. Let's not pass this pain on to another person, on to another, so that your own little boy or daughter grows up hurt

and does this to his or her own kids, right? I guarantee you, I'm a 56-year-old man. I'm very confident now. I've been through a lot of stuff, but I am still a little boy. Still a little boy looking for my dad's approval at times because I never got it. That little boy comes out at times and it's hurt. And I don't want to pass on that pain and all of your issues to another generation. You get to be the hero now. You know why I like saying that? Because I'm a man.

I like to be the hero. So do you, right? You're the one who gets to stop the pain from passing down through generations in your family. And you're a fighter, right? That's what you want to pass along to your kids, man. You got to work hard. You got to push through this.

You're a fighter and you've done that in your work. You've done it in a lot of different areas. It's time to do that and deal with the stuff from your childhood and deal with this as a dad so we can heal that up and so your family can find the heal. And I'll just say this. If you don't do it, your wife is going to divorce you and leave you. She will.

She can't put up with this. She already has to take care of the kids. And she has to manage the emotions of your strong-willed child. She has to manage your emotions because you can't. That's unsustainable. It causes adrenal fatigue. It causes women to shut down. And they eventually leave.

And you know what happens? All of that time Do you put into your work and all that hard work when you busted your butt and you saved and you invented said? Half of its gonna be gone and you know It's even worse if you don't change you have to live with yourself for the rest of your life and all your relationships will continue To have this pattern and you will not spend holidays with your kids and your grandkids. I know it sounds extreme, but it's true. It's how it works. But if you dig in because you are a fighter and you work through this, you'll be proud of yourself. And so were your wife and so were your kids. And

they're going to see you as a new man. If I can help you, you reach out to us, reach out to our son or reach out to me directly. Kirk, K-I-R-K. It's celebratecalm.com and I will work with you. I'll do phone mentoring with you. The easiest thing right now is to either go and get the get everything package. Just get that one. It's got everything we put together and it's cheaper than the phone consultations. And look, it's cost of a trip or two to a therapist's office. That's it. You spend a lot more than that on all your other stuff that you like to buy. Change yourself.

Change your family. If we can help, reach out to us. Okay? Thank you for listening. Talk to you guys soon. Bye-bye.