Calm Parenting Podcast - 5 Discipline Tools To Get Your Kids to Cooperate

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

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Calm Parenting Podcast listeners get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com slash kirk. Visit ixl.com slash kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. So how do you get kids to sit still at the dinner table? How do you get them to bed on time? And then how do you get kids to sit still at the dinner table? How do you get them to bed on time? And then how do you get them up in the morning? And then after school, how do you get them to do their homework or stop the sibling fights? All of these things require different tools. We need different tools for different situations. So imagine around your house, you know, things need to be fixed. But if all you have is a hammer, well, you're going to

make things worse and you're going to break things and make it worse off than it was before. You know the analogy I'm going for, right? Sometimes you need the hammer. It works. But sometimes you need a different tool. So on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast, I'm going to share five different tools to use for discipline and motivation that you can use every day in your home. And I'm going to try to make this very, very practical. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you need help, reach out to our son Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your family.

What are you struggling with? I promise we read every single email, we discuss it, and then we reply back personally because this is our family mission to help you and we'll try to give you as many tools as possible. And if you need some of our other tools, you can schedule a phone consultation with me. Or you can get the Get Everything package, which is my favorite tool because it's like 35 hours of practical stuff to help you in every situation. Here's why that's important. I'm going to do an example today to demonstrate the tools with Morning Routine. But when you listen to the different audio programs on our new app, which is awesome. You just get the whole variety. You

get it all put together with multiple, multiple tools at the same time. So let's dig into this. Anyway, if you need help, reach out to Casey. He'll help you. If you need help financially, ask him for it. It's what we're here for. So let's go through five different tools because some of you or your spouse only have one tool and that's the hammer, right? Which is consequences. What consequences do we give? Well, we've already established on all the previous episodes that consequences don't work for your strong willed child. Consequences don't change human behavior. So we have to go beyond that. So let's do these five for morning routine. Now, many of your kids in the morning, they don't get up maybe because they have anxiety about school, right? And so I want you to first to control your own anxiety in the morning

because think what we do. This is what morning routine sounds like for many of your kids. Hey, hey, hey, I know you didn't sleep well last night, but get up, get up. I want you to do like the four or five things you'd least want to do early in the morning. Like get up, get a shower, put your clothes on, eat something you don't want to eat, brush your teeth, brush your hair, grab your backpack and get ready for school. Right? Or are we rushing, guys, come on, got to go to school, school. Right? What they hear is, look, hey, do you want to get up and get ready to go to that place where you're right on the behavior chart and you don't have any friends

and you get in trouble all the time, ready? That's what it feels like, all this anxiety. So control your anxiety. A much better thing to say when your kids resist is, well, of course you don't wanna go to school. I get that. But I believe you're capable of going and actually having a really good day. So number one tool, and this is pretty much across in all situations, get to the root of the issue. I just mentioned for many

of your kids, they struggle with anxiety. Anxiety is caused by unknowns. They struggle because maybe they don't do well on tests or they have social anxiety or they'reiety is caused by unknowns. They struggle because maybe they don't do well on tests or they have social anxiety or they're in trouble all the time. So here's one tool in the morning. Let's go to that school, talk to the teacher and assistant principal, whoever it is, and say, hey, could you give my child a very specific job to do every day when they get to school? Because if a teacher, assistant principal says, oh man, Rebecca, I'm so excited. Listen, I need you here every day. When you get here, I'd love to have you here a couple minutes early if you can. I need your help. For a little bit kid, it could be like, could you move all the books from this side of the classroom to that

side of the classroom? And then tomorrow, teacher just gives them the opposite job to move them all back. Many of your kids won't care. They just want the job to do. It focuses their brain on something they're in control of, that they're good at, and they know the teacher's going to say, hey, nice job. Thank you. For older kids, I want to get the school, and this could be the school, taekwondo place, could be church, synagogue, mosque, whatever. I want to get other people using your kids' natural gifts, talents, and passions. Oh, I've heard you're really good at doing X. Could you get here a few minutes early and help me with that? That will help with anxiety. See, we're getting to the root of the need and we're giving the child a tool. So number two,

let's talk about tools. Now, there are dozens, probably hundreds of tools in our curriculum that you will hear. Let me give you one of my favorite ones for getting kids out of the bed in the morning. One of my favorite tools is the obstacle course. You've heard me talk about it. I want an obstacle course for your sensory seekers especially and just for younger kids because it's fun. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money. You do it in the backyard, you do it in the basement, and you wake your kids up in the morning and say, hey, guess where I hid your breakfast this morning? Out in the obstacle course. And you get to go out and find it, right? I know parents always push back. Well, that's not practical. Yeah, it is. Try it. Many of your kids would love to eat their breakfast outside with the chipmunks while you're inside

with the compliant children enjoying the peace and quiet. Look, the idea is it's a tool, right? When you come home from school in the afternoon, giving a younger child a treasure hunt, that's a tool that we use. In school, we use lots of tools, giving kids jobs to do, giving them the sensory strip that they can play with underneath their desk that nobody can see or hear, but it allows your kids to use their hands and fidget appropriately. That's a tool we use. Homework time tools, using music, letting your

kids do their homework underneath the desk, outside, while you're playing catch, right? Those are all tools. So think of tools. Number three, connection. Connection breeds compliance. Connection breeds cooperation, however you want to remember that. But connection is what we're always after. So let me give you two quick examples of that for morning routine. When Casey, our son, was a little bit older, he got into blues music. Why? Because they're old souls, right? So I'd go in his room and instead of, you know, you got to get up for school if you're late, and I start barking orders. Instead, I'd say, hey, Casey, last night I downloaded some really cool John Lee Hooker stuff. I mean, if you get up, you're ready in 22 minutes. We can blast that stuff this morning, right? Here's one connection. Let's say, and I'm going to use this later as well,

but your child has to be in the car or on the school bus at 7 21 AM. I like interesting time limits because it sticks in the brain. I may say this, Hey, from now on, every morning, I am going to be ready by 7.14 a.m. I'm going to be ready for work. I'm going to have all my clothes on. I'm going to be eating. I'm going to have all my keys ready. Everything's ready at 7.14. We need to leave at 7.21.

If you get up and are completely ready with everything backpack by the door shoes on teeth brushed everything's done you're ready to go by 7 14 we will have seven minutes of undivided attention time to do whatever you want to do if you want to play a game of uno i'm all over if you want to show me a tiktok video the thing i hate more than anything in the entire world don't say that part just think it if you want to show me a TikTok video, the thing I hate more than anything in the entire world, don't say that part, just think it. If you want to show me a TikTok video, I'll watch. I may actually even act interested in it and ask you questions. By the way, if they do show you, as long as it's not really inane, which I know is a big leap,

be curious about why they're interested in that. You may learn something about your child, whatever they're talking about, be curious about it. Don't just always dismiss it. But the idea is you're saying, I'm going to be ready. I've got this time. And with multiple kids, you may change it. You may be like on Monday, I'm going to listen to your thing on Tuesday, your thing, however you want to work it, right? I want that connection. And for most of us, we have maybe one or two strong will kids. So it's not like for all the kids, the other ones get up and get ready. They're ready to go. But there's something that they get to connect with you over. It can be something as simple as leading them and saying, look, I'm going to be sitting in the car at 714. If you want to

read your favorite book, listen to your favorite music, if you want to talk about X subject, I'm just going to be sitting in the car. As soon as you get out there, we can talk. We can do whatever you want to do, right? So that's using connection. I like that. It's a soft tool. Now, number four, here comes the hammer. We can do consequences. You know, hopefully from listening to the podcast, when I do discipline, when I do consequences like that, it's even matter of fact, I don't get upset. I don't make it personal. I just tell them this is the way I roll. So I did this one with Casey. I've done all of these with Casey. We did most of these with 1,500 kids who came in our home. So it's called time for time. Hey, Casey, here's the deal. Carpool, the car leaves every

morning at 721. Every minute that you are late steals a minute from my day, or every minute you are late makes me a minute late to the office. My time's important. See, this is self-respect. My time is important. So every minute that you take from me, every minute that you are late, you choose, you are choosing to forfeit 15 minutes of your screen time at night. So I laid that out, did it over a weekend. I say, next week, I'm not fighting with you. I'm not doing power struggles. We're not going to go back and forth every morning. I just want to let you know, 721, you will be in the car. Every minute you are late, you choose to lose 15 minutes of your screen time. Choice is up to you. So the first morning he comes

into the car, I hold up the phone, he's three minutes late at 724. And what does he say? Seriously, dad, three minutes is pretty good for me. And I was like, well, remember, you just chose to lose 45 minutes of your screen time. Well, that's stupid. That's not fair. I said, I don't play fair. I play to win. And my time is important. It's extremely important. Well, how come it's 15 minutes because my time is more important than yours right and you don't have to say that but that was absolutely true because my time is more important when he was that age it was more important than his and even if it's not that's just what I came up with 1 to 15

my friend look I don't do a lot of consequences, but when I do them, I want to get the child's attention. I'm not saying personal. You know what? If you don't learn how to be on time, you're never going to be successful in life. You know, other people are going to, there's no need for all of that. Just letting them know this is how I roll. So guess what? He got really upset. What do you think the car ride was like on the way to school that morning? Do you think he was like, dad, you know, thanks for setting limits and being firm and following through. It really makes me feel safe as a child. Right?

He didn't say that. He was the whole way. I don't know where you come up with this stuff. This is stupid. You're supposed to be a parenting expert. I don't know why anybody would buy your audio programs. Right? Did I get upset at him? Inside,

of course, I'm like, all you have to do, dude, I do everything for you in the morning. Anyway, all you have to do is be on time. It's not that hard. That's what's going on inside of me. But I don't react out of that because I knew he wasn't mad at me. He was mad at himself because he made a bad choice that cost him 45 minutes of his screen time. So we get to school, this awful drive, have a good day, case, and he just walked away. And you can choose to get offended if you want. Well, he was disrespectful to me this morning. He didn't give me a hug goodbye. Well, he was mad at himself, right? I understand human nature. I didn't expect him to turn it off all of a sudden. And so I'm a grown adult. I'm not going to take it personally.

Stop taking everything personally. So that night, guess what happens? I get home from work. I go into Casey's room. He's on his video games. So I popped in and I said, hey, hope you had a good day. Listen, just a reminder. Remember this morning you chose to lose 45 minutes of your screen time. So time's up. What do you think he said then? Seriously? I didn't know you were really going to do that, dad. I'm in the middle of a game. Again, I just did what I told him I was going to do. And I mixed in different tools. We did the connection. Hey, I'll help you. You need some tools to get up in the morning. Of course, I know you don't want to get up and go right away to school in the morning. I get it. But 721 is the time, right? And so when you discipline,

when you use the hammer, just do it like that and just be consistent. But I don't want that to be your only tool, right? That would be foolish in your home. We only have a hammer. What do we need fixed? Well, honey, I'm not sure the hammer is going to work for that, you know? So here's my fifth tool, which is giving kids ownership. This is one of my favorite ones, and I love this example. I give kids space. I give them, look, I create a box for kids to live in. And this is a box that has very clear boundaries, expectations, and very clear rules, right? I'm very clear about that. It's not permissive parenting. I'm very clear about what I'm expecting. But within this big box, I will give you space and space to do things differently than I would do them

as long as we accomplish the same objective. So my objective is you're going to be in a car at 721 or you're going to be on the school bus when that comes at 721. That's my objective. Now, I have a way that I want my child to get up in the morning. Of course I do, because I have control issues like you do, and I have all kinds of anxiety like you do. But I have to control that, because unless I control that, I'm actually managing my child's behavior for him. I'm actually being responsible for my child's behavior. And then you'll end up saying like, well, my child's not responsible for himself. Well, how can he be? Because you're always doing it for him and you're dictating exactly how you need it done because you have control issues like we all do. So ownership says, hey, and it may sound

like this. Hey, Casey, here's the deal. I have one goal for you in the morning. It's to be on that school bus at 721. I don't care what you look like. I don't care what you smell like. I don't care what's in your stomach. If you're smart enough to wear the clothes to bed that you're going to wear to school tomorrow, that's brilliant. You can roll out of bed at 719,

grab the Pop-Tart that you hid under your bed because I know you hoard food up there, and you can grab your backpack and run out to the school bus. You don't even have to have your shoes on. You're not going to die. You can put grab your backpack and run out to the school bus. You don't even have to have your shoes on. You're not going to die. You can put the shoes on while you're on the school bus. I don't care.

As long as you're on that school bus at 721 and you made it, at the end of the day, you know what you're going to get? Fist bump, my friend. Nice job making the school bus. Now, inside, what do I feel like? Oh, I hate the way he gets ready. I want him to get up early and get some sensory exercise and eat blueberries and avocados so he's some good healthy fats, so his brain's ready to learn.

And I want him to look nice and I want him to be polite and I want all those things. But the more you force it, the more you try to coerce, the more you push, the more they resist. How many kids have ever said, mom, I didn't realize that what I was putting in my body was so unhealthy, but now that you lectured me for 15 minutes and showed me the food pyramid, which is all wrong anyway, now I'm motivated to eat healthy. It doesn't work that way. You've got to give them some space to own it and figure it out themselves. I've done podcasts on this where you have to step back and give them space to step up. Otherwise, you will suffocate them and you will cause more resistance. I guarantee you when you give your child some space, he or she will figure out how to do

these things by themselves. You're just not going to like how they do it, but that's your issue, not theirs. And you can actually control that. You can't control the behavior of another human being. But when you control your own behavior, you give your kids space to do it. And you're going to be like, nice job. Are you going to like it? No, but over time, I promise over time, your kids will do things more the way you want it done when you relax and stop trying to dictate it and make them be just like you. Lead by example. They will follow your example, but they're not doing it tomorrow or the next week and maybe not even the next year in some cases, right, with eating certain foods. They will follow your behavior and what

you do in your home. You have a DNA in your home, but the more you try to force it all the time, the more they resist. So I want you to give them ownership. By the way, for some of you, tomorrow morning, your kids, you live in a cold climate, your kids are going to come downstairs in shorts or without a jacket. Well, honey, you have to wear long pants. You have to wear a jacket or you're going to catch a cold. And you just lied to your child. You don't catch a cold from cold weather. It's from germs. The truth is this. I don't want the other parents and teachers to think that I'm a bad mother sending my child to school in shorts when it's 32 degrees out. Let it go, right?

If your kids end up getting cold at the bus stop, they'll steal another child's jacket. They'll barter for food if they're hungry. That's called being resourceful. I'm kind of kidding with that. But let go of that, right? Stop creating all these power struggles and give them some space. I guarantee they'll start eating breakfast sooner if you kind of back off from all of the control stuff.

And sometimes you just need to leave stuff out and they'll pick it up as long as you don't say anything. So five tools. I want you to meet the internal need. We do a lot of that in our programs of getting to the root of the frustration, the anxiety, all those things, even nutrition-wise. Number two, I want you to give your kids tools. Focus on that at school. Give teachers tools

to help your child. The ADHD University program is awesome for that. Number three, connect with your kids. Connection breeds cooperation and compliance. Number four, you can bring the hammer. You can do consequences, right? You can do the tough approach time for time. Do that, even, matter of fact, not personally. And number five, learn to give your kids some ownership within your boundaries. Within your boundaries, you give your kids some ownership to do things differently than you would do them

as long as they get it done. If you need help with that, listen to our programs on that new app. You can either get everything we have or you get the Calm Parenting Package. It's right at CelebrateCalm.com or reach out to a phone consultation. That's on there. Or reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. We'll help you.