Calm Parenting Podcast - 5 Things I Feared About My Son & His Future #470

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

5 Things I Feared About My Son & His Future #470 Our son had extremely intense meltdowns, got in trouble routinely at school, didn't study or try his hardest, had a messy bedroom, and left lights on everywhere. Diagnosed with an alphabet soup of labels, he didn't listen, did argue, and underperformed in school. How did we address these issues and did we really have reasons to fear for his future? This is both very practical and encouraging!  This is the FINAL week of our Spring Sale on the Get Everything Package. Get hundreds of practical strategies that really work with your strong-willed kids. Visit https://celebratecalm.com/products and make 2025 DIFFERENT. AG1 AG1 is offering new subscribers a FREE $76 gift when you sign up. You’ll get a Welcome Kit, a bottle of D3 & K2 AND 5 free travel packs in your first box. Go to https://drinkag1.com/calm COZY EARTH Wrap yourself and your kids in Cozy Earth luxury…with 40% OFF! Visit https://cozyearth.com/ and use my exclusive 40% off code CALM.  IXL LEARNING Get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at https://IXL.com/KIRK. FASTGROWINGTREES.COM/CALM Fast Growing Trees has the best deals for your yard, up to half off on select plants. Listeners to our show get an additional 15% OFF their first purchase at https://FASTGROWINGTREES.COM/CALM using the code CALM. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So visit iXcel.com slash Kirk to get the most effective learning program at the best price. So do you have a child who doesn't always listen or behave well either at home or in school? Do you have a child that's really emotional and intense? And man, those meltdowns, they can last for a long time and they get pretty, pretty severe. What about a child who just kind of struggles in school? Maybe isn't developing good study habits, procrastinates, waits to the last minute. What about kids who are kind of lazy at home, right? They don't do their chores, they're messy, they leave their lights on. How about kids who struggle with focus and attention and maybe they have some kind of alphabet soup of labels like ADD, ADHD, ODD, OCD, anxiety,

sensory processing disorder. Maybe they're a highly sensitive kid. Well, good, because I just described our son. And what I wanted to do on this episode of the Call Him Parenting Podcast is to share with you five things that caused me a lot of anxiety with Casey. What did we fear about him when he was younger? What did we do about that?

And then how has it turned out over time? So that is what we're going to discuss on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. Welcome. This is Kirk Martin kind of fumbling my words. I am founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us in our big winter sale at Celebrate Calm.com. So I'm not gonna rerecord that because you know who I'm in. You can deal with it. So let's go through the first thing that really hit me when Casey was young.

He was really struggling in school. And so we got a diagnosis of ADHD and so my first response was denial. You know what? He doesn't have ADHD. He's just a kid. He's just a boy. We got a diagnosis of ADHD and so my first response was denial. You know what? He doesn't have ADHD. He's just a kid. He's just a boy. He'll outgrow it. And at the time, way back then, it was kind of like, sounded like this death sentence. Like your child is going to suffer his or her whole life. They're never going to be successful. And they're always going to struggle. And so I did fight it for a long time until I finally discovered he probably got it from me. And once I started realizing that and

and the other you know the other thing that really struggled with and I've shared this before with Casey is he was just so strong willed want to do things his own way and obstinate he just dug in again just like me. And so when he was younger I was angry at him sometimes and I didn't realize this till later because sometimes our anger can come through in it's kind of a resentment towards your child like why are they so difficult? Why do I have to go through this? I've done all the right things. I'm trying to be a good parent. Why is this child so difficult? Why did it make everything so difficult? Why do I have to go through this? I've done all the right things. I'm trying to be a good parent. Why is this child so difficult? Why did it make

everything so hard?" And the anger and resentment inside of me was because it was really forcing me to come face to face with my own immaturity. The fact that I couldn't control my emotions, that I was really emotional and intense and I had to change. And that's a lot of the basis for all of our programs is that process of like learning how to calm myself down and deal with my own triggers. So there was a beautiful part of that. At the time I didn't like it,

but as it turns out it was really cool. And so what happened is I finally embraced that and I don't really embrace the label so much, but there's definitely his brain definitely worked and works in a very different way than other kids brains do. And so my goal was to dig in and just find out, okay, what's the next, what's underneath the surface? What's really going on under there? So when you hear us talking about kids needing brain Stimulations because they don't get enough dopamine or blood flow the brain and that's why Sometimes they procrastinate you procrastinate you wait till the last minute you lay off the sofa upside down blood flow comes to the brain

You get an adrenaline rush helps you concentrate and we started to develop all these tools. And so I started to learn, hey, Casey's always tapping his pencil. And instead of just saying, hey, cut it out, that's irritating because I'm a really sensitive person and I don't like discordant noise. It just irritates me. Instead, I started being detective and finding out,

oh, the rhythmic nature of music, tapping the pencil, chewing on things actually helps bring blood flow to the brain, helps you concentrate better. So I started volunteering in his class and I found I was helping all the other kids who really struggled. We came up with that sensory strip idea and that's where if you hear us talking about sometimes homework time, standing at the kitchen counter where they can rock back and forth, eating a snack, listening to music while they do their work

because all of the rhythm in there creates rhythm in the brain and actually helps them concentrate. And we found out working together while I was helping him with schoolwork, I was trying to take the principles I had learned in the corporate world of like time management that had never worked for me. And I was like, Casey let's just throw this out. Let's not do time management. What we need to manage is our energy because we work on momentum. We feel things. We get a certain mood and we work with that nature instead of against it.

And so if you listen to our ADHD programs or any of them, you'll hear these come out, you'll be like, oh, that works way better, because we stopped trying to fight his nature and we started working with it. And when we did that, we found out, oh, he gets his schoolwork done a little bit easier. Did he ever love schoolwork?

No. But we found it really helped him. And to this day, he manages his energy because we talk about it this almost daily of like, what's our schedule for this week? Hey, I'm going to go do this. And he's learned to do a lot of hard thinking Work first thing in the morning or after he does some ski mountaineering or after we do a big hike Because we have stimulated our brain. We have that blood flow going

We've got all the endorphins are going and so it's really cool And so he struggled with focus in school, but then you have to draw out perspective. You know when he didn't struggle with focus and when he could actually hyper focus? When he was curious about things. When he started learning how to fly an airplane, when he was about 11 or 12, why? Well, because if you don't focus, you die.

And so it was so stimulating and he was very good under pressure. And what I want you to do throughout your child's childhood is not just notice all the things that they can't do. Put them in situations and learn and say, oh when he was flying airplanes, when he was reffing hockey games, he started that at about age 12. Because that's how I actually got him off video games to say, hey the video games give you a sense of control you're completely in control of them you know exactly what to expect use your strategic thinking skills there it's

stimulating you're actually really good at it so it builds your confidence what could we do differently that would also meet those same needs and he's like well I want to learn how to fly planes and I was like oh it's a bad idea because it's expensive and I don't like to fly. I have a fear of flying. I don't like you flying a plane, but that's how our kids are because they like doing kind of the opposite of what we like because then they can own it themselves. And so he, in order to fly planes, he had to pay for half the lesson. How do you get, how do you get money when you're 12? Well, he could work at the local ice rink

reffing hockey games. When he did that, he was so locked in. All that intensity. Now I could see it on the ice and he didn't mind conflict and people yelling, other parents yelling at him from the stands. He was great because he loved the brain stimulation. He was used to me yelling at him for so many years, so it wasn't like it was anything new. And he was so focused there. And when he used to play guitar, he used to take him to blues clubs like in Chicago when we travel and he'd play there. And I was like, man, when this kid, and this kid is motivated, this kid has every quality necessary for success in life. Highly motivated, very focused.

So that's why I want you to put your kids in those situations. As I look at him now as an adult, he's very goal-oriented, very much a leader. But if you just notice the things that he didn't do well as a little kid, all we would have done is point those things out. You know what? You're not good at this. Stop doing that. Okay, second thing that made me afraid early on was he was really emotional and very intense, just like many of your kids. So let's say you're, I don't want to call neurotypical kids or other kids like something goes wrong and they get a little bit upset, but then they're fine like 60 seconds later. Not our kids they go like 10 levels higher and it can last for some of your kids hours and it made me really really uncomfortable because

at times it was kind of scary and it felt like everybody was out of control we didn't know what to do and so I started studying that like what's really going on and that's when we came up with look here's our quick ideas instead of telling him to calm down I gave him something he was in control of because I noticed when people get upset it's because they're they feel like they're out of control they've lost control I validate with intensity of course you're frustrated right now. You should be frustrated. And then movement. When we had those 1,500 kids in our home, I discovered this by accident.

I discovered research that supported this and validated it later. But I learned from experience just sitting and talking to a kid when they're upset doesn't work. But when I use some kind of movement and with intense kids some kind of physical missions, man that really helped them calm down. No eye contact when you're doing that either. And so what I want you to know about these intense kids is it is who they are. And it's because if you can see it differently. I've used this analogy before. I had a stepdad and he was a really good guy. But all he wanted to do his whole life, all he did was he sat in a recliner

and he did crossword puzzles all day. He wasn't that motivated a human being, which was great after having lived through my dad. But his biggest disappointment in life was like his pencil running out of lead, right? It was, but our kids, they picture stuff, they wanna do stuff, and when it doesn't go their way kids, they picture stuff, they want to do stuff, and when it doesn't go their way, then they're really really intense with

it. And so that's why I've listened to previous podcasts on de-escalating a nuclear meltdown. It's a great one from last May, and I've done some other ones more recently on kids with big emotions. But here's what I've noticed with that intensity. You know what his favorite hobby is, Casey's now, is ski mountaineering. So he skis up sometimes 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 feet of elevation and then skis back down in the back country. And it's highly stimulating

because there's potential avalanches and he's got to be in tune with all of that. I've noticed at his other job at work he's really good at handling conflict and I used to joke it's because he was so good at creating conflict as a kid but he can handle other people now who were really emotional and intense because he was and he still is that kid but he knows how to control himself and so he uses that now in his personal and work relationships and he's like he's still that kind of like Taurus bull like when when we get into a tough

discussion you kind of see like the smoke coming out of his nostrils he has very strong opinions but he's also very logical and he knows how to communicate them well. So I want you to know your kids are going to be okay even if they're super emotional. If you can learn how to control yourself and you can lead them to a calm place, man you are you you are going to love these kids later because that intensity is such an amazing quality. So we just moved into a new home with no landscaping. So we were thrilled to discover fast growing trees.

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Be an AG1 couple like us. AG1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift when you sign up. You'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3 and K2 and 5 free travel packs in your first box. So check out drinkag1.com slash com to get this offer. That's drinkag1.com slash com to start your day with a win. Number three, I was really worried about his future because he never really did that well in school, even though he was very bright.

And so we're all ingrained with these ideas like, well, if you don't do well in school, you won't do well in life. And it's just not true. Now it is true that if you're, tend to be a little bit more compliant, easygoing person who does really well in school, the likelihood of you having a nice, safe,

comfortable career and life is higher because our kids take the harder path and that is their path no matter how much it makes you uncomfortable you can't make them do your path you have to let them live their path and if you can embrace that and guide them along the way it works out so much better what I want you to know is like even today he reads he's the one that got me to read Dostoevsky when he reads books are really hard books to read they're really smart

scientific books and we have these amazing conversations and a lot of the things that he didn't do as a kid that I wanted him to do case in order to be successful life you've got a yellow legal pad and you have to make lists because if you write it your goals, then you accomplish them more often. And that's all true stuff. And as a kid, he just didn't do it. Now, he makes lists every single day. All the things that I wanted him to do as a kid

and that he didn't and that worried me, he does now. Why? Because you model this stuff and then they will do it. He follows through on things and I want to throw out an idea that I wish I would have pursued back then or even been aware of. This may only be for a couple kids but a lot of our kids when they get into their late teen years they're done. They've never liked school, they've never really been good at school, they don't really care about hanging out

with their peers because they find them boring and stupid. For some kids, if they had the option, hey, you drop out of school, get your GED. Then you can start going to the local community college and taking some lower-level college classes now while you work a job. Many of our kids won't do their schoolwork. They are phenomenal at working for other people. They're ready kind of they want to jump into that adult world. Is that ideal? I don't know, but is it ideal if a kid goes to college and you spend $200,000 on their education or 250 if they go a fifth year and then they graduate with a degree that they don't really want to use and

you know all this college debt? like what is the right way? I'm not trying to justify it, I'm just saying you have to deal with the child that you have. And if I had known this idea back then, I probably would have suggested it because Casey was ready. He was just ready at age 50,

he's like, I'm ready. He would have worked a job, started getting his college credits early, save me a ton of money doing that. It's an option for your kids but know that worrying about their future is normal but you've got to control your anxiety otherwise you will dump all your anxiety and you'll lecture them all the time and you'll you'll they'll begin to internalize that they're not smart enough that they'll never be good enough and you don't want that and it will ruin your relationship.

So I go through the 30 days to calm so you can chill with that. Number four, look, he was lazy at home, his bedroom was a disaster, his bathroom was messy, he left lights on, didn't do chores, and I was like, how, how can you be like this? We do so much for you. I'm not even asking much of you. Here's what I want you to know. He is a grown adult now. He is. He was never great at the kid world, but you're not raising your kids to be children. You're raising them to be adults. And he was

always really good in the adult world. So if you go to his house now, I was just there last night, it's very clean. It's organized. There's a place for everything. They're very conscientious about that, right? He is not lazy. He is a beast. He works out. He climbs mountains. He is really tough that way. He cooks his own meals He eats healthy now. Did he do that as a kid? No, I will tell you though one thing that hasn't changed He still leaves lights on Occasionally I'll stop by his house to pick something up and and I'll go in their house and there are lights left on and I'm Like he still does it you're ruining your cost. You're wasting electricity. This is going to cost your bill to be a

dollar thirty five higher this month and so sometimes I leave the lights on and sometimes I just have to. I turn them off. Is that so it's not like every single thing will change. Some things are still the same but who cares? What I want you to know is he was never that great in the child world. And I really, I'm saying this again, you're raising them to be adults. So focus more on giving your kids adult type jobs and they will crush it that way. All right, number five, he never really listened or behaved that well at home or in school and that's like a lot of your kids. When he was little we kind of had a joke that if another kid fell down at school Casey was probably nearby. The whole reason I got into this

is because I kept getting calls from schools and I had wherever he went to school because we had to switch oftentimes because when he's little he would get kicked out and he didn't even make it in Montessori school of all schools. And so I volunteered a lot of time in those schools and learned a lot of this just by working with these kids. But here's what I want you to know a lot of what we ask kids to do is arbitrary. It's simply as arbitrary sit sitting still at school all day long, listening to someone talk about something you're not interested in and

being around only other kids your own age. You don't do that in the adult world for the most part. You just don't. Right? And so our focus became this. I didn't really want like an obedient kid or a well-behaved kid. I wanted to raise someone who was responsible. Those are two different things. See being well-behaved or obedient and again this doesn't mean I want him running all over and just being a jerk to people. Not at all.

But he wasn't always well-behaved. And so well-behaved kids tend to be compliant. They follow directions. And a lot of times they carry out the arbitrary wishes of an arbitrary authority figure. Okay, I get that. It's easier in life if you are generally compliant and do what other people tell you to do.

But that's not who he was or who he is. But a responsible person, which is what I really started focusing on, does this. You assess the situation. You are a problem solver. You see what's going on and you come up with solutions. So you have to be a good thinker. Oftentimes you have to be a leader and you have to pull a team together to accomplish something. You do the right thing. I remember being in a school where they had a zero tolerance policy about any kind of physical activity. And I said, Casey, if another kid is getting beaten up and bullied by another kid, you

have my permission. In fact, it's your responsibility, as long as it's kind of safe, for you to jump in because he was a bigger kid, jump in and subdue the bully, the other kid. And if you need to use a little bit of physical force, then do it, because that's the right thing to do. And if the school suspends you because they have a zero tolerance policy because they're incapable of actually making wise judgment, well, if you're suspended for three days, I'll take off work for three days and we will go have fun and I'll take you to an amusement

park because I want to celebrate the fact that you did the right thing. And so that's hard for many of you because you were raised to be compliant rule followers and these kids just sometimes seem to break the rules and not follow directions. But what we started to focus on was this instead of picking out all using the behavior, you're always in trouble, consequences all the time. We started doing that 80-20 thing. Instead of spending 80% of our time trying to fix him, we spent 80% of our time putting him in situations to where he would excel and be successful.

We gave him missions because if you give our kids missions, focused on something, especially adult type jobs man They really they can really do that well we started capitalizing playing to his strengths and What happened is it started to build his confidence? No, oh I can do this and we let them do things in creative ways in different ways Because your kids are like that they want to do it in a different. And so that's where he came up with the idea of ownership.

Casey, here's the goal. Here's my expectations, my boundaries. They're very, very clear. Here is what I want accomplished. I just relinquish control over how you get that done. If you want to do it in a weird way, if you want to do it in a way that irritates me, I don't care. Just get it done. And when I started giving him that independence and agency and ownership of his choices, he really stepped up. And so, what I want you to know is as a man, as kind of an adult now, is this. At his other job, he was around 25 other people, and he got noticed. And he was the one who got chosen to be the manager, the leader of this.

Why? Because he's decisive, because he is a leader, because under pressure he does really well. That is very much an ADHD trait. Watch a lot of our kids with ADD, ADHD, they become pilots, ER doctors, emergency response personnel, people in highly pressurized jobs like that in sales because that plays to their strengths and he became a leader very very quickly. I also taught him his first day to go to the manager and say hey any job that nobody else wants to do give it to me and I'll do it because bosses love that and guess what he nobody else wants to do, give it to me and I'll do it because bosses love that. And guess what?

He didn't have to do the crappy stuff for very long because he became manager. But it's because he at times does not follow the rules as set down by the company. He will break rules at times to accomplish the larger purpose in a different way. And because he knows how to handle conflict and communicate, he can go to his boss and say, yeah, I know you had that rule, but it was arbitrary and it was actually holding us back. So we did it differently last night and we actually increased our revenue and profits. And they're like, oh, keep breaking the rules. He got rid of their long meetings. He has a really good heart in that he stands up for his staff. And they follow him because he's good to them and he knows he has their back.

And he also is capable because he's a strong leader, because you know how our kids are. He can say no to people. Now he doesn't do it in a jerky way like he did when he was little to me at times, but he only did that because I reacted all the time. But he can do that now. So I will conclude this by saying, I guarantee you that most of the traits that frustrate you about your child,

that irritate you about your child, are the very traits you will end up admiring in them later in life. They will be the very traits that lead to their success. These are the very traits that will push your buttons so you can finally grow up and deal with your own control issues, your own anxiety, your perfectionism, and all your wrong ideas about what parenting is supposed to be like and what life is like. Casey challenged all of my deeply held beliefs and it led to me becoming a new person. And if you can embrace that and work with their nature,

you can be really tight and close with these kids. And the reason Casey and I are so close, I think, is because we fought so much when he was a kid and then we both changed together over time. He watched me change and wrestle with all of these things. I want that for you. And that is what's going to happen with you. And I'm excited about your future. I'm excited about your child's future. I'm not worried about your child's future.

They're gonna be awesome. It's just hard when you're the parent. So let your kids listen to this podcast if you have our programs. Let your kids listen to the programs and have talks and say, hey, what do you think about that idea? How could we do that differently? Hey, this guy has like 20 different ideas for how to do homework in a different way. Why don't you listen and you take ownership of that? It's your brain. Learn about it. Figure out how. I don't care how you get your

schoolwork done. I don't care how you get your chores done. Do them in a weird way. But let your kids have some ownership of this and learn right alongside them. It's a really cool thing. If we can help you at all, let me know. Thank you for digging into this. Thank you for being open to new ideas and letting me challenge you because you're all control freaks. I love that you're open to that. All right. Love you all. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.