Calm Parenting Podcast - 5 Ways to Stop Anxiety-Driven Battles & Meltdowns

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

5 Ways to Stop Anxiety-Driven Battles & Meltdowns Your child refuses to go to a new place or school. Threats and bribes don't work. A meltdown and harsh words ensue. Do you have a child who resists new experiences? A toddler or teen who doesn't want to go to school? Kirk shows you how to de-escalate anxiety-driven meltdowns and give your kids tools to overcome it. Very practical for kids of all ages. The Calm Parenting Podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Take a moment. Visit https://BetterHelp.comcom/CALM today to get 10% off your first month. Visit https://drinkAG1.com/calm for a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Head to https://acorns.com/calm or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today! AirDoctor comes with a 30-day money back guarantee so if you don’t love it, just send it back for a refund, minus shipping! Head to https://airdoctorpro.com/ and use promo code CALM and you’ll receive UP TO $300 off air purifiers! Today my listeners receive 20% OFF any AquaTru purifier! Just go to https://AquaTru.com and enter code “CALM “ at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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the morning, and you'll threaten consequences, and you'll try to bribe them and give them things, everything, and nothing rational works because it's not rational. It's anxiety. Anxiety is a very common thing for our kids to struggle with. Remember, we've talked about these kids. They have very busy brains. There's a lot going on in there. And so it feels like it's kind of out of control for them. And that's why they try to control other people in situations. It's why with board games, they're going to change the rules of the game, cheat or quit, because that's a way to control or guarantee the outcome of the game. It's why all those things that wear the same clothes, eat the same food all the time.

But this is where anxiety comes from. It comes from unknowns. So the antidote to that, and I'm going to give you some very specific examples today, are we want to talk about familiarity. We want to talk about giving your kids something they feel in control of and connection. And you're going to notice some common things, right? Like so many of the things that human beings struggle with would be made better with just pure connection or us feeling in control of ourselves. That's why some of us at night before we go to bed, we do what? We clean the kitchen sink because inside we're saying, I can't control my kids. I can't control my spouse,

but my kitchen sink is spotless and it brings some sense of internal order to us. So let's talk about anxiety on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. 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. As you go through our programs and you listen on that app and you get questions, you're like, hey, I've got a specific situation, Kirk. How would you handle that? Just email us, and then we often talk about it, and then we'll get back to you, and we'll help you out with that. So let's go through. I'm going to do a couple quick examples, small ones, and then get to a

larger example, and then close up, and I'll try to hit this on many different levels. So I just thought of an actual another one. So a couple quick ones. Let's say, oh, this weekend, some of you are going to the beach or to the mountains somewhere for Memorial Day. You probably got a condo or a cabin. Well, that's new. And a lot of your kids aren't good with new stuff. They're not good at transitions. If you still have time, I would possibly even look up that condo on Google Maps where you're going to be. If you can see the layout of it. You know what? I know that sounds goofy. Like why do they have to see? Well, they don't have to, but it's just helpful. So they know what to expect. So they know which bedroom is theirs, where they're going to be. You could give them some kind of mission. Whenever I'm

taking these kids somewhere, they always have a mission. And the mission isn't behave and just do what I tell you to do. I often give them more adult type jobs. So if you're going away for the weekend or the week, I'd give them some kind of job. I don't care if it's like making the grocery list, checking out online, what are the different grocery stores? Where are they? Who's got the cheapest prices on this? If we have to get a raft or we have to get this,

give them jobs to do because that gives a sense of control that seeing things ahead of time is familiarity and you're setting them up for success. It's why when people are moving, it's always like, oh, okay. So pull up on Google Maps, aerial view of where you're going to be living. That way they can kind of see the area. Where's the closest park? Where's the closest whatever they like, rock climbing place, whatever it is.

And you give them a little ownership, not control, right? They don't get to choose the house. But when you're moving, saying, hey, you can paint, you can pick out the color of paint for your room, as long as it's not X and Y, something you hate. But that's when school's starting back. If your kids are starting a new school in the fall, don't wait till back to school night to go introduce your kids to their new teacher because there's so much anxiety in that school on that night. I take them a few days ahead of time. Go over the summer. Let them walk outside. See what the playground is like. See if you can get permission to go inside. Walk the halls. Look, I struggle with anxiety. I am normally early wherever I'm going if if I'm speaking,

and I like to be in there to see the space. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it smell like? And I kind of visualize and picture kind of how I'm going to do my presentation. And I'm 58. So imagine being four or eight or 16 and doing this. So go in. And if you can meet someone ahead of time, right. And I would just ask, I'd be bold. You're not asking for favors like, well, could you make my child, let my child not do any homework this year? I'm not asking for that. I'm saying, hey, I know my child struggles with new things. It's a new school. So could we come in a few days early? Could we come to the office? Would you mind meeting personally with my child? Because that connection of I walk in the first day.

Oh, I know that that lady or that guy from the office. I know that principal, that guidance counselor. It just helps. So let's do preschool, by the way. Watch your own anxiety. Now, I hadn't I hadn't planned to say that, but that's a big deal for many of you because you have a lot of anxiety. And so if you're talking in this kind of tone, this will create a lot of anxiety because what I'm really saying is, you know what? I'm kind of nervous for you because I know you're nervous. And usually every time we go someplace new, you have a big meltdown. It's kind of embarrassing.

So I think if I talked, that tone just almost never works for the strong willed child. So I think if I talked to that tone, just almost never works for the strong-willed child. So even if you have to fake it, I want you to fake it. I want you to adopt that calm, even matter-of-fact tone that says, I've seen this before. I've done this. This is normal. There's nothing wrong. It's all going to be good. But I was thinking preschool, a lot of times what happens is you're dropping your child off when they're young and their child starts freaking out, crying and screaming and like grabbing mommy's leg. And when we say, oh honey, it's okay. I'll be back at 2.30 to pick you up. Well, that tone creates a lot of instability. And so what I'd prefer that you do, let's say for a preschooler or someone young, is if the teacher or someone from the school can meet you out in the carpool line and say, oh, Rebecca, I'm so excited that you're here today. I could really

use your help. Could you come inside and help me with X? Because now you're getting their brain focused on something they can do, something they can control, and that eliminates some of the anxiety. And it also helps them, the teacher, get the child away from you and your own anxiety. So you really do have to work on that. I'm not blaming you, but it is your fault. You know what I'm saying. Some of you just work on that. Look, whenever I bring something up like your own control issues, your perfectionism, it's not a blame thing. It's not like you're a horrible person. We all have issues. It's just that we say, oh yeah, I do struggle with that. And I can see how that interplay happens with my child where they're picking up on my anxiety. And now we've

just created like this anxiety vortex. And so we can counter that. So here's kind of a big example, and then I'll end with two examples, maybe for teenagers, older kids. So I come home and let's say that I ask my son, it could be your daughter, it doesn't matter. But I come home and ask my son, hey, Case, do you want to do, you want to take that new Taekwondo class this summer? And he's like, sure, dad, sign me up. So I come home a couple of weeks later.

I'm like, hey, Case, got to go, got to go. Remember, we home a couple weeks later I'm like hey case gotta go gotta go Remember we got that taekwondo class tonight gotta go gotta go and you guys already know this the more you do gotta go gotta Go when I try to rush a child it always makes them move more slowly. They're not rejecting you. They're not rejecting your authority They're rejecting your anxiety because they know when you're in an anxious state You're not patient and you tend to be short with them and and your voice gets clipped, and you use a different tone, and you flip people off in traffic. All those things happen, and so they're rejecting your anxiety. That's another way that the interplay happens. So I come home, and I'm like, hey, in case we've got Taekwondo tonight, well, what am I going to get initially? Dad, you know what? My stomach's kind of upset. Could we just stay home? I promise I'll

go next week. And then I respond with a bribe. Hey, you know what? If we leave right now, we'll stop at McDonald's. We'll get a Happy Meal, even if you're 12, and everybody will be happy. Because we try bribery. Bribery never works. They don't care because, see, that's irrational. You're trying to be rational with a child who is in an emotionally irrational state inside because he's dealing with all the unknowns. I'll go through that in a second. So then we do this one. We turn around. Our tone and our face totally changes. You know what? I paid $175 for that class. Your little butt's going to be there. As if your child's going to say, dad, I didn't know how much, I didn't know that you paid that much for it. Now I'm motivated to go, right? That's not going to happen. So what happens now? Now I grab my son by the forearm,

not too hard, but I grab him. I'm going to drag him out to the car and we get out to the car and I'm going to stuff him in the car, like the hand over the head, like they do on that cop show. And now you're going to have this big meltdown in front of all your neighbors. That's partially what caused me to learn how to do this because at the time we were living in a townhome outside of Washington, D.C. where we had like 5,000 neighbors and they could see all of my parenting mistakes right in front of them and hear my son yelling awful things at me. And so you've got, now you've got the meltdown. No. And here's what they're going to say. No, I'm not going. Taekwondo's stupid. You're stupid. How many of

you ever get that lovely gift? Right? And so here's what's happening. And there's a couple of decision points here because they start going and no, I'm not going. Taekwondo is stupid. You're stupid. And we take that as disrespect. And you know what? I know I get pushback for this, but it's true. I'm the grown up. I'm a grown adult. Something can only be disrespectful to me if I choose to be disrespected by it, right?

It's like if you come up and try to offend me by saying something offensive, it only has power over me if I let it be offensive to me, right? So I don't take these things personally because I'm a grown adult dealing with a kid, dealing with a child, even if that child's 16. It doesn't mean I'd let them walk all over me. But in this case, we have something emotional going on. This is not a tantrum. A tantrum is rational. I want something, you won't give it to me, so I'm going to make your life miserable until you give in. This is an emotional meltdown because this child is on code red inside. Face is all red. And nothing I'm doing that's rational is getting through to this child. It's not connecting.

And so I hear, most of us as adults, we hear defiance and disrespect. And it triggers us. You know what? You get your little button car or you go to your room and you lose your video games for the rest of the week. No food, no video games for a week. Because that's what dads do because we always give consequences. Not always. A lot of us give consequences we can't keep. So watch. I'm reading this as defiance and disrespect. And part of the reason we talk about

learning to be calm, calm is not an end goal. My goal is not to be Gandhi or Buddha or Zen master. It's a means to an end because when I slow my world down, when I stop reacting, when I stop taking everything personally, when I stop projecting into the future, when I stop trying to control the outcome of everything, I can see clearly and see now I can use wisdom in order to problem solve here instead of honestly just escalating it every single time. Because some of you, you just escalate things all the time and I'm not picking on you. I'm just saying we have to stop that because it doesn't work. And when I talk to men, I'm like, look, the past 43 times you did this, it escalated. Your way is not working. If you had this track record at your job, you'd have been fired by now. If this happened at work, you would have changed your tactics or your strategy.

So I'm looking at a child and thinking, you know, this is what I said to Casey one time. Why do you have to make everything so difficult? Man, if you want to wound a child and bruise and ruin a relationship and make a kid internalize that I'm a bad kid and I make everything difficult and my mom or my dad doesn't like me, man, you're setting off a chain of events there that will have ramifications sometimes for decades. And so the reason I want to be calm and I want to slow myself down is so I can see this for what it is. I'm not looking at a defiant, disrespectful kid. I'm looking at an anxious kid. Anxiety is caused by unknowns.

When I came into his room and said, hey, Case, we need to go to Taekwondo. Here's what triggered in his brain. All the unknowns. Mom, Dad, have you ever been to Taekwondo before? Is it going to be loud in there? And is the instructor going to be nice to me? Sometimes adults aren't all that patient with me. And what about the other kids? I struggle to connect with kids my own age. What if they pick on me and I'm not always that coordinated? What if I'm not good at it and I'm not good at following multiple step directions? And so what if I get confused and I'm not good and then I cry in front of everybody and what if I want to quit and then dad's going to say we don't raise quitters in this home and we have a big fight. And all those unknowns lead up to this. No, I'm not going. And the reason they say Taekwondo is stupid and you're

stupid, think how brilliant this is, kind of from that lizard brain, right? You're stupid. That guarantees, you know what, young man, young lady, up to your room for the rest of the night. And you know what the strong-willed child or the child, nerd-a-virgin kid thinks is, see, I can take being sent to my room. I've lived most of my life there. I'm accustomed to being in trouble. See, that's known. That's familiar to me. And I'll sit up in my room all night and be relieved that I didn't have to go to that new place with new people that might reject me, where I might fail, and where I might feel again like I'm just a dumb kid.

See how that works? That's what was going on in your child's mind. See, we look at that child and say, he's just trying to be a defiant little snot, makes my life difficult, disrespectful, rebellious kid. And we missed it all. And when you you try to if you're just going after a disrespectful kid the only thing you have is you better stop disrespecting me or else most of the time in my experience it's not disrespect it's not defiance the outward behavior is right it's like someone a kid telling you you're stupid is disrespectful but that's not the core issue. The core issue is it's anxiety. And as long as I keep reacting to the outward behavior, I never solve anything. And watch, this is even more important to me. I don't really care. Oh, I got disrespected. What if I'm an NFL

wide receiver? I'm a grown man. I don't need anybody to respect me, let alone a four-year-old or a 17-year-old. I have something called self-respect. So if my 17-year-old is disrespectful, well, guess what? I'm not going to go take him places. He's not going to drive the car. But I'm not going to get all huffy and all upset about someone disrespecting me. It's not what I'm interested in this moment. I want to teach. Discipline means to teach. I want to teach my son. This is an anxiety issue. The reason that you're so upset isn't because you're a bad kid and you're disrespectful and defiant and you can't go new places. All those things that he's internalizing, it's because you're anxious and that's normal. See, because someone

who struggles with that will probably struggle to some degree with anxiety for the rest of their lives. So let's go back to the scene where we're outside and we're getting this big fight going on, I step back. I take three seconds. One, two, three. That's long enough sometimes to just sit and say, okay, what's going on? What's going on? Okay. Right. And if any of you are people of faith, then you just pray, hey, God, give me some insight here. Give me some insight. What's going on? What am I seeing? And now you're like, oh, light bulb went off. Oh, this is irrational. So this is an anxiety issue. So now my tone changes from young man,

you better get your little butt in the car demanding, which you guys know has never worked with the strong willed child. I know on our Instagram page, people are like, well, if you would just discipline them hard from the time they were young. Yeah, duh. We are. Sorry about that. Duh. See, there's my disrespectful part. Yeah, duh. We all did that. How many of you as parents of strong-willed kids have had people tell you, you know, I think if you would just discipline her, you know, I think it would go much. And you're like, really? I'd never thought to actually

be consistent and follow through. Thank you for your insight, judgmental person. That's not what's going on. And so when I change my tone and when I step back and I say, oh, this is an anxiety issue. And so I looked down at my son and I said, hey, is your stomach a little bit upset? He's like, mm-hmm. I say, oh, yeah, that's normal. Because anxiety lives in the stomach. Usually that causes people's stomachs to be upset. Like when you have to do something hard, have a hard conversation with someone, do a presentation in front of a new client, what happens?

Your stomach gets upset. And that's a perfect time. So number one thing I always look, there's five things here. But one of the main things I want to do with anxiety is normalize it. Normalize it. Oh, son, of course you're, of course, I love that phrase, of course. Of course you're anxious. You're going to a new place where you don't know anybody, where everything is going to be new. You should be anxious. I'm not making an excuse for him. I didn't say, therefore, let's just stay home. I just normalized the fact that he should be feeling anxious so he doesn't feel like there's something wrong with him. One of the worst things we have done in our society with this anxiety thing is that we've made it out to be like something that's really wrong. And so we're taking our

teenagers every week to talk to a therapist every week about your anxiety. And guess what we're creating? More anxiety. Because we need some adults who step up and say, no, you're a teenage girl or a teenage boy. You should feel anxious a lot of the time. It's a really hard time of your life to navigate. And so if you're confused and you're a little bit anxious, that means you're a normal teenager. See, normalizing it is a very powerful thing. So son, of course, of course, you're look. And now here's where I get to teach and identify with him of like, hey, when I have to do this special presentation at the office, man, my stomach gets upset the night before. When I have to have a talk with my mother-in-law, oh, stomach, kidding. When I'd have talks with my dad, my career military dad, for sure my stomach was upset and nuts.

So one, normalize it. Now, here's one of the other thing, the other strategy I use for anxiety all the time. Wherever your kids go, have another adult give them a job to do. So ideally in this situation, I'm going to take my son to the Taekwondo place. So let's say three days ahead of time. So we can walk into that place when there's no pressure to perform. Because what do we do? Come on, Taekwondo, got to go. Come on. And they're always late. And so we're rushing and we get in there and we're like, come on, go in, have a good time. You'll have a good time. And it's filled with anxiety. They walk in, everybody's already

there. And that's really hard. So I take them three days ahead of time. There's no pressure to perform. I may take a snack. Maybe we're going to sit up in the stands and we're going to watch the other classes because that's familiarity. So we can get used to what it sounds like in there. What do the different movements, what's the routine going on? That's really helpful. And then I try to arrange this. I go talk to the Taekwondo teacher. I'm like, hey, Mr. Taekwondo, listen, my son's going to be in your class on Thursday night. My son is awesome helping otherwondo teacher. I'm like, hey, Mr. Taekwondo, listen, my son's going to be in your class on Thursday night. My son is awesome helping other people. And inside you're like, does nothing for me.

But he loves helping other people. Could you give him a job to do? And if Taekwondo guy or a teacher at school or an assistant principal at school or the person in children's church or wherever you're taking your child says, oh man, Casey, I'm psyched you're going to be in my class Thursday night. Listen, I could really use your help. Could you get here five minutes early every class and you can help me rearrange the mats and set up the cones? Could you do that for me? And most of your kids to other adults will say, yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. And so watch how this

changes. When I come home on Thursday, I'm like, hey, Case, we've got Taekwondo. Instead of it triggering in his brain all the unknowns, here's what happens. Hey, mom, dad, remember that Taekwondo guy said, he said he needed me to be there five minutes early. So we need to leave like three and a half hours early. So we're not going to be late. Right. That's why they do that. He said he needed me to be there five minutes early. So we need to leave like three and a half hours early. So we're not going to be late, right? That's why they do that. He said he needed my help. See, they want to feel helpful.

They like adult type jobs. When he gets to the Taekwondo place, instead of his brain being on all the other kids, am I going to be successful? He's already met the Taekwondo guy. That guy showed some kind of interest in your child and said, hey, I could really use your help. And now my son's brain is focused on his job to do. And your kids are good at doing specific concrete jobs, especially harder jobs. And so I've just created a success.

You'll hear us talking about that. I just created a success. I gave him a tool. Look, this perfectly is what we talk about of instead of just like, well, if you look, here's typical. If you don't go to Taekwondo tonight, then you're going to have to pay for the class and you're going to lose your screens. And there's nothing wrong with that at all, except it tends not to be very motivating

and it usually doesn't work. Instead, I gave my son a tool, which was connection, meeting. Look, this is so foundational and so important. I just taught him for the rest of his life at meetings, get somewhere early and meet someone and form a personal connection because that will calm you. It's literally what I've done probably 1500,500 times when I've spoken at different events. I get there early. I meet one person. If you ever come to one of our events, I'll be there early. And you're going to come and sit down. And about 10 minutes before the presentation starts, I'm going to be like, hey, why did you guys come out? What do you want addressed?

What are you struggling with in your home? And what I'm doing is, look, I don't really need to know what you're thinking. I already know what you came out for. I've done this for a long time. And I tell people that at the end, when I do this example, the reason I do that is because I end up forming a personal connection with a few people in the audience and that settles me down. So I use this myself. It's the same thing you do. If you're an introvert and you get invited to someone's house for a dinner party or a party. And then like me, if you're like, make up an excuse of like, oh no, our son is sick. And you're like, uh, your son is like grown. I know, but he's not feeling well. I can't come because I don't want to come to your house. The very first thing I will do when I come to your house is ask this, hey, is there anything

I can do to help? Oh, we're grilling out. I'll run the grill. Let me flip the burgers. Now I have a job. Now I have context for when people come out. I'm like, hey, what kind of burger you want? What do you want on your burger? What kind of cheese do you like? And then I find out.

And then at the end of the night, all I know is that dude likes Swiss. That dude likes provolone. But it got me through the night because it helped me with my own anxiety. So that whole idea of I'm giving him a job now and I'm giving the child tools and I'm creating a success. That's what I want you to start doing. So when Casey goes into that place, he knows his job to do and the Taekwondo guy is going to give him a fist bump and say, hey, good job, Case.

Every week, five minutes early, because you're a good helper. Now go sit down. We're going to get ready for class. I may use, you know, it helps for some kids in sports. Your kids tend to be better with younger kids. So to get them to go out and play sports, have another coach ask them, hey, I could really use your help. You're really good at doing this. Could you come out and help me? Because I've got a class of nine-year-olds and you're 11 or 12, whatever. Could you come and help me teach them? I'll use you as an example. Well, that feels really good to be useful to other people. It feels good to have something to give. By the way, that counters anxiety. It can also counter a fair amount of lethargy and sometimes depression to know I have a

skill. I have something to give another human. So try that. Let's do that. I've got one more example for you for teenagers who've maybe internalized a lot of anxiety over the years, and it's even hard for them to go to school sometimes. You know, if a teacher were to meet them sometime, watch the difference here instead of, you know, Caitlin, why haven't you been here all week?

You know, if you keep missing classes, you're going to fail. That is the least helpful thing you could tell. That guarantees this girl will not come back again tomorrow. But I guarantee you, if there was someone in that school, or even a mom or a dad, who on the way to school just said in a very even way, nobody knows how much courage, look, that almost makes me cry as I say it. Nobody knows how much courage it took to get here today, but I'm glad you're here. That will get that girl, that young man to school because someone recognized it, right? And so here's my final one is, and I like using this for all kids, but especially as they get older, teenagers especially, find an older couple or an old guy or

older lady in your community, in your neighborhood, at your church, synagogue, wherever, and ask them, say, hey, my teen's struggling a little bit and doesn't get out of the house much, just plays video games all the time, is kind of sunk into themselves a little bit. Could you ask my teenager to come down and help you with something? Because older people need, they need help reaching things, changing light bulbs, whatever, just make up a job.

Even if as a parent, you have to pay the old person and say, hey, here's 20 bucks, pay my child to do X. You know why? Because, well, a couple of things. One is we're getting human connection. Hey, Brandon, I've heard you're really good at doing X. I'm a little bit older now. Could you come down to my house for an hour? It would really help me out. If you could come

down every Tuesday, it would help me. You know what happens? Now I feel as a kid, I feel helpful, like someone needs me. I'm doing something I'm actually good at doing, and I'm connecting with another human being. And older people are very grounding for teenagers because they were teenagers and they've lived a long time. And they can encourage your kids in ways that nobody else can. And by the way, they can also hold them accountable. Say, look, I lived through the depression. Okay, cut the crap.

Stop being a whiny. Right? You know what I'm saying. But they can talk to your kids in a different way. But it helps these kids with some confidence and it helps them with that anxiety. So let's do that this week. If you need more help with this, I encourage you go to our website. I think this is the last weekend. We extended it to Mother's Day to Mother's Month. So you get a sale on our products. We'll teach you how to do all these things and get that connection that's so important and also

giving your kids tools to succeed, learning how to control yourself. There's so much in here, right? Just this one example. That's why I love it because there's so much. It's about changing us as people as well. And then we're teaching our kids for the rest of their lives. You're going to struggle in this area. So here's how you handle it when you're 15 and 23 and 38, 58. So, hey, thank you for listening. Enjoy your holiday weekend and let us know how we can help you. Okay. Thanks for sharing the podcast. Love you all. Bye-bye.