Calm Parenting Podcast - A Script & 2 Ways to Diffuse Heated Moments

Episode Date: March 6, 2022

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out at me? What do I do in the moment? If you're a single parent that's like, oh, I'm already overwhelmed and I don't have time for this and how do I handle this? And if you're married, it can sometimes be even harder if you and your spouse aren't on the same page because now you're like, my child's starting to melt down. Now my spouse is gonna melt down and we don't even agree on it. It's hard. And so I want to give you a couple ideas

in this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast of how to deal with that. So welcome, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. Find us at celebratecalm.com. If you need this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. Find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you need some help, reach out to our son, Casey. C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. He was a very volatile, emotional kid. So when you reach out to him, he gets it

because he was your kid. And we've been through this as a family with like 1,500 kids in our home. And so we wanna help you. So reach out to us, Tell us about your family. What are you struggling with? We talk about it and then we will reply back to you personally, usually very quickly because we want to give you practical stuff that works. If we can help you with any of the downloaded products that we have, just ask Casey. He'll help you or just go on the website,

get the everything package, and then you've got everything we've ever created and it's a lot cheaper than therapy. So let's dissect this situation. So your child's starting to get upset and there is that initial sense of dread of like, oh, I don't have time for this today. And so just saying or yelling, you need to calm down, doesn't work. Talking too much makes it worse. You know what's even worse? Doing like a tone like this when you're trying to talk really calmly. That makes the child think you're not taking it seriously. And so the first thing I want you to try to do is switch in your brain from trying to control the child to controlling yourself first. So instead of trying to control the child's behavior,

instead of trying to get them to stop, the first thing to think about is, I just want you to slow down and control yourself. It's you switching your mind from pushing to leading, right? From just, I need compliance to I need the connection, right? And so when I do phone consultations, I always ask parents, you know, what is your family into? What is your child into? What brings you guys satisfaction? What do you

enjoy? Because I like beginning with that and using something that the child especially is naturally into or gifted at in order to help calm them down, build their confidence, motivate them, all those things. So this family I was working with, they like gardening, drawing, and hiking together. And I was like, that's pretty cool. So the daughter begins to get upset. Here are a couple options. You can walk into the room and say in that even, unemotional tone, hey Sarah, I need to plant a couple new flowers. When you're ready, can you grab a couple waters and meet me outside?

Because I could really use your help. Or you could walk into the room, hold up a sketch pad, just say quietly, I'll be in the basement drawing if you want to come join me. Look, I like those things. I'm going to tell you why in a minute, but you're not coming in and making her be quiet.

You're not trying to fix things right away. You're actually doing, you're doing something. You're telling her what you're going to do. I'm going to go plant a couple flowers. I'm going to go to the basement and draw for a little bit. And it takes the pressure off of the child and the focus off of them, probably when they're a little bit embarrassed, when they're upset, when they don't know what to do, right?

I like that a lot. Now, the other option is you can come, yell, bark consequences, send your child to your room, and never change anything. But we've done that hundreds of times. So let's try one of these first two options. Here's why I like it, and we'll kind of break this down. You're not telling her to calm down. Look, nobody on this planet likes when another person tries to control their emotions, right? You don't like it. I don't like it. Your child doesn't like it.

And it makes your child more upset because they don't know how to calm themselves down, and neither do you, right? So I do have a side question. Why are you so uncomfortable at times with your child's emotions, right? And I ask this to guys all the time. Why are you so uncomfortable with your wife's emotions? Why isn't it okay for her to get upset and feel frustrated? Why isn't it okay if your child does get frustrated? Now look, I'm not saying it's okay if they punch holes in the walls and hit you and hit siblings. I'm just saying it's a natural part of life. And when we stop reacting so much to their emotions, we'll actually show and model for them

how to handle those emotions. Here's what else I like. Number two, you gave her something she can do. See, in the moment, here's what the child feels. I'm out of control. I'm frustrated. I'm disappointed. I'm anxious, and I'm out of control. And then we just say, calm down, and they don't know how to. So you give your child something specific that she can do. Grab two water bottles, come down and draw. See, she likes gardening. She likes drawing. See, those are things she can do. And you've just given her back a sense of control over herself, not by controlling her emotions right away,

but by doing a couple specific things like just grabbing two water bottles, coming outside. You know our phrase, motion changes emotion. It helps. Number three, you gave her space to calm down. See that phrase, when you're ready, hey, I'm going outside. I'm going to plant a couple of flowers. When you're ready, if you could bring a couple bottles of water out. When you're ready gives her a sense of space and ownership. It gives her another sense of control of something, just demanding, do this now, calm down right now, we need to talk about your attitude right now. That

always yields resistance and a power struggle and it almost always escalates things. Number four, you just invited your daughter to be with you. See, instead of sending her to her room away from the one person who has the wisdom and tools and perspective to help her and further isolating her, you actually invited her to be with you. Hey, come outside when you're ready. Come to the basement when you're ready. See, that's huge because good discipline should always lead to a closer, more trusting relationship. Look, in a lot of homes, in a lot of circles, a lot of religious

circles sometimes, like discipline is punishment. And you get so focused on, well, we just need to discipline. We need to teach her something. And then the relationship isn't even there, right? It's just, well, we just need her to know right from wrong, and that's unacceptable. Look, your child already knows from a very young age right from wrong, and what they're doing is wrong and unacceptable. They know that inherently, and that's why they lie to get out of the consequences, and it's why all that shame comes in. And so I want the relationship. Number five, you just reduce the shame later. See, usually watch what happens. We get all upset, go to your room or your daughter storms off to her room. And when she comes down later, she's got to do that walk of shame down the stairs, right? And that makes it harder to apologize. It keeps you separated,

right? A little side note. This is for my religious friends. Sometimes your view, this is actually really important. And even if you're not religious, just hang in there with us. Your view of how what God is like is often determined by what your parents were like, right? And some of you, we stray away from going to our parents, so to speak, if you want to call our spiritual parent, our father, God, because we're afraid he's going to be mad at us and it keeps us away from him, right? And some of you struggle with that because you had a parent who was like that, and so you associated authority figures with that parent. And you can't change that right now. You just have to work on that. But what you can change is how your child sees you, how your child

sees other authority figures, and if you're a religious person this is important to you how they view God because if you're always that rigid person and you're always kind of upset and they have to they have to earn their way back into your acceptance well guess what's going to happen in their spiritual life it's not going to be that awesome so instead you just made it easier for her to apologize because think what she's imagining. Well, when I walk downstairs, my parents are going to be sitting there with their arms folded waiting for me to apologize. Then they're going to lecture me about my behavior, and we have to relive that whole awful moment.

Forget it. But instead, what do we do? I walked in. Hey, I'm going to go plant a couple flowers, bring me some waters. I'm going to go down and draw if you want to come down and join me. See, think about this. When, picture this, when your daughter, when your son comes walking outside carrying those two water bottles, or you hear her walking down the stairs into the basement, she's bringing

her little sketch pad. You know what's happening, right? That daughter has just humbled herself and she's just become vulnerable because she doesn't know what response she's going to get from you. And she's made herself vulnerable and she's saying, I know I did something wrong.

I know I said something wrong and I shouldn't have yelled and I shouldn't have called you names upstairs. But she humbled herself and she took a chance and she came down with that sketch pad. And you know what's beautiful? If you picture this happening, you've made it easier for you to reconnect. And you don't need for her to come out right away

and say, mom, dad, I'm really sorry. That was really awful of me. Let her dig her hands in the dirt and get right next to you. You know, as I'm saying that, I picture that I can feel that emotion of like your daughter, your son, they're your kids. I know they're strong-willed. I know they're hard. I know they exhaust you. I know it's hard, but it's still your child. And this child is next to you now, hands in the dirt. You can feel them next to you, bumping up against you while you're doing this and you're working on something where you glance over and your daughter's now peaceful and she's drawing because she knows she loves drawing because it brings her to a place of comfort and

peace and solitude and you're doing that quietly in the basement together there are no words that are needed there's no big conversation that's needed right then you got what you wanted that's her apology now if she says I'm really sorry awesome but she said she's sorry by coming downstairs and now you got that connection right here's what look think about the vulnerability and the trust because we're trying to build trust with these kids right if all we ever do is react and overreact and lecture and and punish and and shame them they won't trust us ever to come to them. And I want your kids to trust you. Because when that daughter comes walking outside or down the stairs,

here's what she's screaming loudly inside. I made a mistake. I was wrong. Mom, Dad, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. But I desperately need the connection with you. Please don't send me away from you physically or emotionally. Please don't hold this against me. I need you and I need that connection. And she's

screaming that inside without really even, without ever actually saying it. But all of her stomachs, a bundle of nerves of wondering like, what am I going to get this time when I come there? Am I going to get the lecture? Or is my mom or my mom and dad, are they just going to make it welcoming for me? And are we going to connect? See, that's what I'm after. It's not about discipline and punishment, proving that you're right, going through some formal process where she officially apologized. It's about connection because connection changes behavior. And I promise you while you're out there with the flowers or whatever it is that your family does or you want to do with your child or playing catch or playing some sport or riding bikes, right? Whatever it is or cooking,

cooking is a great one to do together now you can begin instead of just disciplining your child you can teach because that's what discipline means anyway of how to handle those tough situations in a different way but you can do it from a place of humility and a place of quietness and a place of respecting her vulnerability in that moment. So she keeps coming back to you asking for help. Number six, you led her. Instead of demanding calm, demanding an apology, you led her to a place of calm. You led her to contrition with your own humility. Look, are there other ways to do this? Absolutely, hundreds of ways. But I hope that this sparks a couple creative ways for you to begin to do this, right? And I encourage you, number seven, use these

scripts this week. Let's use this, these examples to turn potentially escalating situation into a bonding opportunity. Because the truth is you have to do that or you and your child will always be frustrated at each other. And you're going to raise angry kids. You're going to be resentful as a parent. And they're going to resist and shut down. You're going to up the consequences even more. And everybody's going to be frustrated.

But I'm going to ask you to do this. You can change, right? We get this all the time. Like, well, how do I change this? It's like start going through these action steps right work through the programs if you get the package one of the first things you'll see is 30 days to calm it's how to break the generational patterns how to deal with your own triggers you can email me and i'll walk you through it and i'll give you ideas and i'll help you practically in those ways but if you work those programs, it'll show you how to do this. So

let's work on that this week. Just picture that in your brain. Little girl, little boy with the flowers withdrawing. Next time this happens, and then you just apply that to your situation. Hey, thank you for listening. I know it's hard being a parent, especially with these strong little kids, but I know you can do it. And if you need some help, reach out to KCCASEY at celebratecalm.com. Let us know how we can help. Love you all. Bye-bye.