Calm Parenting Podcast - Are You Giving In...Or Just Using Wisdom?

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

Are You Giving In...Or Just Using Wisdom?  There are times when you are clear with your expectations and your child doesn't comply. Do you ever wonder, "Should I follow through right now...or would it be smarter to just let it go?" These gray areas of parenting are tough! Kirk walks you through three scenarios in which you may feel like you're "giving in," but it may be the right thing to do. Check out our BIG Fall Sale! Get practical strategies that really work with your strong-willed kids. Visit https://celebratecalm.com/products/ to purchase the Get Everything Package at the lowest prices of the year. AG1 Visit https://drinkAG1.com/calm for a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. AirDoctor 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! OneSkin OneSkin is the world’s first skin longevity company. Get started today with 15% off using code KIRK at https://oneskin.co.  SIMPLISAFE Protect your home with 50% off a new SimpliSafe system, plus a free indoor security camera, when you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring. Just visit https://simplisafe.com/calm. There’s no safe like SimpliSafe. WILD INTEREST PODCAST FOR KIDS Wild Interest is the new podcast created and hosted by children, exploring nature, science, current affairs and much more! Wild Interest: find it wherever you get your podcasts. It’s wild! AQUATRU WATER PURIFIER AquaTru comes with a 30-day Money-Back Guarantee. My listeners receive 20% OFF any AquaTru purifier. Go to https://www.AquaTru.com and enter code “CALM “ at checkout.  IXL ONLINE LEARNING PROGRAM Get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at https://www.IXL.com/KIRK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Check it out. So do you ever find yourself in situations in which you're not quite sure if you should follow through on a consequence just because of the situation of the circumstance and maybe you're involved in situations where your spouse is like, hey We really need to do what we said we were going to do here and you're like, I'm not quite sure Right now is the time to do that Well good that makes you a parent and that especially makes you a parent of a more strong-willed child because you are going to find yourself in these situations all the time and if you have like more kind of typical compliant kids parenting overall is kind

of easy because you tell these kids what to do and they generally do it. But you have kids who are gonna wait till the last moment, they're gonna push the limits. You're gonna tell them like, do not put your foot on that sofa and they're gonna like tap it with their heel and then wear their big toe and say, well, my toe is not my foot. And it's just hard sometimes.

So I want to give you some insight in this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast that I think will help you with some of these daily battles and situations. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. Look, when we were parents early on, we were in a community that tended to be very conservative, rigid, everything is black and white and you're like well if you tell your child something you have to always follow through because consistency is everything and it is true. Consistency is good, consistency is really helpful, but consistency doesn't mean every single

time regardless of whatever else is going on. And so if you listen to our discipline program, this is going to fall under the category of read the moment. Sometimes you just have to read the moment and determine what is the right thing to do right now. And you're going to get judged for this, but you guys have already gotten judged already, so you're used to it with these kids.

So I wanna go through, say three different circumstances and give you some options because I like options and there isn't just one way to do this. You have to understand your child and yourself. So here's situation number one. Say with your daughter it's on Friday and she agreed to complete a task before the end of the weekend. But like most of our kids she is going to procrastinate not get everything done Friday night because that's the way we would want it done right like well honey if you would just get it done now on Friday night you wouldn't even have to worry about it and part of that is and I

won't have to worry about reminding you 18 different times and actually doing it for you in the end anyway I get that so she agrees so the weekend goes on but Saturday night she goes to a sleepover at her friend's house, or maybe on Sunday there's a birthday party. And so your child has now consumed food dye and awful food and isn't feeling great. She didn't sleep, so she gets home Sunday afternoon and she's exhausted. And of course we as good parents are going to say, well honey remember on Friday you agreed that you would complete this task and now you get a huge meltdown. And I know this is hard because for most of

you who are listening you're like that task isn't even hard. We did like 18 of these tasks and all I'm asking you to do is this one thing. Why does it have to be so difficult? And so you're wondering, okay, do we push it? Right? Because I mean, she agreed to do this and if we let her get away with this, what kind of message are we sending if we don't follow through? And my answer in this situation is you're sending the message that you're able to think, that you're wise, that you change your, sometimes you change things based on new information and new facts. And in truth, here's what's happening. Your child in this particular

situation is not in a good place. And if you do choose to push right now and say, well, I don't care, you need to get this done or else, you're probably going to be looking at a three or four hour meltdown and it's just not going to work. And so I want you to know in this situation you learn to read the moment. And here's what's important to me. You made the decision. You read the moment and you determined you talk to your spouse if you're a single parent you talk to yourself and you said you know what this is one of those these, I've seen this before. She's not in a good head space right now.

So I am going to choose not to bring it up, not to enforce it right now. There's nothing wrong with waiting until the next day after she has gotten a good sleep and eaten something That's actually good for her and is in a different place then to bring it up and say hey, honey Remember on Friday you agreed to do X. Why don't we get that done now? That's called being smart And look, you're not going to raise an entitled child by doing this. Now, if you do everything for your kids and you don't ask anything of them and you're always letting them get off the hook and you're not expecting anything,

well, yeah, then you're going to raise an entitled child. If you are always giving into tantrums because your child is upset and you're like, well, I just don't want them to be upset and I don't want to put up with this, this big tantrum right now. That's not good because now your child is manipulating you and your child knows, oh, if I just throw a tantrum, well then you're going to give in. But that's not what just happened. You just made the decision. You didn't say, well, honey, do you want to do your, do that extra task tonight? You didn't do

that. You just made the decision. Why? Because you're a confident parent. You're a good parent. Trust your instincts. Unless your instincts on parenting are awful, then listen to your wife. I mean your spouse. So I was kind of kidding with that, but I do want you to learn to trust yourself and know it's not always black and white. So in this particular instance what we read was our child is not in a good place and will not be able to handle that. So situation number two. Moms and dads, many of us have kids who are very picky eaters or have an overly rigid diet. Some of us have kids who may be eating uncontrollably and feeling a lot of shame. Any behavior around food that is affecting our kids' physical and mental health needs to be taken seriously. If your

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Visit equip.health.com for a free consultation with equip. That's equip.health slash calm. So the second option is going to be a little different. So let's say you have a son and you say, hey if you want to get a shower tonight you have to be done by 8 p.m. because that's your bedtime. And I know for many of you listening this is a weird example because you have to be done by 8pm because that's your bedtime. And I know for many of you listening, this is a weird example because you're like, wait, what child wants to actually take a shower? There are some. This was an actual real situation that happened with a couple that I was working with.

So they were like, hey, you want to shower? It's got to be done by 8pm. Pretty clear, pretty easy to work on. Again, many of your kids, they will have it all done. No big problem. But if you have a strong willed child, you already know where this goes. That child at 7 30, have they gotten in a shower? Nope, because they're too busy doing stuff they really want to do. Whether it's building with Lego blocks or on their screens, or maybe they're creating something listening to music 745 have they gotten a shower? Nope. You know what's gonna happen right at 8 o'clock when they're supposed to be done

You hear the shower turned on and your immediate instinct as a good parent is I uh-uh-uh-uh Hey, I was very clear about this You had to be done by eight o'clock. And if you don't really do our approach or you're just learning this, then you're gonna go into the long lecture. You know what, I was very clear about 8 p.m. And yet this, you do this all the time.

You have to procrastinate. And then when you procrastinate, it gets too late. And if you're not in bed on time, you're not gonna get a good sleep. And then the morning you're gonna be crabby and you're not gonna be ready for school, all those things. I get it so here's the determining factor in this situation I think you have two realistic options

that still make you a good parent what I want to ask in this situation is are you in a good place right now because if you want to go ahead and keep your promises, if you've listened to our discipline program, that's what we call it instead of, well, I just need to enforce consequences. We found a lot of parents don't like that language and it feels like, well, I'm just always enforcing consequences.

So I make it a promise. Hey, I promise you, if you do X, this is the outcome you have chosen. So when you follow through, well then you are just keeping your promise to your child and that speaks of personal integrity. I like that. So here's the thing. If you stick to your guns, if you are consistent and follow through on this and say, no, you cannot take a shower now, you're probably looking at a good hour to our meltdown and fight where your child

turns on the water, you turn it off, young man, you get out of the bathroom right now, you get into bed. I am not going to tell you again, which guarantees you're going to tell them 15 times. And then your child is going to fake like he's asleep. You go downstairs and you're tending to your other children doing other things. And guess what? You hear the water running again. Right. And now you're like, I'll teach that child a lesson this time.

And it just escalates over and over again. You know, I told you to get in bed. You've seen this. You've done this before. Now, here's what I want you to know. In this particular situation, if you choose to just keep your promises, then know that you have to do it even matter of fact calm I want you to be very very business like in how you do it no lecturing no you know what I I shouldn't have to tell you 15 times do all this just stick to it even matter of fact no emotion no drama on your part just know that there is going to be a lot of drama on their part.

And if your larger goal in this is to say, Hey, I want you to be able to trust that when we say 8 p.m., we mean 8 p.m. That doesn't mean 8.01 or 8.20 or 9.30. We mean 8 p.m. And I do want you to do that at times. I want you to be very consistent. I want your kids to be able to trust you and what you and what you tell them. Just do it with no drama. I know that's really hard. Now here's the other option. Maybe you've had a really long day.

Something stressful happened at work. Maybe you're in a fight with your spouse. Maybe you're sick. You're just not feeling well. Well, now you're going to read the moment and say, you know what? I just don't have what it takes tonight to go through this two-hour meltdown that's about to happen and so therefore I am going to choose the wise route and just let our son take a shower at 8 o'clock and instead I'm going to go downstairs or

maybe with your spouse and we'll do stuff with the other kids or we'll just sit in the kitchen we'll have a glass of iced tea or a bottle of rum. I'm kidding. But we'll have a, we'll sit down there for those of you, maybe you have a glass of wine together. That's perfectly fine and have a snack and you talk and enjoy your time while your strong-willed son is up taking a really long shower. And then you're going to have to work on your own trigger because when you were a kid you weren't able to take a long shower all

those things deal with it but here's what happened if you choose that route you and your spouse enjoyed some time there wasn't yelling and screaming and now your child is in bed at 820 instead of 8 p.m. Is that okay? I think that's perfectly reasonable. You can do it any way you want that. Do I want to always choose that path so that your word just doesn't become worthy of respect at all? Absolutely not. But there are moments, there are nights, there are mornings where you say, you know what? I'm going to pick up the toys instead of getting all upset. I'm going to go ahead and clean that thing that my child should have cleaned.

That bike that was left out in the driveway that I told him that if it wasn't picked up, it was going to be given away to children who need a bike. You know what? This night, I'm going to go pick up that bike. You're going to go through probably dozens of those situations with your kids during their childhood and I want you to know that if you do that sometimes you go pick up that bike and you handle it you're not ruining your child. If you do that every time yeah then they're going to become entitled not respect you. I hope that makes sense. So let's do a third option. With Smartwater's pure crisp taste, there's nothing to overthink. So while you may be spiraling over

double texting your crush, whether your skincare routine is working because you look the same or is doing nothing because you look the same, and whatever the heck red light therapy is. It's definitely not that. Don't overthink how you hydrate. Life's full of choices. Smartwater is a simple one. So this is a situation that happened with our son Casey

when he was about 12 or 13. We lived in Nashville and on Friday nights we used to go downtown under this bridge and we'd help feed homeless people. And it was kind of a big deal to our family. And there was this one Friday when Casey had left his favorite sweatshirt at the gym. And I said, hey, we'll get it tomorrow. It'll be fine. We've got to go. We don't want to be late for this. We made a commitment to it.

And he laid into me. He was upset. He was like, no, I'm not going. Let's go to the gym first. I need that sweatshirt. And look, if you have a strong willed child or just a normal kid, there's sweatshirts. His favorite hoodie, it may as well

have been for him like leaving $5,000 at the gym. They're very attached to their hoodies and the truth is I'm really attached to some of my hoodies, too They're really comfortable, especially the ones are really old that should be thrown out. Those are the best ones So he's got this sweatshirt. Look from a dad's point of view I'll tell you what was going through my head. One, duh, it's a stupid sweatshirt. Who cares? Two, nobody's going to take your gross sweatshirt anyway. It'll be there tomorrow on Saturday when we go to the gym. No big deal.

Three, why are you talking to me like that? I'm the authority figure here. I would have never spoken to my father like that. You know what? In return for you being disrespectful, you know what? I'm going to call the guy at the gym and say if he finds your nasty sweatshirt, just throw it away. Burn it. Like that's what's in my head. So if you struggle with any of those things, that means you're a normal human being. Being calm doesn't mean, oh I just always am happy and positive and nothing bothers me.

No, you're going to be frustrated. You're going to be irritated. You're going to be personally offended at times, but you just don't want to act out of that. You don't want to react to those feelings inside of you and speak during those times because like me you will have you will end up saying hurtful damaging things to your kids so feel it but I don't act out of it so I remember that I remember this very very clearly this is like 17 years ago and I remember the feeling and and you're going to wrestle inside with these things like oh do I give into him and end up taking him to get the sweatshirt? Because then I'm aren't I reinforcing that if he talks to me like that, he demands something of me that he's then in control. And then he gets to just bully me with this. Like those

things are going to go in your head routinely with these kids. But when I was processing it inside, I often would just go to the bathroom and fake like I had to pee or or I'd go get a drink of water. Why? It was buying me 30 seconds to think because where I had almost ruined my relationship with my son is that I always just reacted immediately and the way I was raised in the community, I was raised in was kind of like, well, you have to discipline promptly. And they took that way too far of like, that means you just have to react right away

and take everything away and be harsh. Well, so I knew that was my impulse. So I remember wrestling with this and I caught myself. And I can't tell you exactly how, but it was a reset that I came up with and I'm gonna write that down so just just bear with me if you don't mind because this podcast I really like this one but I didn't have all the notes written out and I want to go through some time on say an Instagram video a little bit more on that reset because it's really important so I reset

myself inside after wrestling with these things and I tried to take in all the context. Okay, here's what I know about my son. He loves that sweatshirt. My son struggles with a lot of anxiety and that whole night all he's going to be worried about is, is my sweatshirt okay? Am I going to get it back? And you know what I knew also? I'm the same way. I'm exactly the same way. KC and I went to a concert once in Charlottesville, Virginia and I left my favorite, I think it was like an old Navy blue hoodie sweatshirt that was so soft from like 1994 or something and I actually called John Paul Jones Arena. I

still remember the name of the arena in Charlottesville and said or I emailed him and said hey if you find a blue sweatshirt I will pay for you to send it back. See sometimes step outside of yourself and don't take everything personally and so I got it and so I pivoted and I said you know Casey here Casey, here's the deal. We're running a little bit late, but if you will load the car filled with the waters and the food, I will get ready. We will go ahead and we'll stop at the, at the gym. You can run and get your sweatshirt. You good with that? And he was like, dad, yeah. And so he packed the whole car. He got everything done and on the way to the gym Guess what I got an apology. Hey dad. I'm sorry

I shouldn't have said those things to you. We ended up bonding over it We ended up having a really great night that entire night Now did I give in to my son by taking him to the gym? You could say that if you want and I'd say, okay, I'm guilty of that. Or did I just read the moment? Was I just using some wisdom there? Because look, there are times when I do want you to be rigid. There's certain things where it's like, no, you're not going to that party. Nope, you don't get to have that. Yep's certain things where it's like, no, you're not going to that party. Nope, you don't get to have that. Yep, you can have a tantrum. You throw a tantrum in the middle

of the floor. You can, teenager, give me the silent treatment. You can yell at me. You can scream at me. You can do whatever you want. But my answer is no, because I know what's best for you. And no, you can't go to that party. No, you can't't have that thing I want you in the right times to be very firm with with screens I want you to be able to say no this is not this is how we do it in our home your all phones have to be on the kitchen counter by 9 p.m. or whatever time you choose no I know I'm not giving into that no you may not have this app on your phone. No four-year-old, you may not have what you're screaming about right now, and I'm okay with you yelling because your mood does not determine my mood.

Your behavior does not change my behavior. See, I want you to know the difference and choose those important times, but I also want you to give yourself, I want you to give yourself some flexibility to know you're not being a bad parent. If you just read the moment and know that either your child is not in a good place right now to handle that or you're

not in a good place to handle it. So think about that this week and let's practice. I want you those of you who are a little bit too soft at times or too maybe because of your childhood don't beat yourself up for it but sometimes you kind of give in you're like well I don't want them to be sad well I want you to practice being a little bit more firm more consistent and that if you're a parent who's always like I'm just really rigid and I always say no all the time

well I want you to practice being flexible because if you do this you will have kids who respect you, who listen to you, who grow up to be responsible, and who also have a relationship with you and you have a trusting relationship. So if you need help with that we've got a big sale going on at celebratecom.com on our materials. Go through that discipline program. It's four and a half hours long. I cover all the really hard stuff. And then you get 13 other programs beside that

for less than the price of two trips to a therapist's office. If you need help with that, help defend it financially, reach out to us, we'll help you out. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Thank you for working so hard at this. This isn't easy and you are growing so much emotionally and relationally and I'm proud of you for that.

I appreciate you sharing the podcast with other parents. Hey, you're good parents. You're really good parents. If we can help you in any way, just let us know, okay? Love you all, bye bye.