Calm Parenting Podcast - Bad Attitude? Bad Behavior? Try This.

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Starting point is 00:00:48 Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. Calm Parenting Podcast listeners get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com slash kirk. Visit ixl.com slash k Kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. So you know we are very purposeful about how we manage our emotions and take care of our bodies because we only have one body and one skin. That's why we love OneSkin. Their products make it easy to keep your skin healthy while looking and feeling your best. We use the face topical supplement and love that there's no complicated routine,

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Starting point is 00:02:30 a bad attitude into a good attitude? How do you change, say, bad behavior into good behavior, especially when consequences don't work? That's what I'm going to show you today on the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. Thrilled you're with us. If we can help you at all, please reach out to us. This is what we exist for. You can email our son Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. And dozens of people do it every day. It's awesome. Read all those emails. Listen to your podcast. This is what we need help with. And we reply back because we love

Starting point is 00:03:06 helping people and we'll help you out. And then people say like, oh, I want your resources. What should I get in case he puts together custom packages? It's awesome. So feel free to reach out to us and don't be shy. So, um, and if you need help with anything, just let us know. So, uh, two main reasons I'm doing this. The first is an awesome email that we got yesterday. And here's what it was from a mom. And she said, I have been arguing and disagreeing with my husband for years over consequences, because that's what he grew up with. And that's what he thinks we should always do. And he always thinks I'm being too lenient and not tough enough on the kids. And so we've had to kind of this battleground,

Starting point is 00:03:50 but we bought your special sale that you have the CDs and we got the downloads. By the way, we have a massive back to school sale, lowest prices ever. It is awesome. It is more, you're going to get like 25 or more plus hours worth of very, very practical concrete strategies for less than it would cost you to go to the therapist's office for like one or two times. It's phenomenal. So here, we'll listen to what she said. Anyway, she said, we get these. My husband binge listened and he came to me and said, I'm willing to try another way. Look, I cannot tell you how big a deal that is. When you get a breakthrough with a spouse or even within yourself, right? This breakthrough

Starting point is 00:04:33 of a new way of thinking about how you view your child, it is huge. And so mom said, I asked him what changed. And he said, hearing it from another guy really helped, and we hear that a lot. And so he went on to explain, see, at work, it's second nature. When one of my employees is struggling, I ask them questions. I'm curious about what's going on at home that's distracting them. He said I actually sometimes give them more responsibility doing something that they're good at, and it tends to work like a charm. But he said, when it's your own kids, your second nature is to go right to consequences, right? You get irritated. Why do you keep doing that? Because I've told you a thousand times not to do that.

Starting point is 00:05:16 And he said, he explained what all of us feel, which is like, oh, what am I doing wrong? And why can't they just listen to me? I never did this as a kid. And what's going to happen to them in the future? So mom goes on to say, for the past three weeks, when he gets home from work or whenever it is, and one of the kids has a bad attitude, instead of snapping back, which is what he has done for years, he gets this really cool, calm tone going. And he invites them to go do something with him in the garage, sitting in the back of his truck, sitting in a tree fort, or he just takes them on a walk. And 98% of the time, they come back into the house smiling with a different attitude. It's a game

Starting point is 00:05:58 changer. And it is. It's changing your approach, your your paradigm the way you view your kids the way you view yourself it is controlling yourself and not reacting to your kids and giving them power over you because they will derail you and they know how to do it they're experts at it and it's not their issue because you and I are the grown-ups but when you start to see it in a different way it's really really really cool. So let me demonstrate this in another way. So this is an email we got. Great mom and dad. They've got a 10-year-old girl, and she's sneaking things. She's lying. And mom's like, I feel like she's getting away with it because there's hardly a consequence that works, right? And so yesterday there was this argument between the kids

Starting point is 00:06:46 about which movie we'd watch on Friday movie night. And mom said, I said, the youngest had picked one and it settled. Well, the 10-year-old girl got mad and nasty about it. And that's happening a lot. Why? Because she gets nasty toward everyone when she doesn't get her way.

Starting point is 00:07:04 Welcome to human nature, right? Especially with a strong-willed child. So later, she hid the DVD and lied about it. Now, look, that's very normal behavior. I know we get freaked out about it, but it makes sense that she did it because she's just an immature 10-year-old and she didn't get what she wanted, so I'm going to just make sure I hide the DVD. Now, mom knew where the DVD was, so I calmly told her to go. You know what's interesting? When people email, they always use the word calm. Well, I calmly

Starting point is 00:07:35 told her, right? And I am proud of you for doing it the calm way, but it's really interesting. You always work that in. So I calmly told her to go find the DVD while the rest of us waited for her in the car. She found it, of course. And then so my mom's like, the only thing I can think of is to have her miss movie night. I think she'll care because the family is doing it together, even if she doesn't care about the movie itself. Hubby thinks she'll just have homicidal thoughts and stew all evening and that it won't be a productive consequence. And he said, I should ask you. Awesome. So he said, thank you. We appreciate your advice. So here was my advice. And I emailed back and I said, I rarely say this, but I'm glad you listened to your husband and he's right. Because sometimes we are right as men,

Starting point is 00:08:24 not usually when it comes to relationships, but he was right in this. And so I want to reframe this, right? Because consequences aren't going to change what is going on inside your daughter or your son. Maybe there's some kind of brewing resentment and she's kind of toying with having a bad attitude and stealing and lying and seeing what kind of reaction she gets. But that's not who she is, right? And so consequences will not magically change how a human being feels about himself inside. And I'm watching this every day.

Starting point is 00:08:58 I'm fortunate enough I have an opportunity to volunteer at this. It's a little inner city community center where kids come in every day because they can't go to school. And so there's a couple adults there and then I'm helping out with volunteering. And so they're doing their schoolwork and it's kind of a safe place for them to come. And what I've noticed with these kids as well is they don't care about consequences. But when I give them tools to succeed, right? Like when they're doing schoolwork and I give them a tennis ball and they roll it underneath their feet, right? Which is really cool for their brains. Or if they do schoolwork, I've been taking them

Starting point is 00:09:34 outside and say, why don't we do our homework standing up outside? They're like, we can do that. I'm like, you can do anything you want as long as you get your work done, right? And you know what else works? When I ask them to teach me. And that relates exactly to what that dad was saying in the first example of at work. He often gives people more responsibility in doing something they're good at. And that changes their attitude and motivates them. And I'm noticing when I'm asking these kids who are often considered, these are at-risk kids, when I ask them to teach me something, it immediately changes their attitude. Something happens in their eyes and they kind of light up.

Starting point is 00:10:18 So instead, let's come alongside your daughter and play to her strengths, right? What kind of special job or project could you or hubby give her that would make her feel important, valued, competent, right? Something you need help with that she'd be uniquely good at doing. Because I want to move the focus from, watch this, let's move the focus from stop her from doing bad things to get her to start doing meaningful good things, right? Because whenever you tell a strong-willed child to stop doing something inappropriate, you must give them something appropriate to do. And that works in the classroom, in at home, wherever they are.

Starting point is 00:10:58 What is she good at doing around the house, even if it's a more adult kind of job? Because our kids are comfortable in the adult world. So try to find someone in the neighborhood who will give her a job to do just to help out, because you know how good that feels to know that someone values you and that you have something to give. See, that will change any human being from the inside out. What can she feel in control of? See, she doesn't get to pick the movie, so I'm not going to give in on that one, but she could fix a special snack. Let her own that. Look up special recipes. Go to the store. Do math, by the way, while you're looking for ingredients and buying things, because you can do math and you can do all kinds, everything, subtraction, addition,

Starting point is 00:11:41 multiplication, algebra at the grocery store. And maybe let her serve her special popcorn. Maybe it has truffle oil or some magical ingredient on it. And then you get to see how proud she is because you played to her strengths. And let me make one other big point here. With our strong will kids and all kids, we tend to spend their entire childhood trying to get these kids to be good at doing things that they naturally struggle with. Because our kids usually aren't that great at sitting still, focusing for extended periods on subjects they aren't interested in, recalling information for a time test, following directions to do things they don't care about, or they don't have any ownership over. See, think about that. We tend to spend their entire

Starting point is 00:12:31 childhood cajoling them, bribing them, forcing them, yelling at them, trying to get them to be good at things that they're not naturally good at doing. And we spend 85 to 90% of our energy on doing that. And what it causes is resistance, kids not having confidence, kids shutting down. Instead of spending our time playing to their strengths and using their natural advantages, right? It's one of the, look, that last thing that I said about following directions to do things that you don't care about. I know you think in your head, well, but that's what life is. No, it's not.

Starting point is 00:13:10 No, it's not. Because most of us get to choose at some point our corporate career, right? It's why I struggled in the corporate world. I did not want to carry out the vision of someone else and just build some product that I don't really care about. That's why I eventually created my own business, right? Because I can carry out my own vision and we often look at it with our kids like, oh, they're selfish. No, it's just the way they're made and they need ownership. And I really need you to listen to the Strong Willed Child CD, especially listen to that one first, because you will learn about the idea of ownership, that you don't give your kids control of your home.

Starting point is 00:13:51 You don't ever or your classroom, but you must give them a sense of ownership where they feel like they're responsible for something. And especially when you let them do it within your boundaries. But when you give them some ownership, do it within your boundaries, but when you give them some ownership, they will do things for you. They will do things that you want them to do. They will listen to you, but you've got to give them that ownership piece to do it maybe in a different way or an odd way or in a challenging way because they like to challenge, and that's why you've got to become an expert at what motivates your child, not what motivates you. Because all of you conscientious left brain type A people out there, kind of like me, right? You're going to be like, well, why don't they, they should just care. They should do the right thing because it's the right thing

Starting point is 00:14:40 to do. And because someone asked them to do it, that's not the way their brains are wired. And that's not the way it's supposed to work. It's just not. And you're going to have to figure out how to give them ownership. And once you do, man, everything changes. It's what happened with Casey. What I learned with Casey and then with 1500 kids in our home is when I gave them a sense of ownership, These kids have all the hard work and persistence. They have all the creativity in there that they need, but they just have to do it in a little different way. And so when you play to their strengths, then you find their attitude changes, their confidence. They have confidence now, right? Service projects are great because having someone

Starting point is 00:15:21 else notice you doing something well can change your attitude really quickly. So I ended by saying, enjoy your movie night together so you don't have a brooding daughter up in her room thinking really awful thoughts about her family. And besides, you wouldn't be able to relax and enjoy the movie anyway, mom, would you? Because the whole time, instead of enjoying it, you'd be thinking about your daughter brooding up in her room. And that's why I want to change. And I'll repeat this as we kind of close up is let's move from stop your child from doing bad things to to get them to start doing meaningful, good things. And instead of trying to shoehorn them into school and life,

Starting point is 00:16:04 right, it's one of the best things that I'm, things I'm excited about the school bootcamp thing that we're doing. So two quick things, the school bootcamp, I'm mentoring people all through the school year of how do you do school in a different way? How do you get your kids off of screens? Because they've got to use their screens to do their schoolwork, but how do you keep them from being on screens the rest of the day and all day, especially when you're working a job? How do you handle all that? I'm mentoring and I'm loving this school boot camp program. So go on to celebrate calm.com. You can look that up. We still have a 50% off sale. Um, we're doing now, uh, just as we begin it and then it's going to start raising prices

Starting point is 00:16:41 and we have a huge back to school sale. If you need help with anything, contact Casey. But the other thing is I want you to start putting your kids in a position to succeed, create successes, build wins. One of the things we're talking about on school boot camp is the first thing I want you to do every day is begin with a win. Look, it even rhymes. Begin the day with a win. Don't begin by doing the hardest subject first. I know everybody says do that. It doesn't work with your kids. They shut down. So I begin with a win. It can be a win in schoolwork. It could be a win of like they fix breakfast. Anything to get a win builds momentum because that's how these kids work. So if we can help you in any way, let us know. We're here to serve you. We're here to help. Reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, CelebrateCalm.com,

Starting point is 00:17:27 if you want us to present a Zoom conference. We can do that, parenting. We train teachers. Casey's doing school assemblies now for all age groups by Zoom. It's really cool. We're doing a conference coming up in the United Kingdom by Zoom. We can go all over the world, right from our living room, and we don't have to spread germs. That said, we're still planning to

Starting point is 00:17:50 go to Texas, Indiana, Ohio, and maybe Louisiana, depending on how the hurricane, what happened there. But we're going to do live events too. So reach out to us because we'd love to come to your town, whether live in person or over Zoom. But thank you for listening. Thank you for engaging, being willing like this dad to do it a different way. So, because we do believe it's a game changer. Anyway, thank you all. Talk to you soon. Love you.

Starting point is 00:18:14 Bye-bye.

Calm Parenting Podcast - Bad Attitude? Bad Behavior? Try This.

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