Calm Parenting Podcast - Bob The Nuclear Reactor—5 Keys to Stop Reacting

Episode Date: July 2, 2018

Bob The Nuclear Reactor—5 Keys to Stop Reacting For some reason, I got really emotional during this podcast. Be warned: this is not for the faint of the heart. My five points are brutal, but they will free you from the constant power struggles with your kids. So you aren’t always reacting like my friend Bob the Nuclear Reactor. Listen to this podcast and learn more about our unique camps here: http://www.celebratecalm.com/camps/ Need help? Email [e-mail] with the word BOOTCAMP in the subject line or call 888-506-1871 to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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 kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Hey everyone, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. And I know you're listening to this because you have a strong willed child who probably just doesn't do what you want him to do. Life will be so much easier if he just would. And a lot of these kids are just different. They're odd at times. They don't react. They don't respond to consequences, right? And so it's tough and so I want to do a short podcast to share with you five things I just told one of my best friends his name is Bob. Bob is a nuclear engineer his job is to design

reactor cores but as you may guess part of the moral of this story is that Bob has become a big nuclear reactor himself with his son. He's got three kids. The oldest son, who is the more challenging one, is 10. And I just had dinner the other night with Bob because I wanted to share five specific things with him. And these are tough things. You know, it's tough to sit across from another parent and say, listen, here's the deal. Here's what's gotta happen in your home. And I struggle with that. It's hard like face-to-face

because a guy's gonna be like, screw you. And so I wanted to do a podcast because it's easier for me to say this to you whether you're Bob or Brenda, doesn't matter if you're a man, woman, mom, or dad. These are things that I just need to tell you because they're true. And I want to free you from the constant power struggles with your kids. So this is what I told my friend Bob. I'm just going to say it to you. Number one, I want to release you from your own anxiety because sometimes I know your kids are difficult but it makes you feel like you're not being a good mom or dad and it makes you afraid for your

child's future because you're thinking if he can't follow simple directions just one simple thing how is he going to be successful in life right and that's going to cause you to react all the time. And I want you to know these kids are different and it's different from when we grew up. And it doesn't, I don't mean that that's right or wrong. It's just true. It's just the way it is. And your old approach of handling things the way that your dad did it. So what I did too, it just doesn't work. And so I want to release you from that, that you don't have to do it that way. Now we're going to get to this. You don't let your kids get away with things. I'm not talking about that, but you're just going to have to do it differently. And

you're going to have to just accept that. It's going to feel awkward at times and your kids aren't always going to do exactly what you say when you say it. They're just not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not. Your strong-willed kids are not going to do things the way you want them done, and that doesn't always make them defiant or rebellious. That's just how you perceive it, and because I'm not sitting across from you, I can just tell you that you're going to have to let go of that. And I do want to release you.

The first thing is I just want to release you from thinking, oh, am I doing something wrong? Why is he so difficult? Why won't he just listen to me? What's going to happen? So release yourself from that. Otherwise, you will become Bob the nuclear reactor as well. Number two, you're justified in feeling frustrated. You are justified in feeling angry toward this child.

You are justified in reaming this child, in lecturing this child, in taking away everything that he owns. You're justified in doing that. But it doesn't work and it's not helpful. It won't work. You've already done this for the last six months or six years or 16 years. It doesn't work. So you're going to have to try a different way. So here's how things work in the home.

Sometimes it works like this and the genders can be different, but I was talking to Bob. So here's Bob's situation. When mom's home with the kids, they kind of have a little flow going right in the afternoon. Yeah, it's going to be difficult. Sometimes mom's a little frazzled, but they have a little flow coming, going on. But as soon as Bob walks into the home, tension walks in with him because this older child knows, uh-oh, dad going to bark at me. Is he going to give a consequence? Am I going to get in trouble with dad? Because he's never really happy with me. Mom tenses up because now she feels the urge to kind of go in between the two and somehow kind of manage the whole situation. But in doing so, then she gets accused of being too soft and too weak, right? And then she gets accused of

undermining her husband's authority. So there's all this tension that just walks right into the home and it changes the whole dynamic. And I get it for the bobs and the branders of the world. At the end of the day, you're tired, you're frustrated, you're anxious, you just want to walk into an orderly home because you were just at work all day long where things are tough and you're stressed and traffic was bad and you have to pay the bills and it's hard and you just walk in and all you want is a little bit of peace and quiet just for your kids to say, hey dad, what can we do for you? Be in a good mood. Everybody in a good mood. And it just doesn't work. That's not real life. And if I'm being honest with you, it's just your immaturity because I'm immature like that too, right? When I did that in my home, that was

my own immaturity. I was expecting and wanting everybody else to behave, everybody else to hold things together. The truth was I needed them to hold it together because I couldn't hold myself together. I needed my son to behave because if he didn't behave, then guess what? I couldn't behave. And that's your issue because you are the grown adult. So stop putting it on the child who I know is difficult, but you're an adult and you're the leader in the home. And I believe you can do this.

So third thing, here's what happens. You walk in, you start barking orders, right? It doesn't work. I know your dad did that. My dad did that. It doesn't work. And you're going to walk in and do that, and you're going to immediately get resistance. And if you remember this phrase, it says, you've got to connect before you get compliance. You just do, and I will guarantee you at your office, if your boss just walks into the room and office and starts barking out orders to you, you'll do it because you need the paycheck,

but you don't like it. And inside, you're pushing back and kind of cursing at him inside your brain because he doesn't care about you. All he cares about is you're a cog in the machine and he doesn't ever notice anything good that you do. He or she just comes in and lets you know what you have to do right now. And watch, at work, in the office, it's usually because people didn't plan.

It's at the last minute, and now you have to drop everything that you've been working on to do something else for your boss. And guess what inside? You don't like that. And guess what? Your kids don't like it either. So you have to connect with them before you get the compliance. Some guys like Bob will say, hey, look at me. Hey, son, look at me. Look at me when I'm talking to you. I would just tell you that will always provoke a child. And if you want my simple solution to that, it's this. Stop doing that.

Because if you do that, you're going to get a negative reaction. And I'm not taking up for the child. I'm just letting you know. It doesn't work, so you have to stop doing it. Here's what else we all do as parents. You lecture. You just go on and on. Hey, I need to tell you about this. And you just lecture and lecture and lecture. And then you wonder why your kids don't listen to you anymore. Listen, I'm not, this is not, there's no blame or guilt in this. I'm, my talk with Bob is the same talk that I had to have with myself before I changed. I talked to myself like this.

You got to stop. You can't lecture. Kirk, stop lecturing. Every time you lecture, the last 342 times you've lectured, you've gotten pushback from your son. Maybe I should stop doing that and take a different tact. Because at the office, when things don't go right, when my strategies aren't working, after 342 times, I eventually say, hey, maybe we should look at doing this a different way. But for some reason,

as parents, we're like, no, I'm just going to push through. I'm going to get this inside his head. When he finally gets along with it, it's not going to work. And the other thing that's going to happen besides ruining your marriage is it's going to ruin your relationship with this child that you love. You stopped liking him a while ago, but you love this child and you're going to ruin your relationship with this child. And I guarantee you, and look, I'm being a little bit bold with this. I guarantee you will entirely screw up this child's teenage years because he's going to be an angry kid who feels like his father or his mother is never happy with him, that has never been accepted

because he's not like the parents, and he's a continual disappointment and a failure. And you know what kids like to say inside? Go screw yourself. Because guess what are you gonna do take away my stuff guess what I already lost everything I own when I was seven years old so you know what take your consequences and take all your other expectations that I can never live up to and just shove them that's kind of harsh wasn't it but I'm you know what I'm to roll with this and I'm going to keep this. I know that sounds harsh and you might be angry at me, but if you look inside, you know that it's true. And look, there's no blame and there's no guilt.

I'm not harping on you. For some reason, I'm recording this for you because you needed to hear this and you needed someone to come alongside and say, hey, cut it out because it's not working. And I do this out of compassion because one day you're going to be really horrified and saddened when you don't have this relationship. And I'm saying it like this because I did that to my own son. And my relationship with my son now is one of the most precious things and important things I have in my whole life. And I value and I cherish it. And I almost screwed it up and ruined it all.

I did all this stuff. And so I'm saying it firmly because I want you to stop. Because it doesn't work. Number four, you can give consequences and you can be tough with your child and I want you to I don't like letting kids get away with things because we're raising an entitled generation but the truth is that usually when you do it your tone is like this hey hey listen this you know if you don't stop that right and you get that tone and and you know what happens? It escalates every single time. And if I'm being honest with you, you're the one who escalates it.

I know, but he won't do what I say, and sometimes he's got a disrespectful tone. Big deal. You're 40. He's 7 or 9 or 14. Be the grown-up, right? You don't allow that stuff to happen at the office. Well, he's, right? Can you hear that?

Sometimes as adults, we sound like little kids on the playground. Well, he was disrespectful first, so that means I'm justified in yelling and using a tone with him. No, you're not. You're the grown adult, and it's time that we as adults let our kids to a calm place instead of escalating all the time because that's what happens. So we've got a podcast and you're gonna have to look it up. And it's on, it's a raking leaves example that I did with my son where I held him accountable. I was tough with him, but I didn't escalate the situation. And you're going to have to learn to do that. And the fifth thing that I told Bob, my nuclear engineer friend, who's brilliant, right?

And this is the hard part. He's a brilliant guy who's responsible for these nuclear reactors and safety and all these things. And he can do it all at work. And then when he comes home, he has no idea what to do with this strong-willed child. We've all been in that situation. And there's a certain amount of shame that we get because we're like, oh, what am I doing wrong? And that's why the first thing was to release you from your anxiety and from feeling like you're a bad parent because you have a strong-willed child. You're not. So fifth thing is this. Stop getting annoyed. I know he annoys you. Your child annoys you, right? And you're constantly on him. Hey,

at the dinner table, stop fidgeting. Stop fidgeting. Sit down. Sit down. And everything about this child just annoys you. You're going to have to let it go. I know, but Kirk, he's not. You have to let it go. Let it go. It's not that important. You can't project out what a 10-year-old or a 14 or a 17 or a 3-year-old is doing at that moment and say, that's what he's going to be doing when he's 23 and 30. You can't project out. And you're just going to have to let it go and you're going to have to work on yourself so you're not annoyed all the time. The fact that you're annoyed is not your child's issue even though they're really annoying. I get it. That's your issue. You're going to have to let it go. You're going to have to affirm your child when he does things well. You're going to have to create

successes. Listen to the other podcasts because I go through a lot of tools but I'm going to end it like this because it's been kind of a tough one. If you need help with that, email us. Do the podcast. Most of all, we've got coming up, we've got a parent boot camp, and I want people at the parent boot camp because I'm going to go through this stuff exactly how to do it, and I can get into specifics for your family and your specific child, and you can tell me exactly about your child. And I will come up with very creative and specific ways to reach inside your child's heart and motivate him because your kids aren't motivated by what motivates you. And we have to find what motivates them. And I'm really, really good at that. And I will teach you how to do this stuff. But look on our website at celebratecalm.com forward slash camps

because we stopped doing the kids camps. Everybody wants to send their kids to us, and that's fine. I'm great with kids. I'll have a great weekend. It's going to cost you over $1,000 to do our regular camps. But guess what happens? They go back home, and then the parents go through the same thing again and again and again, and their confidence gets destroyed. So I'm not doing that with kids anymore. It's expensive and long term. What's more effective is I want to work with you. So get there. We've got it in Paris. We've got it in outside of D.C. and I've got it in Dallas. I don't care what it takes. Just get there. And if you need help financially, ask us for it. We'll help you, but just be there because I guarantee you it will change your family's life

and it will change your child more than anything else you do when you stop doing this stuff and you start building that relationship and enjoying your child again. So thank you. I know this was tough. I know it was tough and the people pleaser in me wants to apologize, but I'm not because this was really good and he needed to hear this. And I hope that like me, like it did for me, this leads to lasting change. Thank you. Thank you for loving your kids. Thank you for listening.