Calm Parenting Podcast - Calming Anxious and Defiant Children

Episode Date: September 19, 2017

How can you calm an upset, anxious child who is freaking out? Is your child being defiant or anxious? Kirk shows you exactly how to turn a nasty power struggle into an opportunity to build confidence and trust. Email [e-mail] or call 888-506-1871 to get practical help and our free newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Hello everyone, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. And today, we're going to talk about anxiety, defiance, and how to calm an upset child. So here's the situation. Come into your home one afternoon or evening and say, hey, Jacob, you want to take Taekwondo one day? And your child's like, sure, mom, sure, dad, sign me up. A couple weeks go by, we come home, we're like, hey, Jacob, come on, got to go, got to go. We've got Taekwondo, let's roll, man. Let's go, let's go. And you sense that hesitancy. You're like, oh, and your child's like, mom, dad, you know, my stomach doesn't feel good. Can we just stay home tonight? I promise I'll go next week.

And immediately you're like, no, no, here's what's going to happen. If we leave right now, we can stop at McDonald's. We'll get a happy meal and everybody will be happy. And you know, bribery never works in this situation. So you turn around, look at your child, say, you know what? I paid $135 for that class. Your little butt's going to be there. And again, he's never going to look at you and say, Dad, I didn't really want to go to the taekwondo class,

but now that I know how much it costs you, I'm motivated. It's not going to happen so that's when you grab the little child by the arm you say you know what you're going to get your little butt in the car i don't have time for this kind of stuff i signed you up for this quitters don't winners don't quit and you throw out everything you can think of right a little bit of gratitude would be nice when i was a kid i didn't get to do taekwondo we didn't have the money to do it i work hard all day every day to earn the money to pay for this there are kids starving in africa a little bit of gratitude would be nice. And you shove your child in the car like they do on the cop shows with a hand over the head, right? You've been there before. And when you get frustrated, you start barking things out about gratitude, right, about their attitude. You try to change how they're feeling in the moment. Again, if you ever listen to any of our curriculum, you'll know it's a big no-no. We

don't change people's moods. I don't try to control how other people think or feel. You know why? Because I don't like it when people do it to me. And I guarantee if you're a mom or a wife out there, you never want to hear your husband say, oh honey, you're just overreacting. You just need to be grateful, right? You don't want that to happen to you. So don't do it to your kids, right? So in that moment, okay, what's happening is you're sensing that resistance. And so you begin to kind of freak out. You're trying to convince your child to get in that car and it never ever works, right? And you end up saying even worse things like, you know what? I don't know why you have to make everything so difficult. Your sister never gives us any problems. Other kids to go to Taekwondo. I don't know why

you have to make things so hard. You know what happens? We end up wounding kids and we end up saying things that we really don't mean because we're frustrated. And you know, one of those roots of frustration is I believe, I think it's because you're a really good parent. And you know how I know that? Because you're listening to a podcast on parenting. That means you're a purposeful parent and you want to do things better. But here's what happens for many of you. You've got an agenda, especially the moms out there, right? Because you're so purposeful. You read all these parenting books, you listen to all this stuff, and you've got an agenda because your agenda is to raise, excuse me, a responsible, respectful young man or woman who becomes a good citizen and leaves your home before they're 29, right? You've got this agenda

and you've got the little checklist of all the things your kids have to be doing. And what happens is your strong-w will child begins to ruin your agenda. They get in the way of your agenda because see, many of you also have a more compliant child and see, they check off all the boxes because everybody likes them. They don't fight you over homework. They get good grades and they have good manners and they don't fight you over clothes and getting up in the morning and everybody loves them. And so those kids kind of affirm you as a parent, right? Like, oh, I'm a good parent because look, look how well she's doing. But then you have the strong willed child and you're not getting any of those boxes checked

off. In fact, all of them are opposite, right? Because they won't do anything without a fight. And what happens is this child becomes an impediment to your agenda getting done. And all I can tell you is this, is you're going to have to get rid of that agenda. You're going to have to stop comparing this child to their siblings and to their peers. And it's some, sorry, some stupid artificial timeline that some academic person in some office somewhere put together that says, well, by this age, your child should be doing this. Forget about those things. All they do is put too much pressure on you and your child to live up to some expectation. Your strong-willed child is very different, and they're going to progress on their own timeline. And if you push them, they will resist

you, and you know that. And so you're going to have to get rid of that agenda because your agenda is to love this child, to enjoy them as they are. And you know what your real agenda is? It's to become a new person because it's a strong-willed child. And look, when I do these things, it's not about always trying to sell you something, right? I know it may sound like it sometimes, and I don't really try to push stuff. But, man, you've got to listen to some of our stuff. The CD program on the strong-willed child is all about the strong-willed child and how to stop the power struggles. But you're going to have to come to grips with the fact that this child is different,

and he will probably never, ever, ever, ever, ever do things the way you want them done. Now, he'll be successful. He'll listen to you. You'll accomplish the same objective, but he may always do things differently. And until you let go of your agenda and you start to realize that this child is a unique individual and just does things differently and he's supposed to do it that way, until you let go of that way, until you let go of that agenda, you're going to have power struggles with this child over everything. And

I'll tell you honestly, that's not always the child's fault. Sometimes you're creating that power struggle because of your own control issues and because of your own perfectionism and your own anxiety. And there's no guilt in that. It just means you can be free from that. And you can be free from all these power struggles to really enjoy this child. Just know that he's not going to do things based on your agenda. It doesn't work that way. And I want you to liberate, I want to liberate you from that. So you can really enjoy this child and you can see him or her blossom in front of you into this amazing child, but you're going to struggle with it. So we get this agenda and you're going to have to let go of that, right? Because your agenda is to love this child,

enjoy your relationship with the child. When you do, you're going to see this child step up and be wildly responsible, even more so than your kind of compliant, easygoing child. So in this situation, your child resists. And along the way, you may hear him or her say this. No, I'm not going. Taekwondo is stupid. You're stupid. Right.

You've heard some of those things before and you freak out inside because like, why is this child being so defiant? I would have never done that to my parents. He is challenging my authority and that freaks you out. And these kids will look you in the eyes and they will say, I'm not going. You can't make me, right? And that's when you dig in. You're like, you know what? You better get your butt in the car right now. You're going to lose every video game you have ever had. You will not leave your room for the next three weeks. And it doesn't work. And you know what happens every time. You dig in. Your child digs in. You have a big fight. There's a meltdown. And everybody ends up in tears. It doesn't work. It never works.

And I know how hard this is because this child is challenging your authority. And in the moment, now here's part of the key part. In the moment, we react to this child and we can't react anymore because when you react, you misread the situation. And here's what I'm seeing right now. This is a defiant, disrespectful child. He's a defiant little snot that makes my life difficult. And if all he'd do is get in the car and go to the taekwondo, I know he'd like it. So we start to push, push and press. And in the moment, we tend to misread the situation. See, I think I'm looking at a defiant, disrespectful child right now. But you know what I'm really looking at?

I'm looking at a really anxious child. So let's rewind this situation and look how we can do it in a different way. When you get into that power struggle situation with your child, and that's going to happen probably within an hour of listening to this, when that happens, instead of reacting to that child immediately, I want you to think about this first. Your first thought has to go to this. I need to control my own emotions first. I must control myself first. Because if you try to control your child's behavior first, especially while you're upset. It will always escalate.

It does not work. And I know you're freaking out because he's challenging your authority and you can't let him get away with challenging your authority. But I'll show you how to deal with that in a minute. So you've got to control yourself first. How do I do that? One, I work on myself relentlessly about that mantra in my head of I control myself and no one else. I control myself first. The quickest way to change my child's behavior is to first control my own. So I step backwards. I sit down if I can. I change my body posture from that hulking parent who's like standing over the child pointing and demanding that he get in the car. I changed my body posture. I changed my tone of voice and I control myself. And I also look for wisdom. And I promise if you listen to our CDs, especially this, this examples on the stop defiance and disrespect program. And one of the keys is getting to the root of this. And part of

getting to the root of issues is giving kids wisdom and tools and understanding what's really going on. So when I step back in this moment, instead of reacting to the child, I'm going to control myself first. Here's another step. I'm going to assume the best about my child's intentions here. Because in the moment, you know what this child is? He's a defiant little snot that makes my life difficult. And I compare it to his siblings. And I don't want you to do that. So when I step back and I look for wisdom,

I say, God, what's going on here? Why is he freaking out over a 40-minute, 5-minute class? What's going on? When I slow myself down, I look for wisdom, the light bulb goes off. And now I'm able to look down at this child and say, you know what, Jacob, I know what's going on. You're not just being defiant right now.

You're anxious, you're scared because you're going to a new place. And I totally get that. Now watch a couple of things here. That is called the power of acknowledgement. You're acknowledging what your child is going through. This is not some psychobabble stuff. It's a really practical, easy, quick thing to do. For the women out there, it is exactly what you want your husband to what? You're just overreacting. You just need to be grateful, right? You don't want them controlling your emotions and reactions. So don't do that to your child. You want them to say, oh honey, totally get why you'd be upset. I'd be frustrated too. You're just acknowledging. Here's something that's really important. You're acknowledging in

an even matter of fact manner. Okay. I'm not going with sympathy here. So moms don't do this. Oh honey, I know it's really hard to go new places. I know it's difficult. I'm not doing that because that's going to feed his anxiety and make it worse. Okay. Instead I'm making a simple statement. I totally get why you wouldn't go because you're anxious. You're going to a new place. And I may even throw in my own empathy again in a very even matter of fact way. You know, when I give presentations at the office, man, my stomach, my stomach gets kind of upset. Is that what's happening? So you're identifying with the child and saying, I'm watch, I'm the grownup here. I know what's going on. I know, watch, this is really important. Your world, you're freaking out right now.

Your world inside is out of control. Mine's not. I'm the adult here. I've seen this before. I've done this before. I know exactly what's going on. See, I want to get to the root of it because in the moment, we think that this is a defiant child who's being disrespectful and challenging your authority. And in reality,

you know what it is? It's an anxious child. Here's why. Your child probably has a very, very busy brain. And when things feel out of control, right, when new things happen, your child freaks out inside. So when you say, hey, Jacob, taekwondo night, here's what triggers in his brain. Mom, dad, mom, is that taekwondo guy going to be nice to me, right? Have we ever been to the taekwondo place? Is it going to be really loud in there? What about the other kids? Are they going to pick on me? Because see, I have asynchronous development and that means that I'm intellectually, I'm advanced. And so I get along better with older kids and adults, but emotionally I'm a little bit immature and I get along better with little kids and animals, but kids my own age, I struggle to connect with them. And sometimes

they pick on me and I have trouble with auditory processing issues. And sometimes listening to an adult give me multiple step directions at the same time. I get confused and I'm not good. And what if I'm not good at taekwondo because I'm not good at school and I'm not good at a lot of other things? What if I'm not good and I want to quit? Is that going to make me keep going? And that's when they eventually say, no, I'm not going. Because what they've calculated in their brains is, this is scary to me. Look, going to this new place mean I may be rejected by another adult. I may be rejected by other kids and I might fail. I'm not going. So watch. Can you see why they put their foot down and say, you're stupid? I hate you. Do you know

why they do it? Because they would rather get the punishment. They would rather get sent to their room. They would rather get a spanking. They would rather get sent to their room. They would rather get a spanking. They would rather get whatever you do to them. They'd rather get that because that's a known. I've done that before. My parents have done that for me. Listen, I'll go to my room for the rest of the night. Piece of cake. Look, you can spank me all you want. I don't really give a rip. I don't care. Just do not make me go to that new place where I can be rejected by other people again, because I've already had that happen too much in my life. And look, in all of these situations,

here's what I want you to know. They're huge opportunities. This example where you're in this nasty situation where your child's calling you stupid. Do you know what? It's a huge opportunity. We look at it as if it's, we just look, it gets in the way of our agenda. I've got a busy night. I don't have time for this. Just get your little butt in the car. We've got stuff to do. We've got Taekwondo that we're going to get home. We've got to get homework, got to get you a shower, all these things you don't want to do. And see that agenda thing gets in the way. And here's what I really want you to internalize. All of these nasty power struggle situations are huge opportunities to build a closer relationship with your child, to build trust with them so that they learn from a young age,

when my world's freaking out, it's okay because I have a mom and dad who don't freak out. That's huge to your child. And you've got to have that, especially when they get into the teen years, because when your kids get in the teen years, it's nothing but drama. And the number one thing a teenager wants besides an iPhone and money is he really wants a parent who doesn't do drama. So it's a huge opportunity. Watch to teach your child lifelong skills in this moment. You've got two options. You can step into it and escalate and the rest of the night is ruined. And you say things you shouldn't say to your child and they say inappropriate things.

And you've got tears and the night is ruined. Or can step back control yourself first and look at this as an opportunity to say oh I've got some wisdom here that will help this child so watch when I step back and I assume the best about my child's intentions when I control my own anxiety over this situation. And I don't make it all about myself. I get wisdom to help my child. And I look down and say, totally get that you'd be freaking out now. It's a new experience. I'd be a little bit nervous too. That feels so settling to this child. Now, here's where we get into in our curriculum. If you listen to any of our stuff like Stop Defiance and Disrespect CDs, we're going to get to the root of the issue. And the root of the issue here is it's an anxiety issue. But you wouldn't get to that if you just reacted, right?

And now I have an opportunity to give my child tools. So you hear in all of our podcasts, we talk about giving a child tools. So let me give you a tool for anxiety. Anxiety is caused by unknowns, things you can't control. So the best antidote to anxiety is to give your child a sense of ownership. And you'll hear that in other stuff we talk about. Give a child ownership. And the best way to do that in this situation is this.

Wherever you go, ask another adult to give your child a job to do. So let me give you a quick example. So let's say in this taekwondo example, you go a few days ahead of time, maybe a week ahead of time. And you walk into the taekwondo place. By the way, this is really important. It's actually good to do to go a week ahead of time. and just take your child to the place where he's going to go when there's no pressure to perform and let them soak up the environment. See, I soak up the environment. I'm very sensitive. I'm always feeling things and your kids are like that. And when there's

pressure situation and you're in a hurry, it freaks them out. But if I can just go and walk around the edges there and take it all in, it is so helpful for me. So you go a few days ahead of time, you meet the Taekwondo instructor and like, hey, Mr. Taekwondo, this is my son Jacob. He's going to be in your class later this week. Listen, he loves helping other people, not me. Don't say that, he loves helping other people. Not me. Don't say that, but you can think it. How many of you know that? Your kids are great for other people, just not you.

So listen, this is my son, loves helping other people. Listen, could you give him a job to do? And Taekwondo says, oh, Jacob, man, I'm psyched you're going to be in my class. Listen, I could really use your help. Those are magical words for the strong willed child. They love helping another adult. They love feeling like an adult. Listen, Jacob, I could really use your help. Listen, I need you to be here about five minutes early every week. And when you get here, you're going to help me rearrange the cones, set up the mats, get ready for class. You up for that?

And most of your kids to other people say, yes, sir. I'm all over that. So watch later that week or next week when you come home and you're like, oh, Jacob, listen, we've got Taekwondo tonight. Now watch what triggers in your child's brain. Not all the scary unknowns. It's this mom, dad, remember Taekwondo guy said he needs my help, right? No, remember that they love feeling helpful for other adults. He said that be there five minutes early. So we need to leave like three and a half hours early. So we're not late. Now, your kids are going to do that stuff.

You don't have to leave three hours early, but do leave early if they if they request that. It's a pain, but do it. It is so calming for your child to get there a little bit early. And this is important. It's look with these kids, it's all the subtle little things that make a huge difference to them. And you've got to learn these things. That's why, look, I, I'm not doing this to sell my products, but I do sell my products. You know why? Cause they're really, really good. And they will change your home and your family life. I always give this

because people are always like, oh, you sell your stuff. I'm like, look, if you were out in the middle of a desert and I somehow had gotten access to water, okay, you wouldn't fault me for selling you water in the middle of the desert because it's good for you and it will save your life, right? And so I do sell these things because I found over time, you've got to listen to our CDs again and again and again and again, because you get bombarded every day with fights from your kids. And I want these things to be fresh in your brain. I actually want your kids to listen to our CDs. Honestly, you give a strong willed child that strong willed child CD program, because my son's

on that thing as well, and let him listen to that. He will come to you and say, this guy gets me. His son understands. They totally get me. Mom, I'm not just trying to be defiant. It's what this guy's, I'm just overwhelmed sometimes, and is incredibly liberating and freeing. I want you to let them listen to the Defiance and Disrespect CDs and say, mom, look, sometimes I am defiant and this guy just explained why. And I am defiant sometimes. And I apologize for that. And they'll own it. But it's only if the people, if they feel understood and you get why they're doing it. Does that make sense? So look, it's small things, getting there early and letting their soak up the environment.

And it's huge for these kids. So now, excuse me, when your child walks into the Taekwondo place, he has his job to do. His brain is focused on something very specific. It's something he's good at doing. And now instead of thinking about like all the other kids, am I going to get along? Am I going gonna do it well, you just began that Taekwondo class by getting your child's brain focused

on doing a specific job, something he's good at doing and now the Taekwondo guy gets to give him a fist bump and say, man, you're a good helper, you're a good leader. Listen, five minutes early every week, Jacob, you'll be here at class. Your child will go to Taekwondo, not because mommy and daddy want him to. They'll go because they're accountable to another adult and they want to please another adult who believes in them. So wherever your child goes, look, if you've got a

child who had in preschool, who's got separation anxiety, moms, no amount of explaining, oh honey, look, it's only three hours and I'll be back at noon and I'll pick you up. See, all of that explaining actually makes your child more anxious. But if that preschool teacher meets your daughter and says, oh, Rebecca, so glad you're here this morning. Listen, I need your help. I need you to move all the books from one side of the class to the other side of the class. And tomorrow, you can move them all back. Look, your kids don't care. Just have another adult give them a job and make them feel helpful, and you will get them to do it. Kids who are going out for sports, you want them to do this.

But many of your kids, by the way, will not do team sports. They can't get along well with the other kids. They're controlling their bossy. It just doesn't work. So sometimes individual sports are better. And for some of your kids, they're just not going to do sports and that's okay. Just play with them in the backyard and play in the neighborhood and give them other outlets to use their skills, right? But for some of your kids, the best thing that can happen is for a coach to come to your child. Look, this is a cool

one I've used a lot. Many of your kids, they're not always very athletic, but they're strategic kids. You've got good brains and that's why they're good at chess and checkers. That's why they're good at arguing with you. And so you, you appeal to that. So I've had a basketball coach come up and say, Oh, listen, man, I know you're going to be on my basketball team. Listen, I need you to come out like 10, 15 minutes early every night before practice. You've got a good, really, really good strategic brain. You can help me come up with some drills, some basketball drills that we're going to run with the other kids at practice that night. And so now they're there a little bit early. They're getting a little bit of alone time with the coach and they're doing something they're good at

and it makes them feel settled. So wherever your kids go, have another adult. For many of you, your kids don't want to go to school in the morning, and no amount of bribery and threats are going to work. But if an assistant principal, a certain teacher, guidance counselor needs some help, oh, Jacob, you're so good with electronics. Listen, could you get here early every Jacob, you're so good with electronics. Listen, could you get here early every morning because I need your help with X. I had a child who didn't want to ride the school bus. So the school bus driver said, oh man, you are so good at adding numbers in your head. I need some help. I've got to keep track of all the kids who get on and off

my school bus. So could you sit up front with me? I'll give you a notepad've got to keep track of all the kids who get on and off my school bus. So could you sit up front with me? I'll give you a notepad and you can keep track of all the kids who get on and off the school bus. That kid got up every morning. This is one of my famous stories that I've told many times. One morning he was sick and his mom went into his room. He's like, honey, listen, you're sick. Do you want to stay home today? And for most of our kids, like, heck yeah, I think I'll need to be home the whole week. And instead, this kid looked at his mom and said, mom, school bus driver can't count very well. She needs my help. I need to be on that school bus. See, the child didn't go to school because mommy or daddy made them. It was because someone needed their help. So try that. So let me wind this all up. I want you to

learn how to get to the root of the issue, right? I guarantee you when it comes to defiance and disrespect, most of the time your child's not just being defiant. Most of the time there's something else there. There's anxiety. Much of the time, your child is simply overwhelmed. And when we get overwhelmed, what happens? We shut down and refuse to do things. And that's why I really want you to listen to the Defiance and Disrespect CD program, because we go through like 30 different examples of defiance and disrespect, including outright defiance. When your child just says, I'm not doing something. We go through all that, how to handle it, but we show you how to do it without escalating.

And, and we also show you how to build your relationship and give your child tools. What I love about this example we did today is I gave the child tools and here's what's really important. Now think about this Previously, all your child knew was, well, I'm just defiant, disrespectful. Now what your child knows, whenever I do something new, I get this icky little feeling in my stomach. And see, he's going to use this the rest of his life. I am 51. My body tells me when I'm anxious because my stomach always gets a little bit upset. But now that I'm 51 and I know this, I know how to deal with my anxiety. So I always go to some kind of known thing, something that brings me comfort. Sometimes if it's a lot of anxiety, I will go work out

because exercise helps with anxiety. But what I usually do is the same thing that I just advised for this. I usually do something that I'm good at doing because in the course of doing a small thing that I'm good at doing, it gives me confidence and it takes away the unknowns of anxiety. And now your child knows for the rest of his life, oh, this is a sign of anxiety. But now I have tools to deal with it. It's a beautiful thing. And so look, this whole situation that used to erupt into bad language and calling each other names and you're stupid and I hate you and tears, you have now used this potentially nasty situation and you have given your child tools that he will use for the rest of his life and you will have built trust because now your child will know next time they'll be able to say

mom dad i've got that stomach thing going on and instead of you freaking out you say oh sounds like it's anxiety so what do you want to do for that? How are we going to overcome the anxiety? And now internally your child knows I'm not just a defiant, disrespectful, awful child who gets in trouble all the time. It's just anxiety. And so we can separate the behavior from the issue, right? And now you don't have a defiant child. Oh, I just have an anxious child. See, if you just have a defiant child who doesn't do what you want to do, I can't always do child. See, if you just have a defiant child who doesn't do what you want to do, I can't always do anything about that, right? But if I know that it's anxiety, or in other situations, if I know the child's overwhelmed, and I can say, oh, totally get you

to be overwhelmed by this project. Let's break it down in smaller pieces. Then I can build that relationship and that trust. Does that make sense? So I hope this afternoon or this evening, sometime soon that your child has a nasty meltdown and I hope they resist you. I do hope that, you know why? Because I'm kind of a jerk, but you know why? I really want it because I love you and because I want you to learn how to do this. And you know how much confidence comes when you learn how to control yourself, right? And in the special this week, we're, we're, we're giving out the, uh, the, uh, the mom CD, right? Straight talk for stressed out moms to teach you how to take back control of your own inner life, to become a new person. So you can handle these situations and you become that

trusted person that your child needs, it's a cool, cool thing. Listen, if we can help you at all, email us. You can email my son directly because he's the one who inspired all of this and he knows how this works and he's great with your kids. It's Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. You can go to our website, CelebrateCalm.com. We've got a Facebook page on there. We've got videos, podcasts, blog posts. We've got a free newsletter you can sign up for. Our phone number is 888-506-1871. You're not going to talk to some faceless operator. You're talking to one of us. You're talking to someone who either has a strong-willed child or you're actually talking to the strong-willed child himself, my son. And you're going to one of us you're talking to someone who either has a strong-willed child or you're actually talking to the strong-willed child himself my son and you're going to get a personal response if we can help you with anything let us know learn to be assertive if you listen to

our stuff and you say i want your cds but they're too expensive for me we can't afford that right now by all means email or call us and say, you just described my home. You've described my child. You described us. I want your help. Here's what I can do financially. Can you help us? We always help assertive people. You just have to ask. If you want us to book, want to book us to come to your school, church, foster care organization, again, just email or call. We love traveling. We even go overseas. We're speaking in Prague this winter to an international school, but we'll be glad to help you however we can. And then email me if you have ideas for a future

podcast. Email us. I'll be glad to address it. Anyway, love you all. Enjoy your kids. Bye-bye.