Calm Parenting Podcast - Child Pushing Your Buttons? Good! Here's How to Stop It.

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

Child Pushing Your Buttons? Good! Here’s How to Stop It. Ever wonder why your child gets so much satisfaction from pushing your buttons and arguing with you? You thought he was just being difficult. But when you realize WHY and what purpose it serves, you can use this to actually problem solve. Listen to this insightful podcast and visit www.CelebrateCalm.com/NOBS to learn how to save your relationship with a strong-willed child. Questions? Email [e-mail] with the subject line "NO BS." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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no multiple step protocols, just simple scientifically validated solutions. The secret is One Skin's proprietary OS1 peptide. It's the first ingredient proven to switch off the aging cells that cause lines, wrinkles, and thinning skin. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company. By focusing on the cellular aspects of aging, OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get started today with 15% off using code Kirk at OneSkin.co. That's 15% off at OneSkin.co with code K-I-R-K. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So please support our podcast and tell them we sent you. Hey everyone, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. I'm glad you're here with us today. I'm in the middle of a two-week road trip and here's what's kind of on my mind.

I'm concerned because everybody comes out to the workshops and I do phone consultations and we've always been about like giving really good strategies, right? Like how do you help a child with his homework, right? How do you stop a meltdown right in the middle of it? How do you lead your child to calm? All those things I love, love, love doing. Social skills, building social skills. How do you help with anxiety? I have great strategies for all those things and they will work. But you know what's really striking me is this. For a lot of us and a lot of the parents that I'm talking to, it's not about strategies and tactics. It's about actually rebuilding or actually building and saving your relationship with your child. I'll give you an example. Here

are some things I just heard from, this is a good mom. These are, look, you're all good moms and dads. But see if you can hear beneath the surface, the of a four-and-a-half-year-old. Here are my goals for my son. I want him to be able to apply himself to realize his potential. He's four-and-a-half. He shouldn't be applying himself. He shouldn't be talking about potential of a four-year-old or a six-year-old or an eight-year-old. And to be quite honest, when I hear parents talking about like, well, my

teenager isn't living up to their potential, all I hear in all of that are all of these expectations of the parent and a burden that's on you as the parent to think, oh, I have to fashion and somehow create a successful child. And he's not making the right decisions now. So we have to course correct and we have to make him do this. And we're going to apply consequences and bribery and threats to try to get him to live up to his potential. And it doesn't work. And what happens is you will put so much pressure on that child. You will lecture so much that that child will begin to internalize that there's something wrong with me. And my parents don't even like me and nothing I do is good enough. And they like my brother and sister better because they do so well in school and they'll start to shut down. And by

the teenage years, all the parents of teenagers, this is what we're dealing with. Kids who are unmotivated. They've just shut down. They're resistant. We have to check their homework. We have to tell them what to do all the time. They're getting addicted to video games. And what's hitting me is it's not just about strategies. It's about literally saving your relationship with your child for this reason. Your child's behavior, your child's entire attitude will change, not by applying just certain techniques or consequences. You know consequences don't even work with these kids. It's about the relationship. When your relationship changes with your child so that you fully

accept him as he is, look, until you radically change your objectives, your attitude towards your child, how you view your child, because look, I can see it in the four and a half year old all the way to the teenager, you're already viewing the child as, well, he's less than. He's not living up to his potential. He's not applying himself. He's unmotivated. Well, you know what I'm going to say if I'm the child? Go screw yourself. Screw you. According to standards, what do you, right? I can, no matter how much I do apply myself, I'm never going to live up to those standards. So you know what I'm going to do? I'll shut down. And if I'm a little kid and I can sense that pressure already, and I'm only four or five or six or seven, and I should be playing and being curious, not living up to my potential, man, I'm going to shut down. And I think that's what's happened with most of your kids. Then it's

about saving your relationship, but that's going to take a radical shift in how you view them. And you're going to have to change and control your anxiety about their future. Because look, you're projecting out into the future and you're seeing this child and thinking, oh, how is he ever going to be successful? Some of you are beating yourselves up with guilt. What do we do wrong? What aren't we doing? And so, look, that's the whole idea behind this new No BS program that I'm doing for parents. And what it came out of is a realization that unless you change some things, and I mean really radically change how you view this child,

you're going to ruin your relationship with your child. And there's no blame and no guilt. I did the same thing to my son Casey until he was about nine and a half. That's when I started to change. But if I hadn't changed, I wouldn't have a relationship with my son right now. He wouldn't be talking to me. I'd be living alone in some apartment somewhere with no relationships, right? Because I would have taken my where the highway approach, right?

He's going to change. I would have taken it to its logical conclusion, which is I'm not going to have a relationship with anybody unless they just do it my way. Relationships don't work like that. Now I'll tell you, and for the guys out there, you want your kids to listen to your wisdom. You have a lifetime of experience that you want to pass on to your kids. It's very deep inside men. And what we don't realize is when we're always kind of negative, when we're always lecturing, when nothing's ever good enough,

when we have to remind our kids all the time and tell them, no, you're not doing that the right way. They shut us out. And so inadvertently, we're cutting ourselves off from our kids. It's not, look, it's not them all the time. And I realize you guys have really strong willed kids. And I know that because I do too. But I will tell you for the men out there, one of my most cherished things in my entire life at age 53 is my relationship with my son. And it didn't get there because all of a sudden he woke up and towed the line. It was because I radically changed myself. So I wanted to give you an idea. I want to give you an insight into your strong will kids that I think will change how you view them and how you interact with them. And this is just one example that I'm going to include in this no BS program for parents. And look, I'll tell you where

this is coming from. I'm 53 now. You know, I'm at heart kind of a nice guy, people pleaser, but I don't want to just look at people and say, well, I think it'll be okay. It's not going to be okay. You need to change how you're doing it. You need to release your child from your false expectations. You need to release a child from the expectations that he's supposed to be like everybody else or be just like you. And until you do that, you're going to have resistance with this child and it won't change until you change. And so I'm trying to be very blunt with parents. Now in the program that I'm releasing, we'll work in some humor, right? Because you got to have a little bit of humor so you don't, you know, do bad things, right? Because this is hard stuff. But I want you to know

you can change your relationship with your child. And I promise you when you change how you view your child, it will change how they respond to you. And they will start doing more. They will become more motivated. It's like you're going to unshackle them and free them to be who they're supposed to be instead of trying to make them into your image. And it's really powerful when you do it. But here's one little insight. So I made this discovery later, lately, and it was huge for me. I was kind of struggling to help this family, so I kept asking questions because I like to be curious.

So I was like, what else did your son enjoy doing? Does he happen to like tinkering with things? And the response was like, oh yeah, he likes taking things apart. He even built his own computer. And inside I was like, oh please, I asked you like tell me about your child. What is he like doing? See, and please listen to this. This is really important. The key to getting a breakthrough is not fixing your child's weaknesses. It's not convincing them to do what you want them to do. I'm going to repeat that. The key to getting a breakthrough is not fixing your child's weaknesses. It's not convincing them to do what you want them to do.

The key is building on their strengths, on their natural abilities in order to solve their own problems. See, we're taking it from, I'm the parent. I can see what's wrong. I'm going to come in and fix all these weaknesses, right? So I'm going to hire all these people to fix everything that's wrong with you, or I'm going to lecture you and I'm going to reason. I'm going to give consequence. I'm going to take things away. I'm going to bribe you. I'm going to lecture you and I'm going to reason. I'm going to give consequence. I'm going to take things away. I'm going to bribe you. I'm going to try to convince you to do what I want you to do. And you've done that for four years, for seven years, for 10 years, for 15 years, for 17 years, for 23 years.

It hasn't worked and it's not going to work. The key is to build on their strengths and use their own abilities to solve their own problems. See, this is a kid who argues all the time, and he's always pushed buttons. You have that, child. And what strikes me as struck me is this. When your child is pushing your buttons and arguing, he is simply tinkering with your brain. See, when building with Legos or taking something apart, he moves a lever or he disables a spring, and he watches how the contraption reacts. He's studying the mechanisms, looking for patterns. And so he's doing the same to you when he pushes your buttons.

He's just watching for the reaction, studying you, seeing what he can do next to control or tinker with you. And he does that with his siblings and everybody else. And the frustration festers because the qualities that are actually important with our kids, right? Creativity, problem solving, curiosity, questioning assumptions, leadership, pushing limits, taking risks, not conforming, experimenting and coloring outside the lines. See, all the things that are really important in life, we never focus on. All we care about are the ability to sit still in class, memorize information, do well on a test, do your homework, remember to turn it in. That's all we ever focus on with our kids, good grades and good behavior. And none of those things are required for success in life. But creativity and problem solving and curiosity and

all these other things are. And so we dismiss all those awesome qualities. See, they don't get reinforced or applauded because, see, you don't get grades for taking risks, for not conforming, for coloring outside the lines, for questioning assumptions. You don't get grades for that in school, and so we don't care about it. So we dismiss it, right? And actually, you know what's even worse? Our kids actually get in trouble for doing those things. It's no wonder that they shut down. So look, that child who is arguing with you, and this is, again, when it's not caused by anger from pain and hurt, which is another reason to argue with you, but when that child's arguing with you, he's largely doing so because he's bored.

So he's experimenting with your brain. He's tinkering with it. But see, we're too busy getting upset, yelling, and lecturing to notice the key to the very problem we're upset over. So what if you looked at your child and said, I see what you're doing. You're tinkering with my brain. You're tinkering with my emotions, just like you tinker with Legos or mechanical things around the house. And I apologize for missing this amazing trait all these years. See, it's a sign of intelligence, of curiosity, of wanting to know how things work. really well-paid engineer, architect, inventor, entrepreneur, and scientist. And I'm so sorry I've missed this trait and I've reacted to it all these years. Listen, tinkering with my brain isn't going to work anymore because I'm not going to react anymore. Plus, you've pretty much left me brain dead. I'm kidding about that part. So here's what I would absolutely love to do with you instead. Let's use that ability to tinker and explore and problem solve and use it to develop a creative solution to the problem you want me to fix.

Because I believe you're capable of fixing it. And I'm curious to see how you'll use your creativity. See, I'm happy to help. So just let me know what you need from me. And then I walk away. And so watch what I'm doing. Instead of reacting to that trait that we've always found so irritating, we're identifying it and we're starting to redirect it and say, no, no, I love the fact that you challenge assumptions. I love the fact that you don't fit in with everybody else. I wish I had the courage to not have to be like everybody else.

I conform too much. You know what? That's a sign of an entrepreneur. I know something else about you. You've got a big heart. You love money. And I bet if we use that great brain of yours and all of that energy instead of stealing stuff around the house, instead of manipulating people, instead of talking back to me. What if we started create your own little

business? You'd start making a little bit of cash. I bet you'll give some of that to St. Jude's for kids with cancer. Look, you've got a great future ahead of you, right? We just need to use all these skills. Does that make sense? So I want us to keep learning of this about our kids. And I want us to keep pushing beneath the surface. See, at the surface level is, he's just defiant. He's not listening. He's rigid about everything. And I get that. They are absolutely that. And they don't want to do things your way. And they want to do things on their own terms. Got it, got it, got it. That's true. But if you want to change things, you're going to have to change your relationship with this child. So I invite you go to celebrate calm.com forward forward slash

N O B S stands for no BS. And I want you to look at that page because we're doing a special. This is a pre-sale of this. This is a huge program. I will tell you to me, it's 20 years in the making. This is everything I know about Strong Will Kids and it's cutting through all the clutter. And I'm simply going to tell you, this will work. This will not work, stop doing it. I'll give you the reasons for it, but I'm going to be very blunt, because if you do not radically change the way you view your child, if you do not change your expectations and change how you relate to your child, you will destroy your relationship, and you're going to live with constant stress, tension, and power struggles, and I know you don't want that. And with this program, I'm going to give you, I'm going to tell you 25 steps.

We're going to go in order, and I don't care if your kids are little. If your kids are toddlers, perfect. And younger kids, good. Get on this now because what will happen is it will prevent you from making the mistakes that all the parents of teenagers have already made. If you have a teenager, it's not too late. Not too late at all. Because you're in the prime position where your kids can actually get this. So when you go and you begin to change, they will get to see you change right in front of them, which is an awesome, awesome thing. So look at that page. If you need help with anything, email Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com.

Call him at 888-506-1871. He will help you out with this. In this, you're going to get an audio guide, audio recordings of two to three hours with these action steps. And it's going to be hard-hitting stuff. There are things in here I have never shared with people before that I don't usually share in public because it's hard stuff. And it's stuff that if you don't have the context, you won't be able to take it. But I promise you it will change your relationship. And that's what I really want out of this. You'll get that also written instruction manual. We've never really

provided this before, but I want you to have this in writing. I want you to have this nice outline that you can look at and you can look at the 25 steps and go, boom, I can see it. I can read it. I can do it. I'm going to create like a one or two page cheat sheet so you can print this out. You can, um, you'll be able to, um, copy and paste the cheat sheet and send it to yourself in an email because this is how I do things in life. So while you're sitting in the carpool line in traffic, before you get up in the morning, you can just scroll through this list and say,

yep, need to do number six. Yep, need to do number nine today. Need help with number 12. If you order this by Sunday, April 7th in the next week, what I'm going to do is allow you to ask me questions. And then that way I can answer your specific questions in a special audio recording because I'm going to do as part of this kind of real-life case studies, which I think you're going to find really helpful. But I need you to order it by next Sunday, April 7th, so that I have time to study what you've asked and record that for you as part of the pre-sale. There's also a cheaper price during this time, 20% off with the seat pre-sale price. And here's what else I want you to know. Throughout

the years I travel, as I work with people, I get a lot of new insights. New things hit me. New situations come up. And so what I will do is I will start to catalog those. And every once in a while, I'll record a new recording and put out a new little written guide to update this. And I'll automatically, you'll just automatically receive that via email whenever I do that because I'm here for the long term and I want to change your relationships. So I encourage you, use this insight now with your child, right? Get to know the kids who tinker with brains, right? Start to have that conversation with them. Observe them this afternoon, this evening. Step back and instead of reacting to

them, observe them and start to understand what they're really doing. And it's really cool because you're going to see you have an opportunity to create a really close relationship with this child. When you let go of some of your false expectations, accept them as they are, and start to release them to be the person they're supposed to be. And I want you to change your relationship before it's too late. I'm 53 now. I've seen for too long these things happen in these relationships. And I'm meeting all these parents of kids in their 20s and their 30s and are like, oh, we didn't know this.

We wish we could go back in time. So let's do this together. Thank you for listening. Hope you found this helpful. And hopefully we'll see you around. We're on the road for the next couple weeks throughout Northern Virginia and Pennsylvania a little bit. So come see us at a live event. Again, if you need help setting up a live event, help with any of our programs, email my son Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, celebratecalm.com. Hope you guys have a great day. Bye-bye.