Calm Parenting Podcast - Child Won’t Follow Through, Ruins Family Time

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

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right? Like you want to go out, you want to go have fun, but you've got this one strong-willed child that just won't kind of get with the program, and now everybody's frustrated in the home. That's what we're going to talk about today on a Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. We're glad you're here. I'm going to be tough on this one. This one is going to challenge you.

It is, I think they all do, but it's going to challenge you because these strong will kids just don't fit the regular pattern and it's challenging. So I'm going to be really tough on you because I want to see things change in your home. And I'm going to provide hopefully some very practical ideas of things you can do to get your kids moving a little bit more quickly. But this all comes from an email we got this past week from some concerned parents. And I think you'll be able to notice some common feelings and concerns that you have about your child and the whole family dynamic as well. So if we can help you, just so I can get this out of the way, email us. You'll email our son, Casey, the strong-willed one, C-A-S-E-Y, CelebrateCalm.com. You can find everything

at CelebrateCalm.com. It's pretty easy. We are continuing our Christmas in July sale. Why? Because we feel like it and we're having a great time with it. We're getting tons of testimonials and people writing in saying, I downloaded your stuff. It's changing how I view my child, how we're interacting, and so awesome. So we thought, we'll continue that. This week's focus is going to be a little bit more on the new No BS Instruction Manual for Strong-Willed Children, which we created because we've done this for 20 years. We know these kids inside and out. We had 1,500 of them in our home, and so we want to get like right to it with like 25 quick action steps that you can take and so

that's kind of our featured product this week and you'll find it at celebrate calm.com and again we've got everything on deep deep sales to help families that are hurting and struggling so if we can help you let us know but here's what I want to talk about and be warned I'm really fired up about this and the reason I get fired up is, I hope you don't hear anything as guilt, judgment, or anything kind of like, oh, you're such a terrible parent. I don't want it to come across as that. What I get passionate about is we as parents, myself included, do things continually that work against our own purposes, right? Our own anxiety causes us to do things that actually result in the exact opposite result that we want.

And so if I come across as harsh sometimes, it's because we're doing things that are hurting our kids even when we have good motives, right? That's the thing. If you're listening to the Calm Parenting Podcast or any parenting podcast, you're probably a very well-intentioned parent. And so there's no guilt and there's no blame. And I don't want you to feel bad, but I do want you to change directions and change how you do things. Because even out of a good heart, we can do things that

really set our families back. So here's the email. It's about a son who is kind of a dichotomy. And that's what most of our kids are, right? The kids who can like scream at you to your face and then turn around, have a really big heart toward other people who won't do anything that you ask them to do. But when they're doing things for other people, they're awesome. And other people are like, your son is such a well-behaved young man. He's so helpful at our house and he's great with our children. And you're like, that's not the same kid that lives under our roof. So I'm going to break this into about nine parts. So first part, so we've worked hard to teach him all the things he struggles with, timeliness, obedience, responsibility, emotional self-control, and social norms to no avail. And it's devastating to the overall flow and productivity of the family. Now, as soon as I

read that line, I was like, oh, these are some good type A parents like me, right? Timeliness, obedience, responsibility, all good things. And I know this is hard and I do get it. I'm a type A, highly productive and effective guy by nature. But just before we get into this, just realize the purpose of family is not to be productive. Strong-willed kids will ruin your agenda because you've got an agenda. You know it needs to be done. You've got your list. You're on it. And a strong-willed child will almost always ruin your agenda and you can kick against it. You can try to shoehorn them into your way of doing things all the time and all it will produce is frustration. And if you don't want to listen

to any more of the podcast, just know this. If you have been doing the same thing for weeks and months and years and it is not changing, maybe it's not the child that you need to change, but maybe it's your perspective that needs to change, right? Because you've been doing this because this is the common dad thing. Well, I just, you know, I'll just keep doing this because eventually he'll get it. Well, apparently he's not. It's been weeks. It's been years. So you're going to have to change your tactics and the way you view this child. Because what we finally came to in our home is my job isn't to be productive. It's to be effective. So there's two different things.

Being productive is getting a lot of things done. Being effective is getting the right things done. And it's one of our core things that we teach is you've got this long list of all these things that you need to get done. How many of those things are actually really important for your child's future? And I'd rather you be effective and do the right things the right way than just do what everybody thinks you should do. Sometimes our kids will purposefully, even subconsciously, kick against this because

they know they're never going to keep up and they can't keep up with your standards. And sometimes when you let go of your own agenda and the stricter way that you do things, your kids will relax and actually step up and do better. Core principle, when we step back as parents, it allows our kids space to step up. Look, some of you have kids who are kids who are like to stop and smell the flowers. Now, these kids are irritating because we got stuff to do. But sometimes that's the way they are wired. It is the way they are made. And I promise you, if you will occasionally get down on a knee and smell that flower with your child and acknowledge where they are and what they're curious about. In their natural bent and leanings, you will get them to follow you.

But if the whole time you're fine, come on, come on. See, as soon as you get into that, you know, we don't, we don't, because here's what it sounds like. We don't have time to actually enjoy life or notice beauty around us or anything that we're really curious about. We got stuff to do. Let's get moving. And that child who likes to stop and smell the flowers, he's not moving on your timeline. It's just not happening. It's one of the things you'll find out in the No BS program.

These kids will not progress according to your timeline. They just won't. Those timelines that we set for kids are artificial and arbitrary. It's usually according to whoever came up with the timeline. It's how they're wired, right? But it's not based on any research. It's not based on life experience. It's just the way we want it. And so I encourage you, you can't make them grow up faster. It will set them back and cause them to slow down. How many of you have noticed? There's going to be a lot of bonus stuff in this. I hope you enjoy this. I could stick to a script, but I'd rather go with what clicks in my brain.

And I'm pulling back on a lot of foundational teaching here for some reason in our programs, which is the more you try to get your kids to move faster, right? You've done this. Guys, got to go, got to go, got to go. The slower they go, they're not rejecting you. They're not rejecting your authority. Stop taking it so personally. What they're rejecting is your anxiety because your anxiety puts so many false expectations on your kids that they know even when my parents are in a hurry, if I run it double time, they'll be upset because it wasn't triple time. It's just the way it happens. And when I start to read these emails, my gut told me immediately the quickest, the quickest amount of change, the greatest amount of change in the quickest amount of time will

happen when the attitude of the parents change, not just changing the child. So parent goes on, Hey, the stress of making what they do is they ask their child every morning to make a small list of tasks that encapsulate all of his chores and activities for the day. Now, nothing wrong with that. Not at all. There's nothing like, I just want you to know, I was a frequent case who was little because I am a big believer in having a yellow legal pad. I'm very specific. It has to be a yellow legal pad because that's what I did. It's what all my successful business guys I looked up to used to lead yellow legal pad.

And you make a list of your daily activities, right? You've got to have your goals with specific and concrete goals and timelines, because if you don't measure it, it doesn't get done. Right. Like all those things I learned in the corporate world and from my own dad. And I used to put that on Casey and expect him to do that from the time he was young until I was realized I was basically projecting onto a kid the expectations I had as a 40-year-old man. And you've got to be honest with yourself and look at yourself and realize we do a lot of that. And our intentions are good. Was there anything wrong with me expecting and wanting my son to make written lists with clear objectives and timelines? Not at all. That would

have been an awesome thing if he had done that at that age. Did he do it? No. Does he do it now? Absolutely. He does it. He makes more written goals and has better timelines. And I guarantee most of the dads, most of the adults listening to this as a 27 year old man. Why? Because we modeled it throughout his childhood, not because we lectured and lectured and lectured and made him do it. We modeled it. And in time, when he was ready and in his own time, he determined that's extremely useful. And I'm looking over, he's visiting us now. I'm looking at his planner. He has a daily planner. It's not just on his phone because he's a millennial. It's written down. It's concrete. He has little boxes next to each activity because then he can check it off and you get

a sense of accomplishment. Everything that I tried to teach him when he was a little kid that he rejected, he now embraces. But I learned you have to model things and not be on them all the time about those things or they will just shut down. So moms and dads, are you doing anything wrong? No, there's nothing wrong with that expectation. But here's the hard part.

This kind of child is just not going to do it. They're just not. It's not the way they're wired. They're not going to do it. And the first thing that I hear when the parent writes this from the child is, now I'm completely overwhelmed. And now he's just going to shut down. And you're not doing anything wrong.

What you're doing makes perfect sense. But it's just never going to work with this kind of child. And you're going to have to come to terms with that. And you're going to have to wrestle with it as parents. You're going to rack your brain. You're like, oh, why can't he just do it? But you're trying to fit this square peg into your round hole of how you do things. And the only thing that happens when you do that is you wear off the edges of that child.

And that hurts. And I will tell you, it hurts more than you know. Your kids internalize these things because they start to internalize. I can never live up to the standards of my parents. I can't, they compare me to my siblings. I'm not good like them. And I will tell you, it will hurt them. And some of your kids will not recover from this if you continue this.

If it's week after week and month after month and year after year of I can't live up to my parents' expectations and I feel like they don't really accept me as I am, that they just want me to be someone else. That is devastating for a child, right? There are a lot of things with our kids where I want kids to experience struggle and hardship, and I want them to struggle. I don't want anyone to suffer in life, but I do want people to struggle, and I want them to struggle. I don't want anyone to suffer in life but I do want people to struggle and I want our kids to learn how to be resilient and I want to put them in tough situations where they have to fight and they have to claw and they have to pull from things deep within them to be successful. But this is different because you're basically asking the child to change who they are,

their complete personality style, their learning style, how their brain is wired. That is devastating because I can't change that, right? So you're going to have to wrestle with this, and what you'll find out if you listen to the No BS program, one of the reasons I did the No BS program is just kind of shoot straight from the hip and let you know. And this is something I do believe. Your kids, your strong-willed kids, likely will never do chores around the house. I'll just say it. They're not going to do chores.

They're not going to do chores in the traditional way. They're not going to do it the way you want them to do. They just don't do it. Right? It's like you have little kids who dump like 4,000 Legos on the floor. Do it the way you want them to do. They just don't do it. It's like you have little kids who dump like 4,000 Legos on the floor. Well, you need to pick up your Legos. They're not going to do it by themselves. They won't.

And I know what you're thinking. Well, if they don't learn how to pick up their Legos, how are they ever going to be successful in life? And I get that. But they're not. And you know what's going to happen? Parents of toddlers, you're going to find yourself down on your hands and knees next to your child, picking up the Legos and the toys with them. And you're going to be resentful and upset about it and think this isn't right. It's just the way it is. And I'm not talking about giving in and doing everything for your kids, but there are certain things that I've noticed over the years with a million families

that just is the way that it is. Our own son, I've said this many times, Casey was virtually useless as a child. He wasn't a great kid. He is an amazing adult. He was amazing in the adult world from the time that he was a child, he didn't do his chores but he was extremely responsible outside the home and what we as a couple as a family wrestled with was thinking what are we really after we are raising our child to be successful in the adult world, to be responsible with other adults, because he's going to spend most of his life as an adult. And what we noticed is inside the home, for us, not really all that great. Outside the home, worked his first job from the age of 12, extremely reliable, showed up on

time. From this email, there's your timeliness. Did everything that his other bosses asked him to do and more. All of his bosses, again, from a young age. I'll go even younger than 12. He started being a stick boy, volunteering for a minor league hockey team when he was nine. And every night I would go to that arena when there was a game. And this is what I always heard. Hey, are you Casey Martin's father? And I was like, it depends. What'd he do? And they're like, no, he's amazing. He like cleaned up the locker room. He does everything that we asked. I'm like, no, you've got the wrong kid. They're like, no, it's Casey Martin. I'm like, yeah, that's my son. And they're like, he's amazing.

We don't have to ask him twice. He just does it. He does extra work. And I was like, but he doesn't do that at home. But he did it outside the home. So I'm asking you, I'm not going to plead with you. It's a little bit needy. I'm not going to plead with you.

It's a little bit needy. I'm not going to plead with you. It's your kid. I'm just letting you know, if you're very, very rigid with how you do chores, you will be frustrated, your child will be frustrated, and we're going to get to what happens next. But be creative with it. What are the things that your child can do outside of the home, even outside? I've talked about that before, so I'm not going to do it again, but pulling weeds, doing landscaping, doing stuff, changing the oil, doing stuff you wouldn't even think about, right? But what you want is for them to contribute, right? So let them do it in a different way. Clean out the garage. You know, here's a creative thing. Why don't you get them to go and clean out the garage and go through the house and find things that you're not using and then sell it online and have like a little ebay sale and raise money

for the home do i i don't care what they do as long as they're constructive right it's just anyway i'm going to leave it at that but i want to uh say this huge principle here and it's something if you can if you'll write this down, and by the way, if you want it written down, I take these, I don't have a script for the podcast. I have an outline, tends to have some thoughts, but then I often put these into a newsletter or two where this is written down. So if you want that, go to celebratecalm.com. You can sign up for the newsletter or email Casey at celebratecalm and just say newsletter in the subject line. He'll sign you up.

And then you'll have this in writing. But here's a huge principle. Affirm what your child is good at doing now rather than pestering and lecturing them for what they aren't good at doing. So your kids are already doing a ton of stuff that's really good and positive. But what do we do as parents? We only focus on what they're not doing well. So for the next week, for the next two weeks, affirm what they're doing now. Walk into the room and say, hey, you know what I've noticed?

You're really good at doing X. It's a good life skill to have. And then just walk away. It's my favorite way of praising kids is to make a statement of fact and then walk away. You're not going to linger. You're not going to go on and on and on because it's embarrassing. And then it makes them feel like they need to respond like, oh, you're a good mom too. Right? It's weird. So just walk in. It's like planting seeds. Hey, you know what I've noticed? And this is going to relate to something that comes up next. You love to read. Because you

know what we do? You know what these parents have done? Is their child gets distracted by his chores, from chores, because he reads a lot. And they completely glossed over that. And we completely gloss over all the things that our kids do well. because we're so hyper-focused on what we want them to do and what's important to us, and we miss the fact that they're doing all these awesome things. And we're doing this parent boot camp. It was based on the No BS program in Dallas, and I had these older parents there who have a child in their late teenage years. Child's shut down, and this dad, really cool dad, starts crying in the middle of this, right in this middle of this group and said, you know, my son came to me last year and he said, dad, for my whole life, you've

never really pointed out anything that I've done well. You only point out the things that I don't do well. And it broke his heart and it will break your child's spirit. So I want you to affirm those things. I'll tell you it's more motivating than you can possibly know. They will start doing the things you want them to do when you start affirming the things that they're already doing. It's really interesting. By the way, you don't want to work for a boss who does the same thing, right? Let's say you do five things really well at the office every day or form and all they ever pick on are the things that you didn't do well and you're like but what about that program I created that brought increased revenue by 38 percent why did you notice that what about that cost saving thing what about this

program I put together and you're like well but I didn't do you didn't do that well and eventually like forgive me for the language eventually like screw you like why why would I feel motivated to work for you because you're never happy with anything that I do you literally what if your boss literally came in every day and picked out the things you weren't doing well literally every day all day long because if you're honest with yourself that's what we do as parents and we somehow have come to rationalize well that's my job as a parent who Who said that's our job as parents? Where do we, I'm putting we in.

Not just, because I did the same thing to my son. It almost destroyed our relationship. But we do that stuff and we justify. Well, I'm the authority figure and I'm the parent. I need to point out all the things he's doing wrong. What, who says that, that works? Who's, like, how has that ever worked in any environment with human nature, right? Is that how you train an athlete?

You just point out every time, well, your time on that is not very good, right? You're not doing that well. Like, yes, you have to point those things out, but not exclusively. And you don't lead with those things, right? You're not going to get an athlete pumped up telling him all the things he's not doing wrong. You're going to be like, man, I love how you're doing that. You need to tweak this a little bit. And if you do that, man, you're going to excel even more. But we don't do that with our kids. So I'm only on the third point. I'll try to go quicker for the rest of this. So typically, it's lack of awareness of time and obedience. Those are two

heavy words to me, time and obedience, right? Because we've got an agenda and I want obedience. I'm telling you that obedience word, man, I could do so many podcasts on that. That carries so much weight of like, I want you to do what I told you to do right away immediately. I've done podcasts on that. It's a really harmful way of looking at stuff. Because you don't do things with immediate obedience yourself. I guarantee you, you don't. Combines with our frustration and fatigue and we end up with a toxic home life that completely ruins our weekend. And I want you to think about this.

This has been going on for years. I guarantee you, it's been years. Yet all you have tried doing is finding ways to shoehorn your child and his personality, the way his brain is wired, his temperament into the dynamic that fits and pleases you best. And who says your way is best? Why not try changing what you do, try changing your expectations, rather than always trying to change him? I get it. We had 1,500 of these kids in our home. They're frustrating. But I assure you the solution is not to somehow make this child someone he isn't. And I don't care what the other kids and siblings say.

I don't care. And neither should you. Your kids are different. And you have to raise them differently. And you've got to get over this whole thing of like, look, this is very common in our homes. Well, I've got my compliant kids. And then there's a strong-willed one. And he ruins the flow of the family.

I get it. They do. But I promise if that's the way that you're thinking, it will come across and you will have Cain and Abel on your hand and you will have read East of Eden sometime. It's about that same dynamic. It's John Steinbeck. It's only one of his books that I've read. It's awesome. Casey said one of the other ones he didn't like much, so I'm not going to waste my time with that. But the East of eden was brilliant writing and it was that whole dynamic of the child who never gets the acceptance of his father and authority figures and it almost always leads to murder in some way so not always physically but

the murdering of the spirit murdering of relationships so here's where I was going to get to that point of well he gets distracted by his toys and by reading books and we gloss over this and miss your son loves reading books if i had one thing that i would want your child to do with his education and we're going to do some special programs because most of you are going to have some weird kind of school system being set up we're doing some uh professional development training for teachers because we're going to have a hybrid learning in a lot of schools, districts, a lot of states where kids are going to be on for a week, off for a week or two. And that's really going to mess with our kids who need consistency.

And so I've been talking to a lot of parents. I'm like, hey, if there are two things that I want, really it's really two, it would be I want kids who read books because reading, if you learn how to, if you love reading and you're curious about things, there is nothing, there are no limits to you in life because you can read about anything and teach yourself. And our kids are mainly self-taught

and I want them to learn how to write well because very few kids, very few young people now can write well. And so the ability to write well will cause you to stand out in the marketplace. And it's really, really effective. And it's very necessary. But reading books, we overlook. Well, he doesn't get his stuff done because he's reading books. You know, I know this is hard. But why not think about it this way? I kind of want him reading books. I like that he's curious. So why can't his chore be, I know this is going to stretch you, but why can't his chore be to read about something that would make family life better, or that would help you as a family? Maybe he, or that's just plain interesting. And maybe he's into

science, or black holes, or astronomy, or maybe he's into investing, or maybe he or that's just plain interesting and maybe he's into science or black holes or astronomy or maybe he's into investing or maybe he's into running small business and maybe one of his chores is to read books that the other kids aren't willing to read how cool would that be see watch right now here's what the dynamic is all the other kids do everything we ask them and they do all of their chores and they do it with a good attitude. But our other child, all he does is read books, and he gets distracted. Well, what if we were to use him, that one that's on the outside all the time, and we actually, instead of trying to make him fit and be like all the other ones, we use that to our advantage, and we assign books, and we said, hey, here's something we'd like to learn as a family. Here's something that would

help us make more money or save more money or be in a better position or to do things. Or maybe here's a vacation place. Maybe you could read about that and you can come while we're eating dinner or while we're doing our chores and you could give a report on that or three recommendations of how we could do that differently or why don't you come and tell me what are the three things that you've learned about black holes or what have you learned about the the COVID virus that maybe we don't know right because now he's learning I I'm just being honest I don't really care about chores there's literally there is zero predictive value between this is's literally, there is zero predictive value

between, this is no BS thing, there's zero predictive value between kids doing chores and them being responsible later in life. Zero. None. And I know it because of all the kids we worked with, including our son, who was horrible at doing chores and is extremely responsible now. I want kids, look, think about it. What's your goal? Well, I want kids who are really good at doing chores. Or you could say, and these aren't mutually exclusive, but you could have one. I want a child who is curious and loves to learn. Oh, okay. So maybe we let that one who's a little bit different go with his natural leanings and he is his job is to read and consume information and then put it into sound bites into the little recommendations of

three things and he teaches the family and now we get to affirm him say man how many books have you read this week right what look if i had to do this over again if i had to choose and it's not that you have to choose between the two but sometimes do, between how many chores did my child do this week and how many books did he read? Oh, I'll take books any day, any day of the week, right? I'm not talking about letting kids be lazy and not contribute, not do things, but look at it in a different way and affirm what they are doing. He's reading books. It's an awesome thing. So here's what happens. And this is where I'm going to get tough with you. We continue to remind him, which turns into nagging and lecturing about personal responsibility,

why it's important to obey the first time and how that will affect future job opportunities and what that looks like to potential employees. Now, here's some real no BS here for you. That whole line of thinking about if you don't do it, it's going to affect future job opportunities is utter BS. And you just lied to your child. And you're lying to your kids again and again and again and again because it's not true. And by the way, that lack of immediate obedience, it's a horrible standard and God doesn't even expect it and you don't live up to it, has this whole idea of whether they're going to do chores or not and has literally nothing to do with your child's future job opportunities. And I'm going to be tough on you. You've got to stop that stuff because you know what you just did in this moment? You just

cursed your child's past, his present, and his future with your own words. Because here's what we're really saying. You've never listened. You've never done what we've asked. You're not doing what we say now, and you'll never get hired by anyone. And if you tell that to me, if you tell that to anyone, you know what their response is going to be? Go. You know what?

Go to them. Because I'm a complete loser. I've never been good at things. I'm not good now, nobody likes me, and I'm never going to be successful, so I'm a complete loser, and you keep comparing me to you, to my siblings, no matter what. I'm never going to measure up, so why even try? Because you just cursed his past, his present, and his future, and somehow we think that's motivating that one day he's going to wake up and say, man, if I don't do my chores, I'm not going to. And it's a lie because it's just not true. Your kids may not be great at doing what you ask them to do, but they're awesome at a lot

of things. And it's those other things that they're great at that are going to be responsible for how well they do in life. And I know I'm being a little bit tough here, but think what you do. So we nag and lecture him about personal responsibility. Since when has that ever been motivating or worked with another human being? It only reinforces failure and makes people feel like complete about themselves. But I can promise you when he is motivated by something he will be conscientious and he will be great for other adults and I bet he already is at times. He's just not good for you and you've projected that into his future which is debilitating. How many more lectures do you think it's going to take until he finally

gets it? My guess is maybe a million or more. It's a waste of time and energy. And I'll be tough on you this way. What if I came and lectured you about personal responsibility? Are there areas in your life where you're not exhibiting personal responsibility, where you could be doing more, you could be working out more, you could be saving more money, you could be investing better, you could be working harder, you could be making better meals, organic meals, you could be doing all kinds of things, you could be treating people in better ways, you could be giving more, you could be doing all kinds of things. And if I came with a list of things that are important to me or to our family, and I just lectured you about your own lack of personal responsibility, you tell me to go, right, take a hike. Your kids are going to be okay, but I want you to affirm what's already there.

So, these will be quick, more quick. We offer positively reinforcing carrot at the end, such as a social opportunity, but it's not until the last minute that he hurries to get everything done, crying and wreaking havoc and misery in his wake. It usually ends in devastating tears and emotional blowouts from all sides. And again, I'm going to ask, how long have you been doing it? Why do you keep doing this? And why is the purpose of this email? And I get it, I'm going to ask how long have you been doing it why do you keep doing this and why is the purpose of this email and I get it I'm not judging you but I'm being tough why is the whole purpose

of the email is this please tell us how to change our son so that he doesn't wreak havoc in our home but nowhere in there was can you please tell us how to change our perspective or maybe change our own attitude, the way we motivate him so that we don't get upset and we don't blow it up, blow everything up. See, the basic tone of how we, almost all of us as parents address these things is we have this difficult child and he's ruining everything in our home. Okay, good luck to you because you're not going to change that child that quickly by changing him. You're going to do it by changing yourself, right? And isn't that interesting that that's how it ends? Now, a couple things from this point of he waits until the last minute. It's classic procrastination. Kids like this will almost always wait until there's pressure because that intense

brain stimulation helps them overcome the inertia and the fear and the overwhelmed feeling. That's why your kids stay up late at night and get their homework done late at night. It's a tool they're using, the tool of procrastination, to cause them intense brain stimulation. But it's not a really healthy tool. And you've got to learn how to jumpstart your child's brain and create successes and give them tools to succeed. It's a key part of the CDs, the No BS program. We teach you how to jumpstart your child's brain to get them to push through the hard things, right? How do you get your kids to push through the hard things? We go through that in the No BS, so I'm not going to do it right here. If we deny the carrot because he didn't

follow through or get it done on time, we pay with his screaming and crying fit all night. So again, I'm going to ask you to change the entire paradigm, right? I want to change the entire system. See, it's an endless carrots and sticks. Well, if you do this and you do it on time and what we've seen is he never gets it done on time. So it's basically, hey, it's a new day. Let's see how we can cause some failure today, right? And how you're not going to live up and the whole day is going to be ruined. And we keep doing it and doing it and doing it, thinking that somehow it's going to change if we change the consequences. And it doesn't.

And we have to change from trying to motivate him. Watch. Instead of motivating him according to what motivates you and I as an adult, we have to determine what is motivating to him. And more importantly, giving him tools to succeed. We're basically starting every day with an expectation of failure because this child is not timely. He's going to procrastinate.

He needs tools, right? The greatest reward is not just gritting your teeth and doing something you hate or don't care about with the minimal work necessary just to get the reward or to avoid the punishment. Look, it's actually give the child very specific thinking and learning tools so that he's capable of doing the work without the constant strain. Let me put it this way. You would not stay in a job that you weren't naturally good at doing without getting lots of training. Sure, you could push through maybe 20% of your work, but only because you were good at the other 80%. Does that make sense? Right? But what if you were placed in a job situation in which you

just weren't naturally capable? 80% of your job was doing things you're just not good at. Let's say you're more of like an accountant type person. You're good with numbers. But then I put you with a job at an ad agency and said, hey, go be creative. And you're like, but I'm not good at this. And I'd say, well, you're just not applying yourself because I've told you how to do it and you just won't do it. Or conversely, if you're a very creative person and I was like, hey, you know what your new job is? It's to live in Excel spreadsheets all day long. And you'd be like, but I'm not good at this naturally. No, you're just not trying hard enough, right? Does that make sense? That would lead to an extreme amount of frustration and we don't want that. They went on to say that they have

visiting people there helping with their kids and so they try to use that as a teaching opportunity to explain social norms and how other people might view him and then he gets embarrassed. But the lesson doesn't translate to another day. Why? Because, look, we shame our kids in front of other people all the time. Shame does not work. Okay? Stop doing that.

Right? You're ruining your relationship with this child. And it's so much about your own expectations. And it's about this. He's different than you. He's different than you. He's different than you. And on a deep, deep level, you have to learn to accept your child as he is. I mean on a deep level.

Not just think like, well, we know he's different. See, that's not good either. What I want to know is, I like the way my son is wired. Yes, it's frustrating at times. It triggers me, but that's about my own triggers. But I like the way my son is. I wish I was more like him. That's a valuable and powerful phrase. I wish I was more like you. You're different from me. But different doesn't mean bad. And it doesn't mean less than. Because there are certain things that you do that are way better than I do them. And I wish I was more like you. And I wish the rest of our kids read books like you do. Because that's about

curiosity and learning. And that's what I want you to do. That is a very important part of the process to accept your child on a deep, deep level. It doesn't mean you always have to like how they do things or what they do, but you're going to have to accept the child that he is very different, right? So, you know, I think I'm going to skip the last part and just keep it up to this. You're trying to train this child to be like you and most other people, and he's not. And right now, he's not going to make a list, and he's not going to be obedient, and he's not going to do all these things. Nor should he be right now, because that's not how his brain works.

Again, it's like asking you to be super creative and spontaneous if that's not your natural bent, your natural personality style, your natural temperament, your skill set. You'd fight that and fail all day long. And that's what's happening with him. And again, your goals are good and right and helpful. It's everything I wanted my son to want to learn. But you're going to have to change things up. You're going to have to see him in a different way, right? You're going to have to be creative in how he does things. You're going to change these expectations and take advantage of his natural gifts and his talents and get him doing that. You're going to have to jumpstart that brain of him. Use some intensity

with music, with challenges. Get that brain moving. Create wins. Use tools, right? Let's use his brain the way it's supposed to be, okay? And let's use him and accept him as he is and use his natural gifts and look at him a different way so he's not just the tough kid and the kid who's always ruining things. Do you know what it would feel like if you went through your childhood knowing inside that the rest of my family just sees me as an irritation

and I'm the difficult one and I ruin everything and I'm always in trouble. What do you think happens inside? Do you think that that child doesn't shut down and begin to seek when he gets to teenage years, seek some things that he shouldn't be seeking, right? Self-medicating in different ways because nobody's really accepted me. What do you think happens? This is a very deep thing when a child knows my dad doesn't like me. My dad's never really accepted me, what do you think happens? This is a very deep thing when a child knows

my dad doesn't like me. My dad's never really accepted me. If you don't think that affects a child for the rest of his entire life, even when he's 54 my age, because I never got that acceptance from my dad. It's not a boo-hoo thing, but it affects people. And I'm aware of it. And I'm 54. But it affects me to this day. And I will tell you it will affect your kids. But here's the good news, because I want to end on good news. You can change this. You have the power to change that by changing yourself, your perspective, and how you see this child. And that's what I mentioned, whether it's through the Christmas in July sale with our CD programs, see your kids in a different way,

learn how to jumpstart their brain. Get the No BS program. If you want to jumpstart to this, 25 action steps that you can do before school starts throughout the rest of July and August, go for it. It's on the website, Celebrate Calm. If we can help you in any way, reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, CelebrateCalm.com.

But you have the power to change this and that makes you powerful and that get see that's the good news of all of this is it's not just about changing your child you get to change your family by changing yourself first i know this one was a little bit longer but i hope it was worth it because it can change your family love you all talk to you soon bye