Calm Parenting Podcast - Controversial: Kid Flips Off His Dad

Episode Date: September 24, 2017

What do you do when your kids say awful things to you? Does being calm mean you let them get away with it? No! In this example, Kirk shows you how to turn a highly charged confrontation into a bonding experience. It’s powerful and practical. 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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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. Hello, everyone. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm, and we're glad you're here for this podcast. Feel free to reach out to us at any time. You can email me personally,

even at kirk, K-I-R-K, at celebratecalm.com. You can call us at 888-506-1871. Anytime you need anything, just reach out to us. We're pretty friendly people. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Celebrate Calm. And we've got a free newsletter and all kinds of free stuff at the website, Celebrate Calm. So there you go. Hey, today I wanted to talk to you about a, it may be kind of an extreme example of defiance, but I like dealing with the tough stuff and the real stuff. And this is a little bit controversial only because there's a little bit of bad language in it. I'm not going to use the bad language, but it revolves around some bad language. And I've gotten in trouble in a few venues before for doing this example, but I will continue to do the example because it's real life and it happens. And the strategies and insight in this are phenomenal. I love it. I've told this story, I don't know, maybe a thousand times. And that's what I love about our live workshops is we have opportunities to do real life with peopleic little environment where you've got these two little wonderful kids.

You've got strong-willed kids and you're strong-willed yourself. And I like to deal in reality. So, by the way, if you book us at an event, we will be sensitive to your needs. So if you say, hey, don't do anything really controversial, we probably won't. But I may. I'm kidding. No, I'm not kidding. Actually, I may. You know why? Because

sometimes it's helpful not to offend people, but to really provoke people to think because we have all these blind spots and all of these parenting axioms that we've believed, right? Like here's one. Oh, if you just, if you're firm with your kids and you're and you tell them what to do and then you're consistent with consequences, your kids will listen to you. You all have been told that and you've been told a lie because you have kids who don't care about consequences. And so, yes, book us. I promise I won't offend you too much. But our examples are really good. so I want to do this one. So it's called the F-U example because in this example, a child tells his father F-U. And I know that may not happen in your home, but sometimes things get pretty heated. And I know even in good Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever homes, you guys occasionally swear, swear at your kids.

And some of you even drop the F-bomb usually on Sunday morning before church, right? When you're in a hurry and you can't find a parking spot at church. So here's the example. And it's a real life example of a good Midwestern family, Minnesota family, nice family. They've got two kids, probably like in your home, where one of the kids is the more compliant, easygoing child, does what he's told to do, doesn't have any really any problems with school. He gets along with other kids. Everything's wonderful. You have that child, you feel like an awesome parent. And then you have another child who's strong-willed, who does

everything exactly opposite of the way you want them to do's strong-willed, who does everything exactly opposite of the way you want them to do it. They put up a fight about everything. They have all kinds of weird little quirks. Now, they're not weird to me because I'm kind of like that, and I like some of their weirdness. I like that they're different. Okay, usually it's just a sign that you're a really rigid person and you have some issues. So you've got to understand your kids. Otherwise, you will perpetually have power struggles with them over these things. So this family, two kids. So one night at dinner, dad tells the one son, hey, you need to go do your chores.

So he gives them some chores. And the more strong-willed son begins to kind of hem and haw because that's what our kids do. They're never going to reply, why, of course, father, I wasn't having a good time texting or playing video games. I was hoping you'd give me additional chores so I could learn the value of hard work and responsibility, sir. They're not going to respond like that. They don't want to do their chores. And so when the son starts to hem and haw about it, dad and mom's anxiety kicks up because you start to think, how is this child ever going to be

successful? I'm like, why can't he do one simple thing the way I asked him to do it? It's not that hard. If he would just do his chores, he would be done in 15 minutes and he could have the rest of the night to play. And then all of this, it comes out of your mouth. So dad begins to lecture this son, right? And say things like, you know what? Your brother never gives me any problems when I tell him things to do. And out of strong will child's mouth come these words, F you dad. Only he didn't say F, he said the word. Now may not happen in your home, but you definitely get that attitude sometimes. So what is the appropriate response when your child flips you off or just resists you? Right. Again, we're not going to I'm not I don't like the we're a little bit too soft sometimes on our kids and we're too little bit too sensitive with them. And I don't want to say like, Oh honey, you know what? I really appreciate how you express yourself. Yeah. I'm not going to do that. Now my natural response as a father, and this is probably what your response would be. And

what the dad did was to just jump up and go full into this. You know what, young man, you're not going to talk to me like that. You don't use that kind of language in this home. You don't talk to your father like that. You're supposed to honor your father and mother. If I would have said that to my father, and I would have sent him up to his room, I would have taken away his cell phone. I would have taken away his video games. I would have taken away food. I would have grounded that child for a month for talking to me like that. And you know the truth, if you did that, you'd be fully, you'd be fully, it's a fully rational thing to do. And there wouldn't necessarily be anything wrong with grounding your child for a month for talking like that, right? So if you do that to let them get away with things. No, I don't let a child get, let them get away with anything, but I'm not going to react and start to get personal by saying, you never listened to me. Why do you have to make life so

difficult? And I'm not going to compare to their siblings and just, and just crush their spirits. There's no need for that. Right? So I want to show you a different response to this. And here's the beautiful part as well. Let's say that you initially respond with that. You're not going to talk to me that to your room and you get a big shouting match and you say things you shouldn't mean. Fine. It's going to happen. You're human. Now here's an opportunity. And again, I've mentioned this before, but I believe it. These nasty situations that you don't want to deal with, this is why you are a parent. It wasn't designed for everything to be wonderful, and you have kids, and you tell them what to do, and then

they do it. That's not how it's designed, because that's not how life works, because it's never worked like that. Even in the fifties, it didn't work like that. Okay. So we always have these things like, Oh, in the old days, kids used to listen to their parents all the time. The first family was Adam and Eve. They had two kids, Cain and Abel. One of the first two kids was a murderer, right? So if you're doing better than a 50% murder rate among your children, historically speaking, you're doing pretty well. Just saying it's nothing new. Okay. So these are huge opportunities to use these really emotional situations. Because look, that kid just flipped his father off. That is a highly charged environment right now, right?

And you can see mom gasping. She doesn't know what husband's going to do the other son is watching thinking my brother just said that to my father how's he going to handle that and there's this whole dynamic in the home and what I'm telling you is we usually don't handle it the right way we usually just react and yell and if we learn a different way it can be a huge opportunity to one, discipline your child, which means to teach him a different way and to build a closer relationship. And that's why I never get tired. We've done probably 1500 workshops and sometimes I tell the same stories and I never get tired of these for this reason, because it's all about changing relationships. It's not just about changing a child's behavior.

You are literally changing relationships for the rest of your life. Because if you don't learn how to do this with a strong-willed child, what will happen is, especially with dads and sons or dads and daughters, but moms too, you will be divided, right? You'll be divided, one, in your marriage, but then you're going to be divided, right? You'll be divided one in your marriage, but then you're going to be divided between this child. And sometimes that lasts a lifetime. You're also have give, it's also an opportunity to break generational patterns because for some of you or your spouse, this is how your mom or dad did it with you. And you find

yourself doing the same exact thing. So in the longer run, I want to break generational patterns. That way this changes relationships for literally decades and possibly even into the next century. That's pretty cool. So let's say that you blow it the first time, scream, yell, slam a door, stomp downstairs, and then you recognize, you know what? I didn't handle that the right way either, right? It was wrong of him to say F you, but that doesn't justify me screaming, yelling, getting personal with him. Yes, you are justified to take away everything and ground him for a month, fully justified, but I'm going to show you a better way, but you're never justified saying personal things, yelling and screaming at your kids. You're just not. So here's how I would

handle it differently. And for a little bit of background, you guys know, if you've listened to our podcast or our CDs, we talk about giving kids wisdom and tools, wisdom and tools. So I collect myself as a dad and think I didn't handle that the right way. So I go back upstairs to my son's bedroom and I humble myself because it is humbling. And I knock on his door. I'm not going to, I'm not going to run through the door. I'm not going to just open it up, even though it's my door and I knock on his door. I'm not going to run through the door. I'm not going to just open it up, even though it's my door and I paid for the door. I'm not doing that because I'm going to respect a little bit of his privacy and I'm going to do this in a little bit more humble manner. So I knock on the door. Child may not even answer the door. And I may just say, hey, you know what,

son, I shouldn't have said those things. I didn't handle that the right way. Now, child may open the door. He may not. I don't know. Now, this is a little bit of a dramatization. You may not be able to say all of this all at once, but here's what I'd like you to communicate. Imagine the dad communicating this.

You know what, son, I shouldn't have handled it that way, but I do know these two things. One, I know that you know saying those kind of words to your parents is unacceptable. Now, let me stop here for a quick aside. That phrase, I know you know that's wrong. That is a great phrase to use with your kids who are in trouble all the time. Because watch what we usually say. What were you thinking doing that? How many times have I told you not to do that? You know what we're really saying if we're honest? You're an idiot. I have to tell you so many times. You know why? Because you're an idiot. That's what we're saying. None of you would allow your boss or your spouse to say, honey, you know what? What were you thinking?

Your response would be, I'm rethinking my marriage choice. That's what I'm thinking. So I start off. That's just a great phrase. It's an acknowledgement that your child knows that flipping you off or calling you that those names is wrong. You don't have to beat them up for it. They know, kids know from the time they're two that what they do is wrong, right? They know. They hide behind stuff and they lie. They lie because they know what they did was wrong and they don't want the consequence for it, right? So second thing I say is I also know this. I know that you know using that kind of language in this home will bring dire consequences. And yet you said it anyway. And what that tells me is

the pain, the frustration, whatever it is inside of you that would compel you to say something like that to your father is greater than your fear of any consequence I could give you. Does that make sense? See, I'm breaking it down. I'm using some logic now because I've calmed myself down first and I'm really breaking this down. See, now that if you're away from that situation, you can think, yeah, it doesn't make sense that a kid would flip his parents off or say, you're an idiot or I hate you. It doesn't make sense. Why would they do that? Because they know it's wrong. They know they're going to get a consequence. So the real point is there's always something deeper to it, right? An example I've used before with a child who's

being defined about, I'm not going to go to Taekwondo. He uses that language of you're stupid taekwondo stupid i'm not going he defies you on purpose because look his fear of rejection at the taekwondo place by other kids or the instructor or his feel of fear of failure is greater than his fear of any way that you could punish him sees that makes sense that make sense? And so you're starting to give your child wisdom. And here's what you're really saying. I know you know what you just said was really inappropriate, but I know that's not the real issue right here. That's the outward expression of something that's going on inside of you. And see, here's what I know for your kids today.

Maybe your kids are getting bullied at school, right? And I may even say, listen, honey, I don't know what's going on inside of you, but I do know there is something, okay? Maybe you're frustrated at school. Maybe you're getting bullied at school, right? Maybe you're just anxious. Maybe whatever it is, or maybe, maybe, maybe just maybe it's a way that I've treated you. And so listen, son, if I've played a small part in this, even I want to know, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to just send you to your room and make you stay up here all night by yourself. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to leash up the dog. I want to go get some fresh air and take a walk. And if you want to come walk the dog with me, I promise you, I will not

lecture you. I will not tell you about my childhood. I will not ramble on and on. I simply want to listen to you because I want to help you with whatever you're struggling with. Let me stop it there for a minute. There's an invitation. And part of what we teach in our CD series, one of the phrases you're going to learn if you listen to the bag of CDs is motion changes emotion. And I always like to get kids moving when they're upset. I don't like to go toe-to-toe with me standing in my son's bedroom door with him on the bed, us facing off. We need to talk about your attitude and the language you've used right now, young man. Does that ever work? Does it ever lead to a constructive conversation?

It doesn't. Right? And so here's what I'm doing. I'm moving us. I'm saying, listen, I'm going to get here's what I'm doing. I'm moving us. I'm saying, listen, I'm going to get the dog and I'm going to go for a walk. Do you want to come join me? So we're going to be walking the dog. I'm not going to be sitting face to face. You know what? You need to come downstairs. You need to sit down and we're going to stare at each other and we're going to have a productive conversation about your attitude. It doesn't work, right?

It just puts the child on the defensive. See, I'm going to be outside. I'm walking next to him. We're walking the dog, right? If you have golden retrievers like we do, they're automatically happy, and it just changes the environment. It's more conducive to having a good conversation instead of just having one more confrontation, right?

So there's some movement there. There's an invitation. And I was going to say this later, but it's in my mind right now. For those of you whose faith is important to you, I think this is the way God deals with us, right? When we have a bad attitude, God would be justified and say, you know what, have you seen what I have done for you? And you're not even grateful. We need to have a talk about your attitude right now. He doesn't

do that. I think there's a humble invitation to listen. I know there's something going on with you in your life right now. I can deal with that. So if you want to come talk to me, I'd love to listen. Cause I think I can give you some wisdom with that. Does that make sense? We want to be treated the way, right? We want to treat our kids the way we would want to be treated by someone else. So here's the deal. And part of my, sometimes when I'm with kids, what I'll say is, listen, I'm not interested right now in just sending to your room again. We've done that before. It's not going to say is, listen, I'm not interested right now in just sending to your room again. We've done that before. It's not going to do any good. What I'm really interested in is helping you out.

And I'm really interested in building my relationship with you. And that's what I'm after is the relationship. So I can do it one of two ways. Hey, I'm going to leash up the dog. You want to come walk with me, come grab me. Or I'll throw this one in, see if it makes sense. I may say, listen, I'm going to be downstairs in the basement or I'm going to be out in the garage working. If you want to go grab a dog's leash and leash up the dog, come grab me in the basement or come grab me in a garage. I'd love to go for a walk. And here's why I like it because it's a tangible physical thing that the child can

do that is kind of like a code word, right? Because it would be really awkward for that child who just flipped you off to come and say, dad, father, I'd really like to talk to you right now. So when you see your son coming or daughter coming with the dog leashed up, that's an instant sign of they just took your peace offering and they're humbling themselves and they want to go for a walk. It's just a beautiful little thing. Sometimes with kids who came to our house, because we had about 1500 of these kinds of kids, strong willed kids in our home over the course of a decade. And they would get upset and they would say things to me.

And sometimes I'd have a code word or they'd come in and they'd grab a football. And they'd grab the Nerf football. And when I saw them grab the Nerf football, what that meant was they wanted to go outside with me and play catch. And I knew then that they were humbling themselves and they were ready to have that talk, if that makes sense. So I guarantee you, if you do this kind of invitation to your child, eventually they will come to you. They may not do it that night. They may need some time, right? So saying that phrase, like when you're ready, hey, when you're ready, I'm all ears. So when your child eventually does come and you go outside and

go for a walk or play catch with a football or whatever you like to do I guarantee you're probably going to hear two things from that child number one is this dad I'm sorry I I I shouldn't have said that to you that was awful right and I got contrition. We've talked about that a lot before. Instead of forcing an apology, I want an apology right now, young man. Instead, what I just did is I led the child to a place where now they apologize and I get contrition. See all this fake yelling is hurting my voice. So, excuse me. So number one, I'm going to get contrition, right? And I know you want to hear that and that's appropriate. You want to hear that. So by leading them and giving them some space, you will get that. And then you can forgive them. Right. And that's just

step one, right? That's just the, that's just the entry point here. But what I really want to get to is then to hear dad, and then for them to explain, it may be something that's happening at school, right? It may be that a boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with them, that they don't feel like they get along with the other kids, they didn't make a team, whatever, and they just took it out on you. Does that mean it's appropriate? No. But now you can get to the root of the issue, and now you have a chance to listen and to share some of your life wisdom with them so they can deal with whatever they bring up. Now, in this example, because this is a real-life example, here's what the child ended up saying. And I know this will probably resonate for, I don't know, 60, 70% of you.

Dad, it feels like you don't like me as much as you like my brother. Oh, man, if you could really listen to your strong willed child's heart sometimes and what's really going on, that's what they feel like. Do you know what it's like to go through life just being different? And to be honest, people like me, I'm a strong-willed child. I was a strong-willed child. We know we're a little bit difficult. We don't like doing things the normal way.

It's boring. It's duh. It's stupid. It's all those things your kids say. I still, at age 51, I don't like doing things the way other people do it. It's not in me to do that. And I know that makes me at times a little frustrating to other people. And I know that now I'm old enough that I can soften it and I can let people know, Hey, nothing wrong with you. It's just that I'm a little bit different, weird and odd, and I'm comfortable with it. And I'd like you to

be comfortable with it as well. Right? But your kids can't say that because they don't know that, and so they just feel different. They feel less than their perfect brother or sister who always gets good grades and has all the friends. They feel different from other kids who can play sports because some of your kids don't play sports well, either because they have sensory issues or because they're not that athletically inclined but they're awesome at building with legos and doing other stuff or it could just be that they have control issues and so they don't get along well with other kids because they steal the ball change the rules of the game and cheat all the time and so they don't get along well so for those kids this is what i would love to hear from that

child so when he said, dad, I don't feel like you like me as much as you like your brother. You see, now dad has a chance to humble himself or mom, but in this case, it's dad and say, you know what, son, I can understand why you'd feel that way, but here's what I want you to know. I love you every bit as much as I love your brother, but I do have to admit, it's difficult at times. Sometimes I don't know how to connect with you, right? And so I had to do that with my own son, Casey. I had to tell him at one point, I said, Casey, I just don't know how to connect with you.

And so here's what Casey and I came up with. And I encourage you to do this with your strong willed child. You're going to have to find something that they're interested in their passion, not yours. You're going to have to find their passion, take an interest in it. Now, the hard part is most of your strong willed kids have really odd passions. They're interested in weird stuff that you're not going to like. And because I'm getting older, I can say stuff more bluntly. And I'll just say it now. Too bad. You're the parent. You're just going to have to humble yourself and take an interest in what they like. Now, I know it's hard because it's all they talk about. And sometimes your kids are so hyper focused on some weird thing and you're like,

I don't even like that. But I encourage you to be curious about it and take an interest in it. Mine wasn't too bad with Casey. His was cars. When he's young, he loved cars. He loved the sound of cars. He loved to go test drive. So one day, this is what he told me when we had this talk. Dad, will you go test drive cars on the weekend? And I'm like, oh, so I have to go to car dealerships that I hate. And I've got to test drive cars that I'm not even interested in because that's a way of connecting with you. And you know what? I did it.

And I can't tell you how many car dealerships we went to over the years. And when we used to travel for workshops when he was younger, we would go find like a Ferrari dealership or some cool car dealership. And we'd go and we'd listen to the car and occasionally we'd take a test drive. And I didn't like it at first, but it was a way for us to bond and for me to really understand what was it about that that he loved. And it brought him a certain amount of joy. And what I want you to know with these strong willed kids is you have to show them that you like them. Listen, I know you love your kids

because you have to love them. They're my child. I have to love them. But some of you don't like your child and your child knows that there's no guilt in this because I didn't like Casey when he was young. He's difficult. And so I get that impulse doesn't make it right, but I get that, right? It's a natural response. Some of your kids are just so difficult. But again, what I tell you bluntly is that's your issue. You're the grown adult and you're going to have to step up there and you're going to have to control your own anxiety about this child's future. You're going to have to let go of your own control issues because you want them to do things exactly the way you want them done every time, because that's the way you've done it for the last 40 years. And I'll just be brutally honest with you. It just doesn't work with a

strong willed child. Does that mean you let you give into them and you let them get whatever they want? Absolutely not. But it does mean that you change the way you deal with them. And I do encourage you to do this, okay? Go to our website. It's Celebrate Calm. Either on the homepage or the products page, you'll see a little thing that says special sale. We have a bag. It's called Get the Bag.

It's a bag. It says Got Calm on it. And in there are our most popular CDs that we have used over the years. And the reason that I'm so passionate about those is this, because over the course of let your kids listen, it begins to change how you view your child. And you'll have all of these practical strategies and the words to use right at your fingertips, right? Because you've just heard it or you're listening to it in the moment with your child. So go on there. We have a special on there.

And if you get the bag of CDs, it will show you how to do this, but included in that is the 30 Days to Calm program, which shows you as mom and dad how to actually control yourselves and get calm and not react all the time and control your own control issues and control your anxiety. And so go look for that if you need help with it, if you need help financially. And look, I'm pretty honest. I am very honest with this. Our products are more expensive than other people's and they're more expensive for a couple of reasons. I want them to be expensive for these reasons. One is self-respect. My stuff is really good. I spent a lot of time working with kids and coming up with this and making it practical and making it so that you can actually implement it. And it's really good. And I want you to respect my work and our work

here. So that's why, that's why it's expensive because I want you to know when you're getting this, it has the, it has the power to change your family tree. That's important. The other reason is, is because I want you to have an investment. Because in the early days of Celebrate Calm, look, I'm one of those big hearted people. I want to save the world. I want to help everybody. In the early days, our stuff was really, really inexpensive. And a lot of people bought it. And you know what happened?

They never listened to the CDs because they didn't value it. And it was so cheap. When I started to raise the prices, people said, oh, we made an investment in this. We're going to listen and we're going to do it. And it was so cheap. When I started to raise the prices, people said, oh, we made an investment in this. We're going to listen and we're going to do it. And that's when all the testimonials came in. That's when people started changing their homes because they started listening. So I want you to know that it is a little bit expensive, uh, on the surface, but again, I could justify it and say, you know what? You guys spent way more more than this on therapy, and it's way better than most therapy, and you've spent all this on testing.

For $150, I'm giving you, what, 8, 10 hours of practical strategies and insight you're not going to get anywhere else. So anyway, the other thing I'll tell you is this. If you need help financially, ask for it. That's called being assertive. Email my son, C-A-S-E-Y, Casey at CelebrateCalm.com. If you want to talk to a woman, email Emily at Celebrate Calm or call us 888-506-1871. We will help you with this stuff. You just have to ask for it, but we're passionate about it. So I'll close up with this. I would

encourage you, the next time one of these situations happens, instead of reacting immediately, I want you to step back and I want you to control yourself first. Calm yourself. Try this. You won't like it, but try it. Humble yourself. You don't have to, right? Dad in this situation was justified in saying, 30 days, you're grounded. He was justified all of that. But just because you're justified doesn't mean it's the best thing to do. And I want you to practice these. And I want you to practice using this language

with your kids, leading them to a calm place. And I'll close with this thought. Good discipline always leads to a closer relationship and trust that's built. And in this example, just watch what happened. The father and son had this, they walked the dog and they had this conversation and they started rebuilding their relationship. So think about it.

Two different ways it could go. One, you know what? Get to your room. You're always difficult. If you don't straighten your attitude out, you're never going to get your video games back. And that will happen again and again, excuse me, again and again and again. And before long, this father is estranged from his own child that he loves, right? And you've

seen it in your own home or other homes. That's one way it goes. But the other way, here's how it goes. That father or that mother becomes the trusted resource that when that child is upset, when he's struggling in school, when he's struggling with relationships, when he's 8 or 10 or 12 or 15 or 19 or 23 or 33, that child knows there is one person I can tell them anything and they've got wisdom to help me and I trust them. And that's why this is such a beautiful thing. So I hope, I hope that within the next few days, one of your kids is a little bit more, maybe he's a little bit defiant. I don't hope that they flip you off, but I do hope that something like this happens. So you have an opportunity to practice it because the more you practice, the easier it gets. Thank you all for listening. You know what? You listen because you're good parents and you want good relationship with your kids. And that means a lot to us that you would

actually listen to us. So we love you. If we can help you again, email us, call us, let us know, and we'd be glad to help any way we can. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.