Calm Parenting Podcast - Disciplining Calculating, Willful Children

Episode Date: August 7, 2018

Disciplining Calculating, Willful Children I don't know why I cried throughout this podcast—I’m getting all soft and it’s uncomfortable! But it usually means that it’s really good insight you need into these challenging kids. Listen to this tale of two kids, one easy and one challenging. Want more insight like this? Listen to our CDs or attend Parent BootCamp. See www.CelebrateCalm.com/Camps. Need help financially or otherwise? Email [e-mail] or call 888-506-1871. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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have two kids. And when you have two kids, you'll usually have one that's a little bit more easy and then the one that's a little bit more challenging. And I just wrote a newsletter on this. I think it was called How to Discipline Calculating Willful Children. And so if you don't get our, if you're listening to podcasts but don't get our newsletter, please sign up. You can go to CelebrateCalm.com and sign up. It's free. Just come to your inbox. If you need help signing up for it, just email Casey, that's my son, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com, and just put newsletter in the subject line, and we'll get you signed up. But here's the story, and there are a lot of good insights into these kids, so I hope

kind of listen carefully, and I'll try to really explain this, because it's really critical that we understand these kids, because most of the time we just don't. We just think they're being defiant, disrespectful, and they're difficult, and they're challenging, and they're strong-willed, and they just need to get with the program. And I get that because I was the same way. But there's some insights here that will take you in a whole different path with your child. So it just happened. I had my two nieces. We're here visiting, and we were on family vacation, and we went swimming in the ocean. Now, Faith is eight. Sarah is ten. And when you're out in the waves in the water with them, it's really interesting to see their differences because Faith, the eight-year-old, she giggles. Like,

every wave, it can crash over her head, knock her down. Doesn't matter. She just spits out the salt water and comes back for more, right? She's carefree. She is sunshine, right? No fear, just laughing. And when I tell her I'm proud of her, she just says this without a hint of boasting. Yeah, I'm a brave girl, right? Confident, love it. Sarah is cautious. She holds on a little bit tighter. I can feel it on my arm and in my hand. I sense her get quiet when the bigger waves come because she's anxious. And I know that because she's the little version of me. See, I'm 52. I still get like that in uncomfortable situations, a little bit hesitant, hold on a little bit tighter. She laughs, but it's not a carefree laugh like Faith. See, when I tell

Sarah that I'm proud of her, she says, really? And she wants me to repeat it because she's hungry for it, because she doesn't feel like that inside. And watch with these kids. This is really, really important. I know it's hard, but we tend to just focus on the negatives all the time with these kids. And it's no wonder that they have zero confidence and they always feel like they're doing something wrong and they're just hungry for the affirmation. So don't be afraid to give it, right? We always praise for progress, not perfection. See, faith is a kid that we all want because she listens to her mom and she follows directions immediately. See, Faith is a kid that we all want because she listens to her mom, and she follows directions immediately.

See, kids like Faith are easy to love, and they're even easier to like because she's easy. She's joyful. She doesn't really have any problems. Now, Sarah hears the directions coming from her mother, but then she thinks about them, and she calculates her response in her little brain and in her little heart. And I can see it. I can feel it. When her mom signals for us to come in, you can just see it.

See, kids like Sarah require more patience, partly because we often misread their actions and misinterpret their motives. See, when Sarah hesitates and calculates, she's not just intentionally being strong-willed and difficult, but that's how we see it as parents and teachers, right? She's just being willful and obstinate. I get it. Her actions and words sure look like that, but if you were to reach down into Sarah's heart, you'd see a little girl hesitant and calculating because she doesn't always feel safe. See, she's often trying to control the situation. I know that bothers you. They just want to be in control. Of course they do because we all do. Because most of us are insecure people in a broken world and we do all kinds of things just to try to have some sense of order and structure and control in our lives.

And she's a little girl who feels out of control. So, yeah, she's trying to control the situation and do what she wants, but it's not because she's some awful, willful, defiant child. It's because she's calculating. See, this almost makes me cry when I say that. It's because she's calculating what makes her feel safe and comfortable. Because unknowns, like crashing waves and your uncle letting go of your hands to force you to swim on your own for three seconds, that's scary as hell. Not to those of you who are like faith, right? So that's sometimes part of the problem is some of you, you're just an easy, good person, right? And you're a rule

follower and you're just compliant. And that's an awesome thing, but you have a child who's not, and you just don't get it, how hard it is. And you love the adventure. You thrive on it. But inside, see, we're out there in the waves and here's what's hitting me because I've got one in my left hand and one with my right hand. And little Faith is just jumping up and crashing into the waves and spitting out the water

and she's easy and it's awesome and it's fun. And you don't really have to do anything with her. She's just great. And then in my right hand, I can feel, look, stuff chokes me up a little, you can feel, you can feel the pressure in your hand, because she's scared, but we often just, you know, there's nothing to be afraid of, right, because this is what her dad would say, nothing to be afraid of, Sarah, just get in there, right, because in a way, she's kind of a pain, because you have to be more patient.

You have to take longer. But you feel her holding your hand. And you know, she's scared. She's a scared little kid. And she's freaking out. Because she's got, look, these kids have got these busy little brains. And where faith just attacks life and just enjoys it. Sarah's thinking about the shark, the program she once saw where there's sharks in the water.

And she's sensitive to stuff. So she's feeling stuff underwater. And she thinks, oh, is that a jellyfish? Did I just get stung? Oh, what, is this fish going to bite me? What about that hard thing? Is there a sting right here? What about those shells?

Is that going to hurt? What if I get knocked down? And what about the riptide? And what about the saltwater? It doesn't feel good when it gets in my mouth. And I've got stuff in my ears. And I've always been sick. And I've got these sensory issues. And I've got to wear this stuff because I have, because I always eat sugar because I've got stomach issues. And so I eat sugar because it makes me feel better. But now I have eczema. And so when I swim and I have suntan lotion on and I

get in the sun, it makes me really uncomfortable. We just don't see all that stuff. It's just hard and she's freaking out. And so here's the thing. You don't just let these kids get away with stuff, right? You don't just let her do things her own way. But you do have to be patient. And you've got to give these kids a sense of safety and a sense of ownership to do things a little step at a time. See, with Faith, I would just pick her up.

I was literally throwing her into the waves, and they would crash right into her little face, and she just didn't care. But with Sarah, I waited until it was calm. And then I asked her to let go of my hand just for two seconds, right? Look at the hard part. She's grown up enough. She's capable. I should be able to just let her hand go and she should be fine. She should be, but she's not. And so we always want to do, you're fine, you're fine, and we dismiss it. I let go for two seconds. Why? Because I just wanted to get a little bit of confidence. You've got to go in steps with these kids, and I did it repeatedly. And you're going to have to go slowly with these kids because they have to get comfortable with their discomfort first.

And I hope you write that down. They've got to get comfortable with their discomfort first. Look, I'm 52 years old. I am still like this with new experiences. I'm tentative. I'm slow. I'll do it. But don't push me. Don't push me and don't dismiss me and say it's no big deal.

You know why? Because it is a big deal. And it why? Because it is a big deal. And it's scary sometimes. And we miss that. And they react. And they have meltdowns. And we always think they're just being defined, difficult. It's not always that.

Right? So Sarah begins to freak out a little bit. And I can tell because she gets really quiet. And I can kind of feel her breathing. It's different because she's so focused inside. You can see them, their face tenses up, their whole body tenses up and their breathing changes because she's gathering the courage to do this. And you know what else is hard? It's hard that she has a sister like Faith because she's got a little sister who shows her up,

and everybody loves, look, all of my brothers, everybody out in the water is like, Faith, Faith, Faith, come on out, come on out. Is anybody asking? Ah. I hate when it gets emotional because I'm a man who's not supposed to cry, but look, you look at these kids. Is anybody calling for Sarah to come out?

No. Here's what Sarah hears all day. Sarah, Sarah, stop. Sarah, put your suntan lotion. Sarah, don't do that. Sarah, come on, get in. Sarah, would you please, just get in. Everybody else is in. It's not a big deal. Why do you always have to, right? What do you think a kid internalizes when everybody loves a sister and they're always on her? Like, what would you, what would you and I, I'm not going to put it on you, what would we all feel like if all day long at the beach, everybody was saying that and comparing you to your sibling, you know, that one who's really successful and you're not necessarily successful in the same way?

Like, how would you like to hear that every single day again and again and again? And some of you have, and it hurts, right? So you've got to hold them by the hand. You've got to go quietly. You've got to write patiently. So I acknowledged it. I said, yeah, it's scary. Wave's scary. But I held on and I helped her work through it. Because see, that builds confidence. A little bit at a time, it's work, but it's worth it. So I want you to see into your kid's hearts. Behind the outward disobedience and backtalk is oftentimes just a scared little kid. And by the way, not just a four or seven-year-old, it's a scared teenager. You know how scary it is being a 13 or a 17-year-old these days? I'm so glad I grew up when I did.

It wasn't that. It was awkward, but it wasn't scary. Today, it's scary growing up. There's so much going on, right? So behind all this outward ick is oftentimes just a scared little kid or a scared, awkward 15-year-old who's just trying to find a safe place and feel understood. See, it doesn't mean you don't discipline them. You do discipline them. It just changes the spirit with which you discipline. And remember that discipline doesn't mean to punish, to lash out, to yell, to send them to your room. Discipline literally means to teach, right? And so out in the waves,

that's what I'm trying to do with Sarah's the teacher, teacher that she is confident, that she can handle it. She is capable, right? And if you admit this, if you're grown up enough, mature enough, which I'm getting now, I'm 52 finally, you can admit that you're that same little scared little boy or girl lashing out or hiding, just trying to feel safe in a scary world. So be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with your kids. Be gentle with your spouse and other people.

Okay? Even your political opponents. Be gentle with them. You know why? Because they're all in a broken world and they're all broken people. We're all broken people. We're all broken people, right? So your job is to teach your child that they can surrender to you, right? So I use that word surrender because in a lot of circles that I've traveled in, it's all about obedience. Children just need to obey as parents, just need to be obedient.

I don't like that word so much because it carries just so much icky stuff around it, right? And it's just this, it's almost this obey against your will in a way. And I get that. Sometimes you just have to, right? Like boss tells you to do something, you don't have to like it, you just have to do it. Like I get that. But what I really want, if your faith is important to you, look, I don't want to obey God because he's some big bad dude that can send me somewhere and do bad things. I don't want to serve a God like that. Who wants to serve a God like that? Who wants to have a parent like that? I don't. I surrender in my faith and in my walk. I can surrender to God. You know why? Because I trust him. Because he's a safe place.

I want your kids to be able to listen to you and surrender to you because they trust you. Because you're trustworthy. Because you're a safe place. So you don't have to hide. You don't have to lash out because you're free to face their fears with a patient parent who understands them, right?

That's what I'm after, right? Just getting good behavior. I can do that, right? I can teach you that. We go through that like a disciplines series, but it's more about giving kids tools to succeed than just taking things away because consequences don't work. And I'm after the relationship, right? Everybody's always after, I want good grades and good behavior. And it's so overrated. There's no correlation between good behavior and good grades and success in life. There's not. There's just not, right? And we've been through that in other things. I'm not just after getting kids to act a certain way, right? I want them to be confident and I I want them to be bold, and I want

to follow their curiosity. I want them to do the right thing, and they will, but I want to have a relationship with that child because fundamental to everything in life is I want to have the relationship because if you've got the good relationship, they're going to listen to you, and they're going to trust you, and then when they become teenagers, they're really going to trust you, and it's going to keep them from a lot of harm. And when they're in their 20s, my son trusts me. Why? Because we rebuilt our relationship on this. So if you need help with this, I encourage you, listen to these podcasts. But I want you to take an extra step. And I'm going to do kind of a hard thing here. I want you to buy the CDs. And here's why. Not so I make

money. I've made enough money. I get paid fees from everybody, blah, blah, here. I want you to buy the CDs and here's why. Not so I make money. I've made enough money. I get paid fees from everybody, blah, blah, blah. I don't need your money. I want you to buy CDs for a couple reasons. One, they are filled with a lot of practical strategies, dozens and dozens and dozens of practical tools like this to show you how to do it. And I want you to listen again and again and again and I want your kids to listen to them. But here's the other thing and this is a little bit harder to say. I want you to listen again and again and again. And I want your kids to listen to them. But here's the other thing. And this is a little bit harder to say. I want people to invest financially in this.

You know why? Because when you invest financially, you're saying, we're drawing a line in the sand. And we're going to do something differently here. And we're going to make an investment in this. And we're going to work at this. And we're going to work on ourselves. And there's something. I've done this for 15 years, almost 18 years. There's a power in that to say, we're going to do this and we're

going to invest in it. Because when you invest in something financially and you invest in it emotionally, that's when you begin to see these things change. And I want you to do that. If you need help financially, I also say this boldly, we help everyone. We have single moms. We have people in the military. We have people that are laid off. We just have people who are struggling. Good. Email us, call us, and we will help you out. Okay. We have a special right now, summer special sale. You can find it at CelebrateCalm.com. But if you need help, email my son, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y. It's Casey at Celebrate celebratecalm.com. He'll help you out or 888-506-1871, 888-506-1871, or email us. And we'll help you with this. If you already have our CDs,

if you want to come, we've got two parent boot camps left. And we did the one in Paris, and it was phenomenal. And I got so much positive feedback because it's seven hours of me just sharing unfiltered everything I know, everything in my brain and heart about these kids in an unfiltered way and answering very, very, very, very specific questions that you have. And we only have two left this year because that's all we have time for. There's one in DC, which is almost filled up and coming up in August. And then in Dallas, there's one in October. And we're actually almost filled up on that one because Texas is a big state. We get a lot of people there. But if you need help with that, look on our website, CelebrateCalm.com forward slash camps, and you'll

find it. But if we can help you in any way, let us know. Thank you for hanging out. Thank you for listening to this. Thank you for bearing with me. I don't know why lately, but I've been a little bit more emotional with this, but it's getting inside the heart of the child. Anyway, thank you for that, and thanks for being an invested parent. If we can help you, just let us know. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.