Calm Parenting Podcast - Do We Give In? Let Her Get Away With Things?

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Do We Give In? Let Her Get Away With Things?Your child isn’t listening to your directions. You want to impose a consequence, but then the child will spiral out of control. So do you stop asking your child to do things? Do you give in and let them get away with things? Kirk gives you a very important strategy to use in these situations. NEW!! Parent BootCamps in Washington, DC, Dallas, TX, & Kansas City, KS. Click here to learn more: https://celebratecalm.com/bootcamp/  Can't make it to a live BootCamp? Schedule a Phone Consultation or go through NO B.S Program. Let us know what YOU are struggling with and we’ll give you an honest recommendation. Email [e-mail] and he'll help you out!  Want to book a LIVE EVENT in 2021/2022?! We are now booking IN PERSON and Zoom events for schools, PTAs, churches, synagogues, corporations, and agencies! Simply email Casey@CelebrateCalm with LIVE in the subject line and he'll share a one-page proposal within hours. It's EASY!  Questions? Need help deciding on the best tools for your family? Email [e-mail] and Casey will help you personally! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Calm Parenting Podcast listeners get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com slash kirk. Visit ixl.com slash kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. So here's the situation, and it's a tough one. You ask your child to do something. Your child begins to escalate, maybe related to that, or maybe it's something else. And now all of a sudden you're caught in a situation of, what do I do? Do I discipline my child because they didn't listen to me in the first place? Do I discipline them because they're getting upset and calling me names? Should I continue to ask them to do their chore and what I've asked? Because if I do, then that could escalate. And now we're talking about a three hour process and calling names and throwing things. It's hard. And that happens repeatedly.

And I know this isn't what you signed up for. When you became a parent, you're like, well, we'll have an orderly home and we'll make our expectations clear and we'll give consequences and we'll follow through on consequences and our kids will generally listen to us. It's going to be great. And then you had the strong will child and they don't care about you following through and being consistent, although that's really important, and they certainly don't care about the consequences you give. So what do you do in that situation? Well, that's what we're going to tackle today on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. We're so glad you're here. If you need help with anything, email our strong-willed son. And look, a lot of this

came from working with 1,500 kids who came into our home over the course of a decade. But a lot of it was also born of our struggles with our son, Casey. He is now 28 and an awesome young man. And he will help you because he understands your kids and he understands how hard this is and he'll help you with ideas, strategies, insights, encouragement. And if you need, he'll put together a custom package of our resources within your budget. So it's K-C-C-A-S-E-Y at CelebratePalm.com. So here's the hard part. So here's a common situation that came from a mom. In case you haven't noticed, we have announced some boot camps that we're doing, parent boot camps. We used to do kids camps, but now we do parent boot camps because, look, I can work with your kids directly, and they'll be awesome for me, and it'll be a great week.

We'll have an awesome time together. But then they're going to come back into your home, right? And I'm not going to be there. And it's different when you are the parent. So we do the parent boot camps because they're very, very intense. Six hours of me in a very small group handling the toughest situations, right? Helping you understand things about your kids that you just don't get. We get husband and wife in the same room oftentimes,

and that's helpful because sometimes husbands like me don't listen to their wives, but they'll listen to me because I'm a guy and I talk to them like a guy and I'm pretty direct with them and they respect that. And so it's an awesome process. And so anyway, you look at the website, there's a little tab that says bootcamp and you can decide whether you want to do it or not. But here's one of the questions, because what happens when people sign up, I send them an email with questions, describe different situations so that I can be prepared. Here's a common one. So this is, in this case, 13-year-old girl, but it could be a seven-year-old boy. It doesn't matter to me. She comes home from school. She's got her hour of screen time. And then she tried to play more. And so you know how our kids are. She gets on her

school computer and then argues that's not screen time because these kids are brilliant. And so she's got her chore to do. She's got one chore to do before dinner. Well, like most of our kids, she's not going to do her chore. Instead, she's going to roll around on the floor with a dog or make an excuse or put it off. So now hubby comes through the door and mom says, okay, it's dinner time. Well, now that's the trigger. See, the dishes had to be unloaded before dinner time. So now the daughter's like starting to unload the dishwasher, right?

Because she didn't really get it done on time. So now the daughter's like starting to unload the dishwasher, right? Because she didn't really get it done on time. And so the mom's getting irritated because you had all this time to get it done and you wait till the last minute. I don't know why you have to do that. And so the daughter starts getting sassy and mean and lashing out. And then she starts blaming it on something else because she's really upset. And so mom's like, well, why are you so upset? She's like, no, I don't want to talk about it. Right. So it starts to escalate.

And so they tried to calm her down, but it's not working. And so the question was, what do we do to prevent the escalation? Should we not make her do the chore? Or should we have just let her finish the dishes right then? Right? And mom said, it seems like all the regular parenting things don't apply with her. It's really hard. And mom, I will tell you, you're right.

The normal way of parenting with these kids typically backfires. So there's a lot to unpack here, right? And so when we're doing phone consultations or at the bootcamp, we'll be able to really unpack this in detail. And so just think about this, right? I'm going to address one aspect of this in the podcast because it's what we have time for. But I want you to think about this in broader terms. We clearly have a daughter here who is on edge, who is upset, who maybe doesn't follow directions all that well. We have the dynamic too, which you can kind of pick up on. There's a little bit of dad walks into the room and you guys know this. When there's one parent handling the situation, it often goes one one way but when both parents are there then sometimes it goes sideways and it's not because the parents are necessarily doing anything wrong it's that there are different expectations between the parents like

think about this when mom and child are out in public alone doing stuff mom may allow the child to do X or Y and it's fine. But when dad tags along, maybe in this situation, dad's a little bit more strict or dad doesn't understand why the child has to do these weird things. And so dad starts to get a little irritated even by his body posture. Mom then picks up on that body posture and begins to do the referee thing going between the husband and the child. And the child picks up on all of this. And that's why it often doesn't work well when there are two parents there. So there's a lot in here. And so my questions when we get to the underlying parts of this is, why is your daughter so frustrated? Because for those of you who have listened enough, I'm not denying that your kids are defiant and disrespectful.

Absolutely they are. And much of it is their outward behavior is. But what's underneath it is probably a lot of frustration. And so I want to know, what is the relationship between mom and daughter, between dad and daughter? What is the family dynamic that's going on that may contribute to some of this? Now, what about this? Does this daughter feel inferior to or resentful to maybe a good sibling that everyone favors? How does she do in school? Is she continually frustrated and overwhelmed in school? Has she internalized that she feels stupid? See, all of this plays a part in this, in her reactions to things.

And what about her general level of confidence? Does she feel good about her place in life? Because that's foundational, and that's why we have to build their confidence and use their gifts, talents, and passions to help other people. Does she have a lot of anxiety? We have to address all of these issues and we can do that in a longer format. But today I want to focus on one very specific thing. You will find this in the No BS Instruction Manual where I go like very, very direct with things.

And this one fall, this situation to me falls under the read the moment strategy. Sometimes you have to read the moment. And in this situation where it's already tense, it's already combustible, people are hungry and on edge, you have to roll with some things that you may not otherwise roll with. So in this situation, I didn't fill in all of it, but there was a point at which the daughter had gone after a granola bar and the mom grabbed it out of her hand. I'd be like, don't grab stuff out of your kid's hands when they're upset. Like that's never going to go well, right?

And in this case, I would let her do the dishes. Did she wait too long? Yes. Would it have been better and optimal and just the right way to do it, to do the dishes when she was asked? Absolutely. But in this case, she started late because this is the way the kid's brains work. Uh-oh, I haven't told dinner time. Oh, mom just said dinner time. I'm going to go and do it. Now, there are times where I will say, too bad. For those of you who know the rake the leaves example, too bad. And let the child spiral a little bit and just go through it.

In this case, where it had been combustible already, and there are other things going on where this daughter is really struggling, then I don't do that. And it's hard because you don't want to give in to her or teach her to manipulate these situations. But I bolded this in my notes, so I hope I may say it twice. Sometimes we needlessly escalate things out of principle when wisdom would dictate a different course until calmer heads prevail. Let me say that again. Sometimes we needlessly escalate things out of principle, right? And those, here's who I'm talking to, most of us, but it's especially parents who are very orderly, your engineers out there,

religious parents, right? Because we're like, well, we have certain principles and those principles always apply and we must apply them every single time. I was very much like that as a parent. That is deep inside of me. That is my natural go-to. And so that's how I, though, that is how I nearly destroyed my relationship with my son because I was doing things always out of principle. Well, this is the right thing to do. And absolutely, see, it can be the right thing to do, and yet it can still destroy a relationship and not work in practice, right? I always tell men this. You are justified

in being upset. You're justified in feeling angry. You're justified in all of these things. But it doesn't mean that what you're doing is right or helpful or that it builds the relationship. So I encourage you, there are times where you have to throw the principle out the door and read the moment in which wisdom says there are two adults that are upset. There is a child who is spiraling out of control. So nothing rational or logical or principle-based is going to work in this moment. And what that dictates is I wait until a moment when everybody has de-escalated and when we can talk rationally and logically. Because in this situation, we're dealing with a 13-year-old girl who, based on what I've heard, is beating herself up, who's not feeling so great about herself, and she's not feeling that great about her place in this world.

So in this case, I'd rather go low key and I'd rather slowly build the relationship. I'd rather do some activities together and build a connection with this daughter. In this case, they had established that when you get upset, you go to your room and listen to music. Well, sometimes in the moment, the child isn't going off to the room to listen to the music. And this is when, as the dad, as the mom, I go in the other room and put on some music myself and begin to listen to it and invite my daughter to come join me. And maybe it's some music that you've learned to bond over, because that is a huge part of this, bonding over music. When you get into the teen years is critically important. Just know that you're probably going to hate the music that

your child likes. And I teach you that in the No BS and how to do that, right? Without sacrificing your principles in your home, you have to do this stuff. And it is hard. And so I'll give you one more situation, right? And this is my direct, this is actually an excerpt from the program. Sometimes you just need to deescalate the situation and get through the night. So let's say you're exhausted and you want to put your child to bed, but he's insisting on a shower. And you, of course, have told him it's bedtime. So you keep insisting and he's getting really wound up. You sense he's gone too far, but you keep going.

Your father told you to go to bed and you need to do what he says. Little side note. See, that's the principle. And the principle is true. And there's nothing wrong with that. Except in this moment, the child begins to scream. And you react and ratchet it up. Keep it up, young man. Keep it up. You're going to lose your video games for another week. And this is your dilemma. You don't want to give in because you are the authority figure in the home. And this little kid needs to learn to follow directions. And it was a simple request,

right? And he should just be able to do it. But at the same time, it was a simple request that he made, which is, I just want to take a shower, right? He's not asking for soda or candy or video games. So I want to give you permission sometimes to read the moment and know when it's just not worth it. Because in this case, you can keep insisting, in which case the entire family gets upset and the entire night is ruined. Or you run the water and you go downstairs and you have a glass of wine with your spouse or water, whatever you want, and you enjoy a few quiet moments and then you go put your child to bed. And yeah, he's going to be a few minutes late and you're going to wrestle with that. But I want to assure you that used wisely, this will not

cause your child to grow up and be an entitled brat. And when you can really embrace this and you go upstairs and you meet him and you smell his hair. And for many of your kids, you're like, thank God the kid finally took a bath, right? And you compliment him because he took a shower and you ask him if it makes him feel better before bed and you tuck them in. And the entire night is different. did you do well i gave all my principles and he didn't follow directions he was supposed to be in bed at this time and there are certain times when you read the moment you build the relationship right and you just do it and we had to do that with continually with casey right it was like

you have to grade their behavior and attitude on a curve sometimes. Because you know, it's their nature, and it's the way it's been since they've been come out of the womb, right? Casey is a very direct, take charge kid, young man now, but as a kid, he was like that. So what may sound like defiance from some kids was our son simply being assertive and direct and factual. And I would at times say, you're being disrespectful. He goes, no, Dad, I'm being honest and I'm being very direct. And I had to stop in my tracks and say, yeah, that's true. I don't like the way that it sounds because my dad never would have put up with that. But when I was really honest with myself, he wasn't doing anything wrong. I just

didn't like the way he did it. But it's who he was. And so you're going to have to read the moment. Or you're going to have power struggles over literally every interaction. So let's work on that this week. If you can join us for a boot camp, whether it's in Dallas or D.C. or KC, do it. If you want to schedule a phone consultation, reach out to KC, and we'll show you how to do that. Or just go through the No BS program. It's 25 action steps. But reach out to us.

Let us know what you're struggling with. We'll give you an honest recommendation. But you've got your game plan this week. How are you going to read the moment this week so you can de-escalate, so you can discipline a way that teaches and actually works to change behavior all the while you're building trust? Because that's our goal. Thank you for listening. Thank you for wrestling with this stuff. You're a good mom and dad. Thank you for sharing this podcast with others. And if we can help you in any way, just let us know. Love you all. Thank you. Bye-bye.