Calm Parenting Podcast - Get Your Kids to Listen Without Resistance

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

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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 you're picking your child up from a birthday party or somewhere and you need him to get in the car because you got to get home. Or maybe you're just going on a walk and you need your toddler to follow you and walk down a path after you. Or you've got a teenager and you just need that teenager to listen to you. But they're resisting. It's not working. Today, I want to give you a really cool tool. This is so cool. I'm super excited about this. So that's what we're going to talk about today on this episode of the Calm

Parenting Podcast. Welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you need help, reach out to our strong-willed son, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. Awesome young man. And he was just like this. And I'm drawing on all of these experiences with Casey from the time he was three, four, in through the elementary school years, and then in middle school, high school. This is such a really cool idea and I hope that I can explain it well because I believe if you do this, it will change your relationship with

your child and it will get you to accomplish what you want to accomplish much more quickly without the fights, without all the power struggles, without all the demeaning words, right? And while still building trust and a relationship with your child. So if you need help, reach out to Casey, tell us about your family, what you're struggling with, and we will help you out. So I'm doing a lot of phone consultations lately. And this idea has been bubbling up quite a bit and it's in the Calm Parenting Package. So you can listen to that as well if you have that. But here's the idea. I want you to let go of your agenda when all these things are happening.

Let me give you an example. So you're picking up your child. He's at a birthday party, right? So when you pick him up, you've got an agenda. I'm walking into that place. I'm getting this child and I'm getting him to the car because we have to get home because he's got to get a bath. We got to put him in bed because we have school tomorrow. And there's all of this stress around that your child's not even aware of, but you're aware of it. And you know, you're going to get

resistance. So what do we do? We walk into that house, wherever that place is with a kid. We're like, Hey, we got to go. It's time to go. And we get the resistance. And then we begin to explain, buddy, you know, it's late. I let you stay an extra 20 minutes, but it's late. And we've got to get home. We've got to do this. As if your child really cares, right? Like he doesn't have all that stress. You just introduced it all. And you're trying to convince him, right? And this doesn't work with a strong-willed child. They're not looking to be convinced. They're never going to say, mom, dad, listen, thanks for the extra 20 minutes.

I really appreciate it. It was very gracious of you. And because you're so stressed and in such a hurry, I'm just going to do double time to the car. And when we get home, I'm not even going to fight about bedtime. I'm not even going to fight about the shower or the bath. I'm just going to do it because I just respect you so much. It's not going to happen, right? And so here's the idea.

When you walk into that home or place where you're picking up your child, let go of your agenda. I still want to get that child out of that house, into the car, home, showered, and to bed. I still want that. But let go of the agenda because you're sabotaging it. You're dumping all of your anxiety into this situation and it always escalates. What if you were to walk in and instead of your agenda, right? Instead of letting go of it for a minute and saying, man, did you have like the best time ever? And your child's going to be like, yeah, dad, you know what we did? We went on the roof and we jumped off onto a trampoline, right? And he's going to tell you all these cool things that he did.

And you're going to engage in that for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, maybe a minute and a half. And you're going to ask some questions and you'll be like, that's so cool. I'm so glad you had a good time. Listen, we've got to go on the way home. Why don't we talk about the next time we could have Johnny over to our house? See, now I've acknowledged where they are, right? Let me give you a brief little glimpse into this. So we live near a beach. So all summer long, this is what you hear all summer long. Parents walk down, shouting to the water, guys, you ready to get out of the water? I'm like,

no. Why would they be? Why do you even ask that question? Really? It's like, hey, guys, you only get to come to the beach one time a year. It's the most fun thing you do ever in your life. You're ready to get out from that and have me force you to go up to our condo, change into uncomfortable clothes, go out to a seafood restaurant that smells like fish and you don't even like it. And then you're exhausted from swimming all day and then dad's gonna yell at you because you can't sit still at the table

and there's a long line at the restaurant and we're all gonna be miserable. You ready to do that instead? Right, like that's what it sounds like. And so here's another little idea for you. This is weird, but weird stuff works and there's nuances to this. And that's why I really want you working at this.

So watch, this is a weird one. You don't have to do this. Bedtime, right? Here's what we say. Night's going okay, kind of having fun. Hey guys, ready for bed? Or guys, it's bedtime. You may as well just say,

guys, you ready to fight me and resist, right? At the moment of the day when I'm most exhausted and why don't we just fight for the next 45 minutes and then I'll put you down for bed while I'm angry and resentful towards you. Ready to go, right? So sometimes I don't even mention the word bedtime, right? It's a trigger word. So I may say instead, guys, you know what I'm really in the mood to do? I'm in

the mood to finish that story that we began last night. Because see, our bedtime routine is reading a story together. And so I mentioned reading the story together, which is connection. And that automatically means, well, we're going to bed, but I'm not using those words. I'm not saying you can't use the words. There's a nuance there that's really cool of letting go of your agenda. So when I go to pick that child up, instead of being kind of like hell bent on getting you out of there, because haven't you noticed that in life with a teenager when you're trying so hard to convince them to care about school right and you're trying to drill it in them and get them to to believe you to convince them against their will they always resist more so when I walk into that place and I say man I bet that was really fun And now I'm connecting with a child. I'm

acknowledging where they are, what they've enjoyed. I'm acknowledging it with some intensity. And now I'm giving a mission and drawing them and leading them. Hey, on the way home, why don't we talk about X, right? Walking down that path. This is hard, but that's why I want you to internalize these things. Work through that 30 days. If you get the Calm Parenting Package, work on the 30 days to calm program first, because all about you controlling yourself. And this is your big win in life, is when I'm walking down that street,

walking, taking my toddler, younger child somewhere, and they're always going to complain or resist, right? Like it would be weird if they're like, mom, it's such a beautiful day. I really just want to do whatever you want me to do, right? Like, like, so I have this little war in my brain between wanting to like duct tape the child, like wrap them up, throw them in a bag and throw them over my back, over my shoulder and like carry them someplace against their will. And then the other part, I did this with 1500 kids in our home. We took them places. I purposefully did things they didn't want to do so I could practice this and I could work on myself because

when I would just walk and I would lead and I talked to them like they were a 70 year old man right and I drew them into the conversation instead of trying to stop on the street and tell them how I'm trying to help them have a good day. And if they can't do this and they can't do that, and you should just be grateful that you get to do this. And I wasn't trying to convince them of anything. I was just leading. And I was, because they never wanted to get out of the house. They wanted to stay and play video games all the time, but I would take them out in the woods. We would go on little treasure hunts. We would go on missions. We had to walk up to the grocery store, which was a mile away, and then get food and then carry it back because I wouldn't feed them unless they

went to the grocery store with me and bought the groceries. And then they helped cook and do all those things. And they complained about every single thing that I tried to get them to do. And so did my son. And so you lead and you just keep walking. And eventually they do follow you. And if you don't play their game, see, we start playing their game, right? And trying to, we get down on their level of convincing a four-year-old or a 14-year-old to do what we want them to do. And I'll tell you, with a teenager, it's the same thing. It is letting go of trying to convince them that I'm right, that I have all this wisdom. And instead, I draw them into a conversation

and I listen to them and I acknowledge where they are. And I use that of course phrase, right? Like, of course you don't want, look, of course you don't want to leave your best friend's house why would you you just had an amazing time and I want to hear all about that and I want to figure out when can we do this again so right and so of course you don't want to get out of the pool right now why would you right so you're letting go. It's like I was

doing a phone consultation with a couple about morning routine. Morning routine is brutal because you've got time limits. And I show you three, four, five different ways to do morning routine with very soft approach, a very tough approach, but also the connecting approach also, right? Because morning routine is we got to get up and we got to get moving. And I promise you, if your goal every morning, your agenda is I got to get that kid out of bed and I got to get him in the car by this time, he will resist you or she will resist you the entire time. And when you let go of that agenda and all of that stress, you're not letting go of your goal. You're letting go of your anxiety-induced agenda.

And you're controlling your own anxiety about getting your agenda accomplished. And you're connecting with this child in a very natural way that feels really good for you and really good for your child, and they will follow you then. But if you're trying to force it, they're going to resist more. So I want you to pick this week, let's pick a time of day. A time of day, whether it's morning routine, whether it's getting them to do homework, whether it's bedtime, whatever it is, let's practice letting go of that anxiety-induced agenda. Connect with them. Acknowledge where they are, right? Use some positive intensity. Then let's give them a mission, but let's lead them and watch the resistance begin to fade away. Now, they're going to complain at first because that's their job.

Their job is to resist you. I know you don't like that. Look, I was doing a phone consultation with a couple the other day. I was like, well, which are either of you strong? Well, nope, we're the type A compliant ones. I was like, this is going to be so fun, right? This is going to change you down to your core and create a new person inside of you that's able to deal with things in life that don't go your way. Because the rest of the world is not just compliant, isn't always going to do what you want them to do. so you're going to have to change inside and i want

you to be grateful for this for this strong-willed five-year-old or 15-year-old look it's no different in just about every situation we talk about it comes back to my anxieties talking to a mom whose teenager is going through some um sexual identity, you want to call it that, and there's all this anxiety naturally, but if you don't let go of that anxiety and control it and lead, it always backfires. So let's work on that this week. If we can help you, reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, celebratecalm.com. Listen to the Calm Parenting Package. Get everything that we have. It has the No BS program in it.

I love that because you are fully equipped with like 35 hours worth of this teaching that you can just listen on our new app and you can listen again and again and again and put it on your spouse's phone, play it for the kids. I don't care. It'll be awesome because they'll get it more quickly than you do, right? Because they get this stuff. If we

can help you reach out to us because that's what we're here for. It's our family mission. Love you all. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.