Calm Parenting Podcast - Help With ADHD—Angry Kirk!

Episode Date: November 6, 2017

Help With ADHD—Angry Kirk! It’s hard parenting a child with symptoms of ADHD, especially when society judges and says there’s something wrong with your kids. Kirk got a little angry, but used that to give you practical tools to build your child’s confidence. Get more help at http://www.celebratecalm.com/adhd-brain-boosters/. 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. Hey everyone, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. I wanted to talk to you today about ADHD and what prompted this was an article that I just read. And to be quite honest, it really made me angry. I was irritated, frustrated, honestly just PO'd because it's the same old negative stuff that I've been hearing for a long time. And by the way, I want you to know being calm doesn't mean that you go to some Zen state,

right? Like, oh, nothing bothers me. No, that's what alcohol does. And we don't want that. You're going to feel stuff. You're going to be angry and frustrated at your kids at times, at different issues that come up, right? At things that happen during your day. That's a part of everyday life. But being calm just means we don't react to it. And we actually use it to our advantage and we turn it around. Listen, I read this article, honestly, it was two weeks ago, and I was so fired up. I wanted to do a podcast right away. But what I know is if I would have done that, I would have probably dropped some bad words I shouldn't have. And I just wouldn't have been coherent. So I kind of let it go. And I about it because part of what we teach is impulse control and self-control.

And in an era of Twitter and social media where people get in trouble all the time for just reacting, we don't like to do that. So I wanted to respond when I had some time to think about this so that instead of this just being, you know, just one more rant about ADHD, it becomes something constructive and something that you can use. And listen, I heard these same negative attitudes almost 20 years ago, and I'm a pretty oppositional guy, kind of like your kids. And I wanted to be a little bit in more in your face about our approach. So the first name of our organization was actually Celebrate ADHD, because I wanted to put it in people's face that there are a lot of advantages of ADHD. And I guarantee you, most of the traits that you complain about and that our kids struggle with are the very traits that are going to be responsible for their success one day. And that's a huge insight. And so I wanted to turn everything around with these kids.

So it wasn't, everything wasn't negative because these kids were and are being marginalized. They're being labeled. Everything was just, uh, everything was negative with these kids. And so I wanted to be able to turn that around and make it into something positive. And so anyway, here's what the article said. Two main things that really irritated me. One, they finally come to the conclusion, research said, that movement improves learning. And why that makes me angry is we've known that for a long time. If you want to Google sometime and see me when I was young and had hair and was very stiff on camera, it was one of the first videos we ever created in a studio somewhere.

If you Google YouTube ADHD help and put in like celebrate calm or celebrate ADHD, you'll find me talking about all of this back then. And why it irritates me is how many years does it have gone by that our kids have not gotten the help they need. And actually they've been punished in school for fidgeting and doing the very things that actually hurt, help them learn better, right? And I remember when my son was young and we first started Celebrate ADHD, I would go in and I'd volunteer to go into IEP meetings and to meet with schools and to meet with teachers and say, no, you guys are missing this. You're missing this. You actually need to use these things to your advantage. Fidgeting. Fidgeting

is actually really helpful. It's not an F word, right? It'll actually improve learning as long as the kids can fidget without distracting other kids in class. And in some of our old videos, and you'll see it in the new ones as well, we show that sensory strip, which is just double-sided tape. And then on the other side of the double-sided tape are little textury objects that you get from an arts and crafts store, just fabric. And what we would do is tape that underneath the child's desk so while he's sitting in class, he can be playing with those textured objects because what the research says is when kids play with textured objects, it improves concentration. And so there are all these things from moving,

helpful moving in class, doing chair push-ups, all these things that we teach. And by the way, you can use all of these things during homework time. So be sure, we're writing a couple newsletters on this, so be sure to sign up for our free newsletter at Celebrate Calm. We're going through different ways to do homework that allow kids to move. And we've done this for two decades now. And it just frustrates me because we knew this a long time ago. And it frustrates me to this day because I probably train more teachers than anybody in the country. And I'll explain these things and show them how practical it is to get kids moving in the classroom without having to redo the whole classroom. And the teachers are like, thank you. We didn't,

we didn't know that. We didn't know you could do it this way. I'm like, it's not that hard, but you just have to be open to it. Right? So, you know, observe your kids, see what they're doing. Some of you have kids with very busy hands. Well, what that tells me is they need to be using those hands and moving those hands that will actually help them learn. Um, some of you have kids who are chewing on their tassels. They'll chew on the tassels of their hoodie, sweatshirt, they'll chew on their sleeves. Some of your kids chew on, you know, the top of their, the collar of their shirt. So when you see them at the end of the day, they've got this like nasty ring of saliva around on their shirt.

And it's kind of gross. But they're doing that for two reasons. One is because it's just helping with anxiety. And two, it's stimulating their brains. Because you guys have kids with understimulated brains. So all those things they're doing to stimulate the brain from fidgeting to arguing to picking on siblings, right? Procrastinating. All those things are, all they're about is brain stimulation. And one of the big things that we teach, we have a program called ADHD University. We developed this a long time ago and we keep updating it

when the science kind of catches up with what we taught, right? Because it's just frustrating. It's like, oh, we know that. One of the big thrusts of that program is saying your kids are going to get that need for brain stimulation met one way or another. Either it's going to be negative by picking fights and pushing buttons, or you can be proactive and channel that and get that brain stimulation done in very positive ways. So use that to your advantage. And the other thing that bothers me is all of the articles, and this article is making out like something is wrong with our kids. And it's not that something's wrong with them.

It's just they have a brain that works entirely different than other kids' brains work. And so it stigmatizes these kids and it causes so many kids. You know what? I was swimming this summer. I was out in the ocean on family vacation. And there's a guy, he was like in his mid-30s, kind of long hair, real creative looking, tattooed guy. And so we start talking, find out he's a really creative guy. And it turns out he's one of our kids. And you know what he told me? He said, when I was a kid, I always thought that I was stupid, that I was dumb, that I was just an idiot who couldn't do things. And he said, I went through my entire childhood. I ended up getting in with the wrong

group because I felt like an outcast. Unfortunately, I kind of got into drugs a little bit and went down the wrong path. And a lot of it was, and this is what he said, because for my entire, all of my school years, I just felt like I didn't fit in and that there was something wrong with me. And he said, I didn't figure out until I was about 35 that there wasn't anything wrong with me. I was just different. And so that's why this stuff makes me upset and why we go out and we speak and we train teachers. Right. So here's the other thing.

And this is what really irritated me. In the article, as you'll read with a lot of things, it says that our kids who do struggle with short-term memory, it said it's a disorder, that they have a disorder, that they actually have a brain dysfunction, right? And the words are that they're lagging in development versus normally developing children. And that, forgive me, that pisses me off to no end. It's as if there's one type of child who's normal and has a normal brain. And then anybody who doesn't fit into that kind of brain, we label with a brain dysfunction or say that they're lagging in development. And I wish I could use harsher language, but I won't because I'd like to go tell those people to go themselves. And here's

why. And I want you to think about this because this is really, really important for us. And we have to stop doing these things. Yes, our kids struggle with short-term memory. Why? Because their brains are wired differently. But here's what we miss. Our kids have brains that are wired in such a way that they're very good with long-term strategic planning. They have very strategic brains. They have very good critical thinking skills. It is why when you ask them to do something, they'll often ask why. Because they're looking for the bigger picture. They like context.

They have very definite ideas about how to do things. And they've got these great brains that are great at strategy and figuring things out. But here's what happens. By nature, because they have a strength in that area, it's almost impossible to find a human being who is, think about this, how many visionary leaders do you know, right, who are great with vision and strategy and forward thinking, how many of those people are also very good with details and short-term memory? Most of them aren't, and that's because of the way the

brain's wired. So here's my question. Why don't we label the supposedly normal kids as having a disorder because they don't have strategic brains? Because the truth is, which is more important for success in life? I would say having good critical thinking skills and being a good strategic thinker is far more helpful in real life than just being good with short-term memory. Now here's my second point. The only time you really have to use short-term memory in life is to remember information for a test. But after you're out of school, you almost never have to do that. Because in the rest of life, in the real world, you can make notes. I spent 15 years in the corporate world. And I've spent 15 years as an entrepreneur.

I have never had to memorize information for a test after I got out of college. I needed to always learn how to access information, how to analyze that information, how to look at it strategically and present strategic recommendations to a boss. And I was really good at doing that, but I didn't have to memorize it in my life today. And I'm you know, we've been successful in the corporate world and as an entrepreneur, I don't have to use my short-term memory that much. See, I have workarounds. I have notes everywhere. I email myself every night. I email myself a list in the subject line of what I have to get done the next morning. Why? Because then I don't have to worry about having short-term memory because that drains me. And I'm not naturally good at doing that.

So I have notes and I use all kinds of workarounds, which we teach your kids and which your kids can do. And here's the benefit. Now that I don't have to put all of that brain energy into doing something that I'm not naturally good at doing, now I can put that energy into thinking and big ideas and strategy. And that's what I should be doing and what your kids should and will be doing. Does that make sense? Right? So it makes me mad. And here's where the practical

application is for you. There are all kinds of arbitrary standards like this that we have in our schools and society. And you as a parent are going to have to determine what's really important. What are we going to fix and what aren't we going to fix, right? Like sitting still in circle time when you're five years old. It's so arbitrary. And yet kids get labeled right away. Well, we think your daughter has issues. She can't sit still in circle time. And no offense, but I do tell this to teachers because I know why we do circle time. But I always tell them circle time is stupid.

Because after you're five or six, you never have to sit still in a circle. Nobody at your office today is going to say, listen, Elizabeth, Frank, three o'clock in the conference room, circle time. It doesn't happen. It's arbitrary. Just something we came up with and said that kids have to do, right? But look, only with our kids do we always focus on what they're not good at doing. And we put all of our time into trying to fix them. But again,

bring it back to the analogy of why don't we label the other kids with a disorder just because their brains are different, right? So I've used this before when I've talked in our live workshops and even with teachers, and I've said this. If I were a teacher, I would be sending home notes to the parents of the normally developing children, the rule-following compliant children, and here's what I'd say. I am really concerned about your son in my class. He literally just sits there all day long. He doesn't move. He has no initiative. He never speaks up out of turn. He colors within the lines. He just waits for me to tell him what to do. He's not really passionate about anything. He just kind of sits there and does what I tell him to do. And he's very good at rule following, but I'm concerned

about him because in this kind of job market, where's the initiative? Where's the passion? How is he ever going to be really creative and step out of the box and be a unique thinker? Oh, but your daughter? Oh, I love having her in my class. Now, as an aside, do I really? Not really, because she's difficult to teach and parent. But you know I love your daughter because she's got initiative. She doesn't follow the rules. She makes her own rules. She's a leader. She doesn't wait for me to tell her to do things. She's already into it and she's got initiative and passion. She colors outside the lines. You know what's even better? Sometimes when I ask her to color something, she doesn't even color. She just draws something different that's more interesting to her. And I love that quality about her. Now,

it's not going to help her with her grades, but in real life, girl's going to rock one day, right? Does that make sense? It depends what you value. And you're going to have to make some really difficult choices about what you spend your time on while you're raising your kids and what you focus on, what you value. See, let me, let me give you a couple more analogies. Let's say in your regular job, whatever you do, what if your job was dependent upon doing, dependent on doing only the things that you're not good at doing, right? which are fine professions. Well, you probably tend to have more of an orderly left brain kind of orientation. But let's say they plucked you out of the accounting department and said, hey, we're going to put you in charge of coming up with a new creative advertising campaign and running the marketing in our company. You'd probably be lost there, right? It's the equivalent of putting the marketing sales guy in charge of accounting. You'd be broke very quickly. It

doesn't work that way in the real world. Here's another one. It's kind of funny, but it's really not. What if every day at the end of the day, you had to stop by your boss's office and he either gave you a sad face or a happy face, depending on your behavior that day. And then you had to go home and show the sad face sticker or the happy face sticker to your spouse and your spouse like, seriously, John, Elizabeth, two days in a row with a sad face. I don't know. I don't know what you've been thinking, but you're going to lose your screen time tonight. Right. But we do, we don't do that, but we do that to our kids and we boil everything down to measuring only what they're not good at doing. Does that make sense?

And you know what happens? You get a lot of kids who are angry and frustrated, who feel like failures. They'll even internalize failure and say, I'm dumb. I'm stupid. They'll shut down. They'll refuse to work because here's what they know. It's never good enough for anybody. All anybody ever tries to do is fix me. And I'm tired of being fixed. I'm tired of being compared to my brother and my sister and all the other kids who you label as normal. And it makes

me feel like something's wrong with me. Look, that causes kids, causes so many issues with kids and it just pleads their confidence. And so I want to turn that around. And so I would just ask you to start doing that and being proactive and focusing on building their strengths, being positive. Instead of fixing all of their weaknesses, instead put your energy into building up their gifts, talents, and passions, right? I'd encourage you. But this is why we have revived our camps. We're running a new entrepreneur camp. And the whole idea behind our camps is this.

The rest of society spends all of their energy trying to fix our kids and fixing their weaknesses. And what I know about successful people is they're doing what they love doing. They're using their gifts, talents, and passions to serve and help other people to do volunteer work, to run organizations, to run businesses. And so I want to take these kids and flip that entire orientation around and say, no, there's nothing wrong with your brain. It's just different. But I'm going to show you how to use that brain and your strategic thinking skills and your oppositional nature and the fact that you like coloring outside the lines. Let's use that and let's build a business. Let's do things to serve other people and let's learn how to make money at that and let's build your confidence.

So whether your kids come to my camp or not, you've got to do that yourself, right? And make sure you listen to – there's another podcast on our iTunes channel that's called Motivate Kids Who Don't Fit In. Listen to that because we go through the process. Here's the other thing. Listen to the ADHD University series. Get that. And if you go to our website, celebratecalm.com, and you'll look on a sales tab of specials that we have, you'll see an ADHD university program. And what we do is we give you the brain boosters, which is our teacher training. We give you that recording free with it. But anyway, if you need help with that, contact us because that is the most

comprehensive program we've ever done. And I promise you, you will walk away seeing your child completely different, completely differently. And I promise you, you will walk away seeing your child completely different, completely differently. And I guarantee you have about a hundred different strategies to help them with homework time, with schoolwork time, with organization and social skills. And if you need help with that, just email us. And I'll give you my son's email address because he knows all of this. He's lived all of this. His name is Casey at C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Casey at CelebrateCalm.com. And just ask him, just put in a subject line, ADHD university or brain boosters, whatever you want. If you want us to come train your teachers and parents, we will do it. Just put in a subject line if you want so he knows what you're talking about. Just write and say angry because I am angry about this and I want to change it. And that's why we put our energy into developing constructive things that you can use. So take advantage of those different things. Our camps are on the website at celebrate calm dot com backslash camps. C-A-M-P-S. But anyway, listen, if we can help you with anything, let us know. Email us. We'll be glad to answer your questions.

Sign up for the newsletter. Join the Facebook page. We really want to help make a difference in these kids' lives and help you because it is frustrating. And it is hard when all of society is judging your kids and actually judging you for trying to raise them differently. And so let's change this around. And let's start the next week. Let's focus on the positives and let's get your kids using their gifts, talents, and passions because it can be wildly successful. Thank you for what you do as parents. Listen, if your kids, if you think your

kids would benefit from listening to this, let them listen. I love kids listening to our stuff. Know why? Because they feel validated and they feel understood. And they'll say, that guy gets us. He understands what we're talking about or the way that I think. And there's nothing wrong with me. So by all means, let your kids listen to this podcast. Let them listen to the ADHD University or the Strong Willed Child CDs, because what they'll say is, that's me. And so there's nothing wrong with me. And the other thing is we don't make excuses for them. We don't use ADHD as an excuse. Yeah, I know you struggle with focusing on things you're not interested in.

But I also know you have a unique gift in that you can hyper focus. And when you're motivated, you can hyper focus. You can actually focus better than other people for longer periods of time when you're motivated and interested in something, right? Because I've seen you guys, I've seen you play with your Legos and play with your video games for 24 hours straight. You don't need to eat or anything. And that's a gift that you have. And I want to use those gifts. Anyway, thank you all for listening. And we'll check in with you next time. If we can help you, just let us know. Again, email us at Celebrate Calm or you can call 888-506-1871. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.