Calm Parenting Podcast - Kids Are NOT Supposed To Be Immediately Obedient

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

Kids Are NOT Supposed To Be Immediately Obedient How many of you have been told kids are supposed to be immediately obedient? Maybe you were raised with that awful little saying, “Obey right away, all the way, with a happy heart.” And now you have a strong-willed child who I can guarantee will NEVER listen the first time. You will judged and question yourself, as if you are doing something wrong. I want to show you a different and  better way to raise a curious, loving, and responsible child.  Our Winter Sale Begins NOW: You get everything we have ever recorded delivered directly to an app on your iPhone, iPad, Android, or computer. Listen anywhere, anytime. You get 35 hours of practical strategies and concrete examples, along with multiple PDF Workbooks. Make 2024different. Click here to learn more and take advantage of our Winter Sale: https://celebratecalm.com/products/ Visit https://wholelifepet.com/ and use promo code CALM to get 25% off your first order with free shipping over $50. Go to https://www.HelloFresh.com/calmfree and use code calmfree for FREE breakfast for life! One breakfast item per box while subscription is active. Get your kids something they will actually LOVE, use, and look forward to getting all throughout the coming year. Build your child’s confidence NOW! Visit https://crunchlabs.com/CALM and get your kids CrunchLabs today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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heart. And now you have a strong-willed child who I can guarantee will never listen the first time. And you're going to be judged. You're going to question yourself as if you are doing something wrong. And I want to show you a different way. That is what we are going to discuss on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. Find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you need help, reach out to our very strong-willed son, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your family, age of the kids, what do they struggle with? We get together as a family, we discuss it, we reply back to you personally and very specifically because that's

our mission to help you out. So this idea of first-time obedience is especially prevalent in conservative and religious circles. It is deeply ingrained, and I think it's wrong. It's harmful. It's against human nature. It isn't remotely even scriptural. It ultimately won't work, and it will ruin your relationship with your strong-willed child. And here are some additional wonderful benefits of pursuing this path. It will cause dissension in your marriage. It will crush your child's spirit, and it will provoke real defiance. And so for that reason, I hate this

expectation. I hate this doctrine, so to speak, that's so prevalent. It's evil to me. It's entirely unnecessary. There's a better way. Look, this is an unfair expectation of you as the parent, right? Because then when your kids aren't immediately obedient, like the naturally compliant kids, you get judged and you feel guilty because your strong-willed child resists everything you say. Look, we had 1,500 of these kids in our home. None of them were immediately obedient. It's not the way they're made. It's not the way they're wired. I don't even want them to be like that. And you're going to start to question yourself, oh, what did I do wrong? Do we need to spank? Do we need to be tougher? No, that's never going to work with

this child. It will backfire. The only way that works is if you bring to bear a lot of fear, intimidation, and threats, and even physical punishment to shut this child down. But then you're only changing their outward behavior for a period of time until it rears its ugly head. It is also an unfair and unrealistic expectation of a strong-willed child. So they end up being labeled as what? Bad kids, rebellious, and defiant. And I want to free you from this expectation. And I want to free your kids. Look, we do a lot of, we've done a lot of speaking at like homeschool conventions.

And there it's like, oh, well, if you just pray over your children and you discipline the right way, your children will always be compliant and follow your lead. That's wrong. That's false. That is not true. It is a horrible expectation to put on parents and kids. So I don't want you walking around feeling guilty. And I don't want your kids even worse.

I don't really care about your guilt. You can deal with that. You're an adult. I do care. That's why I'm doing this podcast. But I really just care about your kids not walking around and internalizing that there's something wrong with them because their siblings and other kids are just so well behaved. I prefer strong willed kids.

Their opposition on much of that is positive. It's because they naturally resist arbitrary and largely stupid rules that society and sometimes churches and schools impose on them. The real problem is compliant people pleasers who actually put up with these arbitrary social and religious standards and never dare to question things. And so that makes it easier in life. And that becomes the norm. I'm going to repeat that because I really want you to wrestle with that. This oppositional nature that your kids have is a good thing. I promise you, you want that. It's a pain when you're raising them, but if you can learn to harness that and channel that, it's good. They naturally resist arbitrary rules and you really have to watch

schools and church and society and your home are probably filled with some arbitrary rules that society came up with and we just do and they don't make any sense. And the real problem, think about this, it is that compliant people pleasers have put up with many of these arbitrary social and religious and school standards for centuries, never dared to question things, partly because, see, compliant people pleasers are afraid to question because you might get hit by your dad or you might get punished by someone you might get judged and you don't like that and can't take that strong-willed child oh they don't mind being judged and they can put up with that right and it makes it easier so that became the norm but who says that's right because now along comes the questioning strong-willed child with a really good brain and really great critical thinking skills, natural curiosity, a desire to do things differently. And by the way, just because they want to do it differently doesn't mean it's disobedient and rebellious.

And you really have to watch in your home. I'm talking a lot to dads here of like, well, it's my way or the highway. No, it's not. If you want to go through life my way or the highway, enjoy being lonely and not having any good relationships. And your only relationships, including with your wife, are based on fear. That's not a relationship. And by the way, that's not what God does either. Again, if we had people questioning some of those doctrines for the last 20 centuries, we would think differently about all of this. So just because they do it differently doesn't mean it's rebellious. And you've really got to watch and see so many things we ask of our kids as parents are arbitrary.

It's just for our own convenience or just because that's what we always assumed we were supposed to do. And so then we label a child, a questioning, curious child, we label them as being rebellious and defiant and disobedient. And if you want to really create a defiant, disobedient child, go ahead and label them that way. It's wrong. It's entirely unnecessary. And I'm going to show you a different way to approach this, but allow me a brief aside. I just have to say this. I really, I implore you, I encourage you, please begin, dig in and understand what drives and motivates your strong-willed child because your assumptions about this child are usually wrong. And if you don't understand them,

you will always misunderstand their motives. And that is a big trigger for a strong-willed child. They don't like being misunderstood. That is what will fuel defiance and push back a broken relationship and a child who resists you well past their teens. So at the very least, go through the Strong-Willed Child Program. It's in the Calm Parenting Package. Oh, you're just, look, I'm not just trying to sell you something. I really want to help you. And I put this together so you could go through it and say, oh, now we get our kid, right? It's critical insight. So, and it's a necessity.

So let's deal with this little saying first. Obey right away, all the way with a happy heart. I hate that. Because we're going to see, obey right away. We're going to see this in a few moments. It's an unrealistic expectation and I'll show you why. Obey right away. We're going to see this in a few moments. It's an unrealistic expectation, and I'll show you why. Obey right away, all the way. Look, no one listening to this does everything all the way. You don't, and I don't. Some things we give our best effort towards, and sometimes, and some things we don't. Why? Because you prioritize things. You can't do your best at everything. That is born of

parental anxiety. I want my child to do their best and I want them to try their hardest all the time. You can't and you don't either. If I spent 10 hours, if I spent one hour with you and with myself, I could say, you know, you didn't do your best with that. You could have done better. You could have given your heart more to that. You could have, right? Some of these things, it's a false expectation. Okay, now here's the worst part to me. Obey right away, all the way, with a happy heart. I almost want to vomit when I hear that, right? I hate that of parents when we lectured, well, let's have a happy heart. Let's have an obedient heart. Why don't I follow you around for 12 hours and point out every time you don't have a happy heart,

an obedient heart, a grateful heart, a peaceful heart, a loving heart? Please just stop that. It's, it's honestly, it's annoying and it doesn't help. It's kind of similar to that condescending tone that some people adopt when they say, I'm really concerned about your heart. Because what that almost always means is, I'm really concerned because you're not behaving the way I think you should. And if you have done that, then I just ask you to say, question yourself with that. Is that what I really want? Is for people to obey me right away, all the way with a happy heart. I've done this in our discipline series of, I didn't need my son to

be happy when he was doing his chores. I didn't expect him to be happy, right? If he was unhappy raking the leaves, I'd pop some popcorn, pull up a lawn chair and watch him be miserable. I don't need you to be happy. I just want you to get it done. Right? Just watch some of that. So who uses this? Well, it's usually well-meaning parents, right? You're a well-meaning parent.

But it's also people who have this view that God is a factory foreman who marches around the factory floor all day, commanding people to do things all day long. And their job is to simply and fearfully say, right away, sir. Yes, sir. Don't fire me, boss man. Well, that's a wrong view of authority figures. That's not what a good authority figure does. So here's something to think about. And this is for another podcast. If you find this helpful, email me and I'll do a whole podcast on it. But it trips people up all the time, especially in religious circles. I didn't want to have an obedient child. I wanted to have a responsible child. See, an obedient person carries out the wishes and largely arbitrary commands of an authority

figure. This is not what I wanted my son to do in life. We raised him to be responsible. That means he gets to use his brain and sometimes do things in different ways to accomplish the same goal, but to do it even better. See, now when Casey was little, I wanted a rule follower. Why? They're easier to raise. I just be a dad and command him to do stuff and he just does it because he's afraid I'm going to be mad at him or pull the belt out on him like my dad did. But there's a ceiling on how far in life obedient people go because they merely respond to other people's directions and commands. But I love the fact that Casey is a responsible kid. Look, the other day I went over to his other job with him.

He works here, Celebrate Calm, so reach out to him. But he's also general manager of the largest catering company. And he does this on the side in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. So we went over the pass over there. And I was working in the hotel lobby because he was preparing for an event the next day. And the general manager of the entire hotel catering operation, the whole company came over and said, Are you Casey Martin's dad?

Now, look, when he was a little kid, I'd respond no. Because that question usually preceded someone telling me that he was getting in trouble. But the GM told me, your son's a rock star. We love him. And why is that? Because they never have to worry about Casey because he runs the show and he handles everything without being told exactly how to do it. And he can handle things on the fly and he can handle, I always joke, he handles conflict well because he created so much of it as a kid. But look, I'll throw this out. I didn't want a well-behaved child or an obedient child.

I wanted a responsible child who, when he grew up, would be a responsible adult. It's a different focus. By the way, I would rather have a loving child than an obedient child. When we go to the homeschool convention, it's always like, how to raise an obedient child. Why? It's not the command. It's to love your neighbor as yourself. I wanted to raise Casey so he loves his neighbor as himself.

I don't care if Casey follows explicit rules from society. I don't. What I care about is this. How do you treat people that you meet in life especially those who are misfortunate who are poor who work for you who sometimes come against you and the answer is he's not always obedient to outward rules but he usually makes the good right decisions and does the right thing toward human beings and that takes you in a slightly different path. So let's dig into the idea of immediate obedience. When Casey was young, I did have this expectation based on church doctrine that this is how things

work. So here's what it was supposed to sound like. I would walk into a room, give him instructions, right? I need this done right now. And Casey's appropriate response was supposed to be, of course, father, I wasn't having a good time playing video games or texting. I was hoping you right? I need this done right now. And Casey's appropriate response was supposed to be, of course, father, I wasn't having a good time playing video games or texting. I was hoping you would give me additional chores so I could learn the value of hard work and obedience, sir. Right? I always wanted to hear that. I never heard that. Here's what you do here when you give your child some kind of instructions. Duh, chores are stupid. You do it. And then I'd respond with, you know what? You will not only do your chores, you'll do it with a smile on your face. Why do we do that? Why are we trying to control your child's emotions? Again, what if I followed

you around for 12 hours and noticed every time your heart attitude wasn't right toward your spouse, a friend, other people, people you don't agree with politically, different situations. You'd hate me and be miserable. So obedience is oftentimes doing the arbitrary whims of a parent. So I began doing this differently with Casey and with 1,500 kids that came into our home. So let's say it's four o'clock in the afternoon. I've got three things that I want my son or daughter to do. I'd usually come in and I knock on his door. I'd ideally spend 30 seconds, maybe 60 seconds asking Casey about something he cares about. Why?

Because that's just human connection. Doesn't that work better at your office? Instead of your boss barging into your cubicle and office demanding that you do things for her right away, wouldn't it be better if your boss came in and spent 30 seconds and said, hey, that last project, really nice job on that, really well done. Or came in and said, hey, I know your daughter or son was sick the other day. How's he feeling? You connect first. But you don't have to. I come in at four o'clock in the afternoon, knock on the door, and then I say, hey, I want these three chores

done by 7 p.m. Let me know if you have any questions. Let me know if you need any help. And then I would remove myself very, very quickly. And here's why I remove myself quickly. Number one, I expect pushback. This is going to be a major change for some of you because you have expected your strong-willed child to respond with, of course, mother. Yes, sir, father. You've expected that. I don't. I expect pushback. Why? Because it's human nature. And think about this. The last 57 times you asked your child to do something, what was their response? All 57 times. They probably resisted, argued, said no. And it's human nature. So I leave the room because I know what my child's response is going to be.

Do I have to? I don't want to. And I don't want to get caught in an endless lecture or argument and have to say, you know, when I was a kid, I didn't. Look, it's a big fat hook. They dangle in front of you and you bite on it every single time. You know, when I tell you do something, you're supposed to do it. And we get into this big fight over it. And then we get into a what? A negotiation over. Well, dad, what if I do this? Nope. Three tours, seven o'clock. Let me know if you need some help. Boom. I'm out of here. And I give

my child time to process his or her disappointment. Remember, we talk a lot about giving space. I will promise you. In fact, I will bet you a thousand dollars that if you walk into a room and give your child any directions, even good or easy ones. If you stand there and wait for their response, it is always going to be negative because they need some space to process. Oh, I was right in the middle of my game. Oh, I wanted to do this and now I have to do that. It's normal to feel a little frustrated and to want to push back. And if you give them a little space, as we're going to see in a few minutes with a great example, they will oftentimes

come and do it. So I give the space because I don't want to get sucked into an argument. I don't want to negotiate because before long, you're the one doing the chores. So give your child space to register their disappointment. Look, I don't even care if they verbalize it, but they're going to do it without me being there, standing over them, correcting them for their bad attitude and shaming them for not being grateful for all the privileges you've been given, right? And now you're bitter about it

because you had a crappy childhood. Don't put all that on them. Give instructions in an even, matter of fact, business-like manner. You're not going, oh, it would really help me out. Please do this. Even, matter of fact, business-like manner. Here are my expectations. Three tours, seven o'clock. Let me know if you need help. Boom. Remove myself and then give them some space. So next part of those, and I want to address this. For those of you who do have a religious or Christian background,

allow me a moment to demonstrate. And for those of you who are not religious, you'll still find, I think you'll find this helpful because it's all human nature, right? So God does not expect immediate obedience because I don't see it anywhere. Old Testament, New Testament, and here's why. God calls Moses out of a burning bush and says, Moses, lead my people out of the wilderness.

What was Moses' response? He argued with God. I don't have a good speaking voice. And God's probably like, I just spoke to you out of a burning bush. I think I could give you the words, right? It's like, oh, I haven't taken the Covey leadership seminar. I'm not a good leader. The God of the universe calls out to Moses.

Moses believes it's God talking to him. And what does he do? Argues with him so much that God kind of gets frustrated with him. God tells Abraham, you're going to be the father of many nations, right? And your wife, Sarah, is going to give birth to a child. Was Abraham immediately obedient in believing that? No. He went and had relations with the servant girl, and that worked out really well in the family. Look, King David, this isn't so much about immediate obedience. It's just recalibrating your thoughts because it's all this thought of like, well, all the leaders in the Bible, they were all good people and all they did the wrong thing. Not so. We've already seen now King David, the man after God's own heart. Yeah. Only he was a man after God's own heart when he wasn't over the hot babe who was in the hot tub on or jacuzzi or taking a bath on the top of the building or wherever she was. And King David

sees her and he's like, I want her. So what happens? Adultery. And then has her husband basically killed. So King David gets adultery and murder. Well done, sir. And yet God chose to use him. So let's fast forward because we don't have time to go through all the horrible things done by normal people, including Jacob. Look, I encourage you, my religious Christian friends, read through it and see. It was not the people who behaved well, who God used and favored. Jacob was a deceiver. And yet he deceived his brother and his father, the patriarch, to get what he wanted. And God blessed him.

So we go to Jesus. And this is interesting. Two Jesus things here. So the night before Jesus is crucified, he's in the garden. And here's what he prays. Father, if this cup may pass from me. He said, if it may pass from me, what was he asking? Is there another way? Because if I go to the cross, I'm going to be separated from you.

He was questioning, right? So that's normal behavior. So here's my favorite one. Great parable. Jesus tells there's two sons and a father tells his sons, hey, go into the vineyard and do my work. And watch how this kind of plays out. The one son was the one that we all want. Why, of course, father, I love vineyard work. Only he didn't go and do the work. He was like the Eddie Haskell of his time who said the right thing, but didn't go. The other son was the one that we all have. Uh, duh, vineyard work, stupid, not going. Only Jesus says later, later he changed his mind, went into the vineyard and did his the father's work and Jesus not me said which of the two sons was obedient to his father it was the initially resistant the initially mouthy one who didn't do it there was no first time obedience there right he did it later and

I promise if you read through scripture with fresh eyes, you will say, see, it is usually the well-behaved, obedient kid who has the bad heart. Read the story of the prodigal son. It is the good one. What does he say at the end? Father, I've always done everything you have asked. And he had a nasty little heart toward his brother. It was the prodigal son. It was the strong-willed son who's like, I'm going out into the world, and I'm going to make it, and I'm going to do some stuff.

I'm going to go do some hard living, who came back and who had the good heart. And yet the church has screwed this up royally for centuries. So, look, in my ideal world, the strong will kids are the ones I'm favoring. And I'm spending more time trying to please get the people pleasing, compliant kids to stretch out of their comfort zone and question some things and color outside the lines and take chances and take risks because that's what it takes to be successful in life. So back to our story, our example. Three chores, seven o'clock.

I remove myself quickly. One reason is because I expect pushback. I expect it. It's going to happen. So now I don't have to stand around arguing over it and getting triggered by it. The second reason I remove myself is because I know this as well. My child is not going to do those chores in the way I want him to in the way in the exact way I want him to

in the order I want him to and I want to say this as strongly as I can your strong-willed child may never ever ever ever do things the way you want him or her to do and that's okay, and even preferable times. You've got to look inside and see if it's your own control issues, your own anxiety. We do not do permissive parenting here. That's why I want you to listen to the Strong Willed Child program, the Calm Parenting Package, because we teach you how to do this in a different way. I do not let kids run the home. I give them ownership over their choices within my boundaries. I basically say this, hey, here's what needs to be done.

I don't care how you get it done. You want to do it in a weird way? You want to do it an odd way? You want to do it backwards? You want to do it hanging upside down? You want to do it blindfolded? You want to do it listening to really loud music? I don't care. Just get it done. Go for it. Now, do I care as a human being? Yes, because I'm a guy. I know the most efficient, effective way to do things. Do it the way I told you to do it. And if you would just do it the way I told you to do it, it would be done and we could move on to the next list of things we've got to get through on our busy night. I get that. But with the strong willed child, I'm going to give ownership within my boundaries. I didn't say,

if you want to do these things, hey, case three chores, seven o'clock, don't care how you get them done. Because we all want to do this. You got to do it the right way. You do the hardest chore first to get it over with, but they're not going to do that. They're going to procrastinate and they're going to wait. And you're going to be tempted to jump in and say, hey, hey, what if I start the lawnmower and I do the first round across the lawn? And then you can control your own anxiety, control your own control issues, because you and I are freaks as parents. So here's the thing too about chores, by the way. Your kids are largely going to stink at doing chores for you, and they're going to be really good at doing things for other people. Many of you have

teenagers who won't do a thing around the house, but man, they love going to their jobs and they show up on time and they do what their boss asks of them. It's just the way these kids work because, and that's what we're raising them to be, responsible toward other people. And that's why I mentioned before, what do you really want? An obedient child or responsible child? An obedient child or a loving child? Obedient child or one who does the right things in tough circumstances. So to our example, look, I want my child, if I got my way at four o'clock, my son would have gotten up and said, well, what should I do first? And I'd say, case, do A, then B, then C. It's the most efficient, effective way to do it. You'll be done with it.

It's awesome. But guess what's going to happen with a strong-willed child? At five o'clock, have they done any of their chores? Nope. At six o'clock, done anything? Nope. Six, 15, you're going to be like, you know what? I don't even drink, but I'm tempted to drink because it's six, 15, they haven't done a thing. And finally at 6.34, they get off their butt to finally start doing their three chores. And your first thought, if you're a type A dad or mom like me, is, uh-oh, they didn't leave enough time. They only have 26 minutes to get their three chores done. Now they're going to do a half job, you know what I'm saying, to get that done. Why? Because you got to do everything to the best of your ability. Chill, moms and dads. So I want them to do A first. What is your strong-willed

child going to do at 634? It's going to do C. Why? I don't know. I do know, actually. It's because they often want to do things differently because they don't like being compared. Watch that. If you are a high-achieving parent, I see this a lot with parents. Both parents are like doctors or attorneys or like some corporate titan or someone really important. And the child's like, there's no way I can compare to that. I don't even like school. And both my parents have master's degrees and a PhD.

And so sometimes they want to do it a different way. Why? Sometimes because it's just creative. It's just different. Because they just like to. There's nothing wrong with that. Just about everything we enjoy in life comes because people wanted to do things in a different way. It's called innovation.

Okay, so they do C. What are they going to do next? A or B? Neither. They're going to do Z. You know what Z is? It wasn't even on my list. I didn't even ask you to do that. How many of you have kids who are going to frustrate you because you're like, I didn't even ask you to do that. But somewhere on the way from doing C to B, they walk by the bathroom and they looked in, they looked at the toilet and they thought, hmm, be interesting to take the toilet apart and not put it back together because you have kids who love to tinker with things. And I mean this with all my heart. In this scene, the most important thing that that child will have done that evening was to take apart that

toilet, was to tinker with things, to see how things work, to pursue their curiosity. But Kirk, they didn't get their chores done in an appropriate way when they get older. I don't care. I want them pursuing their curiosity. Does that mean that we let them get away with doing whatever they want? No. You've got boundaries. And at the end, I'll go through this.

But if that child stops somewhere along the way instead of doing my three arbitrary chores, and he did something really interesting and created something, sometimes, you know what I do? I go in and I'll sit down on the floor of that toilet and say, Tom, show me what you just learned. How does that mechanism work? And you will watch your child's eyes light up as he or she tells you, well, mom, when you do this, it hits this and then this moves and that does, and, I just fixed it because it wasn't working the right way, and you will find and see in them, they have these amazing brains. They're just not amazing at following directions all the time, but they are amazing at being curious and learning and figuring things out, and by the way, that's what they're going to do one day in life. That's what, I don't want to raise kids, these raise kids. Strong willed kids are not going to go work

for someone else for very long. They're not good at following directions and they don't like authority figures. So stop trying to raise them to be someone you want them to be. Stop trying to raise them according to your own convenience. I know it's easier if you just have compliant rule following kids because they're going to go to college and get a good degree and they're going to go get a good job and marry a good spouse and have good kids and do the whole, and it's easier, but that's not what I'm after. Not how these kids are made. So after he does D, Z, what's he going to do?

B. What's B? Sweeping the kitchen floor. Should be pretty straightforward, but strong will child is going to put the broom behind their back and between their legs and go backwards. And it's going to frustrate you to newtland because if you do it that way, you can't get the crumbs in the corner. I get that. And finally, at 6.59 and 59 seconds, they do A. And if they do that, which they probably won't, but if they get all three chores done by seven o'clock, even though they waited till the last second, even though they didn't do it in the right way, even though they didn't do it as well as their siblings did, your appropriate response

is to give a fist bump and say, hey, nice job getting your chores done. And then you have to walk out of the room and resuscitate yourself and do some heavy breathing, deep breathing, because it's hard, because they make it hard. Everything is hard. And I get that. Okay, so here's your question. question well what if they don't get their three chores done by seven o'clock I've gone through that in other places but I'll just give you a couple things here good go martial law hey here's the deal I ask you to do three chores in return I do three things for you I cook for you I run you places I do your laundry or you can add any of the other 18 things that you do.

I do mine. You do your three. I do my three. If you're not going to do the three chores I asked you to do, guess what? I'm not going to do yours. I'm not going to take you places. I'm not going to buy you things. Seriously? Really? You're going to do that? I just don't make a big deal out of it. When I follow through on things, I just make it even. Matter of fact, this is just the way I roll. I can declare martial law on Saturday morning. Say, guys, I know you're looking forward to a fun day, but you guys didn't do what mom asked you to do, what we asked you to do. And so therefore, nothing fun is going to happen in this home until these three things are done. We can also go through whether you should start with three things right away, because if your child is currently doing zero chores, I may start with a win and get that and then build on it.

But the main point is I don't expect immediate obedience. I want to create successes. I want to give kids ownership of their choices within your boundaries. I want to deal with my own control issues and my own arbitrary things that I'm commanding. I want to create successes and I want to start noticing the good traits and raising these kids the way they're supposed to be, not who you want them to be.

And let them do some things differently and take off some of this pressure off of yourself and off of your kids. I promise you when you start doing it this way, your kids are very responsible kids. They're very smart kids, and you can have a great relationship with them. Their way of doing things is going to look different than the way that you want, and that's okay, and that's actually preferable. I do implore you, if you don't have our materials, go through at least the Calm Parenting Package

or just get everything all at once. If you need help financially with it, email Casey at CelebrateCalm.com and say, I want your stuff. I want to change these dynamics, break these generational patterns. Can you help me? He will help you. That's what we exist to do. Thank you for listening.

If you found this helpful and think other people need to hear it, please share this podcast. I know some of this stuff is hard because we're we're going after deeply ingrained beliefs that you have had your entire life and that are continually reinforced by all the important authority figures around you I was just going to say but they're wrong I don't want to say that but they're wrong and so they are wrong and I want you want to say that, but they're wrong. And so they are wrong. And I want you to have the courage to question things and to trust your own instincts and use your own eyes and notice. We tried this other way with a strong willed child. We've been doing that for four years or seven years or 10 years or 14 years or 17. It's not working. Maybe we need to try a different way. Trust your instincts. Push against things. If you need help, reach out to us. Love you all. Bye-bye.