Calm Parenting Podcast - Let Your Kids Be Odd & Responsible For Themselves

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

Let Your Kids Be Odd & Responsible For Themselves You have a child who came out of the womb different—more strong-willed, sensitive, peculiar, needing things to be done their way, resisting the way you want it done. You don’t like the way they do things and you know better—but your lectures backfire. Kirk shows you how to get your kids to be responsible for themselves.  This is the final week of our Back-To-School Sale. Set your kids up for success this year: https://celebratecalm.com/products/  Want personal mentoring with Kirk via Phone? Click here to learn about mentoring packages. Want to book a LIVE EVENT in 2022/2023?! 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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no multiple step protocols, just simple scientifically validated solutions. The secret is One Skin's proprietary OS1 peptide. It's the first ingredient proven to switch off the aging cells that cause lines, wrinkles, and thinning skin. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company. By focusing on the cellular aspects of aging, OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get started today with 15% off using code Kirk at OneSkin.co. That's 15% off at OneSkin.co with code K-I-R-K. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So please support our podcast and tell them we sent you. So you have kids who are going to do things in odd or different ways, ways you don't agree with. They're not going to do it your way and it's going to frustrate you and you're going

to want to get on them and lecture them and show them and tell them and convince them and I don't want you to do any of those things. One, it doesn't work. Two, it frustrates you and your child and three, it will destroy your relationship with a strong-willed child. So I want to show you on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast how to do this differently. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin. I'm founder of Celebrate Calm. If you need help, reach out to Casey. That's our son, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your family. Tell us what you're struggling with. We will get back to you personally because this is a family mission We'll get back to you personally with ideas recommendations strategies ideas insights If you need help with any of our products Casey will put together a custom package of our resources

Within your budget or just take advantage of the big sale we have going on at celebrate calm calm You can get either the calm parenting package Which is the main package and it'll really help you or if you've got a slightly older child look up the no BS program or just get everything because then you have everything and you're quick for the school year and so here's what I want to talk about it's doing a phone consultation very nice couple and they have they have teenage girl. And so there are three things that were going on as school begins that they were worried about. One is that all year, all summer

long, their kids, pretty much like many of yours, just slept in really late all morning long. So now it's like, oh, school time. They're going to have to get up and go to school. Well, mom, who I'm working with, we're kind of working on, she called like all parents. She's like, well, I need to talk about my kids. I want to tell you about my kids. And what ends up happening is we're really working with mom and dad on some things of controlling their own anxiety, controlling their own perfectionism, their own control issues, your feeling of being embarrassed by these kids. Because look, all of those feelings cause you to jump in and try to change your child, to try to force things, to lecture, to convince, to always try to get them to do things your way. And what happens? They always, not half the time, not even three quarters of the time, literally every time, they resist.

So we're working on stepping back. And I wanted to compliment this mom's doing a really awesome job because, look, many of you have things from your childhood where you had to be ultra responsible because maybe you had some different family situations. And when you were ultra responsible, it got you a lot of attention and affirmation from a parent who maybe wouldn't have given it to you otherwise or maybe you lived in a chaotic home and being very very conscientious and focusing on certain things and doing really well in school well that provided a sense of order and stability for you but now that you're an adult right now that you're an adult, right, now that you're an adult, you have to release yourself from that. See, here's a great kind of little therapy thing of that served you well when you were a little girl or a little boy.

See, doing that served you well then because it provided a sense of order within all the chaos. It provided you with the affirmation and attention from your parent that you needed when you were a little kid. But now that very same quality is sabotaging your relationships. And so it's time to break those patterns. And that's a large part of what we do at Celebrate Calm. It's not just changing your child's behavior, it's breaking generational patterns. Things that have tripped you up that go back generations in your family. and you have the power to do that, which is really, really cool. So here are the three things that happened. The mom was concerned about getting their child up for school, clothes,

we'll get into that in a second, and hygiene and brushing hair and stuff like that. So the first thing that happened was mom stepped back because one of our core principles is when you step back as a parent, it gives your child an opportunity. It gives them space because space is really important. You can't stand over these kids. If you're going to stand over them and micromanage them, they will resist you and they will shut down and they will hate you for it.

And so I want you to give them some space. So mom stepped back and guess what her daughter did? Her daughter ends up getting up early, earlier than expected and ends up walking the dog every morning this week before school. I don't know if the daughter knows this but she's figuring it out on her own that getting up early so she doesn't have to rush, getting outside in fresh air, and walking with her dog, who is probably her best friend, because dogs are awesome like that, settles her and helps her deal with her own anxiety. So she made it to school every day this week, this past week, because she chose to get up early.

She chose to get some exercise. She chose to walk the dog early in the morning. I can guarantee you, if mom and dad had spent all this time lecturing and talk about how important it is to get up early in the morning, and I've been getting up for years, and I get exercise,

and it's good for your brain, that she wouldn't have done it, right? So you give her some space. Clothes. Mom said, I probably spent $1,500 trying to find something, anything appropriate that my daughter would wear. And I said, well, you're probably, she's probably only going to wear like $100 worth of what you spent. And the mom's like, yeah, she's worn the same clothes to school every day this week.

Now, that taxes mom's emotions. It makes mom feel a little bit embarrassed. And she's wondering, is she going to smell? What should I do? And I was like, no, that's what these kids do. They don't care. Let them be who they are. Daughter doesn't care. Don't make a big deal of it. Don't walk around saying, well, I spent all this money. No, just take everything back. You kept the receipt. Just take it back. And now you

just found you're probably going to have like $1,300 extra dollars on you, right? Or you can say to your daughter halfway through the week, hey, if you want, I can throw those pants and shirt in the wash tonight if you want so they're ready in the morning. And then walk away. Don't make a big deal of it, right? Because here's what we do, snotty stuff. You know, you have some other clothes that you haven't worn and I think you look really pretty in them, which guarantees they're not going to do it. Or you just let her be like she is. Or you can say, hey, I've noticed that you really seem to like those particular pants or that shirt. If you want, I can take all the other stuff back and I can just get two more of the ones that you

like. I can give them to get in the same color. Or if you want to branch out and get a different color, just let me know. So there's no pressure there. You're offering but you just honor your daughter's wishes, your son's wishes with that. I don't care what clothes they wear as long as it's appropriate within your boundaries. So what? That's your issue. So deal with it. Here's what I told him. I was like, you need to grow up and deal with it, right? You're being a freak. So she wants to wear the same thing every day. Who cares? That's your own embarrassment and that's your issue.

So stop trying to, you're creating power struggles that don't need to be done. Now, this was a big one. One of the original reasons that the parents contacted me and wanted to do phone consultations was that their daughter got these huge clumps in her hair because she just didn't brush her hair enough, and it was a big deal. Well, guess what the daughter did right before school started?

She cut her own hair. Now, in the back, it's uneven. And so the mom said she wanted to, the old mom would have taken a picture of the back of her hair and she would have showed it and said honey you know it's not even you can see here and so I think we really think we ought to even this up right she didn't which is awesome her the grandmother is actually a hairdresser and the mom was like well I was going to offer. And I was like, no, your daughter's completely comfortable with it. Right?

So don't take that photo. Don't push grandma. Don't make a big deal of it. When your daughter's ready for someone to help her fix the back of her hair to even it out, she'll say something. She'll initiate it now I know that's hard for you as parents because like I know but she goes to school every day in the same clothes and her hair is a little bit uneven maybe someone will say something to her at school and maybe she'll care and come

home and do it herself or have a friend do it or ask for help or make an appointment and go get it done. Maybe. Or she may just not care. Or it may be a couple months from now. But when she owns it, she will own it. In her time, she will take care of it or she won't. And if she doesn't, it's for a simple reason. She doesn't care. It's not important to her. And watch what usually happens to us. We start to list all these things of like, well you just, you know, you should wear some different clothes to school honey, and I really think we should fix the back of your hair. And you know what we miss doing? We miss affirming this girl. Because this is a girl, like many of your kids, who has felt different her entire life.

She came out of the womb just feeling different. She's always done everything in a different way. And probably people have said to her, why do you make everything so difficult? Why can't you just do things like your brother does? Why can't you do? And she goes to school every day and she knows that she's different. It's pretty obvious that she's not like in that certain in crowd or whatever group there is. She knows that.

She's internalized that. And do you know how much courage it has taken for this particular girl to get out of bed in the morning, to fight through that anxiety, to know when I walk through those doors of that school, the work's going to be a little bit extra hard for me because I do struggle. And socially, it might be a little bit awkward for me. It's not my favorite place to go. And yet every single day, she gets up out of bed and she gets out, she walks with her dog and she handles her anxiety. And when we're so busy trying to fix what we think is wrong, we miss affirming her and saying,

Honey, it was awesome. Every day this week you got up. No one knows how much courage that takes. Really proud of you. Or writing it as a note. Because sometimes writing a note makes it less awkward and they don't push back on our praise. So when you affirm your kids, even matter of fact, very low key, just simple statements, right? Don't make a big deal because mom tried to make a big deal out of her.

Oh, honey, I noticed that you cut your hair. And the daughter said, no, I didn't. Because she doesn't want to draw attention to it honor that right and so so I want you to affirm and in this case we've got a girl who has fought through many many things and she did a great job she doesn't have clumps in her hair now because she cut her own hair did she do it the way you wanted to do it absolutely not will she ever maybe. She'll only do it though when she determines that she really wants it and she's ready. And you can spend your time working on yourself

and accepting her as she is and throwing yourself into one of your passions instead of your only passion life being fixing and controlling my children and making sure that they're perfect so I feel good as a parent and so I don't have any anxiety and so I'm not embarrassed by them. Stop putting all of your energy into that. Throw your energy into something you're passionate about, something you haven't been able to do since you've had kids. And your kids are going to be much happier.

You will be much happier. Go through the 30 Days to Calm program because that will teach you. We go through and identify all your triggers and we show you a different way to handle it. And that's in the Calm Parenting Package or the Get Everything Package. But that's what I'm just felt like highlighting today. And learning about your strong-willed child because there's a whole program for that. Enjoy your strong-willed child because I want you enjoying the strong-willed child because there's a whole program for that. Enjoy your strong-willed child because I want you enjoying the strong-willed child instead of always thinking

there's something wrong with them and you have to fix them. This mom is doing something very courageous and I wanted to affirm her on the call and say, I'm not only proud of your daughter for handling this herself, something very difficult, I'm proud of you, mom, because you are facing down patterns in your life,

fears, anxiety, embarrassment, emotions that you have had for 40 plus years. And yet you're doing it and you're handling it and you're stepping back and you're zipping your mouth sometimes and you're gritting your teeth and burying it, but you're controlling yourself and you're affirming your daughter and she notices and she's trusting you more. That is hard to do at times and yet this mom is doing it and many of you are doing it and I'm proud of you too. So that's what I'm calling you to for two reasons. One, it works better. And two, you will build trust with your child, which is what you wanted anyway, right? So let's work on that this week and enjoy the strong-willed child. Okay, if you need help with it, reach out to us. We will

be thrilled to help you. You email Casey at CelebrateCalm.com. Hopefully, we will see some of you at live events. We're starting to travel again, which celebrate calm.com. Hopefully we'll, we'll see some of you at live events. We're starting to travel again, which is awesome. And hopefully we get to see in person. If you want us in your community, reach out to Casey and invite us. We'll come because we want to travel. We want to meet people in person. Hey, thank you for listening and we'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.