Calm Parenting Podcast - Little Stuff Triggers Me: 5 Steps to Turn Fights into Calm

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Little Stuff Triggers Me: 5 Steps to Turn Fights into Calm Typically, we react to our triggers. Our tone becomes irritated, kids pick up on and react to that, and this sets off a chain reaction ending in red faces, tears, and quarreling spouses. So Kirk gives you 5 specific action steps to turn the tears into smiles, the tension into relief. Our New Year 2021 Sale Begins NOW! You get the Calm Couples Marriage Mentoring Program FREE with your purchase of the Calm Parenting Package or the Get Everything Package. You have a choice in 2021. You can GROW UP or GROW APART.   Want personal mentoring with Kirk via Phone? Click here to learn about mentoring packages.  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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we're going to talk about today on the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at Celebrate Calm. If you need anything at all, email Casey, that's our strong-willed son, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your family, what's going on. We will provide some recommendations and some tips. If you're interested in our materials, we have a new year's sale going on right now at CelebrateCalm.com, but we can put together a custom package for you within your budget. It's what we're here for, to help you out. So let's dig into this. By the way, happy new year. Hopefully 2021 is going to be much more awesomer than 2020.

We have noticed we're starting to get calls now and emails from PTAs and schools and churches and foster care and adoption agencies wanting us to come train parents and teachers. So contact Casey for that because we're excited to get back out there and see you in person. So a couple emails came in over the holidays, and I wanted to kind of pick up on them and share with you some very practical ways to handle irritating situations and kind of what this looks like. So very common email.

In fact, we got a lot of these that were really, it's interesting, so many emails that were almost exactly the same. So we're letting our kids open one gift a day to let them enjoy the gifts. And so my daughter was getting one of the gifts out of the stack of gifts. And this is what a mom and dad emailed and said, so I asked her to stack the other gifts nicely. Now, I'm going to jump in here really quick, quickly. Here's the deal. They're kids. They're not going to stack the other gifts nicely because they're excited to get to the gift and because they're seven or nine or 14. One of the most common things that happens with us as adults is that we project what's important

to us at age 35 or 40 or 50 onto our kids, right? And so we like a lot of order and structure and we spent so much time stacking the gifts and we like it to look nice and we value that. Sometimes you got to get back in the head of a kid, right? When you were a kid, unless you were really OCD or had some perfectionist parents, you didn't really care what the stack of gifts look like. You just want to dig into the gift. So right there, you can hear, look, you can kind of hear it already. Like I asked to stack the other gifts nicely. to dig into the gift. So right there, you can hear, look, you can kind of hear it already. Like

I asked to stack the other gifts nicely. Now, is there anything wrong with asking that? No. Is it a reasonable expectation of a parent? Sure. But are they really going to do it? No. And so from the get-go, you can hear where this is going, can't you? So my wife said I was already kind of irritated and so there was tone in my voice when I corrected my daughter. And my wife said that I ruined the moment for her and everyone else by turning a happy moment into a negative one. Kudos to you, dad, for admitting this. I do this often often it's little stuff that shouldn't affect me or trigger me and I didn't remain calm but I expected my daughter to remain calm so I get it so let's go through this what do we do differently

next time how do we handle our triggers? Now, first, I will affirm you and say that I get this because you are tired, you're stressed, you've got work, you've got aging parents, we've got COVID, you've got challenging children. I get it. Little things set you off. The reason I know this is because little things irritate me more than big things. If you ever listen to the ADHD University series, you'll hear about what's going on in your child's brains. And so that's why your kids, it's what happens with your kids, right? Like little things really set them off, transitions, losing at a game, because they've got these brains that are very, very, very, very busy. So when big things go wrong or when something large happens, well, that's very stimulating for the brain.

It actually helps your kids focus. That's why we like making things a challenge. See, when big things go wrong in my life or there's a big challenge, it's like, boom, now I'm focused. Now, okay, how do I overcome this? But see, I have this very, very busy brain. So when little things are off, it really messes with my sense of order. I personally have a high need for order and structure. So one of my biggest triggers was

coming home from work and there were Legos all over the floor. And immediately within half a second of stepping into my home after work, I was irritated because see at work, there's usually not Legos all over the floor because we're working with adults. Think about this sometime. And I mentioned this a lot when I'm working with dads. We like work. The office is awesome because it's all adults. There's a lot of order and structure. It's why I think that my dad was very comfortable in the military because everything is done by process, by rank.

Your relationships with people are already determined by your rank. And so at the office, I know how things work. I can send out a memo. For those of you who are young, in the olden days, we actually wrote written memos to people. But I can send an email to someone, and if they work for me, they have to do it. Well, when I walk back in my home, there's a bunch of emotional, immature, YM2, but immature little kids there. And they don't work for you. I know that's what you think because you're the authority figure, but they're not, they're not your subordinates as far as like work goes. And they're just not going to do things the right way all the time. And so it's irritating so i have that high that high need for order and when that

need for order because see i want those gifts stacked nicely and neatly because when they're not all of a sudden i get triggered inside and boom one little thing is setting off this chain reaction, right? And your tone becomes just a little bit irritated or a little bit demanding. You're not yelling yet. You know what? You're not even yelling yet. There's a little bit of a tone. There's a little bit of irritation in your voice. It's a little bit demanding.

And your kids can hear it. They feel it. And they react to it. And you, in a very subtle way, just set off this chain reaction that demands the peace because everybody feeds off of it. And so if you struggle with this, here's what I would do. First step, just be aware of it, right? I know that sounds kind of simple, but be aware of what irritates you. If you want, you can even write down your triggers. In fact, I would encourage you,

write down your triggers, right? The awareness of this really irritates me and doing a little bit of introspection, not too much, but a little bit to know, huh, I've noticed my pattern is when I come home from work or when I walk into a room and little things are askew, it just does something to me, right? Know your triggers. Number two, practice not getting triggered. So you experience a situation and it's bothering you. Inside you can feel it, right? And you want to react. You

want to correct your child. You want to make a comment. You want to fix it. And that's normal. Look, none of this is abnormal. There's nothing wrong with you. But what I want you to do is practice just sitting there. Sit with it. Sit in it, right? I know when I've done yoga before and it's a really uncomfortable position, they're like, well, just sit in your discomfort. And I was like, I don't want to sit in my discomfort, right? But sit in it. Don't fix it. Don't try to lecture. Don't try to teach or show or explain or anything. Literally do nothing except live with it to see that it doesn't have to ruin your day. That you can actually deal with this lack of order. That you can deal with your child having a little bit of a tone in their voice.

Live with it. Number three, then do the opposite. Instead of correcting, let's point out a positive. This is what you want to say. Sarah, stop grabbing the gifts that way. You're messing up the pile, and I worked really hard to make it nice, and after all that your mother, does that ever end well? No, but this is what I want you to actually say, even though it bugs you. Sarah, I love the way you braided your hair this morning. Sarah, what do you think's in that box?

Sarah, I wish I had your enthusiasm. Then watch. Watch and observe how different the whole interaction is. Notice how your daughter smiles. Notice how your wife breathes deeply and exhales and relaxes and reaches for your hand. Notice how you were irritated inside, but you took a different action and you got a different result. You're still not happy about the way your daughter did something, but it didn't ruin your day or hers or your wife's. You change the outcome of the situation by controlling the one thing, the only thing in the entire world that you have control over, and that's yourself. And that's a pretty cool thing.

So make this about you, right? What is it that irritates you? Mom, maybe is it that your child, maybe your daughter has a little bit of attitude when she responds to you. And you have every right to lay into her and to correct her and begin your sentence with young lady, which always works really well.

You have every right to do that, but it doesn't work. And notice that trigger that it sets you off because after all you've done for her, and that's your issue because you've done too much for your kids, right? And you're resentful toward them. That's your issue and you can change that. Or maybe it's that you fear that she's going to become a disrespectful person in life and people aren't going to like her and they're going to judge you because how could you raise a daughter who's so disrespectful? But you kind of know that's not true because other people love your child. It's just you who doesn't. I'm kidding. You love them. But they're difficult for you. And so you project into the future. How's she going to keep a job if she has that kind of attitude? What if she doesn't work

hard enough and she just does the bare minimum to get by? Notice all these things that are going on inside of you and just acknowledge it and say, yeah, I do get triggered by that. Because if I had done that to my mother, I would have been in trouble. Is there something wrong with me as a mom? What am I doing wrong? See, that all has to do with you. And the beautiful thing is you can sit in that. You can live with that. You can de-escalate that. And you can change yourself. And when you change your response, it changes the entire home. Now, next thing that's going to happen, number five, realize the next time this happens, you are going to react. You're going to get triggered. You just are. And that's good

because it means you're not a robot. It means you're human and it means you're normal. So you take a deep breath and you beat yourself up for like three seconds, but that's it. I don't want any of this like stuff of like guilt trips and feeling bad about yourself for the rest of the day. Acknowledge it that you messed up. You apologize and reset. Hey, honey, I shouldn't have used that tone. I apologize. I shouldn't have reacted to you. You know what? It's not really about you. I'm just stressed and I took it out on you. I apologize. Then you regroup. You give the compliment. You're now practicing how to recover when you mess up. This may be the most important part of the entire process. It's not always about doing

it well, especially in the beginning. You're going to probably mess up more than you do it right. And part of the beauty of this process is your kids are going to notice. That apology, that humility is huge for your kids. Number six, the cycle will continue. Throughout your life, you're going to find that your spouse, your kids, and every other person you know is going to be irritating. But you're going to begin to master your triggers better over time. So you're going to go from winning maybe 30% of the time now to 50% of the time, and then 60%, and then 70%, maybe even 80%. You're always going to mess up some because you're human, and you're going to apologize, and you're going to find that you're going to regroup more quickly. So instead of like,

instead of an escalation taking like five hours and ruining the whole night or the whole afternoon, you'll find that you get it down to maybe an hour. And then you're going to find that you get it down to 15 minutes. And then you find very quickly by your own attitude, you can stop some of this stuff within minutes and even within seconds. And it's really, really, really, really cool. And so here's, look, your kids will be quick to forgive you because you're trying and working at it.

If you dig in and pull out the authority card because I'm the authority figure, well, guess what? The strong-willed child is going to kick up against that and they're going to find all kinds of new ways to trigger you. Humility is a powerful, powerful tool. And if you want your kids to respect you and listen to you, I just encourage you, humility. I'm not talking about weakness and giving up your authority and giving in and just satiating your kids

and letting them get away with things, not at all. Humility is a very powerful place in life and is a very powerful thing to demonstrate to your kids and they will respect it and they do respect it. See, here's what I hear when we look at this situation. I hear an overwhelmed parent who wants to do his or her best reaching out and saying, I need some help. See, it's that humility. When I get those emails that said, I need some help. And especially when it comes from a guy, I'm like, that's like,

what's that on? It's a wonderful life when the bells start ringing and the angel gets his wings. Something cool is happening in the larger world here when I hear that. Because, watch, life can be hard. You've got a lot of stress from work. You've got aging parents. You've got COVID. You don't even realize. Look, you don't even realize. I'm 54, so I'm realizing this stuff. You don't even really realize. You're not really in control of most of your responses because humans, we're pretty proud, right? We're like, oh, well, it's just my choices. I just make good choices. Well, you're not in control of as much as you think you are. You've been conditioned by your own childhood, by societal pressure. You're conditioned, and so am I, by expectations you're not even aware of.

I'm 54. I'm still dealing with insecurities that I have. I still respond in an immature way because in my heart, I'm still kind of a four-year-old in certain areas. I'm still struggling with the fact that I never got the affirmation from my dad. I'm 54. I'm a fairly successful guy. I'm pretty good at doing this stuff, but it's still in there, right? And so it's just an awesome thing when people humble themselves and say, I want to change. It's the sound of relationships being restored, being strengthened. Look, this is what it means to me. It's the transformation of a little girl's face from shame and anger and a big frown

to the satisfying smile that only comes from an affirming dad or mom. See, you can hear in this situation, this guy, you can hear his wife on edge. She's waiting for the stern correction. She's caught in the middle. She's wondering, do I jump in to protect my daughter's heart? But if I do, am I going to undermine his authority? But then she hears this big old man collect himself, shift in his chair a little bit in discomfort, and he bites his tongue, exhales a little bit, and instead of correcting his daughter,

because she didn't do something the right way, which they're going to do their entire childhood. They are. You got to let go of some of that stuff. Let go of the perfectionism. Some of you, that's your issue is you're just a perfectionist and you're going to put that on your kids. And that's a brutal thing to put on your kids. So I want you to master it so they don't grow up and, and have to live with it like you and I have. It's in me. It's the way my dad kind of taught me. And so look, we just, we have a lot of people

reaching out to us. I had a guy wrote a great email like, hey, I want to help edit your podcast and I'll take out all the ums and I'll make it sound better. And I replied and said, you wrote an awesome email. You're a good salesperson and I trust that you do an awesome job, but I don't want to overproduce this. I want it to be imperfect. I want, this is life. I don't want to overproduce this. I want it to be imperfect. I want, this is life. I don't want something that's fancy and everything's perfect in it. That's not what we're supposed to be striving for because that's not what family life is. It's supposed to be messy and ugly.

It's supposed to. It's the way it's been since the beginning of time. One of the most ancient pieces of literature that describes family life, the two first interactions on earth as recorded in ancient literature are a husband who blames his wife for giving him the apple, right? And the one son murdering his brother out of jealousy over getting approval from the father figure. Those things are hardwired into nature and into our families. It's supposed to be messy. And if you can shift your thinking away from, and we hit this hard in the, in the calm, if you go through the calm couples marriage program, even if you're divorced, go through it because it's so insightful. It recalibrates what's the goal of our family life. Well, we're just going to have kids and we're going to have a happy family

life. It's not supposed to be happy right now. It's not supposed to be tragic and dark and what it is right now, but it's not the purpose. The purpose of relationships is transformation. You become a different person when you're in relationship with other human beings because they're irritating and broken and immature. And guess what? So are you and so am I. So it's a relationship adjoining in your home first of a husband and wife, two broken, immature people who think they're all cute and happy when they're young and you don't realize you are filled with all kinds of ick that you got from your childhood and you're carrying in and

just from being human. And at first it's awesome and then it starts getting a little irritating and then you introduce into life a couple little irritating human beings who are by nature kind of wake up selfish and have all these needs and their first concern isn't whether you're happy and getting enough sleep, right? They just need stuff all the time and now husband and wife, well, we didn't talk about parenting style before we got married. And now all of a sudden, you're in this relationship where there's three or four people in a home. You're all stressed and trying to figure life out. Good. That's what it's supposed to be. And if you can embrace that and say, see, that's why we're all, well, I'm just not happy in my relationship. Who says you were supposed to? You're supposed to be uncomfortable. You're supposed to be coming

to grips with your brokenness, with your immaturity, and the fact that you don't respond to your, well, but my spouse, well, he just is. Of course he does. He's irritating as crap. That's why I wouldn't marry him. But guess what? You're not any better. Now, you may be a little bit better because sometimes men aren't great at the self awareness thing. But in the scale of things, you don't respond to things that well either. But we're human. So we always take it. What do you do? Get together with your friends and say, listen, this is why my marriage is really struggling. It's because of all of the things that I'm doing wrong. That's not what we do.

We talk about our spouse, right? But they're not. Well, he doesn't care. He's not emotionally available to me. Well, you married an engineer. Like, what were you expecting, right? Were you expecting some deep emotional talks from the engineer, from the guy who can put things together really well and organizes?

You saw that early on when you guys went away on your first trips or camping trips and you had everything in order and it had to be just so. You saw that, but you married him anyway. And then you introduced a few kids into the scene. And now his entire sense of order and structure is ruined and he's freaking out. That should not have been a surprise. It only is because none of the, sorry, my brother was a pastor who married us, but none of the pastors and priests, most of them don't tell people what you're getting into when you're getting married. And so we've got this

false sense of like, oh, it's happiness. And we just need to, we just need to learn each other's love language. No, you don't. Now that's important. It's good. I know my other's love language. No, you don't. Now, that's important. It's good. I know my wife's love language. I know what my love language is. I know that. But that's just, look, I just want us to embrace the fact that it's supposed to be difficult so that you can grow up and so that I can grow up and we can learn humility and patience and respect because anyway, you get what I'm saying. So now his wife looks over and holds his hand and this big old

grown man is learning how to work through his triggers, to sit in his discomfort, to accept this lack of order in the home that usually irritates him to his core. And it still does. But instead of reacting to it, he owns it. And he turns it into a positive. And that little girl is not in tears. She's looking up at her big old dad who just told her, you look beautiful in your dress. And because one man or one woman determined that they needed to change, not change his daughter, not change his wife, not change what irritates him, his entire family life is going to be different. His relationships are going to be

different. See, that's the best gift ever. That was my best gift this Christmas was the emails of people who are like, this is home that's changing. And ever. That was my best gift this Christmas was the emails of people who are like, this is home that's changing. And this is better than a new year's resolution. This is the sound of a family changing for generations to come. And that's what I'm inviting you to do with us in 2021. Come join us on this adventure. Come join us. I wasn't planning to say this. I'm growing up. Let's freaking grow up in 2021. Let's do it. Because in your marriage, one of two things is going to happen. You're either going to grow up or you're going to grow apart, right? Let's become a new person, right? This isn't about self-help and I'm going to exercise a little bit more and I'm going to do this a few times more.

No, I just want to become, I'm going to become a new person. I'm going to create a new family. That's a lot better than just putting window dressing around the edges. You can have, and I can have, a different family life. And it's going to lead you to places you've never been before inside yourself. There's stuff in there that is holding you back, that is constricting you, and you're not happy because you're always on edge, and you're always anxious because you're afraid because you want your kids to be so happy, and you're worried about everybody's happiness,

and you're not even happy. Think about that for a minute. I know this is going a little bit long, and Casey may say, Dad, you've got to re-record this, but I'm really enjoying this. Think about it. Moms, especially out there, you spend almost all your waking hours trying to make sure that everybody else is happy, but what do you notice? You're not truly happy. So how can you lead other people to happiness when you're stressed and worried and anxious and not even happy and relaxed yourself. Think about that. It's a really cool thing if you can embrace it. So we're going to go places within ourselves, but it's also going to lead with a deeper connection to your kids, to your spouse, to yourself, to your friends. It is an awesome thing. Join us on this little

adventure. I was going to say join us on this journey, but I hate that little phrase because I'm a jerk. But I like an adventure. I like an adventure. Let's grow up into, you know, we're going to do something special on growing up. I hope that doesn't offend you, but if it does, mm, lean into it. Lean into your discomfort of me calling you immature because I am too, but I'm trying to grow up. If we can help you with this, look up our sale. We've got all of our programs on sale and they go through this from tools to help you change and help your child to deal with his own anxiety, to do better with his schoolwork, to learn how his brain works, to deal with the meltdowns. But it's also

about transforming yourself and your family for generations to come so that your kids don't grow up and have to do the same thing again. I'm going to hit on that a little bit this year, especially as we begin to just think about it. If we can change ourselves and model for our kids in 15 or 20 or 30 years when they are your age, they're not going to have to go through all of this pain that you are because you just showed the way and you broke the generational pattern. That's cool. Hey, thanks for listening. Please share the Calm Parenting Podcast. Reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. We'll help you out. If you want to schedule a live event, do it. Reach it out to Casey. We'd love to meet you in person. Love you all. Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.