Calm Parenting Podcast - Lying & Misbehavior: Don’t Miss the Real Issue!

Episode Date: May 31, 2020

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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. Do you have a child who lies? Who just makes stuff up? Who lies right to your face even when you know it? Why would they do that? What are they getting out of it? And most importantly, what can we do about it? How can we stop it? That is what we're going to discuss today on the Calm Parenting Podcast. We're glad you're here. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you ever need anything, email our son, who lied a lot when he was a little kid.

Email him. By the way, he is a rock-solid human being. He does not lie. He is actually filled with integrity. Casey is one of those people that I know who is very honest. He can handle conflict. He can handle this stuff because we kind of showed him how to do that, but it's also part of who he is and he will help you. So if you email him, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at celebrate calm.com, he'll help you. He'll answer your questions. He'll

encourage you. He will help put together the right resources for your family. He'll help you. He'll answer your questions. He'll encourage you. He will help put together the right resources for your family. He'll do it within your budget. You know why? Because that's what we exist to do, right? This isn't a business. It's a mission. It's a passion that we have, and we're here to help you, and we want things to change. So we're going to talk about lying today. Three points I want to make, and I'm going to wrap it at the end into making this very, very, very practical with a very specific application. Number one, smart kids lie. Smart kids lie. You know why? Because they're thinkers. They think, I want something. How do I get it? And they'll try all kinds of different ways because they're very, very strategic. But when most of their other ways aren't going to work, what are they going to do? They're going to make up a story. Or they're just going to be impulsive,

which is part of being a kid, not a bad thing. You want kids to be impulsive so that they learn from that, so that they're not still being really, really impulsive when they're 40. So when things don't go their way or they get in trouble, now what are they going to do? They're going to lie about it, right? Because look, think about it. Why would you not do something to get what you want? It's a very rational, smart thing to do. And part of it is they don't give up on trying to get what they want. And if lying works for them in the moment, well, that's what they're going to do. So it's a very natural, normal thing to do. And it usually oftentimes is a sign of kids who are actually very, very bright. Don't freak out about it. If you have kids who are adopted, especially if they were adopted from overseas,

from an orphanage, if they have been neglected when they were little, a lot of times we've noticed those kids lie a lot too. And part of that is a survival instinct that they have. So I don't want you to freak out. Number two point, which is critical. Most lying isn't an integrity issue. It is a shame issue. Most of you with strong willed kids have kids who are filled with shame because they've been in trouble since the day where they were born and the day they came out of that womb. They are in trouble all the time and are trying to cover it up. Let's go back. Let's do a little bit of history here and see where this comes from.

It's really interesting. And this doesn't matter if you're religious, not religious. The first stories in ancient literature, whether you think that it is a literal story of Adam and Eve, or if you think that it is metaphorical, or if it's just purely literature, it doesn't matter to me, but here's what is important. It is ancient literature that one of the first civilized human beings

who wanted to represent and tell stories about their culture. The very first story, the very first chapter of the book that was written, watch what happens. And again, it doesn't matter to me if you're religious or not. It's instructive to me that one of the very first advanced civilizations chose to represent themselves by this story. There's an authority figure who tells this guy, you do all this other stuff, don't eat from that tree. What does the guy do? Eats from the tree. What happens? The authority figure catches his child doing something wrong and says, Hey, I just caught you. Why did you do that? One of the first acts represented in ancient literature by a human being is,

Um, she made me do it. He blamed another human being, his wife. He lied. he lied. He lied. And that is one of the first things that happened. And then what happened? The next thing we know, he knows that he's naked and he's covering up himself. He's covering up.

And what the ancient literature in Genesis says, it's because he was ashamed and he tried to cover up his nakedness. That is what a lie is. It is one of the most, well, we've said that. It is a foundational part of human nature. It's what we've been doing and what I want you to get out of that isn't like, oh, it's normal. Just let it go. No, let's get to the root of it. The root of it was shame.

And I promise you, most of your strong willed kids, that's what they're feeling. And a lot of times, the way we approach them as authority figures reinforces the shame. What were you thinking? How many times do I have to tell you? Those phrases literally mean you're an idiot. True? That's what it means. How many times do I have to tell you? Obviously, you're such an idiot that you didn't figure out that you should. Right? And that's why we prefer, and I really like, the I'm curious phrase. And I've been through that in other podcasts. And I'll hit it here in the third part of this in just a second. But we spend way too much time, if you've got little kids, even teenagers,

spend way too much time just saying no all the time. Don't do that. Stop doing that. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't all the time. Don't do that. Stop doing that. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. And what you have to do is say yes to things. Give your kids things they can do. Every time you tell your child to stop doing something or to stop doing something inappropriate, give them something appropriate to do. We want to focus on giving kids tools on creating successes so that we can counter that shame response. So third point, here's where we're going to put it together.

Great email from a good mom. My daughter missed an assignment and got a zero. So I asked her to email the teacher and see if she can make it up or do extra work to bring her grade up from a D. She said she would. A few days later, I asked her to email the teacher and see if she could make it up or do extra work to bring her grade up from a D. She said she would. A few days later, I asked her about it and I got this vague answer from her. Sound familiar? After more digging, I found out she never emailed the teacher in the first place after she told me three times that she did.

When I asked her about it, she gave more excuses that didn't make sense. So I basically caught her in the lie. And that is when she finally admitted that she lied. How would you handle blatant lying like that? Side note, she doesn't have a phone yet. She's 12. She's trying to earn the privilege. The lying certainly isn't helping her case. It doesn't matter to me right now. Watch how the mom ended this email. Very instructive. All of her tantrums stem from schoolwork, and the overall feeling she has is low confidence and being in the shadow of her older sister, who's one year older and does everything well. Bingo, mom. You just answered your own question, right? And so here's, let's break this down a little bit. You can hear from parents, right? Like, how would you handle blatant

lying? And I get it, mom and dads. I get it. You take it personally. It's like, oh, it's a personal integrity issue. That is blatant lying. And your anxiety gets triggered and you fast forward in your brain and project out into the future and think, I'm going to have this lying child. How are they ever going to be successful? And then you're going to take it personally, right? And so this is part of why we talk about being calm. I don't want to be successful. And then you're going to take it personally, right? And so this is part of why we talk about being calm. I don't want to be calm just for the sake of being calm. I'm not Gandhi, okay? It's practical. There's a utilitarian purpose to being calm. And here's why. Two ways to respond. One is to react. And as soon as I react, here's what happens. I take it

personally, right? I project out into the future. All of my anxiety starts kicking in. I start thinking, what kind of parent am I, right? Why is she doing this, right? I didn't teach her to lie. What's going to happen to her in life? And we start doing all these things. We get misdirected. This whole email, the subject line, was about lying. And watch what happens. Our anxiety and reacting causes us to miss the real issue. This issue has zero to do, nothing to do with lying. This whole story has absolutely nothing to do with lying. But what happens is we react and we're like, I don't believe, I don't understand why you would lie to me.

You know what, that's going to ruin our trust. I'm not going to be able to get you a phone because I can't trust you. If you're going to continue to lie, and we're going to go lie, lie, lie, and we're going to get into that. The child, and look, I understand that impulse, right? I understand that. You should be freaked out at first. That's why we don't react, because when you react to freaking out, it does a couple things. We miss the real issue, and we begin to ruin the relationship. Watch how this works. Now, not blaming us, but I want us to grow up and I want us to figure out how to do these things. And that's why, look, that's why we talk about,

go to CelebrateCalm.com, get the Calm Parenting Package. We've got it on sale, 60% off, 60% off. Everything on the website is like 60% off, 66% off, because we don't want you having a reason not to get the tools. These are tools that% off, because we don't want you having a reason not to get the tools. These are tools that will help you because as you listen, you will learn this process and it will become more natural. So instead of reacting all the time, instead of losing your cool, instead of projecting out in the future, you can actually problem solve and do this. And if you need help with that, email Casey and I'll help you. But that's why I want you to listen to stuff all the time so it becomes more natural so that when these situations happen, you know exactly what to do. Now watch,

this is an important part. This will cause us, if we don't handle it the right way, to begin to really ruin that trust. But it's from a different standpoint. See, this daughter, the daughter that we're talking about, she already feels bad. Why? Because she's not good with her schoolwork. She doesn't have a lot of confidence and she's living in the shadow of her perfect older sister. And now mom's hammering her, understandably, for lying. And she's all over. Now here's one more step toward no confidence and the relationship gets ruined because now she's like, but mom, it wasn't even about lying.

The lying's not the real issue. And so watch all these things. We begin to assume the worst about our child, right? And it becomes a never-ending cycle. If you're going to lie and not tell the truth, well, then you're going to be grounded. And you're going to lose this. And you're not going to get this.

And I will tell you, when we treat behavior, when we react to outward behavior, watch how this works. The lying is an outward manifestation of something going on inside your child. Almost every single behavior, outward behavior that you are dealing with that you want to change so badly is usually just a smoke screen or it is usually a manifestation of something else happening inside your child. And that's why you're caught in that cycle of no matter what you do, nothing ever changes. That's why consequences don't work. What consequence are you going to, well, I need to give her a consequence for lying. I'm going to wash out her mouth, wear her mouth out with soap, and I'm

just going to take things away. Well, but you're not dealing with the root of the issue. And so here's where we get to, instead of reacting, I respond. And I step back for a minute, and I control my own anxiety, and I don't get freaked freaked out. I don't project into the future. And now I can see it clearly. The lying is not the issue. Isn't it fascinating? And I'm not getting on this mom at all. It's what we all do.

But she wrote this whole thing out about lying. And it's blatant. Listen to it. Blatant lying. Right? Because it gets under your skin. And in the very last paragraph, in the last sentence, she basically answered her own question. All of her tantrums stem from schoolwork.

An overall feeling that she's low in confidence and is in the shadow of her perfect older sister. Well, that's the whole issue. That's the root of the issue. She doesn't do schoolwork well. She struggles with it. And now she's embarrassed, i.e. ashamed of her grade that she didn't turn it in, right? And she didn't do the work. And so mom says, realistic, right? Rightly so. Well, you need to talk to your teacher and see if you can make up for that. And daughter's like, okay. Well, then the daughter doesn't do it, right? Why? Because she's ashamed and she doesn't want to go to her teacher and say, hey, that assignment you gave me, yeah, listen, I didn't do it. And I'm going to lie to my mom about it. Okay. Like what? Right. And I get that. So mom's like, well, did you email the teacher? Yeah. I,

I email her. Everything's good, mom. Why? Because I don't want to deal with it. And I'm not saying it's right of her to do at all. But I also, because I'm an adult and because I tend to place the onus on the adults in the situation, I'm not blaming the mom here, so please don't hear that. Don't hear it's like, oh, it's always our fault. Not at all. It's just that we're the grown-ups, and I think that we should do it as part of our job is to teach our kids. See, we're really good at giving consequences and punishing

and sending to the room and taking away stuff. That's not teaching. That's not real discipline. Discipline means to teach. Not teaching her anything. Well, I just told her, I just told her that lying's wrong. Your daughter already knows that lying's wrong. Your three-year-old knows that lying is, and stealing, and everything else they do, they know it's wrong. They just don't want the consequence for it, right? And they want to's wrong. They just don't want the consequence for it, right? And they want to please us. They want to know how to do it, but they often don't know how

to do it. And this girl is ashamed. So here's what's really cool. Now that I can step back and know, oh, here's the reason she's lying. It's because she's not confident, not good at school, and doesn't feel good compared to her sister. Now I'm going to get to the root of it. I'm going to problem solve. And now I'm going to come alongside my daughter. See, most of the time, it's me standing up against, facing my child saying, why would you do that? If you continue to do that, and the kids, they're like, you have no idea what the real issue is. You have no, right? Why are you getting me on about the line? The real issue is that I don't feel good about myself and I'm ashamed of myself. And so I'm just going to lie

because I can't deal with it. Right? And so instead of facing off against the child, me against you, which watch, I prompt, watch what happens. I guarantee this is going to happen when we react and handle it that way. Guess what's going to happen? She's going to lie even more. She's going to use all of her creativity and all of that brain energy to keep lying and lie even better so that this doesn't keep repeating. But now I understand what the root of the issue is. Now I can come alongside my daughter and say, hey, listen,

I'm curious. I know that you didn't do the assignment. I know you didn't email your teacher. And I know school is frustrating for you. And I'm curious, what's the hardest part of your schoolwork? Now you've got a counter inside your brain. It's like, well, she would just try if she would just do her best. She's smart enough. Well, again, do you want me to come beside you every day? I know this podcast probably sounds like it is, but do you want me to come to your house and point out everything you do wrong and then just point out, you know, if you just applied yourself a little bit more, you would do that better, right? Like that's not what my tone, I don't want that to be.

I'm trying to give you insight and then give you tools so you can do it better. My job is to give you tools as a parent so that next time you don't head down that path. I'm giving you tools, right? It's not just ending with like, you know what? You know why your daughter does that? Because she can't trust you because you're a horrible mother or dad, right? That's not the message. I want us to realize what we're doing so that we can then change it. And I try to give you lots and lots and lots of tools. So here's a tool, which is come alongside and say, I'm curious and identify with her struggles and say, of course, school's difficult. I get it. Cause you've got this really cool. If you want to go a little deeper, you've got this really cool brain. That's really, really busy and you're

super creative. And so your brain's always running in all these different ways. And it's very, very busy in there and you're creative and you're thinking about all kinds of different solutions. And so it makes school a little bit harder for you. I get that. So what is the hardest part of it? What do you need help with most? How can we do it differently? And here's where we give tools.

And that's a huge part of our program is giving kids tools to succeed. Rather than just, if you keep doing that, X is the consequence. Like, no, of course you're struggling. Of course you're struggling. So here's some tools. How do you want to do schoolwork differently? You want to do schoolwork sitting out in the back of the pickup truck. You want to do your schoolwork, we'll put a blanket over the kitchen table and make a fort because forts are

pretty cool. You want to do it while you're listening to music, while you're sitting in a closet, while you're walking outside, while you're on your swing. How do you want to do your homework differently? How can we jumpstart your brain? And that's a huge part of the No BS program, especially. ADHD University program is great for understanding the child's brain. That comes with the special Calm Parenting package. If you want the No BS program, we go through a lot

more on like jumpstarting the child's brain, how to get them to push through when things are difficult because you have to teach them how to do it. There's a get everything package. Go on the website and find it there. But anyway, I want to give some tools to jumpstart the brain to teach them how to manage their energy, not their time. So instead of, watch what we've done. Instead of this being about, I need to stop my daughter from lying. Now we've reframed this to, no, I need to give my daughter some tools so that she can do her homework and feel confident doing that. And when she does her homework, I'm going to affirm her. I'm going to be like, hey, that was a really good job because that was a tough assignment, but I saw what you

did. Man, you really worked hard on that. You really overcame that. And now I'm teaching her tools to do it so she's confident. And I'm going to do a lot of other things to build up her confidence, like focus on her strengths and give her jobs to do and missions that take advantage of her gifts, talents, and passions, right? I'm going to use that to build up her confidence. It's tools, tools, tools, tools, tools, and we're building the child up from the inside out so that they don't feel ashamed, so they don't feel bad about themselves, so they don't feel like they need to lie or shut down, right? Does that make sense? So let me tie this all together. I encourage you with this process. When something happens, when you see an outward behavior that your child is exhibiting, instead of reacting, let's be a detective and let's look a little bit deeper and let's think,

huh, what do you think that what is the real issue behind this? And what kind of tools can I give my child in order to create successes and build their confidence? And you can do this whether your child is three or 13 or 17 or eight or nine, whatever age, it's the process we all use for ourselves, right? Of getting to the root of it. And so I want you next time your kids lie, step back and think, why are they lying? I wonder what's really going on. Be curious. Why are my kids playing video games all the time?

I guarantee there's a reason that they're doing it that you're not seeing. But if you dig in and say, I'm curious because I'm sitting next to you and you're doing this thing many hours a day. And I'm curious, what are you getting out of it? How is this serving you? Whatever behavior it is, stealing things. What are you getting out of it? How is this serving you? Whatever behavior it is stealing things, what are you getting out of that? Is that from brain stimulation? Are you bored? Why are you getting in trouble in class? Why is it? Because you're bored? Good. Well, let me figure out, give you some tools so you're not so bored. Does that make sense? If you go deeper, you'll

find a solution. Look, I don't want parenting to be so hard it's already hard to begin with because all relationships are but parenting doesn't have to be that hard we tend to make it harder than it needs to be I want to take the pressure off of you because once we get to the root of it and we teach this girl how to do homework in different ways guess what happens the line begins to stop all the negative outward behavior begins to go away because we got to the root of it. And that's a lot easier than the negative. Watch, if you're in that never-ending cycle

of consequences, consequences, consequences, child lies, shame, all that sequence, then change it. And let's do it a different way. And let us help you with that. Email Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. He will help you with our, pick out the right resources for your family. He will help you with your budget. We'll help you with everything. It's what we're here for. And we love you very much. And we want you to enjoy your kids again. And we want you to enjoy being a parent. So thanks. Let us know how we can help. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.