Calm Parenting Podcast - MEN: 5 Quick, Practical Tips to Get the Respect You Want

Episode Date: January 27, 2018

Wives, tell your husbands, “All I want for Mother's Day is for you to take 15 minutes to listen to this.” It’s a great gift. Guys, you want respect. Here are 5 ways to get it very quickly. Learn how to calm upset kids, motivate kids in positive ways, de-escalate situations, and stop yelling. Plus learn one phrase your wife will love! Need help taking this further? Email [e-mail] with the word DAD in the subject line or call 888-506-1871. We will help you get the respect you want. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So I'm going to give you a quick rundown, try to give you five quick ideas that you can implement even today with your kids and in your home. So quick background on me, I am the son of a former career military father. He was known in our home as the Colonel. So it was a ton of fun growing up. Listen, my dad was a good guy, but he didn't have many tools. And all he knew was my way or the highway, fear and intimidation, screaming and yelling because my dad couldn't control himself. So he tried really hard to control his four boys. So guess what happens? I grow up and started having kids and my son Casey was my first son and guess what I did to him? Yell, scream, fear and intimidation. I come home from work, there's Legos on the floor, he's not doing his

homework and I was on my son from the day he came out of the womb because nothing he did was good enough for me. He couldn't please me, he was lazy and unmotivated. If he would just apply himself, how are you ever going to be successful in life? All those things kind of daily, everything frustrated me with him. And it was because I loved him, right? And I love him and you love your kids. And that's part of the reason it's so hard because then you want to see them do so well, but you end up getting on them and you lose the relationship. And my father actually went to his grave not having a relationship with any of his four sons because he never changed. I ultimately saw the light when my son was about nine and I put my focus on this. Instead of trying to control and change my son, I began to control and change

myself. Our entire relationship changed. We're very close now. We work together. Anyway, it's awesome. So I want to kind of encourage you and challenge you with that because here's what I know about men. We all want respect more than anything else. We want respect, but you can't demand respect. If you have to demand it, you don't have it. Here's what else I know about us as men. Men in every sphere of life respect other men who stay cool and calm under pressure, right? Your favorite quarterback, you don't want him coming into the huddle at the end of the game saying, you know what? We're down by two touchdowns. You don't know what route to run. You keep fumbling

the ball. You don't know how to block. Let's go score. Nobody's going to follow that quarterback because he's not in control of himself. The best quarterbacks are the ones who stay cool and calm under pressure. They come, they take a knee, and they say, guys, here's the deal. We're down by a couple touchdowns. We're going to march down the field. We're going to execute our plays. We're going to score, get the ball back, and score again. And that's why the team follows them. Think about the military, right? Do you want your platoon captain saying, oh my gosh, they're shooting at us. No, you'd freak out too. And I know many of you have been in the military and here's what I want you to think about.

There were commanding officers that you obeyed their orders because you had to, but then there were COs that you respected, right? And those are two different things. And as fathers, sometimes we get that messed up and we just want our kids to obey and listen to us. But what we really want is respect. And the reason, think about those qualities that that commanding officer had, or that boss or that mentor, that quarterback, whoever it is that you have respected. Those are the qualities we need to have, right? Many of us in the work world, look, how many of you are going to put up with your boss saying, Bill, you know what? Your presentation or your analysis, I don't know,

what were you thinking? You know, how many times have I told you not to do it that way? But we say those things to our kids all the time. So let me go through five quick tips for you. One, number one, get this in your brain. We want to be the leader in the home, right? We keep waiting for our kids and we keep saying, well, if my kids would just listen, if my kids, this is I'm gonna tell you, if you've got strong willed kids,

they're never going to please you or do things the way you want them done. They're just not. And you're gonna have to come to grips with that. Now, I believe your them done. They're just not. And you're going to have to come to grips with that. Now, I believe your kids will listen to you and they will follow you, but you must be the leader, right? And so rather than giving that child all the power and listen to ways for becoming the victim, well, if my kids would start, well, now your behavior is completely dependent on what your child does instead of what you do. The quickest way to change your child's behavior is to first control yourself.

So I'll give you a couple easy and fun ones that'll sound kind of weird. Tonight when you come home from work, instead of coming in and kind of stomping through the house and demanding things, sit. Try this one time. Sit in the middle of the living room floor or lie down on the floor, I guarantee you your kids will stop doing whatever they were doing and they will listen because now, one, they're freaked out, right? Like, what's my dad doing sitting on the floor? But you can lead from that position. It's very difficult to yell and lecture while you're laying down or sitting down. It changes your tone of voice. Look, here's another one for being calm and it's this. Watch tone of voice, right? You don't

respond to other leaders who are screaming and yelling and out of control, so why would your kids? But the reason you follow that platoon captain, right, or that quarterback is because his tone is, his tone is communicating this. Your world's out of control. I know you're scared right now, but I'm not. Everything's cool. I've seen this before. I've done this before. Your world's out of control. Mine's not. So begin to talk and speak in an even matter-of-fact tone. It is very powerful.

Number two, change your words. Begin building up. I'm going to give you a challenge for the next three days or maybe seven days, one week. I want you to watch your words. Instead of tearing down your kids, begin building them up. I'm not talking about fake praise. Oh, you're wonderful.

I'm not talking about participation trophy stuff. None of that, not fake praise. But I want you to recognize when your kids actually do things well. Because as men, we fall into the trap of only recognizing our kids when they mess up. And what happens is that negativity begins to affect their brain. And what they know is the only time I ever get any full attention from my father or my mother is when they're negative or I do something

wrong. And so they begin to fail and they mess up and it just keeps happening. So I want you to do the opposite of what you usually do. And I want you to recognize when your kids do make good choices. Now you're going to have to look at it closely for some of your kids. It may sound like this. Hey, Jacob, listen, usually every morning before breakfast, you hit your sister three times today. You only did it twice.

Nice job, my friend. Now I'm kind of kidding, but listen, our phrase is, we praise for progress, not perfection. Because sometimes guys have expectations that are so high that your kids will never meet them, and they'll eventually shut down and say, you know what? He's never going to be happy anyway. Why even try? And many of you had that experience with your own father. So I like even matter of fact praise. Hey, I like how you did that. You know what? That was good persistence. Okay, listen, when you want something, play with your video games, when you're building with Legos, you're persistent, my friend.

You don't give up until you get that high score on that video game. And you've got to find it, find the qualities that you want them to have. Watch they have it. They're persistent, right? When they care about something, they're persistent and they're motivated. They're just not right now persistent, motivated in doing anything you want them to do. But do find those things. I love coming home from work and saying, hey, mom's been texting this afternoon. She said you were being helpful today.

It's the way we do it in this home, right? And then walk away. Don't make a big deal of it. Number three, when your kids, when you need to discipline your kids. Now listen, I've got two hours of information on this, so listen to some of our other podcasts on discipline, but know that discipline doesn't mean to punish. It literally means to teach. So when your kids are messing up, here are a couple options, right? And just say, hey, listen, Jacob, you're about to make a bad choice here. Or you can just say, listen, you just made a bad choice.

I get it. I grew up watching Leave it to Beaver. Kids do stupid stuff. You made a bad mistake. Listen, I could send you to your room so that you know that what you did was wrong, but I already know that you know that what you did was wrong. And my assumption is you don't want to lose all your stuff. So listen, why don't you grab the

football meeting in the backyard. You and I will pass the football around and I'll show you how to make a different choice next time. Because good discipline always leads to you teaching and showing your child how to do it differently next time, right? So when you're out playing catch with the ball, you can say, listen, I'm curious. I just heard you yelling at your mother. I heard you, you know, I saw you hit your sister and I know you know that's wrong and you know the consequence for that is pretty severe and the truth is you did it anyway. So I'm curious what's going on with you, right? How can I help you with that? How can we make a different choice next time? And I begin to teach and show because the truth is in your office, that's what a good boss does with you. He just

doesn't ream you out because you messed up. He sends you for training. He teaches you, right? Number four, how to calm kids down. This could take an hour, but I'm going to do it like in two minutes or less. The phrase we use is called motion changes emotion. I want to use movement. And when kids are upset, right, we tend to follow their lead and we get upset. But I want you to lead your kids to calm. So three quick options. So your kids are freaking out. They're getting really upset. Instead of doing what I always did, which is, you know, one more word, young man, keep it up. You know, you've already lost your video games for two weeks. You know, one more word, we'll make it four weeks. Because your kids will just call your bluff and say,

why don't we make it two months, Dad? You've been there before and it just escalates. And I want you to de-escalate. So three quick options. You look at your son and say, hey, I can tell you're frustrated right now. Hey, do me a favor. Dump your Legos out on the floor. About 22 seconds, I'll come in.

I'll build a spaceship with you. And now I've got father and son or father and daughter sitting on the floor, building with Legos, and you're teaching and showing him how to calm down. And you're building your relationship with him. You're building trust because you're letting him know, I know you're freaking out, but I'm not. I can show you how to handle this differently. Coloring is a great one.

I use little girls all the time. Use it with a teenage daughter. It's got a nasty little mouth. Instead of reacting to them, right? Hear that again. Instead of reacting to your child, instead you sit down, you just start coloring. And I guarantee you any girl from of any age is going to sit down with her daddy and start coloring. And now you can address their behavior in a calm, even matter of fact language, but you're leading them to calm. A little bit more physical one. You're in aisle three at Target.

Child's freaking out. You have every right to say, Jacob, you're going to get your butt up off the floor. We're going to stop that right now. You're going to... That escalates every time. Instead of picture this, you get down on the floor in your living room and Target, wherever, start doing push-ups.

Now, it's weird, but you have weird kids and weird stuff works. And I guarantee that kid's going to look over and say, what's my dad doing push-ups for in the middle of aisle three? And you will just change that whole dynamic, not by controlling your child's behavior, but by controlling your own first. And you look up and say, Jacob, come on, you want to do 10 with me? Because listen, if you did 10 pushups, every time you got upset, you'd be ripped. Okay, don't say that, but you can think it, right? Because they're upset all the time. But now I've just led my child to a calm place. And once they're calm, now you can discipline. But more than that, you can teach them and say, hey, every day you're going to be frustrated and upset. Hitting, throwing things,

screaming, all those things just makes you lose all your stuff. So what do you want to do next time instead? You want to play catch with a football? You want to build with Legos? You want to do push-ups? I'm good either way. Just let me know. Number five, and I'll close with this. If you're married or some of you are divorced, but you're going to be dating again, listen, you've got to stop this because I want to stand up for you because I know it's really hard being a guy and all the pressure you're under, but you can't dismiss your wife's concerns anymore. We do that all the time. We dismiss them or we prove their point, our point all the time, because we have to prove while they're wrong and we're right. We can't just let it go. Your wife or girlfriend is never going to

say, honey, I'm so glad I married you because I have these illegitimate emotional feelings. And you're always around to prove out when I prove and show me, point out when I'm overreacting and to prove your point. It feels so safe to know I married someone who's always right. They're never going to say that. So I'll give you one quick phrase. This is easy. Come home from work and your wife's upset.

Something's going on or she comes home from work. One simple phrase. It's called the power of acknowledgement. Honey, I totally get why you'd be frustrated. Totally get why you're overwhelmed. And that's it. Nothing else. All she wants is for you to acknowledge that what she's feeling is legitimate. You don't have to fix it.

She doesn't want you to fix it. If you want, you can say, hey, I can tell you're frustrated. Is there anything I can do to help? And leave it at that. Usually she just wants you to know that you acknowledge what she's going through and she'll probably just want a hug, but that's it. I'll give you another one. When your wife, and I know this is a little self-serving, but it's funny and it's true. Many of you have wives and you're like, oh, we need to work on our parenting. We need to work on our marriage. And you just dismiss her like, you know, we're fine.

We don't need to do that, right? Because we're skeptical men and we're cheap a lot of times, right? So a lot of your wives, because I know they come out to our live events and I encourage you to do that. And I'll be like, oh, let's get this guy's CDs. They really help with discipline and parenting. You're like, we don't need that. And that's when we know, yeah, you're the guy who needs that. And I'll be like, oh, let's get this guy's CDs. They really help with discipline and parenting. You're like, we don't need that. And that's when we know, yeah, you're the guy who needs that. So if you want to get huge brownie points and really impress your wife here, and honestly, if you want

to turn her on, and I'm not being funny with this, it's important. Go to her after listening and say, honey, I realize I need some to change some things in my parenting. I really need some help with that. I guarantee you will floor her. Nothing will be sexier, nothing will be more impressive than a man who humbles himself and says, you know what? I don't have it all right. I need some help. If you say, you know what?

Let's get those CDs. And again, I'm not just being self-serving trying to get your money, but they're really good and you do need them. But if you go and say, hey, I really want to get those. Now you're backing it up and you're saying, you know what? I spend my money on my electronics, on my trips, my fishing trips. I go to my college football games. I do all those things I want to do as a guy with my money. But now you're saying, I want to invest in our marriage. I want to invest in our family. I am telling you, you will blow your wife away. It's really cool. So listen, five quick tips. Listen to this over and over again. Listen to our other podcasts because we go into more depth there. But I wanted to keep this short. If you

have any questions, email. You can email me directly at kirk, K-I-R-K, at CelebrateCalm.com. If we can help you in any way, email us, call us, 888-506-1871. But we'd love to help you out as a man. Thank you for being engaged with your kids. You're really, really important at home, and nobody can replace you. You're replaceable at your office, but you're not replaceable to your kids. So I appreciate you putting your time into this. Thanks so much.