Calm Parenting Podcast - No More Behavior Charts! Turning Negative Behavior Positive.

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

No More Behavior Charts! Turning Negative Behavior Positive. How do you address real behavior issues without resorting to negative methods that don’t work and make things worse? Aren’t you letting kids “get away with” misbehavior? No! Why is it damaging when Dads demand their kids look them in the eyes? Kirk provides concrete answers for kids who fidget, have sensory issues, talk constantly, and struggle with behavior. This is very powerful and it works, so much that a school where we spoke just eliminated the use of behavior charts! Email [e-mail] now and we’ll train your parents and teachers for 25% OFF. Plus use Coupon Code MEN25 for 25% OFF anything on our site for the next week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey moms and dads, you know that our goal is to raise curious kids who love to learn, and iXL makes that so much easier. iXL is an online learning program that enriches your homeschool curriculum from K-12. iXL encourages students to be curious and empowers them to choose how to learn. No matter your child's learning style or knowledge level, IXL has video tutorials and learning games to guide your child in the way your kids learn best while meeting them at their level. On IXL, kids can explore any topic in any grade level. They're not forced into a single learning path. Kids love IXL's positive feedback and parents love knowing specific skills that need work.

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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. Hey everyone, this is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. Glad you're here. You can find us on CelebrateCalm.com. Listen, in this session today, what I wanted to talk about

is kids who struggle with, you know, kind of constantly moving in class, the kids who can't stop talking and generally just kind of struggle with their behavior. And then I also want to hit one quick thing for men on men and them struggling with behavior. I'm kidding. But there's a very specific guy issue I want to hit. And this kind of came up recently. But thank you for joining us. We're coming to you live from Dallas, Texas.

We're on the road. We've had some great events all across the country. Look, thank you for listening to the podcast, by the way, because we're spreading. So please continue to spread this. We were in Springdale, Arkansas. We didn't even know where that was. the country. Look, thank you for listening to the podcast, by the way, because we're spreading. So please continue to spread this. We were in Springdale, Arkansas. We didn't even know where that was. We show up and the church was super excited. So we turned out 200 people in this small town. It's awesome. And a lot of people had come because they'd heard the podcast. And there were, a mom drove two and a half hours. And we don't take that lightly

because, you know, if you drive two and a half hours, that means that you're struggling with something and you want to hear something fresh and new and something that can really make a difference. And so, you know, when we do these live events, it's not just like some fun, entertaining show. And it is entertaining. It's a lot of fun, but it's a whirlwind, man. We try to really hit on a lot of different issues to make long-term lasting change. We just encourage you to come out. Look, we were in Springdale, Arkansas. Where is that? If you're like, oh, you'll never come to our town.

Yeah, we do. We go everywhere we're asked. I want to do something a little different. I talked to Casey about this. Here's what we're going to do. Spring, fall schedule, we're pretty much all packed in and we're starting to fill up in the spring. But if you will reach out to us now, we'll ahead. To be honest, I love to have our schedule done really early. That gives me months to plan. You know, I'm like your kids. I don't like last minute changes. I like to have things planned. It helps me plan our travel schedule. It helps our personal life. Look, this is personal. When we're gone, we're away from our family and our loved ones and away from home.

And so it helps us plan our time together as a family. So you've got to email my son, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com or call 888-506-1871. You've got to do this by October 31st, okay? And we'll give you 25% off of our normal fees. If you just start to contact us, let us know the name of your school, your church, your synagogue, your mosque, foster care, adoption care agency. If you're a mental health agency, we do training for them. We do all kinds of corporate training. Because I got a note from a nice mom. She's like, you always mention school and church. You come to synagogues. We'll speak anywhere.

We go to conventions of all kinds. Anywhere there are people whose relationships need to change, and especially people with kids and strong will kids, we'll go. So contact him. We'll do it. Here's why I'm doing this podcast this morning. We just got this huge breakthrough because we did this workshop in this school district. And usually what we'll do is during the day, we'll do professional development training for teachers, which is awesome and really practical. And then the evening, we'll do a parenting workshop. And sometimes during the day, Casey will actually do a school assembly, which is way cool because now you've got parents, teachers, and kids on the same page. In this town, though, you know what we did? We brought everybody together. So we had a joint parenting and teacher workshop, and it was awesome.

So beforehand, I'm like, okay, what are the different issues? What are the different issues. Well, some parents were like, hey, you can talk to the teachers, to the school about dropping the behavior chart because it's just not working and it reinforces failure. And I was like, we can do that. But then the teacher in the school, I said, well, here's what they're going to say. Well, aren't you just letting kids get away with things? And so here's what we went through. And this is kind of cool. So you can take these ideas into your teacher, share the podcast with teachers, share this with your principal and your school district or church or synagogue, well, listen, don't get on the school about that because you do the same thing.

All you ever ask me is, well, what kind of consequences are going to change my child's behavior? And the answer is consequences don't usually change our kids' behavior, especially strong-willed kids. Relationships change behavior. And we're not letting kids get away with things. We're addressing the issues head-on. But watch how different this is. Whether you're using a behavior chart or consequences at home, you're being reactive. You are waiting for the child to misbehave, to mess up, to fail, then you are punishing him for his behavior and expecting him that next time he's about to make a decision, he's going to rationally think that far ahead

and take everything into account. It just doesn't work. So what we're saying is we already know that our kids struggle in certain areas. So why not proactively create successes? So some of the teachers, well, what about this issue? What about kids who are moving all the time? What about kids who can't stop talking? So here are two quick ideas for you. Number one, we have a lot of kids who never stop moving, right? And that's a perfectly natural thing to do, but you can't just say, oh, it's natural. Let kids do whatever comes natural to them. You can't always do that in the classroom, right? You got to keep a little bit of order. So let's say we've got a kid who really needs to

move. And if he doesn't move, he's going to get up. He's going to get bored, go around, talk to people, disrupt class. And it becomes an endless nightmare of, hey, Jacob, look at me, look at me, one, two, three, eyes on me, look, look, look, sit down. If you can't sit down, if you can't pay attention, you're going to lose recess. You're going to go to the principal's office, negative, negative, negative, it never changes. So I was working with a school in Michigan once. By the way, we're coming to Michigan in early November. We're in Texas this week, California next weekend. Then we go up to Arlington, Virginia, and Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan. So look at CelebrateCalm.com.

You can look at the live events and see this. It's pretty cool. So we were working with these teachers in Michigan. I had this idea and we used it and it was awesome. So here's what teachers did. Grab two backpacks, a red backpack and a blue backpack. Does it matter what the color is? No. Some of you take everything I say so literally, and I'll get emails like, is there a reason that it's a red backpack? Because that says, no, it can be a green, a black, a pink. I don't care. Grab two backpacks. I just like to demonstrate the principle. I try to make it very specific for you, but I don't care. Grab two backpacks. I just like to demonstrate the principle. I try to make it very specific for you, but I don't want you to get hung up on, well, what kind of backpack is it?

And I'm going to tell you, put some books in the backpack. I don't care what kind of books you can put bricks in there. I don't care what you put in the backpacks. Make them a little bit heavy, but you don't want to hurt the child. So one teacher has the blue backpack. The teacher next door, Mrs. Henderson, she has the other backpack. So child's starting to move around in class, getting a little disruptive, but rather than go negative and go with a consequence, the teacher says, hey, Jacob, listen, I can use your help. Listen, Mrs. Henderson next door, she needs the blue backpack. Could you grab that and take it to her and come right back? So the child goes to the back of the room. He

grabs this backpack. He puts it on his back or over his shoulder. It's a little bit heavy. That's actually really good for your kids. It's calming and settling sometimes. It really helps to carry something heavy. By the way, that actually helps when you engage the larger muscle groups with heavy things or with sweeping the floor. I do an example where I have kids clean the desks in the classroom because now you're getting that wax on, wax off principle, right? Where you're engaging, crossing the midline of the brain, engaging both hemispheres of the brain. And it's really calming and helps kids focus a little bit. And when you engage like the larger muscle groups, it actually helps kids with the writing process. It's really kind of cool. So the kid puts the backpack on, he takes it next door to Mrs. Henderson. And when she sees

that Jacob coming through the door, that's a cue for her to be, oh, Jacob, thank you. Do me a favor. Take the red backpack back to your teacher because she really needs it. Now he takes it back into the class and now his main teacher says, oh, thank you. Awesome. Sit down. Look, this took less than a minute to do. I gave this kid probably about 48 seconds of appropriate movement. He didn't really miss out on anything in class because I normally would have spent three or four or seven or 18 minutes redirecting him. And now he comes back in. He had carried two heavy objects. Two teachers had said, thank you.

You're a good helper. So I had affirmed him for something. And now he sits down and he got some of the wiggles out. He got some of that movement. And now I can redirect him. And watch how I give directions. It's very low key. I'm not using a snotty tone because you need to sit in my class.

I was very direct with now I can say, Jacob, here's what I need you to do for the next 17 minutes. And I can reinforce that. Does that make sense? It's a really cool thing. I just created a success for this child. And it's really important to do that. And this is the kind of thing that we can do with the live workshops. And it makes a big difference when parents and teachers hear it from someone else. Right. So here's the one, another one. Well, we've got these kids and they never stop talking.

Well, look, I'm a realist. There are kids who are so verbally expressive that I can't guarantee you that I can get them just to be quiet all day. That would be unnatural and it would be wrong, but I can make progress. By the way, I was walking last night back from dinner and I was really thinking about this. You know, we only spend time trying to change the behavior of our kids, but imagine you have some kids in your class, right, who are, they never blurt out, they never really speak up. And so I could look at those kids and say, you know, that's not a good thing, because they need to

learn to be assertive in life and speak up about what they want. Some kids who sit perfectly still and don't speak up, while we love them them because they're really easy to deal with. There's some things there that aren't so great. Sometimes those kids are afraid of speaking up because they're afraid of failure and they're perfectionists. And that's not a good trait at all. Look, talking a lot isn't immoral, right? It's just annoying. And yes, it can be rude at times, but I'm not making excuses for it. But look, why don't we ever correct or send notes home to like, look, I'm concerned about your daughter. She never speaks up. I think that's going to be an issue in her life. She's afraid of failure. She doesn't know how to be assertive about what she wants or needs.

She doesn't like sharing her ideas. And so that's going to hurt her in the workforce. It's going to hurt her in her relationships. And she may not speak up to her spouse one day. And now she's going to bury her resentment. So why don't we work on that? See, we don't ever think to do those things, right? But what if we went to that kid and we were like, you know, you really need to start speaking up more in my class. You really need to start doing that because if you're not going to do that, I'm going to mark your grade down and I'm just going to shame you for that. Well, that child would be very frustrated if we started to take away recess because she wasn't or he wasn't being assertive. But that sounds so weird, doesn't it, that you have to change these kids somehow from being what they're naturally like. But if we applied the same standards to every kid in your class, we'd be changing all of them all day long. And every

one of them would be in trouble because nobody's good at everything. But let's be a realist. You've got a kid who blurts out and talks out in class. And I do lots of examples on blurting out. But here's what I don't do often. Right? So what if the teacher with this talkative kid who I get is normally very annoying? And trust me, you know who knows he's annoying more than anyone else? His parents because he never stops talking because we had that son and his name's Casey. And if you email him or call him and ask him about that 25% off code, you will find that he's very engaging on the phone, and he's very engaging by email and very quick. And that actually serves him very well in life because he knows how to communicate. He just didn't know how to turn that off in class.

Plus, like many of your kids, he was a little bit, you know, he struggled in school. So how did he use his talking? He used it to make other kids cut up and laugh. Why? Because when you're a kid, you want to be liked. And most of our kids aren't always that likable. And so he used his natural gift to do funny stuff. So again, you can't just say, oh, I get it, that's okay. But you can understand why they're doing it. So instead of thinking they're just rude, misbehaving kids who are intent on ruining your life as a parent or a teacher, you get to see that they're really insecure kids who are struggling to get along with other people. So out of their pain and out of the feeling of being left out of everything because they're not good at playing games with other kids, they don't get invited to class birthday party,

they try to become liked by saying something funny in class. So other people, they have the illusion that other kids like them. So look, that's part of why we love doing what we love. It's not making excuse for a kid, but if I have a kid in my home or my classroom and I just think he's being rude or just being a bad kid, well, then I'm going to go hardcore on him and my tone's going to be like this. And I'd be like, you know what? Stop doing that in my class because you can't stop doing that. I'm going to take away everything you own. And I'm going to take away recess. And I'm going to shame you in front of the other kids.

And guess what? You're now going to be even more of a pariah in your home, in your classroom, and in your community. And now this kid who was just trying to make other people cut up because he's lonely, because he's tired of sitting alone in the cafeteria, and nobody really gets along with him. Now what if I were to see this is a kid who just wants someone to like him and who does naturally talk a lot and school's not really cut out for him, right? And so if I look at that kid, what if I was able to engage him and say, man, Jacob, you know why I love having you in my class? Because you're always filled with thoughts and ideas, right? You're a thinker and you have interesting ideas. They're always off topic. Just think that to yourself. But you're interesting.

And I know you struggle because you're very verbal and you want to get these thoughts and you're afraid you're going to forget those thoughts. I want to hear your thoughts, but right now isn't the time. Right? So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make this little pad up for you. Have your parents make up a little notepad at the top. I'm going to have a little light bulb on it because I'd like your ideas. Every time you get one of those thoughts or ideas, just jot it down, make a little note on this little notepad. And on my desk, you're going to find this little idea box. And I want you to go up there and put that little piece of paper in this idea box. After we come in from recess or after we come in from lunch, I'm going to pull two pieces of paper out of that idea box every day. And I'm going to read

it. And I'm going to ask you, I'm you and say, Jacob, tell me about that idea. What were you thinking about? Because I want the rest of the class to hear your thoughts because I wish the rest of the kids in my class were as thoughtful, were as creative, as imaginative as you are. I think they could learn from you. Now, you're not going to blurt out my class and I'm not going to allow you to interrupt me and you can't share your ideas

right in the middle of when I'm talking and in the middle of the class because that's not appropriate, right? But I will give you 90 seconds or two full minutes or two and a half minutes right after recess or right after lunch to share your thoughts. What have you been reading? What have you been thinking about? Because I want everyone else in the class to hear the way your brain works because it's really, really cool and you have the kind of brain that will change the world one day because you're not afraid to think outside the box. And that's why I want you to put your thoughts in the box so later're not afraid to think outside the box. And that's why I want you to put your thoughts in the box. So later we will take them out of the box and share them.

And I hope that you can inspire some other kids to be more like you and to be assertive and not be able to, and not, not be afraid to share ideas that are a little bit different, right? Because that's the way the world changes, when people have different ideas and they're not afraid to share them, right? Because I go on and on with this because, look, you know I've been reading about Copernicus because we're visiting Poland. He was a guy who had ideas about how the universe worked. It was totally against everything that science and the church,

the leading authorities of the day for like 1400 years had believed that they're the wrong thing about how the earth and sun interrelate, how the universe works. And he wasn't afraid to share, although he really was because it took him like 40 years to finally publish his findings. But we needed people like that. So look, can you imagine you're a kid in class and normally you get in trouble and at home you get in trouble for talking all the time. And now someone comes along and affirms you and says, it's okay. Not only is it okay, it's a good thing, but you're not going to do it in the middle class. You're not going to do it when I'm talking, but I am going to give you time at this

designated space and time. See, that's cool. Now that kid will spend his lunchtime thinking about what he wants to say. And he's going to say some things that are kind of funny, maybe a little bit ridiculous at times, but I guarantee he's going to say some really profound things. You know what else is going to happen? I guarantee during this kid's time, every day when he gets to share, eventually he's going to share what it feels like to be him. And he's going to share some really profound, deep insights about what life is really like for someone like

him. And the other kids are going to get to see him in an entirely different way. And you will change his entire school experience. And you didn't even really have to do much. Look, this stuff, it's about perspective and having tools and strategies to do this. Look, I'm so passionate about this stuff. I so want you to learn how to do this in your classroom, in your home. Because, look, in your home. Let me give you one other example that I was going to do that we're doing at the live workshops that's having a big impact because we get a lot of men coming out to our workshops,

and they won't come out to a normal parenting thing. And this is not being sexist at all, but sometimes men need to hear something from another man, and it resonates. And there's nothing wrong with going and listening to a mom who does parenting stuff, because they're going to have really cool insight. I'm not downing. I'm just saying we get a lot of men who come out and usually the men are the resistant ones in the home. So it gives me a unique platform to reach men because I know this and I make this

joke when I'm talking about our CDs that we did this. We have the CD that's just for men, straight talk for dads, right? Because it's my son and I start talking directly to men like men, because I know that men tend not to listen to their wives. But if they read something on the internet or a stranger tells them, then it's true. And so I get a lot of men coming out and they hear themselves in me, in my story of what I was like. And every time I give the example, like one more word, young man, you know, keep it up, keep it up. You keep talking like that. You've already lost your video games for one week. You want to make it two weeks. You know what? You can slam the door where you don't have to respect me, but you're going to respect

my furniture. And every man lecture that's ever given, they'll come up and they'll be like, Kirk, I'm you, right? Like I am the way you were, like help me change. So one thing I've been hitting, and that's why I want you to schedule live workshops because we have an impact on teachers and parents and dads, it's cool. So email Casey, please, and set this stuff up. It's really cool.

You get 25% off. And by the way, I wanna to do this example for men, but before I get, if you go on our website at celebrate calm.com, you can use this coupon code. I'm just going to make it up right now and make Casey create it. Again, don't be offended by this, but let's make it men 25. It doesn't matter. You might be a single mom, and you may have had like a bad husband in your past. So don't be offended. But let's do men, M-E-N, 25. And for the next week or so, while that works, you get 25% off anything on our website.

Anything on our website that you want, just go and look. If you want it, just type in the coupon code MEN25. Please don't email me and say, well, why not moms? Because everything I do is typically for moms. I have mom codes. We have everything for moms. I was just talking about men, and I'm doing this on the fly. This is part of the great thing about doing a podcast and about running your own business.

You can just make stuff up whenever you want. So men 25. So here's what I've been telling men. Please pass this along to your husbands who are having to listen to this podcast because it's really good for them. So I've been telling men, listen, if you're a man, if you're a dad, you are hardwired as a dad to believe this about your kids, that if they're not looking you in the eyes, then they're not respecting you, right? Because every man believes that, you know, look at me, look at me, look me in the eyes. And if your child's not looking in the eyes, you take that as disrespect.

And I want every man on the face of the planet to know this, especially if you have a strong-willed child. take that as disrespect. And I want every man on the face of the planet to know this, especially if you have a strong-willed child. Relax with that. Let it go. Your child is not disrespecting you. It's probably two things. One, most of our kids think best and process information better when they're not looking an adult in the eyes. I tell teachers that too. Don't ask the kids to look at you. Let them look at the floor. Look out the window. Look up. You'll see at my live workshops when I'm recalling stories, I don't look at people because I have to reach back in my brain. And even right now, I'm actually closing my eyes because I'm pulling things back from my brain forward and it helps me concentrate.

It's distracting to look at other people. So men, your child's not disrespecting you. He's looking down because he's trying to process and think. Second reason, it's intimidating to have a big guy or a little guy or anybody stare down at you. And third reason, and we could probably give five, is usually the only time we say, look at me, look at me in the eyes, young man, young lady, look at me, is when we're angry, when we're mad, or when we're correcting the child. Right? Because no man comes home and says, look at me, look at me, just made a good choice. I'm proud of you. Right?

And we should do that. Give eye contact when your kids make good choices and when you give them positive intensity. But don't worry about the eye contact. You shouldn't give your kids a lot of eye contact, especially when they're upset or they've done something wrong. It's much more effective to walk alongside them and do that. It is so much. They will receive what you say more. They will listen to you. It is easier to take when you're walking alongside, when you're playing catch with them, when you're sitting and building with Legos with them. It is such a cool thing. When we do corporate training, I've done this with, we did this thing with a company where they've got franchisees and they've got these supervisors have to go around to different retail outlets. And of course, what they're going to find is the store is not being run the way it's supposed to be run. So you could get up in the manager's face and say, look, when I walk through the store,

here's what I saw. That guy's immediately on the defensive and thinking of excuses. But I guarantee you, if you were to go for a walk with that store manager and say, listen, I saw some good things in there. I can tell you're conscientious. But do you think that you're following all of our directives? Do you think you're really implementing against all the departments in your store? And I give the guy a chance to answer and say, well, probably not correctly, you know, all the time. And you can go along and you can ask and say, do you know what you're supposed to

be doing? And if so, then I just expect you to go and execute it, right? But you're doing it while you're walking instead of going in. Let me tell you all the things you've done wrong so that now you feel ashamed of your behavior. I'm still addressing the behavior, but I'm just doing it in a different way. Does that make sense? So guys, let that go. I don't want you to do the whole thing. Look at me, look at me, right? What will happen is your kids will fear you, not respect you. And I want them to respect you, not fear you. Because if they respect you, they'll come to you for advice. And they'll want your wisdom.

And that's what you want. That's really cool. So thank you for listening. Look, there's a lot in there with sharing with your kids at home, in the classroom, and kids at home. So look, email Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com, or call 888-506-1871. Email us with the name of your church, school, synagogue, mosque, organization, whatever it is, city and state if you can. And Casey will get back to you and provide options for you. It's really easy. We make workshops. We've done this 2,000 times almost.

We know how to make it easy for our hosts. We know how to turn out people to be an awesome event. People will rave about it. And we do teacher training, parent training, school assemblies on the same day. It's really cool. And be sure to use the code MEN25. Get 25% off anything on our website that you want for the next week or so until I disable the code. So act now, whatever. So hey, let us know if we can help you out. Thanks for being a good parent. Thanks to the teachers out there. It's really hard doing what you do. And if we can support you in any way, just let us know. Okay. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.