Calm Parenting Podcast - Q&A: Kids Rude, Coming Off Meds, Running Off

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

Misbehavior? This Works Better Than ConsequencesI like turning the research and principles into very practical, creative action steps. And that's why people have always had such great success with the CD programs and downloads. If you've been lingering and never invested in them, do it now. You'll make a lot of changes ASAP and work on this throughout the summer so you're ready for next school year. Click here to learn more. Need help? Email [e-mail] for the best customer service on the planet. He can help you get the right resources for your family within your budget. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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great. Or maybe you have a child who struggles socially. We're going to answer those questions and more on the Calm Parenting Podcast. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. We're glad you're here. If we can help you in any way, let us know. It's what we exist to do. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. You can reach out to my son, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com, because he is just like your kids, or was,

and still is very strong-willed, and it's something I love about him. But he will help you. He will help you find the resources you need within your budget. Don't be afraid to email and reach out to him. He will provide awesome customer service, and we'll get you on your way, and we'll help you out. So that's what we live to do.

So take us up on that because we love it. So here's what I wanted to do today. A little bit different. I wanted to do a little Q&A. And it's really funny because sometimes when I do phone consultations with parents, I'll ask them in the middle of the call, when you were thinking about having kids, did you ever imagine you'd be asking these kind of questions as a parent, right?

Did you ever imagine you'd be dealing with these situations? Because having a strong-willed child is not an easy thing because everything is just about opposite with them. They're the kind of kids, consequences don't work. They will choose the harder path. They will look at you and you give them a consequence and they'll think, hmm, I think it's worth it, right? They'll intentionally choose something and you're like, why would you do that? If you would just do it my way, it would be so much easier. Why do you have to make everything

so difficult? It's tough, I get that, but they're really awesome kids. And so I want to, you know, one of the things we're known for is, and it's my own personal thing, is I don't like theory a lot. I study theory, but then my, what I've tried to do is take all of the research in the theory and personal experience and wrap it into very, very practical creative action steps. And that's why we've, that's why people like us. I'll just say that. It's why I like doing what I do, right? Because I get to take like common situations or difficult situations and say, huh, what if we looked at it in a different way? What if what you're seeing isn't the real issue? And what if we attacked it in a different way and we got a better result? I love that. I don't care

what theory you use. It doesn't matter to me. I want to do what works for these kids. And so I do encourage you. We have a special going on with, I'm just going to highlight the one this week is the Get Everything Package. So you go to celebratecalm.com. You look up special sale. You go into the little tab and it'll say Get Everything.

It is everything we have created. It is 30 plus hours of strategies that are practical, that are doable. It includes the No BS program. It's at the lowest prices we've ever done. And I encourage you to take advantage of that this summer. And here's why. Work on it now. We can make a lot of changes ASAP. A lot of these changes are going to happen overnight with your kids. Some of them are going to take a little bit longer, but by the time school goes back or you have to homeschool your kids in the fall, depending how it goes, you're going to be ready for it. So let's do that. If

you need help with it, see Casey. But what I love is I love doing the practical stuff and making it very, very creative. So let me give you a couple ideas, answering questions. So question number one was, so I've got a child and when we go to the parent's house or relative's house, he will not walk in and say hi to everybody. And he appears like he's rude. He's kind of his own little world. And so we had roughly 1500 of those kids in our home over the course of a decade. What I know from observing them, and by the way their brains work, and because I'm kind of like that myself, is when they walk into a new situation, it's really overwhelming. So if you're kind of a neurotypical person or a very social person, when you walk into a room, it's natural.

You walk in and you walk up to people and you say hello and say nice things to them and you shake their hand or you hug them, you give a kiss, and it's all very natural and you feel good and you feel enlivened. People like us don't feel that way. It's scary. We're overwhelmed. We don't always know what to say. We're afraid we're going to say the wrong thing. We're afraid we're going to be awkward. And now,

all of a sudden, we're in a room, and there are six other people looking at us, and they're all talking at the same time. And I have a very busy brain like your kids do, and so I'm hearing all of this, and it's chaotic to me, and it makes me want to run. It makes me want to be quiet. It makes me want to hide and just observe for a little bit. So watch what happens. And this is why I love doing these podcasts and love doing what we do. Everybody else will look at that child of yours and say, what a rude child. And by the way, they're going to judge you too, because if you were a better parent, your child would have better manners. Why didn't you teach him to say hello? You know, you really need to get on your child about that, right? You've heard that before. And that makes me want

to drop the F-bomb on those people because they just don't get it. And oftentimes we don't get it either. And we judge people all the time. And you judge your kids for doing things. Look, no kid wakes up and thinks, huh, I think when we go to the relative's house, I think I just want to be rude so that everybody talks about me behind my back, even though I can hear them. And they give me funny looks. And nobody's really nice to me. And then my parents get all over me. Yeah, I think that's the way I want the day to go. Nobody does that. So I want you to look beneath the surface, and this is good for everything in life, is to look beneath the surface and think, maybe there's something else going on. Maybe that kid

who walks into that home or a friend's house, it doesn't matter, or the Taekwondo place or school on the first day or school on the 80th day. This is what, in the cafeteria, they're overwhelmed. It's too many people. I don't know what to say. I don't, I'm kind of defensive in life. So I'm not sure that those people actually like me. I'm not good at small talk and going through the motions with all those things. So they walk in and maybe they do something weird. And then we start, Jimmy, Jimmy, come say hi to your grandmother. And so it keeps reinforcing, I'm a failure. nobody likes me. So here are a few ideas. And I've got a nephew who's like this, and my mom, who I love, in case you're listening, mom, I love you, but stop getting offended because your little nephew doesn't come right in and doesn't want to kiss you and say

hello right away. Because she's like, well, when we were kids, we were taught proper manners. I know, you're old. So get over it. I'm kidding. It's my mom. I can talk that way to her. She loves it. So anyway, you know, my mom does love it. I'm going to tell her specifically to listen to this one because she'll be so proud of me until she hears this part. But I'm pretty, I'm honest with my mom, right? Because she appreciates straight talk. I'm like, mom, look, you're taking it personally. He's not being rude to you.

He's just overwhelmed. So here's what I suggested to this nice mom and dad. Why don't we ask the grandparents to initiate by asking the child, I'm just going to say the name Jimmy, by asking Jimmy about something Jimmy is actually interested in or good at. Make it easier for him. See, sometimes these kids need some time and space when they're coming into a new environment so they can soak it up, they get the lay of the land. So let them ease into it and then make conversation around something that's easier for him to talk about. Get the engagement over

what he's interested in, one of his passions. Get some small wins. You've heard it again, we talk about get small wins, create successes, and make them feel like everybody else likes him instead of the opposite. So there's no pressure. And perhaps there's an uncle, someone who can greet Jimmy first, one-on-one, and get into a conversation with him. That's really helpful because it's really hard to come into a room with three, four, five, six people when everybody's talking. But if you get a pick off one person and say, oh, Jimmy, I'm glad you're here. Listen, I was going to ask you, have you read that new book? Have you seen, well, probably not a new book, unless your kids love to read. Have you seen that new movie? Have you seen that Netflix special? Have you seen

this new toy that came out? Ask them about something they're interested in, something they share in common, or something Jimmy has some opinions about. Because one-on-one is usually easier. Then it becomes easier to open up in front of others, right? Get that cool uncle, the neat grandpa who can connect with your kid right first. Or here's my favorite one. As soon as your child gets to the parent's house, to the friend's house, to the taekwondo place, have another adult, grandpa, uncle, taekwondo leader, whoever it is, say. Their friend's parents say, oh, Jimmy, listen, I'm glad you're here. I could really use your help with something. Could you come help me with X? Give him a specific job to do,

something that he can do that maybe the grandparents can't do, right? So he feels helpful right away, and it gives some context to him for this situation you're creating a success you're giving him something to do isn't that what many of you do it's what I do when I go to someone else's house over Memorial Day I just did this we were invited over and the first question I had was hey hey, do you want me to start the grill because I'd love to do the burgers. Why? Because I get to go outside away from everybody and other people are out there, but guess

what? I'm busy now and I'm doing stuff and I'm flipping burgers and now I've got context. Please write down the word context. It's critically important for the strong-willed child. It is, by the way, why most of the time when you tell them to do something, they will ask why. It's not because they're trying to be little jerks. Look, this is why I want you listening

to the Strong-Willed Child program, all the other programs, because we teach you this in detail so that when they do it, you don't react to them all the time and think that they're just being difficult when you can say, oh, they're looking for context. Because when I'm out there flipping burgers, I have context for conversation. Hey, my name's Kirk. Good to meet you. Hey, what kind of cheese would you like on your burger?

Right? That makes it easier. And now, and that's what I did last night. As a matter of fact, I ran the grill and kicked out the other guy so that I could run his grill. Why? Because I always have control issues like your kids do. And it's not a control issue. It's creating comfort in those situations that often feel chaotic. I hope that makes sense. So here's another. This is just going to be a quick one. It's a really great idea. Hold on just a second. I'm going to drink a little water. I could pause the recording, but you know why I do that sometimes? Sometimes I leave mistakes on the podcast, and you'll hear it on the CDs, especially the newer CDs that we just recorded. I don't often go back and re-record over them because many years ago when I was trying to break these patterns,

some of these bad patterns in our lives, one of my patterns was I'm a perfectionist, right? Well, where does that come from? That comes from when you're a kid a lot of times when your dad was never pleased with you and so you try to do things over and over again. So in order to break a pattern, you have to actively counter it. And so I began purposefully doing things imperfectly, still with excellence, but not perfectly because I got to be able to see, you know what? I don't have to do everything perfectly. I don't have to be a slave to that anymore. And so anyway, that's partly why I do that. So here's a common question, you know, it's not even really a that. So here's a common question. You know, it's not even really a question.

It's about kids. It was kids with no boundaries. They don't listen. Like you're going outside and the child gets on his bike and just starts going. You're like, stop, stop. You can't go past that stop sign. You may as well just say, hey, why don't you just blow right through the stop sign, right? Just try not to get hit by a car. Because you can't just say no to

things, inappropriate things. You have to say yes to appropriate things and you have to stimulate the brain. You've got to really do that. And that's part of the No BS program. It's part of the ADHD university is understanding how their brains work, that they're seeking stimulation, which is why they procrastinate. That's why they argue with you. It's why they pick on their siblings. It is why they tap pencils and bounce their legs and they fidget and they do all kinds of things in order to stimulate that brain. And that's why they need to make things a challenge. But in this situation, here's what I want to do because this is a tough one. Because in this one, I believe it was a mom who's got two or three kids and she's got a couple of little ones. And so

the nine or 10 year old just starts taking off. Well, mom, it's kind of tough for mom carrying a child, holding the hand of another little child just to take off running and catch that child. So what are we going to do? In this case, when you want to go outside, I want to give them something very specific to do, to make it a challenge. Treasure hunts. But you know what I found that so many of our kids like? It's digging in the dirt. I would encourage you, and this is what I encourage the dad in this situation. Look, if you're going off to work or you're in your home office and your wife is out there with three kids,

you've got to provide a little bit of support because when it's your turn, then it's not going to go that well either. So support her. And in the morning you get up and you go hide something in the backyard, dig under the ground, hide something under there, and then create like a little treasure map with some clues because your kids are good at solving puzzles and they like the challenge. So that challenge and put a shovel out there. Kids love digging up dirt. Now, if you can hide the treasure in the neighbor's yard so they dig up their lawn, oh, they're better. But if you can hide something out there or just give them a job to do, kids love digging. I have a lot of kids who love shoveling mulch. Don't discount that because it sounds kind of weird and dumb. Just because you may not want to do that, it's not about you. So get this child digging because now you can say, oh man, your dad hid something out in the yard. Bet you can't find it. Now the

little girls, the little ones can be running around, in this case with the mom, and now the child's not charging off out of the neighborhood because he's got a specific job and he's getting to dig in the dirt, which is kind of cool. Now if it's wet out, he can get all muddy. Guess what? That's even more fun. So do those kind of things. So here's the one that I really wanted to get to and it may not be your situation, but I want to teach you how to think about it, right? So think about this. Nice mom emails and she's like, hey, listen, my child struggles because when he comes down off of his meds every afternoon at four o'clock,

like clockwork, comes down off his meds or before he's had the meds in the morning, he just misbehaves a lot. And my husband is kind of barking at him and giving consequences and punishing him, and it's just not working, right? So here's how you think about it. Every morning, every evening, throughout the day, people in your home get hungry. Now, if you get hungry and your kids or your spouse or you don't get fed, guess what happens to people? They become irritable, and they mouth off, and they have a bad attitude, right?

The correct response isn't to punish your kids or yourself, right? Like, you know what, you need to change your behavior. Your attitude's bad. No, the correct response is to feed them. And you know that. You know that every day, morning, right? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And snacks in between for many of your kids because they're grazers, right? And they don't eat a lot at a big meal, but they graze on food throughout the day, which is actually a

little bit more healthy anyway. So roll with it. Don't fight it all the time. Stop fighting everything. So you plan for that, right? You go to the grocery store. You have a tradition that every morning you have breakfast and you have lunchtime during the day. Then the evening you have dinner. That's a tradition because you know what's going to happen. Well, you know that your son struggles in the morning and when the meds wear off at four o'clock. Now expand this to what else do you know about your child? When do they struggle? Every time I take my child to Taekwondo class or to a new situation, I know that he gets very anxious. And so you know these things. So look for the patterns and then have a plan, have a tradition, right? So you know that he struggles because his body needs to be fed.

But in this case, it's not food. It's usually intense physical sensory exercise. His sensory needs need to be met proactively. So you have a tradition in your home that in the morning and every day at four o'clock, you have a treasure hunt outside. You play games. You've got an obstacle course for him to crawl under, climb over, crawl through. You give him things to go dig, dig dirt in the

backyard, shovel mulch, move it. You have to feed his body just like you do at mealtime, just with different food. Otherwise, it's unfair to punish someone because they were simply hungry and you didn't feed them, right? Now, what does this mean? It means you're creating successes because you're giving him a place to put that energy. He will feel better when you create successes. It builds confidence because you're building competence. Now, I'm not in trouble all the time. Why? Because my parents proactively gave me this job to do and I get to dig in the dirt and look up things, and I have this cool obstacle course. You're creating success for your kids, right? Because otherwise, punishment and consequences basically reinforce you're a failure, and you're never going to be

successful, and I'm going to be perpetually frustrated with you and nobody's going to happen. Nobody's going to be happy. And then what happens? Child will eventually, kids are smart. What are they going to figure out? Mom and dad are really never happy with me. I tend to be in trouble all the time.

My brother and sister don't get in trouble. So guess what? I'm checking out. I shut down or I'm just going to resist you and be even worse. And you get more frustrated and the cycle continues. So I encourage you, let's stop the negative cycle now. Stop it.

Let's stop it. We have the choice. You have the power to stop it. It's a beautiful thing about our approach. This is not about behavior management. I'm not trying to control the behavior of another human being. I am first and foremost controlling my own behavior so that I stop reacting to the outward behavior. When I am calm and in control of myself and rational, I can look at my child and say, huh, maybe my child who struggles with social skills isn't just being rude.

Maybe he's overwhelmed and feels misunderstood. So if I come along and give him a job to do, and grandpa does that, and I create a success, I have a completely different outcome. And I didn't change the child's behavior. I didn't give a consequence. I changed it because I gave him tools. That child who, for whatever reason, every morning or every afternoon gets really wound up instead of changing his behavior I gave him something to do with that energy and I actually became an instrument for his success and now he's going to trust me more because instead of spending all my

time reacting and being frustrated giving him consequences and punishment. Now I, as the mom or dad, dads, please listen to this. I now become a refuge for my child. I now become someone they come to because they know when I'm struggling in life, instead of yelling at me, giving consequences, being upset at me, being frustrated and saying bad words about me. Instead, I know that you can help me because you consistently help me. That's what we want. And that's why we always say consequences don't change behavior. Relationships change behavior. And I want to break the negative cycle now. It is interesting how many people, we got a lot of older people who are like, oh, I wish I would have found your stuff like 15 years ago. Well, too late for you. Maybe, right? We've got some things for older kids, but if you're not an older parent like that,

or your kids aren't full grown, don't wait, right? Don't wait. And the thing I try to explain is some of you have spent like hundreds, thousands of dollars on therapy and testing and all kinds of things and not getting any changes because you're trying to change a child's behavior when that's not even the real issue, right? And so for one, look, for the price of one visit to a therapist, we can give you over 30 hours of insight and strategies and put this into very specific action steps, what to say, what to do in the moment that will radically change your relationships. And it's going to change your relationships with your child. If you're married with your spouse, if you're divorced or not married, it'll change your relationship with

the next person that you meet because you won't keep repeating the same patterns that you repeated with your last spouse, right? And it's going to change the relationship you have with yourself because you'll stop repeating those patterns, you'll grow to be more confident, and you'll have much more peace and you'll be much more calm. And I can tell you, it's a nicer way to live. If we can help you, email Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at celebrate calm.com. It's funny, just as I said his name, he just, uh, he's visiting and, um, I told him I was going to do the podcast. He's like, Oh, do you want me to leave the house? I was like, yeah. And, um, cause he, cause it's weird recording in front of someone else. So I can actually see

him walking up the sidewalk right now. So he is, you know what he's doing right now? This is kind of funny. He's texting me to see if I'm done. Because if I don't text, he'll go past the house. I think I'm not going to respond and let him go for a little bit longer walk. But anyway, as soon as he gets back,

he'll be able to help you. So K-C-C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. And mom, if you're listening, I love you. But just chill. You're 87. Chill, mom. I love you. Hey, love you all as parents.

If we can help you, just let us know, okay? Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.