Calm Parenting Podcast - Q&A: Social Skills, ADHD, Impulsivity, Physically Explosive, Testing, Refusal, Anxiety #442

Episode Date: January 26, 2025

Q&A: Social Skills, ADHD, Impulsivity, Physically Explosive, Testing, Refusal, Anxiety Do you have a child who struggles with focus, impulse control, social skills, or anxiety? Does your child ever become physically explosive? Should we get testing done? What should we focus on in the teen years? What about kids who refuse to do things or go places? This Q&A is packed with insights and strategies for toddlers, teens, and everyone in between. Take advantage of our Winter Sale and begin 2025 with hundreds of practical strategies that really work with your strong-willed kids. Visit https://celebratecalm.com/products to take advantage of our Winter Sale and make 2025 DIFFERENT. AG1 AG1 is offering new subscribers a FREE $76 gift when you sign up. You’ll get a Welcome Kit, a bottle of D3 & K2 AND 5 free travel packs in your first box. Go to https://drinkag1.com/calm  HAPPY MAMMOTH Get 15% off on your entire first order at https://HappyMammoth.com with the code CALM at checkout.  HUNGRYROOT.COM Get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to https://hungryroot.com/ and use code CALM. ONE SKIN Go to https://oneskin.co and use code KIRK at checkout for an exclusive 15% off your first purchase. COZY EARTH Wrap yourself and your kids in Cozy Earth luxury...with 40% OFF! Visit https://cozyearth.com/ and use my exclusive 40% off code CALM.  AIRDOCTOR Head to https://AirDoctorPro.com and use promo code CALM to get UP TO $300 off today! AirDoctor comes with a 30-day money back guarantee, plus a 3-year warranty—an $84 value, free! IXL LEARNING Get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at https://IXL.com/KIRK. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/CALMPOD to get 10% off your first month and get on your way to being your best self. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Let's create the agent-first future together. Head to salesforce.com slash careers to learn more. So what do you do with a child who lies and steals, who has ADHD and impulse control issues? What about sensory processing disorder? A child who doesn't recognize authority figures, bosses other people around, takes over situations. Hey, how do you handle it when your child kind of freaks out when you stay calm? Should you get testing for your child?

Hey, do any of you have kids who struggle with social skills and kind of sabotage their relationships? How about pressure from family to hold your boundaries and discipline harder? How many of you have kids who will sometimes explode kind of physically and get very physical with you and throw things. What about kids who don't want to take medication or have anxiety? We're going to cover all of that if I can talk fast enough on this special Q&A episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast.

So welcome. This is Kirk Martens, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. So I don't have this scripted. I'm kinda answering questions as they're coming at me. So I hope you learn from this. I'm gonna try to fit in as many answers as I can. Okay, so here is the question. And this is a very common one.

And I hesitate to answer this because it's specific to each family and child. But I hope that you can take from this a framework through which to see your kids and their struggles. So the question was, hey, should we get this complete neuropsych testing for our child? Sometimes people are like, hey, should we get tested for ADHD?

Here's the thing, if the testing will help you get services in school that you couldn't get otherwise might be worth doing if you can get specific insight into your child that you don't already have it may be worth doing but i do want you to know oftentimes what happens is one is very very very expensive they often just tell you what you already know. Right? Like, oh, your child struggles with focus and attention and comprehension. Well, I kind of knew that already. But what you don't usually learn is are the tools to deal with issues X, Y, and Z. And that's what it all no matter what you do. It doesn't

matter what diagnosis you get, what label you put on it. At the end of the day, you have to understand what's going on inside your child's brain and heart so that you can help them at the root level, so you can get to the root of the issues and then give them very practical ways to handle those different issues. So this particular email was really great mom who had a child who has been adopted and she was like, oh, we're struggling with lying and stealing.

I can tell you from experience for 25 years with almost a million families and a lot of adopted kids, almost all adopted kids end up lying and stealing. And we don't have to get into the deeper parts of that. I mean, sometimes it is. These are kids and even look, even if you adopt kids from day one from the womb, basically, they're still experienced some level of trauma in the womb beforehand. It's just there. And so, so with lying and stealing, I have to figure out, okay, is this a moral issue?

Or is there something underneath the need they're trying to meet? And sometimes it is a sense of lack that they have. And oftentimes it is that deep need for brain stimulation. Many of your kids don't get enough dopamine, don't get enough blood flow to the brain, so their brain is physiologically under-stimulated. We've talked a lot about kids who need

intense emotional engagement. So when I steal something, well one that gives me something I'm in control of. If I'm sneaking the iPad or food in the middle of the night, well now I'm using the strategic brain and I might get in trouble. That's really stimulating for the brain. So what I like to do with kids is to pull them to come alongside and say, hey, I know you know that's wrong, because they do, that's why they sneak it, and that's why they lie about it.

And I can say, hey, what does it feel like in the middle of the night when you get up? Because does it feel kind of interesting and stimulating for your brain because you're using your strategic brain to try to sneak and get away with this, and then there's anticipation of getting this thing that you shouldn't have and then you have to wipe down the counters like they do on CSI So you don't get caught right?

We can go through all of that instead of like I can't believe that you would do that instead that whole shaming things like Well, I get why you would want to do that So that ends up getting you in trouble all the time and you're getting negative brain stimulation, but I know you've got a big heart I know that you love money because many of our kids do they're not greedy. They're just they just like it They're born entrepreneurs. So what if we put all that energy instead of trying to sneak things? We built a little side business. What if you started investing and I matched whatever you saved? What if we did service projects because these kids have big hearts? See, I find other ways, positive ways to meet those needs. And the mom went on and said, oh, our child has ADHD. Look,

in many schools in order to get services, you need a diagnosis. So by all means, do that if you want. But it doesn't change the fact that we still need to really understand how their brains work. And instead of managing their time, we need to teach them how to manage their energy and use momentum because that's how they work best. We have to do homework in different ways. Under the kitchen table with a blanket over top. So we have a fort giving them math homework to do worksheets while they're

hanging upside down off the sofa, because when they're upside down, blood flow rushes to the brain, having them instead of sitting in a table, stand at the kitchen counter where they can rock back and forth, listening to music, eating a snack, because the movement and rhythm is really, really helpful. We have to give teachers some tools, right? To give them a sensory strip that we put underneath their desk because fidgeting is proven to help kids

remember things and to focus better. We just need to give them tools to do it so they don't interrupt the rest of the class sitting underneath their desk, giving them missions, making work harder. If you have our programs, listen to the ADHD University program because that program alone has at least 100 ideas of how to do this.

And then the mom was like, well, she has impulse control issues. Well, of course, because you're supposed to have impulse control issues when you're a kid. And so you have to practice that impulse control is a skill that you have to practice. And I practice that at the store. I practice that at a restaurant by saying like, hey, we're gonna leave three French fries on the plate so we can practice delayed gratification with video games. Guys, you get 30 minutes to play your video games, but if you turn them off after 28 minutes, two minutes early,

I will give you an additional eight minutes to play tomorrow night. Why? Because I'm teaching them. Why turn it off two minutes early but I get more. That's delayed gratification but I'm physically practicing that. Kids with sensory issues who are always kind of pushing up against things. They're very physical kids. Definitely see an occupational therapist. They're the best people in the world. They're great with kids. They're very, very practical. But I also want to have an obstacle course in the basement or backyard where your kids

have to go search for toys or their food. They've got to climb under things and over things and push and pull things and dig holes in the backyard and shovel mulch and move heavy things. Gymnastics, rock climbing, martial arts, swimming, all very good for meeting these sensory needs. And you'll find if you proactively meet these sensory needs it will calm your kids quite a bit. Well and also my daughter doesn't recognize authority. Of course she doesn't because she wants to do things her own way and that's why we have to give kids ownership of their choices within our boundaries. Here's what needs to be done. I'm very clear about

it but I relinquish control over how you get that done as long as you get it done. And they're bossy, they take over situations, that's why they carry little acorns or stones in their pockets, because they don't feel in control of things, and that's why I give them ownership and more adult jobs. But the point is, I want you to learn what's going on inside your kids' hearts and brains, and then meet the underlying needs. And if testing helps you with that, fine. But if it's just going to cost you thousands of dollars and not help you, then maybe you put it off.

And especially if your kids are really young, it's hard to do testing on a kid who's five or six or seven. So I'd rather you work these strategies first and see what we can learn by doing that. It'll save you a lot of money. I was going to say, so I'll just, I was gonna say, it's a lot cheaper just to buy like our 14 programs with 30 hours than just go and get testing.

But anyway, so next question. My daughter freaks out if I'm calm. Well, we've had kids before say, yell at me, mommy, yell at me, because what they're really wanting is your intensity. I just, sometimes we have trained our kids' brains to seek the negative because what happens, look, if kids are playing nicely in the living room,

nobody says anything. But the moment they start fighting and squabbling, you know what, how many times do I have to tell you I buy all these toys and you can't even play well together for 20 minutes and kids learn early on. If I do something wrong, I get a lot of intensity from adults. So I begin to bring in that positive intensity in proactive ways. I've shared when my our son always was looking for this.

He still does at times. He's a grown man because he's a really intense kid and he'd come into a room and I finally stopped reacting and said, I can see that look in your eyes. I know what you want right now is my intense emotional engagement. So I'm not going to argue, not going into the courtroom, but here's what I will do with you. We could go to the garage and build something. I'll go play guitar.

We can go do X or Y. And I met that need. So do that. Family and teachers say my child needs to have it together behaviorally with his impulses and emotions by age 7. Look how many of you know 40 and 50 year olds who don't have it together yet? How many of us are still reactive and get upset? How many of us how many grown adults are still sabotaging their relationships? Stop with some of that pressure and expectations. Little kids are supposed to be impulsive.

That's what childhood is for. Now what we need to have by age seven ideally is for your child to know that they are loved, that it is safe, that it is stable. And we want to progressively give them tools so they're maturing, but they shouldn't have it together by seven. You just have judgmental relatives who have compliant, easygoing kids or who have strong will kids that they have shut down their emotions and their kids are so afraid to misbehave that they just look like they're well-behaved kids. Chill a little bit moms and dads you're gonna be okay with that. Social skills now this is a tough one for our kids

because many of our kids have something called asynchronous development so they're out of sync get along really well with older kids with adults also with animals and little kids peers Peers their own age, not always that interested in them, and they're stuck for 12 straight years going to school with only kids their own age. And a lot of our kids are also on the spectrum, and so they're very direct and black and white and honest. So one way to handle this is one of my favorite phrases to use is, I plant seeds. I don't like lecturing You know, honey when you use that tone with other people see that sounds condescending. I talk to them like the adults

Hey, you know what I found in life is people generally don't like other people or Being around other people who dominate Conversations who always have to prove their point, who always have to be right, who are sometimes too blunt or direct. And so if you do those things, other kids won't wanna spend time with you

or be their friend, be your friend. Now, if you want, I can show you some different ways to handle these situations, because I know it's hard and I can model and I can role play But I also let the child know look if you don't care about social acceptance or having friends your own age Which many of your kids don't then as long as that's your choice, then that's fine See, I only want it to work if it's their choice. I don't want it to be a thing where they're unaware that they're sabotaging all of their relationships

and end up being 28 and have no good relationships. And some kids do choose not to have a lot of friendships and you've got to watch projecting your own preference or need onto them. Some of you are very social. Well, I love having lots of friends. That's awesome for you. It's the way you're made.

I don't want lots of friends. I have very few friends, but we have very, very deep friendships. That's a preference. If you struggle with this, go back and listen in July. I did two podcasts, two weeks in a row on social skills and sibling squabbles. I think you'll really help it, but we have to give these kids tools, but also respect

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So this is a tough one and I hesitate to share this but I want to take you kind of through my thinking in case this Relates to you in any way look we get a lot of emails on like our son our daughter is getting explosive Look, we get a lot of emails on like our son or daughter is getting explosive physically. And my first question usually goes to relationships. Is there a broken relationship? Oftentimes not always, but oftentimes it is, well, my husband is still very explosive. He's still very reactive. Or in this particular case, it is a broken relationship where the in which the father basically abandoned them left and now he's remarried and has a little kid and so in this

particular instance the therapist and the mom told the son hey you need to call your dad you need to maintain contact with your dad and since they've been doing that and he refused to call his dad He's been acting out in a very very physical aggressive way now. I look at it very differently I would consider saying something like this to your child Why would you want to talk to him? He left you. He abandoned you. That's not what a good man does. And so you should be angry at your father. That's very healthy to feel that way because you should feel hurt and you don't have to talk to him until you are ready. See, I like that a lot more because watch how much confusion there is. I have a dad, he abandoned me, now he's got his own other kid that he's putting

all of his time into and now I'm the one that's supposed to call him. That's confusing and that will cause a kid, you know what else causes that? Kids being, watch, kids being bullied at school. So kids getting bullied, you know what happens a lot? They turn it internally on themselves and they get kind of ashamed and confused of like, why am I getting bullied? I should be able to stand up for myself, but for whatever reason they can't.

And so they start acting out sometimes in a very violent or physical way. And I think that's what's happening to this child because everybody's putting pressure like, oh, you should reach out to your dad. Look, I would be okay with him. This child just referring to his dad as him because he's not being a dad and I Normalize the anger so the son doesn't feel bad for feeling angry and hurt And I would also caution don't push forgiveness on kids too quickly Look, I'm all about forgiveness keeps from being bitter all of that. But not right away because sometimes that's our own anxiety.

Well, you need to forgive your dad. You need to make everything up because we're so uncomfortable with the conflict. Look, there's conflict here and there should be conflict. And the one who is wrong is the adult in this situation, the dad. And so I want to validate the fact that yeah, you should be angry at your dad and you shouldn't want to talk to him right now. That is a very healthy thing to do. I would also create a code word or a tradition for when your child needs to vent,

write a certain code word, a thing that they do. You, you go out and you play catch together, you walk the dog, whatever it is, because that will be the substitute, whatever it is, because that will be the substitute, the positive way of releasing all that confusion and anger rather than unleashing the physical stuff. Look our kids are little, they don't know what they're doing, they just react out and you're like, why are you throwing things? Why did you hit the wall?

And you're going to get, I don't know. And that's why we need to be the detective and get inside the heart to find out what's going on. I would also, in this case, I look for some positive activities and missions. Find someone at school, an older neighbor, to give your daughter, your son a job to do a mission. Say, oh man, I've heard you're really good at doing X. Could you help me with that?

That feels really good. A mentor of sorts can be really helpful. And in this case, if it's a father with a kid with a father who abandoned him, finding a male, a good male figure who's safe would be a really helpful thing. It can be a coach, it could be the Taekwondo instructor, martial arts, somewhere else. He needs to hear that he's a good kid, that he's important, that he feels important to other people. Okay, here's a great question. Kirk, what should we focus on in the teen years? Keep a close connection. Connection is everything. Be the parents who don't do drama, even though a teenager in tweens world is complete drama. Be patient, sit with them, listen a lot to these kids,

even about their in name teenager stuff. Bond over the horrible music that they like. Take every opportunity to drive your kids places. I'm not talking about them treating you like crap and being disrespectful and then like, mom, dad, you have to take me somewhere. No, I don't do that. That's not how life works treat people like that

you don't get to go places but I'm saying when you have an opportunity take it remember I love with teenagers and tweens and look even some of your younger kids take them out at night even on a school night at nine o'clock at ten o'clock and go get some wings or IHOP or whatever. It is a great way to connect with these kids in a non-pressured environment. They will often open up affirm relentlessly, find the stuff they're already doing well. They already know what they're not doing well. They're already very aware that they're not living up to your standards and especially if you have two parents who are like very successful, the Strongwell kids already know that they fall short.

Point out, this isn't participation trophy for praise. It's honest praise of like, hey, I've noticed, I've deserved, you're really good at doing X, Y, and Z. Hey, I like how you handle that situation. That's all. Just an acknowledgement of truth. Find opportunities for your kids to shine. Use their natural gifts and talents.

Usually often with neighbors and other adults. They're really good with them. And enjoy your kids. Try as hard as you can. Work on that. Enjoy these kids. Their attitude will change when you enjoy them. And I know some of your kids, they are very difficult. They're very difficult kids and they're hard to sometimes like and enjoy. Okay, here's a good question. Oh, five-year-old her on holidays called their uncle was doing something on a deck and he called the uncle old stink. This blew up into a whole like multi-day situation with this extended family of like, oh you

need to hold your boundaries with this kid. It's a five-year-old kid. You know who is immature, more immature than a five-year-old? The uncle, because the uncle should have laughed it off and said, yeah, I'm kind of old and stinky. Hey, why don't you grab that board over there, bring it over, you can help me build this deck. You can help me do what I'm doing. And they could have bonded.

And along the way, the five-year-old would have apologized or the uncle could have addressed it in a mature way instead of going in and saying, Oh, your son called me a name. Like grow up and the whole family is on this poor mom of like, you need to get control of that five-year-old. He was just being a five-year-old. Chill. Don't take it so personally. Just get used to the fact that your family does not understand the Stronghold Child,

and that's why I encourage you to have them listen to the podcast, and if you have our programs, you can email us. We will share the programs for free with your family, with the teachers so they can understand your kids, but just relax a little bit. Here's a good question, child won't take medication. It's a long fight every morning and there are tears. So my solution is pretty

easy which is your child is doing something that they consider uncomfortable or gross so you do something gross. And so this mom wrote and said I tried your suggestion. My son was so excited. It only took two minutes instead of 40 minutes for him to get drink all of his medication with no fuss. He had me drink a mix of milk and maple syrup which wasn't too bad and of course I played up the yuck factor. He's already planning my drink for tomorrow which is the one I suggested orange juice milk, which is kind of gross. I like simple stuff like that. And so there are times in this mom had said like, the reason I like going through your stuff is that I am a rule follower. So I like when you give us scripts

and a blueprint, it helps keep me on track. So in a future podcast, I'm going to address, Hey, what happens if you're a neurodivergent parent and you're not a rule follower and you have one of these kids? We'll go through that, because that can be really tough. A daughter was invited to a father-daughter dance and she's refusing to go. So the solution is, look, anxiety is caused by unknowns, things out of my control, most meltdowns,

almost everything is because we have this sense of things are out of our control. So what can your daughter control? What does she wear? What is the pre-dance dinner? What is the route that you have to go there? What time are you leaving? Can we learn a couple dances beforehand? What can you give them in control of? And this mom said it was awesome because she talked to her daughter and listened to her and normalized the anxiety. Of course she'd be nervous. There were so many unknowns. And she said, she said, my daughter just talked to me in the dark while I tucked her in. We went through all the what ifs and we problem solved. See, that

was awesome. And so then she started planning and she said, well can we get the menu of what the dinner is going to be at this dance? And they did. And the daughter drew a map from her house to the dance hall and she planned out her dress and the itinerary and she said, finally I'm going to go. I'm excited. See, what's really cool is when you can really understand what's going on underneath, you can solve a lot of these issues. So let's practice this this week. Moms and dads, thanks for sharing the podcast.

Thank you for working so hard at this. We have so much respect for you. If we can help you in any way, if you need help financially with the program, so let us know. We're a family like yours. All right, love you all. We'll talk to you next time.

Bye-bye.