Calm Parenting Podcast - Should You Express Disappointment In Your Child?

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

Want to talk with Kirk directly and come up with a game plan for your family? Kirk will work with you individually, or together with your spouse, to get you on the same page and help with the toughest parenting situations you haven’t been able to solve. These calls are a game-changer. Plus you get the No B.S. Program FREE. Click here to learn about mentoring packages. Or you can start by going through the No B.S. Program for $99. You’ll discover 25 specific action steps to rebuild your relationship with your strong-willed child. Listen directly on your iPhone or Android with our new app. Click here to learn more about the No B.S. Program! Want to book a LIVE EVENT in 2022?! We are now booking IN PERSON and Zoom events for schools, PTAs, churches, synagogues, corporations, and agencies! Simply email Casey@CelebrateCalm with LIVE in the subject line and he'll share a one-page proposal within hours. It's EASY! PS: If you live in Texas, Tennessee, or Michigan, we have discounted dates available! :)  Questions? Need help deciding on the best tools for your family? Email [e-mail] and Casey will help you personally!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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but how do you respond? I want to give you a very specific tool to use. I know this is one of probably 15 different ways we can respond. It's covered in the Calm Parenting Package, but I'm not sure I've ever covered this one in a podcast. So I'm going to keep it short and sweet so you can work on it this week because I really like taking a tool and working on a very specific tool over the course of the next few days or a week.

Often when I do phone consultations, I say, hey, let's just work on these two or three things over the next week. And then you give me feedback on how it's working. Because just coming home and telling your spouse, we need to change our entire parenting style. That doesn't work well because most guys are going to check out. But if you say, hey, I've got an idea. Next time Sarah says this to you or reacts that way, why don't you try this and just see how it works? See, that's specific and it's measurable. So that's what we're going

to talk about today on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. This is Kirk Martin. I'm founder of Celebrate Calm. I love what I do. I love that I get to do this. I hope that this helps you and you can use this in practical ways. We learned this from having 1,500 strong-willed kids in our home over the course of a decade. And we also learned it from our strong-willed child, Casey, who, if you need help, he's the person that you need to contact. His name is Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com.

He will help you out. Just write to us. Tell us about your family. What are you struggling with? What are the ages of the kids? And we review this together as a family. And then we will respond to you personally. Because this isn't a business.

It's a family mission to help your family. So here is what's going on in a home. You've got a child who maybe says hurtful things, reacts in a way that's immature or disrespectful. I want, here's the big concept today. It's okay to express disappointment in your child's attitude or behavior. So I want you to feel free to express disappointment in how they're acting, right? This is not making excuses of like, oh, I know they're really upset and they've got anxiety. Sure, I take all of that into account right but it doesn't mean I excuse things it's okay to

express a disappointment it's how you do it that is the big difference in what we teach so here are a few different options I always start with this number one do not take it personally and if I can be a little bit tough on you I I'd say this. Stop it. Stop taking so personally. You're a grown adult. I was going to say something else. But you're a grown adult. So be the grown-up.

Lead your child. Instead of always, well, I can't believe that she would talk to me that way. Why? Why? Why are you taking it so personally? Do you go through life? Well, I can't believe that that person, I can't believe that she would talk to me that way. Why? Why? Why are you taking it so personally? Do you go through life, right? Well, I can't believe that that person, I can't believe. We're always getting offended at what other people do.

We have complete control, if we want, over how we respond to different situations in life and different people who are difficult. If you can't handle difficult people, don't be a human being and don't have relationships. Don't get married and don't have kids because everybody's difficult, including you and really including me. I'm a very difficult person in some ways. So lead your child. Problem solve instead of reacting. That whole, after all I do for you, you know what I'm going to say? That's your issue. You're doing way too much for your kids and they didn't ask for it. You did it, right? Well, I've entitled kids. Well, how did they become that way, right? We have to

step up and take responsibility for ourselves. There's no blame in this. There's no guilt. I don't do guilt trips. I'm just asking you, like I ask myself, be honest with yourself about what's really happening here. Because you can go through, and some of you, I'm not talking to you, I might be talking to your spouse, right, or someone else. But you go through their childhood like, wow, they're just so difficult. And look, I was on a phone consultation and mom said this, you know, to be honest, I feel resentful sometimes toward my child because he's so difficult. And my response was, that's a very honest statement. And it's true. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's that I don't want you to react out of that resentment. I want you to honestly deal with the resentment of, I do so much, this child is so challenging at times, and it's flipped our whole

house upside down. True, right? So you don't have to deny it, but I don't want to react to it and end up hurting your relationship with your child and making things worse, because that's usually what happens. We make things worse, and we ruin the relationship. So don't make it about you. Make it about helping your, and here's the word, child. And even if that child is 17 or 23 or whatever age, they're still younger than you and they're your child. And so a trick that I used is eventually when I got this and I started implementing in our home, when I heard Casey speaking to me in a certain tone, what triggered, instead of me taking it personally, I can't believe that he's talking to me like that. I'm the man in the house. I'm the adult in the house. I'm the parent. He shouldn't do that. I never

did that to my family. Let go of all those things. Instead, what it shifted to is something's going on with my son right now. And as the adult, I've got two options. You know, I was talking to a dad yesterday and this dad, like me, like most of us has a problem with proving his point. And so when his child does something, he reacts. And I said, dad, watch this. Watch what's happening here. Sometimes you want your child to be disrespectful in a sense, because then that justifies you reacting and laying into your child and scoring points. And the dad was like, oh, that's exactly what I do. And I said, good. I said, there's no blame. There's no guilt in that.

It's a recognition. It's good self-awareness that you didn't even know what was happening. But in some ways, you've grown to like this pattern as well, that this pattern of your child being disrespectful serves you because it gives you an opportunity to feel justified in reacting and laying into him. But now I'm asking you to be the grown-up and be the leader, be the person that you are at your business and in every other area of your life, and instead of reacting and justifying it, you don't. So here's a way that you can handle this. Here's some script, some language. This may skew a little bit older, but I don't mind you using it with

a three-year-old, right? Because a lot of this isn't the word so much as it is the tone. You can respond very softly, quietly, or in a very even measure of tone, you know, I'm disappointed in how you're handling this situation because I know you're capable of more. Or I'm disappointed in how you're talking to me right now because I know you're capable of more. Now, I'm not going to react or get angry, but I will let you know that you talking to me like this causes me to not trust you. And it causes me to not give you the freedom and privileges you really want. But if you want to express your disagreement in a better, healthier, more mature way, I'm happy to listen. And then often with that, you know that I like movement.

I will invite and I'll say, look, I'm running up to the store now. I'm going for a walk. I'm getting started on dinner. If you want to come help me with that, I'd love to listen to you as long as you talk to me, right, in a respectful way. You can disagree with me, just not disrespectfully, right? Does that make sense? It's a very low key way of handling it there's no drama or energy you're not getting run over you're not letting them get away with things instead of reacting with anger or a lecture and I will tell you because I'm around parents all the time that lecturing voice that we think is why I just need to teach them it's not teaching it's lecturing and it doesn't work it's not received it It makes kids angry. And it

makes me angry when I hear parents do it. I'm like, oh, I'm cringing. And I'm not even the child. Because that voice, it just gets so hectoring and condescending and icky. I just don't like it. So instead of anger or lecturing, you're communicating that you're just as disappointed with how your child is yelling or talking the attitude because you know that they're capable of being more grown up, right? And it's your tone of voice that really matters in this and how you comport yourself, right? So here's another option that I really, really like and I encourage you to do this week. So your child is really upset or disrespectful, angry, yelling at you, talking back,

disrespectful, full on. Go quiet. Instead of reacting, just get quiet in your body posture, in your face, in your tone, and just say softly, I'm really disappointed that you're talking to me that way. Nothing else. Just let those words fill the air. No more just quiet disappointment. Because now you've just expressed yourself very, very succinctly. I'm disappointed that you're talking to me that way. That's it. No lecture about how they should or shouldn't talk to you. Not talking about giving them ideas and showing them a different way. You're just making a very simple statement about how that affects you

and what you're thinking about that, which is you're disappointed. And let it fill the air. Let them now have to own that. Now, I don't do it in a way of disappointed in you as a human being and you're never going to be successful. That's not the tone the tone is i'm disappointed that you're talking to me that way and then you can just try you may

just walk out of the room or you may go and start doing something doing the dishes or working on something or sitting down on your computer or working on something and you're still there, but you just put it in their court. Now you've got to read the room. Sometimes it can be followed by a very soft, hey, after I get back from going upstairs, if you want to try it again, I'd love to give you another chance, right? But the tone of voice is that you're disappointed in them and that they're capable of more and that you're willing to listen to them again. There's an invitation to talk and help. It could be, I'm disappointed. I'm really disappointed that you're talking to me that way. Look, I'm going to run to the store. I'm going to go take a shower.

I've got to go to the basement. I'll be back up. And there's an invitation to listen again. And you may give them a little space to process that. Try that this week. Because what I want to do is get us in a space where we are communicating with our kids, where we are there with them. But instead of doing this dance of, well, they said something mean, so I'm going to react. And then it escalates and nothing good happens. I want to get to problem solving and I want to get to connection. Remember,

it is connection. It is connection that builds and breeds compliance. It is that connection of relationships that change behavior and attitudes. So try that this week. Let me know how it goes. If we can help you, go to our website, CelebrateCalm.com. You can look for the Calm Parenting Package. We have specials on that. If you need help with any of our products or resources or your family needs, email Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, celebratecalm.com. Love you all. Talk to you soon. Hope you will

spread the word. Let others know about this podcast. We appreciate it. Bye-bye.