Calm Parenting Podcast - Social Skills & Sibling Squabbles #2

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Starting point is 00:02:03 Calm Parenting Podcast listeners get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com slash kirk. Visit ixl.com slash kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. This is part two of our little podcast series on social skills and sibling squabbles. Last episode, we talked about why your kids do struggle with social skills. We talked about not trying to change their nature, but working with their nature and normalizing some of these things for them, about not imposing your social preferences on your kids. And then also really always, it's always trying to build your child's confidence and trying to really give perspective to say, yeah, of course you struggle in this area, but man, here are your unique advantages. And this is why I like

Starting point is 00:03:00 how you are. That I want to do in just about every area of life where we can with these kids. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. Find us at CelebrateCalm.com. Thank you for listening to the podcast. So let's just dig in. So let's get into some practical tools that we can give our kids that will help them when they want to interact with other kids. Maybe this is a really good way to say this is, look, sometimes they just don't want to be super social and that's okay. What I want to give them tools for is when they decide, hey, this would be important to me. I would like to have a good friend in my new class. Then they have some tools to do that. So I'm just going to run through some ideas. Number one, look, when your kids are younger, short play dates, get a success

Starting point is 00:03:52 because with your more bossy controlling kids, if you're like, oh, run along and play, well, that just means, hey, go dominate your friend. So I'd rather have short playdates create a success. It's kind of like with family vacation, right? Like by Wednesday during a week-long vacation, it's kind of falling apart a little bit. And so I always want the kids wanting a little bit more. One way that I love to do this when kids are younger and even honestly a little bit older is to model it for them, to be involved with them. So instead of always just like, hey, you guys run along and play or run along new friend and get dominated by my son or daughter.

Starting point is 00:04:36 It's, hey, you know what? I could use your help. I was going to bake some brownies for these older people at the retirement center or is going to make some things so we could feed the homeless? Could you guys come in the kitchen and help me out for a few minutes? Well, now when you have both of them in the kitchen, or I used to do this with our son, we do a special project maybe in the basement or in the garage. And so I'd get he and his friend, say his friend Aaron, to help me out. Well, while we're doing that, I can show my child how good, positive, healthy conversation goes. And it's almost always like this. This is the formula that we taught all the kids who came to our camp.

Starting point is 00:05:19 One, you always ask questions of other people. Because one, it gets the focus off of you. People like talking about themselves. It makes them feel important. And I ask questions. I listen and I find common interests that we might have because that's how friendships are formed, right? We have a common interest for some of you.

Starting point is 00:05:43 Oh, you've got a toddler also. Oh, you've got a teenager or whatever it is, a certain sport that your child plays. You have that in common. So while we were doing a project or you're baking the brownies, you can begin asking questions of your child's friend, modeling how to do that for your child so he gets to kind of hear it and watch it in action. I would also, this summer, while you have time, find one good friend for your child before school starts. See if you can cultivate that. Somewhere in the neighborhood, they're going to go to the new school. And then if you can, when school starts, see if you can arrange it so that your child and their new friend can kind of walk into the school

Starting point is 00:06:32 together. So if that means, hey, a couple days a week, you go out of your way and pick up their friend at their house and take them to school together or the friend does that for you. It's just really helpful to walk into school next to someone else I know. And in the school setting, if your child is just alone all the time, one is a target. At least if your child's at the locker and walking through the hallway, sitting in the cafeteria with another kid, it just helps a little bit. I like using this tool a lot. We did this with kids all the time. Observe people. Get a snack, go to a park, go to a playground. I used to do this with Casey on business trips, like in a hotel lobby. We would just observe people. And your kids tend to be pretty good at pattern recognition.

Starting point is 00:07:26 And so we just talk about it. Hey, what do you think is happening with those two people? Why do you think they're arguing? Or you notice anything different? Well, that guy's kind of a close talker. He's up in his space. Yeah, well, how do you think it makes the other person feel? Do you think you ever do that, right?

Starting point is 00:07:43 Because some of your kids are close talkers and they get up in their face or someone who's talking too much. Observing and watching other people interact can be really powerful because they get to see it. One of my favorite tools for your kids that may sound a little bit funny, but it can be really effective is scripting out conversations for them. Look, when I was voted shy spoiling my high school class, in 11th grade, there was a girl, I found out there was a girl who liked me. And I was so nervous because I wasn't smooth with the ladies. And so I didn't know what to say. And so I remember thinking at night,

Starting point is 00:08:20 I was diagramming out, okay, I see Kim every day between fourth and fifth period when I go outside to my class that's outside in that trailer, and she's going to be walking along. I can still remember it. This is 40 years ago, and I can still remember the feeling attached to that of not knowing what to say, And I would literally script it out. Well, I'll say this and then she'll probably say that. And then I say this because I knew we only had like two minutes in between classes. So script it for your kids. So it could be like, look, you could get a whiteboard and put it in your kitchen and have this laid out for your kids.

Starting point is 00:09:03 So on Monday, oh, you ask another kid what they did over the weekend. That's a natural. I can use that at the office too. On Tuesday, maybe you ask their favorite video game. Wednesday, what's their favorite movie? Thursday, ask about their favorite sports team or favorite animal. And then Friday's easy because you can ask them what their weekend plans are. That's scripting for your kids, diagramming out social interactions. As odd as it sounds, your kids like routine and having a structure in place for how to have conversations. By the way, just role-playing is really, really helpful. And normalize it. If one of the parents in the home is a little bit awkward like me and like your kids,

Starting point is 00:09:47 you can say, look, here's how I do it at work. I use that all the time, that diagramming and scripting. You can do this one. I like this. It's related is observing and start with the obvious, right? Like when I'm at the gym, like the other day I saw a guy and he had a cast on his leg. Well, there's an easy go-to of like, hey, what happened? We live living out here near the mountains. It's usually a skiing accident or mountain biking. And so now I get to have a conversation. That's why, oh guys, we talk about the weather, sports. Look, part of the reason I wear that Yankees hat that gets so much derision when I wear that on the Instagram videos is this. It's a conversation starter.

Starting point is 00:10:32 Look, when I'm on the trails, it always elicits an opinion. Yankees suck, or yeah, go New York. And now we can have a little conversation because people have an opinion about the Yankees, usually negative. But nobody's going to comment if I wear a Colorado Rockies hat. So it's just a way, it's an easy way to begin conversations. And I would teach your kids, hey, look, look at the kids. A kid walks into class, what logo or what movie does he have a Star Wars logo or Star Wars characters on his or her backpack? Well, now you know how to start a conversation. Wear that hoodie sweatshirt. Is it a sports team? What's going on? Teach your kids to use their observational skills to be able to do this. Those are some tools. They're not all of them.

Starting point is 00:11:26 Look, I'd encourage you, we have an ADHD university program. It is very robust. It is very, very, very detailed. And we have a whole section on tons of things on social skills as far as, as well as just about everything else. It's probably the most robust program. And I always say this, look, if you go to celebratecalm.com, look at the Get Everything Special, the Summer Special, and the price of that. Just getting the ADHD University alone would be worth that cost. I really believe that. And also, 30 Days to Calm would be worth the price of it. There's also a Sibling Fights One, 14 total programs. If you're interested, go there. If you need help financially with any of our programs, just reach out to Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. We help everybody else.

Starting point is 00:12:12 We help everybody out. We just want you to have an investment in the program so that you work a little bit harder and they're meaningful. And it's just the way it works. So let's do a couple of sibling tools. So sibling issues. So here, sibling issues are usually come from one of two places. One is kid doesn't feel that confident. I've always been a black sheep. And so I'm resentful or jealous of my siblings. I'm not going to cover that one here. Boredom though, brain stimulation. Many of you have kids who don't get enough dopamine to the brain. Their brains are physiologically under stimulated. That's why if they're on medication, it's usually a stimulant medication. So what's happening is in the afternoon, evening, your

Starting point is 00:13:01 child's sitting around, especially the more strong-willed neurodivergent child, and he's kind of bored. So what does he do? He pokes his brother, calls him a name, provokes him. And so what happens? Then his brother says, leave me alone, mom, Kirk's bothering me. And then what happens? Mom walks into the room. You know what? I don't know how many things I have to do for you. I buy you all these toys and video games, and you guys can't even get along well together. Mom starts reacting, getting upset. Then what happens? Dad from another room hears his wife upset. Wives, we barely know what to do with you when everything's okay. But when you're upset, your emotions freak us out. So dad walks into the room because sometimes dads, we're not really good when there's

Starting point is 00:13:45 chaos. We like a lot of order and structure like our own dads did. And so anything that's causing chaos, we just come in the room and want to shut it down. You know what? I'm tired of this. You go to your room for the rest of the night. No video games, no screens, no anything. Go to your room. And what happens, watch, we think that that's discipline. We didn't teach the child anything. If we taught this child anything, it's this. The child was bored. He needed his brain to be stimulated and our kids are always looking for intensity in the brain. Here's what we just taught him. All he had to do was poke his brother or say something to his brother three people reacted to this one child and they fed his brain dopamine hit dopamine hit dopamine hit and he didn't even

Starting point is 00:14:35 have to work hard at it so guess what we just taught him if I need some brain intensity. I'm going to do something negative. Because at school, at home, at church, in society, everybody reacts to the negative. We don't react to the positive. We put our phone down. We come in the room and give our kids all of our intensity when they do things wrong. And so we just taught that child, hey, that's how you get intensity. And so some of you, look, there's no blame or no guilt but all that reactivity I know a lot of dads are like well he's not going to behave I'm just going to double down on my discipline and you can double down your child will quadruple their resistance it's not going to work then you're going to get frustrated

Starting point is 00:15:22 you're going to yell and now a child just owns you. And you, look, there's no blame and no guilt, but we've got to be able to control ourselves or else your kids are going to learn just to push your buttons in order to get that brain intensity met. So what are we looking? So how do we handle this? You know where I'm going with this. Instead of reacting to the child and giving them negative

Starting point is 00:15:46 intensity, instead I pull them aside and I'm teaching. Discipline means to teach. Hey, I know why you were poking your brother. I know why you do that. I know I can see that glimmer in your eyes sometimes when you come at me. You want the reaction. You want to argue because you're looking for intensity. I'm not going to give it to you in a negative way this time. But here are two things I do know about you. You have a big heart. Now, never toward me, but toward other people. I'm kidding. That's sarcasm. Don't say it, but you can think it. Son, you have a big heart and you love money. Many of your kids really love money and they're not even selfish and they're not going to always buy a lot of things. They have big hearts and they love money. So I've got an idea. If you continue to bug your brother, now you're dependent on him because you need your brother to

Starting point is 00:16:36 react to you to meet that need inside and you're always going to get in trouble when you pick on your brother. But here's another option. I'm going to go get started on dinner. I bet we could come up, we could brainstorm if you come help me out. Three different ways to earn some money in this neighborhood, running your own little business. You make money, you buy your own stuff. We give some of that money to St. Jude's, help kids with cancer. And every dollar you donate, I'll match a dollar. Watch how you do that because your kids are capable of making a lot of money. See, now what just happened? Instead of coming in, reacting, sending him to his room, which isn't teaching him anything,

Starting point is 00:17:14 I just taught him how his brain works. I know what you're looking for, brain intensity. And here's a positive way to get it. I hope that makes sense. Here's one more that will help with siblings and also helps with social skills a little bit. Your siblings, your kids need their own place and their own space. And people balk at this one all the time, but it works like magic. And it's not hard. I would find a neighbor, ask a neighbor to say, hey, could you give my

Starting point is 00:17:47 child some kind of job to do and have that older, I love old people doing this with your kids. Older people, seniors are fantastic with your kids. And we already established in the last episode, your asynchronous kids naturally get along really well with older people. So have them reach out and say, oh man, Jacob, I could really use your help. I'm getting a little bit older. It's harder for me to reach and change the batteries in our smoke alarm. I need some help outside. I need some help moving things. Could you come down to the house for 30 minutes and help me out? I guarantee you, if your child goes down to that older person's house, they're going to be there for like three hours. Guess who that helps? Everybody in your home, because your neurodivergent child is going to love feeling helpful and feeling

Starting point is 00:18:31 needed. By the way, it counters a lot of anxiety and depression, feeling like you have something to give another human being. It's a little bonus one here for social skills for sibling uh uh tools but also just for helping teenagers and middle schoolers the whole feeling instead of being so always just it's about me and i've got in social media and do other kids like me you get so self-absorbed during that time it's not because they're selfish it's just natural part of that time. That's why getting them doing things like volunteering at a homeless shelter, at an animal rescue is so important because it gets them out of just making everything about themselves and they have something to give another person. So just think about this. They get to go down to the older person's house. They have a great conversation.

Starting point is 00:19:20 The older person's like, man, you're such a good helper. I love my conversations with you. And it gives you and your other kids some space to enjoy time at home when that really intense child isn't there. That time apart is really good. Look, some of this is just reality in that some of your kids just aren't always going to get it. So guess how they're going to learn? School of hard knocks. There's going to be other kids who are just going to say things to them of like, hey, look, you dominate conversations. You're bossy. I'm not going to play with you anymore. That's hard to hear as a parent because it's going to hurt your child a little bit.

Starting point is 00:20:01 But they're going to learn that way. And most of us did learn that way from some of our friends as kids. They just told us stuff bluntly and we're like, oh, okay, I guess I better stop doing that. Look, you can say little things. We had little phrases at our house like, hey, relationships are more important than being right, right? Because some of your kids are know-it-alls. And it's that thing of like, hey, look, a lot of men that I work with, we always have to prove our point. I always tell men, nobody cares that you proved your point. All you're proving is that you're a jerk, right? So it's like relationships are more important than that. Look, some of your kids want to be alone, and I would honor that. Some of your kids don't care about social acceptance. They're okay being

Starting point is 00:20:46 different and feeling a little bit odd. In fact, some of your kids will like that because they value their independence and agency and doing it their own way. So if they're a little bit odd, it may hurt you because you may not like that. Make you uncomfortable. Ask your older kids sometimes and they'll probably be like, I just don't care. And that's good. Some of your kids, look, I've got a niece and she's on the spectrum and she literally just didn't realize, she didn't recognize other kids her age. She was into her family and into animals. And so it didn't bother her that she was left out because she didn't value that. Remember, don't impose your own needs.

Starting point is 00:21:34 What I want more than anything for our kids is for them to be confident in their own skin rather than trying to change them all the time to be like other kids. Okay, let's do this. I've got a couple more important things that I really want to focus on. Look, if your kids are going off to camp or I know we're getting ready, we're heading back into August, so it's kind of back to school time. Anxiety is a big issue. And social skills anxiety. It's hard. Some of your kids walk into the cafeteria and just sit alone.

Starting point is 00:22:12 I remember when we were living in Northern Virginia, we were doing the camps. Occasionally, I would go into school and I would go and sit with the kids that I worked with. So they didn't have to sit alone. I remember this one kid. He was awesome. He loved to read. So guess what? A couple days a week, I would just go to a school. I got permission. And I would go and I would take a book. And he and I would just sit and we'd read a book at lunch. But at least he wasn't alone. So this can be really hard. So here are a couple things I would do. Have the camp leader or a teacher give your child a very specific job or mission to do. Hey, I've heard you're really

Starting point is 00:22:51 good at technology. I could really use your help. Could you come in every day, five minutes early and help me with this? If it's maybe younger kids, like, man, you're so strong. I need you to some help moving some things do that you know if it's at the camp or even in school I like kids being able to identify as something so there's some kids who are really into like electrical currents so they're like the circuitry guy or at a camp it's the wood splitter guy or the tech guy it helps sometimes to have, I know this will sound fake, but it's not, to have some kind of persona. Look, I'm an introvert, but before COVID, we did a lot of public speaking, like a lot, thousands of sessions. Well, I'm an introvert, but when I'm on stage, now I'm a different person.

Starting point is 00:23:42 You'll notice that with a lot of actors, They're introverts and they're really awkward. But when they get to play someone else, now I wasn't playing someone else, I was being myself. But I was, see, I was giving presentations. And look, this podcast, this is my podcast. I control the content. And so I'm confident doing this. And so this is my place, my space. Give that to your

Starting point is 00:24:07 kids. Play to their strengths. Script sometimes their day for them and role play. Just normalize that. And here's what I wanted to kind of end on is don't force this. Play to your kids' natural strengths. Work with their nature. let's stop trying to change everything and get them to be like everybody else and i'll give you three examples if your kids like being around older people let them do it while other kids are playing soccer and sports your kids are like at a local convention center at the electronics show talking to old guys about electromagnetic currents and really cool little inventions. Or an old guy in the neighborhood. And you know what? They love that. And they come alive. And these older people just say like,

Starting point is 00:24:59 man, you're so smart. You're so mature. I really enjoyed that conversation. Do that. Look, if your kids like to fix things, find an older guy who's a handyman or go to a thrift store and have your kids refurbish stuff or rebuild and resell gaming consoles. Because you know what? If your child who is a little bit awkward, if he in his class, he's the guy who's known for reselling gaming consoles, now he's got a, he's got context for conversations. Other kids are coming up to him saying, hey, could you build this for me? How much does that cost? And when your child's in that kind of space and has that role, it's going to be very, he or she's going to be very, very confident. Could be your daughter making things, craft things. So she's known in the class, in the school

Starting point is 00:25:51 as the craft person, as the girl who's got her own business, creating, taking old shoes and making them really, really cool, whatever it is. But the point is, play to that, especially with older people. It's really, really healthy, more than you can possibly imagine. Look, if your kids are into animals, I'm trying to think of a way to say this, but instead of trying to always, well, I need to get them to be with their friends and I need to get them to be like the other kids. No, they're happy to be around animals. So go to a vet's office and say, hey, I'm giving you free labor. Can my child come by your office a couple days a week and help you out? And while your child's doing that, the veterinarian is going to be like, you know what? You've got a gift with animals. You walk into a

Starting point is 00:26:37 room and you know how to calm them. And you could be a veterinarian one day. See, nobody's ever told your child that because they may not get good grades, but a veterinarian, someone's going to see a gift in them. Working, volunteering, working at a farm with horses, equine therapy is really helpful. And even if it's not official therapy, just being out that farm and there'll be out there like shoveling horse, you know what, and working in the barns and helping out, but they get the ride a couple days a week in return for that. That's so therapeutic. Working, volunteering at an animal rescue place. You know what happens?

Starting point is 00:27:11 They find other kids who have similar interests and who are really into animals. And they connect with them. That's a great place for them to discover friends. And same thing with little kids. Over the summer, if churches have like a vacation Bible school thing, your child would be fantastic with these little kids. Coaching younger kids in a sport. If your kids play sports, find a coach who's coaching younger kids. And I bet your child would be amazing at that in school. reading to or tutoring younger kids at their school, babysitting. All these

Starting point is 00:27:47 things are really healthy things to do for your kids that will build their confidence. So I want you to control your own anxiety. It always comes and starts with us. Control your own anxiety about this. Don't freak out. Stop trying to make them be like everybody else. We're going to give them tools. But I want you to start changing the narrative in your child's brain from there's something wrong with you. We need to take you to specialists all the time to be like everybody else to say like, no, you've got very unique advantages. And these are going to play out in your life and it's going to be awesome for you. Normalize it. Remember the one from the previous podcast? Of course you don't want to hang out with kids your own age because they talk about dumb stuff. You don't care. Of course you want to hang out with older people. Shows you're curious, you

Starting point is 00:28:36 love to learn, and you're mature. See, that's a beautiful thing to say. And then let's practice some of these tools we went through and affirm them for progress. Look, this is the same process for just about everything. Look, I'm going to try to close up here. Thank you for listening to the podcast. If we can help in any way, let us know. Reach out to Casey at CelebrateCalm.com. We've got the summer sale going on. It's, I guess my, you know, it's not really, it is a little frustration. It is, we've got over 30 hours worth of materials and insights into your kids that you don't really get anywhere else. And I want you to have those because it changes how you view your child. And that will change how they see themselves. And in these programs, there are dozens, you will walk

Starting point is 00:29:24 away with hundreds of strategies. So if you need help with that financially or anyway just reach out to us but thank you for loving your kids so much I know this is really hard work thank you for working on yourself alright we'll talk to you next time bye bye

Calm Parenting Podcast - Social Skills & Sibling Squabbles #2

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