Calm Parenting Podcast - Stop Endless Arguments Over Sleep, Homework, Phones & More

Episode Date: September 4, 2018

Stop Endless Arguments Over Sleep, Homework, Phones & More September 4, 2018 How do you get your relentless child to stop arguing and take ownership of his choices? How do you de-escalate in the moment AND get your child to be responsible for his own homework, sleep, and phone? Yeah, these are some weird strategies…but they WILL work even when consequences don’t. Filled with practical wisdom that will blow you away. Come learn how to do this at our remaining Parent BootCamp in Dallas at www.CelebrateCalm.com/Camps. Or schedule a personal phone call with Kirk. Need help financially or otherwise? Email [e-mail] or call 888-506-1871. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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you know, the kids who just wear you down. And they will argue with you for hours and hours and just wear you down until you finally just give in. And this just happened, and it was a family I was working with, and they were like, it's just, it's a control issue. It just has to have control. And they were like, no, it's a phone issue. And I was like, I think it might be something else. So we're going to dig into that today. And this week's podcast, our sponsor this week is Celebrate Calm. And I know that's my company, but here's why.

Because we keep getting requests from different companies and services saying, oh, we want to advertise on your podcast. We know that your listeners are really engaged and those are the people we want to reach. And I'm like, I know, but I don't really like your product. And they're like, no, but here's how it works. We give you a script, you read it, and we give you money. And I'm like, no, that doesn't work. I don't want your money because I don't believe in what you're doing, and so I can't do it. So I decided we're going to sponsor the podcast. You know why? Because I believe in what we do, because we do it every day and we see good results. So if you don't know us, just go to CelebrateCalm.com, and I'll direct you to a few things. One, just check

out our podcast. And if you like the message and the approach, if you like the, uh, how we value relationships over everything else, and we get to the root of the issues, then I'll direct you to a couple of things. One is we just opened up another date for our parent boot camps because we sold out of all of them in Paris, D.C., and our first one in Dallas. But we opened up another one in Dallas, and that is going to be for September, October 13th. And I believe that is the last one we can fit in this year. We may be able to squeeze in one, another one near D.C. in November. So if you're interested, ask about that. The other thing I look at is on our website, celebratecalm.com. There's a little tab that says get everything. And I just encourage you, if the message resonates with you,

just get everything we have. It's 12 programs. It is like 30 some hours of content. We get into very, very, very specific issues that cover everything. And I just want you to listen yourself, listen with your kids, and have discussions about it. So anyway, if we can help you in any way, email my son. His name is Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. Or you can call at 888-506-1871. And we're glad to help you because we're a family. And so anyway, let's dig into this. So here's the issue that the parents were wrestling with.

It was like 10 o'clock at night, and they have a rule in the house that the cell phones disappear at 930. Well, their teenage son came up and is like, I need my phone in order to get homework done. So they're like, okay, let's pull up what you need, and then we'll let you pull that off, and then you don't need your phone anymore, and you go ahead and do your homework. Well, he just kept going and going and arguing and yelling at them. And finally, I think it was about at 1130, because it was like an hour and a half, they finally just said, fine, take it, because we have to go to sleep. And so the next morning, kid comes downstairs, happy as a clam, like nothing happened. Everybody else is all quiet and tense, and he's like, why is everybody so tense? Like, what's going on? As if nothing had

happened. And so as they presented this to me, my first thought is the same as the thought that any of you are thinking and that most therapists would say, well, you know, you just need to be firm. You need to let him know that we make the rules around here. It's our phone. And so we're just going to lock it in our bedroom and you can't have it. So be upset all you want, pal. No big deal to us. Go to bed angry. Be upset.

You're not getting it back. You know why? Because that's the rule in the home. And personally, I love that approach. But here's what I know from working with our kids. It won't work with some of them. I had a picture of him, an image of this kid going, like if parents did that, because that's usually what, that's all anybody ever says. Just give

them consequences and be firm. Duh. If that worked, you wouldn't be listening to us. So I had a picture image of him in my brain getting like a little ax and like chopping down his parents' bedroom door like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. And as those of you who have these kids know, that's probably what he would have done and gotten the phone and next morning been like, hey, morning everyone. It's a fine day, isn't it? So let's step back here because as with most of the issues that you're dealing with with your kids, it's not what

it appears to be on the surface. And we will always come back to building relationships no matter what the behavior is. So first idea, I've got five ideas that we're going to hit here. First one is pajamas idea. You may call it the IHOP or the late night McDonald's idea. And here's what it is. In the middle of that situation, the parents are tired. The child is all worked up. And you know this. Everybody is upset. And you're screaming and yelling at each other. And it's not going anywhere good at all. And so you need to de-escalate the situation. And again, if it was a neurotypical kid or a compliant child, you wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place. So I deal in reality, you are with a really irrational child right now. And to be honest,

the parents have gotten irrational too, because they've done this now for 15 years, or some of you, you've got a two-year-old and already you're worn down and your child's two or he's four. So get a hold of this stuff now so you don't have to do it in the teenage years. So how do we de-escalate in this situation? I'm going to throw out something weird. You know why? Because sometimes weird stuff works and sometimes weird stuff is awesome at building relationships. So many years ago, my sister-in-law called me late one night and said, I'm going to stand off with your niece. Funny how she calls her my niece, as if I had something to do with her being very strong-willed. And they live in this tiny little town in Massachusetts.

And I said, so describe the situation. We're in our pajamas. We're ready for bed, and we're just arguing and fighting. I was like, go outside. Walk down little Main Street USA at 11 o'clock at night in your pajamas and invite your daughter, my niece, to come with you, and I guarantee she will follow you. Why? Because it's weird. And you're walking down the middle of the street in your

pajamas late at night, and I guarantee you, you will have a great conversation and you'll work this out. And sure enough, it worked. And it became their code word, which I want you to have, which anytime they were getting into a power struggle, one of them would just say, pajamas. I think it's time for pajama time. Didn't mean they got in their pajamas and walked around town because that would have been creepy. But when this happens, I told them, next time this happens, these parents just say,

hey, dude, listen, I'm going to IHOP. I'm going to McDonald's. Like the late night menu. Things are a buck. I want to get a snack. Want to come with me? And I guarantee you, if you take the kid's phone, he's following you. And you can either walk there or if you need to drive there, just go there. Because you are de-escalating, you're breaking

the stalemate, you know our phrase, motion changes emotion, you're getting a little bit of movement, and it just helps in those situations, right? So think of that and just take that principle in hand. Now, once we've got them calmed down, here's where I really want to go because we want to give kids ownership of their choices. We want them to be responsible for themselves and I want them to be able to come to it on their own. It's almost like self-discovery of like, what's the right answer? But we have to get to the root of the issue so that our kids even know what they're struggling with. Because I guarantee you in the moment, all this kid knows is, I want this phone.

I need this phone right now. You won't give it to me. And I don't feel at peace and something's going on. So I don't care if you take away everything. I don't care. Just give it to me right now. And what he knows is ultimately it's not going to end well and he's going to lose his stuff. So we have to be the grownups in the moment and try to give this kid wisdom so he knows what's going on. When I heard all of this going on, what I thought was, I think this is kind of a sleep issue. It's an unwinding from the day issue. We're dealing with kids who have very busy brains. They tend to be impulsive. They're a little bit emotional.

And so the day is just a confusing mess of rushing around. I've got school. I've got this. I've got this. I've got to do homework. I've got to eat. I've got practice. I've got to do all these things. And so then we're like, okay, go to bed now. And there hasn't been any time to decompress. And I think what the phone is, because I've noticed it in my own life at times,

it's something completely within my control. It's almost like when I pick it up sometimes at night, I just want to scroll through and there's some articles I want to read. And in a way, it's kind of calming. Now, my main thing for going to sleep is I just like to read. And I'm always reading at least two or three books at one time. So I read a couple books and that makes me tired. But I know the feeling. And so I think the phone to their son becomes, in a way, a security blanket of some kind or even like a pacifier. And if that's the truth, then we can work with that. We can come to a different place. And so when the rest of the world is out of control, this phone is kind of in control.

So while we're at McDonald's late at night or IHOP, and I know it's inconvenient, but so is yelling and screaming for an hour and a half and then laying in bed for another hour and a half talking to your spouse about boarding school and what are we going to do with this kid. So I guarantee you may as well just go and do something productive like get a late night meal. So a question I like to ask kids is say, listen, I'm curious about the phone thing. I'm curious. How does this serve you? How does this serve you? How does this benefit? What is this doing for you?

What does it feel like when you grab the phone? And then listen. And don't counter and say, well, it's not a good way to deal with it that way. Just listen to your kids and let them explain things and be curious and you'll be able to come up with some solutions. The truth is many of our kids don't go to bed until late at night because that's when the world starts to become quiet. It's when the world slows down and these are kids with busy brains

and they pick up on the energy of life and of family life. And they know when it's tense around the home. And guess what? When it's 10 o'clock, 1030, everybody's kind of quiet. And the parents have gone to bed. Now all of a sudden, I can think clearly. And my sister's in bed. And so now it's like this peaceful time of light. And that's why many of your kids actually do their schoolwork late at night. So I would encourage you, get to know and be curious, because if that's what's happening, and the phone is acting as a sleeping blanket, in a sense, security blanket, well then, now I know the root of it, we can suggest some other things to help his brain settle down at night.

One of the things I like to do, and this is with younger kids as well, all kids, is artificially create this bedtime kind of calm earlier in the evening, right after dinner with little kids. I like to throw a blanket down in the living room floor, turn down the lights, and lay down, and just let them decompress, and let them start asking questions and venting from their day because otherwise, you know when it's going to happen? At 8 30 at the regular bedtime, they're going to say, mom, can we talk? You're like, no, we can't talk. I'm exhausted and I still have three hours of stuff to get done. So I encourage you to do it earlier in the evening

and give them an opportunity to unwind. That's why I also love after-dinner walks because it only has to take 15 to 20 minutes, but it's fresh air and it gives them time to talk. So as we're finding out and doing curiosity with our kids, one of the things that came up in this phone call is homework time. Homework time bleeds in until 11 o'clock at midnight. So how do we start to do homework differently? And there is again where I get to know how the child's brain works. And I start to ask him, listen, how do you want to do homework in a

different way? Because here's the thing. You've got homework every night, but here's what I know about your brain. It's a very, very busy brain. And look, this is really interesting for these kids. Sometimes you have to jumpstart the brain because these are kids who very much work on momentum and write that down. Their brains work on energy and momentum. And when they get some momentum, they can get a lot of things done. You just have to jumpstart it. This is important as well. It's not about managing their time. It's about managing their energy. And one of the reasons I want to teach kids in this moment, see, this takes time, but it takes less time than arguing and taking away stuff. This kid is going to go away to college one day. And in college, he's going to be done

on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays at noon with his classes. And he's not going to go to bed till midnight or one. He's going to have like 12 hours to get his work done. And guess what's going to happen? If you don't teach your kids how their brains work now, when they get to college, they're going to blow through 12 hours. And at 11 o'clock, they're going to be like, oh, I guess I better get started on my schoolwork. And they're going to tell you, oh, you know what? I'm just really busy. I just don't have time. And it's because it's not about managing their time. It's managing their energy. And so something to boost their energy and to help with this, do homework in different places. Do it in different ways. I don't care. Do it at IHOP. Do it in your pajamas. Do it outside.

Do homework underneath a desk, underneath a chair, in a closet. Yes, let your kids listen to music. Parents, just because your brain is all orderly and music interrupts you and helps you not think well, music actually creates rhythm in the brain and helps many of your kids focus better. That's why they need to chew on things while they do their homework because it's stimulating the brain. Do it after vigorous exercise. So dads, moms, you've got to get outside sometimes with these kids and play with them. This kid liked basketball. So dad, go out and shoot hoops. And after you shoot hoops, after you go for a jog around the neighborhood, after you take a walk, whatever it is, get some intensity, the endorphins are rushing, kids can do their homework a little bit better.

And lay out the evening, right? Say, hey, you get home every day at 3 o'clock. You go to bed at 11. No, you go to bed at 1, but let's say 11. So that's 8 hours of time. How do you want to use this 8 hours of time? And I'd mark it off in blocks of intensity. So let's say for a matter of discussion that every night the child your child has three subjects to complete so here's the ideal your child

comes home every day and like some of you he does his homework immediately with a good attitude and then remembers to turn it in. And that's awesome. And that's never going to happen with some of your kids. Just not. Reality is your child's procrastinating because that's the way his brain works. And so he's going to wait until 11 o'clock to start on his homework, not get done till one if he gets home done at all. He's going to be tired and crabby in the morning, forget to, won't want to get up and it's miserable. So somewhere in between those two things is called progress, which to me is this. Come up with some kind of plan.

When you get home from school, we have 10 minutes of downtime. We do a treasure hunt. We do something fun. I'm interested in what you're interested in. We connect. But then it's like, let's bring some intensity, boom, with some kind of cool music, doing homework in a weird place. And let's knock out intensity. Boom. With some kind of cool music. Doing homework in a weird place.

And let's knock out the easiest subject. I know that's opposite of what you want because you always tell your kids do the hardest thing first. But for many of our kids, they won't do that. So I'm a realist. Why not get some momentum? So let's knock out the easiest subject first. Boom. Done.

Right after school. Now, there may be a couple hours, an hour, a couple hours of downtime now where he does something else. Hopefully, some of that is some kind of exercise or something a little bit purposeful, but he's resting his brain a little bit. And then you know what? Right after dinner, boom, let's get one other subject done. Or right before dinner, in the middle of this whole time period, let's get another one done. You know what? That feels good now, because you know what? Now I've got two out of three subjects done. Then he may wait and do the other one at 11 o'clock at night. Is it ideal? No, but it's better than waiting and doing three of them at night, and I'm a big fan of building on progress and

progress, not perfection, and building momentum. Because what will happen is the child will start to feel like, well, that feels kind of good and relaxing when I get some of my homework done earlier. But if I set them up and say, you have to get all of it done right away, it's just not going to happen. He's going to fight and then none of it happens. Does that make sense? Right? So I want you to start teaching and I want you to start asking your kids, here's how your brain works. Here's some ideas. How do you want to get your homework done? Because it's your homework, not mine. It's not my job to stand over you or to do it with you. Number four, let's come back to the phone now. So here's the deal with the phone. We've figured out in some

ways in this case what it's really about. I think it's a little bit of an anxiety issue. I think it's kind of about sleep and about relaxing him. So with the phone, I'm going to bring up the phone now and say, listen, my job, my goal is we don't want to control you. We want you to learn how to control yourself. If you listen to my son's CD, it's called Straight Talk for Kids, and it's a series of three CDs that my son recorded. It's the main whole premise of his talks, and he does school assemblies with kids that says, listen, kids, if you don't want your parents to nag you and control you, then learn how to control yourself. Then they won't have to because they don't want to nag to nag you and control you, then learn how to control yourself.

Then they won't have to because they don't want to nag you. So it's a really cool thing. But I'm going to set it up this way and say, listen, son, you're 15. You've mentioned that you want to get your driver's license. Come on out to the garage. Right now, we are fighting over a little object that is about two and a half inches by five inches. It fits in your hand, and yet it is literally controlling your life and our whole family life. Now, look at that car. That's 2,000 pounds of metal that has the power to kill people in it. If you can't handle this little thing that fits in the palm of your hand, how can we trust you?

How can we trust you? How can we feel safe knowing that you're going to be out operating this? We want you to have the car. We want you to have freedom. We want you to run errands for us with that car because we're tired of it. So I want to know from you, how can we start working this so that we're building trust? Because when we tell you no and you're banging on our door at 11 o'clock at night and fighting us for an hour and a half, you may get the iPhone, you may get

your phone back because you've worn us down, but you haven't built trust. You haven't built a relationship and we've been yelling at you. So that's not the way we want things to work. And I can guarantee you handing over the keys to the car, that's not happening until we work all of this out. So you tell us, how can we, right? How can you do homework? How can we support you in this? How do you want to wind down? What else would you find peaceful for you? What would help with your busy brain? Let's work on this together. And by the way, I do want to add this, son. We just, and this is what happened, and I wanted to make sure this was included in this whole discussion, is affirming your kids when they do make good choices, because he was kind of hooked on Fortnite, and they had taken it away from him. And he actually has done

really well with not freaking out about the Fortnite. And so you have to recognize those things and say, you know what? We took Fortnite away. You were really disappointed. But we appreciate the fact that you haven't hounded us about it. And you actually dealt with that really well. And that shows us that you can control yourself, right? And so we appreciate that. And that was a really good choice. Let's work on that with the phone and with sleep time and with homework time.

And so what I want to end this with is what's most important to me isn't just stopping all the fights and him not being on screens and going to bed on time and getting his homework done. It's the relationship because the relationship will drive the behavior in the long run. And that's what I want in all of these things. Those late night walks and those weird things you do to deescalate with your kids, I guarantee you those will become the very key to building a good relationship. And your child will come home sometimes and say, mom, it feels like one of those pajama nights. And you know what, for a teenager, for a little kid, or especially for a boy, because boys are kind of awkward sometimes with talking, I don't expect kids to come home and say, mother, father, I'm feeling quite overwhelmed. There's a lot of stress in my day, and I'm feeling anxious and a little bit frustrated. Could we retire to

the dentist? Like, they're not going to say that. It's dorky. But they may come home with a code work and say, oh, you know what I just pictured? They may actually come home or at some time during the evening come down in their pajamas. And that's your clue. Look, that almost made me cry in this sense. It is a child reaching out for you, pleading to you in certain ways for help, saying, I'm a nine-year-old, five-year-old, 15-year-old kid. I don't even know what I'm doing half the time. I just find myself yelling and screaming and manipulating and threatening to do things and melting down and having tantrums because I want something. I don't even know what I'm doing half the time. And I really need an adult out there who gets it and who doesn't freak out when I freak out because I really need the help and I need your wisdom and

guidance. It's just weird asking for it. So I come down in my pajamas or your child comes down one day and says, Dad, can we go to McDonald's? I'll even pay. Because you know what? They don't even want something from McDonald's. They just want the time away, and they just want the undivided time, and to sit there and share some of those yummy, greasy, nasty, awful french fries, or to split an ice, you know, to get an ice cream cone or something. You know what I mean? They just want that time where you're out of the brush and out of your agenda and it's building relationships. So I hope you find this helpful. If you do, I encourage you to do one of three things. One, if you can make it, you know, and I'm not going to say that. If you're really struggling, make it. Enough of

the excuses. When we really want something in life, we make it happen. And so if you need to be there, you get six hours with me and I guarantee we're going to go through situation after situation like this and come up with really cool creative ideas like that. So the only one we have this year is Saturday, October 13th in Dallas. And even if you're far away, who cares? Fly in. It's a lovely little place. And if you do need help financially ever with stuff, just ask for it. Email my son.

We'll help you out with it. If you want the CDs, which honestly, if you're listening to this podcast, and if you've listened to a few of them and they resonate, you're like, I need help. Just get them. I know it's an investment. And look, I want people to have an investment. I don't shy away or apologize for the fact that our stuff sometimes is expensive, but I can guarantee this. I know this from what people email. When you go to a therapist or a counselor and you've gone five times and it's cost you $750

or $500 or whatever it is. And all you ever hear is, oh, we just need to make a behavior chart or let's create a contract with your son. That's fine, but it doesn't work for these kids. And so our stuff, while it seems expensive, I know on the surface, it's so much cheaper than most testing and therapy. And it's a lot cheaper than replacing the door that your child Jack Nicholson. So that was a good phrase, wasn't it? I like that. So again, if you need help, get the everything package. There are different products. If you need help, ask my son. He's a phenomenal kid and he was just like your child. He used to chop down walls as well. And so he gets it. Or if you want to do a phone consultation,

do a phone consultation with me because I'll get you the root of things. This was all based on a phone consultation. And we got all of this stuff done, all these action steps done in an hour. And I guarantee a therapist is going to take you like five or six tries to get to that if they even do. And again, I don't mean to sound jerky with that because I'm not. Because I go to a therapist. My best friend is a therapist, so I value their work. I'm just talking about for most of us, it just hasn't worked that well. And I do like our stuff, which is why I sponsor my own show

because I really believe in it because it's awesome and it works. So thank you for investing this time in your kids. Email kccasy at celebratecalm.com, 888-506-1871. We're on Facebook at Celebrate Calm and you can find us at celebratecalm.com. But thank you for investing this time in your kids and in yourself. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.